Mara and Dann (65 page)

‘You mean, you don't fit in either?'

‘No, I don't. They don't accept those born here who then spend time outside. Like me. They see it as treachery. As a criticism of them. They are small-minded people. They have only one thought, that their grandchildren or great-grandchildren will return to Yerrup when the ice melts. And it is going at last, so it is said.'

So chanted the dancers.

‘We have been singing that or something like it for – well, they say it is fifteen thousand years. Who knows how long? The first refugees from the ice made a rule that these songs should be taught to every child and sung every day. They say there was a time when the songs spread all over Ifrik and became children's games. And they didn't even know what ice was.'

‘Poor fools,' said Donna. And then, ‘I'm going to miss Leta. Though she left partly to save me trouble.' She sounded so sad Mara put her arms around her. ‘You are good people,' Donna said. ‘Sometimes I don't know how I shall stand it, this eternal wailing about a life that was lived thousands of years ago. Or what will happen in another thousand. And now, you'd better hurry. I don't like to think of Leta alone. She's gone on the road north of the Centre. And, by the way, is it as sad a place as they say?'

‘Sad and old and falling to pieces.'

‘Once it was the pride of the North Lands. Everyone took their education there.'

‘You too?'

‘Oh no, not me. My grandparents' generation was the last. They were educated, you may say, above their needs. That was a great time though. The Centre ruled all the North – and ruled well, for autocrats. But now there is an administration that rules in the name of the Centre, and most people don't know the Centre is an old dog with no teeth.'

They said goodbye, and the two set off westwards again. They heard Donna call after them, ‘Remember me. If there's a place for me where you're going, I'll come running.'

When the wall of the Centre appeared they began a wide detour northwards. They were walking slowly, as if they were very tired, or even ill, Mara thought, watching how Dann stumbled along, stopped,
went on. And she had to force her dragging feet. She was so sad, and knew he was too. She wanted to put her arms around him, her little brother, as she would have done before the scene at the Centre, but was afraid. He stopped walking, so did she, and they stood side by side. Without looking at her, he took her hand. She felt the strength of that hand, of his life, and thought, We'll soon be all right. He'll feel better, and so will I. Meanwhile she was so heavy with grief she could have lain down and … but where? Pools and marshes surrounded them and mud oozed around their feet.

He said, ‘Do you know, I'm sorry for those two. Poor old Felix and Felissa. For years and years they've been dreaming of their little prince and little princess, and then what did they get? Us.' He was trying to sound humorous, but failed.

‘Their dream came to an end, with us.'

They were standing very close, just linked, and very cold under their capes. A cold wind blew from the north. Was blowing, they knew, off mountains of ice.

‘And what about our dream, Mara? We couldn't get more north than this. This is north of north, the northern edge of the Ifrik North Lands.'

They looked around them, and saw the interminable, grey, wet marshes, dark water, pale rushes and reeds, a low, dark, hurrying sky. Harsh cries of birds, the dismal sounds of frogs, like the voices of the marsh itself. And the wind, the cold, cold wind that whined over the waters.

‘This is what we have been travelling to reach, Mara.'

‘No, it isn't.'

‘It's what I am feeling now.'

She dared to put her hand around his wrist, warm and tight, and he cried out, ‘There's that too. Now I feel like an orphan. Now I really am alone.'

She did not take her hand away but kept it there, consoling and close, though she felt as bereft as he did.

‘Do you think those two will send someone after us? To get us back?'

‘No,' she said. ‘We were such a disappointment to them – no, I don't. Do you know what I think will happen? They'll die soon, of broken hearts. They've got nothing to live for now.'

‘Why do I feel so afraid then?' He was looking around again. There was nothing: in all that endless grey and black marsh and water – nothing, not a soul.

‘I know. I am afraid too. It is because there is nowhere to hide.'

‘Not unless we pretend we are water rats.'

He was trying to sound brave, and to make her laugh, but instead their eyes met and what they both saw was only grief.

‘We must go on,' said Mara. ‘Daulis said so. And there's Leta.'

They went slowly on through that day looking ahead for Leta, and behind them for possible pursuers, and actually joked that if they ever did reach safety it would be hard to lose the habit of looking over their shoulders. Above them the clouds were hurrying westwards, as if to remind them to walk faster. The big mountain at first did not change, but at last it was towering over them, with its cold white snowcap, and there was a track going off with a sign saying, The White Bird Inn. The bird was no poetic fancy, for tall, slim, white birds stood about in dark water, their reflections making two birds of every one of them, and flew about over the marshes, letting out cries that the two could not help hearing as warnings. It was dusk when they reached the inn, which was not much more than a large house. They had scarcely knocked when the door opened and a man emerged who took them by the arms and hurried them to the back of the inn. ‘I'm sorry,' he said, ‘but you mustn't be seen. There's someone after you.' The two heard this as if there was nothing else they could have heard: their feelings of apprehension had deepened with every hour of walking. ‘I didn't like the look of him,' said the innkeeper. ‘He was in the uniform of the border guards, but that's a trick we've seen before. There's many in that guards' uniform the guards would slit the throats of if they caught them.'

‘Did he have a scar?'

‘A nasty one.'

‘Then we know who he is.'

‘He said he was looking for runaway slaves.' And now this new friend – he was that, they could see – examined them closely, first Dann, then Mara, waiting.

‘We haven't committed any crime,' said Dann.

‘Then I'll ask no questions,' said the innkeeper. And they both heard what he had not in fact said: And hear no lies.

‘There's a price on our heads. From Charad.'

‘That's a long way off.'

‘Not if he can get us to the border with Bilma. He has accomplices there.'

‘It's a long way from here to the border.' He was thinking hard, and
on their behalf, they could see. ‘I've done my best to put him off. He's been several times in the last week or so.'

‘Why should he come here?'

The man laughed and there was pride in it: the pride of a lifetime was in his face. ‘This is the only inn between here and for miles beyond the Centre going east, and for miles west, and that's only a farm that puts up travellers. Everyone comes to me for news. He would have to come here. Roads meet here. I sent him south, but that road ends in water, and he came back. The road ahead west ends in the sea – you'll find your friends along there. I told him that along that road he would find only well-defended farms, and that genuine guards patrol there, and if they saw him in their uniform that would be the end for him. There are no guards, but he's not to know that. I sent him off into the marshes on the marsh tracks, saying he might find you there. I thought he might fall into a quick-marsh and drown. I know when I'm looking at a man the world would be better without. But he was back, all right. He knows there's a track up the mountain but I told him the hut up there was swept away by an avalanche. I hope he believed me. Your friend Leta is up there. Daulis told me to look after her. I wanted her to stay here till he came, or you did, but she was anxious to see snow. I told her that if she'd seen as much of it as I have she wouldn't be in any hurry to see more. She'll be pleased to see you. If you don't mind my saying so, I don't think she's suited to rough travelling.' He stopped, and Mara finished for him, ‘Not like us.'

‘No, not like you. Daulis told me you two could look after yourselves. I can see he was right. But be careful, be on your guard.' He went inside, came out with two heavy cloaks, twice the weight of the ones they had brought for cold, thinking they were thick enough to keep off any cold they could meet with, and handed them a bag of food. ‘There's some matches. Try not to need a fire. You can melt snow for water over a candle – I've put one in. There'll be a moon in a few minutes.' And as they thanked him and moved off, they heard, ‘Be careful, you two.' And then, when they had gone a few paces, ‘Don't come down too soon. Give that fellow a chance to get away. Keep a watch. It's three hours to the hut.'

‘It sounds to me as if this path up the mountain is the only place left for Kulik to look for us.'

‘Yes, and our friend the innkeeper knows that.' But Dann was alive again, danger was invigorating him. And she felt better too, leaving the dank weight of the water-filled marshes behind.

The way led up through boulders of all sizes, which seemed in the dim light like crouching enemies; but the moon came up and showed the track, and struck little flashes of light off the boulders: crystals, embedded in the rock. A mist was gathering below them, and soon they were leaving behind a sea of white, lit by the moon, and they could see their shadows down there, like long fingers pointing to the east, moving with them. It was cold. Without the innkeeper's cloaks they would have done badly. Up they went, until they saw ahead a large hut, with beyond it the white of the snow that lay over the summit of the mountain. They were in a white world, the mist shining below, and above them snow and the big white moon shining on it. They ran past the hut to gather a little snow and taste it and marvel at it, for they had never seen the stuff before. The edges of the snowcap were little white fringes and lacy crusts on grass that crunched under their feet, and sent the cold striking up into their legs. Down they went to the hut, and knocked, afraid of what they might see, but when the door opened it was Leta and she was alone. They shut the door against the cold and embraced, the three of them tight against each other. They could see she had been frightened, alone, and how glad she was to see them. If she had known, she had said, she would never have come up, but she thought she would just touch the snow, and taste it, and then go down, but the dark came…‘I'm sorry,' she said, ‘but I'm not like you. I don't know how to judge dangers – or distances.' Inside the hut it was not much warmer than it was out. Leta had lit a floor candle, a little one, and had melted some snow to drink. They huddled on the floor inside layers of wool. Leta had a cloak from the innkeeper too. Even so they were clenched, trying not to shiver, and they ate the food, and huddled close, talking late, about the Centre, and what Mara and Dann had been offered. Dann was making a ridiculous story out of the old people's plans, and their long wait for their royal children, and the more he talked the funnier it got, until his eyes met Mara's and he faltered and stopped. ‘The truth is,' he said, seriously, ‘if Mara and I had been different people, perhaps it could have worked. After all, everyone seems to think the Centre is a wonderful place, and they would believe what they heard.'

‘Everyone except those who know the truth,' said Mara.

‘Very few of those, still,' said Dann.

Leta said, ‘We all heard about the Centre down in Bilma. We would have believed anything we were told.'

‘Even that a brother and a sister were making a new royal family?'

Leta laughed and said that if they knew what went on in Mother Dalide's, brothers and sisters making assignations, then Dann and Mara would not have been so surprised at Felix and Felissa.

And now they were so tired and chilled that when Mara and Dann lay down on the floor with Leta, as close as they could, spreading the woollen folds into three thicknesses, to cover all three, there was no danger in the closeness, only a need to shiver themselves into warmth. Dann said, ‘Don't you think we should keep awake and watch?' and Mara said, ‘Yes,' and then they had fallen asleep. They woke in the morning stiff and chilly, and pushed open the door and saw that the mist still lay low below, but only for a certain distance. Beyond the edge of the mist the ground broke abruptly into a great chasm or canyon that stretched west and east as far as they could see. Once the Middle Sea had filled it: a warm, blue, lively sea that had bred civilisation after civilisation – whose artefacts and pictures crammed many halls in the Centre – and where ships had made great and dangerous journeys; but now all they could see were rocky declivities. But if they looked across the canyon, this enormous hole in the earth, there far away was a line of white, which they knew was not clouds, but the edges of the ocean of ice that had engulfed Yerrup. The three stood in that white landscape of mist and snow and stared at the faraway white, the bright sun making the sky sparkle; and they went back inside the hut and shut the door, to huddle there, feeling themselves to be nothing, their sense of themselves diminished by the white immensities, and above all by knowing how close they were to the terrible enemy, Ice.

But should they go down into the mist? It was so thick they could not see the path. They decided to stay up in the hut that day, although it was so cold and they dared not light a fire.