Doris Lessing - Mara and Dann

"Not much," said Dann.

"A little," said Mara, thinking of Shabis and his lessons, which had all been in response to her questions — her ignorant questions, she knew now. "Long ago, a very long time ago." "Thousands of years?"

"Exactly; before the Ice covered all the civilisations of Yerrup. Did you know that all those civilisations, all that history, happened in the twelve thousand years of a warm spell between periods of ice?"

"Yes," said Mara.

"No," said Dann.

"Twelve thousand years. They thought it would all go on for ever. But if I may be permitted a remark you may perhaps judge to be exaggerated, I think it is true that people always have a tendency to believe that what they have is going to continue for ever. However, that's as may be. About halfway through that warm interregnum between the ice ages, towards the east from here, at the mouth of the great river Nilus, which is still there, though not in the same position it was, was a successful dynasty of rulers. The royal family kept marriage inside itself. Brothers and sisters married."

Here Dann gave a loud laugh, and then apologised for interrupting.

"Yes. If you think about it, Prince, in turbulent times this guaranteed stability. When two families marry, or even two branches of a family, there is always conflict about inheritance, and sometimes wars. The offspring of siblings are more likely to want to keep an inheritance together."

Dann's face showed a mix of emotions. One could be described as a kind of jeer, an unvoiced raucousness. There was genuine interest in this old tale. And there was a hint of satisfaction, a puffing up that made his features seem swollen.

"How long did this dynasty last?" asked Mara.

"Hundreds of years, so they say," said Felix.

"With stability? Prosperity? Peace?"

He permitted himself a little look of irony, then a laugh, exactly prescribed, and then he made a little bow towards her. "You are asking too much, Princess. Hundreds of years — of peace? No. But the kingdom was able to fight off aggressions and attacks. There was no division inside the kingdom."

And now Felissa could not remain silent. "You two are the last, the very last. You are the only two Royals of the right age." "Wouldn't any two young Mahondis do?"

"Real royalty. We need the Royal blood. Your child would revive the Royal house, the Royal family. When people know there is a Royal couple back in the Centre, and Royal children, then they would support us, as they did in the past."

"When Mahondis ruled all Ifrik?" said Mara.

"Exactly."

"And you are planning to rule all Ifrik again?" asked Dann.

"Why not? We did once."

"I don't know why you are so anxious to rule Ifrik," said Mara. "It is a desert of dust and death below the River Towns."

"Nothing stays the same," said Felix. "Now it is a time of dryness. But the drought will end. And we will be prepared. All the history of Ifrik has been that — swings of climate."

"The history of everywhere, from the sound of it," said Mara.

"Yes, but let us stick to our own — responsibilities. We believe we are in for another swing. The Ice is going again in Yerrup. There are signs.

The Middle Sea has been dry for thousands of years. There were cities built all along its bottom. But the oceans must be rising, because water is coming in from two different places: the Rocky Gates to the big ocean that once was called the Atlantic but now is the Western Ocean; and beyond the Nilus, to the east, there is a canal, which has been dry, but it is filling. There is a shallow lake now covering the cities at the bottom of the Middle Sea and the water is rising. It will be a sea again." "In thousands of years?"

"Probably hundreds. But there are stages, and different levels of the ice and the melt. The Middle Sea has been filled to the brim between Ice Ages, and it has been half full, with cities along the shores. You two may live to see it filling so fast that shores you see on one visit may have disappeared on your next."

"And you think the dryness will soon disappear from Ifrik?"

"Why should it not?"

Dann was listening, and he was more intrigued than Mara liked.

She said, "You told us you know Daulis."

"Of course. He brings us news from the south," said Felissa.

"And he told us that you have wonderful things here in the Centre, and that we should see them."

"Yes, we have, and you should," said Felix. "We believe that what has happened will happen again. We are on the verge of another great age of discovery and invention. And in the Centre we have prototypes of the inventions of the past."

"Not everything," said Felissa. "You forgot a lot of it has been stolen."

"There have been raids," said Felix. "Robbers took some of the machines and inventions."

"We have seen them," said Mara. "May we see the Centre?"

"My dears, of course," said Felissa. "You'll find everything quite easy to understand, because it is all so carefully documented. Of course you won't see the original machines. Everything was copied, and then copied again, as long as any of the old skills were left, but then there came a time... oh, it is so sad."

"You will think about our plan," ordered Felix.

"We'll think about it," said Mara and stood up, and so did Dann, and they went to their rooms.

There Dann said, violently, "They want me as a stud, and you as a brood animal."

"That's about it," she said.

Then his mood changed and he said, "I rather fancy the idea of being married to you, Mara. And all our little ones running about."

"I would say they are a little insane," said Mara, "a little mad."

"Perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to see everything as mad." She did not know what to say; she felt apprehensive. "How old are they?" he went on. "Fifty? Suppose we had a child at once. They would be really old by the time it was ready to mate. Mate with whom? You or me. There would be another child. Ideally it should be not the same as the first. Imagine it, two old people, with two old servants, who'll be dead soon, and you and me. The Royal Family. Why should the locals put up with it? They don't necessarily remember Mahondi rule with pleasure, so I'm told."

And while he said all this, it was as if he were arguing with an invisible interlocutor.

Mara said quietly, "All the same, there is something in the idea you like."

He flung himself on the big bed and lay face down. He did not reply. She stood at the window and looked out over innumerable roofs, some as beautiful as those in the drowned cities. Some were crumbling, or had even fallen down.

"I want to walk around the whole place, along the wall," she said. At first he did not move, then got up, sullen now, angry about his thoughts; and they found the old woman cooking, and said they were going to walk around the wall: there must be a walkway of some kind. She said, not looking at them, so great was her disapproval, that there was a path just inside the top of the wall, and it was in good condition most of the way, but they should be careful, and it would take them the rest of the day. She gave them some food to take with them.

They set off, westwards. The wall was at the height of their waists. In some parts there were piles of sharp wire, now rusting. They knew where Chelops had got its wire fences.

"If I were ruling here, for a start all this wire would come down," said Dann.

"I see you are expecting a time of peace, Prince Dann?" But he didn't laugh.

On one side of the wall could be seen only interminable wet earth and marshes, with paths through them, and sandy stretches, and rushes and reeds. It was a lumpy landscape that was more water than land. Inside the wall were what seemed like hundreds of every kind of building, for where some of the fine ones had fallen, reeds and mud replaced them. So this was where all the records of the great past were. The country was the same to the north, and they stopped to shelter on their little ledge of a path, from a sharp wind, crouching low to eat some bread. This wind had blown all the way from the ice fields and ice cliffs that covered Yerrup. If they could fly, as once people had flown anywhere they wished, to look down over the ice, would the great cities of those great civilisations be visible there? No, ice was not water, and so. They went on, chilled inside their thick wrappings. The eastern vistas were the same: this was where they had come, and so they knew that the marshes stretched for days of walking. All along the wall were the old sun traps. The metal of the arms had eroded, and some had disappeared, leaving the circlets of metal lying about on the wall; or they had fallen and lay on roofs or on the earth.