Doris Lessing - Mara and Dann

And Leta questioned her about the medicines and plants she had seen in the museums, and Mara explained what she had seen, and so they entertained themselves that day. At evening Dann sprang up and said his scar was as good as healed. "And now, what are we going to do with the coins?"

Leta said, "You could put them with my money. I still have my quittance money almost intact."

"No, Leta. It is in a bag, and a bag is easily snatched away," said Dann. "We must each of us have something, in case we are separated. Mara has her gold coin and some small money. Where am I going to put mine? If feel as if I'm back in that horrible Tower, knowing that I would be killed if anyone suspected I had even one gold coin."

"I think you should put them in your knife pocket," said Mara. "It's long and narrow."

"Which is the first place any thief would look, apart from the other obvious place."

Mara cried out, "Do you realise this is the same discussion we have had over and over again, all the way up Ifrik?"

Leta said, "Daulis will find us soon. He must." She was tearful, then apologetic because of it. "I'm only going to feel safe with him," she said. "I'm afraid of being single. In the Alb settlement they were gathering outside Donna's house and shouting, 'Where is the Bilma whore?' — no, they didn't know that I had been one, but if you are a single woman, you are a whore. They wanted to get at Donna, so it was 'the Bilma whore.'"

Dann and Mara reassured her, held her, comforted her; but when she said she did not know why but she was so frightened, they had to agree. "I don't know why I feel uneasy," said Dann. "Has the mist cleared?"

It had not.

"We must keep guard tonight," said Mara. Leta said she would watch with them, but she wasn't used to it, and fell asleep. Mara and Dann sat on either side of the door, both with their knives out and ready. Listening to every sound, the silence became full of noises, which turned out to be snow shifting on a slope, or the wind tugging at a broken roof reed. They went out to see how the mist was doing, because of the pressure of their anxiety, which made it hard to sit still. The many boulders were appearing and then going again, as the mist blew across the slopes. They thought one moved... decided they were mistaken, tried to fix the pattern of the boulders in their minds, failed because of the shifting mist, stood peering and staring, their hearts pounding. Then the mist cleared, and not far below them the boulder they thought had moved, did move, and a man's shape was visible for a moment before it disappeared behind a large rock.

There was a thin, wet moonlight.

"Give me your snake," said Dann, very low.

"We can't have a corpse up here. They'd know it was us."

"If it is a poison, no one would think it was anything but cold, he died of cold. A knife wound would have guards after us."

She slipped off the snake and he sprang the knife and was off down the slope. Mara, her knife in her hand, went quickly after him. One minute she was in mist, the next, the wind had driven it off. She could not see Dann, could not see Kulik.

Kulik, always Kulik. How strange it was that again and again all through her life there was Kulik, the danger in a place, or in a group of people — her enemy and Dann's too. Now she thought, I'm going to kill him. I want him dead. This is the time and this is the place. And then never again will I be looking over my shoulder, or see someone I seem to know, and he turns his head and I see Kulik. Meanwhile she could see neither Dann nor Kulik.

Then, while the mist swirled, she heard loud breathing, and the sounds of feet slipping about and scuffling on stones. The mist parted and she saw Dann and Kulik, wrestling. This was a deadly life-and-death fight, and Dann's face — but she had never seen that face — and Kulik's showed they both knew it. Kulik had Dann's hand, with the snake knife in it, held up well over both their heads, and his other hand was pushing Dann away from him, while Dann was gripping that hand at the wrist, and had his nails deep in the flesh — Kulik's face was tortured with the pain of it. Their breathing laboured and groaned. And then Kulik tore his wrist free of Dann's grasp — Mara saw the blood from Dann's nails running down — and there was a knife in his hand. Mara shouted, "Kulik," and he let go Dann's hand that held the snake, and had turned to run, because he had seen her there, with her knife, not more than half a dozen paces away. Two of them against one, and it was clear he knew now that the little snake gleaming silvery in the moonlight was a deadly thing, because he kept his eyes on it, as the main enemy. That face! That scarred face! The bared teeth! The cold, ugly eyes! — Mara was so full of hatred that she could have rushed at him with bare hands, but she threw her knife, aiming at his neck. It struck his shoulder and fell clattering. Kulik came straight at Mara, who was now defenceless. She could see that he was as full of murder as she was. Kulik was within striking distance — all this was taking seconds, the time of a breath. The blood was pouring off his shoulder, and from a wrist. He had his knife in his right hand. Dann leaped to intervene, and was between Mara and Kulik; and now the little snake flashed, just as the mist swirled up, half hiding Kulik, who went stumbling off down into the thick mist.

"I felt it touch," said Dann.

"Him, or his clothes?"

"Flesh — I think."

"Then we'd better move fast," said Mara.

They woke Leta, gathered their belongings, and left the hut. It was by then well after midnight. Soon they left the brilliance of the sky and moon and snow behind, and were descending in thick mist, watching their feet on the path, afraid of falling, of losing the path, and perhaps of stumbling over Kulik's body.

By the time they reached the bottom of the mountain the mist had gone and the sun was rising. At the inn they knocked at the back door and handed back their thick capes. The innkeeper said they were honest people but he expected no less of Daulis's friends. Then he said he thought he had seen someone going up the mountain early in the night, but the mist was thick. Dann and Mara conferred, with their eyes, and then Dann told what had happened. He said the poisoned knife had only just touched flesh, but probably that was enough to kill. "And," he added, "I hope he dies. If you think that I have no pity for him — no, I haven't. It's not a runaway slave he's after, but a runaway general, and if he did manage to get me into Bilma it would be the end of me, and of my sister too."

The innkeeper stood silent. He did not like what he heard, that was clear. Then he said, "If anyone asks, then I won't know about any fight. And if he turns up here asking for help I'll turn him away."

"There's probably a dead man on the mountain," said Mara.

"If so the snow eagles will dispose of him. And dry bones don't tell any tales."

Off they went on the road west, and before long they saw Daulis coming towards them. Leta stood waiting, and her face was such that Mara and Dann reached for each other's hands, but what their eyes told each other made them look away quickly and back to Leta, who was in Daulis's arms.

The four walked briskly on, leaving the low, wet lands behind, because the road was climbing into hills and fresh airs and breezes. That night they slept, all together, in a room in a house where Daulis knew the people; and before they dropped off, Daulis said this was the last time they would share a room together, because next day they would arrive at — but they must wait and see.

In the middle of the next day they stopped as they reached the top of a hill, stunned, silenced. In front lay a vast blue, which went on and on until it met the paler blue of the sky. This blue was flecked with little, white, moving crests. On their faces was a salty wind, and salt was on their lips.