Richard Adams - Maia

Would he ever make a ruler, she wondered; a man capable of perceiving so little?

"But Anda-Nokomis, at that rate why ever did you think I got him out of the gaol in Bekla?" t

"Why, you could have had several reasons: because you'd learned he'd been my closest friend in Dari-Paltesh, because you knew it would please Santil-ke-Erketlis, or simply because you weren't going to leave a man like that to the mercy of Forms."

That was the trouble about Anda-Nokomis, she thought. To himself he made perfectly good sense and you couldn't really argue with it. And it was all rubbish; it missed the only real point. Her feelings had been plain both to Zirek and to Clystis: probably to Meris, too. Fortunately, however, she didn't have to say this. While she was still wondering what she could say, he spoke again.

"But Maia, I'm afraid that at that rate it must be very disappointing for you."

"Unless," she said suddenly, as the idea came into her head "-I've only just thought-unless I wasn't altogether dreaming."

"Dreaming? When?"

"When he said about it being my turn to know what it felt like."

He frowned. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't-'

She dropped on her knees beside him, put her arms round his neck and kissed him-the first time she had ever done so.

"My lord-my cousin-my dear friend: I'll tell you one thing, anyway-I've never been paid a greater compliment in my life, and I'm sure I never shall be again. I mean that with all my heart!"

"There's nothing more to be said, then?" he replied.

"There can't be: I'm so sorry."

"But Suba, Maia-your safety-"

She threw back her head and laughed as gaily as once she had in the fishing-net. "Occula used to say 'Stuff it!'

Look, Anda-Nokomis, we're here, the three of us, something like eighty miles from Katria and Suba, and no real idea yet how we're going to get there. You said-and don't think I don't feel it very kindly-that you wanted to relieve my anxiety. Surely the best way to relieve everybody's anxiety is to put all this by just for now, and stick to the job of getting ourselves down-river. 'Cos tell you the truth, I reckon 'tain't going to be all that easy. If you really want to do something for me, do that."

He was silent for what seemed a long time. "Perhaps you're right," he said at last. "We'll do as you say."

He stood up. "Where's Zenka, do you know?"

"No; I thought you did."

"Let's go and find him-have a drink-order a good supper-anything you like. And then tomorrow we'll see about getting a boat."

When Maia woke the following morning-not quite so badly bitten as she had expected-it was to the certainty that the rains were imminent. Since "The White Roses" lay half-way down the western slope of Nybril, there was no view to the east even from its roof, but nevertheless she could sense the oppression, the piling-up of the clouds far away beyond Tonilda, beyond Yelda and Chalcon. Soon the wind would begin and the white mist would come rolling. Everyone would be glad of the rains, glad of the relief s the release; everyone but themselves, stranded on this rock in the Zhairgen. What if they were forced to spend Me-lekrilhere?

She said nothing of her apprehensions, however, either to Anda-Nokomis or to Zenka. It was plain that they had not seen the place and its limitations so clearly as she. They thought they were going to go out, much as they might go to a market, buy a boat and go down the river. Well, possibly they would: she wasn't going to start discouraging them or letting them think she was trying to show how clever she was. She'd come along and see what happened.

After breakfast they set out together, down the steep lane winding between hovels, stone walls and hedges of

gray-leaved keffa-kolma-the only thing that'll grow here, I suppose, thought Maia: back home we used to pull it up and burn it.

At length they emerged on to the quay-side. A few boats were out fishing. As she had expected, they were all anchored-or perhaps foul-anchored-well within the area of calmer water above the meeting-point of the two streams. One or two had masts, but not a sail was hoisted in the still air. None had either deck or cabin or was what you'd call, she thought, a traveling craft.

Anda-Nokomis, seeing a little group of men busy with tackle a short distance away, went up to them and, having greeted them politely, said he wanted to buy a boat stout enough to travel down the river. This, as Maia could have told him, was a mistake. She herself, if she'd been a man, would have passed the time of day, talked about the coming of the rains, asked a few questions about the fishing, repeated a rumor or two of the fighting in Lapan and said nothing at all about boats until someone-either that time or next time-got as far as asking what might have brought her to Nybril.

Oh, ah, they said. A boat? Well. One asked another to chuck him that length of line over there. Did he reckon it could do with a bit more grease rubbed in? Anda-Nokomis, interrupting, asked them whether they knew of anyone who would sell a boat. A boat? Well, now, they couldn't say. There wasn't all that many boats sold, really, not without a man was to die, and not always then. Boats- well, they nearly always got passed on, didn't they?

But might not someone sell one exceptionally, Anda-Nokomis persisted. Well, they hadn't just exactly heard of anything like that; not just lately they hadn't. Every man had his own, you see. Needed it for his living, didn't he?

What was the river like further down, inquired Zen-Kurel. They shook their heads. They didn't really know. None of them had ever been all that far down. It was the getting back, you see, wasn't it? Strong current-well, yes, everyone knew that. Very dangerous for a lot of the year, specially in the rains. Oh, yes, desperate in the rains. Well, and after all, what would anyone be wanting to go down there for? Quickest way to get yourself drowned. Someone else sucked on a hollow tooth, spat in the water and nodded in corroboration.

With them and with others Anda-Nokomis spent nearly

a couple of hours pursuing inquiries. No one was uncivil, though one or two seemed sullen; but always he found himself helpless in the face of that reticent, noncommittal evasiveness which is the reaction of most remote-dwelling people the world over to a brisk, direct approach from a stranger. Maia, who had grown up among such people, understood their feelings very well, though she could not have explained them in words. These people depended for a sense of security on doing what they and their fathers had always done in the only place they had ever known. That much they could feel sure of. Anything new or unusual probably had a catch. in it. They were prone to a kind of cryptic envy, too. This stranger, this gentleman was eager for a boat; they had only to do nothing in order to frustrate him. (And indeed after a time, although he retained his courtesy and self-possession, Anda-Nokomis's frustration began to show fairly clearly.) Towards the end of the morning and at about the tenth inquiry, Maia was left in little doubt that their fame was traveling before them.

Once Zen-Kurel, falling into conversation with a couple of youths who were playing wari with colored pebbles in the shade of a tavern wall, and finding them comparatively forthcoming in response to a few jokes and a little banter, asked whether it might not be possible to obtain a passage on one of the rafts coming down the Here from Yelda. Why, yes, they answered. People often travelled down on the rafts, though usually from higher upstream. There wasn't all that many started from Nybril, though. Yes, it was the Here pretty well all the rafts came down: very few down the upper Zhairgen. Lapan and Tonilda didn't go for the same markets downstream-or so they'd always understood. But very likely the gentleman would know more about that than what they did.