"I know the Leopards are hard on farming folk," said Gehta, "but even that's better than war. I was only nine when Queen Fornis and her lot came up from Paltesh to Bekla. They took everything we had; and the soldiers, they-you know." She began to cry. "If there was to be all that over again-oh, what's going to happen, Maia? What ought I to do?"
Maia, liking her and grateful for her help over the clothes, longed to be of some comfort. "I reckon you're troubling yourself too much. I've heard General Kembri talking; I've-well, I've waited on him at dinner, you know, and that kind of thing. And I've never heard him speak as if he thought they couldn't stop King Karnat crossing the river. As for the heldril, well, it's true you hear a lot of talk about trouble and rebellion and so on, but it never seems to come to anything."
"Oh, I do just about hope you're right," said Gehta. "It's such a worry. 'Course, I know there's nothing I could really do to make Dad any safer if I did go home, but all the same, if there's going to be trouble I'd rather be there than here; it's only natural." She paused. "Anyway, thanks, Maia. At least it's some relief that
Before the night was over Maia experienced another instance of the easy-going ways of the farm. Given a very comfortable spare bed at one end of the girls' big sleeping-shed, she quickly fell asleep. Waking some time during the night she sensed, drowsily but surely enough, a kind
of muted disturbance near-by. After a few moments she realized what it was. One of the girls was not alone in bed, and unless she was much mistaken her companion was not another girl. Turning over, she saw in the moonlight that Gehta, next to her, was also awake. Putting a finger to her lips, Gehta beckoned to her and, leaning a little way out of bed, put her mouth to her ear.
"We never tell: you won't?"
Maia shook her head and fell asleep again.
As she had expected, the girls were up soon after dawn to milking, fowl-feeding and the other tasks of the farm. After breakfast they said good-bye to Maia with warmth and regret on both sides.
"We don't often get someone like ourselves stopping by," said the little, black-eyed girl. "Makes a nice change." She kissed Maia. "What a pity you couldn't have stayed a bit longer." Maia was soon to find herself in full agreement with this.
"You got your clothes and sandals all right, then?" asked Bayub-Otal, as they set out across the big meadow.
"Yes, thank you, my lord; no trouble."
"Did you have to pay much for them?"
"Nothing at all, my lord. Only they wouldn't take anything, see? Here's the money."
"You'd better keep it. You may need it. That was very kind and hospitable, don't you think, Pillan? Very kind indeed."
"No such thing."
"Dear me, why ever not?"
"That coat what she had on yesterday: them yellow buttons must 'a bin worth a sight more 'n anything they've give her."
There could be no answer to this, even though Maia did not believe that either Gehta or the old woman had thought twice about the topaz buttons. Still, neither had she, and she felt annoyed to have been so careless. She ought to have pulled the buttons off and kept them.
"Did you enjoy your company last night, Pillan?" asked Bayub-Otal.
Pillan became unwontedly fluent. "One of 'em I'd have given something to remember, only for you bein' up at the house and we didn't want no trouble."
"Oh dear! I suppose he called you a Suban marsh-frog, did he?"
Pillan grunted.
"One gets used to it. You never know, you might have the opportunity to do something quite drastic about it before much longer. Did you manage to buy any food?"
Pillan jerked his thumb at his pack. "Bit in here."
"And you, Maia?"
" 'Fraid not, my lord." She had never given it a thought.
"It doesn't matter," said Bayub-Otal. "I got some, too, so we'll have enough between us for today."
They came to a rough track running north and followed it. It led to no farm or dwelling, let alone a village. All that day, as they went steadily uphill and northward, the country became more lonely, barren and wild. It was, indeed, the most desolate Maia had ever seen; part sandy waste covered with rough grass and scrub, part rocky, with a few stunted trees and tracts of some mauve-flowering, sage-like shrub which harbored clouds of flies. During the late afternoon, as she was plodding onward with eyes half-closed against the glare and sucking a pebble to ease her thirst-for they had no water left, having come upon none since mid-morning-she suddenly realized that at last they were on level ground: in fact they had begun, though almost imperceptibly, to descend. Shading her eyes, she saw ahead and below a smooth, green plain, speckled with brown and gray patches which were mud-built villages. Far ahead, perhaps ten miles off in the heat haze, she could just make out what looked like the irregular line of a river.
