Maia полностью

Bayub-Otal nodded and after a moment Lenkrit went on, "We're on our way back now. We must have done something like twenty miles since yesterday evening. We've been going by night, you see, ever since we crossed the Valderra. We happened on this cave on our way east five nights ago, and lay up here for a day. We were reckoning to get back to it this morning and what do we find but you? You were lucky, because it's been daggers first and questions afterwards-not in Urtah, but all the time we've been in Bekla province. It's much too obvious that we're Subans, you see."

"Well, but the Chalcon news?" said Bayub-Otal.

Lenkrit paused a moment; then drew from beneath his cloak a wooden, tubular object, pierced with holes and roughly stained red and blue. Maia, taken unawares, could not suppress a quick "Oh!" of recognition and surprise. It was a Tonildan shepherd-boy's home-made pipe-an object familiar to almost any Tonildan. She had once made one herself; and played it, too, after a fashion.

"You've seen one of these before, then?" asked Lenkrit, looking round at her.

She nodded, but said nothing. "Daggers first and questions afterwards." Had they, then, killed the Tonildan boy the pipe had belonged to?

"Don't worry, Maia," said he, reading her thoughts. "It

was fairly come by. I was given it two days ago by a little lad herding goats on the edge of the Tonildan Waste. Shepherd-boys were about the only people we dared question, you see. Grown men and women would have been much too risky. We told these boys we were traveling merchants and asked them what news they'd heard lately. This particular lad was very sharp and sensible. He told us hisfather was just back from Puhra, where all the market-talk was about Chalcon and Santil-ke-Erketlis. I was so pleased with him that I gave him five meki-more than he'd ever had in his life, I dare say-and he was so pleased with me that he gave me his pipe.

"Well, the news, Anda-Nokomis-and I think it's probably reliable-is that Santil's near enough openly in arms against Bekla. He wasn't going to wait to be treated like that other poor fellow-what was his name?-Enka-Mor-det. He's left his estate and gone into the Chalcon hills- taken his servants, tenants-the lot. And men are joining him from all over, apparently."

"Have the Leopards sent anyone against him, then?" asked Bayub-Otal.

"The lad couldn't say. But he did tell us one other thing which made me prick up my ears. He said his father had heard rumors of some sort of trouble further south, too. Who would that be, do you suppose?"

"Elleroth of Sarkid; the Ban's son? He's the most likely.",

"Just what I thought myself. Listen, Anda-Nokomis: suppose-just suppose-that Karnat, with his army half as big again with Suban auxiliaries, crosses the Valderra and succeeds in going straight on to Bekla."

"Well?"

"Then Suba's rewarded for its indispensable help by being made an independent province in its own right- which it always should have been. You rule it, Anda-Nokomis-which everyone wants, seeing you're the rightful, legal heir, and son of the finest Suban girl that ever-"

"And Karnat?"

"Once there was peace, I doubt Karnat would require a great deal more from Suba. Well, come to that, we haven't got much to give him, have we? Frogs, ducks, reeds-Suba's always been a place on its own. Karnat himself s only valued it because it put him east of the Zhairgen. But you must come and talk to him yourself, Anda-Nokomis."

"I fully intend to," replied Bayub-Otal, "as soon as I can get there. He's at Melvda-Rain, I suppose?"

Lenkrit nodded. "He's an honest man: we all think so. As for the Subans, it's you they're ready to fight for- Nokomis's boy, that that damned Fornis cheated out of his inheritance."

"Well," said Bayub-Otal, standing up somewhat abruptly, "when do we start? You'll be wanting to sleep now, I dare say, if you've come twenty miles during the night."

"Yes, we'll lie up here today, Anda-Nokomis, and get across into Urtah tonight. After that it'll be easy enough until we come to the Valderra. You see, the Beklans have got outposts-standing patrols-all along the east bank, from Rallur right up to the hills in the north."

"Where's the main Beklan army itself, then?" asked Bayub-Otal.

"At Rallur. They've built a light bridge across the Ol-men-just above where it runs into the Valderra-so that they can move south quickly if they have to. But all the signs are that they think they won't have to; anyway, they've got hardly any outposts downstream. They must feel sure that we can only get across upstream."

He smiled and Bayub-Otal, nodding, smiled too. To' Maia, though she had not really been following all that Lenkrit had said, it was clear enough that they had some unspoken knowledge in common.