However, its possibilities now seemed rather greater. Pulling off her smock, she examined the shift carefully. It was brand-new and looked it: and it was still fresh and clean, for as yet she had scarcely begun to sweat. The embroidery was really much finer and prettier than she had noticed that morning, with a border of flying cranes in red and blue round the yoke and another, flying the other way, round the hem. It fitted her a shade closely, having probably been intended for a less buxom girl; but that might perhaps prove, if anything, a fault on the right side. It left her arms bare and fell to just above her knees. Her arms weren't scratched or marked at all. Her shin was still rather badly bruised, of course, but that would have shown anyway.
"Luma," she said, "please pull me a whole lot of those yellow water-lilies. Just go on pulling them till I tell you to stop."
The long stems were hollow, pliant and fibrous, easy enough to pierce and thread through one another. She took her time, carefully making a broad crown of bloom
for her head, a double garland for her neck and a bracelet for each wrist. When she had finished and put them on she stood up, swayed back and forth a little to make sure they were firm and would not break or fall to pieces; then stepped carefully down the length of the boat to where Nasada and Tescon were waiting with their backs turned.
"This is the best I can manage, U-Nasada. D'you reckon it might do?"
He turned, and for several moments sat looking up at her without replying. At length he said, "To be young- as young as you are-as well as very beautiful-that's rather like being able to fly or disappear, you know. There aren't any rules for someone like you."
She was too flustered to grasp what he meant. "Is it all right, Tescon?" she asked with anxious impatience.
He answered simply "Yes," never taking his eyes off her as he backed the kilyett out of the rushes and turned the bow into open water. Then, with the other two boats following, he began paddling slowly downstream towards the buildings in the distance, beyond the camp.
As they drew closer, a sharp bend and a grove on either bank cut off their view ahead, but when at length they came floating out from among the trees Maia saw, about two hundred yards away, a wooden landing-stage which extended along the riparian side of a courtyard strewn with rushes. Round the other three sides stood the same kind of long, shed-like buildings that she had seen earlier; yet these were still more ornate, their walls decorated with stylized, brightly-colored likenesses of beasts and birds, their roofs painted blue, with yellow stars. Everything was constructed of unpolished wood; yet such was the trimness and quality of the workmanship that the place certainly did not lack dignity and even a certain grandeur. Whatever else they might or might not be, thought Maia, the Subans were clearly carpenters.
A number of boats were moored against the landing-stage, but apart from two or three sharp-featured, foreign-looking soldiers with spears and helmets, and a little group of Subans gathered about an upturned boat which they seemed to be repairing, there was no one in the courtyard. Suddenly a boy, happening to look up in the direction of the approaching kilyett, called out and pointed, whereupon they all turned, staring. Someone spoke to the boy,
whereupon he ran across the courtyard and disappeared through an open doorway.
"Maia," said Nasada, "I think you ought to go and stand well forward on the bow. And Luma, you come back here, near me, will you?" He picked up a paddle and moved aft to sit beside Tescon. "Right up on the front, Maia: we'll keep it steady-we won't let you overbalance."
As she hesitated, she saw Bayub-Otal come out into the courtyard, followed by several soldiers. He was dressed in light armor, over which he was wearing a short, blue cloak, with a sword on his right hip. As he raised his hand to her in greeting the soldiers broke into cheers. A few moments later a pair of double doors on the far side of the courtyard opened and through them, stooping under the lintel, appeared an immensely tall, broad-shouldered man, accompanied by a group of officers and a few women. All were dressed in uniforms and robes as fine as any to be seen in the upper city, though there were certain differences of style which Maia, though she vaguely noticed them, felt too much agitated to take in in detail. The big man spoke to one of his followers, shading his eyes to look at the boat. Then he, too, with an unhurried, easy gesture, raised his hand, though whether to Nasada or herself she could not tell, and thereupon strode across the courtyard to the edge of the landing-stage. Out of the doors behind, more men and women came pouring, so that soon the courtyard behind King Karnat-for it could be none other than he- was full of people, all plainly excited and eager to join in welcoming the newcomers.
