Now she saw again-dreadfully clearly-the staring eyes of the lad lying on his back beside the fire, the blood oozing through his hooked, clutching fingers: and the other-him, Sphelthon-the boy from Meerzat, crying for his mother. The sodden earth, the butcher smell. It would never leave her now; she was tainted with it forever.
Dizzy and nauseated, she clutched at the doorpost; then, burying her face in her hands, sank down on the step. She thought of the detachment of three hundred Tonildans
downstream of Rallur; and of Karnat's troops crossing in the night, cutting them off from the Beklan army. "The Tonildan outpost downstream-they'll be completely destroyed-cut to pieces-cut to pieces-" Boys from Thet-tit, from Puhra, from Meerzat-
And Zenka, her beautiful lover, who had begged her to marry him-all warmth aad ardor, a very gods' pattern of young manhood-one of the king's personal aides, in the thick of it, carrying the king's messages on the battlefield; what were his chances? She began to sob again, as much with frustration as with grief. She was helpless; a woman. A terrible vision of war-of a world defiled and desolated by separation, fear, wounds, death and bereavement- opened before her inward eye. She beheld an infinity of waste, of mutilation and agony; of sobbing wives, mothers, children, their lives spoiled forever.
She tried to imagine three hundred men lying on the blood-soaked ground, each one crying like Sphelthon. "Destroyed-cut to pieces." How many people-how many women like herself knew what really happened-what it looked like-when men fought and pierced and killed one another?
After a time the intensity of her paroxysm began to subside. She stood up, leaning against the wall inside the doorway. Becoming aware of a voice, she realized that it was her own, emptily repeating aloud, "How many women? How
There came into her mind the memory of Gehta, the girl at the farm; Gehta walking beside her at dusk in the big, smooth-grazed meadow. The scent of the distant pines.
"If King Karnat makes for Bekla, dad's farm's slap in the way. I'm afraid-afraid-dad's farm's slap in the way-"
Passionately, she stood and prayed, arms extended, palms raised.
"If only I could stop it! O Lespa, I'd give
Suddenly the goddess spoke in her heart. "Very well-"
Maia turned cold and faint with apprehension. She sank down, crouching on her knees.
"Lespa! Dear goddess, no, not that! That would be death! I can't do that! Not that!"
Afraid-afraid-afraid-the beating of her heart seemed jolting her body.
"Very well," replied the goddess. "Never ask me for anything again."
Going back into the bedroom Maia, having selected the dagger with the slimmest and sharpest blade, cut the coverlet into long strips. These she wound round her legs from ankle to knee, tucking the edges under at the top to hold the binding in place. After this she bound her upper arms in the same way from elbow to armpit. There was one strip left; this she threaded through the sheath of the dagger and then knotted it round her waist like a belt.
Two minutes later, having blown out the lamps and shut the door, she was making her way eastward across the outlying fields of Melvda towards the edge of the distant woodland beyond which lay the Valderra.
At first the way, though rough and awkward, was clear enough. Her eyes adapted quickly to the half-darkness and she was able to keep a more-or-less straight course, looking up every minute or so at the black line of the trees against the night sky. As in the camps that afternoon, she continually came upon little streams and ditches, but now there were no bridges across them, makeshift or otherwise. Stubbornly she clambered down and up, down and up, wading and scrambling until she was coated with mud from head to foot. Twice she passed through herds of cattle, the beasts looming suddenly out of the night, gathering about her inquisitively, breathing hard, plodding after her until at the next dyke she left them behind. Lonely sheds, too, she passed, and a ruined hovel, its bare rafters a lattice of blue-black squares against the night sky, with here and there a dim star twinkling through.
Were those the same woods in front of her, or had she unknowingly altered direction? She stood still, trying to hit upon something-anything-which might help her. Which way had the ditches been flowing? They had so little current that she had not noticed. There was no perceptible wind. The moon was almost set: it had been behind her and still was. There was nothing else to rely on.
She could only go on towards what she must hope were the right woods.
