"Well, I've reckoned it since as she must have done twenty-five miles across the Waste, poor girl, and her in that state! Anyway, at last, in the dark and the rain, she collapsed outside your father's door.
"They went and got Drigga from up the lane and she and Morca did everything they could. And at one point they thought they'd pulled her through, Morca said. You'd been born-"
"Yes, you'd been born and everything seemed all right:
but then she just bled and bled until she died, Morca said. But
Maia was crying.
"Well, your father-I'll go on calling him that-he thought that after what the girl had told them, the less got out the better, or there might be some more of these Urtan men- these murderers-coming to look for you, d'you see? That queen-baroness-whatever she was-she meant business, that was clear enough. And old Drigga, she agreed. So what happened was, they buried the poor girl and no one the wiser-she's down by that big ash-tree beside the lake-"
"Oh, Tharrin! That ash-tree?
"Yes, she is. And they gave it out-and old Drigga backed them up, said as she'd been in the know all along- that the baby was Morca's. Well, quite believable; I mean, it doesn't always show all that much with the first baby, does it? And Morca was ready with some story about having sworn a vow to Shakkarn that if only he'd take away her trouble, she wouldn't tell a soul until everything had gone off all right.
"So the long and short of it was they brought you up as their own daughter. But they never told you, because you'd have let on, wouldn't you?-children always talk-and they were still afraid of this woman and what might happen. But apparently she died herself quite soon after you were born, so they needn't have worried; but they never knew that, you see. You don't get to hear all that much in country places, do you? and I suppose it never occurred to them to make inquiries. Anyway, that's the truth for you at last. Morca's not your mother."
Maia was weeping so intensely that for a little while she could not speak. At last she said, "I always wo-wondered why Drigga was so good to me. She was always-well, sort of specially kind. Oh dear, oh dear!"
Tharrin made no reply and she, at length getting her feelings a little more under control, went on, "So-at that rate, then-I'm sister's daughter to this famous No-this famous Suban dancer?"
"Yes. Whoever she may have been: for it's all a long time ago now, isn't it? Anyway, you did Morca some good, didn't you? Four children she's borne since then and healthy as anybody's, even if they
Maia stood up. She must be alone to think.
"Thank you for telling me. Have you got everything you need, Tharrin? Are they good to you? Here's a hundred meld. Is there anything else you want? Tell me."
"No, nothing. I'll be fine till you come back. Cran bless you, Maia! How can I ever thank you?"
"Well, I'll be back before noon tomorrow, and then you'll be free! You can count on that, so sleep well." She kissed him warmly, feeling her tears wet against his face. "Good-bye for now."
On the way out, neither Pokada nor anyone else remarked on her weeping. This was a place where people often wept and after all, she had not told any of them that Tharrin was going to be released.
What-even though it may involve neither pain nor danger-is more bewildering and agitating than to learn something of the greatest importance about oneself-something entirely unsuspected and highly extraordinary; verging on the unique: fo find oneself in a situation which very few indeed (and none available to talk to) can have been called upon to face? Some there be who have found themselves heirs to kingdoms; others the sudden possessors of some hitherto undreamt-of knowledge or truth. Others again have stumbled, all unawares, upon some huge discovery, daunting, of incalculable import. Visions have been vouchsafed to simpletons, landfalls made by the lost and desperate, revelations bestowed upon purblind stumblers in the dark. My very self is changed for ever; I am not and can never again be the person I was. Why me, God, why me? My dazzled, peering eyes cannot make out the import, the perspective: a fly on the window-pane or a far-off mountain? But first and foremost, God, am I beneficiary or victim?
Maia sat in her garden above the Barb. From time to time she beat with the flat of her hand upon the seat-slats beside her, staring out unseeingly across the water. Again, she sprang up and began pacing back and forth over the grass; then gripped the rail of the fence with both hands and rocked herself backwards and forwards. To Ogma, peeping from an upstairs window, it was plain that her
