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‘So I see,’ she said, and rode on, without looking again at Jarnti or at the soldiers.
When nearly at the level of the plain, there were grazing cattle near the road, and a half-grown boy attending them.
Jarnti shouted at the boy to come forward, and the boy was already running towards them, before Jarnti said, ‘You could teach him your ways with the animals,’ and as the boy arrived at the roadside, pale and startled, Jarnti was shouting, ‘Down on your face! Can’t you see who this is we are taking to the king?’
The lad was face down, full length on the grass, and this was no more than a half-minute since he had first been hailed.
Jarnti was giving her half-pleading, half-commanding looks, and his horse was dancing under him, because of his master’s eagerness to learn her lore.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t think we are likely to learn or teach anything in this way.’
But he had seen himself that he had mishandled the occasion and because of it was red and angry. He shouted, ‘The lady here would like to know if your beasts are well.’
No reply, then a whimper which sounded like, ‘Very well, yes, well, sir.’
Al·Ith slid down from her horse, walked over to the boy, and said, ‘Stand up.’ She made her voice a command, since commands were what he understood. He slowly shivered his way to his feet, and stood, almost collapsing, before her. She waited until she knew he had seen, from his furtive glances, that she was not so frightening, and said, ‘I am from Zone Three. Our animals have not been well. Can you say if you have noticed anything unusual with yours?’
His hands were clenched at his chest, and he was breathing as if he had run several miles. Finally he brought out: ‘Yes, yes, that is, I think so.’
From behind them Jarnti’s voice, jocular and loud: ‘Are they having sorrowful thoughts?’ And the entire company sniggered.
She saw there was nothing that could be done, and said to the boy, ‘Don’t be frightened. Go back to your beasts.’ She waited until he sped off, and she returned to her horse. Again, Jarnti knew he had behaved clumsily, and yet it had been necessary to him, for the sight of her, small, unarmed, standing rather below them near the defenceless and frightened boy, had roused in him a need to show strength, dominance.
She swung herself onto her horse and at once rode on, not looking at them. She felt very low, our poor Al·Ith. This was the worst time of all. Everything in her was hurt by the way the poor boy had been treated: yet these were the ways of this land, and she could not believe then, in that bad hour, that there could be any way of communicating with these louts. And of course she was thinking of what she was going to find when she was led to Ben Ata.
They rode on, through the middle of the day, across the plain, with the ditches and the lines of dull bunchy trees accompanying them all the way. She went first. Yori, the riderless horse, was just behind, with Jarnti, and behind them the company. They were all silent. She had not said anything about the incident of the boy, but they were thinking now that she would be soon with the king, and were not expecting she would give a good report of them. So they were sullen, sulky. There were few people on the roadside, or in the flat boats of the canals, but those who saw the little company go past reported that there was not a smile to be seen: this wedding party was fit for a funeral. And the riderless horse caused rumours to spread that Al·Ith had fallen and was dead, for the slight figure on the leading horse that they did see, had nothing about her to command their attention. She seemed to them a serving woman, or an attendant, in her plain dark blue, with her head in its black veils.
There was a ballad about how the horse of the dead Al·Ith had gone with the troop of soldiers to the king to tell him that there could be no marriage. The horse stood on the threshold of the wedding chamber and neighed three times, Ben Ata, Ben Ata, Ben Ata — and when he came out, said to him:
Cold and dark your wedding bed,
O King, your willing bride is dead.
The realm she rules is cold and dark.
And this was popular, and sung when everyone knew that Al·Ith was not dead, and that the marriage was a fact. That it was not the smoothest of marriages was of course known from the beginning. How? But how do these things get themselves known? The song was always being added to. Here is a verse that came from the married quarters of the army camps:
Brave King, your realm is strong and fine.
Where beasts may mate, then women pine.
I will be your slave, brave King.
Not anywhere with us, or at any time, have such verses as these been possible, though there were plenty of compassionate and tender ballads made up about Al·Ith. There are some who say that where there is rulership, there has to be criticism of this ribald kind, because no matter the level of the ruler, it is in the nature of the ruled to crave identification of the lowest sort. We say this is not so, and Zone Three proves it. To recognize and celebrate the ordinary, the day-to-day levels of an authority, is not to denigrate it.
Such Zone Four ballads, travelling upwards to us, found themselves transformed as they crossed the frontier. For one thing, there was no need of the inversions, the ambiguities, that are always bred by fear of an arbitrary authority.
We may almost say that a certain type of ballad is impossible with us: the kind that has as its ground or base lamentation, the celebration of loss.
In their Zone the riderless horse gave birth to songs of death and sorrow; in ours to songs about loving friendship.
The road, which cut straight across the plain, and was intersected at about the middle by one running equally straight, began to lift a little to reach the small hill that Al·Ith had seen with relief from the top of the escarpment. The canals were left behind, with their weight of dead water. There were a few ordinary trees, which had not been hacked into lumps and wands. At the top of the hill were gardens, and here the water had been forced into movement, for they rode now beside channels where it ran swiftly, fell from several levels to others, and broke into fountains. The air was lively and cool, and when she saw ahead of her a light pavilion, with coloured springing pillars and arches, she was encouraged. But there was no one to be seen. She was contrasting this empty garden and the apparently deserted pavilion with the friendly amplitude of her own courts, when Jarnti called an order, and the whole company came to a stop. The soldiers jumped off their horses, and surrounded Al·Ith, who, when she got down from her horse, found herself being marched forward in their midst, like a captive of war — and she saw that this was not the first time they had done this, from the ease of their arrangements.
But as they had enclosed her, Jarnti in front, she put out her hand to hold the horse she had been given, Yori, by the neck.
And this was how she arrived at the steps of the pavilion, when Ben Ata came out to stand in the doorway, arms folded, legs apart, bearded soldier, dressed in no way different from Jarnti or the others. He was large, blond, muscular from continual campaigning, and burned a ruddy brown on the face and arms. His eyes were grey. He was not looking at Al·Ith but at the horse, for his first thought too was that his bride had been killed.
Al·Ith went quickly through the soldiers, suspecting that there were precedents here she might not want followed, and arrived in front of him, still holding the horse.
And now he looked at her, startled and frowning.
‘I am Al·Ith,’ said she, ‘and this horse has been kindly given to me by Jarnti. Please, will you give orders for him to be well treated?’
He found himself speechless. He nodded. Jarnti then grasped the horse’s neck and attempted to lead him away. But he reared and tried to free himself. Before he would allow himself to be taken away, Al·Ith had to comfort him and promise she would visit him very soon. ‘Today, I swear it.’ And, turning to Jarnti, ‘So you must not take him too far away. And please see he is well fed and looked after.’
Jarnti was sheepish, the soldiers grinning, only just hiding it, because Ben Ata’s face gave them no guidance. Normally, on such occasions, the girl would have been bundled across a threshold, or pushed forward roughly, according to the convention, but now no one knew how to behave.
Al·Ith said, ‘Ben Ata, I take it you have some sort of place I can retire to for a time? I have been riding all day.’
Ben Ata was recovering. His face was hard, and even bitter. He had not known what to expect, and was prepared to be flexible, but he was repelled by this woman in her sombre clothes. She had not taken off her veil, and he could not see much of her except that she had dark hair. He preferred fair women.
He shrugged, gave a look at Jarnti, and disappeared into the room behind him. It was Jarnti then who led her into another room, which was part of a set of rooms, and saw that she had what she needed. She refused food and drink, and announced that she would be ready to join the king in a few minutes.
And she did join him, emerging unceremoniously from the retiring rooms just as she had arrived, in her dark dress. But she had removed the veil, and her hair was braided and hanging down her back.
Ben Ata was lounging on a low divan or settee, in a large light airy room that had nothing very much in it. She saw that this was a bridal room, and planned for the occasion. Her bridegroom, however, sprawling on one edge of the divan, his chin on his hand, his elbow on his knee, did not move as she came in. And there was nowhere else to sit, so she sat down on the edge of the divan, at a distance from him, resting her weight on her hand in the position of one who has alighted somewhere for just a moment and has every intention of leaving again. She looked at him, without smiling. He looked at her, very far from smiling.
‘Well, how do you like this place?’ he asked, roughly. It was clear he had no idea of what to say or do.
‘It has been built specially then?’
‘Yes. Orders. Built to specification. Exactly. It was finished only this morning.’
‘It is certainly very elegant and pleasant,’ she said. ‘Quite different from anything else I’ve seen on my way here.’
‘Certainly not my style,’ he said. ‘But if it is yours, then that’s the main thing.’
This had a sort of sulky gallantry, but he was restless, and sighing continually, and it was evident all he wanted to do was to make his escape.
‘I suppose the intention was that it should be suited to us both?’ she remarked.
‘I don’t care,’ said he violently and roughly, his inner emotions breaking out of him. ‘And obviously you don’t either.’
‘We’re going to have to make the best of it,’ she said, intending consolation, but it was wild and bitter.
They looked at each other with a frank exchange of complicity: two prisoners who had nothing in common but their incarceration.
This first, and frail, moment of tolerance did not last.
He had flung himself back on this marriage couch of theirs, arms behind his head, his sandalled feet dusty on the covers, which were of fine wool, dyed in soft colours, and embroidered. Nowhere could he have seemed more out of place. She was able to construct his usual surroundings by how he slouched there, gazing at the ceiling as if she did not exist.
She examined the place. This was a very large room, opening out on two sides into gardens through a series of rounded arches. The other two sides had unobtrusive doors leading — on one — to the rooms for her use where she had already been, and on the other, presumably, to his. The ceiling was rounded and high, fluted at the edges. The whole room was painted a softly shining ivory, but there were patterns of gold, soft red, and blue, and beside each archway embroidered curtains were caught back with jewelled clasps. The fountains could be heard, and the running of the waters. This was not far from the gaiety and freshness of the public buildings of Andaroun, our capital, though her own quarters were plainer than these.
The great room was not all one empty sweep of space. A column sprang up from its centre, and curved out, and divided into several, all fluted and defined in the same gold, sky blue, and red. The floors were of sweetly smelling wood. Apart from the great low couch, there was a small table near one of the arches, with two graceful chairs on either side of it.
A horse whinnied. A moment later, Yori appeared outside one of the arches, and would have come in if she had not run across and stopped him. It was easy to guess what had happened. He had been confined somewhere, and had jumped free, and the soldiers set to guard him did not dare to follow into these private gardens with the pavilion all the country had been talking of for weeks. She put her hands up to his cheeks, pulled down his head, whispered into first one ear, and then the other, and the horse swung around and went out of sight, back to its guard.
When she turned, Ben Ata was standing just behind her, glaring.
‘I can see that it is true, what we have heard here. You are all witches in your country.’
‘It is a witchcraft easy to learn,’ she said, but as he continued to glare, her humour went, and now she crossed swiftly to the bed and, throwing down one of the big cushions, sat on it cross-legged. She had not thought that now he must do the same, or remain above her on the bed, but he was uncertain, seemed to feel challenged by her, and in his turn pulled a cushion off the bed, pushed it against a wall, and sat.
They sat opposite each other, on their two cushions.
She was at home, since this was how she usually seated herself, but he was uncomfortable, and seemed afraid to make any movement, in case the cushion slid about the polished floor.
‘Do you always wear clothes like that?’
‘I put this on especially for you,’ she countered, and he reddened again: since her arrival she had seen more angry, embarrassed men than ever in her life, and she was on the point of wondering if they had some disorder of the blood or the skin.
‘If I had known you were going to arrive like this I would have ordered dresses for you. How was I to know you’d turn up like a servant?’
‘Ben Ata, I never wear elaborate clothes.’
He was eyeing the plain looseness of her robe with annoyance and exasperation.
‘I thought you were supposed to be the queen.’
‘You cannot be distinguished from one of your own soldiers.’
Suddenly he bared his teeth in a grin, and muttered something that she understood meant: ‘Take the thing off, and I’ll show you.’
She knew he was angry, but not how much. On their campaigns, when the army reached new territory, into his tent would be thrust some girl, or she was thrown down at his feet. She would nearly always be crying. Or she might be hissing and spitting. She might bite and scratch as he entered her. She could weep throughout and not cease weeping. A few gritted their teeth, and their loathing of him did not abate. He was not a man who enjoyed inflicting suffering, so these he would order to be returned to their homes. But those who wept or who struggled in a way he recognized he did enjoy, and would tame them, slowly. These were the conventions. These he obeyed. He had penetrated, and often impregnated, women all over his realm. But he had not married, he did not plan to marry, for the present arrangement did not come within his notions of marriage, about which he had the sentimental and high-flown ideas of a man ignorant of women. This woman with whom he was to be afflicted almost indefinitely, at least at intervals, was something outside his experience.
Everything about her disturbed him. She was not un-beautiful, with her dark eyes, dark hair, and the rest of the usual appurtenances, but there was nothing in her that set out to challenge him physically, and so he was cold.
‘How long am I supposed to stay with you?’ she enquired next, in exactly the cut-and-dried way he now—dismally— expected of her.
‘They said, a few days.’
There was a long silence. The great pleasant room was full of water sounds, and watery reflections from the pools and fountains.
‘How do you do it in your country?’ he enquired, knowing this was clumsy but not able to think of anything else.
‘Do what?’
‘Well, we hear you have a lot of children, for a start.’
‘I have five of my own. But I am the mother of many. More than fifty.’
She could see that everything she said put greater distance between them.
‘It is our custom, if a child is left an orphan, that I should become its mother.’
‘Adopt it.’
‘It is not one of our words. I become its mother.’
‘I suppose you feel about them exactly as you do about your own,’ he said, and this was a mimicry. But of something she had not said.
‘No, I did not say that. Besides, fifty children are rather more than one can keep very close to.’
‘Then how are they your children?’
‘They all have the same rights. And I spend the same time with each of them, as I am able.’
‘It’s not my idea of a mother for my children.’
‘Is that what is expected of us, you think?’
This infuriated him! He had not thought very much at all about this appalling, affronting imposition, he had been too emotional. But at the least he had supposed that there would be children ‘to cement the alliance’ — or something of that sort.
‘Well, what else? What did you have in mind? Amorous dalliance once every few weeks? You!’ And he snorted out his disgust with her.
She was trying not to look at him too closely. She had seen that a close steady look — which was her way—discomfited him. And besides, he appealed to her less than she did to him. She found this great soldier gross, with his heavy overheated flesh, his hot, resentful eyes, his rough sun-bleached hair which reminded her of the fleeces of a much prized breed of sheep that flourished on a certain mountain.
‘There’s more to mating than children,’ she observed.
And the commonsensicalness of this caused him to groan out loud and strike his fists hard on the floor beside him.
‘Well, if so, one wouldn’t think you knew much about that.’
‘Indeed,’ she retorted. ‘But in fact it is one of the skills of our Zone.’
‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Oh, no, no, no, no.’ And he sprang up and went striding about the room, beating the delicate walls with his fists.
She, still cross-legged on her cushion, watched him, interested, as she would have done some strange new species.
He stopped. He seemed to make an effort. Then he turned, teeth gritted, strode across to her, picked her up, and threw her on the couch. He put his hand across her mouth in the approved way, twitched up her dress, fingered himself to see if he was up to it, thrust himself into her, and accomplished his task in half a dozen swift movements.
He then straightened himself, for he had not removed his feet from the floor during this process and, already embarrassed, showed his feeling that all was not right by a gesture of concern most unusual in him: he twitched her dress down again and removed his hand from her mouth quite gently.
She was lying there looking up at him quite blank. Amazed. She was not weeping. Nor scratching. Nor calling him names. Nor showing the cold relentless repulsion that he dreaded to see in his women. Nothing. It occurred to him that she was interested in a totally unsuspected phenomenon.
‘Oh, you,’ he groaned out, between his teeth, ‘how did I get saddled with you.’
At which she suddenly let out a snort of something that was unmistakably amusement. She sat up. She swung her legs down over the couch, then she all at once burst into swift tears that shook her shoulders quite soundlessly, and then, just as suddenly, she stopped crying, and crept to her cushion, where she sat with her back to the wall, staring at him.
