‘I want you badly, every day, Oyre. You want me too, don’t you?’
She looked at him and said, ‘Yes, yes, Laintal Ay, I wanted you. But I cannot be your woman.’
He felt the ground tremble under him.
‘What do you mean?’
She seemed to hesitate, then she leaned towards him. When he automatically reached for her, she pulled herself away, tucked her breasts into her tunic, and said, ‘I love you, Laintal Ay, but I am not going to become your woman.
‘I always suspected that the academy was just a diversion — a consolation for silly women like Amin Lim. Now the weather’s fine, it has fallen apart. To be honest, only Vry and Shay Tal care about it — and possibly old Master Datnil. Yet I value Shay Tal’s example of independence, and imitate it. Shay Tal will not submit to my father — though I expect she desires him madly, as everyone does — and I follow her example: if I become your possession, I become nothing.’
He scrambled up on his knees, looking wretched. ‘Not so, not so. You’ll be — everything, Oyre, everything. We’re nothing without each other.’
‘For a few weeks, yes.’
‘What do you expect?’
‘What do I expect…’ Her eyes rolled upwards, and she sighed. She smoothed back her still damp hair and looked away, at the young bushes, at the sky, at the birds. ‘It’s not that I have such a high regard for myself. I can do so little. By remaining independent like Shay Tal, perhaps I can achieve something.’
‘Don’t talk that way. You need someone to protect you. Shay Tal, Vry — they’re not happy. Shay Tal never laughs, does she? Besides, she’s old. I’d look after you and make you happy. I want nothing better.’
She was buttoning up her tunic, looking down at the toggles which she herself had designed (to the tailor’s amazement), so that the skins could be put on and off without trouble.
‘Oh, Laintal Ay, I’m so difficult. I have difficulty with myself. I don’t really know what I want. I long to dissolve and flow like this wonderful water. Who knows where it comes from, where it goes to? — from the very eddre of earth, maybe… I do love you, though, in my horrid way. Listen, we’ll have an arrangement.’
She stopped fiddling with her tunic and came to stand looking down at him, hands on her hips.
‘Do something great and astonishing, one thing, one deed, and I’ll be your woman for ever. You understand that? A great deed, Laintal Ay — a great deed and I’m yours. I’ll do whatever you wish.’
He got up and stood away from her, surveying her. ‘A great deed? What sort of great deed do you mean? By the original boulder, Oyre, you are a strange girl.’
She tossed her damp hair. ‘If I told you, then it would no longer be great. Do you understand that? Besides, I don’t know what I mean. Strive, strive… You’re getting fat already, as if you were pregnant…’
He stood without moving, his face hard. ‘How is it that when I tell you I love you you insult me in return?’
‘You tell me truth — I hope; I tell you truth. But I don’t mean to hurt you. Really I’m gentle. You just released things in me, things I’ve said to no one else. I long for… no, I can’t say what the longings are for… glory. Do something great, Laintal Ay, I beg you, something great, before we grow too old.’
‘Like killing phagors?’
Suddenly she laughed on rather a harsh note, narrowing her eyes. For a moment, her resemblance to Aoz Roon was marked. ‘If that’s all you can think of. Provided you kill a million of them.’
He looked baffled.
‘So you imagine you’re worth a million phagors?’
Oyre pretended to smite herself hard on the forehead, as if her harneys had come loose. ‘It’s not for me, don’t you see? It’s for yourself. Achieve one great thing for your own sake. Here we’re stuck in what Shay Tal says is a farmyard — at least make it a legendary farmyard.’
The ground trembled again. ‘Scumble,’ he said. ‘The earth really is moving.’
They stood up, shaken out of their argument, ignoring each other. A bronze overcast spread from the aerial castles, which now took on purple hearts and yellow edges. The heat became intense, and they stood in the midst of an oppressive silence, backs to each other, looking about.
A repeated smacking sound made them turn towards the pool. Its surface was marred by yellow bubbles which rose and grew until they burst, to spread filth through the hitherto clear water. The bubbles sailed up from the depths, releasing a stink of rotten eggs, coming faster and blacker. Thick mist filled the hollow.
A jet of mud burst from the pool and sprayed into the air. Gobbets of scalding filth flew, pocking the foliage all about. The humans ran in terror, she in her garb the colour of summer skies.
Within a minute of their leaving, the pool was a mass of black seething liquid.
Before they could get back to Oldorando, the skies opened, and down came the rain, grey, and chilling to the flesh.
As they climbed into the big tower, voices could be heard overhead, Aoz Roon’s prominent among them. He had just arrived back with allies of his own generation, Tanth Ein, Faralin Ferd, and Eline Tal, all sturdy warriors and good hunters; with them were their women, exclaiming over new hoxney skins, and Dol Sakil, who sat sulkily apart on the window sill, regardless of the rain beating down. Also in the room was Raynil Layan, his skins perfectly dry; he fingered his forked beard and looked anxiously back and forth, without either speaking or being spoken to.
Aoz Roon spared his natural daughter no more than a look before saying challengingly to Laintal Ay, ‘You’ve been missing again.’
‘For a while, yes. I’m sorry. I was inspecting the defences. I—’
Aoz Roon laughed curtly and looked at his companions as he said, ‘When you enter in that state, with Oyre with her fancy garb unlaced, I know you have been inspecting something other than the defences. Don’t lie to me, you young fighting cock!’
The other men laughed. Laintal Ay went crimson.
‘I’m no liar. I went to inspect our defences — but we have no defences. There are no sentries, no guards, while you were lying drinking in the wilderness. Oldorando could fall to one single armed Borlienian. We’re taking life too easy, and you set a poor example.’
He felt Oyre’s steadying hand on his arm.
‘He spends little time here now,’ Dol called, in a teasing voice, but was ignored, for Aoz Roon had turned to his other companions and said, ‘You see what I have to endure from my lieutenants, so-called. Always impudence. Oldorando is now concealed and protected by green, growing higher every week. When the warlike weather returns, as return it will, that will be time enough for war. You’re trying to make trouble, Laintal Ay.’
‘Not so. I’m trying to prevent it.’
Aoz Roon walked forward and confronted him, his immense black figure towering over the youth.
‘Then keep quiet. And don’t lecture me.’
Above the noise of the downpour, cries could be heard outside. Dol turned to stare out of the window and called that someone was in trouble. Oyre ran to join her.
‘Stand back,’ Aoz Roon shouted, but the three older women also jostled to get close to the window. The room became even darker.
‘We’ll go and see what’s happening,’ Tanth Ein said. He started down the stairs, his great shoulders almost blocking the trap as he descended, with Faralin Ferd and Eline Tal after him. Raynil Layan remained in the shadows, watching them go. Aoz Roon made as if to stop them, then stood indecisively in the middle of the dull room, regarded only by Laintal Ay.
The latter came forward and said, ‘My temper ran away with me; you shouldn’t have called me a liar. Don’t let that mean that my warning goes unheeded. Our responsibility is to keep the place guarded as we used to.’