He made an impatient gesture to one of his men, who went away, came back with a cloth and began binding up the wound with intent detachment, like a servant waiting at table.
"Where have you come from and who's upstream?" said the captain. "How many?"
"I'll answer you," replied Zen-Kurel firmly, "when you've told me who you are. Are you for Erketlis or the Leopards, or neither?"
"Look, if necessary we can torture you-"
"I know that. But you say you're in a hurry, so it'll be
quicker to answer me. Are you for Erketlis or Kembri?"
"Why, they're from Sarkid!" said Meris suddenly. "Look at their corn sheaves!" She pointed.
The soldiers' clothes were rough, torn and anything but uniform. Several, however, were wearing the corn-sheaves emblem of Sarkid.
"We're with Elleroth of Sarkid," said the captain shortly. "Will that satisfy you?"
"Indeed it will," said Bayub-Otal, speaking for the first time. "In that case, you will be glad to know that my name is-"
"I'm not interested in your names," interrupted the captain. "I want to know who's upstream? How many and how close?"
"There's no armed force at all upstream," replied Zen-Kurel. "The forest's empty and as far as I know there's nothing between you and Bekla."
This plainly had a considerable effect on the soldiers standing round. There was a buzz of talk and some of the men began calling to others further off.
"Well, at that rate what were you trying to get away from? Must've been something pretty bad to make you risk that." He jerked his thumb towards the falls.
"I was about to tell you who I am." Bayub-Otal spoke with icy dignity. "I am Anda-Nokomis, son of the High Baron of Urtah, and Ban of Suba."
"Anda-Nofcomis? Are you sure?"
Maia could not restrain a slightly hysterical gurgle of laughter. The captain looked round at her angrily, then turned back to Bayub-Otal.
"I heard you were dead."
"Then you heard wrong."
By this time both Bayub-Otal and Zen-Kurel, soaking wet and dressed in torn sacking, had evidently begun to strike the captain as people of rather more weight than he had originally supposed.
"Well, I'm sorry, my lord; only the times are every which way just now, that's it, and you must admit you don't look like the Ban of Suba, now do you? Put yourself in my position. We're the pioneer group of Lord Elleroth's company, across the Zhairgen on our own. We don't know the first thing about the forest ahead, the whereabouts of the Leopard army or anything else. We're just clearing the bank when suddenly you come floating down like a lot of
blasted turtles. What am I supposed to do-guess who you are or just salute you on sight?"
Maia laughed again. She was beginning to like this man.
"For all I know you could be reconnoitring, couldn't you?"
"Do people generally go reconnoitring unarmed," said Zen-Kurel, "and take a couple of girls with them?"
"Leopards? They never go anywhere without girls, I'm told. Shearnas on the blasted battlefield, that's it-"
"We're not Leopards, curse you!" cried Zirek suddenly. "I'm the chap as killed Sencho-me and this girl here. Santil knows me well enough."
At this there was another buzz of excitement among the soldiers. They were crowding round so closely now that Maia, still sitting on the ground at their feet, was beginning to feel shut in and oppressed.
"Captain," she said, "could we go somewhere less crowded? This is making me feel btd."
He stared at her, apparently surprised at a girl speaking up for herself at all. After a moment he looked at Bayub-Otal, who nodded.
"Everyone back to work!" shouted the captain. "Go and get on with what you were doing! You'd better stay here with us," he added to Tolis.
The men dispersed. Maia now saw that what they were engaged in doing was felling the saplings and undergrowth along the bank. Downstream of the falls a narrow, recently-cleared track wound away out of sight.
"You were lucky," said the captain to Bayub-Otal. "If you'd come down an hour earlier you wouldn't have found us above the falls."
"But how is it we didn't see your men on the bank?" he asked.
"The men were taking a break under the trees. We heard you shouting. Now look," he went on, "Elleroth will certainly want to see you and I shall have to make a report to him. Tell me how you come to be here."
Bayub-Otal proceeded to do so. Mollo and Tolis listened attentively.
"Well, you'd better take them back to camp, Tolis," said Mollo at length. "Tell Elleroth I'll be back myself before sunset." And thereupon he walked away to where the men had resumed work.
"Is it far?" asked Maia apprehensively, as Tolis began
conducting them downstream. She felt almost too tired to take a step.
He shook his head. "Less than a mile: just across the Zhairgen. We've got a raft on ropes. It'll carry away in the rains, of course, but it's all right for now."
The path Mollo's men had cleared was narrow, but the job had been done very thoroughly and it was easy walking. As they went on in single file, the sound of the falls gradually receding behind them, Tolis asked over his shoulder, "Have any of you met Elleroth before?" As no one answered, he said "No?"
"What's he like, then?" asked Zirek. '
"Well, obviously we all like him," answered Tolis, "or we wouldn't be here. But he may not be quite what you're expecting." He laughed. "You'll be all right, though."
With this enigmatic remark he continued on their way.
Maia noticed a flask attached to his belt. She touched his shoulder.
"Can I ask you what's in that?"
"Djebbah," he answered. "D'you want some?"
"No, but that cut on Captain Zen-Kurel's leg ought to be cleaned. Could turn nasty else."
Zen-Kurel tried to demur, but Bayub-Otal was emphatic in supporting Maia. "Of course it must be cleaned. River water at this time of year. Any Suban could tell you that."
It was not lost upon Maia that that included her-and that he must have meant it to.
Tolis gave her the flask. Taking out the stopper, she turned to Zen-Kurel.
"It'll sting."
He nodded indifferently. She gripped his thigh with one hand, untied the cloth and began cleaning the wound with one corner, remembering as she did so the last time she had touched his body. Looking up, she met his eye for an instant and felt herself coloring. Was he thinking the same?
"I'm going to tie it a little tighter."
"Thank you. That feels much more comfortable."
They went on. Evening was beginning to fall, but in the forest the air remained humid and close. After a little she smelt wood-smoke and could hear through the trees a distant, multiform hum and murmur. A few minutes later they came out on the north bank of the Zhairgen at its confluence with the Daub's. Now, at low water before the rains, the two rivers mingled with scarcely a ripple, shrun-
ken between their banks; the Zhairgen, perhaps forty yards wide, flowing darkly here under the trees, but on the opposite side-the open bank beyond the forest-tinged with the light of the westering sun.
It was at this open bank that Maia stared. She remembered the soldiers' camps at Melvda-Rain. What she was looking at now appeared less like a camp than a sort of village. She could see women tending fires, girls carrying water-jars and children running about shouting and playing. Over an area of perhaps three or four acres the scrub bordering the bank had been cut down and the ground cleared. Shelters of poles and straw thatch stood in neat rows. Stacks of wood had been piled at intervals and near these, away from the huts, cooking fires were burning under pots hung over dug-out trenches. From a tall mast in the center of the camp a banner-three corn-sheaves on a blue ground-hung drooping in the still air.