He was unaccustomed to drinking wine, and by the time the Trinchil wagon appeared in the distance he had reached a state of lightheaded euphoria, an enhancement of the one he had known in the early part of the day. His first impulse was to go out and meet Sondeweere, but it was superseded by a playful desire to surprise her with a sudden appearance. He went to where the other farmers had parked, stationed himself between two of the tall vehicles and waited until the new arrivals had rolled to a halt close by. There were more than a dozen of the Trinchil family on the wagon, and the noise level in the area increased sharply as they spilled over its sides, the children vying with the adults in the calling out of greetings to friends. In spite of his bulk, Jop Trinchil was first to reach the ground. He strode off immediately towards the laden tables, obviously in a boisterous mood, leaving the women to supervise the unloading of infants and some small hampers.
Bartan was enchanted to see Sondeweere wearing her best dress, a pale green tailored garment with an olive filigree pattern, which complemented her fair coloration and reaffirmed his impression of her as being in a class apart from all the other women of the community. She was the last to quit the wagon, languorously rising to her feet in a kind of voluptuous slow-motion shimmy which set Bartan’s heart racing.
He was about to go forward when he saw that one of Jop’s sons—a precociously muscular seventeen-year-old named Glave—was waiting by the wagon with arms upraised to help Sondeweere descend. She smiled down at him and swung her legs over the side, permitting him to encircle her waist with his large hands. He took her weight easily and lowered her to the ground in a deliberate manner which brought their bodies close together. Sondeweere gave no sign of being offended. She allowed the intimate contact to continue for several seconds, all the while gazing into Glave’s eyes, then shook her head slightly. Glave released her immediately, said something Bartan was unable to hear and loped away in the wake of the rest of his family.
Annoyed, Bartan left his place of concealment and approached Sondeweere. “Welcome to the party,” he said, quite certain in his mind that she would be disconcerted to learn that she had been under observation.
“Bartan!” Smiling brilliantly, she ran to him, threw her arms around his waist and nuzzled against his chest. “It seems years since I’ve seen you.”
“Does it?” he said, refusing to return the embrace. “Haven’t you found a way to make the time pass quickly? And pleasantly at that?”
“Of course not!” Becoming aware of the rigidness of his body, she stepped back to look at him. “Bartan! What are you saying?”
“I saw you with Glave.”
Sondeweere’s jaw sagged for a moment before she began to laugh. “Bartan, Glave is just a boy! And he’s my cousin.”
“Full cousin? By blood?”
“That doesn’t come into it—you have no reason to be jealous.” Sondeweere raised her left hand and tapped the brakka ring on the sixth finger. “I wear this at all times, my love.”
“That doesn’t prove…” Bartan’s throat closed painfully, preventing him from finishing the sentence.
“Why are we behaving like strangers?” Sondeweere fixed Bartan with a soft but purposeful stare and embraced him again, this time putting her arms around his neck and drawing his face down to meet hers. He had never been to bed with her, but before the kiss was over he had a fair idea of what the experience would be like and all thoughts of rivalry, or indeed of anything, had flown from his mind. He responded hungrily until she had broken away from him.
“Labouring in the field is making you very strong,” she whispered. “I see I will have to be careful with you and grow a plentiful crop of maidenfriend.”
Flattered and uplifted, he said, “Don’t you want to have children?”
“Lots of them, but not too soon—we have much work to do first.”
“We’ll have no talk of work for the remainder of the day.” Bartan linked arms with Sondeweere and drew her away from the farm buildings towards the sunlit peacefulness of the open land, where crops in different stages of maturation glowed in strips which narrowed into the distance. They walked together for a good hour, enjoying each other’s presence, passing the time with lovers’ Smalltalk and counting the meteors which occasionally scribed silver lines across the sky. Bartan would have liked to keep Sondeweere to himself until nightfall, but he gave in with good grace when she decided to return to the others for the start of the dancing.
By the time they had reached the main farmhouse Bartan was thirsty. Feeling it would be prudent not to have more wine, he joined the men clustered around the ale barrels in search of a less heady brew. He fended off the expected ribaldry about what he had been doing while absent with Sondeweere, and emerged from the group with a heavy pot of ale in his hand. Three fiddlers had begun to play in the shade of the barn and several young women—Sondeweere among them—had joined hands and were opening the first of the set dances.
Bartan looked on in a mood of utter contentment, taking small but regular sips of his drink, as some male farmers overcame their self-consciousness and gradually swelled the ranks of the dancers. He finished his ale, set the pot on a nearby table, and had taken one step towards Sondeweere when his attention was caught by a group of small children at play on a grassy patch near the kitchen orchard. All were aged about three or four and were moving in a circle, silently absorbed, performing a dance of their own to a slower rhythm than that of the adults’ music. Their chins were tucked down into hunched right shoulders, and their right arms were extended in front, gently wafting and undulating like so many snakes.
The movements were strangely inhuman, strangely unappealing—and exactly simulated those with which Ennda Phoratere had acted out the obscene horrors of her nightmare.
Bartan turned away from the children, frowning, suddenly feeling isolated from the merriment and innocence of his neighbours.
PART II
The Cold Arena
Chapter 6
As they walked to the palace’s principal entrance Gesalla Maraquine talked continuously about domestic trivia—a tactic which Toller found more baffling and infuriating than if she had chosen to maintain a cold silence.
He had not been able to return home in the twelve days which had elapsed since the visitation by the skyship from Land, and consequently had been pleased when Gesalla had ridden up from the estate to spend the night with him. But her stay had provided none of the comforts for which he had hoped. She had arrived in a strange mood, enigmatic and slightly distant, and on learning that he had insisted on going aloft with the first fortress had become positively acidic. Later, in bed, she had responded to his advances with a dull compliance which was more hurtful than outright rejection and which had caused him to abandon all thoughts of lovemaking. He had lain apart from her all night, physically and mentally frustrated, and when he had lapsed into sleep there had been dreams of falling—not just of ordinary falling, but of the day-long drop from the weightless zone…