She had ridden for several more weeks with them, always watched, but treated well enough. She had learned to speak batwah then, she said, and was soon able to talk to the other women, who were not unkind, though making it plain that she was not on their social level. But she was not beaten or raped, and was allowed cloth to wear and given a riding kaw, though it was led by another.
They had crossed several wide expanses of open grassland, and once had avoided what they said was one of the deserts of The Death. One day they came to the Inland Sea, of which Luchare had only heard vague legends, and there found a walled harbor town and many ships, traders and merchants, inns and market places. Quite a large permanent population lived there, some of them farming the fertile land on the port’s outskirts and selling grain and produce to the passing ships and caravans. There were people of all skin, colors, including both whites, dark browns, like her own, and the traders, most of whom looked more like Hiero than anything else. She even saw some battered-looking churches, though none of the traders she saw were Christians, and she was not allowed to go near the buildings or speak to a priest. She thought she had seen only one at a distance.
The town was called Neeyana and was said to be very old. Luchare did not much care for it. The people were apt to be sullen, and she saw faces in the shadows which reminded her of the Unclean wizard. The Unclean were not ever mentioned there, except under one’s breath and after looking over one’s shoulder first. She had the feeling that somehow the Unclean were in the town, woven into its fabric in some evil way, so that they both tolerated it and influenced it at the same time. The girl found this difficult to explain, but Hiero thought he caught her meaning. It was obvious that just as the Eleveners’ order extended far beyond his previous conception of their scope, so too did the power of the enemy.
Luchare had been sold, after several weeks in guarded seclusion, to yet another merchant, a man who was embarking on a ship with his company and his trade goods.
He had also had her well guarded, apparently also appraising her maidenhood at a high price, which made the Metz smile inwardly. What on earth was so valuable to these strange southerners about female virginity? he wondered.
She had never been on anything larger than a rowboat or canoe before, Luchare went on. The ship had great, pointed sails and seemed immense to her, But a storm came up after three days’ fast, smooth sailing, and there was a wreck. The ship was driven on to a small island of rocky precipices and cliffs at night. The following morning they had been discovered by a white, savage tribe who came out in canoes, the same ones from whom Hiero had rescued her. They seemed friendly enough to the merchants, and their chief priest had had a conference alone with the shipmaster. But in return for saving the traders and their goods, such as were not lost or ruined, they had wanted Luchare, whose skin color they had never before glimpsed, to sacrifice to the huge birds they worshipped.
“The traders agreed, the dirty lice,” Luchare said. “They even came and watched. Did you see them, all sitting on one end? They were dressed a bit like you, but had hats.” And the following afternoon, she had been stripped and tied to the stake where the priest had first seen her, while the flock had come from afar, drawn by the summons of the tall drums. Those drums, which Hiero had heard the previous day, had heralded the previous death of a male prisoner, a captive from another tribe down the coast.
Exhausted suddenly as the events of the last few days caught up with her, and with her tale finally done, Luchare fought to stay awake. Hiero got up and gave her a blanket and a spare coat of his own from the saddlebags. She smiled drowsily in thanks, curled up, and was sound asleep in seconds, the sleep of healthy youth, able to shrug off worry in a matter of seconds. A faint buzzing noise from her pretty mouth, her rescuer decided, was altogether too feminine to qualify as a snore. What a beautiful thing she was, even with that weird hair, like bunches of great, loose springs!
Hiero realized at this point that he was yawning so continuously his mouth was unable to shut, and hastily gathering up the other blanket, he fell asleep, quite as quickly as had Luchare.
Outside the shelter of the tree, the big morse browsed under the stars, the warm, scented air bringing him many messages from far and near. Presently the bear emerged and touched noses with the bull, then turned and set off into the night on a hunting expedition of his own, while inside the tree’s shelter the two humans slept, knowing they were guarded.
In the morning, Hiero awoke with a start. A strange sound caught his subconscious and made him sit up and reach for his knife in one and the same movement.
But a second later he stopped the motion and grinned sheepishly. The sound was a soft voice singing a little tuneless song over and over, in a refrain that wavered up and down in an odd but pleasant way. It was enough like a lullaby in his own language for him to feel that it probably was one in Luchare’s too.
When he pushed the branches aside and squinted at the sun, he knew it was mid-morning. He had slept over ten hours and must have needed it. A few feet away, with her dark back to him, the girl sat sewing something, using his own repair and mending kit, which she had discovered in the pack. Her gentle singing masked his approach, and realizing this, he coughed politely.
Luchare looked up and smiled. “You’re a late sleeper, Per Hiero. See what I’ve made?” She stood up and, before he could say or do anything, had slipped off her ragged skirt. For a second she stood revealed, a slim, nude statue in polished mahogany, then slipped on the garment she had been working on. In another second she was laughing at him from a leather one-piece suit, with elbow-length sleeves and shorts that came to mid-thigh.
“Well,” he managed, “that’s very neat. My spare clothes, I gather.”
“Only part,” she answered. “I left you the extra pants and underthings, so this is only your other long leather shirt. You don’t mind, do you?” Her face grew long at the thought of disapproval.
“Not a bit. You’re a marvelous needlewoman. If I get any more holes in things, I’m going to have you fix them up for me.”
“I only learned, well—after I ran away. I’d never sewn anything before. It’s pretty good, isn’t it?” She pirouetted, arms held out, a pretty picture in. the sunlight. Behind her, the big morse looked on, blinking, and Gorm, as usual when there was nothing else to do, slept under a small bush.
The water he had not wanted to ford the previous night lay a hundred yards off. In the glare of the day, he could see it was nothing but a small bay, not a river mouth, and that they could walk around it in half an hour.
They ate a brief meal from the pack. The grouse even Gorm now disdained, and it was hurled away, but antelope steak, pemeekan, and biscuit were a whole lot better than nothing, and five of the great snapper eggs were yet unbroken in their packing. The bear and each human ate one. Then Hiero and the girl cleaned the saddlebags, washed out the squashed egg, and aired the rest of the contents. A little before noon, they were on their way again.
All the rest of the day, they followed the shore eastward. Occasionally, a rocky outcrop would make them turn inland, but they seldom deviated much from their course.
Hiero was pleased with his capture, though at intervals his mind would grapple with the gloomy realization that he had no idea what to do with her and that she was in no sense supposed to be a part of his mission. In fact, he thought in one of these moments of clarity, by distracting him, she was probably a positive danger! Still, she was from the very area to which he had been sent, she was a mine of information on the people, customs, and political makeup of her land, and besides—there was no obvious alternative!