"Too strong for you, is it?" laughed the man. "Not had any the like of that before, eh? Like it when you're older, when you're older, that's it."
"I like it now!" retorted Maia indignantly.
With this she finished the wine, swallowing with an effort which she did her best to conceal. Then, standing up, she led the way across to the door.
The tall man followed her closely, stooping under the lintel as he came out. The leaves hung unmoving in the hot, noonday air and the lake, level to the horizon, reflected a cloudless sky. The birds had fallen silent. Even the oxen under the trees seemed to have ceased their restless stamping and tossing. The stillness was so deep that Maia's ears could just catch, far off, the sound of the falls. I'll go down there and cool off this afternoon, she thought. Where's Kelsi and Nala got to, anyway? Reckon it must
be well past dinner-time. Like to see the dresses, though.
Crossing the waste patch, she caught her foot in a tangle of bindweed, stumbled and almost fell. Recovering herself, she realized that she was feeling dizzy. That wine had certainly gone to her head. She wished the dealers had not come while Tharrin was away. The sandy-haired man had quite upset her with his wretched fidgeting and pawing. Still, I suppose I'll have to learn, now, how to deal with that sort of nonsense, she thought. Bound to come across the likes of him now and again, I dare say.
Coming up to the cart she swayed, closing her eyes and biting on her thumb to bring herself round. Unspeaking, the tall man lifted her bodily, turned her round and sat her down on the iron step below the cart door.
The sycamore leaves had become a green, mottled blur flowing up and over her head. She tried shutting her eyes, but at once opened them again, sickened by the sensation of turning a kind of floating somersault.
"I'm-I'm-trying to-" she said gravely to the sandy-haired man, who had taken the padlock out of the staple and was opening the door. She bent forward, head between her knees, and as she did so the door swung outwards behind her, its corner just brushing her left shoulder.
"All right, Perdan?" said the sandy-haired man. The other nodded and pulled Maia to her feet.
"Right, miss," said the sandy-haired man. "Now you just have a look, have a look inside now, and tell us what you can see. Out loud, now, so's we can all hear."
Maia, finding herself facing the cart, stared into the sliding, trickling gloom of its interior. She could see nothing- neither dresses nor anything else. The oblong space, insofar as she was capable of perceiving it, looked completely empty. She began to speak, but then found that for some reason she could only do so very slowly, word by word.
"I-come-over-funny," she said. "Want-mother- tell-her-"
As her surroundings misted and dissolved, she felt herself lifted once more and pushed forward supine into the long, narrow body of the cart. Before the door had shut upon her she was already lying senseless, stretched full length on the floor.
5: A JOURNEY
Just as light before dawn increases gradually and without, at first, any obvious source, so that it is impossible to tell the precise instant at which darkness has ceased and daylight begun, so Maia's consciousness returned. In the midst of a confused dream she became sensible first of discomfort and then of a continuous, afflictive motion from which there was no relief. As though in a fever she tossed and turned, trying but failing to be comfortable. Little by little she became aware that she was awake. Her body, from head to foot, was being jolted and shaken, not roughly but without pause. Next, through another gate of her senses, came a fusty, mucid smell, not strong but pervasive. And at last, like a terrible sunrise completing the destruction of twilight, came the recollection of the men, the cart and her own fainting-fit. Immediately she opened her eyes, sat up and looked about her.
For a few moments she could neither focus her sight nor make any sense of what little she could see. Then she realized that she was sitting on a soft, padded surface-as soft as her own bed or softer. The place she found herself in was like a little, oblong cell, perhaps seven feet long and about two or three feet wide and high. It was dim, for the only openings were two slits, one on either side, immediately below the roof. The whole interior-all six surfaces-was covered with a kind of coarse quilting. It was from this that the musty smell came. Here and there the quilting was torn and tufts of coarse hair protruded like stuffing from a burst mattress.
The whole kennel was in continual movement, gently bumping and swaying, with now and then a sharper jolt; and with this went a creaking, trundling sound. There could be no doubt where she was. She was inside the strange cart, which was going slowly but steadily along.
Her head ached, her mouth was dry and she felt frowzy and sweaty. What had happened after she had fainted? Why wasn't she at home? All of a sudden the answer occurred to her. Her mother must have been so keen for her to take the wonderful job and make the family's fortune that rather than lose the opportunity she had sent her off with the dress-dealers then and there. The more she thought about this, the more stupid she felt her mother
had been; and she would tell her so, too, the moment she got back. To let her be driven away in a closed cart, without her tidy clothes (such as they were), without her own agreement and without telling her where she was going or when she'd be coming back; probably spoiling the bargain, too (whatever it might be), by showing such eagerness to clinch it at any price! Maia fairly gritted her teeth with annoyance. Tharrin should hear all about it the moment he came home-which was where she herself must set about returning immediately, even if she had to walk every step of the way. Where was she, anyway? On the Meerzat road, presumably, which she would therefore, by nightfall, have covered four times that day.
Turning on her stomach, she thumped her fist on the quilting in front of her, shouting "Stop! Stop at once!" There was no reply and no alteration of the slow, uneven movement. Quickly she turned head-to-tail and pushed hard on the door at the back. It gave a fraction before being checked against the padlock and staple. She was locked in.
No sooner had Maia grasped this than she flung herself once more at the front of the quilted box, battering and shouting in a frenzy. When at length she paused for breath she became aware that the cart had stopped. There followed the click and squeak of the opening padlock and a moment later the door swung open to reveal the tall man peering in at her.
With a keen sense of her tousled, undignified appearance, Maia slid forward, lowered her feet to the ground and stood up.
It was early evening; the air was cooling and the sun sinking behind the trees. They were halted on the edge of a dusty, rutted track. The bullocks, having pulled the cart at an angle to the verge, were cropping the dry grass and heat-withered flowers. On her left was a belt of trees, on her right a few fields among wasteland stretching away to the lake in the distance. This was nowhere she knew. The cart was pointing southward, certainly, but the road and surroundings were strange to her. They must, therefore, now be beyond Meerzat and further along the shore of the lake than she had ever been.
Turning to face the tall man, she saw that he was holding in one hand a kind of thin, leather leash, like those used for hounds. He rather resembled a large, unpredictable
hound himself, she thought: though there was nothing amusing in the comparison. His scowling silence was frightening but, as with a hound, it was important not to show fear.
"There's been a mistake," she said. "I don't know what my mother's told you, but I can't go with you now, or start the work yet. I never said as I would, you know. You'll just have to take me back home."
The man snapped his fingers and pointed into the back of the cart.
"Well, if you won't take me back," said Maia, "reckon I'll just have to walk back myself."