"No, honesty Tharrin, it hurts! Look, does it show?" And, still lying under the net, she turned her face towards the light, pulling down her lower eyelid as the water ran down her cheek.
"I'm sorry, Maia fish! Oh, I didn't mean to hurt you! Here, let me kiss it better."
He took her head, wrapped in the net, between his hands and kissed her eyelid through the mesh.
"Want to come out, pretty fish? Ask nicely!"
She pouted. "I'm not bothered. I'll come out when I please!"
"Well, I'm in no hurry either, come to that." And with this he pulled aside the fold, lay down beside her and drew it back over both of them.
"You've caught me too, you know, golden Maia. Look, here's something nice. I brought it specially for you."
Fumbling a moment, he held out to her a lump of something brown and glistening, about half as big as his fist. At the smell, at once sweet and nutty-sharp, she began to salivate once more.
"Go on; try it! You'll like it. Look!" He bit off a piece and lay nibbling, crackling the brittle stuff between his teeth.
Maia copied him. The taste was delicious, filling her mouth and throat, suffusing her with the luxury of its sweetness. With closed eyes she bit, chewed, swallowed and bit again, her smarting eye quite forgotten.
"M'mm! Oh, it's gorgeous, Tharrin! What is it?"
"Nut thrilsa. Nuts baked in honey and butter."
"But these aren't ordinary nuts. Where do they come from? Oh, do give me some more!"
"No, these are serrardoes. The black traders bring them to Ikat from heaven knows where-far away to the south. Want some more?"
"Yes! Yes!"
"Come and get it, then!" Very deliberately, and holding her gaze, he put a piece lightly between his front teeth, then took each of her hands in one of his own, fingers interlocked, and held them back against the net.
Slowly, realizing what he meant and why he had done it, Maia raised her head and placed her mouth against his. His arms came gently round her shoulders, clasping her to him, and as she drew the sweetmeat into her mouth his tongue followed it, licking and caressing. She offered no resistance, only breathing hard and trembling.
Releasing her, he smiled into her eyes. "Was that nice, too?"
"I don't-I don't know!"
"And this?" He slid his hand beneath her torn dress, fondling one breast.
"Oh, you shoudn't; don't!" But her hands made no move to pluck his away.
Pressing himself against her from head to foot, lithe and strong, he once more took her hand and drew it downward between his legs.
And now indeed she cried out in earnest, suddenly realizing what before she had only half understood. Feeling, with a kind of panic, what he had meant her to feel, she thought-like a young soldier for the first time face to face with the enemy-"This isn't a game any more-this is what really happens-and it's happening to me." For long moments she lay tense in his arms; yet she did not struggle.
Suddenly her body felt full and smooth and sufficient- like a new boat pushed down into the water. It was as
though she were standing back, regarding it with satisfaction. It was sound: it floated. Her body, her beautiful body, which could swim miles in the lake-her body would take care of everything. She had only to allow it to do what it had been created for. Sighing, she pressed herself against Tharrin and waited, shuddering as he caressed her.
The moment he entered her, Maia was filled from head to foot with a complete, assenting knowledge that this was what she had been born for. All her previous, childish life seemed to fall away beneath her like broken fragments of shell from the kernel of a cracked nut. Tharrin's weight upon her, Tharrin's thrusting, his arms about her, were like the opening of a pair of great, bronze doors to disclose some awesome and marvelous treasure within. Only, she herself was at one and the same time the doors, the portress and the treasure. Catching her breath, moaning, struggling not against but with him, as though they had both been hauling on a sail, she clutched him about, crying incoher-ently,"Oh, don't-don't-"
At this, he held back for a moment.
"Don't what, my darling?"
"Don't stopl Oh, Cran and Airtha, don't stop!"
Laughing with delight, he took her once more in a close embrace and entirely at her word.
When she came to herself she was lying in the net and he was smiling down at her.
"I've landed my fish! It is a beauty! Don't you agree?"
She answered nothing; only panting up at him, a child caught at the end of some hide-and-seek game.
"Are you all right, pretty Maia?"
She nodded. The unshed tears in her blue eyes made them seem even bigger.
"Like some more thrilsa?" He put a piece to her lips: she bit into it with relish.
"You like that?"
"Oh, it's simply lovely! I've never had it before!"
He roared with laughter. "What are you talking about- thrilsa?"
Realizing what she had said, Maia laughed too.
"Tharrin, did you mean to come and do this when you told me to mend the net?"
"No, not just like that, fish: but I've wanted to do it for a long time. You didn't know?"
"Well-p'raps I did, really. Leastways, I c'n see it now."
"Yes, you can see it now. There!"
She bit her lip, looking away.
"Never seen a man's zard before, pretty girl? Come on, you're a woman now!"
"It's soft, and-and smaller. Oh, Tharrin, I've just remembered-" and since it never occurred to Maia to think of the words of a song separately from their tune, she sang " 'Seek, daughter, that horn of plenty with which men butt'-that's what that means, then?"
"Yes, of course. If you didn't know, where did you learn that song?"
"I was with mother one day in Meerzat. It was that hot in the market and I got a headache. She told me to wait for her with the tavern-keeper's wife at "The Safe Moorings'-you know, Frarnli, the big woman with the cast in her eye."
"I know."
"Frarnli let me lie down on her bed. There was men drinking and singing in the next room: I just thought it was a pretty song. I remembered the tune and some of the words and what I couldn't remember later I made up: but I never knew what it meant. When mother heard me singin' it she got angry and said I wasn't to sing it n' more."
"I'm not surprised."
"So I used to sing it out on the waterfall, by myself. Oh, Tharrin, Tharrin! Look! Blood! What's happened?"
"Out of your tairth? That's nothing. That's only the first time. Just wash it off in the lake, that's all."
"My-what did you say?-tairth?"
Gently, he touched her. "That's your tairth. And you've been basted-you know that word, don't you?"
"Oh, yes; I've heard the drovers saying that. 'Get that damned cow through the basting gate'-you know how they talk."
"Yes, I know, but I don't like to use it for swearing. Love-words shouldn't be used like that, fish."
"I'm your fish now. What sort of fish am I?"
He paused, considering. "A carp. Yes, round and golden. I must say, you're a fine girl for your age, Maia. You're really lovely-do you know that? I mean, anyone, anywhere, would think you were lovely-in Ikat or Thettit- or Bekla, come to that: though I've never been to Bekla. You're just about the prettiest girl I've ever seen in my life. Lespa can't be more beautiful than you are."
She made no reply, lying easy in the delicious warmth of the sun, feeling the cords and knots of the net all about her. She felt content.
After a time he said, "Come on, let's take the boat out now. After all, we'd better have a few fish to show when Morca gets back, don't you think?"
He got to his feet, stretched out a hand and pulled her up.
"Maia?"
"M'm-h'm?"