LITMIR.BIZ

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bough, the other with a double flute, and a soft, monotonous tune to play, something to fill the deeps of Erif’s mind while she was talking in the shallows. Round her were women, wives and daughters of the chief men in Marob, stiff and not very real in their hard, embroidered dresses, with the coloured cones on their heads, banded with gold and jewels. Yersha sat in a chair much like Erif’s; she had powder and paint thicker than usual to hide the black rings round her eyes and the slight shrivelling back of tired lips. It seemed also as if she were finding it hard to keep still, as if something was suddenly pricking her from time to time.

      Erif talked to the women and saw that the food and drink were plentiful, and graciously took and praised the small customary gifts they brought her, gay-coloured flowers made with waxed threads and silver wire and beads: because it was thought that this was a bad time of year for the Spring Queen, and she must be helped now, or she would not help Marob at Plowing Eve. While they were still eating it grew dark, and even when the lamps and torches were all alight, she could scarcely see down the table as far as Tarrik. She could not, at least, tell what he was talking about. He seemed excited, though, leaning forward, beating on the table, throwing himself back to laugh, open-mouthed. Sphaeros was close to him, little Sphaeros whom she half liked in spite of everything, and her father and brothers, all very fine and glittering. Once or twice Berris, who was nearest, had tried to catch her eye, but she always looked away in time. But if only she knew what they were talking about! This going away … She noticed, interestedly, that her heart was paining her, heaving suddenly outwards and then caught again, as if a hand were squeezing it. At first she thought that this must be someone else’s magic, and angrily set her own on guard. But it was only herself.

      At the end of the feast, as drink and talk and music began to break down the set pattern of behaviour in every one’s mind, the men and women moved about, laughing with each other, though nothing more, because it was the Chief’s house. Erif sat on in her chair, between the two girls, grimly, thinking that this way her father would have no chance of whispering. Sometimes she could hear Tarrik’s voice—she listened for it. He had got up, was walking about, kissing any of the girls he fancied, lightly and easily. She wondered whether she minded this or not; on the whole perhaps a little—a very little. It was the other thing she would mind: if he went really away so that she could not even see him!

      Berris came down the side of the hall, walking along the bench, just under the torches. The big room fitted itself together into a pattern, a criss-cross of yellow light in fat wedges, a layer of people’s heads, moving and tiny, a layer of glow, hardened here and there to torch or lamp, and a last, most beautiful layer of hollowness and faint shimmer, and the great cross-beams reaching up into darkness and the heavy night pressing on the roof tiles of the Chief’s house. The square heads of the men, the pointed heads of the women, ranged themselves exquisitely under his eyes; and there at the end was his sister, up in her big chair, pretending to be Spring Queen, with her white, smooth child’s forehead, and soft lips. He came towards her quietly and leant over her chair before she was aware of him. She was much more startled than she ought to have been; her eyes went narrow and then wide with fear. ‘It’s only me,’ said Berris; ‘I haven’t seen you—for days. Tell me, is it true Tarrik is going away?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ she said very softly, looking straight in front of her.

      ‘He was talking—and every one else—this evening. But he’s not sure. It’s as if he were doing it half against his will. Well, Erif, I suppose that’s you?’

      ‘Tell father what you like,’ she said. ‘Is he glad?’

      But Berris shook his head. ‘We do not talk of this now. I go my way by myself. Only—take care, Erif, I think father is doing without you now.’

      She turned her head quickly, the shadows shifting across her face. ‘Doing—what? Berris, who else is with him?’

      ‘Tarrik knows the Council better than I do,’ said Berris, low. Then: ‘I wonder if he is really going to Hellas—again.’

      ‘You would like to go with him, Berris.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And so would I,’ said Erif surprisingly. ‘I should like to know if it is really Epigethes or Sphaeros.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Berris again, ‘but you would hate not being able to magic them, Erif, whichever it was.’

      ‘Magic,’ she said, sitting there, still and small, ‘my magic! I can’t help myself. I can’t be sure what’s going to happen any more than you can when you start thinking of a golden beast.’

      ‘Can’t you?’ said Berris, very close to her. ‘I thought you had more power than mine.’

      Erif looked down and round; suddenly she saw Apphé standing quite near to the other side of the throne, her head cocked like a hunched bird over her thick, brown-clothed body. ‘Yes,’ said Erif, rather louder, ‘I have got more power—as much as I choose to take.’

      But Berris went out of the hall, unsatisfied, back to his forge. He often slept there now, rather than at his father’s house, sometimes with a slave-girl he had bought that autumn, an odd little savage, Sardu, brown and supple, from far north-east, beyond the Red Riders’ country, with a flat, bony face and sidelong eyes, very black. Now that Erif was with him so little, he made this girl blow the fire and sort the sweepings from his bench; he used to draw her often, and taught her to sing his own songs, which were too bad for anyone else to hear.

      Erif Der managed not to speak to her father or Yellow Bull; she and her women left the feast long before the men, who stayed very late, talking and drinking, so that she scarcely woke for Tarrik’s coming. In the morning she wanted to ask her questions, but he was sound asleep, warm and satisfied looking. She got up and half dressed, and pulled back the shutters from the windows. It was calm and snowing lightly; but the snow did not lie yet, or scarcely at all, only here and there in the road, but not on the beach or the breakwater. As she looked, she saw a covered cart jolt round the corner and stop. Essro stepped out of it, looked round hastily, pulled the shawl over her ears, and ran towards the door of the Chief’s house. Erif left her plaits half finished and ran too. They met in the half-dusk of the second hall. Essro’s women came behind her, carrying baskets; she seemed more fluttered than ever. ‘I’m come,’ she said, with a short, anxious gasp, ‘I’m come—with the things you asked me for, Erif—the herbs!’ Erif, acutely aware that she had never asked Essro for any herbs, called her own maids to come and take the baskets and entertain her sister-in-law’s people; then took Essro by the elbow and led her along to the little room at the head of the stairs. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘tell me.’

      Essro went close to her; there were still a few snowflakes not quite melted on the ends of her hair. ‘If Tarrik is going,’ said Essro, slowly and distinctly, ‘let him go at once.’ Erif felt suddenly sick and quivered down on to the floor, half lying; she did not answer. The other woman knelt beside her. ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Surely you knew?’ Erif nodded, one hand over her throat. Essro pursed her lips, took the knife from her girdle, and touched Erif with the hilt, here and there.

      The Spring Queen sat up, with the flashing smile of one child to another. Thank you, ‘she said.’ Your magic: it never hurts you, Essro?’

      ‘No. But perhaps it will. I am not so clever as you, Erif. Are you better?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Erif, then all at once: ‘That was—you know—Tarrik’s child.’

      ‘Oh!’ said Essro, clasping her hands, ‘oh, they don’t know that!’

      ‘Who don’t?’ said Erif sharply. ‘Essro—where did you get that message?’

      ‘From Yellow Bull. Oh, I must go home!’

      ‘But why? Essro, stay! Was it—is it—is Yellow Bull warning Tarrik because of the road? Because Tarrik gave him a sacrifice? Is father going to do something?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Essro, with shifting, panicky eyes, ‘tell him! And—oh, Erif—shall I tell them about the baby?’

      ‘No!’

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