LITMIR.BIZ

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‘you know what I’m going to say.’

      ‘Yes,’ she said.

      ‘Well, Marianthe, would you really be pleased if I went off leaving you with a baby? Would you?’

      She was crying and would not answer.

      In the corner of the room was his old sack. And that was all he had, or needed, after such a long time here – how long? Durk had reminded him that it was nearly three years.

      He went down to the common-room, holding his old sack.

      All the eyes in the room turned to see Marianthe, pale and tragic. People were eating their midday meal after returning from fishing.

      One of the girls called out, ‘Some men were asking for you.’

      ‘What?’ said Dann, and in an instant his security in this place, or anywhere on the islands, disappeared. What a fool he had been, thinking that the descent to the Bottom Sea and a few hops from island to island had been enough to … ‘Who were they?’ he asked.

      A fisherman called out, ‘They say you have a price on your head. What is your crime?’

      Dann had already hitched his sack on to his shoulders and, seeing this, Durk was collecting his things too.

      ‘I told you, I ran away from the army in Shari. I was a general and I deserted.’

      A man who didn’t like him said, ‘General, were you?’

      ‘I told you that.’

      ‘So your tales were true, then?’ someone said, half regretful, part sceptical still.

      Dann, standing there, a thin and at the moment griefstricken figure, so young – sometimes he still looked like a boy – did not look like a general, or anything soldierly, for that matter. Not that they had ever seen a soldier.

      ‘Nearly all were true,’ said Dann, thinking of how he had softened everything for them. He had never told them that once he had gambled away his sister, nor what had happened to him in the Towers – not even Marianthe, who knew of the scars on his body. ‘They were true,’ he said again, ‘but the very bad things I did not tell you.’

      Marianthe was leaning on the bar counter, weeping. One of the girls put her arms round her and said, ‘Don’t, you’ll be ill.’

      ‘You haven’t said what they looked like,’ said Dann, thinking of his old enemy, Kulik, who might or might not be dead.

      At last he got out of them that there were two men, not young, and yes, one had a scar. Well, plenty of people had scars; ‘up there’ they did, but not down here.

      Durk was beside Dann now, with his sack. The girls were bringing food for them to take.

      ‘Well,’ called a fisherman, from over his dish of soup and bread, ‘I suppose we’ll never hear the rest of your tales. Perhaps I’ll miss you, at that.’

      ‘We’ll miss you,’ the girls said, and crowded around to kiss him and pet him. ‘Come back, come back,’ they mourned.

      And Dann embraced Marianthe, but swiftly, because of the watching people. ‘Why don’t you come up to the Centre?’ he whispered, but knew she never would – and she did not answer.

      ‘Goodbye, General,’ came from his chief antagonist, sounding quite friendly now. ‘And be careful as you go. Those men are nasty-looking types.’

      Dann and Durk went to the boat, this time not stopping at every island, and to Durk’s, where his parents asked what had kept him so long. The girl Durk had wanted was with someone else and averted her eyes when she saw him.

      At the inn Dann heard again about the men who had been asking for him. He thought, When I get to the Centre I’ll be safe. In the morning, he sat in the boat as he had come, in the bows, like a passenger, Durk rowing from the middle, his back to Dann, like a boatman.

      Dann watched the great cliffs of the southern shore loom up, until Durk exclaimed, ‘Look!’ and rested his oars, and Dann stood to see better.

      Down the crevices and cracks and gulleys poured white, a smoking white … had ‘up there’ been flooded, had the marshes overflowed? And then they saw; it was mist that was seeping down the dark faces of the cliff. And Durk said he had never seen anything like that in all his time as a boatman and Dann slumped back on his seat, so relieved he could only say, ‘That’s all right, then.’ He had had such a vision of disaster, as if all the world of ‘up there’ had gone into water.

      Closer they drew, and closer: as the mists neared the Middle Sea they vanished, vanquished by the warmer airs of this happy sea … so Dann was seeing it, as the boat crunched on the gritty shore.

      That pouring weight of wet air, the mists, was speaking to him of loss, of sorrow, but that was not how he had set out from Durk’s inn, light-hearted and looking forward to – well, to what exactly? He did not love the Centre! No, it was Mara, he must see Mara, he would go to the Farm, he must. But he stood on the little beach and stared up, and the falling wet whiteness filled him with woe.

      He turned, and saw Durk there, with the boat’s rope in his hand, staring at him. That look, what did it mean? Not possible to pretend it away: Durk’s honest, and always friendly, face was … what? He was looking at Dann as if wanting to see right inside him. Dann was reminded of – yes, it was Griot, whose face was so often a reproach.

      ‘Well,’ said Dann, ‘and so I’m off.’ He turned away from Durk, and the look which was disturbing him, saying, ‘Some time, come and see me at the Centre. All you have to do is to walk for some days along the edge.’ He thought, and the dangers, and the ugliness, and the wet slipperiness … He said, his back still turned as he began to walk to the foot of the cliffs, ‘It’s easy, Durk, you’ll see,’ and thought that for Durk it would not be easy: he knew about boats and the sea and the safe work of the islands.

      He took his first step on the path up, and heard an oar splash.

      He felt that all the grey dank airs of the marshes had seeped into him, in a cold weight of … he was miserable about something: he had to admit it. He turned. A few paces from the shore Durk stood in his boat, still staring at Dann, who thought, We have been together all this time, he stayed away from his island and his girl because of me, he is my friend. These were new thoughts for Dann. He shouted, ‘Durk, come to the Centre, do come.’

      Durk turned his back on Dann and sat, rowing hard – and out of Dann’s life.

      Dann watched him, thinking, he must turn round … but he didn’t.

      Dann started up the cliff, into the mists. He was at once soaked. And his face … but for lovely and loving Marianthe he did not shed one tear, or if he did, it was not in him to know it.

      He thought, struggling up the cliff: But that’s what I’ve always done. What’s the use of looking back and crying? If you have to leave a place … leave a person … then, that’s it, you leave. I’ve been doing it all my life, haven’t I?

      It took all day to reach the top, and then he heard voices, but he did not know the languages. He sheltered, wet and uncomfortable, under a rock. He was thinking, Am I mad, am I really, really mad to leave ‘down there’ – with its delightful airs, its balmy winds, its peaceful sunny islands? It is the nicest, friendliest place I have ever been in.

      After the soft bed of Marianthe his stony sleep was fitful and he woke early, thinking to get on to the path before the refugees filled it. But there was already a stream of desperate people walking there. Dann slipped into the stream and became one of them, so they did not eye his heavy sack, and the possibility of food. Who were they, these fugitives? They were not the same as those he had seen three years before. Another war? Where? What was this language, or languages?

      He walked along, brisk and healthy, and attracted looks because of his difference from these weary, starving people.

      Then, by the side of the track,

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