LITMIR.BIZ

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lay Al·Ith, rocked on the man’s strong breast, all cradled and comforted, sobbing away, just as she had wanted to do on so many occasions recently. That she didn’t believe in the efficacy of it, did not prevent her enjoying it, while it lasted.

      As for him, he was both delighted that this dreadfully self-sufficient girl could have a good cry, just like any other, and at the same time he didn’t believe in it either. It simply wasn’t like her, and he was relieved when she stood up, sniffed, wiped the wet off her cheeks with two small hands, and again stood upright by him at the parapet.

      ‘And what is Zone Two like?’ he enquired.

      ‘You know more about our Zone than I can tell you about there. All I can say is that you stand and gaze and look, and never have enough of it. It is as if you looked at blue mists — or waters or — but it is blue, blue, you’ve never seen such a blue …’

      ‘Well, I don’t see the point in that,’ said he shortly, ‘it doesn’t get anything done.’

      Which was so exactly what she expected of him that she went into a fit of laughter, in which he joined: and this led back to the couch. This exchange was by no means on the level of the last days, but was more of a confirmation that the thing was still possible — for their differences were so great that they were both always being overtaken by feelings of astonishment that they could be there together at all. And so they were to feel until the very end.

      They were now at midday again: a steamy day, and she shocked him by jumping nude into one of the fountains. He had not seen fountains as containing any such possibility and he joined her, but not with abandon. He complained that the goldfish were tickling him, that they themselves were disturbing the fish, and that in any case, ‘if anyone were to see them …’

      But who could?

      ‘There’s that drummer,’ he complained. ‘There must be someone there, it stands to reason,’ for the drum went on, on, on, no matter what they did or said.

      ‘What we have to do,’ she said, when they were dressed and again seated on either side of their little table, ‘is this. You know that there was a time when it was not possible for Zone Four and Zone Five to mingle. Now you do—and even fight. So what has happened? We must find out. And having done that, we must find out what your armies were for, originally. Why do you have armies? All the wealth of your land drains into the armies. No wonder you are so poor.’

      ‘We are poor? What do you mean!’

      ‘Ben Ata, you are poor! You don’t know it, but you are pathetic! The poorest of our herdsmen lives better than you do, the king. As for the clothes in those cupboards! Oh, I’m not saying that they aren’t solid and well-sewn — or not adequate. For their purpose. But if those are the clothes thought fit for a queen, according to your ideas — for with you of course a queen would have to wear one richness of garment and the wife of a soldier another —’

      ‘But of course. There have to be ranks.’

      ‘Of course — according to you. But I tell you it is not necessary. Why do you have to have ranks, and a hierarchy? It is because you are so poor. Why do you have to wear that great brooch holding your cloak that says you are Ben Ata? With us, everyone knows I am Al·Ith. And they would if I wore sacking. Don’t you see? You are poor, poor people, Ben Ata. Everything I see as I ride here — oh, I’m not talking of this pavilion here, which has been created for just this time and this place and will probably vanish when we part —’

      ‘Are we going to part again?’

      ‘But of course! What do you imagine? That we are together for ever, Ben Ata? We are here for a purpose — to heal our two countries and to discover where it is we have gone wrong, and what it is that we should be doing, really doing …’

      She was leaning forward, her eyes all persuasion and passion.

      He was leaning back, watching her satirically. He was offended. He had never, not ever, imagined his country could be described as poor and strike foreigners as backward and lacking. He did not mind that this woman found him — as she clearly did — rough and unsubtle. He was a soldier! Soldiers were — soldiers. But he had believed his realm a model of what it should be. He was cold against her. Cold and furious. He was looking at her shining eyes and illumined face, from a distance — one of total repudiation.

      He suddenly got up, and strode furiously around the chamber.

      ‘You think luxury is what matters, you said so yourself. Comfort. Ease. All that — you said it, you said it … ’

      ‘Yes, I did.’ And of course he pounced on it, an admission being weakness, and he was standing rocking with derisive laughter and pointing.

      ‘You are like a half-grown boy, Ben Ata,’ said she, and got to her feet. ‘If we are rich and have everything it is bad only insofar as it has made us forget our proper purposes. But if you are poor and barbaric, it is because all your wealth goes into war — a needless, stupid, senseless war …’ She stood there, confronting him.

      His loathing for her culminated in lifting his hand to hit her. The great fist that looked the size of her small head was poised to crash down — she stood her ground and looked at him.

      ‘Ben Ata, I am very much less strong than you, and you can do what you like in the way of violence. I can’t stop you. And nor, in this awful country of yours, can I use any of the real strengths to stop you …’

      He of course now had to carry her to the bed and to treat her as he had treated the most weakly girls of his looting nights.

      She did not resist for she could not, but turned her head away and closed her eyes and was quite absent from him, as if she were dead.

      He was raping a dead woman, or so he felt it. And he was loathing himself. And her — for forcing him into this act. And then he remembered that she was pregnant and that he might be damaging the foetus. All this prevented him from doing it twice, which he would otherwise have done. He rolled off her and, shaking with his dislike of her, he said, ‘and that’s that. That’s that.’

      In the silence, both heard that the drum was silent.

      She painfully pulled herself up, went into her rooms, and came out almost at once in her own dark red dress. She did not look at him.

      ‘You can’t go unless they tell you,’ he said, stupid and threatening.

      ‘The drum has stopped, can’t you hear?’ she said in a voice that was drained of any life.

      She went out and stood calling for her horse. At once he could hear the beast coming, clip-clop among the fountains.

      ‘Then don’t come back,’ he said, broken. He could not believe what had happened. He could not make the early part of their being together match what he had just done.

      It seemed to him that he had been standing on the verge of some landscape that he had never even imagined and that it had vanished.

      ‘You can go back to your damned whores,’ she said, swinging herself up onto Yori. And added, almost at once, hearing these words that certainly were not hers but were Zone Four words, ‘Oh, I must get out of this dreadful place,’ cutting him absolutely to the heart because of the sincerity of them.

      She cantered away. He ran down to get his horse, and rode like fury after her, not catching her up till she was a good way along the west road. The two horses, white and black, fled along side by side, and it being early evening, and still daylight, there were people on the roads and on the boats in the canals. They saw the queen of Zone Three riding ‘like a she-demon’ out of their country, with their king in pursuit, ‘as pale as death, the poor man.’

      That was only on the first part of the road, for she had forgotten to take the shield, and near the frontier she leaned forward, senseless, clinging to Yori’s mane, knowing what was happening and that if she did not hold fast she would be killed as she fainted. Yori, feeling her slacken there on his back, slowed, and walked carefully on, while Ben Ata,

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