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of course,’ said Epigethes loftily to the barbarian. ‘And dive? Wonderful! Our northern rivers are too cold.’
Epigethes tried to explain, tactfully—oh ever so tactfully, as befits a Hellene—that it was not because of the cold that no one practised swimming here, but because of their ridiculous clothes that muffled them up, kept them pink and modest like women, hid their riding bow legs. He, on the other hand, was proud of his body, would strip and swim and show them. Yes, that was it, they were all admiring him now, rightly and properly, as they should. … And then, somehow or another, there was night air falling coldishly and sanely on his face, damp grass underfoot, and that spider’s web of fear suddenly obscuring the mirror. … When he turned, the house was out of sight, they must have come a long way already. The moon was up, shining on water at each side, sleek mud, willows, flowering water plants. Words began to collect in his head: ‘Is this really the best time?’ spoken quite calmly, with a little laugh—yes, that was better, a little laugh to pass it off. ‘Tomorrow morning, say? Why, I’m half asleep, and I’ll bet you two are the same.’ But somehow they went on.
‘My road,’ said Yellow Bull suddenly; all three stopped. They were on a high bank, with a gentle fall on one side to tangled marsh, and on the other a creek, with a small boat moored in it, quite still. They went on a few yards; the bank ended abruptly, crumbled almost under their feet. There was nothing in front but a steep slope of mud, nine feet down, and then black water with only its surface reflecting the moon, just rippled, gurgling faintly as it mouthed its way past the mudbank, eating into it all the time inch by inch. ‘Now you shall dive beautifully,’ said Tarrik, standing on the edge with the moonlight catching the clasps of his coat and belt.
Epigethes looked backwards once. He could not run away; he did not know the path, and Yellow Bull did. Besides, he was too drunk—or had been—to get the full power out of his legs; it was a hard thing to be a Hellene and know that. And, after all, he had never been such a good runner as he pretended—only, in his head, among all the other shapes, the shape of himself as the athlete. He took his clothes off slowly; the web was matted all over the world now. For a moment he stood, stripped and rather beautiful in the moonshine. ‘Now, dive,’ said the Chief. Epigethes looked from him to Yellow Bull, but the other Scythian was quite impassive, in shadow; he seemed to have no eyes, nothing to appeal to. The first filming of a cloud began to cover the moon, the water looked worse. He gave one great, tearing sob, and dived.
In the dimming light those two on the bank could hardly see, yet plainly hear, the bubbles coming up out of the mud. But after some ten minutes the cloud passed from the face of the moon, and the water moved clearly below them; it was all as it had been, without Epigethes. Yellow Bull picked up the clothes and belt, and looked across at the Chief. ‘You meant him for my road?’ Tarrik nodded and turned and began walking back; suddenly he stretched his arms and laughed aloud in the night. ‘I was thinking of your sister,’ he said, but Yellow Bull frowned and went on solidly.
When they came back to the house, Essro was sitting upright at the table with two candles between her and the door. She looked at them coming in, and shivered, and went away. Yellow Bull put the things down on the table; there was a purse fastened to the belt, with two or three drawings and measurements in it, a list of names, and at least a dozen keys, some made very lightly of wire. ‘What were all these for?’ said Yellow Bull. ‘Not all his own, surely!’ ‘No,’ said Tarrik, ‘but we shall find locks for them,’ and he took them and put them into the pockets in his own belt. Then he stirred up the hearth fire and began throwing in the clothes. ‘The brooches—take care!’ said Yellow Bull, trying to pull them out of the stuff; but Tarrik threw them in with the rest. ‘You can rake them out tomorrow,’ he said, ‘they’ll be dead too, then.’ The next morning Tarrik got up and rode off, very early, while Yellow Bull was still dreaming about his road. The other horse stayed on the island; it was not really a very good one.
Tarrik rode straight north and then a little inland, keeping clear of the town. Sometimes there were crops, but more often pasture, or just rough land with scrub that was no use to anyone. Where the ground rose, there were sometimes a few trees, but all the forest lay right inland, four days’ riding from Marob; wherever there was a river, there would be swamp at each side of it, and he had to go carefully, marking the trackways and fords. As he got further north and east, the land was better, the soil sweeter and dryer. For nearly half a day he rode through the blue flax fields, seeing how well up the plants were, strong stemmed and clean. Sometimes there were tall patches of hemp, and later on that day he came to food crops, rye, barley, and some wheat. All the fields were guarded by children, in case anyone’s beasts strayed. Here, again, everything was looking strong and healthy in the sun; the blades were broad and deep coloured, the ears were big already. As he passed, Tarrik thought of himself as Corn King and was proud of what he and earth and sun had done among them; then he thought of the Spring Queen and the dance they had acted together in the middle of the ring on Plowing Eve; if that was to come real, he felt, so much the better for the corn. He rode slowly, so that all the lands he passed should get something from him, and slept securely at noon in beanfields and did not count the days that went by as he went north towards Harn Der’s land.
Sometimes there were orchards, fenced in with turf banks; the apples of Marob were in those days the sweetest in the world. In one or two places there were figs and pomegranates, very carefully grown and sheltered from the north. But these were only near farms or camping places, and Tarrik was keeping clear of these, except at night when he took supper and the best bed from the nearest place he saw, once as it happened a small and very dirty farm where he was half eaten by lice, and once the great tent of a landowner come out from Marob for the summer, one of his own counsellors, who had skins of good southern wine with him, and oil for washing, and clean linen. It was later on the same day that he came to Harn Der’s lands, which lay on the two sides of a very flat valley, with a stream going down from pool to pool in the middle and a wood of limes and oaks half-way up one slope. Here Tarrik slept the night, with the food and wine he had taken from the last place, under a lime tree, his saddle for a pillow. Leaning back against it, he could see through the tree trunks to the far slope, and the lights of Harn Der’s camp: the fires like big yellow stars, and at night the great peaked tents glowing faintly and queerly from the lights inside them. He did not sleep very much, partly because of the violent sweetness of the lime flowers, shedding layer on layer of scent about him, partly because he started dreaming of the bubbles in the mud and Epigethes wriggling formlessly like a white slug underneath, but mostly because, after this, to keep himself from seeing it again, he had begun to make pictures of Erif Der over there on the far side: of chasing her and catching her and handling her and playing with her all over, till by morning there was nothing for it but to ride and get her, herself. He cantered down and through a deep pool, splashing himself all over, but not much cooler by the end of it. They were only just stirring in Harn Der’s camp, it was still so early.
In the half dark of the women’s tent, Erif Der turned over sleepily. It was days since she had thought of Tarrik, but this morning, as soon as she woke, she found he had come into her head. She did not want him there; she sat up and peered about. At the far end of the tent she could see someone moving, her old nurse probably, reknotting the plaits of her sticky grey hair. But Wheat-ear, next her, was still asleep, charmingly curled up with her fists tucked under her chin. Erif Der blinked across at her small sister and called in a whisper; but Wheat-ear did not stir, so it must be little after dawn yet. Somewhere, right above her head in the great hollow dome of the tent, there were some big flies buzzing about, knocking against the sides; she could not see them. Someone slipped out past the curtain, and for a moment there was a breath of cool morning air. Erif Der pulled the blanket over her head and tried to go to sleep again.
The children had always loved this summer life, riding out, or driving in the big carts, singing and shouting, all in clean, light clothes to match the flowering plain. They had left winter behind; the house that had been getting dirtier and stuffier day after day for eight months, would stand open and be smoked out and scrubbed and painted with bright colours to welcome them again in autumn. They could eat the last of the old stored fruit and honey, be done with salt meat and the hard winter cheeses. Soon the sweet grass would be waving wide ahead of them, there would be fresh things to do and smell and eat and look at; suddenly they felt twice as alive.