crispina kemp

Coshed on her head and taken from her bed, Mideer has been stolen from her guarded retreat. But by whose hand and by whose orders? And to where is she taken, with what intent? . . . (penultimate episode) Read on

I regained my senses—no, let me rephrase that. At some distant time later I became aware of a hard surface beneath me. I was then further aware it was sharp in places with, perhaps, stony debris. So sharp it dug into my hip, my shoulder, my thigh and calf. I guessed I was in a dungeon of sorts: an oubliette, left there to be forgotten. I rolled onto my back. And yelped.

Ouch, my head! I felt around with tentative fingers. A bump, a cut. It had bled but now was scabbed. My memory returned in a rush, of being in bed, of being bundled beneath a heavy cloth. I remembered the blood, warm and sticky around me. I felt my nightshift. The linen was dry, and stiff. How long had passed? And exactly where was I?

I couldn’t see which wasn’t surprising since I was in a dark place. Even so my fingers searched around my eyes. Had my attackers blinded me? Yet my eyes seemed intact. I told myself I had only to wait for them to accustom to the dark . . . Memories of waking in the night as a child and waiting for the features of my chamber to emerge from the blackness. I waited, impatient. I wanted to stand. I wanted to investigate this prison of mine. But I didn’t want to risk moving until I could see. There could be a precipice waiting just inches away.

While waiting I focused attention on other senses. What could I hear? A roar. Distant. Rhythmic. Like someone snoring. A giant from my nursery books. At least I hadn’t lost my sense of humour. Neither had I lost my sense of heat and cold. This was not the warmest place I ever had been. Oh please hurry up eyes and let me see. I needed to be on my feet and moving if only to keep warm.

There was a smell, what was it? Though not so familiar that it was there everyday, yet I had smelled it before. When? Where? If I could answer that then I might be able to figure out where I was.

In an oubliette, I answered myself. There’ll be no getting out. You might as well lay down and die.

So that’s what the smell was. Death. But not death forgotten and left to rot, fly-blown, oozing putrid juices. A memory rose from long ago when I was a child. I don’t know when or what the occasion, just that I’d overheard some servant’s remark as I walked past, her tone derogatory: “The Landed with their pretty fragrance; they even oil their bodies at death.” So that’s what I could smell: the fragranced oil used for the dead.

With that came another memory, of my mother taking me to the Queens’ Sepulchre to see the coffin she was then having carved. And the smell! Despite the masons had left the cave open while they worked, still the air within was heavy with oils.

So that’s where I was, in some Landed-lord’s family sepulchre. That would explain the dark and the debris-scattered cold rock floor. Then I ought to be safe to move around, even though I still couldn’t see. For who has a pit or a precipice in their family sepulchre.

But whose sepulchre? Had Landed Lyndon played me false and this was his? Or did it belong to one of my uncles? As with the Queens House, by tradition only the kings’ line makes use of the Kings Sepulchre. Others—the kings’ brothers—have long made use a separate tomb. Some even prefer to use their own sepulchres sited on their own estates.

Again I asked, whose sepulchre is this? Though I didn’t know what difference such knowledge would make (short of a new coffin being carved, I was here till the next death when the tomb would be opened) yet I decided to investigate. I crawled, being unsure of my footing—and immediately cracked my head on a rock. It was, as my hands soon discovered, a coffin, a sealed sarcophagus. I now discovered my soon-to-be corpse had been dumped at the back of it so my earthly remains would remain out of sight at the next opening. I felt my way round to the front, it being usual there for the masons to add an inscription. Would my fingers be able to read it?

I had no trouble tracing the M. My heart jumped. Could it be? But the next letter was A. Not my mother, then. I continued to feel along the inscription, all the while trying to figure who lay within. The third letter, D. The fourth—and here I turned round and leant on the rock-coffin. Fool! This was how every sepulchral inscription began: Madja—. The next word would be Landed, or King, or Queen. The deceased’s name would come on the following line. But it had taken me so long to read just the one word that I’d now lost interest. What use was there in knowing? But at least I had now made myself visible so the next person in would see my bones.

Oh, Hean. So much work you did, the trouble you took to help me unwrap, to fit me to be the next Madjarian Queen, and for what? For this: To die in this place.

“You shall not die,” said Loyse, my lady-in-waiting.

The sound of her words startled me. I didn’t think for a moment of the illogic of this, that she couldn’t possibly be here in the sepulchre with me. Instead, I jumped to my feet, scanning around me, trying to find here.

And there she was, shrouded in an intensely bright light, just across the tomb from me.

“Come,” she said, holding out her hands to me. “Follow me.”

But when she turned and walked through the wall . . . I sighed. It had been but an illusion. And yet . . . I glimpsed her again, now part-hidden by a wall. Lo! She hadn’t walked through it but around it. She had simply disappeared around a corner. I made haste to follow her.

*

She would not let me catch up, hurrying along. She didn’t even wait when the passageway grew so tight I had to stretch up and breath in to pass the rocks. Nor did she wait when I had to crouch low and crawl and squiggle through the smallest holes.

“I hope you know where you’re going,” I called to her.

The passageway was leading down. The rhythmic roar I’d thought was a giant’s snore was growing louder, resolving at last into the tidal wash of the sea. I smiled, I grinned, I giggled, for now I knew whose sepulchre. The Queens.

In case you never have seen it, let me explain of the Queens Sepulchre. As you know, the Queens House estate lies upon a particularly rugged stretch of coast that is amply supplied with caves all of which would make admirable tombs. But my fore-mothers scorned them as too mean, too tight, too . . . . Another family might have enlarged these inadequate caves but not so the Queens. A gully was found high in the cliffs where the caves were many. It was simple enough to have the entire gully roofed over, corbelled with rock. And in so doing, the first queens sealed in a secret. When I discovered this ‘secret’ as a child it made no sense to me. Yet now . . . For deep in that gully was this very same passageway that now I threaded, that led down to the sea. To the Source. To the Sea-Mother-Abyss.

Fine, yes, it led down to the sea. But that sea was enclosed in a cave that seemed no bigger than twice a bedchamber—though, dimly lit, I couldn’t see its far reaches. Within it the sea was gently lapping against the rock wall—some six feet below the ledge where I stood. Moreover, that sea seemed to sigh and in its sighing it expelled a high wave that violently crashed upon the cave-ceiling. Its broken spray drenched me. So close, I couldn’t believe it, yet I could see no exit, no further passage that might allow me escape.

Neither could I believe that Loyse, my guide to here, now was hovering above that rhythmically lapping water. Levitating? But how? Then I remembered the blood, sticky and wet when I was taken from my bed.

“You’re dead?”

“Released,” she said. And before I could speak she said, “The entrance to the cave is beneath the water, there beneath me. You must fill your lungs deep before you plunge under. And there, that wood-branch—see how it bobs on the water? It will serve you as float. Now I must go. I wish you well.”

“No!” I shouted as I was plunged again into darkness.

*

Who in utter darkness would dive into water, erratically one moment calm the next violent, held within a rock-formed crucible of unknown depth? And except for that time with Hensable, I never had swum. But Loyse knew that, that’s why she had shown me the branch. She meant me to use it as a float. But the last I’d seen of that branch it was bobbing away some place on the far side of the pool.

I sat on the edge of the ledge. I was NOT going to dive. That would be madness. I would slowly lower myself down. It was only my height plus some. Then, hand on the rock-wall to guide me, I would circle the pool to where I judged the branch to be.

All every well, except with a roar the water exploded beneath me, hurling me across the cave and losing my every sense of direction. As I recovered my breath, spat and snorted to be rid of the water, it seemed my plight could not have been worse. At least if I’d stayed in the Queens Sepulchre there was some little chance I might be discovered, even if only as a corpse.

“Next time,” I told the water, thinking of after my death, of my reincarnation, “I’d like to be born in Macara.” I’d rather risk the predators that prowled the plains and the full array of savage beasts that inhabited the valley jungles than the men that were my uncles.

As if in answer, a wave swelling high buffeted me and knocked me roughly against the rock-wall. My flesh (shoulder and thigh) abraded, stung in the salt water. But at least I again had some sense of direction. Something hard bashed into my cheek. I flailed, trying to ward it. My hand hit upon it. The branch Loyse had said to use as a float! I laughed. “And I thank you my Source, my Mother.” Now all I needed was to find the entrance/exit, that is the passage that would free me from what would otherwise be this watery grave.

I didn’t know where it was, except beneath the water. How deep beneath? Could I use the rock-wall to make a circuit, tapping the while with my feet? Would I then find it? But what if the passage lay deeper than I could reach? Yet to stay where I was would find me nothing. One hand to the wall, the other grasping the branch, I began the circuit. I didn’t go far.

The gush of water toppled me over. How that branch remained in my grasp I never shall know. Another violent explosion of water, another cascade of broken spray. But I had found the passage.

Now a new fear found me. What if I was part-way through that passage when yet another high wave forced its way through? Yet I had to chance it. And it must be now. To wait till another high wave was to risk being swept away with consequent loss of direction.

I filled my lungs. And I prayed to the Mother. My body, my life, I place into your care.

Will Mideer find the way out of her otherwise watery grave? And even if she does, what then? To emerge on a rough rocky coast is not the ideal. Find out next week in the final episode. An Act of Union

Believing Mideer to be safely ensconced in the land of her ancestors her uncles—maternal and paternal—continue to slug it out to promote their various daughters to the throne. Meanwhile, after witnessing the Glyntlanders’ bloody deletion of Madja troops, Mideer has sought temporary refuge with her lady-in-waiting. But can the family be trusted? And is the accommodation secure? . . . Read on

I set up my court in Landed Lyndon’s hunting lodge. It was humble compared with his hall, and  compared with the palace awaiting my presence. Yet it was no mean place. A wide hall for receiving and feasting and sleeping the men; four additional chambers, one time separate but long-since joined by covered ways; the whole, old, constructed of wood upon hard stone foundations. Colourful weavings, some pictorial, hung upon walls (even in the unoccupied walkways). But it was a dark place, the only light that which streamed through the doors when opened, and the faint seepage between wall and eaves.

The lodge was set deep in Lyndon’s hunting range. It was unlikely we’d be seen. Even so, a combined Madja and Glyntland force protected the perimeter. They were discreet. To advertise their presence, though it would act as deterrent, would also bring retribution upon our host. And our host, Landed Lyndon, proved as good as his word.

Ambassador Brassen at first had doubted him. “Removing us from his doorstep, a discrete package for his cohorts to surround and destroy.”

“With his own daughter amongst us?” I said. “And his best servants? I think Landed Lyndon would not sacrifice them, not to Ma-Land, nor to any other. No, I’ve always found him a good man. He was forced into action, and now he looks for a way to be out of it. No, he’ll deliver.”

And deliver he did. Over the next few days other landed-lords began to arrive, each accompanied by their personal entourage, each swearing to me their support and the arms of their men, some of them (to my amazement) numbering into several hundreds (I’d no idea they numbered so many). He delivered too a selection of gowns and cloaks, shifts and jewels, that belonged to his daughter and wife because, as he said, a queen should always look the part.

I can laugh of it now, how my uncles, paternal and maternal, effected at least one part of my proposed programme. By throwing my Madja supporters together with the Glyntlanders brought with me, the reserve between them soon broke down. Warriors all—though the Glynts called themselves soldiers—they soon became brothers-in-arms. I wondered how well they would like the Macaran.

But I jump ahead. First I had to gain my throne.

I might have been queen yet the campaign strategy was taken from me. I’m sure Ambassador Brassen would happily have kept me entirely uninformed. Hean, however, knew me better. He insisted I sat in on their meetings. But I was expected not to contribute.

Despite we had sufficient numbers it was agreed by all that to storm the besieged palace was not a solution. No matter what you priests might have wanted, in need of blood to feed your gods, neither the Glynts nor my loyal Madja wanted such a high death-count. We wanted to keep the casualties low. After all, what queen would I be with no landed-lords and precious few subjects? Ambassador Brassen, here to protect the Glyntland trade, agreed on this too. Though I had reason to believe he had a less obvious interest as well.

It wasn’t me who first thought it, it was Lady Loyse. “You watch him, my Lady, I tell you it’s so. He’s hoping to wed you.”

I laughed. “No, you’re imagining.” Besides, he stood no chance. He was . . . shall I say not the youngest of men, though he wasn’t old. And, though I suppose I could have tolerated his baldness and hair-sprouting ears, that overfed bolster around his middle was a definite no. The thought of that rolling upon me gave me the shudders. Yet I did watch him, and I could see what had led Loyse to say it. I said to Loyse, “Don’t ever leave me alone in his company.” For I don’t believe he could have been trusted not to leap upon me. But there again I’m spinning off at a Glyntish tangent.

There was to be no storming of the palace, no killing at all if it could be avoided. Our campaign was an application of patience. Eventually–or so we figured—either Gregon’s men would wrest the palace from Asperin’s forces else he would tire of the game and fade away. We had but to wait for that resolution. Then we could move in and remove whichever of my uncles now held my home.

It all seemed so simple—as long as our presence remained unknown. And that, of course, didn’t happen.

*

It was Landed Lyndon brought us the news.

“Questions are asked amongst Gregon’s men: What’s become of the ones sent to kill you?”

It wasn’t that we hadn’t thought of that. That kind of carnage cannot be ignored. The quayside slaughter would be reported. But where was the ship that brought us? Where was I, where my supporters? We had vanished. Gregon had insufficient men to launch an island-wide search. I have no doubt his men snouted around. But with our ship gone what would they find.

But then word came to him of losing support—of course, because many of his supporters now were sworn to us. That’s really when the trouble began. Landed Lyndon reported a visit received from two of Gregon’s henchmen. Yet Lyndon had already stated his intention that, though he supported Ma-Land and Landed Asperin, he would not get involved in this siege, neither for nor against it.

“They’ve visiting all the Landed.” He looked around my hall, at the number of Landed there. “These men need to return home. Their empty halls will alert Gregon further.”

I’d no argument there. I sealed my lips on my only comment, that their return home would also remove the drain on our resources. Though most had thought to bring supplies with them it had not been enough. It’s amazing how much food and wine such men can consume when every day ends with a feast.

It was agreed they’d return to their halls and word sent to them as soon as needed. Obviously that meant those with halls nearest would be first into the fray. Yet those further away would be needed to shore up our rebellion until all was complete. I was happy to leave such details to Ambassador Brassen and to Hean.

*

After that my court fell to silent, or so it seemed. And though we still had the perimeter guards I confess I did not feel so safe. I confided in Hean.

“I shall sleep with you,” he said.

“You will not! Besides,” I said, my equilibrium rapidly returned, “Lady Loyse shares my bed.”

“I did not mean to sleep in the same bed, though . . .” Our eyes locked and . . . and my thoughts went instead to Hensable. I bit my lip, which Hean likely misinterpreted. “And have you thought more of who you will marry?”

Why was everyone asking me that? Yes, I knew why, it was obvious: because whoever I wed would become the king—if ever I gained my throne.

I shook my head. “But I am building a list of those I shan’t wed.”

It was agreed to set a guard at my door. One had previously been set, when we first took over the lodge, but then with the number of supporters increasing and filling the hall and chambers, it had been deemed unneeded. But even with this replaced guard I felt no safer. As it turned out, I had good reason.

They struck in the night. I woke to find rough hands bundling me into a blanket, and something over my head all-but suffocating me. I could feel, around and beneath me, a seep of something warm and sticky. Disorientated, not knowing what was happening, I was slow to scream. Then, as I opened my mouth so that fabric around my head was stuffed deep into it making me choke. Thereafter, a crack on my head and . . . nothing.

So Mideer’s fears for her safety had some foundation. But which side has taken her? And taken her to where? Assumingly they intend her death, for while she lives no uncle’s daughter can legally sit on that throne. Don’t miss next episode, Light In A Lightless Place

Alas, alas! While Mideer was busy arranging a better deal with the Glyntlanders her mother has died, her father been killed, and an imposter put upon Mideer’s own throne. Moreover, her uncle has been sent to Glyntland to ensure she never returns. What will she do? . . . Read on

So now, my priests, you know how I knew to come armed on my return to Madjaria. But though things were happening fast, with the eight day journey back I had time and enough to absorb the facts. Time, too, to mourn my mother, my father, and those about to die. For whatever the casualties so far in my uncles’ battles they’d be nothing compared to those inflicted by my Glyntlander Guard.

Did you, too, think that Z’lon would kill me—that Hean would allow it—that I was otherwise undefended in a strange land? Did you spill blood to your gods: to Ma-Land and to Taz-La? Yet see how my ten-man corps remained unaffected by the happenings in Madjaria, and loyal to me. Maybe Z’lon did intend to kill me. At first. Perhaps it was the sight of my loyal corps, and of Hean standing firm beside me, that decided him otherwise.

That very same night I took Z’lon to meet with First Minister Yournin. I had Z’lon relate the full story that he might hear it and understand it.

“But you must return to Madjaria,” he said—as if I needed the telling. “Our trade agreements are with you. Mideer. Queen. At least for the first five years; thereafter, as agreed, we review and renew. As discussed, we hope by then your landed lords will be eager to take up the offer.”

“Huh, if there are Landed left,” Z’lon groaned, even while looking at me for explanation of these trade agreements. I started to explain but he waved it aside. “You think I can return to there now? I now am a traitor: I didn’t kill you. You know what will happen to me? I was hoping to remain here with you, in Glyntland.”

“Your presence is welcome,” Minister Yournin said. “But it will be without Queen Mideer. She’s to return to her land, to claim her throne. I shall personally ensure it.”

“You intend to accompany us?” Hean asked him, no hint in his voice that he much doubted it.

“An ambassador, I shall appoint an ambassador. I also shall send a detachment. Two thousand troops. Your one hundred fifty landed lords—”

“I don’t want them killed,” I snapped. I could too easily imagine it. One of the sights they’d arranged for me while in Glyntland was a review of their troops and an inspection of their latest weapons. I had taken it as a none-too-thickly veiled threat. If Madjaria reneges on the terms . . .

Minister Yournin waved down my sudden panic. “No such intent, Queen Mideer. Pop off a few rounds, your sword-waving warriors soon will lay down. The threat of strength, Queen Mideer—you must learn this—is often greater than the actuality.”

Hean beside me nodded agreement: it was so.

“There is just one thing I need clarification upon before I set it in motion. Your father is dead. The king. His throne now is vacant—and clearly you have uncles eager to act as Regent. But in the interests of our trade agreement we would prefer there were no such beasts between us. You do understand our position, and what I am saying? I am asking who will be your king.”

I laughed. How often we do that when we’re anxious, embarrassed or nervous. For how could I answer him that? I said, “I can assure you I shall not be honouring the contract to wed my cousin Jon—Gregon’s son. And I doubt any will question that now. But as to who? That is not for me to say. Besides, first I must know my choices.”

“You will allow us to guide you?” he asked. “Your husband, this king, will, after all, be party to our trade agreement.”

“I am always open to guidance,” I said. I wanted to add, but Hean warned me not, that I’d not be dictated to.

*

You, my priests, know what happened upon my return. And were you surprised? Did you expect me dead? No mind. In the aftermath I ask only for peace. Peace too for whoever alerted Gregon. As you know, he had a small squad of his men to greet me at the quayside, ready to slay me as I stepped ashore.

It was not an incident I want repeated. The sight was . . . chilling. And though others might say that Ma-Land feasted that day, I believe rather that she retched and vomited upon all that blood. Lo! Even my own corps, men trained to fight, watched in awe. Gawped as the Glynts raked our Madja with their iron bullets. What cold, detached slaughter! A sword can slice, an axe can chop. But bullets shred. And they wanted me to wear red for the . . . No! I think never in my life shall I see red without again seeing that splatter of shredded flesh. And that one man at the back, weapons thrown down, hands held up, calling for cease.

It was Hean who stopped the killing. “No. Let him live. He offers no threat, and we need information.”

I don’t know who the man; I’d never seen him before. One of Lantri’s men (my Uncle Lantri now had joined forces with Gregon despite Z’lon had said he’d been against him). Hean—I had to avert my eyes—waded through the debris of flesh to the weaponless man at the back of the gore-and-blood spread, hunched now against a warehouse wall. What was said I do not know other than what he shouted back to me. My would-be palace was currently held by Asperin who intended the Queen’s Throne for his young daughter Maygan. Meanwhile Gregon and Lantri had laid siege to it.

So now where could we go that was safe? For yes, I know that the Glyntland detachment would protect me, but at the cost of every one of our Landed? No. I had already said this to First Minister Yournin: kill the Landed and there will be no one left to farm the lands and provide the fruit for their trade. I wanted minimum violence, and it was in the interests of Glyntland to ensure it.

“Loyse,” I said. “My lady-in-waiting.” Her family had always been loyal. Her father, Landed Lyndon, had an estate to the west of the port. It was less than a day’s ride.

Ride? But I wasn’t thinking. We had no horses. It was Lantri’s man suggested we took those now milling and riderless at the back of the warehouse. But there were not enough for all my men, not with the Glynts as well.

“Queen Mideer, you must take one,” Hean said looking at the horses. “And Ambassador Brassen.”

“And yourself,” the ambassador said.

“We’ll divide the rest of the horses between your men and ours,” Hean said. “Those without mounts might stay here? Undercover. To hold the port—in case . . .”

Of the remaining 1900 I had no real knowledge. They didn’t travel with us but had their own troop ships. Minister Yournin had liaised with Hean regarding them. Ambassador Brassen had been informed of the plans. “They’ll be on hand should they be needed,” was all I was told. In fact, as I’m sure you are now aware, they remained with their ships, anchored offshore in a state of readiness.

*

Lady Loyse brimmed with relief when she saw me. “My Lady, My Lady, you live, you’re alive!” And then she caught herself, swept a deep courtesy and addressed me formally as ‘My Queen Mideer.’

“I’m not your queen,” I said. “Or at least, not yet.”

Her father, Landed Lyndon was equally pleased to see me; less so at seeing my entourage. “Glynts? You bring Glynts here? I suppose that’s Master Hean’s doing.”

“No,” I said, “it is mine. And were it not for these Glyntlanders I now would be dead, my uncles intent on removing me.”

“Ah, yes,” he said and coloured with guilt.

“Not you, too? Then perhaps I ought leave before your sword cleaves me?” Though if he’d made that move he’d have soon been dead, his wide hall packed with armed men. It struck me as an incongruous sight yet, having been so long with the Glyntlanders, it was Landed Lyndon and the Madja who now looked out of place: like costumed men in a religious pageant. I looked at the Glyntlander guns, I looked at the Madjarian swords and axes. I did not want to see a repeat of the quayside slaughter. “No, I’ll go. Keep the peace.”

He, of course, wouldn’t have it. “I’ll have chambers readied for your and your party. But the corps, Madja and Glynt, must be accommodated elsewhere. The stables. My barns. Just not in my hall with my men.”

I understood his concern, and at least his refusal to open his hall to my guard applied alike to Madja and Glynts. But when Hean translated this to Ambassador Brassen he wasn’t so happy with the arrangement. He wanted a ‘detachment of the detachment’ to remain by his side. “They will share my chamber. They will be as invisible.”

Landed Lyndon allowed him five men. Hean haggled to be allowed double this number for me, comprising five Madja, five Glynts.

I cast a seething glare at him. “They can’t remain in the chamber with me.”

“Oh, but Mideer, they can. They can serve as your chaperone, for I shall be there with you too.”

“No!” Landed Lyndon supported me. “That’s most unseemly. Our would-be queen, to share a chamber with . . . with eleven men?” He threw up his hands, his face again red. “No. No, they may use the chambers to either side of Lady Mideer’s. Yes, that is the answer. In fact . . .” he paused while he considered a further thought. “Yes, it’s better you don’t reside here. There is the lodge. Often I use it for honoured guests. I’ll allocate my own best cook, my own best staff to serve you there. There you may occupy all the chambers. And though I’m reluctant to have her out of my sight, my daughter Loyse shall resume her duties with Lady Mideer—if that suits, my lady.”

It suited well, though I’d no chance to say it.

“And which Pretender is yours?” Hean asked him. “You so hurriedly sweep us out of the way, will you then send men to intrude in the dead of night and . . .?” He motioned throat-cutting. I hadn’t thought of that possibility. And why should I with so many armed men around me.

Landed Lyndon flustered. Did that mean Hean had hit on a truth? I thought not, not with the way Landed Lyndon had arrived at his offer. Yet it drove it in deeper that he hadn’t held out in support of me.

“But I thought Lady Mideer dead,” he said. “I was told . . . I mourned, I swear it. And though it was Landed Gregon who told me, I would not support him and his daughter. What! If he’d left well alone his own son would have been the next king. Why! Why change what has always been? A queen from the Kings House? It goes against the Madja soul.”

“So you support my cousin Maygan?”

“My tongue supports her,” he said. “It is with my tongue only. Were it more I would be there with Asperin now, spilling blood to Ma-Land, holding the palace against Gregon and his men. You do know your uncle Lantri supports Gregon?—hoping your cousin Antroni will be chosen to wed Gregon’s Jaegar. It disgusts me. I’m not alone in this. He blackens the name of Black Taz-La! And so rich his sacrifices that win it or lose it there’ll be no beasts left on his land when all is resolved. But, my Lady Mideer, give me time to digest this change and to think hard upon it. We will yet have you set on that throne.”

Landed Lyndon might be convinced that Mideer will yet sit on that throne but the prospects don’t look so good—not if she insists on a bloodless recovery. Considering the trigger-happy Glynts could so easily attain her throne, how long will they hold true to her desires? Next episode, Stolen

Mideer has set part of her plan: she’s to invite a band of Macarans to Madjaria so her people can see how ridiculous their prejudices. Her people might even want to experience their Holy Land—as now she’s discovered their ancestors did. So now, next on the agenda, the technologically advanced Glyntlanders . . . Read on

Glyntland. Though I wasn’t so long in their land as I’d been in Macara, I was away from Madjaria for an equal time for their land was more distant. But once I’d convinced them that despite I’d a womb I’d also a brain, and that though I was a child in their eyes yet I was soon to be queen of my land, my interests there rolled along. My main problem with the Glyntlanders—the ministers, those few I was allowed to speak with—was their insistence on addressing themselves to Hean as if I’d none of their language. That, and that they preferred for me to see such of their inventions that could never be useful to us—but that had been our prime complaint of them.

In the time of my grandmother they come bamboozling both king and the Landed with tales of how rich we Madja would grow merely by the installation of a railed-road. They would install. They would provide the required expertise and materials. (Our Landed-lords would provide labour from off their lands.) But all of this, my priests, you must know. They had said nothing—or if they’d said then they’d whispered it—of the fuel needed to power the wretched contraptions. And as to their payment: that has been our worst burden and the main cause of anger against them. My prime objective, in visiting their land, was to amend this situation.

I had been in Glyntland seven full days, shown around this and that installation, swamped—ney, drowned—in given statistics, before they granted me a meeting with their First Minister. I was told I was honoured indeed; that such impromptu meetings with visiting . . . (and here the spokesman had paused) . . . dignitaries without prior arrangements (by which he meant where the dignitary had not been invited) were rare. I swallowed a sharp retort and endowed upon him my most engaging smile. (I had rapidly learned how to deal with these people: that appearance meant everything, even if empty of meaning.)

First Minister Yournin—whose name I made a point of using, particularly since he seemed unable to remember mine—smiled and nodded at me. Then, like the other Glyntlanders we’d encountered (including the women), he addressed himself to Hean only.

“I understand you are here to invest in more of our Glyntland technology. While we welcome such foreign interest, there is a matter of outstanding payments. In addition—embarrassing to say—there are outstanding clauses to the original contract yet to address. A matter of—if I remember the figures—263 freighter-deliveries of fuel.”

“Coal,” I said, drawing his attention back to me.

“Coke,” Minister Yournin amended. “Smokeless. We care for the environment here.”

I bit back my retort, that though they might care for the Glyntland environment they had shown a disregard for that of Macara and my own Madjaria.

“First Minister Yournin, there are as yet 263 freighters-full of coke to deliver because my Madja have no use of it, and because we no longer have space to store it. And we, too, care for the environment. And we are aware that the cost of that coke and the freighter-delivery has been added to Madjaria’s indebtedness to Glyntland—Hean has the figures (in Glyntland coinage, though you must be aware, to we Madja that means nothing—”

“Do you deny that you owe—”

“First Minister Yournin, if you’ll allow me to finish. I do not deny what we owe, in Glyntlander terms. Hean has also calculated the debt in terms of fruit had in trade—which to my Madja has more relevance. Now, I have a proposition to make.”

Despite Minister Yournin seemed taken aback by that, yet he now sat back and allowed me to speak—though I thought, at first, he was paying no mind: he would allow me to speak, then drive along as if I’d said nothing. Yet at some point I noticed a look in his eye. Of interest.

“In fact,” I said, “I have three propositions. The first concerns our payments to Glyntland in the form of our fruit.” And I outlined to him the suggestion that Madjaria and Glyntland should form a trading alliance. A partnership.

We then would ship to Glyntland—under the eyes of a Madja agent—an agreed volume of fruit (by season). That same agent would then—in partnership with the Glyntland agent—oversee its sale here in Glyntland. The profits (after cost of shipping and storage) would then be divided equally between both parties. (I will not deny that Hean had much to do with the wording of this.)

“By selling on the open market, I anticipate our half share of the profits will be considerably higher than that which you currently allow us against for fruit-quotas. Half of our profit can then be offset against our debt. If you care to have your numerators check Hean’s figures I’m sure you will find that this trading alliance will fetch for Glyntland a much higher yield of coins. As for my Madja, to see some return on their sweat might incline them to think more favourably of you. You may not answer me yet on this. Yet I shall have an answer before I leave for Madja.” I glanced at Hean.

He told Minister Yournin—with a smile not returned, “You have eleven days to discuss in council Lady Mideer’s proposition.”

“This sounds like a threat,” the First Minister said. “And if we don’t agree it?”

“First Minister Yournin, do you want this debt of ours paid off or not? By my proposition you stand some chance of it. Now, my second proposition. These 263 freighters-full of coke for which we’re indebted, plus that already delivered . . . at the present time we have no use of it.”

“You want us to take it back? Perhaps exchange it for something . . . other?” Minister Yournin asked with a barely-hid sneer. “But the freightage alone would incur more costs.”

But, no, that wasn’t my intention. “I believe we may have some other use of it. Could it, perhaps, be used as fuel to heat water?”

“But of course, that is the simplest use of it. Have you not been using it thus, all these years in storage?” And now he was talking as if I barely was walking.

“It was agreed not to use it, for my Landed-lords hoped that we might yet be relieved of it. But since we are not . . . Could it also be used to fuel, say, a water-pump—to take water from a deep source and deliver it to—“

“Ah! I see where you’re going with this. You want hot and cold running water installed in Madjaria. Every home to be supplied. Simplicity itself!” he declared.

“No,” I said. “You would have us run when rather we’d crawl. No, my thought was rather to install bathhouses—if I lead the way, install a bathhouse on each of my estates, I am sure my Landed-lords soon would follow.” The idea had only recently come to me courtesy of the facilities at the Ambassador Hostelry where I’d been accommodated. Oh the joys of a warm shower or a bath. So I confess, my first thought was entirely selfish. I wanted to take this installation home with me!

“What you ask would be easy. But it would hardly eat into your stored resources.”

“It would be a beginning. But . . . After your mistake regarding the railed-road, I would insist that my Landed-lords are involved in the planning. Sourcing materials. The labour. Indeed, at every step of the way. And materials and labour will be locally got wherever possible. The idea is not to increase our debt to you. Also, I want your planners and managers to reside in Madjaria at least for the first stage of the project.”

“You want Glyntlanders to live amongst the Madja?”

“Excuse me, First Minister Yournin, but is there a reason why they should not?”

He shrugged. “I suppose we could set up an encampment . . . Install at least a basic level of technology . . . But—”

“First Minister Yournin, you said it right when you said ‘amongst’ my Madja. I want no encampment, no ‘segregation’. I want my Madja and your Glyntlanders to work together. To me, that has more importance than any building of bathhouses.”

“Discuss it with your councillors,” Hean inserted. “There are eleven days yet before we leave.”

“And if we . . . refuse?” he asked, his face now beginning to redden.

I smiled my most enchanting. “Perhaps a return of those freighters-full of coke already delivered to us? To be dumped in that pretty green park that fronts this building? Might that persuade you?” Though I have to admit I had not the people nor the vessels to do it.

“Now, as to my third proposition. Your ministers have very kindly shown me astounding examples of your technical abilities. Yet—apart from the baths—what interests me most is one of your most ancient constructions. The Western Canal. That system of locks is quite ingenious. Now –” I allowed him no time to cut in “– had your forefathers installed in Madjaria a similar transportation system (instead of that railed-road) I am sure every Landed-lord would not now be cursing your name—oh, not you personally, First Minister Yournin; we are not so ignorant as to believe yourself to be to blame. But let me explain.”

His face had now turned a very rich red.

“Much of our fruit is grown in the highlands. Yet apart from the farmers, most of our population—and thus the markets—reside in the lowlands. Not to mention, of course, that’s where the ports. Thus to transport the fruit—including the fruit-quotas—our Landed-lords must use asses. (For some odd reason, when installing that unwanted railed-road, such a consideration was not . . . considered. The railed-road connects only lowland estates to lowland ports.) But were we to have something resembling your Western Canal, that would facilitate the portage of fruit from the hills to the markets and ports. And I am sure that would go a long way in removing the tarnish upon your national name.”

*

And now, my priests, I expect you are wondering how I came to return from Glyntland when you knew—of course you knew—that an assassin had been sent to prevent it?

My Uncle Z’lon arrived on the eve of our departure, puffing and panting like he’d run all the way when in fact he’d sat on his arse for the full eight-days of the voyage. He told me at once that my mother had died. It was not unexpected. But when he said of my father too . . . but he didn’t immediately tell me that.

He said, “In your absence your cousin Maygan sits on the throne.”

“What! But . . . And what does my father say to that? No! No, he would not approve it.”

That’s when Landed-lord Z’lon told me the rest. And though Hean held my hand, willing his strength to me, I felt more sickened with every word.

“Your father is dead,” Z’lon said. “I am ashamed to say, killed by our brother, Gregon.”

“Gregon—my contracted father-in-law? But I don’t understand. Or does he intend that Maygan should marry baby Jon? Well, she is welcome to him. Oh, and now I see. Of course. Gregon then must sit as Regent. Him and Asperin both.”

I thought I’d been clever, despite the whirl-pit in my head, that I’d understood the machinations of my uncles. But no, I’d been wrong.

“Gregon wants the throne for his daughter Jaegar,” Z’lon told me.

“He’s against Maygan? But the Kings House doesn’t provide the queen. Besides, Jaegar’s only a child.”

“Yet your Uncle Gregon is not.”

So we were back to Gregon as Regent. And who would he find to marry Jaegar? Which infant barely toddling would he name as the king?

“There is talk it’ll be Lantri’s son Antroni,” said Z’lon.

“Oh, a reversal,” I said not hiding the sarcasm. “We take the king from the Queens House and the queen from the Kings. Huh! And this has the support of the Landed?”

Z’lon nodded mutely, then added, “Though oddly, not Lantri. I believe he wants the queen’s throne for his own daughter. So now he and his supporters have marched on the palace.”

“Armed rebellion,” I said and sighed. “It’s time I was home.”

“No!” Z’lon leapt to his feet in alarm. “No, you must not. I’ve been sent here to kill you. But . . . My Queen Mideer, I cannot do that. But please, please, do not return to Madjaria. You’ll be killed as soon as you set foot.”

Oops! So it’s not to be a happy return. What will Mideer do now? She has with her only the boat’s crew and her personal corps of ten. And Hean, though proving himself a useful adjutant, is not known as a warrior. Perhaps we’ll learn more in the next episode, To Help Jump The Coup

Stripped naked of her prejudices, Hean has declared Mideer fit now to fulfil the prophecy. Yet, though she knows in outline how she’ll work to unite the Three Lands, the practicalities are another matter . . . Read on

I wanted to go straight to Glyntland, but I knew that I must first return to Madjaria. And as soon as I stepped aboard that boat the anxieties began. My mother: did she still live? But I felt certain I’d have known if she had died. But if she were dead then what chaos might I find? Would the Landed of the Assembly await my return to have me crowned as Queen Mideer of Madjaria? Or would my uncles, maternal or paternal, have hastened to elevate one of their daughters while I was away?

I spent the two-day sailing wondering which daughter they’d chose. At first I thought most likely would be Kilinta, eldest daughter of Landed Lantri, my mother’s eldest brother. But Kilinta already was wed. How then could she honour the tradition of cousin-marriage and wed baby Jon? His next oldest daughter was younger than me. I was certain that the Landed of the Assembly wouldn’t accept her. So what of my mother’s younger brother, Landed Asperin: his eldest daughter, Maygan (named for my mother) was a year older than me. She would be the most suited—unless my paternal uncles won the dispute. Though I had spent my life with my father the king, I knew those uncles less well.

As you, my priests, know my father has—had—three brothers, all younger: Gregon, Dahon and Z’lon. Landed Gregon has three daughters and one son (Jon, the one I was contracted to marry). Only the youngest of Landed Gregon’s three daughters was still unwed: Jaegar. If she were made queen then she must wed a son of the Queens House. Antroni, the sole son of Landed Lantri, seemed most likely. But I thought Mishmaran, eldest daughter of Landed Dahon, would be a more likely choice from the King’s House. She, as you know, was already contracted to marry my cousin Landfol, son of Landed Asperin.

And what would I do if I returned to find this situation? Must I be the ‘named queen’ to unite the Three Lands? Yet were I not I’d not have the authority to invite my Macaran friends to visit. I wouldn’t be allowed the voyage to Glyntland, the next stage in my plan. Moreover—and this I tried not think on—if my throne had been usurped then I must expect an axe to part my body and head as soon as I stepped off the boat.

“It will not happen,” Hean tried to assure me.

“You think my corps of ten enough to save me?”

“You think the world will allow it, after all our efforts to bring you to this?”

I shivered when he said of the world. Did he know what that happened that night with Hensable? We’d not spoken of it. Hensable wanted me to wed Hean but did Hean want that? I knew one thing: I’d no intention of waiting for cousin Jon to put his shoes on. I would break our tradition of cousin-marriage. Wasn’t I anyway a break with tradition? The first, the only, queen’s daughter ever named queen. But on this matter I kept my lips sealed. I had yet to visit Glyntland. Who knows, I could meet someone there, fall deeply in love, become obsessed . . . oh, my priests, how I hear your chuckles, not of humour but of scorn for our neighbours.

*

No axe swung in greeting. My head remained entirely in tact. And as soon as the pageantry you priests had arranged for me was done, I hastened to my mother’s side, so relieved that she still lived.

She asked where I had been as if I’d not told her, and I said to Macara.

“Ah, the Land of our Source,” she sighed with a distant smile.

Abruptly she pushed herself up (though I swear she hadn’t the strength, so weak she’d become since I had been gone).

“So you are dead?” She sounded so woeful.Disappointed. “Gone before me.” I had to assure her I was still very much alive and breathing.

Exhausted, she again slumped back on her pillows. “Then how came you to there?”

“To Macara? Or to the ‘Source’, to the Abyss, the Holy Land? And I, my mother, might ask you, too, how come you to know of it?”

Again there was that distant smile, and I noticed her eyes seek out and find the heavy-framed painting of the tree. She sighed, “My nursery days. But I’ve told you the story—oh, no I have not.” Her hand came up to cover her mouth. “No, I could not find the book. The priests had taken it!”

She was quiet again. Eyes closed. I thought she had drifted back to sleep. I held on to this last thing she’d said—yes, my priests, she referred to you, did she not—and I turned that over while I waited in the hope that she soon would re-awaken.

Since then I have read that book, with Hean’s help. I know what story you priests would deny me:

There once was a time when we Madja celebrated the same truths as the Macaran. And though we didn’t live always in peace at least we didn’t live ever in the threat of your wars. But our Landed, arguing, contending amongst themselves, sought other things from their holy men.

I find I cannot blame you, my priests, for you have merely inherited from your ancestors; yes, from those same holy men who had helped the Landed to enter the Holy Land, there to find truth, to find connections, find love. Oh, but then, at the instigation of the Landed, they foolishly searched the Abyss for a different entity. An entity? I cannot, in truth, say it began as ‘one’, and it since has multiplied a million-fold.

Those ancient holy men had known of the duality: that for every light there is a dark. It was to that dark side that now they appealed—but not for themselves: no, in support of the Landed. Oh my priests, my foolish priests, though not done by yourselves, by your generation or even your immediate forefathers, yet you are left with it. For in taking and taking and taking the dark side—encouraging, feeding, glorifying—that dark side has now outgrown the light. And being now entirely dark, those entities must be held at bay, to be controlled lest they harm the very descendants of their entreaters.

Is this not so? That you, my priests, are now lodged between your dark gods and the Landed? And there you say you must remain, afraid if you lose control there would be total destruction. But, my priests, how can I and my forces overcome these dark ones without first you release them from your control? But that, of course, requires a high degree of trust. Would you walk that bridge, any one of you? Alone?

A brief interlude for Mideer, and yet one revealing of just how deeply involved her priests are with the dark forces. But at least she is satisfied that her mother, the queen, still lives and that, as yet, no axe will fall to part her body and head. And so to the next part of her plan . . . next episode, Railroaded By Glyntlanders

Mideer thought she’d returned to the solidity of the familiar cave—a relief after Hensable’s rapidly morphing other-land—only to be confronted by . . . what, a tree? Read on

“What . . .?” I asked again only to find myself alone. The shape-shifter Hensable was gone.

Briars grew around the multiple feet of the tree, and they blossomed, and every blossom looked like me. Their arching stems waved before me, displaying a myriad reflections of me.

And then they were gone. In their place again was that squirming insectoidal colony. The colony grew: it developed legs and arms and hands and a head. That colony looked remarkably like me! Yet even as I watched—turned to stone, unable to move—the form again changed,

I didn’t want to see it. I knew what it would be. It would again be a semblance of me. And I had to get past it yet it was filling the cave-entrance. If I didn’t get past it I couldn’t escape. Escape, escape, the word rattled around me as if in self-mockery. But at least now the terror had abated. Had it not by now I’d have been a jibbering mess. But in its place was a growing fear that if I didn’t escape then I would die here. I had to find a way past it. But how?

I thought if I dived to one side, as if I hoped to dodge around it, it likely would follow. Then if I was quick I could swerve around it and there I’d be free. I tried it. I waited until it took crystalline form. But before I’d a chance to swerve around it, it had changed again and was now blocking the cave entrance with a vast amorphous mimic of me.

I sat down. I wanted to cry, so frustrated. But that wouldn’t get me out of here. Neither would dodging and diving to left and right. It was faster than me, and always changing. This needed more thought. I needed to outwit it. But try as I may I could think only one thing, an undeniable solitary thought that filled my head: That form blocking the entrance is me.

“Mideer died,” I quoted what they’d likely say of me, “from being stuck in a cave with herself.” That would have been laughable were it not true. That form—in all its guises—it wasn’t merely a mirror of me; it was me.

I did not understand this, and I vowed I’d not move from that spot till I did.

“As well,” said a voice—my voice—issuing from a million petal-formed faces waving and writhing across a tangled briar, “for I’d not let you pass if you did.”

Question: Why were there so many forms, all distorted, yet all looking like me?

Do you not see, I answered myself, these are the many faces you turn to the world.

I laughed at that, for what world did I know; what world had I ever encountered? The queen’s daughter, cloistered. Except that now I’d come to Macara, I may as well have lived in a prison-cell. I met with my father, the king. I met with my women, my ladies-in-waiting. I met with you, my priests, on some few occasions. I met with a few of the Landed-lords—selected for me by the Assembly. And then there was Hean. But did I turn a different face to each of these? I supposed that I did, and who does not. But did those faces resemble those that now imprisoned me?

Imprisoned. What was it that was imprisoning me? I shivered, for suddenly I knew the answer and didn’t like it. My prejudices. My misbeliefs. Those many derogatory thoughts and putdowns regarding the Macaran—even now as I lived amongst them. But most and above all, those many layers of wrappings, clung to through life after life for not having had enough time to shed them.

I leapt to my feet. “That’s what these forms are blocking the cave! My wrappings!”

*

Several things then happened in rapid succession . . .

I stood on something soft yet not squishy. I heard a grunt, as of alarm. I lost my balance, began to stagger. Felt a sudden enfolding by masculine arms. Once steadied again I turned to see . . . .

Hensable. He grinned at me. “That was my foot. But you don’t need to apologise.”

Apologise? Of all the . . . I called him all the worst names I could find. “You liar! Cheat! Deceiver! Thief! Usurper of land!”

“No, Mideer, I am not a usurper. What need of I when the world is mine?”

I growled at him in anger and frustration. “And you gave me that vile transporting-drink.”

He held up his hands at that, I thought in surrender. But it was only to claim his innocence. “That drink, Mideer, was nothing more, and nothing less, that bocolo-juice. You have seen the bocolo? I know that you have for you gathered plenty with Zean for the feast.”

“But . . .” I didn’t know what to say.

“I am neither Hean nor Honapple that I need fancy potions to transport you. Just like that, I can do it.” And he snapped his fingers.

I looked around. I was still in the cave, its entrance clearly shown by the late sun lancing through it—and the earlier day suddenly collided upon me. “Zean!” I’d forgotten of her. What if she was looking everywhere for me? And if she’d returned to her village and reported me missing? Even now there could be a search-party out for me.

“Hush,” Hensable said. “No one is looking for you. All has gone according to plan. Oh, don’t look so amazed. Yes, your Hean knew this was to happen.” He laughed. “Your Hean requested it. Your entire stay in Macara has been leading to this.”

I was flabbered speechless—though not for long. The future queen within me soon awakened and took control. “Then he has arranged that you will escort me back to the village,” I demanded.

He shook his head and smiled. “He expects me to keep you here for the night.”

My mouth dropped.

“See?” He looked off to a deep-shadowed corner. “Your soft feather-bedding brought from your boat.”

“I’m to stay here . . . alone?” I couldn’t hide my alarm. No, Hean wouldn’t do that to me.

Indeed, Hean would not. I supposed Hensable led me to the bedding. I supposed I went, obedient as a duckling, stunned by the unexpectedness of it. And there we were, we two on the bedding and me with no memory of how I got there.

“Drink,” he said and offered me the same cup as before. When I looked at him, surely my eyes full of query and doubt, he added, “It will not harm.”

*

By what do we know the passing of time? Each moment is Now, yet the Nows speed along, each Now slightly different, and by their differences we know time is passing. But now the Nows weren’t slightly different. As had happened before, there was dislocation—yet not dislocation in space, no transportation to other lands. No, dislocation is time. And at times those Nows were massively different, as when I’d been led by Hensable to that bed-strewn corner and, lo, found myself lying down.

I had no cup in my hands. I had his ‘World Cloak’ around me—around us—his naked body tight against mine, snuggled as I remember snuggling tight to my mother. And he held the opal pendant that Hean had given me. He held it so the sun’s last light would catch it.

The fire within that stone drew me in. And that fire fractured into a thousand colours, colours I never had seen before. And each of the colours drew me in, dividing, opening, providing a place for me. Deeper, deeper—drawn deep into the stone and into the land until I realised I was not merely Mideer, but also the Sea-Mother’s Daughter, and that daughter was also the Sea-Mother-Abyss.

I heard a sigh. Perhaps it was mine. I felt myself swelling, enveloping, encompassing, wrapping the world within me. I believe I remained in such state for a fair fullness of time . . . though the Now now was constant, so how to mark it?

When I again became aware of something other it was that I myself was enfolded: enfolded by love as I was enfolding the world with my love. And I pressed back against the heat behind me and that heat was within me. And with love we made love.

*

Was this what Hean had intended? That I should give my love to Hensable? That we should spend that night in coupling? A shape-changer, he became the world—and so did I.

I was somewhat abashed to return to the village, sure that everyone who saw me would know what had happened. And I didn’t want to be separated from this strange man. “But we are always together,” he said. “For I am you and you are me.”

I knew what he meant—of course I knew what he meant. I couldn’t be ignorant of it after the experience of the night. Yet I still craved his physical presence. I had been given a taste of . . . I had no word for it and still do not, but I wanted more of it.

“You need a wed-man,” he said. I nodded. But a wed-man, and me betrothed to my cousin Jon who wasn’t yet walking!

He pressed his finger to my lips—and ran it down my chin, down my neck, to the opal pendant. He lifted it, to dangle it where I could see it. And I knew what he was saying. Hean.

It would seem that Mideer has been thoroughly unwrapped. So what now in her pursuit of fulfilling the prophecy? And what part now will Hean play in it? Were Hensable’s parting words also a prophecy? Next episode, An Axe To Greet Me

Mideer is into another trance, set off by a puff of ‘dust’. But where is she, so soon delivered there? As she says, it’s not the same place as before. And what is her purpose? Hean has said something of gaining a wider perspective . . . Read on

This wasn’t the fertile plain I’d seen before. I was, instead, in a cave. And though I didn’t know how I knew it, yet I knew it the next cave along from where I had met Honapple. Along . . . behind . . . beyond . . . at the back of him. Or maybe beneath? But, undeniably, it was a cave. It was dark. And yet it was lit.

That cave was populated—by little people—little green people. But how so ‘green’? Was it their skin green, or their clothes, or was it this odd non-directional diffused light? I couldn’t discern. Yet Hean has since told me, he’s seen them green, too.

They were not frightening. Rather, they were excitedly welcoming. They made gifts for me from out of their bodies. I assume it was this, for the ribbons they gave me were pulled from their mouths. Were they a thousand fragments of Mother Sea? Were the ribbons they gave me threads of seaweed? But no, for seaweed has a base and a definite top. These ribbons had neither.

The Glyntlanders have a word for these ribbons. Non-orientable bands. They talk of them in their mathematically grounded philosophies that they brag are beyond our mentalities. But whatever you care to call these ribbons they were also the ‘song of the sea’ that the singers were singing. Moreover, as Mother Sea is the ‘end-and-the beginning’ of the Source, so too these ribbons. Thus they were the Abyss. But let me explain that.

Doubtless you think when I say ‘Sea-Mother’ and ‘Abyss’ that I mean that body of water that surrounds Madjaria, that separates us from Macara and the Glyntlanders, that holds our three lands apart. But no, these ribbons, that song, the Sea-Mother, all was that same abyss wherein I sat. The Abyss of the Cave of the Holy Land. For from that Abyss, in the form of the Sea-Mother, all was created, and all that was created is the Abyss: the Sea-Mother.

But you don’t understand what I mean. You’ve not been where I have been, not seen what I have seen. Yet this all is open to you. You merely need ask my holy men and they will take you.

*

My stay in the Holy Land was short, my return to Hean’s side as abrupt as my departure. I remember I giggled, my cheeks hurting with grinning. And yet I shivered. Such a momentous thing I had seen, and all so briefly, yet it had a profound effect—though, I confess, as yet I couldn’t comprehend it, not sufficient to put into words, as I now have done in the hope that you, my priests, might understand me.

It was late, the sun setting, and no one moving to return to their homes. Hean caught my hand. “Walk,” he said.

I looked at our hosts. He shook his head. “They will assume we seek a place for loving.”

We walked. He took me down to the shore, which here was a good way away from the river and the wharf and my boat with its crew and my corps. I knew before he asked what he would say, but I allowed him to ask it the same.

“Now tell me, how will you fulfill the prophesy?”

“I want those singers, and the dancers,” I said. “And I want Hensable. I want them to return to Madjaria with me. I want them to perform for my Landed-lords and my priests as they have now performed for me. I’d like use of your Holy Dust too.”

“You cannot dose your people with Holy Dust, unprepared,” he said. He laughed, “It will scramble their brains. But I think Hensable might be persuaded to bring some of his band to Madjaria for you. To perform, as they have this day. Now tell me your reasons for this.”

“As they have shown me so, too, I would show my people. Maybe they won’t understand,” I gave Hean no chance to say it. “Yet maybe in seeing, and hearing, some small part of it will seep through to the depths of them.” Besides, I had another reason. “And in their seeing me with these Macaran—accepting them, for why should I not—they too might begin to accept, and not be so blindly against them. And if I can do the same with the Glyntlanders . . . bring them together. Won’t that go some way to fulfilling the prophecy?”

He nodded—and I had expected him to object. “Then we must speak to Hensable. But, a word in your ear. He let slip to me, his interest in you is not what you’d say ‘honourable’.”

I was soon to discover the truth of that. Though it was not quite as Hean had said it.

*

It was the day after Hean’s next visit, when he had again left me in the care of his father and sister.

“The feast-berries are ripe,” Zean had enthused. “You must come help pick them.”

The berries—we have nothing to liken them to amongst our fruits—grow deep in a ravine edging the jungle. The Macaran girls use them, mixed with a white-clay, to paint their bodies for the big feast. Although Zean had already tempted me several times into the edge of the jungle when gathering foods, yet I still was hesitant of risking the dangerous animals there. She laughed at my fears.

“You walk the plain, you do not fear there.”

“I know the plain has predators hidden,” I said. “But I haven’t seen them. And no one speaks of them. Somehow that makes them less scary.”

Her eyes opened wide. “We do not speak of them for to speak their name is to call them! But they are there, as you say, hidden, And they are more dangerous than any found in our jungle. At least those you can see.”

I remember looking behind me and all around me, seeking these predators that nobody could see. So were they spirits, these invisible predators? Were they, perhaps, beings called from the Abyss and released to here? But, though I could imagine many amongst you, my priests, who might be tempted to do such a thing, I could not imagine it of the Macaran holy men.

Zean covered her ears when I asked her, “Is there such a thing as a bad holy man?” She said, “No-no-no-no,” repeatedly so she couldn’t hear me. “Come, we gather feast-berries,” she then said as if I’d said nothing.

We gathered feast-berries. But then with two brimming baskets she said of ‘scrumming-around’ for the clay. She knew of a place that the girls-now-women had barely touched. It was secret, she said, none others were to know of it.

“That is why I bring you and not Sheena and Schola.” She set off at a fast pace. “It’s in one of the caves along the Cave-Cliff.”

She didn’t tell me where the Cave-Cliff was. If she had said then what later happened might not have happened, for I would have known the way.

It was a single-footed track, so I’d no choice but to follow behind her. But I was happy with that. It meant she wouldn’t see how often I looked about me, watching for the unseen predators.

“How far?” I asked after a while, for it did seem to be a long way away.

“Not far. Up ahead,” she said. “But, oh . . .” she squealed and hopped from one foot to the other. “I urgently need to pass water . . .”

Now you might think in such a place we would do as the Land-labours do when they work in the fields and just squat wherever we are. But no. There are particular places where the Macaran go: places for men, places for women, places for boys—and particularly places for girls of our age. But that didn’t require her return to the village. There are many such places; it was just a matter of . . . She squealed and ran and left me standing.

But where did she go? I didn’t see. And I hadn’t been to this part of the plain before to know where the places were. So I waited for her to return. I didn’t dare move. What if I passed by her and didn’t see her? No, safer to wait for her return. But she didn’t return.

I waited, and I waited. Where was she? She couldn’t be much longer. After all, how long does it take to pass water? But standing there alone on the plain, after our talk of the hidden predators . . . I felt intensely vulnerable. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck beginning to rise. I scanned in every direction, pleading with her that she soon would return. What a relief it was when I finally saw her! I ran to meet her.

But . .  what! She veered off the track, taking a turning I supposed would lead to the cliff. I wanted to call to her but, as with the thing of not naming the predators, she long ago had warned me not to call out a person’s name, not while out on the plain. So I called to her, “Oi!” But she neither looked my way nor stopped to wait for me. I wondered, maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it was some other girl of our age. Yet there were no others in Hensit’s band, unless it was Schola or Sheena and I knew it wasn’t either of them. No, it was Zean’s height and Zean’s build and Zean’s hair and . . . it was Zean. I could even see the basket she carried. So why was she running in what seemed to me the wrong direction?

I tell you, though I had travelled the sea from Madjaria to Macara, and twice had travelled into the Holy Land, such travels were of no help when finding my way around that plain. Without a constant sighting of Zean I would have been lost. But why, why, why was she running away? For I now was convinced that’s what she was doing.

She came at last to a cliff, the Cave-Cliff, and now I recognised it. It was that same place where Holy Man Honapple had his cave, where I had first tasted his vile brew, from where he’d sent me reeling into the Holy Land. I wondered, was he there in his cave now? Would he help me?—if I lost sight of Zean which looked increasingly likely.

You wonder at this? That she should run so fast that I lost her? What, I cannot run like a Macaran runs? Here in Madjaria, yes I can. But not across that unfamiliar plain, where predators might lay in wait for an unheeding juicy morsel like me. For Zean, she knew where it was safe. Me, I must be ever alert and searching—and that delayed me. So too did my thoughts.

Endlessly over I asked and asked, why did she run? I tried to give her a reason. She had somehow received a message that she must return home. She had seen something when at the piss-place: a girl maybe, maybe even Schola or Sheena, but that girl was injured, so now Zean raced ahead to fetch some help. Or she had stumbled upon one of the unmentionable predators and now she fled from it, drawing it ever farther from me. And all these thoughts further slowed me. And if the latter . . . perhaps it wasn’t so wise to catch her?

I lost sight of her. That Cave-Cliff is aptly named. I didn’t notice the first time there—other matters filled my mind—but there must be ten, twelve, maybe more caves along that one rock-wall, all accessible from the plain as if the plain had been lifted up in one piece to be on a level with all the cave mouths. Or perhaps the caves weren’t naturally made?

“Oi!” I called again. And I stood still and I listened. But I could hear nothing beyond the natural sounds: the birds and the beasts of the plain which by now were familiar.

So where was she now? Disappeared into one of the caves? There could be no other answer. Which left me but one recourse: I must methodically check. I would investigate each and every one of them. One must yield her. Oh, I did so hope so. One look at the sky told me we soon must be starting home. Maybe that was the reason she ran? Maybe she intended to double back and collect me once she’d scrummed-up the clay?

*

I squeezed into the first cave—and quickly out again. That one was occupied by something ‘hissy’. At least it had warned me. I doubted Zean had gone in there. I moved along to the next—and disturbed a colony of birds. I almost fell back, such a volley of bodies came flying towards me. But that was another cave empty of Zean.

In the next cave my steps sounded hollow. I called out for Zean. My voice answered back. There was a smell, I couldn’t mistake it. It triggered a memory so strong I almost expected to find my mother beside me. She had taken me to the Queens Sepulchre to show me the coffin the men prepared for her though none expected her to die for many years yet. Indeed, since I couldn’t have been more than five or six at the time she still had eight or nine years left to live. But as she’d said, we none of us know the day so it is better to be prepared. I had asked her what that smell? And she had answered, “It is our Source.” Why have I not remembered till now? She said that deep down in the Sepulchre there was a passage that led to the sea. So in this cave too?

I found Zean in the seventh cave. She sat on the floor, her hands smeared in white. She shushed me as soon as I started to speak. She motioned me to sit.

I was brimming with things to say, bulging with questions if not rebukes. Yet again she held up a finger to quiet.

“Here,” she said. “You must be thirsty, all that running.” She offered me a cup.

A cup? That should have alerted me for she’d carried none with her. I should at least have been wary. But, oh, not me, for indeed I was thirsty.

As I brought the cup up to my lips I thought I saw an unnatural twinkle in her dark eyes. She tipped her head back, encouraging me to guzzle the drink. “All,” she said.

It was slithering down my gullet before I realised the change. That wasn’t Zean sitting naked-breasted before me. It was Hensable, with his naked sun-baked skin striped by a clay-based paint. He grinned.

“Have you not met a shape-shifter before? You have no such predators in Madjaria?”

I think what astounded me most in that moment was that he spoke the Madja-tongue.

*

Looking, now, at the truth of him, I belatedly wondered what he had given me. One thing for certain, it wasn’t the vile concoction Holy Man Honapple had given me. Indeed, I hadn’t discerned any definite taste, but neither was it water. Nor was it wine—at least not like our Madjarian wines—neither had it the bite and the lingering glow of the fermented juices served at the Macaran feast. Perhaps it was something harmless. But no. The way that shape-shifter now was looking at me—expectant—told me otherwise.

Then my tongue began to swell—the right side only. The left side was shrinking. The left side of my body, too, was drawing in tightly upon itself, shrivelling, while the right side swelled. And lights, again lights, but this time different. Iridescent, scintillating, colours so sharp they cut my eyes leaving voids in my vision.

Hensable, the shape-shifter, took the cup from me. I had a distant vague feeling of surprise that I still held it. My hands were numb. But, no, I realised they weren’t numb; they didn’t exist. My arms didn’t exist! And now where was Hensable? He was inside the cup looking up at me, a big grin on his face.

“Can you swim?” he asked. “The water’s lovely. Come on in.”

I drew back. “Ridiculous!” How could I swim in the cup? Yet there I was, treading water beside him—which was all very rum since never in my life had I done this before.

“Ah, but this isn’t your life,” he said.

The rim of the cup had become the shores of a lake. Trees grew there. Now I stood there. I was looking for something to wrap around me. Now I wore Hensable’s ‘all-the-world’ cloak. He held me close to him. Close and safe. We needed to be safe for all around us were snakes.

“They will not harm you,” he said, his voice swelling to fill the sky around us. “But that will.”

I turned in his arms to see what he was seeing. We were again in a cave.

“What . . .?” I could form no other words, at once terrified and puzzled by what I was facing. It filled the cave entrance—the cave exit?. And it wouldn’t be still, changing, always changing. Now some single beast of vast amorphous form. Now a squirming insectoidal colony. Now a growing structure, crystalline, branching, joining, maze-creating. A tree—that surprised me—a tree with feet that walked and hands that reached towards me.

After Hean had warned her of Hensable’s dubious motives, was Mideer wise to trust him? Yet he had tricked her to this. Of more concern is the ‘thing’ that’s blocking the cave and Mideer’s exit to safety. Is it all part of her trance? Next episode, 2nd August, And Every One Me

Hean has schemed up a feast—in honour of Mideer though her hosts don’t know it. But he refuses to tell her of what’s to happen ‘lest she arms herself with preconceptions’ . . . Read on

As the day of the feast approached so our Macaran band launched into increasingly frenetic activity. So much to prepare, and of course it all must be outstanding, remarkable, the bestest-best feast. The bands competed when giving these ‘lesser feasts’ to outdo one another (Zean explained, though it really wasn’t needed so obvious was it). A reputation gained here would hold through the years until another headman knocked it away—or the present holder died. Our headman—Hensit his name—had held his reputation since before his daughter Zean was born. He was not about to let it wane.

The men disappeared off in their hunting parties. Some were gone as long as three days. We women (yes, I now was counted amongst them) scoured the plain, and even into the jungle, to find fruits and roots, and seeds and leaves, all at the very peak of ripeness. We raided nests for the eggs. We clubbed escaping lizards (roasted, they were served as titbits). We netted fish (only the men were allowed the fish-spears). Meanwhile new cloths were dyed and woven, and a whole array of personal ornaments especially reserved for  these feasts were unpacked from their boxes. I too had a box. Hean delivered it late on the eve of the feast.

“I thought you’d prefer not to wear what our girls wear,” he said, passing the box to me.

“I washed my shift,” I said when I realised what he’d brought me. In fact I had washed it several times by now, each time hiding out at the women’s place along the river until it had dried.

“No,” he said. “Look into the folds.”

So I eased the new shift out of its box—and it differed not a jot from the one I was wearing except in its smell (it had been inter-layered with fragrant herbs). And there, residing beneath it, was my comb! I cannot say how excited I was. Only then I must be careful not to offend Schola, for she had given me a comb on that first night. But my comb was of ivory, and polished smooth from fourteen years of use. Hers, though perfectly made, was new, and if I wasn’t careful it snagged my hair.

Hean had brought other things too, things that, being snatched so abruptly from our boat, I’d had no time to retrieve. He had brought a belt. It was almost the twin of the one he wore, except his was of brass and mine of gold. Wide metal plates with leather links.

“I thought . . .” he seemed suddenly shy, not at all like him. “It will help define your . . .” I could see he was struggling for the words.

“My hips? My waist? My womanly attributes? To show I’m the same age as Zean and Schola, but without bearing all?”

He nodded.

“I thank you,” I said.

“And there’s this.” He took a thong-threaded pendant from the box and before I’d chance to see it properly he had tied it around my neck. I had to hold it up to see it. An opal, its depth lit by a fierce fire.

“I thank you,” I said though I hardly could speak: I was stunned.

“The men should not—this isn’t that feast, besides you’re a guest—but this will protect you.” He then thought to add, “It’s the usual gift when a man wants a girl. For you to wear it means I have claimed you as mine.”

I think I swallowed at that. At least I remember breaking into a sweat, and felt breathless—

—until he laughed, his hands held up in surrender, “It is just for their eyes. For this feast. I know you have your baby cousin Jon.”

“You do not approve?”

“My ways, your ways.” He shrugged.

“And how would you have it?” I asked. “I’m to be their queen.”

He changed the subject, I thought rather abruptly. “I should warn you, there will be another visit. During the feast. Tomorrow.”

“A . . .?”

“To the Holy Land. Regretful you could not be warned that first time. Yet how it was done was needed. But don’t fret. I shall be with you.”

“Ah, yes, Hean the Holy Man,” I said—at which he pulled such a strange face, I could give it no meaning and before I could ask he had hurried away.

*

The feast: In its earlier part the feast was no different to those we hold in our halls (simpler, perhaps)—and you, my priests, need no description of this. Even when you’ve no need to attend upon gods still you acquire an invitation as if it’s your right.

The feast rolled along until late in the day, with the day’s heat abating, all pleasantly sated, and the spirit of companionable ease wafting thickly amongst us. It was then that the feast changed—orchestrated by a holy man.

Hean had introduced me to Hensable when first his band had arrived. Older than Hean, he too had been apprenticed to the old man Honapple. He nodded to me. He did not speak. Indeed, I’m not sure once throughout that day I heard him speak. Was he a born mute? I know amongst we Madja many with deformities and disabilities seek out the priesthood. But then, there they might hide. Not so with the Macaran holy men. And nothing of Hensable suggested a man in hiding.

Unlike Hean (who wore a simple though colourful woollen gown of Madja-weave) it was obvious that Hensable liked to dress up. I could imagine him revelling in our pageants; keen to organise them too. From top to toe he was something ‘apart’, something strange, not quite human. He wore—a cloak I supposed it—hung with every coloured strip of cloth, every tail of beast and bird, every claw and talon, every scaled skin of snake and fish and lizard. Beneath the cloak, which mostly enclosed him, were flashes of naked, sun-baked skin striped by a clay-made paint. His head, covered in an explosion of feathers, was crowned by a bare patch. It seemed to me, except for this one spot of humanity, he wore the world!

This Hensable stage-managed a performance in which, it seemed to me, his entire band were involved. Moreover, it wasn’t long before I realised it was performed especially for me. It began with the singers.

I know you have heard them: they have performed several times in my hall. But you, no more than I at that time, would not have known the words. No doubt if Zean had sat beside me she would have translated. But she sat with the girls of her age while I sat in an honoured place beside Hean. And perhaps that was another reason he had marked me with the opal; so he could be there beside me. But Hean was no translator, at least not in that sense.

Without knowing the words yet I knew the song—or maybe I ought to say that I sensed its meaning. Maybe some of you, my priests, have realised the same on hearing it. The rhythm, the sounds . . .: that first time they sucked me in with their familiarity. I thought at once of the sea—though not of that sea I had crossed, battered and bounced till my belly and bones cried for cessation. No, it was the sea as she gently sweeps our own Madjarian shores.

The sea. The Mother. How apt that image. And how—HOW—I ask you, my priests, could you have ever believed the Creator to be your Dark Father? That most honoured, most sacred, most precious of roles belongs to the Sea-Mother. How could it be otherwise? Does not a woman, following the lead of Mother Sea, create from her own person when she creates a baby? That child even resides in ‘the sea’ while in her belly. But what of a man, what does he create from his own person, from his own body? Nothing. He must take clay for his pots, and ore for his iron. He even must plunder the woman’s belly to get him a son.

You do not see it, do you, my priests, even now? Yet I saw it. I saw it that day at the feast, just on hearing that song. And then there, too, were the dancers. But you, too, have seen them. Were you not watching, my priests? Did you not see how they danced that song of the sea? So let me remind you.

Their steps were a mimic of the constant wash of the waves on the shore. Move to the centre, moved out again, move to the centre, move out again. That is life: a perfect facsimile of our souls. See how they repeatedly leave the central spirit. How they venture out to animate our bodies. How thence on the body’s death they return to the centre again. Back and forth, back and forth, like the sea in constant motion. But no, my blind priests, you cannot see it. Have you no story that might tell you of this? Ancient, surviving, Queen-given? Blind, my priests, you are blind—blinded by your dark gods who care only for blood, and for battle, and for wealth and possessions. But Hean says I must forgive you if you don’t understand. For you haven’t yet entered the Holy Land.

*

Hean had warned me . . . yet even so it was sudden: a puff of Holy Dust and . . .

“Breathe!” he said.

“I am breathing,” I said.

“Breathe deeply,” he said.

And so I breathed deeply. And there were lights before me. And I knew of a certainty only I could see them. Fire-lights they seemed, and yet not. Intensely coloured blobs that rapidly swelled. Only then to retreat (just like the tides). I thought them like fishes trying to escape a net. And next I knew . . . I was there. But where was ‘there’? It was not the same place as before.

Where has Hean taken Mideer this time, with his Holy Dust? To meet the Sea-Mother, perhaps; to dance on her shore? Or maybe to meet her tide-carried self coming back? Anything’s possible . . . in the next episode, A Thousand Fragments Of Mother Sea

Mideer has successfully come through her first ordeal. And now she knows, at least in outline, what she must do to complete the prophecy to unite the Three Lands. But in the meantime, here she is on the isle of Macara, amongst people fully unfamiliar to her . . . Read on

It was now that the truth of my circumstances slammed into me. Though, as I’ve said, I had regained my trust in Hean, yet I was alarmed by the absence of my corps. Where were they? They’d been assigned to protect me. Further, it wasn’t until I registered their absence that I realised I’d no idea where I’d be spending the night.

All through the days of waiting, back on Madjaria, nothing had been said of the practicalities of my visit. I’d been allowed to assume that Hean would take care of it all. This was his venture; it was at his request. Then, on the journey, the seasickness, the lack of a woman-in-waiting, then Hean rehearsing me for the imminent meeting with the headman, I hadn’t once thought this far ahead. I had swept it into the box that, figuratively, Hean carried for me.

Now, entering the village, all heads turned, all eyes upon me . . . I felt exactly what I was. A stranger, an outsider, walking into a unfamiliar place that didn’t, in any sense, belong to me. I didn’t know what to say, what to do. I prayed Hean would direct me and help me through it. For without my corps I’d no other help.

The headman stood—he’d been sitting by a communal fire. He turned to a grass-thatched hut at the back of him. And he called.

I didn’t know the language, so I didn’t know then what his words. Except they did sound like a summons,. And it was as it seemed, for three girls emerged from the hut behind him to arrange themselves into a clear order of height. They each held their hands demurely before them. All three I judged of an age with me, though I deemed the tallest to be the youngest judging by her lack of feminine development (none were covered from the hips up, at which I was glad that my corps was not here).

The headman beckoned the middle girl closer. He said something too softly for me to hear. Not that I’d have understood it. The girl smiled, first at the headman, then at me. I smiled in return, eager for this small sign of a welcome. She tossed her head back: it was to beckon me. She signed that I should join her group, to join them in their hut.

“They will not hurt you,” Hean whispered to me when I didn’t immediately move. I believe he was teasing me.

*

“Zee-ane,” the middle girl said, pointing to herself. She then looked at me.

I was annoyed she’d given me no time to take in my surroundings. Yet I couldn’t refuse this offer of friendship.

“Mideer,” I said. But she struggled with that. I said it again, this time breaking it into component sounds as she had done with her own name: Zean. “Mi’-dee-er.”

This naming passed to the other two girls. The tallest (but youngest) was Sheena. The other was Schola.

“All ‘shusses’,” I said forgetting they couldn’t understand my Madjarian. Yet they must have caught the meaning for they laughed.

Zean—clearly the spokesperson—took up the theme. “Susses,” she said with a sweeping gesture to include them all, including me. “Henses,” she said and mimed a masculine strut.

“Ah, girls have names beginning with ‘Shus’? While boys have names beginning with ‘Hens’?” I added some obvious gender gestures. She nodded vigorously. I had it right.

“Hean?” I asked. At which Schola and Sheena fell together in laughter. They landed, plonk, on a rush-mat. Apart from that there wasn’t much by way of furniture here.

“Hean, Zean,” Zean said with gestures to suggest they were kin.

“He’s your brother?” I asked, surprised.

She nodded, though I doubted she’d ever heard the word before. She repeated it, using a deep resonant voice, “Broo-the-er. Broo-the-er.”

Before we ever sought out our beds that night Zean was already speaking several words of our Madjarian tongue. She had a keen ear, and was fast to learn. Perhaps not so the other two, but Zean seemed happy to act as translator.

*

During the next few days, as Zean was acquiring our language, she told me snips and bits about her brother.

He had been apprenticed to Honapple, the old man–Honapple the Holy Man, she called him. But it wasn’t in Hean to be content with waiting.

“Waiting?” I queried it.

She shrugged. “Waiting, is what he said.” She shrugged again.

I figured maybe he had wanted to be the Holy Man, which position couldn’t be had until this Honapple died. And still this Honapple, most ancient of days, refused to oblige.

Zean continued her brother’s story. Restless, unable to settle, his head not turned by the eligible girls in the other bands, Hean had said he would leave. Their father had tried to reason with him, to persuade him to stay, but he would not. He went away, having found passage aboard a Glyntlander-vessel.

“And this is the first he’s returned?” I asked.

But Zean shook her head. “Many times now. Once he returns, every year.” She nodded. “I had four years when he left. I now have ten more. I wait now the big feast.” Her face glowed at the mention.

“And what happens then, at the big feast?” I asked her.

She grinned ear to ear. “All bands come together—all but the Demons. And girls –” she indicated the three of them, so I guessed she meant girls of their age, “we find our . . . our men.”

“Wed-men?” I said seeing her struggle to find a word.

“You find wed-man?” she asked me.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to explain why there’d be no ‘wed-man’ for me, only a child not yet walking.

*

I stayed in that village near a month round. By that time Zean truly had our language. She answered my every question about her people. I accompanied her everywhere. I learned of gathering foods, and preparing their simple cloths from bark-fibres. I learned some of their stories. I learned of the Demons.

“They came,” she said, her usual cheerful face turning sombre, “in the days of my father’s . . .” she stopped to recite names while counting on fingers then flashed up her fingers, twice.

“Twenty?”

She nodded. “My father’s twenty mothers before.”

I didn’t work it out then, but I figure that dates the Demons’ advent to around 700 years ago.

“They came here like Glyntlanders, strutting and taking. Our holy man said no, we must not let them. We must raise our arms. We must drive them away. And we did. Many were the deaths in that battle. Yet we drove them back into their boats. But those boats went not far. The Daughter raised a high sea-wave. Violent it was, snake-stirred. And it smashed their boats. But all did not drown. Perhaps a half of a half of the Demons survived. Yet they no more trouble us.”

“And where are they now? You say they’re still on Macara?”

“They have hunting-range west of here. Far-far west. Mountains rise, valleys fall. They come not to our feasts. Not welcome. Yet they find some women from somewhere though they are not many.”

I could guess where they found their women. I’d wager these ‘Demons’ are the Macaran of our oldest traditions, those we accuse of stealing our women.

Hean didn’t remain in the village. I thought perhaps he was visiting the other bands, looking there for a wed-woman—and yet, by Zean’s telling, the time for that was at the big feast. He returned to our village three times. Each time he sought me. Each time he took me walking, so we were alone.

The first time he wasted no time but asked me again if I’d yet decided how I would show my people that there is no ‘good, better, best’, that we all have the same value, just our ways are different.

“I’ve been thinking: Your sister Zean might return home with me.” Though I admit my thoughts hadn’t yet progressed beyond that. I mean, how could I present her to required effect . . .

“No,” he said in a tone not to be challenged.

“Because she’s your sister?”

“No to any woman alone, not one of her age.”

“But—” I didn’t understand. She was of the same age as me.

“No,” he repeated.

“Yet it’s fine for me to come here alone?” I didn’t quite rant, but I was annoyed.

“Oh I do not see you come here alone. You have crewmen. You have ten corps. You have me. You are not alone. But you take Zean to Madjaria, who is there with her? Just you. Just me. And your Madja-lords are not Macaran to care to honour a guest.”

“But—”

“I said no.” He would not be gainsaid and I did not push.

Perhaps I’d have said more, tried to persuade him, if I’d had some plan of how to make use of Zean’s presence. But I did not. And I could see what Hean was saying, I could imagine Zean at our court. Imagine our Landed-lords, the young, the old—the whole lot of them—imagine their attempts to disabuse her of what they’d think was her innocence. Then how could I blame Hean if he stepped in to prevent it. No, with Zean there, I could see there would soon be an incident. Her presence would have the opposite effect of what I wanted.

“I have for you a better idea,” he said. “Though I did want you to find it yourself. Yet now I see it was unreasonable of me. How to find a solution when you see but a spot too tight. No, you need see a wider scene, and so there’s to be a feast. No!” he held up his hands before I could speak. “They do not know this feast is for you; they believe it for me. It is only for three bands—mine and the two neighbouring either side of us. It will not be the big feast such as my sister has mentioned. You need not be afraid any man will molest you.”

He refused to say more of it. “I don’t want you armed with your preconceptions. I want you open. Open, and trusting.”

What feast is this that Hean has schemed up, in honour of Mideer though her hosts do not know it? And what’s to happen that he won’t tell her more lest she arms herself with her preconceptions? Next episode, He Wears The World, 19th July.