A Rescue

8

A Rescue

   “Dashed nuisance, isn’t it?” drawled Dh'aaych as T'm unlatched his breeches for him.

    “Yeah. Only I reckon it’d be worse if ya were a girl."

    “Mm? Oh, absolutely.” He turned away politely. “I can manage the rest, I think.”

    “She does knots real tight, eh?” the boy said sympathetically.

    “Mm.” Dh’aaych’s hands were now tied together before him.

    “I can take your breeches right off, if you like,” said T’m.

     “I’ll be all right till the morning, thanks, old son.”

    “I go in the morning, too. She reckons I take too long,” he said on a glum note.

    “My father usually shuts himself in the bathroom for an hour in the morning,” said Dh’aaych, not explaining how many bathrooms they had. “He watches the News Services while he’s in there. It drives Mother to a frenzy.”

    “We never had a sim-receiver at the Home,” he said glumly.—Dh’aaych had now heard a fair bit about T'm and T’m’s relations: he nodded sympathetically.—“Mum’s got one, though, ’cos now she’s got a lot of money!”

    “Yes. Wouldn’t you rather be living with her, T’m?” He fumbled clumsily at the clip of his breeches, two-handed.

    “Nah! It’s boring!” he said in astonishment.

    “What about the winters, though?”

    “Sometimes we go round her place,” he said in a vague voice.

    “It must be very cold in the forest in winter,” murmured Dh’aaych.

    “We got a ca—” The boy broke off, very red.

    “You manage to keep warm, do you?” said Dh’aaych kindly.

    T’m nodded hard.

    “That’s good. Have you ever thought about what you want to be when you grow up?”

    “Nah. Mum reckons I could help her run the tavern,” he said glumly.

    “Wouldn’t you like that?"

    “Nah! It’s boring!"

    “Uh-huh. Well, what about a job working for The Mk-L’ster?”

    “Gr’gg, he was working in the big glasshouses before, he said it was real boring, and he’s gormless! All he hadda do was put these little plants in rows, see.”

    “Uh—yeah. Not necessarily in the horticultural company. What about being a forester?”

    “He’s only got four, now, and he doesn’t want any more. Jhmmaiyh Mk-Strt, well, the Mk-L’ster’s Head Forester told him they don’t need any more.”

    “But the forests are huge! Four men?”

    The little boy looked blank.

    After a minute Dh’aaych murmured under his breath: “Father said he was letting the preserves go to the bears: I thought that was just Father going on about the younger generation... Drouwh must be serious about all this devolution stuff, then.”

    “We could go back now. Here, you gotta put these on it,” the child said, handing him a bunch of stink-nettle leaves.

    “What?”

    “Where ya done your piss. It puts the dogs off, see? And if ya done a shit, ya gotta put stink-nettles an’ hggl shit on that, or she goes wild.”

    “I see,” he said weakly. “She certainly knows all the tricks of the bandit’s trade.”

    “Yeah, she’s all right,” he conceded.

    Dh’aaych smiled a little. He sprinkled the spot delicately with nettles.

    They returned to the little clearing where the girls had made a makeshift camp—no fire, on K’t-Ln’s orders. M’ri had disappeared for a while and returned with a haunch of cold nyr meat and a flask of vtt’lberry cordial, so presumably she’d visited their permanent camp. There was a little stream nearby and K’t-Ln had made bark cups and watered the cordial with a ruthlessly parsimonious hand. T’m had complained loudly but been ignored.

    In the gathering dusk Dh’aaych sat down with his back against a tree trunk and said, reverting to the earlier theme: “Ever thought of joining the Space Service?"

    “Him? He’s a kna-brain!” choked K’t-Ln.

    “Not to be a Pilot, I don’t think he means, K’t-Ln,” murmured M’ri.

    “No: but a spacer?” said Dh’aaych, smiling at the boy.

    “Um, I thought ya hadda be a Feddo,” he said cautiously.

    “Kna-brain,” noted K’t-Ln.

    “Yes, that’s right, T’m. But after Feddo Day we’ll all be Feddos,” said Dh’aaych kindly. “You do know about Feddo Day, don’t you?”

    “Yeah, we done it at school,” he said vaguely. “They’re gonna have a big party in the village.”

    K’t-Ln made a rude noise.

    “Yes, there’ll be parties everywhere, T’m. After that there’ll be the Referendum, do you know what that is?"

    He looked blank.

    “We can vote out the kna-fucking Parliament,” admitted K’t-Ln grudgingly. “And the Lords’ Circle. Only I’m not old enough to vote. –Anyway, I wouldn’t if I could, see! They’re all the same.”

    “No, they’re not,” objected Dh’aaych. “Well, probably the current lot are, only the idea is you can have whatever form of government you want. You can vote out the Lords, or the Parliament, or the Royal Family."

    “I know!” she said scornfully.

    “But there has to be a government,” said M’ri uncertainly.

    “Yes. You vote for the form you want. Um…” Dh’aaych swallowed. Politics were definitely not his thing, he’d thrown in his lot with Drouwh because—well, because Drouwh was Drouwh, he’d always been the leader, and because even Father had thought it was the sensible course, sort of a middle way. “Um, well,” he said desperately, wishing he could remember exactly what those Numbers One, Two and Three of cursed Drouwh’s had been: “if you vote for Choice 542, you’ll have a new parliament where every Representative’s been voted in by the people.”

    “Huh!”

    “No, K’t-Ln, it wouldn’t be like some of the electorates now, where the Representative pays everyone to vote for him,” he said weakly.

    “Ya wanna bet?”

    “Uh—it’d be up to the people. Drouwh—The Mk-L’ster, I mean—says Choice 542 would be the fairest way. That means half the clan lands will go to the clans, and everyone—that’s old enough, I mean—will be able to vote in the future, and there’ll be no Royal Family.”

    “Half the clan lands will go to the clans?” gasped M’ri.

    “Yes. You must have heard that’ll happen?”—They shook their heads.—“Uh, well, it’s Feddo law. If you’re a clansperson, living on clan land—I mean, if you haven't moved to town and got a job or something—you’ll get a share of the land on Feddo Day. That’s why the villagers will be having a party, T’m."

    The three young people stared at him.

    “Only we’re not old enough,” said K’t-Ln, for once sounding unsure of herself.

    “Age doesn't matter. Every person born on clan land and still living there permanently on Feddo Day.”

    “Us?” gasped M’ri.

    “Yes. All of you. And all the clanspeople in the villages.”

    “Not that kna-worm U’iiain, he’s a Mk-U’uish,” said T’m with satisfaction.

    “Um—who?” replied Dh’aaych’llyai’n weakly.

    “He’s one of Mum’s lovers. He’s a kna-worm, he tried to take my knife off me!”

    “He said it was dangerous,” murmured M’ri.

    “He would,” noted K’t-Ln sourly.

    “Yes, well, if he’s a Mk-U’uish and not living on Mk-U’uish land, he won’t be entitled to a share,” said Dh’aaych limply.

    “Kna-worm,” said T’m with satisfaction.

    There was a short silence. Dh’aaych’llyai’n saw that K’t-Ln was rather pale. He waited and then, as she didn’t say anything, said gently: “What is it, K’t-Ln?”

    “None of your business, kna dropping!” she snarled.

    “K’t-Ln—” said M’ri anxiously.

    “All right, YOU ask him!” she shouted angrily.

    M’ri licked her lips and said nervously: “My Lord—”

    “Don’t CALL him that, he’s our PRISONER!” shouted K’t-Ln, red and furious.

    “Um—yes. Um, she wants to know,” she said uneasily, “if it means that the Mk-D’rm’ds will get a share in their clan land, too?”

    “Yes. The lands of all the clans will be divided up: the Lord to keep half and the other half to be given to his clanspeople. So the Mk-D’rm’ds will get half the Mk-D’rm’d lands.”

    There was a moment’s silence. Then M’ri asked in bewilderment: “How will we— I mean, what would we do with the lands?”

    “Those kna-worms in the village’ll cut down the forests, that’s what they'll DO!” shouted K’t-Ln bitterly.

    This hadn’t occurred to Dh’aaych. He stared at her numbly.

    “I suppose they could plant yi’ish,” conceded M’ri limply. “Or—um—stupid vegetables like the horticultural company,” she ended feebly.

    “Yes. This isn’t really yi’ish country,” agreed Dh’aaych.

    “Shut up, kna-worm, did anyone ask you?” snarled K’t-Ln.

    Dh’aaych’llyai’n returned kindly: “Under Choice 542 half of the forests will still be left standing, K’t-Ln: The Mk-L’ster won’t cut down his half, you can be sure.”

    “Besides, you can’t spend all the rest of your life in the forest, K’t-Ln,” quavered M’ri, broaching a topic that had hitherto been taboo between them, though one that was brought up every time they visited their mother’s house.

    “I CAN!” she shouted.

    There was a short pause.

    “What if—if they don’t vote for Choice—what you said?” said M’ri at last.

    “Um, if everyone votes for one of the other Choices, then all the clan lands would go to the clanspeople but we’d keep the Royal Family. Um—they’re very expensive, we’d all have to pay lots of taxes to keep the palaces going and so on,” he explained feebly.

    “Then we’d get more of the forests!” squeaked T'm.

    “Then those kna-worms would cut down ALL the forests, you’re an idiot, T’m Mk-L’ster!” shouted K’t-Ln. “Where would the nyr go?”

    “They could be farmed. I believe that’s been suggested,” said Dh’aaych lamely.

    K’t-Ln scrambled up. It was nearly dark, now, but he could see her eyes were ablaze. “Shut them up in stupid paddocks? They’d hate it: they’d DIE!” she shouted. “And SHUT UP, you’re our PRISONER!” She rushed over to the other side of the clearing and flung herself at a tree trunk.

    Dh’aaych peered upwards: as far as he could tell she didn’t glide off but remained somewhere far above them in the tree, out of sight.

    There was silence in the clearing. T’m stared glumly at the knees of his torn breeches. M’ri stared glumly at her feet. Dh’aaych’llyai'n huddled into his hggl-wool cloak and wished very much that, at the least, the militant K’t-Ln had allowed them a fire.

    Finally M’ri said: “She listens to the nyr.”

    “What?”

    “Yeah. She reckons they think nyr-y thoughts,” said T’m without conviction.

    “Not thoughts, exactly,” murmured M'ri. “She explained it to me once. More like.... um, feelings, I suppose."

    “I think Dr—The Mk-L’ster can do that. He listens to his dogs, I know,” said Dh’aaych.

    “Hardly anybody can,” said M’ri. “I can hear when an animal’s in pain. Only not just, um, ordinary thoughts. –Can The Lord hear people?” she demanded abruptly.

    “Galaxies, yes!” He hesitated and then said: “How old are you and K’t-Ln, M'ri?”

    “I’m sixteen. And she’s eighteen. So she won’t be able to vote, you have to be twenty.”

    That was about what he’d guessed. “Mm… Uh—well, what about this idea of becoming a spacer, T’m? You could, you know.”

    Silence.

    “How?” said M’ri at last.

    Dh’aaych’llyai’n was cursed if he knew. “I think you just apply. I know, your village schoolteacher would know!”

    “He’s a kna-worm,” said T’m immediately.

    “I’m sure he is. But it’s his job to know that sort of thing, T’m.”

    “Who says?” he demanded.

    “Uh—The Mk-L’ster,” said Dh’aaych’llyai’n feebly.

    “Oh,” he said thoughtfully.

    “He’s a traitor, T’m,” M’ri reminded him in a trembling voice.

    Dh’aaych took a deep breath. “Look, M’ri, what is all this about Drouwh—The Mk-L’ster, I mean—being a traitor and conspiring with The Black Mk-D’rm’d?"

    “We seen him,” explained T’m.

    “Yes, they did. He was with him. On our clan land,” explained M’ri illuminatingly.

    “Uh—ye-es… Oh! You mean T’m and K’t-Ln saw R’rt Fh’laiin— Great galloping herds of grpplybeasts,” he said weakly. “Where were you at the time, old son?”

    “Up a tree. No-one seen us, see, because they’re a lot of kna-worms! And we seen lots of lifters, and then The Black Mk-D’rm’d. We knew it was him, see, we seen his ground-car loads of times. An’ anyway, he was wearing the skirt. With that R’rt M’W’llaigh Mk-D’rm’d—he’s a kna-worm.”

    “Eh? Oh, R’rt Fh’laiin's groom, he’s a good man, yes. Look, what gave you the idea that R’rt Fh’laiin Mk-D’rm’d and The Mk-L’ster were conspiring together, though, old man?”

    “We seen them!” he replied in scornful amazement.

    What a thick prisoner he was, noted Dh’aaych ruefully. “I see,” he said slowly.

    “K’t-Ln says he’s a traitor,” insisted M’ri mournfully.

    “Mm. Look, M’ri, if—if I try to explain something to you, will you listen very carefully and—and not interrupt me?”

    “Yeah, all right,” she replied dubiously, glancing uneasily in the direction of K’t-Ln’s tree. There was no indignant shout from the tree, so whether K’t-Ln was still there and had heard him, Dh’aaych’llyai’n couldn’t have said.

    “Good,” he said with a sigh. “Um—well, with Feddo Day coming up there could be a lot of changes for all of us.”

    “I’m gonna have nyr in my part of the forest!” declared T’m sturdily.

    “Shut up, T’m,” said M’ri.

    “Yes. Try and listen, T’m, it’s very important,” agreed Dh’aaych'llyai'n.

    The two children were obediently silent, looking at him expectantly in the gloom. He was uneasily aware of the incongruity of it: him trussed up like a hggl ready for market, completely at the mercy of these wild forest kids, and yet the pair of them waiting attentively for what he was going to say. Was it because he was a Lord, or simply because he was a man, and their elder? Dh’aaych had no idea. He swallowed and continued gamely: “Well, there are some very bad Lords who don’t want the clanspeople to have anything after Feddo Day. They don’t want anyone to have the vote, but more especially they don’t want the clanspeople to own any of the land. They think that there should be no Parliament and that the Royal Family and the Lords should own everything."

    “The Royal Family’s very rich, eh?” agreed T’m. “K’t-Ln reckons they’re useless, she says they’re not even from the clans, and they never do anything except open fêtes and things!”

    “Yes, there’s a fête in the village soon, the Ruler’s Mother’s coming to open it!” agreed M’ri on an excited note.

    “Shut up, no-one’s interested in the stupid Ruler’s Mother,” the boy said sturdily.

    “Um—well, anyway, do you see what I mean about these bad men?” said Dh’aaych lamely.

    “Yeah. They want it to be like in ancient history, eh?” said T'm.

    “Yes. Did you learn that at school?"

    “Yeah. There was bears in those days,” he said wistfully.

    “Yes, there were bears, and the Lords and the Royal Family owned everything.” Truth to tell, this was about as far as Dh’aaych’s own knowledge of history went. He went on hurriedly: “The Mk-L’ster and The Mk-D’rm’d found out what the bad Lords were up to and they were very upset. So they got together to stop them. Because they both want the clanspeople to have half the lands, and to keep the other half as the forests and so on,” he said, sweating slightly.

    There was a long silence.

    “I thought The Mk-D’rm’d was our enemy,” said M’ri in a tiny voice

    Dh’aaych reached out with his bound hands and just managed to touch her knee. “No, M’ri,” he said, very gently. “The Mk-L’ster loves his people and The Mk-D’rm’d loves his.”—This latter was true insofar as R’rt Fh’laiin had appointed excellent men to manage his lands and saw to it that they did their job well, he reflected, lips tightening. But for years now it had been apparent to his old friends that R’rt Fh’laiin wouldn’t really care if the whole of Old Rthfrdia was engulfed in a new Ice Age. Well, he might care about the Archives. Possibly.—“Only that doesn’t mean that they hate the other clans. Most people don’t feel like that any more, you know. The people who live in the big cities don’t. I know lots of Mk-L’sters who’ve married Mk-D’rm’ds.”

    “Then they’re traitors,” said M’ri, sounding as if she was about to cry.

    “No. That’s what I’m trying to explain to you, M’ri. Things have changed. Well, how many years is it since there was a real clan battle?"

    There was a sulky silence.

    “Lots,” admitted T’m at last.

    “More than lots. Thousands,” he said firmly.

    “But the Mk-D’rm’ds are our enemies, everyone knows that!” cried M’ri desperately.

    “No, they’re not. Not for thousands of years. The Mk-L’ster and The Mk-D’rm’d have been friends all their lives. The Mk-D’rm’d spent a lot of time in these very forests when he was a boy.” –Yes, and about the only times he’s been back since have been with a party of Court floozies for a weekend rave-up at the Manor, curse him: no wonder you never realised he and Drouwh were friends, you poor little smah-birds, he thought grimly.

    “Then they’re both traitors!” sobbed M'ri.

    Dh’aaych sighed. “No. They’re both trying to do what’s best for all the people of Old Rthfrdia, not just for one clan or another. –That’s fair, isn’t it?”

    Unexpectedly T'm's voice said: “Yeah, it is. –It is, M’ri!” he urged. “We can have our lands and the Mk-D’rm’ds can have theirs!”

    “Exactly,” said Dh’aaych with a sigh. “That’s what The Mk-L’ster wants. That’s what he and The Mk-D’rm’d were talking about at the lodge.”

    M’ri sniffled dolefully. “I still don’t see why he has to be friends with The Black Mk-D’rm’d!”

    “Kna-brain,” said Tim.

    “Shut up, T’m. There’s a handkerchief in my right-hand breeches pocket, give it to her, would you?” he said.

    T’m retrieved it obediently. Plus the key ring which also lived in the pocket: Dh’aaych could see him peering at it longingly.

    “That key-blob won’t work for anyone but me,” he said drily.

    “Give it back, T’m, you’re a rotten little sneak-thief,” said M’ri, sniffing into the handkerchief.

    Dh’aaych smiled a little but said nothing as the boy returned the key ring.

    M’ri then attempted to give him back the handkerchief but he urged her politely to keep it. “It’s very soft,” she said, stowing it carefully away in her pocket. “Um, if those bad Lords get power we won’t get a share of anything, will we?” she ventured.

    “Exactly,” agreed Dh’aaych in considerable relief, hoping that it had also sunk in with K’t-Ln—if she was still up there.

    “We could fight them,” said T’m stoutly.

    “What with, kna-brain? Bows and arrows?” she shouted.

    “Yeah! Anything! Anyway, I bet I could get a blaster from somewhere!”

    “Shut up, T'm,” she said wearily.

    “It may come to that. The Mk-L’ster and The Mk-D'rm'd will fight them together, if necessary. But no-one will have to fight them if enough people vote for Choice 542,” said Dh’aaych rather weakly, aware of several flaws in his logic. Not to say, gaps in his story. “Uh—it’s pretty dark, maybe we’d better get some sleep.” –This whole thing was getting odder and odder. First he gave them a discourse on politics; now here he was telling them to get some shut-eye as if he was their dad!

    “Yeah: go to sleep, T’m,” ordered M’ri.

    “I can keep watch!”

    “Kna shit, you always nod off. Go to SLEEP!” she shouted.

    “I’m gonna tie his leg to the tree, first,” he decided.

    “Good idea,” said M’ri weakly. “Only don’t cut off his circulation.”

    T’m crawled round tying a rope to Dh’aaych’s boot—he couldn’t possibly have tied it tightly enough to cut off the circulation through the tough grpplybeast leather, but Dh’aaych recognised that the remark had merely been an assertion of elder-sisterly authority on M’ri’s part—and finally settled down near him, warning: “I’ve got ears like a cave-bat, so if you try an’ pinch my knife, I’ll know, see!”

    “Yes,” he said weakly. The kid’s ears certainly looked like a pair of cave-bats. “Goodnight.”

    “Night-night,” said T’m sleepily from under his cloak.

    Dh’aaych’llyai’n settled himself as best he could, wincing. It was some time since he’d had to sleep rough—ought to get up to the high reaches more. He closed his eyes, wondering how long it would be before Drouwh would manage to rescue him from this ridiculous predicament, and thinking he was cursed unlikely to get a wink of sleep, this ground was like xrillion. Xrillion with lumps in it, ouch.

    The twin moons were high in the sky and the clearing was full of silvery light when he woke, cold and uncomfortable. To his left M’ri was in a heap, snoring slightly with her cloak over her. But near his feet sat another little figure, motionless and watchful, hugging her knees, delicate profile clear in the colourless night. Dh’aaych’llyai’n watched her for a while. Then a cold little voice said very clearly in his head: I know you’re awake, kna-worm, and he jumped ten arm-measures.

    K’t-Ln didn’t turn her head. He hesitated, then finally breathed: “Did you hear what I said earlier?”

    There was a long silence. “Yes,” she said, very low.

    “Do you believe me?”

    She didn’t respond.

    “Do you?” he said, sweating in spite of the cold night.

    “Shut up,” she said, quietly but very clearly.

    “K’t-Ln—”

    K’t-Ln got up and moved further out into the clearing. He saw she had her knife in her hand. He concentrated on sending her a loud mind-message but although he’d played at this game with Drouwh in his youth he’d never been much good at it and he was pretty sure she didn’t hear him. After a while he gave up and wriggled down under his cloak.

    K’t-Ln sat on in the moonlight, senses alert. She had picked up his message, but that didn’t mean she was going to take any notice of a lying kna-worm of a Lord. She couldn’t entirely read his thoughts, she hadn’t had much practice with strangers and a lot of the images and concepts in his adult, educated man’s mind were alien to her. But she knew he hadn’t been telling M’ri and T’m the whole truth, and that there was some very important secret centred on the hunting lodge that he was terrified they might learn from him. She was going to find out what it was, and if it was anything that threatened the clan, she’d kill The Mk-D’rm’d and The Mk-L’ster!

    Roz woke very early in the morning, and blinked at the red-gold head in profile against the opened shutters.

    “You’re awake,” he stated.

    “Yes, Lord,” she said muzzily. “Is it tomorrow?”

    “What? Oh—yes, I suppose it is!” he said with a little laugh. “You slept most of yesterday.”

    “Yes. I coughed up a little more klupf, my system still isn’t free of it. And the fumes seem... You’re Lord Mk-L’ster,” she said dizzily. “Was that girl I met yesterday your sister?”

    “Mm.”

    “Good; I thought I’d dreamt her, for a minute,” she said, sighing.

    “No.” He stared at her grimly.

    After a moment Roz put her hand to her head and winced.

    “I’m sorry. But I had to make sure— Who is the black-haired man?” he demanded.

    “Can you see him? I can sometimes see him, or I think I can, and then he vanishes.”

    “Never mind. –Come along, you can go to the bathroom, then I'm going to lock you in.”

    “Why?” she said numbly.

    “Because I think it might be safer for all of us, Pleasure Girl Roz,” he said mockingly.

    “You’ll get food when I return,” he said when they were back in the bedroom.

    “Thank you, Lord. May I ask you a question, Lord?”

    “You may ask, certainly.”

    “This room...” She looked round at the heavy, carved bed, the dark antique chests of drawers and the heavy matching wardrobe and said: “What is all the furniture made of?”

    “What? Wood,” he said, swallowing.

    “Wood? From the forests?”

    “Well, not necessarily these forests. But in principle, yes. Why?”

    “Nothing. I wish you had flop couches,” she said wistfully.

    “Well, I haven’t; they’re proscribed Federation exports.”

    “Yes. I keep forgetting I’m on a primmo.”

    “Just keep sitting on our primmo furniture, that’ll remind you.” Drouwh produced a piece of cord from his breeches pocket. “Come here.” She came and looked up at him submissively out of the big, slanted dark eyes. He drew a deep breath, took her wrists, and bound them with the cord. “Get back into bed.”

    Roz got onto the bed and he tied her ankles together and pulled the bedding up roughly.

    Suddenly she gave a little gasp.

    “Yes: loud this morning, isn’t he?” he said grimly. He went over to the door. “We’ll give him a little drink, that should keep him quiet.”

    “Who is he?” she said faintly.

    “Believe me, Pleasure Girl Roz, if you don’t already know that, you won’t hear it from me.” He went out and locked and bolted the door from the outside.

    Roz wriggled down under her covers and strained to remember anything. The image of the black-haired man was on the edge of her perceptions but every time she tried to concentrate on him he vanished. She was aware that the prisoner was still calling for help, but after a while his mind-messages grew fainter and then ceased. Roz became aware of an intolerable ache in the heart. She couldn’t truly have said whether it was her own pain or his, or both; and if it was hers whether she was feeling it for herself, for the desperate man they’d silenced, or for the black-haired man who kept swimming in and out of her mind, sometimes clutching his shoulder in pain, sometimes smiling mockingly out of slanted blue eyes that were very like Lord Mk-L’ster’s. Or were they the prisoner’s eyes? No, no, no, she was going mad!

    Under her covers Roz began, very quietly, to cry.

    “I’m not taking along a clutch of townee imbeciles to crash through the forest like a herd of grpplybeasts and warn the bandit girls where we are three hours before we reach them,” said Drouwh with horrible finality.

    “You’d better take R’rt,” suggested R’rt Fh’laiin.

    “I was going to suggest that,” agreed his man stolidly. “And his Lordship, he can shoot straight and move in the forest without noise,” he added, with an abbreviated bow to old Lord U-Fl’aiir’th.

    The old man gave a sour grunt of agreement and shouldered his long bow.

    “Three against three? That’s fair, at all events!” said Drouwh. The slanted blue eyes danced.

    “Let’s make it more than fair, let’s make it four,” said Shn’aillaigh grimly. “We’ll be back for breakfast,” she said drily to Sh’n, and marched out.

    “There’s just one thing, Uncle Eeain, if you don’t mind,” said Drouwh mildly. “No shooting, unless I give the word. I’d prefer it if no-one got hurt. –They are my people.”

    “Very well, Mk-L'ster, if these girl-bandits are responsible for kidnapping my son,” the old gentleman said stiffly: “you have my word I won’t shoot.”

    “Thank you,” he murmured, motioning him out. The old man marched out, looking very grim. Drouwh raised his eyebrows slightly at Sh’n, and shrugged.

    “He’s a proud old Lord, Mk-L’ster,” said R’rt in a low voice.

    Drouwh put a hand on his shoulder. “He’s a proud old hot-head, you mean, R’rt: why in the name of the two Rthfrdias did you suggest he come?”

    “He’s a mighty fine shot, my Lord. If it isn’t these cursed forest girls of yours, we’ll have need of him,” he said grimly.

    “Mm. But it is them, I’m quite sure of it,” he said. He patted his shoulder and released him. “Keep the yi’ish hot, Sh’n!” he said with a laugh, and went out.

    “His great-grandfather over again,” muttered the Mk-D’rm’d’s groom under his breath. Sh’n gave him a startled look and he said: “His mother’s grandfather, sir: he was a Drouwh Mk-L’ster, too: the last of the fighting Mk-L’sters, they called him. They say he’d go into battle laughing his head off like you never heard.” He followed the others slowly, shaking his grizzled head. From outside Drouwh’s voice said loudly: “Don’t look like that, man, there’s not a creature within an hour’s walk of us but a few smah-birds and a colony of lop-ears!” Then came another laugh. Sh’n smiled a little and shook his head; but just in case this Mk-L’ster had it wrong, and they were in fact about to be surrounded by the Palace Guard on the track of the Regent, sat down and checked his blaster.

    … “That’s their usual camp,” murmured Drouwh about two hours later.

    The others nodded. There were three piles of straw and hides in the clearing, but these were neat and apparently unused. The clearing also sported a newish-looking wheelbarrow which bore the logo of Clan Mk-L’ster Horticultural Products, Inc.

    They retreated noiselessly from the camp and at a judicious distance Drouwh halted and said: “They definitely won’t be holding him between here and the lodge. Or in the direction of R’rt Fh’laiin’s lands, I think. And there’s too much coming and going over towards the village, doubt if they’d have gone there.”

    Shn’aillaigh pointed out sourly: “That leaves a fair stretch of territory."

    “Aye. Smoke ’em out,” growled Lord U-Fl’aiir’th, fingering his bow.

    “It may come to that. Now, let’s see: the Pleasure Girl’s lifter’s over there,”—he nodded to the south-west—“so that's out: Miss Bandit doesn’t strike me as the sort of girl to put all her smah eggs in one pocket!”

    “Strike due south, then?” said the old Lord.

    “Yes, it’s our best bet,” he agreed.

    “They wouldn’t have circled to the north, would they, my Lord?” asked R’rt dubiously.

    “Hmm… Not their territory: I don’t think they would, R’rt. And there’s a fair bit of logging over there. No, south first, I think."

    “Right you are, Mk-L’ster.” He handed round some dried vtt’lberries and they set off again, munching. R’rt noted with silent approval that the Lady Shn’aillaigh didn’t throw the stalks of her berries to the ground: she put them into her pocket, same as a man. It was a great pity that The Mk-D’rm’d’s fancy hadn’t alighted on Lady Shn’aillaigh when they were all young, instead of fixing on some cursed fancy-woman on a Feddo world. It had been a black day for the Mk-D’rm’ds when R’rt Fh’laiin’s guardians had let him go off-world to do his cursed studies, that it had. If his father had lived he’d never have dreamed of permitting it: The Mk-D’rm’d’s place was with his own people. R’rt brought up the rear, automatically spitting the stalks of his vtt’lberries into his hand and putting them in his pocket, whisking their tracks out behind him with a long wand of fl’oouu.

    “Ssh,” said Drouwh some four hours later, putting his hand lightly on Brown’s head.

    “Can you sense something?” whispered Shn’aillaigh eagerly.

    He shook his head. “Ssh.”

    They watched his tense face dubiously. After a moment his features relaxed and he said: “Over that way, I think. –Not me, Brown; he heard something,” he said to Shn’aillaigh.

    “Rubbish!” choked the old Lord.

    “No, truly, sir,” he said to him with a smile. “I’ve been spending a lot of time with Brown lately, we’re more in rapport than we ever were.”

    “Uncanny,” noted Shn’aillaigh drily.

    “They say The Old Woman of Slrw, she mind-speaks to her cat,” offered R’rt dubiously.

    “Yes! But the truly uncanny thing is, the cat mind-speaks to her!” said Drouwh with a chuckle. “No, seriously,” he said, while Lord U-Fl’aiir’th was still choking indignantly: “we’d better be dead quiet from now on.”

    They all nodded, and followed him silently.

    Dh’aaych’llyai’n had spent a pretty boring day. They’d breakfasted at some unearthly hour while the sky was barely light: cold nyr meat and weak vtt’lberry cordial. Then Dh’aaych, roped to his tree by the ankle, had spent a considerable period first shaking the fidgets out and then just sitting. M’ri was sulking, having earlier been shouted at by her sister for falling asleep on watch, and T’m had disappeared. K’t-Ln was keeping watch up a tree.

    After some time K’t-Ln came down and with dire threats of direst penalties allowed M’ri to keep watch while she had a sleep. During most of it Dh’aaych sat as near her as his rope permitted and looked at her and thought some very involved thoughts, none of which resulted in anything much except the acknowledgement that if he did rescue this bandit girl from her forest life and clean her up a bit and install her in a nice house in town it’d probably cause his mother to have a stroke.

    When K’t-Ln finally woke up and smiled muzzily into his eyes he went very red. “Hullo,” he said hoarsely.

    K’t-Ln also went very red. “Filthy-minded kna-worm!” she snarled, scrambling up.

    “I wasn’t— I didn’t mean— K’t-Ln!” he floundered.

    But K’t-Ln had gone over to the big tree where M’ri was keeping watch and was climbing it without a backwards glance. Dh’aaych bit his lip. His thoughts hadn’t been all that dirty, really. Curses.

    High in the tree M’ri’s eyes went very round. “Really?” she gasped.

    “Yes. He’s a filthy-minded kna-worm, so watch out!” she snarled.

    “But K’t-Ln: a house in the city! And loads of pretty dresses, and I bet you could have mn-mns every day!"

    “Cursed dresses and muck to stuff your face with? That’s just your level, M’ri Mk’Strt Mk-L’ster!” she shouted.

    “Mn-mns aren’t muck, they’re the nicest thing I've ever tasted,” said M’ri feebly. “And what’s wrong with wanting pretty dresses?”

    “All RIGHT!” shouted K’t-Ln furiously. “Go back to Mum, if that’s what ya want! You did nothing but whinge all winter about how cold you were; go back to the stupid village!”

    “No,” said M’ri tearfully. “Mum’ll nag me to marry that horrible fat Wh’llaiy’h Strt Mk-L’ster.”

    “He’s got money, he’d give ya dresses,” she sneered.

    “You’re horrible! I hate him!” sobbed M’ri.

    After a moment K’t-Ln said: “Yeah. Well, I hate Lord Fat-Face, see?”

    M’ri snuffled. She recalled she had Lord Fat-Face’s handkerchief, and pulled it from her pocket. “He isn’t,” she said, snuffling into it. “He’s got a lovely face. Sort of—of manly. Only nice at the same time."

    “Soft, ya mean!” she scoffed.

    “No, I don’t.” M'ri blew her nose defiantly. “And you do not hate him, that’s a big lie!”

    “I do hate him,” she said through her teeth. “He’s a filthy-minded kna-worm.”

    “No, he’s not. I wish he’d think lovely things about my skin and all that,” said M’ri glumly.

    “Well then, YOU’RE a filthy-minded kna-worm!” she shouted. “And where did you get THAT from?” She made a grab.

    “It’s mine, he gave it to me,” said M’ri, hanging on like grim death to the handkerchief.

    “Gimme it, I’m gonna tear it into a zillion pieces!” she snarled.

    “No!” M’ri slid down hurriedly to the next branch. “I’m going down. And if you want any lunch you're out of luck: T’m isn’t back yet.”

    “Choke on your stupid lunch!” she shouted.

    M’ri ignored that completely and descended the tree with a very dignified look on her face.

    “What was all that about?” asked Dh’aaych with a twinkle. He’d caught a good deal of it.

    “Nothing. My sister’s an idiot, that’s all,” said M’ri, putting her nose in the air.

    “Does she really hate me?”

    “No,” she said, going very red. She went over to the remains of the meat and began to be very busy with it.

    Dh’aaych’llyai’n went out to the length of his rope—more or less in both senses—and said: “Well, if she doesn’t hate me—”

    “She won’t give in, she’s like that,” said M’ri in a muffled voice.

    That was pretty much what he’d thought. Nevertheless he said: “Oh,” in a very dashed tone.

    “You could have me,” said M’ri in a strangled voice, not turning round.

    “That’s very sweet of you, but you’re not quite old enough,” he said kindly.

    “I’m sixteen!”

    “Yes, and I’m thirty-two. Exactly twice your age.”

    “That is quite old,” she admitted.

    Dh’aaych’s shoulders shook slightly but he said mildly: “Yes. And sixteen is very young: I’ve got a cousin who’s your age, and she’s still at school."

    “Mum had K’t-Ln when she was sixteen.”

    “Oh,” he said limply. “My father would be very angry if you and I— You know.”

    “Yeah,” she said glumly, turning round. “Mr Mk-Strt, he’s the schoolteacher, he said sixteen was too young to get married. Only Mum wants me to marry Wh’llaiy’h Strt Mk-L’ster. And I hate him, he’s fat and horrible and nearly as old as you!”

    “Is that why you came to live in the forest?”

    “Yes. Well, partly. It’s real boring at Mum’s, she’s got these two dumb lovers. And anyway I thought I’d better come and keep an eye on K’t-Ln until she came to her senses. Only she hasn't.”

    “How long has she been here?"

    “Um—two winters. This is her second spring.”

    “I see. And”—he swallowed—“has she been quite safe, M’ri? I mean, has anyone tried to, um, molest her, or either of you?”

    “Nah. Well, that Jhmmaiyh Mk’D’rm’d Fh’Ly’haiyn, he tried, but she stuck her knife in him. He woulda died, he bled a lot, only ole Mother Mk-D’rm’d, she fixed him up.”

    “Don’t you have a cottage hospital?”

    “Yeah, but he couldn’t go there: Matron, she’s fierce, she woulda reported him!”

    “I see.”

    “After that, no-one come near K’t-Ln or me, because Jhmmaiyh Mk’D’rm’d Fh’Ly’haiyn, he was supposed to be tough!” she said scornfully.

    “Right—got it.”

    M’ri looked up at him hopefully.

    “Um—no, really, M’ri, I do like you, but sixteen—!”

    “It’s all right, I understand, you like her better,” she said glumly. “Um, we could have lunch soon. We won’t wait for T’m: he’s supposed to be getting some gybbies: he went down the stream.”

    The small freshwater crustaceans were quite a delicacy, in other circles. Last time he’d had them—it seemed like a zillion years ago—had been in one of the nicest restaurants in North Wh’sh-fh’r, with a very nice lady from the Court—married, but if she didn’t care nor did he. He looked at M’ri’s round, slightly freckled, grubby little face and said: “Last time I had gybbies I was with a perfumed lady who was wearing things in her ears that wore worth more aylhs than you’ve ever seen in your life, M’ri. You and K’t-Ln are worth a thousand of her. No, a zillion!"

    M’ri merely responded glumly: “Mum’s got some perfume. It’s lovely. She won’t let me borrow it. She said Wh’llaiy’h Strt Mk-L’ster could afford to buy me perfume.”

    “You wouldn’t marry a man just for that, would you?” he gasped in horror.

    “Nah! Only sometimes I think it would be nice. You know, to have things.”

    “Yes.” Dh’aaych sat down on the grass. “I nearly got engaged to a lady a little while ago. Not the one with the perfume and the earrings, another one. Younger. My father wanted me to marry her, but… I didn’t like her enough, I suppose. And she didn’t love me. She would have married me for what I could have given her. I don’t think we’d have been very happy. My father married my mother because she was the right sort of girl and their parents wanted the match, and they’ve both been very unhappy.”

    “I thought rich people could do whatever they liked?” said the girl shyly.

    “No, not really. Not when you’ve got families pressurising you. –Well, you must know what that’s like!” he said with a little laugh.

    “Yeah. K’t-Ln does, too. One day Mum, well, her and K’t-Ln, they were going for a walk, and they saw The Black Mk-D’rm’d. And he started talking to them and then he said he’d give Mum a lot of money if she’d let him have K’t-Ln. You know, like to be his Pleasure Girl? And Mum wanted to, she said he was all right and he’d look after K’t-Ln and it was a lot of money. Only K’t-Ln was wild: she said she’d never go with The Black Mk-D’rm’d, she’d throw herself to the bears first. And when Mum started nagging her she run away into the forest.”

    If Dh’aaych hadn’t already been sitting down he’d have had to sit down hurriedly. “Bears’ claws,” he said numbly.

    M’ri nodded and opened her mouth but a branch came crashing down from above, narrowly missing her, and a furious voice shouted: “Get some of that meat up here! And stop talking to that Fat-Face, he’s our PRISONER!”

    Dh’aaych winked at the reddening M’ri, and retreated to his tree trunk.

    “You can stay up here,” said K’t-Ln grimly when M’ri brought her the meat.

    “No, I haven’t given him his lunch.”

    “Good. Let him starve.”

    “No. He’s nice, I like him,” she said, sticking out her rounded chin.

    K’t-Ln snorted.

    M’ri swallowed nervously as she watched her sister wolf her lunch down. “Um... Did you believe what he said yesterday?”

    “No.”

    Ignoring that, M’ri said: “About the clan lands and—and the Parliament and stuff.”

    There was a short silence. Then she said: “It must be true about the clan lands. He said it was Feddo law.”

    “Yes. He was telling me and T’m that there’s bad Lords that—”

    “I heard.”

    “Wuh-well, what do you think, K’t-Ln?” she quavered.

    “I think that there’s no proof that The Mk-L’ster and The Black Mk-D’rm’d aren’t a pair of these bad Lords themselves! Who’s to say they’re not scheming with off-worlders? What about all those off-world lifters the other night?”

    “Those people just looked like people,” she quavered.

    “Kna-brain!”

    “Well, if you didn’t mean they were off-worlders, what did you mean?” asked M’ri blankly.

    K’t-Ln had meant more or less that but she was regretting she’d said it. She scowled, and was silent.

    “He’s not an off-worlder. I don’t think he’s bad, I think he’s nice.”

    “Shut UP and set OUT of here!” she roared.

    M’ri went down a couple of branches. “If T’m does bring some gybbies, do you want any?"

    “Yes. –And don’t waste any on HIM!”

    “We can’t let him starve.”

    “Why not?”

    M’ri descended the tree without bothering to reply to that. She gave Dh’aaych some meat and was about to sit down beside him when the voice from the tree roared: “And COME AWAY FROM HIM!” Giving him an apologetic glance, she retreated to the far side of the clearing.

    After that, apart from eating his lunch, Dh’aaych didn’t do anything but sit. T’m turned up about an hour later—not yet noon, by the look of the sky—very wet and muddy but gybbie-less. Dh’aaych’llyai’n went on sitting.

    Drouwh touched Shn’aillaigh’s shoulder and pointed. She nodded.

    The groom had skirted the clearing. He returned noiselessly and breathed in Drouwh’s ear: “One. Up that fl’oouu.”

    Drouwh nodded. They watched him silently as he frowned and rubbed his pointed chin. Finally he waved them all back.

    “Smoke them out,” said Lord U-Fl’aiir’th when they were at a safe distance from the clearing.

    “We might get rid of the two on the ground that way. What about the one up the tree?” replied Drouwh.

    “Wouldn’t matter. He won’t get a clear shot if we make enough smoke.”

    “No, but he could follow us and pick us off, my Lord,” objected R’rt.

    “She,” corrected Drouwh with a smile.

    Shn’aillaigh scratched her red-gold head. “Climb another tree and pick her off?”

    “I don’t want them hurt,” he said firmly.

    She looked at him drily. “Then it appears to be stalemate.”

    “Two-pronged attack. Make a fuss on the ground, draw her down,” said the old Lord.

    “That would probably work, but I’d like to avoid any of us getting hurt, too, sir,” murmured Drouwh.

    “Very well, Mk-L’ster, let’s hear your proposal! –If you’ve got one.”

    “I don’t know that I have. Perhaps a combination of... Well, how’s this? Make smoke, get in there, grab the boy and the girl, cut Dh’aaych loose and yell at the kid in the tree that we’ll blast her brother and sister into the company of the old gods if she doesn’t surrender.”

    “Galloping grpplybeasts,” said Shn’aillaigh. “Here was me, thinking you were going to say something like sit down at a round table for a week-long conference in order to convince her rationally that you and The Black Mk-D’rm’d aren’t really plotting together—sorry, conspiring. And to vote for Choice 542, of course.”

    Drouwh’s lips twitched but he refused to smile.

    “There’s plenty of khyai’llh in this part of the forest,” said R’rt, ignoring this by-play. “It'll smoke like nobody's business.”

    “Sound man,” approved Drouwh. He and R’rt began to gather khyai'llh leaves without further ado.

    Shn’aillaigh and Lord U-Fl’aiir’th looked at each other, shrugged a little, and began to gather leaves.

    At a little distance short of the clearing Drouwh unslung the fine net which he usually carried over one shoulder in the forest. They all tipped their leaves into it and Drouwh casually dropped an igno-blob into the centre of the pile. R’rt winced.

    “NOW!” yelled Drouwh, hurling the netted leaves into the centre of the clearing, and simultaneously thinking Fire! at the igno-blob.

    The bundle of khyai’llh burst into choking smoke, M’ri screamed, T'm yelped, and the rescuers raced into the clearing.

    “You took your time,” said Dh’aaych as Shn’aillaigh sawed at the rope round his ankle.

    “Move!” she gasped. She grabbed his arm and they scrambled for the shelter of the trees.

    An arrow thudded into the ground a thumb-joint from Drouwh’s right boot. He scooped M’ri up, clapped a hand over her mouth and ducked for the trees. R’rt had done the same to T’m. The boy bit him. The stolid groom blinked, tore the scarf off his neck and whipped it round the boy’s mouth. T’m barely had time to draw breath to scream: “GLIDE, K’T-L—” before he was gagged. M’ri was sending frantically: GLIDE, GLIDE, K’T-LN!

    Drouwh overrode this without effort. “COME DOWN!” he yelled, sending very clearly: Or we’ll hurt your sister and the boy!

    Three more arrows thudded into the trunks of the trees behind which they were sheltering.

    “How many has she got left?” he said angrily to M'ri.

    The girl glared, mouth shut stubbornly.

    Drouwh shook her. “How MANY?”

    “I won’t say!” she cried.

    He slapped her face and she burst into tears.

    “No—I say, old man!” protested Dh’aaych in horror. “She’s only a kid; and they didn’t do me any harm! Fed me dashed well, actually!”

    “Yes, on my nyr,” he noted. “WELL?” he shouted at M’ri.

    Leave her alone, kna-worm’s dropping, said a voice clearly in his head.

    Drouwh smiled a little. Come down.

    NO!  Four more arrows flew.

    “Shall I?” said R’rt grimly, looking at his scrawny captive. T’m glared over the gag.

    Drouwh shook his head, and made a circling motion with his hand. The man nodded, and vanished into the trees. There was a little pause.

    High above them on the other side of the clearing they could hear someone trying to smother a coughing fit. Their own eyes were smarting from the smoke.

    Suddenly a man's voice gave a startled yelp, and they all jumped.

    “All right?” called Drouwh.

    “Winged me—I’ve got her now, my Lord!” shouted R’rt. They heard him coughing and then there was a furious scream of: “NO!”

    “No! Don’t let him hurt her!” cried M’ri, bursting into tears.

    “Here.” Drouwh thrust her at the startled Dh’aaych and strode out into the clearing, ignoring the smoke. “Got her?” he called.

    “I have that, my Lord, and a right little snr-cat—she is!” gasped R’rt. “Ouch! You would, would you!”

    The leaves rustled furiously, there was the sound of struggling, K’t-Ln screamed “OW!” and then the groom gave a loud yelp of anguish and a body came hurtling down the tree.

    Dh’aaych deserted his rescuers and rushed into the clearing. “By the old gods, if she’s dead, Drouwh, you’ll be the next to go!”

    Drouwh was kneeling on the grass, feeling K’t-Ln gently. “She’s not dead. Stunned. Broken a leg. We'd better splint it while she’s still out.”

    “What in the name of the two Rthfrdias did you imagine you were playing at, you cursed fool?” said Dh’aaych bitterly, squatting and feeling her pulse anxiously.

    His father came up beside him, bow still at the ready. “Rescuing you, sir! Show some gratitude! Not to say, manners!”

    “Look, I am grateful, Drouwh, but bears’ claws! She’s only a kid!”

    “A kid with a bow and a knife,” Drouwh returned drily.

    “She hasn’t got the knife any more—threw it. Just like a girl: no sense of tactics,” said R’rt’s stolid voice from the tree.

    “Get down here, you imbecile, I’m gonna throttle you with my bare hands!” yelled Dh’aaych.

    “No, he was only obeying orders,” said Drouwh. “And by the sound of it she got him in the goolies—that right, R’rt?"

    The groom clambered down. “That’s right, my Lord—the little snr-cat. I loosened my hold and—” He shrugged a little and winced.

    “I thought you said they could fly?” said Lord U-Fl’aiir’th, looking down at the limp little figure with no evidence of compassion in his face or voice.

    “They need to take off on the wind,” said his son, taking K’t-Ln’s right hand gently in his.

    “Is she—is she hurt bad, Lord?” quavered M’ri.

    Dh’aaych’llyai’n looked at Drouwh. “Well, is she, you bastard?”

    “That’s enough, sir, you’ve Drouwh to thank for your rescue,” said his father stiffly.

    “She’s stunned—concussed, probably.” Drouwh got up. “And a broken leg, like I said. –R’rt, let me take a look at that arm. Get some thin branches for splints, Shn’aillaigh, would you?"

    K’t-Ln was still unconscious when they reached the lodge, about three hours later.

    “She ought to have a doctor,” said Dh’aaych tightly.

    Drouwh assisted him to manhandle the makeshift litter inside and set it down on the big old table. “No doctors. –Get the rest of them in here, would you, Sh’n? I think the hunting party can safely disperse.”

    “Sure it was only them?” replied M’Klui’shke’aigh.

    Drouwh nodded, and the Representative vanished through the passage doorway.

    Dh’aaych took a deep breath. “Look, we can take her to Wh’sh-fh’r in my lifter and put her into a decent private hospital. No-one need ever know who she is or where she came from.”

    “Dh’aaych,” said his old friend heavily: “the kid can mind-read. Do we want our business spread all over Wh’sh-fh’r?”

    “No, but—”

    Shn’aillaigh had ushered Dh’aaych’s father to a chair: the old man was looking very tired now that the excitement of the day was over. She handed him a shot of uissh and said: “Shut up, Dh’aaych. If the kid dies, it’s your fault for being such a cursed imbecile as to get yourself captured in the first place.”

    “Go up to the Isle of Slrw and get The Old Woman, Dh’aaych,” said Drouwh briefly.

    He gulped.

    “She won’t come,” said Lord U-Fl’aiir’th. “She won’t leave the Isle.”

    “She will for Drouwh,” said Shn’aillaigh on a dry note. “I’ll go with you, Dh’aaych.”

    Drouwh gave Dh’aaych a heavy ring from his right hand. “Here. Just give her this—you remember the way, don’t you?”

    He nodded, shuddering slightly.

    “Go now,” he said, glancing at the clock. “You should be back by supper-time.”

    Forthwith Shn’aillaigh grabbed Dh’aaych’s arm, prevented him forcibly from exiting through the back door, and hauled his bewildered form upstairs

    He goggled at his pink lifter perched precariously on the flat section of the roof. “Whose brilliant idea was this?” he croaked as they clambered out an attic window.

  · “Cursed if I can remember,” replied Shn’aillaigh cheerfully. “Get in.” She got in. Dh’aaych had been feeling for his key-blob. Limply he got in. Shn’aillaigh didn’t give up the driver’s seat. She ordered him to buckle himself in. Dh’aaych rarely used the straps. He swallowed, and did them up tightly.

    “Right. Isle of Slrw, here we come,” she said. The lifter gave a high-pitched whine, shot up vertically for six arm-measures, wheeled sharply, tilted at an impossible angle, and shot off to the north at an illegal speed that was the maximum the expensive Feddo blobs could manage.

    In the north it was colder at this time of year. Snow still lay heavy on the ranges and the peak of the Isle of Slrw glimmered white out of a grey-green, misty sea. The lifter was heated but nevertheless Dh’aaych shivered a little and drew his hggl-wool cloak round his shoulders.

    “Can you remember where to land?” asked Shn’aillaigh.

    “Yes. If it matters,” he said on a grim note.

    After a moment she admitted: “I think I can feel her. The controls are sluggish.”

    “Yeah,” he agreed, looking rather sick. “That time I came up with Drouwh to get the flask, the bastard just took his hands off the controls when we were half an hour out. Stunted my growth, I can tell ya!”

    “I bet.” They flew on. Neither of them was under the impression that Shn’aillaigh was doing much steering, though.

    After some time she said: “She did land you safely, did she?”

    “Er—yeah. Thing is, Drouwh was aboard. Well, she was his wet-nurse,” he reminded her.

    “Thanks, Dh’aaych,” she said sourly.

    They flew on…

    “Look out,” she said grimly.

    Dh’aaych winced and shut his eyes, as they thumped down in a rocky, damp clearing, well into the hills.

    Shn’aillaigh got out immediately, pulling her cloak round her. “Well? Where to now?"

    “Up there, I think,” he said, looking at the rocky outcrop above them. “If it matters.”

    Her lips tightened. “Come on, then.”

    They began to scramble up the rocks.

    About two hours later Shn’aillaigh had skinned a hand badly and Dh’aaych had twisted an ankle. They were sweating, although a steady, cold drizzle was falling. The damp was starting to penetrate even the finely woven hggl wool of the heavy hunting cloaks.

    “Where are we?” panted Shn’aillaigh, peering into the murk, as they rested on a ledge.

    “No idea,” Dh’aaych admitted glumly. “The Old Woman knows where we are, though; we can’t get lost.”

    She looked at him drily. “No? Look at the tools she has to work with, though."

    “Shut up. And get on, we’ll definitely never get to see her if we stand here like a pair of loonies!” he said angrily.

    As if in confirmation of this statement, a snow-eagle swooped on them with an angry cry, talons at the ready. Dh’aaych recoiled, and the eagle whirled away with a flapping of its huge wings.

    Shn’aillaigh murmured drily: “Our hostess?”

    “That could well be,” he said grimly. “Drouwh and I had to contend with a pair of them, and some cursed fiery will o’ the wisp. I don’t know how she did it, but it was no illusion—singed the hem of my cloak.”

    They struggled on. The boulders grew steeper and finally devolved into an out-and-out cliff face. Behind them there was nothing to see but swirling mist. The eagle, talons outstretched, screaming furiously, attacked them several more times, forcing them to cower against the cliff face, hiding their faces.

    “We must be nearly there, surely!” gasped Shn’aillaigh at last, as they paused on a narrow ledge. “Does this look familiar, Dh’aaych?”

    “No. Um—there’s a flat bit that you get to and—um—maybe she comes.”

    “Maybe she comes?” she panted furiously.

    “She will, when she knows that The Mk-L’ster sent us. –Look out!” he gasped as this time a pair of eagles swooped.

    Shn’aillaigh’s bow was in her hand in a flash. She loosed off two shots before Dh’aaych could even shout a warning. The arrows turned in the air and came whistling back upon them. One grazed Shn’aillaigh’s left ear: blood immediately poured from it. The other glanced harmlessly off a rock.

    “You cursed imbecile!” he shouted.

    She clapped a handkerchief over the ear, scowling. “This is a cursed waste of time. All your famous Old Woman seems to want to do is to play pathetic games designed to scare the kiddies!”

    Suddenly the mist swirled and thickened round them. Dh’aaych opened his mouth nervously to issue a warning but before he could say anything a voice said out of the mist: “The Old Woman says, stop scaring the eagles.”

    “Tell her to tell them to stop scaring us!” shouted Shn’aillaigh furiously.

    The mist thickened. “The eagles are nesting,” said the voice.

    “That’ll be her daughter. It means we’re nearly there. Uh—we won’t scare the eagles any more, Daughter of The Old Woman,” croaked Dh’aaych, clearing his throat. “–Give me your bow, you cursed hot-head,” he muttered.

    “What?” she said incredulously.

    “GIVE IT TO ME, SHN’AILLAIGH!” he bellowed.

    Scowling, she surrendered her bow. She peered into the mist. “Look out!” she shrieked, as a full-grown snr-cat, snarling and spitting, sprang out of the mist at them.

    “No—” gasped Dh’aaych, but the fighting Lady of U’Rhy’iior’thn had her knife in her hand and had flung herself at the cat. They rolled over and over on the ledge, both snarling and spitting, she with a foot in the snr-cat's belly and a hand clamped to its throat, twisting its face up and away, the cat trying to rake her with its heavy back claws.

    Dh’aaych watched, tight-lipped, his own shin-knife in his hand.

    Shn’aillaigh raised her knife with a blood-curdling shriek as the big cat raked her side. The knife darted for the throat—

    Suddenly she gasped and thumped heavily onto her back, with an armful of nothingness.

    “Follow,” said the voice from the mist.

    “It was an illusion,” the man said, his cheeks deathly pale. “Are you all right?” he added, as Shn’aillaigh stumbled to her feet, looking stunned.

    “Yes.” She twisted and inspected her side but there was no rent in her clothes.

    “Follow!” repeated the voice from the mist, sounding fed up.

    “Come on,” said Dh’aaych heavily. They forged ahead uncertainly.

    After quite some time, when they were both silently thinking they’d come the wrong way after all, and Shn’aillaigh was about to point this out to Dh’aaych in no uncertain terms, the voice from the mist said: “Wait.”

    They waited.

    Then the mist lifted slightly and they could see they were standing on a flat stony area that seemed to stretch for some way. Dh’aaych cleared his throat nervously. Nothing else happened. The mist didn’t close around them but it didn’t lift any more, either. It was still drizzling.

    Then a small black and white cat came walking up to them, tail lifted jauntily.

    “Kneel,” said Dh’aaych’llyai’n, gulping slightly.

    “What?” returned Shn’aillaigh with a little laugh.

    He went down on one knee. “Bend the knee, Shn’aillaigh, if you want the girl to live!”

    “An U’Rhy’iior’thn doesn’t bend the knee to a cursed cat!” She looked at his face. “Oh, all right.” She knelt.

    The small cat began to wash itself very daintily.

    Then—naturally they were looking at the cat, there was nothing else to look at—a very curious thing happened. Although the little cat was still there, and still washing, an image of the snarling, tawny snr-cat was gradually superimposed on it. Just when they were almost sure the snr-cat was more real than the pussy, it began to dissipate and instead there was a vision of a tawny-haired, laughing girl. For an instant the two images writhed together. Then they both vanished. The cat stood up.

    “Go into the cave,” said the voice from the mist.

    They jumped, and stared round wildly. There definitely wasn’t a cave.

    The cat walked in a very composed manner, tail well up as it had been before, towards the wall of rock to their left. As they stared the cave opening was there. There was no instant in which you could have said it was beginning to be there. It just was there.

    Shn’aillaigh breathed: “Was it like this the other time?” and Dh’aaych shook his head. “Come on,” she said resignedly, getting up.

    Dh’aaych got up, too, and laid his shin-knife and her bow on the ground. “Leave your knife and your blaster.”

    “How do we know this isn’t some cursed trap?”

    He eyed her sardonically. “Laid by the Feddos, the Regent’s clique, or old Fh’Ly’haiyn and Rh’n’lhd’s lot?"

    She sighed. “Oh, all right. But if the cursed woman throws another snr-cat at us, you can fight it this time.”

    He just watched her lay her weapons down and said: “And bend the knee once we—”

    “All RIGHT!” Shn’aillaigh strode over to the mouth of the cave. Suddenly it wasn’t there any more. “Now what?” she drawled in a bored voice.

    Dh’aaych came up to her shoulder. “Why have you stopped? Go on!”

    She looked at the blank wall of rock before her. “I don’t think she likes me. Supposing you lead the way?"

    Dh’aaych walked into the cave. Shn'aillaigh had to restrain an impulse to grab the hem of his cloak as he passed her. She shut her eyes for an instant and followed him. She could almost feel the walls of rock graunching shut at her shoulder blades.

    It was very dark in the cave, although from somewhere a long way distant there was a faint glimmer of yellow light. Dh’aaych headed for this. Shrugging, she followed.

    “That’s far enough,” said a voice out of nowhere.

    Very gradually the darkness immediately surrounding them lifted. A youngish woman in a long homespun robe dyed the distinctive deep blue-grey of the Islands cloth came towards them, smiling. She had long, thick, tawny hair—snr-cat colour, the same shade as Shn’aillaigh’s. “What do you want with The Old Woman of Slrw?” she asked.

    Dh’aaych held out Drouwh’s ring. “The Mk-L’ster sent us: he needs The Old Woman's help.”

    The woman took the ring. “Wait.” She turned and walked slowly away from them, the darkness closing round her.

    Shn’aillaigh sighed heavily.

    After a little the tawny-haired woman reappeared out of the dark. “Follow.”

    They followed. The cave broadened out; by a fire in blackened fireplace a woman in a shawl was sitting in a rocker. The little cat was on a mat before the fire, washing again.

    Dh’aaych got down on one knee. Shn’aillaigh shrugged, and also bent the knee.

    For a while nothing happened. Then the woman by the fire said: “Make the tea, now, M’wd.”

    “Yes, Mother.”

    Shn’aillaigh rolled an incredulous eye at Dh’aaych. He gave her an angry look, and she shrugged slightly.

    The younger woman began to make fl’oouu tea. The figure in the rocker hadn’t stirred, and they were watching the tea-making when she turned her head and said: “So you did come back, in spite of that vow.”

    They looked round with a start. It was only an old woman, after all— No, it was fighting snr-cats in the forests, and blizzards in the high reaches, and snow-eagles tearing at their prey— No, it was sun on summer sea and fields of spring flowers— No, hyperdriving into deep space amidst the chill of eternal silence and the million, million ice-white stars of unknown galaxies, and deepest, blackest nothingness… Ugh, she’s different again, now she’s like Mother on her high horse! thought Dh’aaych, swallowing. Curses, that’s me when I was about twenty and mad with it: how does she do these tricks? thought Shn’aillaigh, looking at a proud young high-cheekboned face in a flood of tawny hair.

    “So you did come back, Dh’aaych’llyai’n Mk’Eeain U-Fl’aiir’th,” she said. “Show me the arm.”

    Dh’aaych made a little face. He went over to her and slid his jacket and shirtsleeve up his right arm. A long, just-healed red welt was revealed, all the way up his inner arm from the wrist to the elbow.

    “How—?” began Shn’aillaigh.

    “I tripped over her cat,” he replied grimly. “I didn’t see it. Don’t ask me if the cat did it or The Old Woman or that snr-cat you met, because I don’t know.”

    “Healing nicely,” said The Old Woman. “What is it this time?”

    “Drouwh needs you, Old Woman. We’ve got a sick girl who fell out of a tree.”

    “The sister of the boy, T’m,” she stated.

    “Uh—yes, that’s right,” agreed Dh’aaych feebly.

    “Where’s that tea?” she grumbled. “M’wd!”

    “Here we are.” The younger woman poured the tea and called: “K’haiitie M’wd! Come and get your tea!”

    A thin, freckled girl of about ten appeared from the recesses of the cave, carrying a small black and white kitten.—Two of those present thought madly: “The Kitten of Slrw?” and immediately wished they hadn’t: The Old Woman was undoubtedly reading their minds.—“Hullo,” she said. “I’m K’haiitie M’wd.”

    “Hullo, K’haiitie M’wd,” said Dh'aaych.

    “I got a eagle’s egg!” she boasted.

    “It was addled,” said M’wd, handing the visitors mugs of fl’oouu tea. “Mother wouldn’t let her touch a good one, of course.”

    “No,” Dh’aaych and Shn’aillaigh agreed limply.

    “Gran, can I come with you?” asked the girl eagerly. “And see T’m?”

    The Old Woman of Slrw had stopped looking like Lady U-Fl’aiir’th on her high horse, or the younger Shn’aillaigh, and now looked merely like a handsome older Islander woman. “Yes, if you don’t want ever to be The Old Woman of Slrw.”

    Pouting, K’haiitie M’wd decided glumly: “I’ll stay here with Mother.”

    “I could stew up some dried khuish for supper, K’haiitie M’wd,” said M'wd kindly.

    Grudgingly she consented to khuish with custard.

    “I’ve never had khuish,” admitted Dh’aaych.

    “It needs the very cold northern winters to grow well,” explained M’wd placidly. “And it does best near the sea, really.”

     K’haiitie M’wd immediately asked: “’Ve you ever had mn-mns?"

    Dh’aaych coughed slightly. “Yes. Um, if you’d permit it. Old Woman, I could have a case of mn-mns flown up to you from our plantations in the tropics.”

    “Very well. Tell them to leave it with Fh’laiin Mk-L’ster on Yh’aaith Top Farm.”

    “Thanks, Gran!” beamed the child.

    “Not all of them will be for you,” she noted. “If everyone’s finished their tea, we’ll go. Bring me my box, please, M’wd.”

    The young woman hurried off.

    “Take that Representative fellow, he’s a good man,” said The Old Woman abruptly to Shn’aillaigh. “You won’t find a better, in your lifetime. –Well, not one that’ll have you,” she added drily.

    Shn’aillaigh was very red. “All right. If he’ll have me. –Thanks.”

    The Old Woman eyed her drily, if not in an altogether unkindly way. Then she said: “It would never have worked out with either of the blue-eyed ones, Lady.”

    “No,” she said, tight-lipped. “I know that, now.”

    “What about me, Old Woman?” asked Dh’aaych with a grin.

    She looked at him calmly. He swallowed in spite of himself. “Your destiny is in your own hands, Dh’aaych’llyai’n Mk’Eeain U-Fl’aiir’th. What happens in the future depends on whether you have the courage to grasp the stink-nettle or not.”

    He smiled ruefully. “I think I see what you mean.”

    “If your mother gives you too much trouble, you could remind her that there's one on the Isle of Slrw that knows all,” she added.

    “I’ll do that,” he said, gulping. “Thank you, Old Woman.” Suddenly he went down on one knee again and kissed her hand.

    “That’s enough,” she said with a little sigh as M’wd reappeared carrying a heavy box. “Yes, M’wd, the boy can have the kitten,” she added in a tired voice.

    “For T’m,” said the little girl, holding out a small basket, as the visitors stared. “Tell him he’s from me. His name’s T’m’s Kitten.”

    “All right,” said Dh’aaych feebly, running his hand through his hair. “We’ll take T'm's Kitten. And if he widdles all over Dh’aaych’llyai’n’s lifter, T’m can clean up the mess!”

    “Come along,” said The Old Woman, taking the box from M’wd and sweeping out without a backwards glance.

    They all followed silently, K’haiitie M’wd skipping along beside Dh’aaych and her mother bringing up the rear.

    Two of those present had thought they might emerge from the cave at another place entirely and at least one wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find it was another time entirely, so no-one gasped when after about ten minutes in the winding tunnel they emerged onto a rock-strewn area only a little above the pink lifter. There was no mist, though it was still drizzling slightly. M’wd draped a cloak over her mother’s head and said: “Be careful, Mother.”

    “No harm can come to me,” she said tiredly. “The Cat of Slrw will stay with you. If I’m delayed, she will let you know.”

    “She’ll let me know, she doesn’t think much of Mother!” said K’haiitie M’wd on a scornful note.

    It was pretty clear to two of those present that The Old Woman didn’t think much of M’wd, either. However, she returned severely: “Don’t speak of your mother like that, K’haiitie M’wd. And run along, both of you, it’s chilly out here.”

    They vanished into the cave, K’haiitie M’wd with a cry of: “Bye-bye, T’m’s Kitten! Say hullo to T’m from me!”

    “Come along,” said The Old Woman, drawing her cloak about her.

    They picked their way through the scattered boulders down to the lifter, two grubby figures in hunting gear with their cloaks thrown over their heads, the bulkier one carrying a mewing basket, and a huddled Islander woman in a cloak and homespun.

    “Does your granddaughter know T’m, Old Woman?” ventured Dh’aaych as they reached the grassy area where the lifter stood.

    “No. She wants him. I dare say he’ll do as well as another male.”

     Dh’aaych nodded numbly. He didn’t dare to catch Shn’aillaigh’s eye.

    In the lifter The Old Woman threw back her cloak and said to Dh’aaych, who had actually beaten Shn’aillaigh to the driver’s seat: “No need to drive. I know the way.”

    He swallowed, and did his straps up tightly, noticing wryly that Shn’aillaigh was, too.

    The Old Woman didn’t bother with the straps. She just said: “Ready?”

    Then they went.

    “Here they are,” said Drouwh, standing in the back doorway looking up into the darkening sky.

    “I’ll take your word for it,” drawled R’rt Fh’laiin, putting a hand on his shoulder.

    R’rt materialised from the now almost empty vehicle paddock. “Aye, I can hear it, R’bbie.”

    R’rt Fh’laiin concentrated. After several minutes he heard a whistling noise. “If that’s Dh’aaych’s lifter, he’s in trouble.”

    “No. The Old Woman’ll be controlling it, that’s the wind whistling past it you're hearing,” said Drouwh calmly.

    “Do you think she’d talk to me?” he demanded abruptly.

    “What, The Old Woman? About your cursed Ancient Rthfrdian ballads and Vvlvanian cave-drawings and nonsense?” choked Drouwh. “About as likely as this old lodge will suddenly up stakes and fly like—well, like a pink lifter!” he ended with a laugh, as it came in low over the trees and positioned itself silently above the paddock.

    “Curses,” said R’rt Fh’laiin, scowling. as the lifter settled like a pink feather drifting down.

    K’t-Ln was lying on the big kitchen table, with a quilt over her. The Old Woman felt all her over very gently and carefully, with the exception of her head. Then she stood for a while with her hand on the pulse in the neck.

    “Can you?” said Drouwh.

    “Yes. You’ll have to silence the blue-eyed one upstairs, he’s making a lot of disturbance. Give him a triple dose of the mixture. Force it down him, if necessary.”

    “I’ll do it,” said R’rt Fh’laiin, narrow nostrils flaring.

    “Don’t come back. Stay upstairs,” said The Old Woman, not bothering to look up. “And get these children out of it. –You, girl, take them up to the other one and shut them in the room with her,” she said to Shn’aillaigh.

    “Uh—yes. The Pleasure Girl?” she said, with an incredulous glance at Drouwh.

    “Yes. Hurry up. –Go on, T’m, you want me to make K’t-Ln better, don’t you?”

    “Yes. What about T’m’s Kitten, Old Woman?” he quavered. “Is he for me?”

    “T’m’s Kitten is for you. But for the moment, he’d better stay. –I should have brought the Cat,” she muttered to herself.

    This was too much for Shn’aillaigh. She took a deep breath, grabbed the goggling M’ri with one hand and T'm with the other and hauled them out of the room. R’rt Fh’laiin, his face completely neutral, followed with the flask from behind the clock.

    “Fools. Can’t distinguish superstition from fact,” said the Old Woman shortly.

    “Will you want Brown?” said Drouwh.

    “No. He could help, but it might kill him. –Stay,” she added to Dh’aaych.

    “Yes, all right,” he gulped. “Um—what shall I do?”

    “Nothing. Sit there and don’t speak.”

    “Yes,” he said faintly, sitting in the big leather chair.

    “Bring that chair up here, take your cousin’s hand, and sit,” said the Old Woman to Drouwh. “Don’t try to control anything."

    “Very well. –My cousin?” he said, pulling up a chair. “Not my sister?”

    She laid a hand very gently on K’t-Ln's forehead. “The man was not your father. But your mother’s father was also this one’s mother’s father.”

    Drouwh had gone rather white: his mother had never admitted in so many words that the Dad had not been his true father. But he said calmly enough: “That figures,” and sat down.

    “I’ll give the boy some powers: K’haiitie M’wd wants him,” she said. “But he can’t help us with this. Nor can the sister. If that one with the black hair wasn’t under the influence of an off-world drug, I’d use her.”

    “I see,” he said tightly. “Use me, Old Woman of Slrw.”

    “I shall. But if Old Rthfrdia needs you as much as you believe,” she said on a dry note, “I’d better not exhaust you.”

    Dh’aaych cleared his throat uncertainly.

    “If I use you, Dh’aaych’llyai’n Mk’Eeain U-Fl’aiir’th, it may kill you,” she said. “Do you want this dirty little girl to live more than you want to live, yourself?”

    “Old Woman, that’s hardly fair,” murmured Drouwh.

    The Old Woman drew up a hard wooden chair for herself and sat down by K’t-Ln’s head. “Possibly not. But then life isn’t fair. We often have to make choices before we’re prepared for them. –Well?” she said to Dh’aaych.

    He was very pale. “My life doesn’t mean much to me or anyone else, Old Woman. I’d rather go myself, if there has to be a choice.”

    “Good. Well, just sit still. You’ll feel me when I need you.”

    There was a long, long silence in the old kitchen. Once R’rt’s step crunched on the gravel outside the back door, but no-one noticed. The Old Woman's face was expressionless but after perhaps an hour Drouwh’s was contorted in agony and drops of sweat rolled down his forehead. Dh’aaych watched fearfully. He himself couldn’t feel a thing. Then suddenly Drouwh went limp and slid sideways in his chair.

    There was a faint mew from the kitten’s basket, and a voice said in Dh’aaych’s head: Keep still. Close your eyes. He obeyed, more scared than he'd ever been in his life.

    He didn’t precisely feel anything, and he was never able to describe to anyone exactly what happened, but after what could have been an aeon or a few seconds he knew himself to be slipping away into blackness. He opened his eyes but the blackness was still there. Dh’aaych knew that he was going and that there was nothing he could do about it. He closed his eyes again and let himself slip away…

    There came a rending, ripping slash of pain all the way down his right forearm and he opened his eyes with a gasp.

    “She’ll do,” said The Old Woman. “T’m’s Kitten’s gone; get it, quickly.”

    Dh’aaych staggered up, cradling his right arm in his left hand. “Where—” He looked round but the kitten’s little basket was still sealed. After a dazed moment he realised what she must mean and brought her the basket. “Here,” he said, biting his lip with the pain. He opened the basket and took out the tiny limp figure.

    “It’s a male, of course,” she said on an unimpressed note.

    “Uh—yes.”

    He’d assumed she’d do some mind thing again but she took the tiny limp thing from him and blew gently into its mouth. Dh’aaych wouldn’t have fancied giving a cat mouth-to-mouth, even a scarce-weaned one, and he watched with considerable distaste but also considerable admiration. The kitten gave a faint mew and struggled weakly, and she gave it back to him and said: “Keep it warm and give it milk.”

    “Yes,” he said, again aware of the pain in his arm.

    “That wound brought you back, don’t lament it,” she said.

    “No.” With gritted teeth he put the kitten into its basket and set the basket before the fire. Then he went out to the larder. There he leant against the wall, panting and sweating, and inspected his arm. The long scar was bleeding in several places. Dh’aaych had a fleeting, unworthy moment in which he wondered grimly whether, if he hadn’t been a male, The Old Woman would have chosen this particularly agonising way to bring him back from near-death. He ripped the shirt-sleeve with the aid of his teeth and tied the strips tightly round the opened scar. Then he put milk in a saucer for the kitten and went back into the big kitchen.

    “Pour us both a shot,” said The Old Woman.

    “Of course.” He saw she was very grey-looking and said anxiously: “Will you come over to the fire, Old Woman?"

    “Yes. Help me up.” She adjusted the big duck-down quilt carefully over K’t-Ln and, letting him take her elbow, stood up painfully.

    Dh’aaych hadn’t dared to look before. K’t-Ln was very pale but seemed to be breathing normally. “How is she?”

    “Asleep. She’ll wake up with a headache tomorrow, but she’ll be all right. None of her mind functions are impaired."

    “Good.” He swallowed. “I know this is an impertinence, but if there’s ever anything I can do for you or yours, Old Woman—”

    “Start by taking me to the fire and fetching the uissh,” she said drily.

    “Oh!” Dh’aaych smiled foolishly. He assisted her over to the wing-chair.

    “There is something,” she said, when she was seated, sipping uissh.

    Dh’aaych had gone back to the table and was looking down at the sleeping K’t-Ln. “Yes?”

    “When K’haiitie M’wd is old enough these Federation people will want her to leave home and go to one of their off-world schools.”

    “Uh—yes? Oh, I see. Yes, I’ll use what influence I have to keep her safe.”

    “No. I want you to persuade her to go. The future will be different, and her mother’s a fool. I’ll be dead by then,” she added casually, “and so will The Cat.”

    He nodded groggily. “I see. Uh—what about this tradition that the—the one that’s going to be The Old Woman mustn’t leave the Island?”

    The Old Woman swallowed uissh. “Stuff and nonsense,” she said with a yawn. “The sort of myth that can be made use of at need. Originally designed to keep the line pure, what else?”

    “I see.” He sat down on the hard chair she had vacated and looked nervously at the sleeping K’t-Ln and the slumped Drouwh.

    “The boy’s all right,” she said, yawning again.

    “Uh—oh, Drouwh? Good; he looks awful."

    “He’s tired. And bewildered. And very frightened. Well, he’s only a male, isn’t he? I told him he’d do himself more harm than he would the other blue-eyed one by kidnapping him, but he wouldn’t listen.”

    “Headstrong,” he said faintly.

    “Yes. K’haiitie M’wd takes after him. Funny how the genes can betray you. The last Black Mk-D’rm’d was M’wd’s father,” she added, draining her uissh. “Iiu’sh Mk’All’ayn Mk-D’rm’d: he was a fine man. This Mk-D’rm’d’s a sentimental fool like M’wd."

    “Uh—I wouldn’t say that. Well—had some dashed bad luck, y’know.”

    “Many of us have bad luck, Dh’aaych’llyai’n Mk’Eeain U-Fl’aiir’th, but few of us are weak enough to waste the rest of our lives blaming ourselves for it.”

    “Er—aye. Well, I suppose weakness is in the genes, too, eh?”

    “Aye… Oh, well. The old way of life will vanish entirely in the high reaches, you know, within a generation, with all this company nonsense.”

    “I suppose it will. –Well, it seems fair to the people, doesn’t it? Well, to hear R’rt Fh’laiin tell it,” he said with an uneasy laugh: “when our remote ancestors first came to Old Rthfrdia, there were no clan leaders and no clanspeople, everyone was equal. Seems only fair that—uh—well, that everyone should get a share!”

    The Old Woman of Slrw looked at him very drily indeed. “It’s always seemed to me that some people will always be born idiots and some will be born leaders—unless you control the gene pool completely. I fail to see why our remote ancestors should have been any different. There must have been someone to yell ‘Run’ at the sight of the first bear, and someone to yell ‘Stand and fight’—don’t you think?”

    “Uh—yes. Um... which would have been the leader, though?” he said in confusion.

    Tired though she was, The Old Woman’s lips twitched. “Depends on how you conceive of leadership, I suppose. Give me one more shot, then I'll have a sleep. The U’Rhy’iior’thn girl can drive me back."

    He brought over two shots and sat down in the rocker.

    “You did well,” she said, downing hers.

    “I didn’t do anything,” he protested, flushing.

    “You trusted me. And offered yourself for the girl. And you came to find me, although you knew it might be difficult and painful. –Go to sleep. The girl will be all right,” she said as he glanced over uneasily at her.

    “All right, then.” Dh’aaych closed his eyes.

    When he woke the morning sun was streaming in and the kitchen was empty. He stood up slowly, stretching. His arm felt much more comfortable, neatly strapped in gauze under which khyai’llh leaves showed darkly, but he sighed a little. The original wound had oozed for weeks, and taken six months to get to the stage where it no longer throbbed unexpectedly, waking him in the middle of the night.

    Outside R’rt was sitting in the sun on the verandah steps, smoking his pipe. “Don’t you ever sleep?” said Dh’aaych with his easy grin.

    “Off and on. The Mk-D’rm’d spelled me round three this morning, while you were snoring,” he said with a twinkle. “He watched until dawn.”

    “I see.” Dh’aaych wandered over to a tree and relieved himself under it.

    “How’s the arm?” said R’rt when he returned.

    “Oh—quite comfortable, thanks. Did you bandage it?” The man nodded and Dh’aaych said heavily: “Thanks, R’rt.”

    R’rt eyed him in some amusement but since he wasn’t his own Lord, didn’t advise him not to be downhearted: that would have been overstepping the mark. He just smoked his pipe peacefully.

    After some time Dh’aaych said: “Most of ’em have gone, have they?”

    “Aye. Your father’s still here, my Lord. The Lady Shn’aillaigh and The Mk-L’ster, they’ll be asleep, still. Whacked, The Mk-L’ster was, The Lord said.”

    “I’ll go and see how they all are, I think."

    “Right you are, my Lord,” he said placidly.

    Dh’aaych bent anxiously over K’t-Ln’s bed.

    “She is awake,” breathed M’ri.

    “Yes,” he said swallowing.

    The delicate, creamy eyelids fluttered a little and so did his heart.

    Then she blinked, looked up at him and said in a thread of a voice: “Hullo, Fat-Face.”

    “Hullo, K’t-Ln,” he croaked. “How do you feel?"

    “I've got a headache,” she said faintly, closing her eyes again.

    M’ri came anxiously to Dh’aaych’s side. “Yes: you nearly died, K’t-Ln. Only Lord Dh’aaych’llyai’n fetched The Old Woman of Slrw to you and she made you better.”

    There was a little silence. K’t-Ln’s silky brow wrinkled a little. Dh’aaych’llyai’n swallowed.

    “I know,” she said, very faintly. “We went for a long glide together.” She paused. “You were there,” she said weakly, opening her eyes and looking straight at him.

    “Was I?” he said feebly. A couple of tears trickled down his cheeks.

    “And a little cat. And The Mk-L’ster. Only they fell.”

    “Mm,” said Dh’aaych, trying to control his tears.

    “Don’t cry, kna-worm,” she whispered, closing her eyes again.

    “She’s asleep,” breathed M’ri.

    “Yes.” He sniffed and strode over to the window, where he stood with his back to the room, brushing at his cheeks.

    “She’ll be okay,” said M’ri awkwardly.

    “Aye. Um—M’ri? Would you mind awfully if I just stayed with her by myself for a bit?”

    “All right. Shall I go downstairs and make you some breakfast?”

    “Thanks. That’d be lovely,” he said huskily.

    He heard her cross the room and go out, closing the door very softly behind her.

    Dh’aaych’llyai’n turned round and went over to the bed. He sat down in the chair that M’ri had been using. It was an antique, a lady’s rocker, too low for his long legs. He touched K’t-Ln’s hand where it lay beside her, outside the covers. She didn’t stir.

    After a few moments he put his face down on the bed beside the grimy little hand and wept.