IF WE LIVE

The dark river carried them away from the castle. They floated along until the first light grayed the sky; then they made for the eastern shore and pulled themselves up on the bank. They quickly clothed their shivering, water-wrinkled bodies and looked around for the rest of Kel’s band. The scouts were supposed to be waiting about a half-night’s float up the river. But Kel had miscalculated the current; they had to walk north for several hours. Kel said they needed the walk to warm up. He made it sound as if he had planned an exercise period from the start.

Scouts from the band found them and brought horses. They mounted and rode swiftly to the east, the scouts scattering in individual random routes. “But Richard and Plott can’t go by their selves.” Kel said. “They’re both shitty riders.”

“You take Richard, darlin’,” he told Miry. “I’ll take Plott. End up at the wagon trail just about due east of here, but go wandering round to get there. Then turn south to catch up to the wagons.”

They headed north to separate from Kel and Plott. The sun was rising. At night, in the blue light of the galaxy, Miry’s eyes had looked dark. In the sun, her eyes were amber. Her smooth skin was almost the same color. Her jet-black hair was tied up in a long braid.

“You look like Morik,” Richard said.

“Yeah, people always say that,” she said.

“Well, it’s not a bad thing. He’s one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen. And you’re even more beautiful.”

She looked at him. The rising sun was shining right directly into her face. Her eyes were like gold. “You think so, hunh?”

“Oh, yes. And I’ve known a lot of women.”

“I’ll bet you have. Is it true, what the scouts were saying, you’re one of those people from above the sky?”

Richard nodded. “That’s right. I was born on Earth. Or Diqui, Terra, or Gaea.”

“Earth? You mean where they say people, horses, and cattle all come from? Is there really such a place?”

“Sure. Earth’s a world, with mountains, oceans, places like the Hastab, and all sorts of plants and animals and people.”

“The people Morik’s holding say your… Your ship is broken somehow, so you can’t go back.  But I guess you’d want to, if you could.”

“Sometimes,” Richard said. He looked into her golden eyes. “But not now, cher.”

“What’s ‘cher’?”

“Means dear. Or darlin’, like Kel says. Or priya – isn’t that what Stableners say?”

“Cher.” She tested the word. “Do women say it to men?”

“Sure. Much as you like.”

“Does it mean you’re fucking?”

Richard laughed. “No. Or not yet, cher.”

“‘Not yet,” she said. “You’re wicked. Cher.”

They talked the miles away. In the evening they crossed the wagons’ track. On that well worn trail they no longer needed to be concerned with concealing their horse’s tracks. They sped up and caught the wagons at dusk.

The others were already laying out their bedrolls. “Wish we could keep talking,” Miry said.

“Me too, cher” Richard said. “In the morning.”

She held up her thumb. “Till then.”

Richard touched it with his thumb. “Till then.”

The caravan headed south. Kel and Ivo went as fast as they could; but every time they crossed into the territory of a new band, the band’s scouts would see them, and alert their people to the trading opportunity. Sometimes more than fifty people would appear out of the rolling grasslands. Then the caravan had to stop and act out its cover roll. Kel made Miry hide in the wagons during these times. He said she looked so strikingly like Morik, that people would talk.

“Which he’d be sure to hear about,” Kel said. “He has his ears out all over the Stablen.”

Miry was riding in front of them. Kel nodded at her. “She sure has a sweet seat.”

“She’s beautiful,” Richard agreed. “And very shapely.”

Kel laughed. “Saying somebody has a sweet seat, means they ride a horse good. But the other’s true too, with her. Go on and ride with her and stop making like you really want to hear me talk.”

Miry wore loose trousers and a sleeveless top. She had gotten a shawl from the trade goods to protect her shoulders from the intense sun and woven a broad brimmed hat from whipgrass. She was weaving another as she rode, her right leg crossed over the saddle, with a sheaf of whipgrass tucked under.

“What you doing, cher?” Richard asked. “Making a hat for Ema?”

Miry nodded. “She’s so pale, she’ll burn red if she doesn’t have a hat.”

“Has she talked to you?”

Miry shook her head. “She whispers to Plott. She touched my hand when I said I’d make the hat, like to thank me.”

“Shit,” Richard said. “Wish I could’ve taken care of her.”

“They’d just killed you. Randof’s band. Scouts say you killed the man that hurt Ema. Seems like you’re the only one of your people that fought.” 

“That was because of Kel. He’s a soldier. So he made me a soldier.” Richard was wearing his sword. He put his hand on the hilt. “It was a lot easier than I thought.”

“Because you’re brave, cher.”

“So are you.” It was hot. Miry had pulled her pant legs up. Her smoothly rounded knee lay across her saddle. Richard leaned over to touch it. “You left the castle and your people to take up with a crazy band of spacers, scouts, and a Valen soldier.”

“Saw you, cher.” She smiled and looked at him sidelong.  “Knew you were the way out.”

“Oh, my. You’re really good at flirting.”

“That’s not all I’m good at.” She leaned over and whispered. “Tonight. When everybody lays down, I’ll go out into the grass, like to pee. Little bit later, you follow.”

Richard laid out his bedroll. To one side, Kel was telling a story. Plott laughed at something he said. Ema leaned against him, her eyes fixed on his face. Richard saw Miry get up and go out into the darkness of the whip grass. After a moment he followed her.

She had hidden a blanket in her clothes. She was laying it out on a flattened area of the grasses. Richard kissed her. For a moment she was awkwardly stiff. Then she clung to him. “I’m not really brave. I’m scared, but I had to get out of the castle. And I… Need someone.”

“So do I.” He put his hand under her tunic and felt her breast. “Ma cher amour.”

She put her hand inside the waistband of his pants, her fingertips touching the tip of his erect penis. “That’s more than just cher – does it mean we’re fucking?”

Richard laughed. “I hope so.”

They lay on the blanket, the warm summer wind drying the sweat from their bodies. The galaxy arced directly overhead. Richard pulled her to him. “I don’t think we can have a better night.”

The starlight was bright enough for him to see her smile. “Does that mean we shouldn’t try?”

“Of course not, cher. It means we should try really hard, and many, many times.”

 They went to their bedrolls by widely separated routes. In the morning they made a sleepy but careful show of indifference to one another.

But Kel knew at once. He drew Richard away from the rest of the party. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, boy?”

“If you’re asking, you know. Maybe it wasn’t too smart to start it out here, but we’re trying to keep it quiet.”

 “Well, you ain’t doing a hell of a good job of it. Just watch yourself: the others’re so far off she’s almost a speck, but you keep turning ’round to check her out. “

Richard forced his eyes away from Miry’s distant figure. He looked keenly over the steppe, as if his constant glances at her had merely been part of his vigilant scouting.

Kel grinned. “It’d be damn funny if things was different. Fooling with that woman makes you like one of Morik’s in-laws — which is a hell of a thought right off — and being one of Morik’s relations ain’t a real healthy thing to be.”

 “Morik can go to hell,” Richard said. “He isn’t going to love us for what we’ve already done, so it’s a little late to start worrying about what he might not like.”

“Well, that’s so,” Kel admitted. “Guess I’d feel the same way. Go on back to Miry – and just ride beside her like you did before you started creeping ’round at night. If you keep turning your head to look at her, you’re going to screw it right off your neck.”

Richard told Miry about his year on her world and tried to explain his life on Earth. Miry talked about her childhood on the big empty of Stablen, “When we was happy and ignorant. We just ran ’round and rode and played like any kids, hardly knowing we was Ayvens or what that was going to mean. “

“What does it mean?” Richard asked. “What exactly are the Ayvens? A family, clan, caste, or what?”

 “Well, it’s what they call the thirteenth name. It’s from Ayva, meaning of her, the Girl. Her son Amik led the first band of thirteen men to live on the Hastab all the year ’round, and he made the laws to keep them together. In one of those laws, Amik says that ever’ man is to pass down his name and his work to his sons and his sons’ sons, for ever and ever. As Amik’s own work was being the boss of the band, that meant only the men of his name – the Ayvens – could be bosses, war Chiefs, or keptas. So even the chief of the least little band in Hastablen has to be an Ayven, a son of the blood of Amik. It don’t really mean all that much amongst some of the bands. What does mean something is to be a close relation of the kepta. Which is what I am. Cousin of Morik. The killer.” She whispered: “I curse the day I was born into that blood. “

Richard rode close and tried to put his arm around her. His horse bumped Miry’s. She corrected for his clumsiness, turning her horse so that her shoulder fell under his arm.

“Beautiful rider,” Richard said. “You’re more graceful on horseback than most women are when they dance. How’d you learn to ride so well?”

“Morik.” She sighed. “I didn’t have a horse or anything. Morik’d see me and pull me up to sit in front of him. Even when I was just a little girl, and he wasn’t much older.

He’d tell me stories, sing songs, answer all my questions, and he showed me how to weave a hat from whipgrass, set up a tent, start fire without a flint, and all sorts of things. Then we got older and started to fool around. I remember the first time he kissed me…” She shook her head. “I loved that boy so much.”

            “The chief found out and made me marry his son Kevy. He wouldn’t let Morik have me. Morik couldn’t stand it and left to be a Kepta’s guard. He told me he’d be come back for me some day.”

            “And he did.”

            She nodded. “Rode into camp by himself, in his black armor. Kevy goes out the tent, careful to leave his saber to show he won’t fight, and Morik is sitting on his gray war horse, and he says, I want Miry out here.”

            “Kevy says, what’ll you give to get her back?”

            “Morik looks down at him and says, like money or deals, you mean? You the chief now?”

            “A woman watching from another tent yells out, we ain’t got one yet. And the girl help us if ever it was him.”

“Morik pulled his saber strikes Kevy in the throat. Kevy grips his throat and falls. Morik says, like to Kevy’s body, Miry’s not a slave girl, fool. You can’t sell her for gold or favor. She can only be your wife or your widow. Better for the world if it’s that second thing.”

“Were you lovers, Miry?”

“That night and many more.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “If only he didn’t kill everybody. I just can’t help loving him. Can’t stay with him either.”

The caravan moved into the edge of the Starstab. It rolled quickly downhill to the Lastab. The peaceful Lastab; but Kel and Ivo were worried. It was too peaceful. The scouts saw no herdsmen or signs of recent encampments. All the tracks they found were old.  Ivo sent riders out to make contact with someone – anyone who could tell them what was going on.

Two days later Raj returned. He was Ivo’s best tracker. “I rode straight west like you said, boss. Then I come across cattle tracks from a good-sized herd. They looked less than a day old, so I followed them. You said I could follow on fresh sign.”

Ivo nodded. “That’s right. You go on and tell it. “

Raj was a little nervous about giving his report in front of Kel and all the other foreigners. “Well, anyways, I come up on the herd and these four-five Lastab men that was droving. They was going at a pretty fair pace too, like to take the flesh off their beasts. So I asks these old boys what the hell’s going on, with everybody cleared out of the north Lastab, and them whipping their beasts along at such a rate. So they asks ain’t I heard that the war’s coming, and when I asked what war they looked at me like I was crazed. It come out that old Veekay’d all of a sudden died, and that Morik’s gathering his fighting men for to try to be Lastab kepta too. They’re saying he’s going to have forty to fifty thousand, that’re coming together southeast of Ayventun. And the Lastab chiefs’re gathering their men somewheres northwest of Wawee. Looks like they’ll be fighting somewheres in this country; right near where we’re standing, I figure.”

Kel groaned. “Son of a bitch! No wonder Morik’s people wasn’t chasing us. We went to all that trouble to fool him — just to end up in the track of the biggest army in the world.”

 “There’s more,” Ivo said. “Tell him, Raj.”

Raj was beginning to enjoy being the center of attention. “Well, I asked these fellows how it looked like turning out, and they said Morik’d win for sure. Seems like those Lastab chiefs didn’t have time to work out which one’d be kepta, and they’re fighting amongst themselves all the time. And our people out in the west is keeping out of it, because of favors Morik did when he was cleaning the bandits out of the Starstab. So it comes out that the chiefs’ve only got about fifteen thousand horse and ten thousand foot that’re marching in from the farms across the river, if they get here in time. But they say the chiefs’re still going to fight. The silly buggers.”

Kel turned the caravan east and hurried it to the Wawee River. They struggled across and traveled south to the farmlands of East Lastab, sharing the roads with other refugees. The people camped in the fields, trudged along with sacks and bundles of household goods, and told the passing caravan what they had seen and heard of the war. Morik was in the west, they said. Morik was driving the Lastab army to the far south. Morik’s wild troops had burned Wawee to the ground. Morik was conducting an occupation of wonderful justice and efficiency.

 “But one thing’s certain,” Richard said. “Morik’s winning.”

 “Like he always does,” Miry said. “You wonder where he’s going to stop. He’s only four-five years older than me, and here he is getting to be kepta of the whole Stablen.”

The caravan climbed over mountains and moved into Willen, a dependency of Lastablen. The mountains were the Blues, a range of moderate height. Willen was mixed farm and forest land of an ordinary sort. But it was strange and fascinating to Miry and the other Stableners. The forests were dark, cool, and damp with a constant fog of transpiration.

On rainy nights Miry and Richard pulled their bedrolls under one of the wagons. She lay with her head on his arm. “I feel… At rest,” she said. “Listening to the rain. Loving you.”

“I can’t say it as well as you,” Richard said. “But I feel the same.”

They camped near a village inn. The women captured darting children busy in a hectic game of hide and seek and dragged them off to the inn’s bathhouse. Kel was telling Richard and Plott about the wonders of Hallen. Gigantic mountains and lush valleys, perfect summers and hellish winters, fierce rivers and even fiercer people who were nevertheless the kindest, most friendly people in the world.

A woman screamed. Richard and the others heard a confused thudding of hooves. A number of Lastablener scouts ran into the alley leading to the bathhouse. “No!” Kel shouted, “Wait. ”

 Two horsemen galloped around a barn. They passed behind the men rushing into the alley.  The men halted by Kel’s shout moved to block the horsemen. A daring young scout tried to jump up on one of the horses and knock its rider off. The horsemen moved expertly away. They pulled out long Hastab sabers and swung them at the scouts. They didn’t connect, but the scouts had to move back to protect themselves. One horseman turned his mount and bulled down the man standing in his way. He burst out of the ring of scouts. The second man tried to follow. One of the scouts threw a long tent-pole into his horse’s forelegs. The horse got tangled on the pole and broke one of its legs. It screamed in pain and went down. The Hastablener jumped to the ground and swung his saber. He stood behind his horse. It thrashed desperately as it tried to stand up, making a large, dangerous barricade.

“Make a ring,’ Kel ordered. “I want him alive. Kill that horse.” The scouts quickly arranged themselves into a ring. Two bowmen stood ready behind them. Someone hit the horse on the head with an axe.

But the Hastablener was too good, and too desperate. He slashed  frantically at the men in the ring, forcing them to defend themselves. Kel signaled the archers. “Shoot him!”

Arrows sprang out of the Hastablener’s right shoulder and leg. He dropped the saber and tottered. He tore a long dagger from his belt and pressed it under his breast bone. He fell forward on it. His legs jerked. One of the men turned him over. “He’s dead.”

“Sweet life,” Kel muttered. “A real crazy. Ivo! Take a couple of your boys and some spare horses. See if you can catch the other one.” He turned to the scouts. “Clear up this mess. Form scouting parties. Make sure no more of the bastards’re around.”

“What were they doing?” Richard asked. “Just the two of them. . . “

 “Let’s go see.” Kel hesitated and caught Richard’s arm. “But maybe you’d better not.”

Richard pulled away. “No –”

 They pushed through the people standing in the alley. Miry lay on the ground. Two arrows stood out from her breast. A long, heavy lance had been thrust through her belly. It pinned her to the ground.

 Sarey squatted beside the body. She put a scarf from the trade goods over Miry’s face. It was garish with the bright colors Stableners loved. Sarey smoothed it carefully over Miry’s forehead. Ema stood against the wall of one of the buildings, sobbing in a compulsive monotone.

“What happened, Sarey?”

“They was walking to the bathhouse, Miry and her.” Sarey nodded at Ema. “Miry was saying something to her and holding her hand, trying to get her to talk, I guess, and all of a sudden — it was so quick – I saw the arrows in her and the men that shot her at the same time, coming out of that barn. Miry just fell right off, limp, and didn’t move, and I think she was dead before she hit the ground. But those men, they rode down and stuck her while she lay there.”

She started to cry. “Why’d they have to do that? She couldn’t’ve lived. Why’d they stick her like that?”

Kel reached down to lift her up. “You better go and see if you can help Ema, darlin’. See if you can find Plott.”

Sarey led Ema away. Kel looked at the lance. Green and black ribbons were tied to the shaft. He called a scout. “Come here, Yury. Help me pull that thing out.”

Yury started to put a muddy boot against Miry’s body. He hesitated and looked at Richard’s face. He knelt and put his knee on Miry’s body. Kel pulled the lance out and broke the shafts off the arrows.

 Richard lifted Miry’s body and carried her into the bathhouse. He put her on a bench in the robing room and lifted the scarf from her face. Her golden eyes were open, but dulled in death.

“The women’ll want to wash her,” Kel said. “Sew her in a shroud or something like that. I don’t think you want to see that.”

Richard turned away. “No. And I don’t want to see her buried. Tell me when it’s over.”

Some time later Kel approached him. He had the lance. “Look at this.”

The blade was bound to the shaft with a broad copper ferrule. The running horse was stamped into the metal. “This belonged to one of the Personals. I don’t know how to say how bad I feel about this, Davy. I thought Miry’d be at least as safe as the rest of us. And once he got this new war going on, he’d’ve had no time to chase us. Something else was happening here.”

Kel fiddled with the lance. “When a Hastab woman’s unfaithful, they sometimes do that – the lance through the belly. It’s a terrible wound to die of. Morik must’ve told them to make sure she was dead before they did it. Else they’d never’ve killed her so quick.” Kel spat. “Hastablener mercy.”

“They were lovers,” Richard said. “Or had been. That’s why she had to get away.”

He put his head in his hands. “Doesn’t matter now. I had a true love. And lost her. What else is there to say?”

“Nothing,” Kel said. “But if we live, we got to go on.”