Mara had thought she was doing well, with getting her bones covered, but she looked down and saw her long, spiky fingers and her long feet where all the bones showed. The thought of sleeping — oh it was wonderful. She had slept so little, in the barracks with the young male slaves. Apart from her fear of discovery — but being found out had turned out to be a good thing — it was Dann: she was worried sick about Dann. She knew he was going to do something foolish: run away again, start a fight, or a riot. She was sure he hadn't smiled or laughed since they had come down the hillside into Chelops. He was so angry she was even afraid of him herself.

"My brother," said Mara. "My brother, Dann..." but Ida broke in, "Don't worry about anything. I'll make enquiries about your brother. And when you wake up, believe me, we are all going to want to hear your story."

She clapped her hands; a young woman appeared, and stood waiting. "Kira, take Mara to the Health House, and tell Orphne to give her the sleep treatment, and feed her, and go on until it's enough. I'd say probably five days."

Kira led Mara through a courtyard where young women were sitting about, talking, laughing, with piles of flowers and plants in front of them, which they were picking over. There was a strong herbal smell. They all looked curiously at Mara, and Kira said, "Later. She's going to sleep now."

Kira walked with Mara fast through hot dusty lanes, where plants and trees stood drooping, to a big house, like Ida's, where she called to another young woman, Orphne, gave her the instructions, and went off.

Orphne was another large woman, full of health, pretty, with flowers in her hair, and she said to Mara, "Have you really come from down there? Is it as bad as they say? — well, I can see by looking at you that it is." She walked around Mara, examining her, touched her brush of hair, felt her arms and legs, and said, "Before anything else I'm going to clean you up a bit."

Mara had thought she was clean, but now she sat down, while Orphne cut her long claw nails and the hooks of nails on her toes, rubbed pads of callused skin from her soles with a rough stone, dug clogs of wax from her ears, lifted her lids to examine her eyes, and put in drops, shook her head over the loose teeth, and rubbed oil all over her arms and legs. Then she made Mara drink a long, warm, herb-smelling draught, and put her to bed in a room that had another bed in it, and said, "When you wake up you'll be all right again, you'll see."

Mara slept, sometimes deeply, sometimes shallowly, and whenever she woke there were heavily sugared cakes beside her, and fruit, and more of the herb drink. Once Kira was sitting by her head, watching. She said, "I'm going to give you a massage and then you can sleep again."

"I don't want a massage," said Mara, thinking of the coins under her chest.

"All right then. But I'm here to keep an eye on you. You're a restless one, aren't you?"

"I don't remember anything."

"You were crying out, 'Help me, help me' — and then calling for Dann.

Who's he?"

"He's my little brother," said Mara, and began to cry, as if she had been waiting all her life to cry as she was now.

Kira waited a little, then called Orphne. Mara saw the two young women, with their young, fresh faces, their concerned smiles, their plump young bodies, and thought, And I'm so ugly, so ugly — and I've always been ugly. She went on crying, until Orphne lifted her and Kira held the herb drink to her lips, and she sank back into sleep again.

Another time when she woke it was night, a low flame burned in a dish of oil, and Orphne was asleep in the other bed.

And then she woke to find both Kira and Orphne there, and Orphne said, "Now that's enough of sleep. We don't want to make you ill. And soon Mother Ida will decide what to do with you."

Mara said, "If we are slaves, all the Mahondis, then why is everything so nice, how can you be so kind?"

At this Orphne embraced Mara as if she were a small girl and said, "Everything was much nicer, believe me. These are hard times." And Kira said, in the way she had, laughing, but with a little edge of petulance, "We are nice. We're lovely — aren't we, Orphne?" And Orphne patted and stroked Mara and said that now she must have a bath. "We're going to give you a bath," she said. At first Mara did not hear the "we," but then did, and was full of panic again. Orphne and Kira must not know about those coins hidden there. Then Mara thought, I'll confide in them, I'll ask them to keep it a secret — but knew this was nonsense. No, no, already Dann and I have been saved by the gold coins and they'll save us again — get us out of Chelops to the North, buy us our escape.

"What's the matter?" asked Orphne.

"I want to bath by myself."

"Goodness, what a shy little thing you are. Very well then."

In a room that had a stone floor stood a tub of water, not hot but warm, because the water had been in a tank in the sunlight. Orphne put clothes on a stool and went out. The door did not lock. Mara took off her slave's dress, so dirty and smelly, untied the lumpy rope from her chest, put it under her new clothes, and got into the water, which was up to her chin. In came Orphne again, with soap. "I'm just in and out," she said, humouring Mara; but what she wanted was really to take a good look at Mara's shoulders, which was all she could see of her.

"You're fattening up nicely," she said, and went out.

When the water was cold Mara put back the cord of coins and over it a loose, light, white dress, like Kira's and Orphne's. She went back into the other room and Orphne hugged and kissed her, saying she was pleased, and now Mara must go back to Mother Ida who was waiting for her.

Again Kira led Mara through dusty little lanes, and into Ida's house; and there was Ida, as before, sitting with her feet on a stool, and she was fanning herself slowly, using many turns of the wrist, with a fan made of feathers. This made Mara remember birds, and their variety and their songs and their beauty, and wonder if perhaps there were still some left in Chelops. She had not seen any birds.

Ida was looking closely at her with those clever eyes of hers, while she fanned and fanned, and then she said, "Good. I wouldn't have recognised you. You've got a face now." Then she lifted down her pretty feet and said, "I'm going to take you now and show you to the Hadrons. No, don't worry. You aren't pretty enough yet for it to be dangerous. But that's the point you see. They have to see you — it's the rule. And then they'll forget about you.

At least I hope they will." She draped a white scarf over Mara's brush of hair, and took her hand. She asked, "Are you feeling yourself again? Can you manage a little walk? It really is better if we do it now."

At this Mara had to remember for how long she had not felt herself, how she had forgotten what feeling yourself meant; and she stood smiling at Ida in gratitude, wanting to tell her everything, and she had begun, "You see, in the Rock Village, for all those years I don't think I was anywhere near what I really am — " when Ida laughed, gave her a little push to the door and said, "Save it for when we can all hear."

At the door stood one of the carrying chairs that so recently Mara had been portering, the shafts on her shoulders, and Ida got in, and pulled in Mara, who stood hesitating, knowing how her weight and Ida's would drag at the thin shoulders of the two slaves at the back and the front. One recognised her, and gave her a sullen look.

They were jogging through small lanes, then on a road, which had on either side of it red flowering shrubs; but the flowers seemed to Mara to be emitting a high, almost audible scream for help, because she was remembering, and identifying so strongly with a longing for rain. Then they turned into a big garden where there were shrubs and flowers that were watered and fresh. Beyond the big house they were approaching was a field full of very tall odoriferous plants, and their smell was unpleasant, rank and head-haunting.