Next morning the courtyard was crowded to hear Larissa's warnings.

The first was an old myth about a girl called Jull and a boy called Rom, from different clans, and they fell in love and killed themselves because the clans disapproved. This tale provoked much more discussion than yesterday's, for someone said, "Like Mahondis and Hadrons," and they shuddered at the idea of being in love with an ugly Hadron.

The second was about a young girl who wanted to marry a handsome young man instead of an old rich man her father had chosen; but instead of killing herself she was imprisoned for ever in a temple.

"What was a temple?"

"It was a place where they kept their God."

"What was God?"

"An invisible being who controlled their lives." This caused a good deal of merriment.

The last tale was of a famous singer called Toski who befriended a young man escaping from the police because he was intriguing against an unjust king. In exchange for the promise of freedom for the young hero, Toski slept with the Chief of Police; but he betrayed her, and the famous singer killed herself.

This tale they took more seriously than the others. All knew about the young Hadrons who were waiting to rule this country, some of whom were currently in prison as a punishment, and that all the talk among the younger Hadrons not in prison was of assassinations, coups and uprisings.

The salutary tales did not seem to have much effect, for the three young women — by now four — who wanted babies, said they were going to insist on their rights. This time it was Juba himself who said, "Wait until the rains, and the other babies are born."

When Mara's flow began, she went to inform Candace, as she had been told to do, and found her in the big communal room where they all met, looking at a great map filling all of one wall. Mara had not known it was there: it was usually covered by a curtain. Mara quickly said what she had to, and then ran to the map, feeling she was being given food long denied. Candace had her hand on the cord that pulled the curtain across, and as Mara stood staring, said to her, "Aren't you supposed to be in the fields with Meryx?"

Mara said, "Candace, when may I begin my lessons?"

"What is it you want to know?"

"Everything." Then Mara managed a laugh, in response to Candace's dry little smile, and said, "Well, I could begin with numbers. Counting."

"But Mara, you know as much as any of us. You come here to report to us that there are so many sacks of grain or ganja or poppy." "Is that really all any of you know?" "We know all we need to know."

"But when I say ten thousand sacks of grain, it is because there are ten thousand. That is my limit, or the limit of the sacks, not the limit of numbers. Or we say, 'in the old times,' or 'ten thousand years ago,' or — yesterday I heard Meryx say, 'twenty thousand years ago.' But that's what we know, or imagine, but not how far back things really went. What do we know of then — and how do we know it?"

Candace sat down and nodded at Mara to sit. What Mara was seeing was Candace's hands: long, clever hands, but they were restless. Mara thought, She is impatient, but controlling it. She is trying to be patient with me.

"Long ago there were civilisations so far in advance of us that we cannot begin to imagine what they were." "How do we know?"

"About five thousand years ago there was a terrible storm in a desert that everyone thought had always been a desert, just piles of sand, and the storm shifted the sand and exposed a city. It was very big. The city had been made to keep chronicles — records — books."

"We had books when we were children."

"Not of leather, not skins. Of paper. Quite like the stuff we make our shoes of... the indoor shoes. And on them printing." "Our books had writing."

"Printing. Techniques we don't have. The city was a kind of Memory. Histories. Stories of all kinds, from every part of the world. The scholars of then — that was a time of peace — trained hundreds of young people to be Memories: not just to remember, but to write things down. They decided to preserve the histories of all the world."

"The world," said Mara, desperate.

"The world. Some wrote it all down, but others were trained to remember. And that is where all our knowledge comes from — those old libraries. But it was just as well the Memories were trained, because when the books were exposed to the air they crumbled into dust and soon there weren't many left. But there are collections of them, or there used to be, in the stone graves where they used to bury people. The graves are cool and dry and the old books and records kept well."

"Why are we stupid compared with them?"

"We aren't," said Candace. "We are as clever as we need to be for our lives. For the level of living we have now."

"And we are the same as those old people that had all that knowledge?"

"Yes, we think so. One of the old records said that. Human beings are the same, but we become different according to how we have to live."

"I feel so stupid," said Mara.

"You aren't stupid. You came from a Rock Village and didn't know anything but how to keep alive, and now you know everything we know. Mara, if we said to you, 'Take charge of the food supplies,' or 'Run the militia,' or 'Manage the ganja and the poppy,' you could do it. You've learned what we know."

"Do we have Memories here with all that knowledge in their heads?"

Candace smiled. It was the smile that made Mara feel like a small child. "No. We are very unimportant people. What we know has filtered down from those old Memories who kept all the knowledge there was in their heads — but only a little has reached us. But because we know that it is important to preserve the past, we train people to be Memories, when we can."

"Are you training me to be a Memory?"

"Yes. But to understand what we have to tell you, you have to know first about practical things. It is no good telling you about different kinds of society or culture when you don't know what you are living in. And now you do. Besides, we need good people to help us run things — we are so short of them. You must see that."

"When are you going to start teaching me?"

"It seems to me you have made a start. You know the history of the Mahondis, right back to the beginning when we came down from the North, three thousand years ago."

"Are we the descendants of the old Memories?"

"Yes, we are."

"The world," said Mara. "Tell me about the world."

At this point Meryx came in and said, "Mara, I was looking for you."

Walking around the edge of a building that held the stores of poppy, Mara came face to face with Kulik. There was no doubt of it. She was wearing Meryx's clothes and the little cap into which she had bundled her hair. He stared at her: he was doubtful too. Last time he had seen her she had been a boy, half grown. She did not look much like she had in the Rock Village. But he did stare, and turned to stare again. He had got a job, pretending he was a Hadron, in their militia. They weren't going to ask too many questions, being as short of people as they were. And now Mara saw him every day, as she went about with Meryx or with Juba. She had been afraid of him as a child and she was afraid now. She told Meryx who he was, and said he was cruel and dangerous. Meryx said that fitted him perfectly to be a member of the Hadron militia. It was time for the rainy season to start.

"I seem to have spent my life watching the skies for rain," said Mara, and Meryx said, "I know what you mean." But he didn't. Around Mara's heart lay a heaviness, a foreboding, for she could not keep the thought out of her mind, It is not going to last. She fought this with, They say there have been droughts before: I might be wrong. I'll say yes to Meryx and we'll have a child and then...