Mara, then, could be neither ill nor pregnant, and what was she to do? It seemed to her she had no choice, except to go on with the journey and hope for the best. Choice: were there people who had choices? Kira, for instance. If she stayed in Chelops, probably the Kin themselves would have been delighted to lose her to the Hadrons, because she was such a nuisance. If she had kept the baby then Ida would have made her life a misery. If she had brought the baby with her it would almost certainly have died on the river.

Mara could decide to make the slow, difficult — and sickening — journey back to Chelops, and tell Meryx, Look, I'm pregnant, you are like your father, a maker of children. But the Hadrons would take her the moment the baby was born. And she would still be in that situation which both she and Kira knew: Chelops could not last for long.

Why was Kira so clear-headed about this, unlike the rest of the Kin? She was an orphan, had been taken into the Kin as a child, from an inferior branch of the Mahondis. She had never felt part of the Kin, had always seen herself as an outsider; and was able to see the Kin from an outsider's view, had never been lulled into complacency.

There was a hard end to this run of thoughts: Kira would probably survive, having run away and left her child, when the Kin, and the Had-rons — and Kira's baby — might easily not survive.

And what was Mara to do now?

She listened to Dann muttering or shouting in his sleep, hushed him, told him, Dann, be quiet — and he woke apparently himself, demanding to leave at once.

"Have you remembered I am pregnant?" she whispered. "And that I am your wife?"

"Up North it will be better," he said, and slipped back into fever, shaking and sweating again. Kira came to sit with him while Mara slept. Mara knew that Dann was good-looking, but she had not thought of him as someone immediately attractive — in spite of Felice — but it seemed Kira liked Dann very much, and she helped Mara change the slave's robe for a clean one, and she exclaimed over his scars, and the weals around his middle, and sighed and said that perhaps she would come with them when they left. This was such a boring little place. After all, this was only a minor river. It would join the main river about ten days' from here, and on that one you could travel right up to the edge of the country that the Khamels came from. But up there they spoke a different language and Kira didn't think she could be bothered with that.

"I thought the same language was spoken everywhere," said Mara, and Kira laughed at her and said that Mara's trouble was — and it had been Kira's — that she had believed Hadron to be most of Ifrik, instead of just a little place, and that since all of southern Ifrik spoke one language, they had thought it must be the same everywhere.

It seemed that Kira's presence was calming the suspicions of the tall, white spy, for he kept away until she left, and then said he had noticed Mara was not in health, and he had a duty to tell his superiors so. "I am perfectly well," said Mara. This man, whom she thought was like a worm or the white belly of a lizard, and who she hated touching her, then took her wrist and felt her pulse, put a thin, bony thumb on her neck pulse, bent to look into her mouth and check her teeth, and lifted an eyelid. Mara knew that he was checking on more than her present health. He would report on her physical condition to the superiors in Goidel.

"If you are pregnant," he said, "you have nothing to fear, if that man is your husband."

"He is."

"You look very much alike."

"Mahondis do look alike. We are inbred," she said, not knowing that in fact she thought this.

"Then that is a fault easily cured," he said.

Dann was awake and listening, and on his face was a look that told Mara he was fighting inner demons.

"And do you claim this child?" Chombi asked him.

"Yes, I do," said Dann, forgetting that Mara had told him not to say she was pregnant.

Mara asked Kira how long it took to get a message to Goidel. Two days there. Then a couple of days of deliberations and a decision, and two days on the return boat. Altogether, allow a week.

Mara told Dann that she might be taken as a concubine for the Goidels. He said, "Oh no, they won't." As always now there was a pause after her speaking, before he heard, and responded. She believed that this bout of fever had done him real harm — not physically, for he was recovering, but by bringing his nightmares nearer. She wondered if Dann was perhaps a little mad. Sometimes, yes. On certain subjects.

That week she spent feeding Dann and herself, and making him strong by walking with him around the mud lanes, and to the old deserted city in the savannah. She knew they were being observed. They sat with Kira, and Mara watched to see if Dann was attracted to Kira, for she longed to be reassured: there was a death sentence in the River Towns for men finding men attractive. And Dann did respond to Kira, but she made such a joke of everything it was hard to say what she felt.

At the end of ten days two uniformed men came off the river boat from Goidel to the inn and demanded to see Mara and Dann. They were in the communal room, eating. At the sight of the two men Dann gave a shout and darted out of the door and disappeared into the maze of lanes and little houses. Yes, the two men were quite alike, Mara thought. Like most people around here they were very black, well-built, with lean faces, but their hair was long and black, like the Mahondis'.

"I see your husband has run away," said one man, genially. "Well, that makes things easier. Get your things. You are coming with us to Goidel." Mara said nothing. She knew Dann had run away because of the two similar men, who later would become, in his mind, one man. Perhaps he would ask Kira for help. And he had not committed a crime, was not sick — or pregnant.

"Better for you that you are pregnant than ill," said the other gaoler. "It would be isolation for you and that's no joke."

They watched her pay the bill. She had none of the small coins left after that. She watched them conferring with Chombi, while he reported the events of the little town, and was given orders.

The upriver boat came. Mara got on with her sack, and sat where she had before, but this time she had two men behind her, watching. What did they think she might do? Jump into this big, dangerous river, full of water dragons? Swim through them to a bank that edged empty savannah and ancient, deserted towns?

That night in the inn they made her sleep between them. The next day on the boat was the same. She did not dislike these men, who were only doing a job. They were kind, in their way, making sure she ate and drank. That evening they arrived in Goidel and she was taken to a gaol and put in the charge of two women who fed her, washed her, were jocular and tried to make her laugh.

Next morning she went in front of an elderly magistrate who reminded her, by his manner at least, of Juba.

"So you claim you are married?"

"Yes."

"What degree of marriage?"

Kira had told her to say, second degree. That meant, here, either man or woman could have other partners, but the man must assume responsibility for any child, since there was no way of establishing paternity. This was one of the laws introduced when it was becoming clear that fertility was dropping.

"Second degree," said Mara.

"Whatever the degree, when the husband is not present, it is irrelev-ant — wouldn't you agree?" "Yes," said Mara.

"Well, you must go back to prison. If your husband does not claim you within a week, then you will go to the breeding programme."

Mara had walked between the two gaolers to the court, and now back again. Going she had been too anxious to notice much; returning, her mind easier, since she believed Dann would come, she was able to see the streets she was walking through. Goidel was very different from the little mud towns down the river, several times larger, and while the buildings were of mud or mud-brick, the facades of most were covered with the same fine plaster she had seen in the old ruined cities above the Rock Village. So, instead of looking like an extension of the river bank mud, the buildings were white, or a pale earth colour, or yellow, or even pink. None of these facades was new or clean; some were chipped, or areas of plaster had fallen and not been replaced. The roofs, of reed, needed replacing. In some, birds had nested. Many buildings were empty. But there were hundreds of people in the streets and they wore garments striped with bright colours, or plain, of the same very fine material as the robes she carried rolled at the bottom of her sack. Delicate, almost transparent material, with embroidery around necks and sleeves when the garment was plain. These were well fed people. Above all, there was an air of general confidence and calm. People stood about in groups talking, and laughing. In a little garden families were sitting on the grass eating and drinking. Her gaolers were not marching like soldiers, but strolling along and stopping to explain things when she asked.