"Perhaps not everyone who lives comfortably is so blind?"

"I can hardly remember what peace was like. I was very young when the war began — fifteen. Then I was in the army. But before the war it was a good life. Perhaps we too were blind? I don't know."

She went on. There was another break, when the servant brought in a drink made of milk, and bread, about the time the sun went down. She was thinking about Dann, afraid he would try to run away — or fight, or despair.

She dared to plead, "I am so worried about Dann." "Don't be. He's going to have special training. He would make a good officer."

"How do you know?" "It's my job to know." "Because he is a Mahondi?"

"Partly. But you do know there are very few of us left now? The real Mahondis?"

"How should I know? I know nothing. I have been taught nothing. I don't know how to read or write."

"Tomorrow we'll decide what you are to learn. And I've already ordered someone to come and teach you Charad. It is spoken all over northern Ifrik. It is the one language everyone speaks."

"Until today I never thought about people speaking different languages. I've always heard Mahondi but I never had to think about it."

"Once everyone did speak Mahondi, all over Ifrik. That was when we ruled Ifrik. It was the only language. But then Charad came into the North. Now everyone speaks Charad and a few still speak Mahondi."

"I'll never forget how frightened I was when I heard people talking but I didn't understand what they said."

"You'll understand it soon. Now go on with your story."

But she did not finish that night, because he wanted to know about everyone she had met in the River Towns: the inns and the innkeepers; how people looked, how they talked, what they ate; about Goidel and the easy style of that government. She hesitated before telling him about the gaol, the two women, and what they did for her, but suspected that he knew something already. And so she did tell him, and even how hurt she felt because Meryx did not know. She could see from his face that he was sorry for her and, which she liked as much, that he was sorry for Meryx.

"That's very hard," he said. "It really is. Poor man." Then he hesitated, but said, "You didn't know there had been an uprising in Chelops?"

"No." And her heart sank, thinking first of Meryx, then of the new babies.

"There was a boat through here a week ago. The stories of travellers are not necessarily reliable, but it is clear that there was an uprising. And that is about it."

"Who rose up?"

"They said, slaves."

"Well it can't be the Kin, so it must have been the ordinary slaves." "Can you remember the names of the people you met in the River Towns?"

But it was no good, she was thinking of Chelops. And so he told her to go to bed and they would start again in the morning.

She stumbled into bed and was asleep without seeing the room she was shown; and when she opened her eyes in the morning she thought she was back on the hill near the Rock Village, looking at the pictures cut into the walls, or painted on the plaster. Then she thought, But these are different people, very different. They are tall and thin and built light, not at all like the ones she had been studying all her childhood. And the animals — yes, here were the water dragons again, and the lizards, but also all kinds of animals she had never seen. The carving was fine and precise, though the stone was so old all the edges of the carving had blunted. Once the rock carver must have used knives so delicate and fine that nothing like that was known now, and he — she? — had held in their minds images of what they carved as bright and clear as life; and those lines and shapes had travelled down into long, thin, agile fingers — here those hands and fingers were, on the rock face — on to the rock face. You could see the muscles on a leg, long clever eyes, the nails on hands and feet. Once these pictures had been tinted. There were tiny smears of pigment, red, green, yellow. There was a sound in the room behind her and she had whirled around, was across the room, and standing over the servant from last night, who was just about to slide the bag of coins she had snatched yesterday into his pocket. Mara brought down the side of her hand hard on his wrist and he dropped the bag and howled. He began to plead and gibber in Charad, while he smiled and fawned. In her own language, he knew only the words "sorry," "please" and "princess." "Get out," she said, in Mahondi. He ran out holding his wrist and whimpering.

She sat on the edge of the narrow board bed she had slept on, under a single thin cover. It was hot, but not the wet heat of the River Towns. This was a large room. The lower parts of the wall were very old, with the incised pictures on them; and above these, though irregularly, for ruins do not make for evenness, the walls continued up to a roof of reeds. The upper walls were of mud mixed with straw. The floor, from the past, was of coloured, shining, tiny stones, set in patterns. Between the lower walls and the floor, and what rose up above them — how many years? Thousands? Those old people, what would they have said to these lumpy, crude, upper walls where tiny shreds of straw glinted? Ruined cities. Cities of all kinds. What was it, why was it, this law that beautiful cities had to fall into ruins? Well, she knew one answer, because she had seen what had happened to the Rock Village: drought. But was it always drought? On the walls of old ruins, on the beams of the fallen buildings she had seen coming here were marks of fire. But fires swept across a country year after year, and the people protected their homes. If they did not keep a watch day and night through the dry season, then fire could consume everything in the time it took for a strong wind to change direction. But people did keep watch. So fires could be too strong, or people too lazy? Drought. Fires. Water? That was not something easy to imagine.

Mara went to her sack, and took out the blue and green cotton robes from Chelops. They were crumpled but they were wrong for this place, she knew, like the delicate older robes rolled at the very bottom of her sack. She brought out the brown, slippery tunic from the squashed depths, and there was not a crease in it. She put on the garments she had worn yesterday, and combed her hair, and tied it back. She checked that the rope of coins under her breasts was still in place. She went into the room next door with the bag of coins the servant had tried to steal, and the brown tunic. Shabis was eating breakfast. He nodded at her to sit down. She did and he pushed bread and fruit towards her. Then he saw the brown garment and stared.

"What is that stuff?"

She told him. "I wore this day and night for years. It never tears, or gets dirty. You shake out the dust. It never wears out." He felt the material and could not prevent a grimace. "It could be useful for the army," he said.

"Like the sun traps, no one knows how to make it now. But I was thinking, Shabis. You should send someone after the boat. If Han is alive you could make her tell you how the sun traps work."

He was silent. She realised it was because of how she had spoken. Then he said, "I can see that you are not likely to conduct yourself towards me in the proper manner."

"And what is that?" She spoke smiling. She was not afraid of him. He was treating her like — well, like one of his family.

"Never mind. But I agree with you. I sent a platoon to the boat. It hadn't gone far. The woman you call Han was dead. They were using oars, so it seems that no one knew how to keep the boat going with the sun trap. Our soldiers were just leaving when some Hennes came along. I didn't know they were so close."

"We saw them running along the bank yesterday."

"You didn't say so." He spoke sharply. She knew this was partly because she had spoken incorrectly towards him. "That was the most important thing you could have told me."