The Corn King and the Spring Queen. Naomi Mitchison

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СКАЧАТЬ for a belt? Which did you think of while you were making it?’

      And so they might go on talking for hours and nothing would happen. Erif Der stood at the side of the forge, hands gripping elbows, her eyes full of reflected flames. ‘Tarrik!’ she said, loud and suddenly, ‘is that all you have to say?’ Both men stopped and turned round and looked at her. The light of the forge flickered on her cheeks and long plaits and the front of her throat, coming up, pale and soft out of the rough linen of her dress. Her mouth was a little open; there was a pattern round her feet. Berris stayed by the bench, but Tarrik dropped his bow, and came forward two steps. Aloud, he said, ‘Erif Der, I love you, I want to marry you.’ He reached out towards her, but she was in a circle of her own and would not move from it; only he could hear her breathing gustily, as if she had been running; his own hammering heart sounded plainer still.

      She did not answer him, but Berris did, with a question: ‘Do you? Will you marry her?’

      ‘No—yes,’ said Tarrik, his hands up to his head, pressing the crown down on to his hair, half covering his ears.

      Erif Der threw up her hands with a little cry, loosing him. ‘I did it!’ she said, ‘I did it, Chief! Well? Am I clever?’ She stepped out of her circle.

      ‘Why did you tell me?’ said Tarrik softly. ‘When will you let me go?’

      ‘But I have!’ she cried. ‘Now say—say what you really want!’

      ‘I want the same thing,’ said Tarrik and pulled her over to him. She ducked, butting at him, clumsily, childishly, with head and fists, and got kissed on her neck and face and open mouth, maddeningly, and found nothing to shove against, nothing that would stay still and be fought; so that suddenly she went quiet and limp in his arms, and, as suddenly, he let her go. She had trodden on Tarrik’s bow; the string snapped; he picked it up. ‘Witch,’ he said, ‘I shall go to Harn Der, and then I shall marry you.’

      ‘I give my leave,’ said Berris hastily, ‘and so will father.’ But no one listened to him.

      ‘Very well,’ said Erif Der. ‘Now listen, Tarrik. I will magic you as much as I please and you will not be able to stop me!’

      ‘Go on, then,’ said Tarrik, ‘but there are some other things I shall do that you will not be able to stop.’ She smoothed her plaits and stroked her hot face with her own familiar palms. ‘You’ll see,’ she said, and went out. But it was all very well when Berris pulled her hair; next time it would be Tarrik, who was much stronger. She knew her magic depended on herself and could be as much broken as she was; never mind, the sun had come out again, the sea smell swept up the streets of Marob, fresh and strong. She went back to the flax market, half running; father would be pleased with her, she must tell him quick. And how soon could Yersha possibly be got out of the Chiefs house?

      Tarrik and Berris Der were still talking. When she had gone, they had dropped back at once to where they had left off, Berris wondering, startled at the way it had come, thinking of his father and not liking to talk about it to Tarrik, because it would have been bound to be all lies. But Tarrik felt wonderfully light, leaping from one thing to another in his airy mind. He had always been rather like this; he knew how it angered the Council and Harn Der, but now it was all marvellously accentuated. He knew that he was free, that nothing mattered—not Marob, not the corn, not the making of beauty, nor his own life. He went on talking seriously, as he had done before, but every now and then laughter rose in him like a secret wind, and shook his mouth while he was speaking about art to Berris Der. By and bye it became too much and he got up, saying he would go to Harn Der later that day, but must go now to the Council. ‘Yes,’ said Berris, startled, ‘because of the road? I should have thought of it—oh, go quick!’ He pushed the bow into his hand and hurried him out. Tarrik went out of the forge and down the street with a kind of swaying, dancing walk, as if he were trying not to bound into the air at every step.

      As soon as he was out of sight, Berris took the half-made buckle and melted it down, with some filings he had, and ran it into a plain bar. He would have done the same with the other buckle, but at the last moment he stopped, he could not bear to kill so much of his own work in one morning. Then he damped down the fire, hung up his leather apron, and saw that everything was locked up. He knew he should be glad that the plan was working and his father would be Chief so soon; but yet he felt heavy and sad, partly because of Tarrik, and partly because of his own failures, and partly because there had been so much magic going on round him for the last few hours.

      Tarrik was worse than usual at the Council. To start with, he was late—not that he was often anything else, and anyhow they could always get on perfectly well without him—but still, unless he was there, none of their doings had any sacredness: they were only, as it were, parts of his body.

      Today they were talking about a great plan that had been started the year before by Yellow Bull, the eldest son of Harn Der, who lived south in the marshes. He had gone over all the ground, punting himself through those queer, half-salt, weed-choked channels that spread inland for miles, alone in a flat boat, living on snared birds and eggs and muddy-tasting fish. He stood before the Council now, a rough-skinned, wild-eyed young man, wearing mostly fur, very eager to have his plan followed, very bad at explaining it. He wanted them to make a secret road through the marshes, building on piles between the islands, digging deep drains towards the sea, and making strong places here and there with walls and towers. There was firm ground a few feet down in many places, and their draining for the road would leave acres of dry pasture, where neither horses nor cattle had ever grazed before. And there were great, wild islands, that needed only to be cleared to get them new lands, where they would be free from attack for ever, out of the reach of the Red Riders, and beyond … Yellow Bull did not know himself how his road should end. It went on and on, getting less real every mile that it went. Whenever he dreamt, it was this: of pushing and winding among endless reed-banks, with the smell of rotting stems always in his nostrils and the mud bubbling among the hidden roots. And his road would follow Yellow Bull through the reeds with great armies marching on it; and yet he would be alone. But Yellow Bull could not tell the Council his dreams, he could not say how much he wanted the road.

      And the Council could not decide if it was worth while. Harn Der thought it would be, but saw all the difficulties and dangers there must be. It would take a lifetime, and all the labour there was in Marob—lives and years. The Chief had been more interested in this than in anything that had been before the Council since the Red Riders had been beaten behind the northern hills four seasons ago. He had been most eager to keep it a secret for Marob, have some hidden and guarded entrance, and let no stranger in on to it. He had asked and thought about its end.

      Today Yellow Bull and those who cared about the road had hoped to get orders from the Chief; for this, in the end, must be his doing; they had no power to bring such a change to Marob. They had told the Chief, and he had promised to be there. Now there was no sign of him. Even his best friends were angry. At last he came, not by his own door, but from the main road, with a broken-stringed bow in his hand, enough to bring bad luck to anything. He came quite slowly, as if he had not kept them waiting long enough already. Yellow Bull stood with his hand and knife up at the salute, looking very fine and strong and rugged. Harn Der looked from one to the other, and thought very well of his son; and he was not the only one there to think that.

      In the very middle of the Council room there was a great, ten-wicked silver lamp, hanging down on a chain. As he passed underneath it, the Chief suddenly ran three steps and jumped, swung forward on the lamp and dropped off. It scattered oil all over the ground on its swing back, and the Council looked shocked and horrified, but none more so than Yellow Bull. Tarrik, on the other hand, took his seat as if nothing had happened, and smiled pleasantly at the Council. They signed to Yellow Bull to speak again; he began, nervously.

      It was after this that Tarrik became СКАЧАТЬ