Maia

It had not been easy to begin with. She had been heavily dependent upon Zen-Kurel's devotion to build up any true sense of security and confidence in her new country, her new people and surroundings. For a start, there had been the language. Katrian Chistol-to say nothing of the dialect spoken by most people on the estate-bore little resemblance to Beklan: it was in effect another tongue. Zenka had had to find her an interpreter-that same Suban girl who had now become Zen-Otal's nurse. After about a year, however, she could rub along fairly well in Chistol, though the woodmen and the laundry maids still floored her at times. Still, she could joke with them about it now: she'd come to know them all so well.

Then there were the difficulties inseparable from her position as Zenka's wife, and mistress of the estate. Maia had not been born to authority or brought up to expect to have any. The Serrelinda, of course, had had authority, but it had been of an unusual kind-that of a public darling, a talismanic beauty and heroine, with no functions to fulfill beyond those of existing and being seen; a golden meteor, trailing light. (And indeed only last year a far-ranging ped-

lar from the empire, complete with scarlet hat, green shirt and white-striped jerkin-he even looked a bit tike Zirek: it had brought a tear to her eye-had told her that what people in Bekla now said of the comet was that it had presaged the passing of the Serrelinda.) In Bekla she had never had duties to perform or decisions to make on behalf of others. She had had to begin as a complete learner; but the housekeeper, the head cook, the baker, the clarzil- the old beldame who minded their infants for the women out working in the fields-they'd all backed her up loyally and pulled and pushed her here and there while she was getting the hang of things. She suspected that Zen-Kurel had told them to make sure they did, and let him not hear anything to the contrary. But in thinking this she failed to give herself credit for her own likable nature and pleasant ma

Then, of course, there had been the legend of the Val-derra to be relegated. While she and Zenka had been traveling up to the estate in northern Katria and when they had first arrived there, this had been a haunting nightmare. She was half-expecting to be murdered or at the least persecuted and victimized. But in fact, as she came to realize, these fears existed very largely in her own mind and there alone. A remote community, almost entirely self-supporting-a society of hunters, foresters and husbandmen-concerned during nearly all the hours of daylight with the unchanging, yearly round of subsistence; their art and recreation self-made, their topics and news largely that of local birth and death, good luck and calam-

ity-they took her as they found her; and they found her pretty, sensible and eager to please. There were, of course, a few ex-soldiers about the place, two of whom had actually been in Katria with the king, and certainly, when these men had had a skinful, some black remarks had been passed down in the local tavern at one time and another-remarks about basting treachery and Beklan trollops who'd found gold between their legs while poor fellows died for it in Dari-Paltesh. But the short answer from most had been that that was then and this was now, and wasn't she as nice a lass as you'd hope to come across and anyway who'd suffered more, by all accounts, than the young master and he seemed happy enough, didn't he? Little by little the pot simmered down; but it is always hard to know how to bear yourself when you have a fair notion that hard things are being said behind your back; so this had been another problem.

With her widowed father-in-law relations had, of course, been still more difficult at the outset. Zen-Bharsh-Kraill was an old adherent of King Karnat and had been a famous warrior in his day. His other, younger son, a brave officer, had been killed in the king's army (though not on the Valderra), and his daughter was married to one of the king's most illustrious captains. As a nobleman, his knowledge and outlook went not only as wide as Katria but as wide as Terekenalt itself. He knew Maia's past and her fame well enough. From the outset Zen-Kurel had had to put his foot down in no uncertain ma

eyes. "Been to any good Ortelgan camps lately?" She had laughed-Cran alive! This fuss, after all they'd been through together!-and hugged him; they had made love and next morning a most sedate, self-possessed Maia had sought out her father-in-law and successfully conducted a long talk ending in mutual, more friendly understanding. After all, his wife had been Beklan. He was secretly delighted that Zenka had come home alive and well to run the estate and was not ignorant, either, as to who was largely responsible for this. Nowadays, so it seemed to her, old Zen-Bharsh-Kraill was coming at last to like her and respect her ideas about things in general. Predictably, the birth of Zen-Otal had altered everything for the better. Grandchildren always do.

Her labor-surprisingly for such a well-built, healthy girl-had not been easy. During her pregnancy she had often felt poorly and run-down-a good sign, the doctor said, for the baby is a parasite on the mother and her malaise shows that the baby is getting all it should. It had been a strain. She was not in the best of spirits and was all-too-much inclined to dwell on Milvushina. As her time approached, Zen-Kurel had effected a masterly surprise. One day, without a trace of fore-warning, she had woken late to find Nasada sitting beside the bed. Actually struck dumb for a few seconds, she had wondered whether he could be real. Then she flung herself into his arms, crying with happiness and relief, already sure that now everything was going to be all right. The old man-still dressed like a Suban marsh-frog in his fish-skin smock and bone amulet- told her how Zen-Kurel had sent to Melvda-Rain and begged Lenkrit, now Ban of Suba, to ask him to come and attend his wife's lying-in. Lenkrit had readily put a kilyett and paddlers at his disposal.

"I hope you'll tell me," he said, when she had recovered herself and they had had breakfast together, "all about your adventures on the Zhairgen. Twenty minutes crossing it was quite enough for me."