Maia

"Leave it," said Occula at length. "It'll clean out the cut, and we can see to it in the mornin'. Doesn' hurt much, does it?"

Maia smiled faintly. "Not now. You've been-oh, thank you for what you've done! I don't know what I-"

"So now we can both get back to sleep," interrupted the black girl, carrying the pail into the further corner of the room."This bed's big enough for two." she grinned. "You used to someone else in bed?"

Maia grinned back. "My little sister."

"What a shame!" replied Occula unexpectedly. "You poor banzi! Well, you can tell me all about it tomorrow."

She waited as Maia climbed into the bed and then, blowing out the candles, got in on the other side. Maia was

asleep almost as soon as her companion had settled herself beside her.

Often, when we have fallen asleep in an unaccustomed place, we wake in the momentary belief that we are back at home, or wherever we have recently been used to sleeping, so that we have to suffer the initial grief of disillusion even before trying to face up to whatever trouble, known or unknown, the coming day may have in store. This, however, Maia was spared. Waking smoothly from several hours of profound sleep, the first thing she saw was Oc-cula's brown arm lying across the pillow. At once she recalled where she was and all that had happened the previous day.

For a little while she lay still, watching the black girl's face and the rise and fall of her breathing. Her lashes, under the silvered lids, were very long and thick and her hair, like none that Maia had ever seen, curled close about her head like some miraculous cap. Seeing her now, in repose and daylight, Maia felt that although she was certainly not what most people would have called beautiful, her appearance was so unusual and striking that the question scarcely applied. Suppose, she thought, that somewhere in the world there was a race of people who'd never seen a cat. Then if a cat was to appear, they wouldn't hardly stop to argue about whether or not it was beautiful, would they? Everyone would want to look at it and touch it-yes, and keep it for themselves, too, if they could.

Who was this strange girl, and what was she doing here? Was she going to sell fine clothes in rich Tonildan houses? Yet she had spoken of arriving in Bekla. Little as Maia had really taken in of her scalding words to Genshed, she remembered that. The girl had been very kind. Perhaps she would help her to return home?

It was still early-not long after dawn, as she could tell by the strength and lie of the light. Supping quietly out of bed, she stole across to the barred window.

The sun was out of sight to her left, but the late summer wilderness below her was already full of light; the tangled, dew-drenched grass glittering, the trees looped and netted with shadow, spiders' webs iridescent among the brambles. In the silence she could hear the intermittent murmuring

of a pigeon. The place, she could see, had once been a garden, for there were fruit-trees and rose-bushes half-buried in undergrowth, while further off a broken fountain stood in the center of its empty basin.

Half out of sight, beyond a grove of zoans, she could make out the ruins of a big house. Roofless it was, its stone walls streaked black with fire, weeds trailing from window-spaces that framed only the sky. Why then, she thought, this place where she had spent the night must indeed be the servants' quarters, or some such, of that house. She wondered how it had come to grief, and what might have befallen its lord and his followers when the flames roared up and the roof fell in. How long ago had it happened? Some time, by the look of the place.

How far was she from home? If it were not for these bars on the windows she would have risked jumping down into the long grass, found some way out and been off before anyone knew she was gone. She bent forward, trying to see what lay on either side of the window.

A hand fell on her shoulder and she started. Occula, wrapped in her red cloak, was standing behind her, yawning like a cat and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes together with what remained of the silver paint on her eyelids.

"Oh! You frightened me!" said Maia. "I didn't know you were awake."

"I'm not," replied the black girl, stretching her arms above her head. "Just walkin' in m' sleep." Again she put her hand on Maia's shoulder, caressing and stroking. "Want to come back to bed?"

Maia laughed. "I just want to get out of here, that's all. What's more, I'm going to, soon as I can: this very morning."

Occula frowned a moment, as though puzzled: then she looked up sharply. "You doan' mean-kill yourself? It's never that bad, you know, banzi. That little bastard woan' try anythin' again, believe you me."

"Kill myself?" answered Maia, puzzled in her turn. " 'Course not; why should you think that? I just mean I don't want to work for these people and I'm going back home."

"But how?"

"Well, very like I'll have to walk, but it can't be more than ten or twelve miles, I suppose."