Mara and Dann

But the lessons with the other children stopped. It was because of all the trouble going on, and people going away, for every day there were fewer children, until there were only Mara and Dann and their near cousins.

Then there were no lessons, not even with the parents, who were silent and nervous and kept calling the children indoors; and then…there was the night when the parents were not there and she and Dann were with the bad man. The good brother was called Gorda. He was Lord Gorda, so said the two who had rescued them. She knew that there was a king and that her parents had something to do with the court.

She kept trying to put herself back into standing in front of Gorda while he was telling her things and she couldn’t listen, but all she could see was that tired face of his, all bones, the eyes red with wanting to sleep, his mouth with the grey scum at the corners. He was so thin – just like the cart bird. He was not far off dying, Mara realised. Perhaps he was dead by now? And her parents? He had been telling her about her parents.

And now this place, this village. Rock People. In it a Person. She was sheltering them and she was afraid someone would come after them, but why would they want to? Why were Dann and she so important and, if so, who thought so?

And as she puzzled over this, the child’s head fell on to her knees and she slid sideways and slept…And then Daima was bending over her and she could hear her brother’s voice, ‘Mara, Mara, Mara.’

There was a strong yellow glare beyond the window square. It must be the middle of the day. Outside now no voices, no people moving. Time to hide from the sun. It was cool in this room. Mara sat up quickly because of the shrillness of the little boy’s ‘Mara, Mara,’ and was off the rock bed or shelf, and next door, as he rushed at her, nearly knocking her over – ‘Mara, Mara…’ All the fear of the past few days was in his face and his voice and she picked him up and carried him to the rock couch, laid him down and lay beside him. Daima was sitting at the rock table watching how Mara handled the child, ‘There, it’s all right, it’s all right,’ over and over, while Dann wailed, ‘No, no, no, no.’

Daima said, ‘Try to make him cry more quietly.’ And Dann heard, and at once his sobs and wails were quieter. This is what he had learned: to obey fear. Mara held him, and he hid his face on her shoulder and sobbed softly, ‘No, no, no, no, no,’ and lay still there, but only for a time, because then it began again. All afternoon Mara lay there with him, and then Daima said, ‘I think he should eat something.’ Mara carried him to the table and he looked at the mess, so unlike anything he had ever eaten, and picked up his spoon and tried it, and made a face; but his hunger made him eat, at first slowly, and then it was all gone.

‘Can I go out?’ he suddenly asked.

‘Not yet,’ said Daima. ‘We are going out at a special time, the three of us. It’s important we do this. Till then, keep in here.’

‘Someone was looking in,’ said Dann.

‘I know. That’s all right. They’ll all know by now that at least one child is here. Tomorrow we’ll go out.’

Again he needed to cling to his sister, so she sat herself on the rocky couch and he sat inside her arm and she played the game with him. ‘When we were on the first hill, what did you see? Then, when we got to the second hill, what animals were there?’ As usual, she was surprised and impressed at what he had noticed. Insects for instance: ‘A great spider in its web between two rocks, yellow and black, and there was a small bird tangled in the web. And on the second hill there was a lizard…’ At this Daima said, ‘What lizard, what kind of lizard?’ Dann said, ‘It was big.’ ‘How big?’ ‘As big as…’ ‘As big as me?’ asked Mara. ‘No, no, as big as you, Daima.’ And Daima was frightened, Mara could see, and said, ‘Next time you see one of those dragons, run.’ ‘I couldn’t run anywhere because of all the water. It didn’t want to eat me, it was eating one of the little animals. It ate it all up.’ ‘But when was that, when did you see it?’ said Mara, thinking he was making it up. But no, he wasn’t: ‘You were asleep, and so were the other two. You were all fast asleep. I woke up because the big lizard was making such a noise, it was going Pah, pah, pah, and then it finished eating and went off into the rocks. And then I tried to wake you up, but you wouldn’t wake, so I went back to sleep.’

Daima said, ‘You don’t know how lucky you were.’

Mara went on with the game. ‘And when we were going through the water, when we came down from the hill, what did you see?’

And Dann told them. Soon, Mara thought, she would say to him, ‘And what did you see…?’ taking him back to the room where the bad man frightened him; but not yet. He could not bear to think of that yet, Mara knew. Because she could hardly bear to think of it herself.

‘Did you play the game?’ Mara asked Daima. ‘I mean, when you were little?’

‘I did, of course. It’s how the People educate our children. We always have. And let me tell you, it’s stood me in good stead ever since.’

That always … Mara seemed to hear it for the very first time. It frightened her, a little. What did it mean, always?

The light outside was yellow instead of orange and hot, and the voices and movements were there again; and more than once a face appeared in the window hole and Daima nodded at them not to notice, just keep on doing what they were: Mara cuddling Dann and singing to him, Daima at the table. Then it was dark outside, and there were more of the lumps of white food, and this time with it some kind of cheese. The water in the mugs tasted muddy. The evening was beginning. Mara used to love all the things they did when the light went outside and the lights came up bright inside: games of all kinds, and then eating their supper, always with one parent there and sometimes both; and often their cousins stayed to sleep.

Daima was striking on the wall a kind of match Mara had never seen, and with it lighting a tall candle that stood on the floor, and then another, in a little basin of oil that was on a spike pushed in a crack between rocks. The light in the room wasn’t very bright. Both flames wavered and fled about because of the air from the window. Some insects flew in, to the flames. And now Daima picked up a heavy wooden shutter and slid it over the window. The flames stood up quiet and steady. Mara hated that, because she was used to air blowing in the window and through the house.

Dann was on Mara’s lap and she was beginning to ache with his weight. But she knew he needed this and she must go on for as long as he did. And now he began something he had not done since he was a tiny child. He was sucking his thumb, a loud squelching noise, and it was upsetting. Daima was irritated by it. Mara pulled the thumb out of the little boy’s mouth, but he at once jammed it back.

‘I think we should all go to bed,’ said Daima.

‘But it’s early,’ said Mara.

There was a pause then, and Mara knew that what Daima was going to say was important. ‘I know that you are used to a different kind of life. But here you’ll have to do what I do.’ A pause again. ‘I was used to – what you are used to. I’m very sorry, Mara. I do know how you feel.’

Mara realised they were both almost whispering. She had kept her voice low ever since she had come into the rock house. And now Dann said loudly, ‘But why, why, why, Daima? Why, why, why?’ ‘Shhhhh,’ said Daima, and he at once began to whisper, ‘Why, why? I want to know.’ He had learned to obey, all right, and Mara’s heart ached to see how he had changed. She had always loved the little child’s confidence, and his bravery, and the way he chattered his thoughts, half aloud, and sometimes aloud, acting out all kinds of dreams and dramas that went on in his mind. He had never been afraid of anything, ever, and now …

Mara said to Daima, ‘Tomorrow, can we play What Did You See?’

The old woman nodded, but after another pause: she always thought things out before she spoke. Mara thought how everything was slow here, and she was used to everything quick and light and easy – and airy. It was stuffy now. The candles smelled hot and greasy.

‘Tomorrow morning, when we wake up.’ Daima got up, and she was stiff and slow as she went next door. Mara could hear shutters being slid over there too, and could hear the match striking on the stone. A dull yellow light showed in the doorway. Daima came to lift Dann off Mara, saying, ‘Quiet, it is time to be quiet,’ and carried him next door, while he piped, ‘Mara, Mara…’ She followed. Daima put the child where she had lain herself that afternoon. She did not take off his tunic. At home they wore little white shifts to sleep in. Daima said, ‘I wake when it is light. I’ll wake you. Put out the light when you want to.’

There was no door between the main front room and this one. Mara heard Daima moving about, blowing out the flames, and lying down. After a while Mara went to the doorway and looked in. She could just see from the light in her room that Daima was already asleep, lying heavy and still, her long, grey hair all over her head and face and shoulders, like a covering. Of course, she had not slept last night.

Mara went back into her room and found Dann asleep. Again she was saying, ‘I couldn’t go to sleep so early,’ and certainly she was alert and awake, listening. Everyone seemed to have gone to bed or at least into their homes. Silence, everywhere. Mara began examining the walls. She could not make sense of it all. On one big block were carvings of people doing something that looked like a procession, carrying jars and dishes to a man and a woman who had high headdresses. But these people were nothing like the People, who were tall and thin with long, slippery, shiny, black hair. They were solid, with thick shoulders but thin waists, and long feet and narrow faces, and their hair was short, just below their ears and parted in the middle. They wore a tunic or dress that left one shoulder bare. They were not like the Rock People either. Who were they? On another block was a surface of fine, hard, white, and on that coloured pictures – red, yellow and green – of the same people. And now you could see their hair was black and the skin was a reddish pink, and the tunics were striped and tied with long sashes. But this picture was part of another picture, for only some was on this stone, and the edge of the stone interrupted the story. Other stones were blank, and even rough, and some had the figures going up towards the roof and were part of other stories; and the stones that had the white surfaces and the colours could even be upside down, so Mara stood with her head bent to see them. Why had she never seen anything like these people before? Where had all those bright, pretty clothes gone to? The cloth they were made of was finer than she had ever seen, and she could feel it soft and supple between her fingers when she closed her eyes to imagine it.

The candle that stood in a little shallow dish was sinking. Once it was out, Mara could not relight it. If she wanted to see she would have to slide the shutter along, but she was afraid of waking Daima. Then she saw a stick about the length of her finger near the candle, and she knew she must rub it on the wall to make a light if she needed one. She blew out the candle and rushed to her low bed where the slippery pads were.

It was completely dark. The dark seemed to be the same as the stuffiness. In her home Mara went to bed in a tall, light room open all around with windows, where she could pull the curtains back if she wanted and it was never really dark. The sky was always just there, outside, and the stars shone so brightly sometimes they woke her up.

Now Mara lay stiff, listening, alert with all of herself. This house was on the edge of the village. Not far away were some of the low, dry trees she had seen, and she ought to be hearing night noises: a bird perhaps, or the singing beetles who could go on all night when it was hot. But she could not hear anything. The air was heavy with the smell of the candle, and there was a little-child smell from where Dann lay asleep on his shelf. She had always loved burying her face in his neck, while he laughed and clung to her and she took in breaths of that warm, fresh, friendly smell; but he wasn’t laughing now, but seemed to be dreaming, a bad dream, because he was whimpering. Ought she to be waking him, comforting him, holding him…? She fell asleep, and woke to see Daima lifting the shutter down and letting in the morning light. And Dann was already running across to fling himself on her – ‘Mara, Mara’ – and she fell back with his weight, and then pulled herself up, holding him, and carried him, while he clutched her, next door, where the shutter was off and Daima’s bed was tidied.

Later, this is what she remembered most when she tried to relive that time in her mind: the damp weight of the child, his face pressed into her shoulder, his clinging, and how her arms and then her back ached. And Daima watched and understood it all. Soon Daima would find ways of calling Dann away for a little, to go with her into another room or to help her, so Mara could rest.

Food was waiting on the table: bowls of the white lumps, this time with sour milk. Mara was beginning to hate this food, but she knew she had to eat it. And Dann was eating. Daima ate very little, watching them. Mara thought, That means food is short.

When they had finished, Mara asked, ‘May I see your house now?’

‘Begin with this room.’

Mara looked carefully around, and the first thing to notice was that there were no carvings on the rocks and no bright pictures. Over her head was thatch. It was a rough grass with some straws hanging down from it. All the blocks of rock were the same size, and smooth, and fitted together without the stuff that filled the spaces between the bricks she was used to. And they did fit, very well, but in some places there were cracks big enough to be useful, because the dish-lamp spike could go in. There were hooks, made of the same spikes bent, that had all kinds of things hanging on them: spoons and dishes and knives. All the things they used for eating were on the walls.

Mara went into the room she had slept in with Dann. She knew that room now, and about the lavatory in the little rock room, which was a deep hole going far down into the rocky soil. Near it was a box with earth and a shovel. There was a jug to pour water over yourself when you had finished, but nothing to dry with, and that was because of the slipperiness of the brown stuff that seemed to be used for everything when you wanted cloth. The air was so dry the wet between your legs dried quickly.

Dann came rushing after her – ‘Mara, Mara’ – and grabbed her hand, and with Dann clinging to her hand, and Daima just behind, she went into the room separated from the sleeping room by a curtain. In it were only some stones in the middle of the rock floor. This was where Daima cooked. There were three stones, with ashes between them. All the stones were blackened by smoke, and so were the pots and pans that stood together along a wall. Above the cooking place was a hole in the roof, which in this room was made of flat bits of stone, and there was a rope to pull if you wanted to close the hole and make this stone go up flat against the roof if it rained. There were old insect webs on the rope, so the stone had been where it was for a long time. The rocks that made this room were rough, and put together so you could see through them in places to the outside. There were no carvings or pictures on the walls here. There was a door into another room that had a heavy wooden beam across it. The end of the beam had a chain, and Daima opened with a big key where the chain fitted together. She lifted the beam aside. They stepped into the dark. Daima struck a light on the wall and lit a big floor candle, and then another. There were no windows. This room was a big, square rock box, and in a corner was smaller rock box. Mara could not see over into it, and tried to pull herself up with her arms, letting go of Dann; and when she had got up, she sat on the edge and saw that in it was water. There was another big rock box, and a wooden chest of the kind she knew from her own home. Dann was tugging at her legs and whimpering, so she jumped down and took his hand. Daima lifted up the child, and he let her. He was getting used to her. He lay against her, and put his thumb in his mouth and sucked. Suck, suck, suck. Daima did not stop him. Mara went to the other rock box and found it full of white, floury stuff. This was what they were eating. She tasted it, but it did not taste of much.

‘Is this a plant?’

‘A root.’

‘Does it grow around here?’

‘It used to. Everyone grew it. Not now: we haven’t had enough rain.’

‘Then where does this come from?’

‘People bring it from the north and sell it to us.’

‘What if they don’t come?’

‘Then we would be very hungry,’ said Daima.

Suck, suck, suck. The sound was driving Mara quite wild with dislike of it, an irritation that made her want to hit her little brother, and she was ashamed of herself and began to cry. She had hardly cried all this time. Crying, she went to the enormous wooden chest. She could just lift the lid. Inside were clothes of the kind they wore at home: delicate, light coloured tunics and trousers and scarves. They were made from the plants she had seen growing before everything got so dry, or of the stuff worms made. Because she was crying, and she knew her hands were dirty, she did not touch them; but she wanted to plunge her hands into the clothes, or stroke them, then throw off the nasty brown thing she was wearing and put on these. She stood by the big chest looking, and wanting, and crying, and listening to how her little brother sucked his thumb. Then Daima took the thumb out of Dann’s mouth, and he turned his face into her neck and howled.

Mara thought, Poor Daima, with two crying children, and stopped crying.

She wiped her hands carefully on her tunic and just gently stroked the robe that lay on top. It was a soft, glowing yellow. As she stroked, she thought that at home these clothes were in the big chests because they were precious and must be looked after. She knew now that these were carefully kept clothes from the past, and no one expected to have new ones.

She let the lid of the chest drop on the yellow, and looked at the grey rock all around. There were no pictures on these walls.

On a rock shelf lay bundles of the brown garments, lying anyhow. You couldn’t hurt them no matter what you did.

She went to a door, this time a slab of rock in a groove, but it was too heavy for her, and Daima slid it aside. Dark – or almost, because light came in from the floor candles next door. This room was empty, but on the walls were the broken up pictures, like the brightly coloured ones on the hard, white stuff.

‘You can come in and look at the wall pictures another time,’ said Daima.

She went through this dark room to another rock door, slid that back, lit a match, and in its flare Mara saw a rock room, empty, like this.

‘There are two other rooms,’ said Daima. ‘Four empty rooms in all.’

‘Do they have the pictures?’

‘Two of them do.’

They went back the way they had come, and Daima slid the chain into place on the storeroom and locked it. In the room where the children slept she put the little boy down on the bed. He had gone to sleep. ‘It is a good thing he is sleeping. Perhaps he will sleep away the bad memories,’ she said.

The old woman and the child went into the room where they ate. They sat at the rock table.

‘Do you want to start?’ asked Daima.

Mara’s mind was full of new thoughts and she almost said, Not yet, but said, ‘Yes.’ She began, slowly, thinking as she talked. ‘You have four empty rooms. That means the other houses aren’t crowded, or the Rock People would come and live here. Have some of them gone away?’

‘A lot died when we had the drought disease. And some went north.’

‘Then it’s the same as in Rustam. It is half empty.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘How do you know?’

‘There used to be people coming through, both ways, going north, going south, and they told us what was going on. Now they hardly ever come. One was here two months ago. He said there was fighting in Rustam.’

‘Two months…I didn’t know there was fighting.’

‘I expect your parents were trying not to frighten you.’

‘That means they thought the fighting was going to stop.’

‘No, Mara, I don’t think they believed that.’

Mara sat silent. She said, ‘I don’t want to go on with that bit, I don’t want to cry again.’ And her lips were trembling. She steadied herself and said, ‘You have your food and water in a room that has locks. That means you are afraid they will be stolen. But if all the Rock People got together they could lift the stones of the roof away and take the food and water. That means they still have food and water of their own.’

‘We still have enough. But only just. And if it rained properly here, we could grow a crop and fill our storerooms and our tanks.’

‘I could see it hasn’t rained for a long time. I could see from how the trees looked. The trees we have left look worse than your trees, but your trees are dry.’

Mara was thirsty, talking about rain. She was used to being thirsty. But she was licking dry lips, and Daima saw, and poured her half a cup of the not very nice water.

Mara went on, ‘This house wasn’t built all at the same time. The rooms that have the stones with pictures were built first. The stones must have come from another house where the pictures went the same way.’

‘Good,’ said Daima.

‘Some rooms were built on later. Like this room.’

‘Good,’ said Daima again.

‘So once this village must have had a lot of people and they needed more room.’

‘It has far fewer people now than it had then. But that was ten years ago. It was before you were born.’

There was a good long pause here while Mara tried to understand that before you were born, because her life seemed to have gone back a long way, beginning with little, bright memories, mostly of her brother.

She said, ‘The pictures on the stones are not Rock People or the People. Other kinds of people live around here.’

‘Lived here.’

‘When?’

‘They think thousands of years ago.’

‘Thousands…’ But Mara could not take this in. Only a moment ago she had been trying to work out: Ten years ago is three years before I was born, and the three years had seemed to her a very long time.

‘They think as much as six or seven thousand years. They left old buildings up on that hill there.’

Mara’s eyes filled with tears: it was those thousands of years, like Daima’s always, that made her want to lie down and sleep, like Dann, who had gone to sleep because everything was too much for him.

Mara went on, ‘You are a Person. You are one of the People, and you live here and the Rock People let you. That means they are afraid of you.’

Daima nodded. ‘Good.’ And then, ‘But not as afraid as they once were.’

Mara could not work this out.

Daima said, ‘You’ve done very well. I’ll tell you the rest.’

‘No, no, let me try. You came here – the way Dann and I did. You had to run away.’

‘Yes.’

‘And that was before I was born?’

Daima smiled. ‘Well, yes. It was thirty years ago.’

‘Thirty…’ And Mara really could not go on.

‘I came here with my two children. My husband was killed in the fighting. We were travelling for many days, and we had to stop and hide because there were soldiers out looking for refugees. Twice I stole horses from the Rock People and we rode them for a while, and then let them loose so they could find their way back home. When we came to villages they wouldn’t let us stop, but these people here did not drive us away.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Because the year before the People punished them for attacking a sky skimmer that landed near here.’

‘Did they think you were going to punish them?’

‘They thought I was a spy.’

‘I don’t know that word.’

‘They thought the People had sent me so I could watch them and make reports.’

‘Then they must have hated you.’

‘Yes, they hated us. And the children had to be careful every minute of the day in case there was a trap. Once I had gone to the market – there was a market in those days – and left the children here, and they brought one of the dragons in. But the children locked themselves in an inside room.’

‘What did you do when you came back and found out what had happened?’

‘Nothing. I pretended nothing had happened. I let the dragon out and it went back on to the hill there.’

Mara could see from Daima’s face how much she had suffered because of her children’s being hated. ‘Where are your children?’

‘That is what I hoped you might tell me. They went to Rustam.’

‘But that is where our home is.’

‘Yes.’

And now Mara had to think for a long time. ‘So perhaps I know them?’

‘You probably know of them. Moray and Kluart.’

Mara shook her head. A long silence now, and then Mara said, ‘You’ll have to say.’

‘I had to run away because your family threw my family out of our palace.’

‘Did my family treat you the way Dann and I were by that bad man?’

‘That bad man is my cousin Garth, and so is the good one, Lord Gorda.’

‘Then it is all very difficult.’

‘No. There have always been changes in how the families are friends and enemies.’

‘Always,’ whispered Mara, holding back her tears.

‘Yes. You must understand that, Mara. Sometimes one family is in power, and then another. But some of my family were good friends with your family and became part of the court. And your family heard I was here, later, and sent me presents.’

‘What did they send?’

‘Money. Coins. There was nothing else of any use. I hid it. I’ll show you where; but first I want to be sure no one is coming after you, because if they catch you they’ll want to know if there is money and where it is.’

Mara was trembling, afraid, reminded of the bad man, Garth, saying he would beat her if she did not tell what she knew.

‘I know it is hard for you,’ said Daima. ‘But it is a good time to talk now, when Dann is asleep. Your grandmother was a cousin of my mother’s. She always liked me. Once she even sent a message to come home, and said your parents agreed. But they had not sent the message. And besides…’ she moved the brown stuff away from her chest and right across her old, wrinkled breast were scars where she had been beaten, ‘… I couldn’t forget this. It was your father who gave the order for me to be beaten.’

Mara was crying.

‘It’s no good crying about these things, Mara. Bad things. It’s better to try to understand them. The next thing was, there were rumours about the one you call the bad one. I knew that Garth would try to make a rebellion. I grew up with him and I know him. He was always…you are right to call him bad. I’m not blaming him for wanting to take back what is our family’s: the palace and the land.’

‘You could go back now, if Garth is your family?’

‘No. I don’t trust him. And besides, it won’t last. There’ll be another rebellion and more fighting. The worse things get with water and food, the more fighting. Besides, if he does manage to keep power then he will soon be hated, because he is so cruel. He won’t last. I’m an old woman now, Mara. I’ve lived half my life here, in this village. I know these people. They aren’t my people, but I’ve seen some grow up, and some have been kind to me. When I was ill, after I sent my children back to Rustam, one of them nursed me. She lives in the next house. Her name is Rabat. We help each other.’

‘Do the Rock People know about the beautiful clothes in the chest?’

‘Yes. Rabat took my keys off me when I was sick, and she went in and looked at everything. I lay here in that corner and watched them all go in to find out what I had. They thought I would have more. They looked for the coins but didn’t find them.’

‘They didn’t take any of the clothes?’

‘Yes, some. But they can’t wear them. We are thin and tall, and they are short and thick. The children sometimes wear a tunic until they grow out of it – but our clothes are not meant to last.’ And now there were tears in Daima’s voice. Mara thought, That’s funny – she didn’t cry when she remembered her husband’s being killed, and being beaten and running away, but she wants to cry now and she’s only talking about clothes. ‘Everything is so ugly, Mara. And it all gets worse because it’s such a bad time. And there is a funny thing: all our clothes – the People’s, I mean – and the dishes and the furniture and curtains and coverings, they are all beautiful and delicate and won’t last. But everything here will last forever, and it’s so ugly, so ugly, I can’t bear it.’

‘Didn’t the People ever want the things that last forever?’

‘They were invented long before there were People.’

‘Invented?’

‘You don’t know the word because nothing is invented now. Once, long ago, there was a civilisation – a kind of way of living – that invented all kinds of new things. They had science – that means, ways of thinking that try to find out how everything works – and they kept making new machines, and metals…’ She stopped talking for a while, seeing Mara’s face, then put out her old hand and laid it over Mara’s. ‘There was once a time, but it was a long, long time ago, when there were machines so clever they could do everything – anything you could think of, they could do it – but I’m not talking about then. No one knows why all that came to an end. They say that there were so many wars because of those machines that everyone all over the world decided to smash them. I’m talking of machines since then, simpler ones. And they invented this material that never wears out and the metal you see here that you can’t break. There were whole storehouses of these things, but so deep in big forests no one had ever found them. Then the People came, and they wanted to prevent the Rock People from having them, to keep them for ourselves. But then we said it was not interesting, always having the same clothes and the same everything, nothing wearing out or breaking, so we took the old things and gave them to the Rock People, and went back to growing plants to make cloth, and making dishes and pots out of earthenware. But you might have noticed that in the kitchen at home there were some of the big vessels of this metal, because they are useful for storage.’