saplings cracked and snapped at the onslaught.
Inevitably the horse slowed down, but its panic determination to get away from the guns abated very little. I had to brace with arms and legs and whole body to avoid being battered to pieces in the pannier, scarcely daring to raise my head even for a quick look, lest a branch should knock it off.
I could not tell whether there was any pursuit, but it seemed improbable. Not only was it darker under the trees, but a horse of ordinary size would most likely have disembowelled itself in any attempt to follow over the snapped-off stems standing up like stakes behind us.
The horse began to grow calmer; the pace and violence eased, and it started to pick its way instead of crashing through. Presently the trees on our left grew thinner. Rosalind, leaning out of her pannier, caught up the reins again and urged the creature that way. We came out obliquely upon a narrow open space where we could see the stars overhead again. Whether it was an artificial track, or a natural opening was impossible to tell in the poor light. We paused a moment, wondering whether to risk it, then decided that the easier going would offset the disadvantages of easier pursuit, and turned southward along it. A crackling of branches to one side brought both of us facing round, with bows ready, but it was only the other great-horse.
It came trotting out of the shadows with a whinny of pleasure, and fell into place behind us as though the rope still held it.
The country was more broken now. The trail wound, taking us round outcrops of rock, slanting down the sides of gullies to cross small streams. Sometimes there were fairly open stretches, at others the trees met overhead. Our progress was inevitably slow.
We must by now, we reckoned, be truly in the Fringes. Whether or not the pursuit would risk following any farther we could not tell. When we tried to consult Michael there was no response, so we guessed he was asleep. It was perplexing to know whether the time had not come when we ought to get rid of the tell-tale great-horses — perhaps drive them on along the track while we made off in a different direction on foot. The decision was difficult to make without more information. It would be foolish to get rid of the creatures unless we were sure that the pursuit would risk coming right into Fringes country after us; but, if it did, it would gain on us quickly by making a great deal faster time in daylight than we were making now. Moreover, we were tired, and the prospect of starting to travel on foot was far from attractive. Once more we tried, and failed, to make contact with Michael. A moment later the choice was taken away from us.
We were at one of the stretches where the trees met above us, making a dark tunnel through which the horse chose its way slowly and carefully. Suddenly something dropped full on me, crushing me down in the pannier. I had no warning, no chance to use the bow. There was the weight jolting the breath out of me, then a shower of sparks in my head, and that was the end of it.
14
I came back slowly, lingering for what seemed a long time only half-aware.
Rosalind was calling me; the real Rosalind, the one who dwelt inside, and showed herself too seldom. The other, the practical, capable one, was her own convincing creation, not herself. I had seen her begin to build it when she was a sensitive, fearful, yet determined child. She became aware by instinct, perhaps sooner than the rest of us, that she was in a hostile world, and deliberately equipped herself to face it. The armour had grown slowly, plate by plate. I had seen her find her weapons and become skilled with them, watched her construct a character so thoroughly and wear it so constantly that for spells she almost deceived herself.
I loved the girl one could see. I loved her tall slim shape, the poise of her neck, her small, pointed breasts, her long, slim legs: and the way she moved, and the sureness of her hands, and her lips when she smiled. I loved the bronze-gold hair that felt like heavy silk in one’s hand, her satin-skinned shoulders, her velvet cheeks: and the warmth of her body, and the scent of her breath.
All these were easy to love — too easy: anyone must love them.
They needed her defences: the crust of independence and indifference: the air of practical, decisive reliability; the unroused interest, the aloof manner. The qualities were not intended to endear, and at times they could hurt; but one who had seen the how and why of them could admire them, if only as a triumph of art over nature.
But now it was the under-Rosalind calling gently, forlornly, all armour thrown aside, the heart naked.
And again there are no words.
Words exist that can, used by a poet, achieve a dim monochrome of the body’s love, but beyond that they fail clumsily.
My love flowed out to her, hers back to me. Mine stroked and soothed. Hers caressed. The distance — and the difference — between us dwindled and vanished. We could meet, mingle, and blend. Neither one of us existed any more; for a time there was a single being that was both. There was escape from the solitary cell; a brief symbiosis, sharing all the world….
No one else knew the hidden Rosalind. Even Michael and the rest caught only glimpses of her. They did not know at what cost the overt Rosalind had been wrought. None of them knew my dear, tender Rosalind longing for escape, gentleness, and love; grown afraid now of what she had built for her own protection; yet more afraid still, of facing life without it.
Duration is nothing. Perhaps it was only for an instant we were together again. The importance of a point is in its existence; it has no dimensions.
Then we were apart, and I was becoming aware of mundane things: a dim grey sky; considerable discomfort; and, presently, Michael, anxiously inquiring what had happened to me. With an effort I raked my wits together.
‘I don’t know — something hit me,’ I told him, ‘but I think I’m all right now — except that my head aches, and I’m damned uncomfortable.’
It was only as I replied that I perceived why I was so uncomfortable — that I was still in the pannier, but sort of folded into it, and the pannier itself was still in motion.
Michael did not find that very informative. He applied to Rosalind.
‘They jumped down on us from overhanging branches. Four or five of them. One landed right on top of David,’ she explained.
‘They?’ asked Michael.
‘Fringes people,’ she told him.
I was relieved. It had occurred to me that we might have been outflanked by the others. I was on the point of asking what was happening now when Michael inquired:
‘Was it you they fired at last night?’
I admitted that we had been fired at, but there might have been other firing for all I knew.
‘No. Only one lot,’ he told us with disappointment. ‘I hoped they’d made a mistake and were on a false trail. We’ve all been called together. They think it’s too risky to come farther into the Fringes in small groups. We’re supposed to be assembled to move off in four hours or so from now. Round about a hundred they reckon. They’ve decided that if we do meet any Fringes people and give them a good hiding it’ll save trouble later on, anyway. You’d better get rid of those great-horses — you’ll never cover your trail while you have them.’
‘A bit late for that advice,’ Rosalind told him. ‘I’m in a pannier on the first horse with my thumbs tied together, and David’s in a pannier on the second.’
‘Where’s Petra?’ asked Michael anxiously.
‘Oh, she’s all right. She’s in the other pannier of this horse, fraternizing with the man in charge.’
‘What happened, exactly?’ Michael demanded.
‘Well, first they dropped on us, and then a lot more came out of the trees and steadied up the horses. They made us get down and lifted David down. Then when they’d talked and argued for a bit, they decided to get rid of us. So they loaded us into the panniers again, like this, and put a man on each horse and sent us on — the same way we’d been going.’
‘Farther into the Fringes, that is?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, at least that’s the best direction,’ Michael commented. ‘What’s the attitude? Threatening?’
‘Oh, no. They’re just being careful we don’t run off. They seemed to have some idea who we were, but
