“I thought there was a contract,” said Jep. He had heard some such.
“Later, they said we had signed a contract to serve them a thousand years. We signed nothing. We would rather have died there, in our own land.” She looked into the fire, seeing things there Jep could not see.
“Why do they want Maire Girat to come back?” he asked. “Why do they care?”
They shook their heads at him and were gone. He heard the locks chunking as they fastened him in.
At the window he pulled the curtain aside to see only darkness and the gleam of the fire on the bars that were set to keep him confined. He let the curtain fall and went back to the fire, so weary he could hardly move. There were chunks of fuel piled beside the chimney. He placed some of the fibrous stuff atop the embers, then spread the blankets before the fire and curled into their dry warmth. Light flickered on his face. The smell of smoke was comforting, like an ancient blessing. He shut his eyes in order to smell it better and thought of Saturday. The last time he had seen her, he had told her they could simply live from then on. It seemed he had been wrong. He had known something was wrong at home. Something had told him that. But nothing had told him not to go there.
He opened his eyes and stared at the rough wood above him. The God knew. The God knew all about it. But it hadn’t told him not to go home. After a time his eyes closed and he fell into sleep.
The following day he was given boots and a coat and told he would be working for the farmer who had the place and who could not feed him unless he worked. They locked a collar upon him, not a rough metal one like the Gharm collar, but a sleek, complicated piece of machinery with faceted dials and lights in it, like a piece of jewelry. They told him if he wandered more than half a mile from the farm house, the thing would blow his head off. They set him to digging ditches, and it was harder work than he had ever done.
All the day the mists enclosed him, making a wall at either side, a ceiling above. Sounds that filtered through the mists were dimmed and spread, like water coming through a weir. Each night he scratched a mark on the wall beside the fireplace before he lay down. He had no trouble sleeping. He told himself in time help would come. It was only by keeping this idea before himself, looking at it every moment, telling it over like a holy name, that he kept himself calm. Saturday, he said to himself, will come, will send someone. She could find him if he were at the bottom of a sea.
“We are the Ones Who, after all,” he muttered to himself. “The God Birribat Shum knew what was to happen and did not prevent it. The God Birribat Shum will not let either of us die until it is time.”
• On the occasion of the quincentennial of the monarchy of Ahabar, the Gharm harpist, Stenta Thilion, was to be featured with the Orchestra of Ahabar at the Royal Opera House in Fenice, the planetary capital. This was an event long-awaited. Traditionally, the music of Ahabar had made little use of the harp, or indeed, of any stringed instruments, being rather given over to brasses and percussion instruments of a hundred tinkling or booming kinds. Ahabar loved a good march. Hiking groups were traditionally led by drum and bugle corps. Machinery was the more valued if it made a good rhythmic whumpety-whump the workmen could tap-feet in time with. At least so much was true in the outlands, though the cities were becoming more sophisticated. String quintets from effete Phansure had been all the rage in social circles for some little time, and it was through one such prestigious group that a Phansure composer had been obtained and commissioned by Queen Wilhulmia herself to compose a work for Gharm-harp and orchestra that would encourage the patriotism of Ahabar while displaying the virtuosity of Stenta Thilion.
“Display, but not overtry,” the Queen had murmured in the ear of the composer, who had been invited to dinner. “She’s not a young person any longer. Perhaps you’d better get to know her work.”
“Ma’am,” said the composer, who felt himself greatly honored by the commission, “even on Phansure we know Stenta Thilion. I’ve known her work all my life.”
And so he had. Stenta Thilion was a rare genius, one of those who were recognized early and who throughout their lives receive adulation with modesty and good humor. The First Symphony for Gharm-harp and Orchestra, when finished, met with both the conductor’s approval and that of Stenta Thilion herself. Rehearsals took place in an atmosphere of welling enthusiasm, and everyone who heard the work used words like enchanting and marvelous and a new age in Ahabarian music. It said much for the political savvy of the composer that he had used several familiar patriotic themes in the work—including a few motifs associated with the royal family—and much for the skill and good nature of the harpist that she played them with appropriate verve and ferocity.
Now there were only a few days left before the concert, which the Queen would attend with her sons, Crown Prince Ismer and Prince Rals, Duke Levenar. As for Stenta, the harpist rested at home with her two daughters, all of them quite excited about the impending event.
“Coribee, Gem, sit,” said Sarlia, the eldest daughter, a grandmother in her own right, to her mother. “Sit, Mama-gem. Take tea.”
“Don’t fuss at me,” murmured Stenta, smiling. “Don’t fuss.”
“Who fusses? Do I fuss? Does Liva fuss? We are fussless, no, Liva?”
“Fussless,” agreed her sister. “Totally, Sarlia.”
Stenta subsided onto the couch beside them, giggling. “You,
