Maia

"But she won't do it again," Morca had said in relating the matter to Tharrin, who roared with laughter and invited Maia to show him her weals. There were only two, for after the second blow Maia had torn the stick out of her mother's hand and snapped it across her knee.

Perhaps it was the recollection of this which now caused Morca to cut short her tirade. Taking down a wooden tub from where it hung on two nails by the door, she carried it over to the hearth and began to fill it with warm water for Tharrin to wash. Her back being turned, he winked at Maia, holding a finger to his lips. The girl smiled back and, having gone so far as to turn away before stripping to her

shift, wrapped herself in an old blanket, sat down on a stool and began mending her torn bodice with needle and thread.

Tharrin, wiping his mouth and spitting raisin stones on the floor, followed Morca across to the hearth, sat down on a stool and bent to unwind his muddy leggings.

"Come on, old girl," he said, as she set the steaming tub at his feet. "What's the use of a house full of caterwauling, eh? Life's too short. Look here"-pulling her reluctantly down on his knee-"this'll put a smile on your face. You didn't know I was a silver diviner, did you?"

"What you talking about?" replied Morca sulkily, yet making no move to get up.

"I can find silver anywhere. Look!" And, suddenly thrusting his hand down the front of her smock, before she could grab his wrist he drew it out with a coin held up between his fingers. "Fifty meld! And all for you, my pretty Morca! You just take that to market tomorrow along with the cheese and butter, and buy yourself something nice. And don't you dare go telling me anything about taverns and Deelguy girls again. It's you I love; and you ought to know that by this time."

Morca stared; then took the coin between her finger and thumb and bit it.

"Where'd you find this?"

"In between your deldas!"

On the other side of the hearth Maia, holding her stitching up to the light from the fire, suppressed a gurgle of laughter.

"Go on, take it!" persisted Tharrin. "It's not stolen, I'll tell you that much. It's yours, fair and square. Come on, now, give us a kiss!"

"Well-" Morca paused, only half-appeased. "What's all this leading up to? You're off to Thettit, I suppose, and see you back when we do?"

"Never in the world! Why, I'm taking the boat out tomorrow, soon as young Maia's mended that hole in the net. When you come back from market the place'll be stacked with carp, perch, trout-anything you like. Make another eighty meld, easy. Come on, Nala," he called to the nine-year-old, "just you get that banzi laid down to sleep, now! and you, Kelsi, see to covering down the fire: you can pull out that big log and dip it in the tub here; I'm done with the water. I don't know about the rest of

you, but I'm tired out. Give over stitching, now, Maia; you'll only spoil those big blue eyes! You can finish it tomorrow! Come on, my lass," he said, putting his arm round Morca's waist and fondling her, "just you be getting that big belly into bed, and I'll be along to remind you how you came by it."

Fifty meld was more money than the house had seen for weeks. But impulse and unpredictability were Tharrin's hallmarks, and Morca had learned better than to provoke further absurd replies by pressing him to tell how the windfall had been come by. All the same, she would have given half of it to know where he had been that day.

3: THE NET

The setting moon, shining through a crack in the shutters, fell upon the dirty, ragged bedclothes and on the one bare leg which Maia, asleep in her shift, had thrust out to lie along a bench beside the bed. The bed had become too narrow for both herself and Nala, and Maia, who, however bitterly she might quarrel with Morca, was for the most part generous and kindly towards her sisters, had taken to sleeping with one leg out on the bench so that Nala could be more at ease. On summer nights such as this the arrangement was not really troublesome, except that turning over was tricky. However, Maia usually fell asleep quickly and slept sound.

In the foetid air behind the closed wooden shutters, flies buzzed and droned about the room, and from time to time the gnawing of a mouse sounded from somewhere along the wall by the hearth. Tharrin, awake beside the sleeping Morca, drew the curtain a crack and lay watching the shaft of moonlight as it slowly travelled across Maia's bare shoulders and tumbled curls.

Moonlight is commonly believed to induce dreams, and certainly Maia was dreaming. Tharrin could hear her murmuring in her sleep. Yet into the world within her solitary head he could not follow.

At first her dream was formless, possessed of no images from the waking world; there was only an awareness of shining, misty distance; an empty place of opalescent light. Then, looking down, she saw that she was clothed all in