for me to ride past arrogantly, if they indicate they want to say something.’
Again they looked at each other. The commander’s face showed open impatience.
‘You cannot expect me to overturn our customs for yours in this way,’ she said.
‘We have emergency rations for one light meal,’ he said.
She gave a little incredulous shake of her head, as if she could not believe what she was hearing.
She had not meant it as contempt, but this was what transmitted itself to them. The commander of the horsemen reddened, and blurted out: ‘Any one of us is capable of fasting on a campaign for days at a time if necessary.’
‘I hadn’t asked as much,’ she said gravely, and this time, what they heard was humour. They gratefully laughed, and she was able to give a brief smile, then sighed, and said, ‘I know that you are not here by your own will, but because of the Providers.’
But this, inexplicably to her, they felt as insult and challenge, and their horses shifted and sidled as the emotions of their riders came into them.
She gave a little shrug, and turned and went to the group of young men who stood waiting for her at the road’s edge. Below them now lay a wide plain, behind them were the mountains. The plains still lay yellowed by the evening sun, and the high peaks of the mountains sun-glittered, but where they were it was cold and in dusk. The young men crowded around her horse as they talked, showing no fear or awe, and the watching horsemen’s faces showed a crude disbelief. When a youth put up his hand to pat the horse’s cheek briefly, the men let out, all together, a long breath of condemnation. But they were in doubt, and in conflict. It was not possible for them to despise this great kingdom or the rulers of it: they knew better. Yet what they saw at every moment contradicted their own ideas of what was right.
She held up her hand in farewell to the young men, and the men behind her put their horses forward at this signal which had not been to them. She rode on, before them, until they were all on the level of the plain, and then turned again.
‘I suggest that you make a camp here, with the mountains at your back.’
‘In the first place,’ said the commander, very curt — because he had been annoyed his soldiers had instinctively answered her gesture by starting again, instead of waiting for him — ‘in the first place, I had not thought of stopping at all till we reached the frontier. And in the second …’ But his anger silenced him.
‘I am only making the suggestion,’ she said. ‘It will take nine or ten hours to reach the frontier.’
‘At this pace it will.’
‘At any pace. Most nights a strong wind blows over the plain from the east.’
‘Madam! What do you take these men for? What do you take us for?’
‘I see that you are soldiers,’ said she. ‘But I was thinking of the beasts. They are tired.’
‘They will do as they are ordered. As we do.’
Our Chroniclers and artists have made a great thing of this exchange between Al·Ith and the soldiers. Some of the tales begin at this point. She is erect before them, on her horse, who hangs his head, because of the long difficult ride. She is soothing it with her white hand, which glitters with jewels … but Al·Ith was known for her simple dress, her absence of jewels and splendour! They show her long black hair streaming, the veil streaming with it and held on her forehead with a brilliant clasp. They show the angry commander, his face distorted, and the jeering soldiers. The bitter wind is indicated by flying tinted clouds, and the grasses of the plain lie almost flat under it.
All kinds of little animals have crept into this picture. Birds hover around her head. A small deer, a great favourite with our children, has stepped on to the dust of the road, and is holding up its nose to the drooping nose of Al·Ith’s horse, to comfort it, or to give it messages from other animals. Often these pictures are titled ‘Al·Ith’s Animals.’ Some tales tell how the soldiers try to catch the birds and the deer, and are rebuked by Al·Ith.
I take the liberty of doubting whether the actual occasion impressed itself so dramatically on the soldiers, or even on Al·Ith. The soldiers wanted to ride on, and get away from this land they did not understand, and which continually discomfited them. The commander did not want to be put into the position of taking her advice, but nor did he want to ride for hours into a cold wind.
Which in fact was already making itself felt.
Al·Ith was more herself now than she had been for many weeks. She was seeing that while she mourned in her rooms, there had been other things she should have done! Duties had been neglected. She remembered that messages had come in to her from all over the country, which she had been too absorbed in her fierce thoughts to respond to.
She was seeing in herself disobedience, and the results of it. This made her, now, more gentle with this troop of barbarians, and its small-boy commander.
‘You did not tell me your name,’ she asked.
He hesitated. Then: ‘It is Jarnti.’
‘You command the king’s horses?’
‘I am commander of all his forces. Under the king.’
‘My apologies.’ She sighed, and they all heard it. They thought it weakness. Throughout these experiences with her, they could not help feeling in themselves the triumph that barbarian natures show when faced with weakness; and the need to cringe and crowd together when facing strength.
‘I want to leave you for some hours,’ she said.
At this they all, on a single impulse, and without any indication from their leader, crowded around her. She was inside a ring of captors.
‘I cannot allow it,’ said Jarnti.
‘What were your orders from the king?’ she enquired. She was quiet and patient but they heard subservience.
And a great roar of laughter went up from them all. Long tension exploded in them. They laughed and shouted, and the crags behind them echoed. Birds that had already settled themselves for the night wheeled up into the skies. From the long grasses by the road, animals that had been lying hidden broke away noisily.
What Ben Ata had finally shouted at his commander of all the forces, was: ‘Go and get that — — — and bring her here. I’m for it if I don’t — — ’ For while Al·Ith had been weeping and rebellious in her quarters, he had been raging and cursing up and down the camps of his armies. There was not a soldier who had not heard what his king thought of this enforced marriage, while the camps commiserated with him, drinking, laughing, making up ribald toasts which were repeated from one end of Zone Four to the other.
This scene is another favourite of our storytellers and artists. Al·Ith, on her tired horse, is ringed by the brutal laughing men. The cold wind of the plains is pressing her robe close around her. The commander is leaning over her, his face all animal. She is in danger.
And it is true that she was. Perhaps for the only time.
Now night had fallen. Only in the skies behind them was there any light. The sunset sent up flares high towards the crown of the heavens, and made the snow peaks shine. In front of them lay the now black plain, and scattered over it at vast distances were the lights of villages and settlements. On the plateau behind them that they had travelled over, our villages and towns were crowded: it was a populous and busy land. But now they seemed to stand on the verge of nothingness, the dark. The soldiers’ own country was low and mostly flat, and their towns were never built on hills and ridges. They did not like heights. More: as we shall see, they had been taught to fear them. They had been longing for the moment when they could get off that appalling plateau lifted so high among its towering peaks. They had descended from it and, associating flat lands with habitation, saw only emptiness. Their laughter had panic in it. Terror. It seemed they could not stop themselves laughing. And among them was the small silent figure of Al·Ith, who sat quietly