She spent only the time she needed to everywhere. She was welcomed with a kindness that had not lessened, though there was not one woman or man or even child who did not speak in the understanding that she had been at fault, and that this new marriage, or mingling, with Zone Four, was to do with this fault or falling-off.
And as she rode through the wilder country of the nothern regions, hilly, many-watered, often precipitous, she remembered — only remembered — the easy, slow-pacing times of the past, for now Ben Ata, Ben Ata, Ben Ata rang in her blood, she could not forget him, and yet every reminder of him was painful and brought a bitter load with it: she knew, she knew better every day and every hour, that she was on the verge of a descent into possibilities of herself she had not believed open to her. And there was nothing she could do to avert it.
Leaving the north, she swung around, with the central massif always at her left, and entered the west. Here it was late summer again, and the sun warm and still. She rode among scenes of plenty and fullness, yet the information was the same, and woman, man, and child greeted her: Al·Ith, Al·Ith, what is wrong? Where have we gone wrong, where have you gone wrong?
The weight of discomfort on her was guilt. Although she did not know it, for she had not known of the possibility of such a state. Recognizing, among the many calamitous and heavy emotions that moved in her, taking so many different shades and weights and colours, this one that returned, and returned, seeming at last to become the ground or inner substance of all the others, she learned its taste and texture. Guilt, she named it. I, Al·Ith, am at fault. Yet whenever this thought came, she started to back away from it in dislike and mistrust. How could she, Al·Ith, be at fault, how could she, only she, be in the wrong … she might be in bondage to Zone Four, but she had not lost the knowledge, which was the base of all knowledges, that everything was entwined and mixed and mingled, all was one, that there was no such thing as an individual in the wrong, nor could there be. If there was a wrong, then this must be the property of everyone, and everybody in every one of the Zones — and doubtless beyond them, too. This thought struck Al·Ith sharply, like a reminder. She had not thought, not for very long, about what went on beyond the Zones … for that matter, she thought very little now about Zones One and Two — and Two lay just there, to the north-west, beyond a horizon that seemed to fold and unfold in blue or purple … She had not looked there for … for … she could not remember. She was on a slight eminence, in the centre of the western regions. She got off the noble Yori, and with her arm flung across his neck for comfort, allowed herself to gaze northwest, into Zone Two. What lay there? She had no idea! She had not thought! She had not wondered! Or had she, a long time ago? She could not remember ever standing as she did now, gazing there, wondering, allowing her eyes to be drawn into those long, blue, deceiving distances … her eyes seemed to be drawn and follow, and become dissolved in blue, blue, blue … a mingling, changing, rippling blue … Al·Ith came to herself after a lapse into the deepest regions of herself, with a knowledge born that she knew would hatch out. Not yet, but soon… . ‘It’s there,’ she was whispering to herself. ‘There … if I could only grasp it … ’ She got back on her horse and rode on always in her wide curve, bending to the left hand, and passed out of the western regions into the south. Her favourite, always her favourite, yes, she had made excuses to come here more often than the other regions … she had been here quite recently, with all her children, and her court and, it seemed, half the population of the plateau. And what a time they had had — festivities, singing — it seemed looking back that they had sung and danced and feasted for all the summer months. And never standing for long pauses in her busy life to rest her eyes in the blue reaches of the Zone which was as much higher than Zone Three as this one was to Zone Four … This idea shook her, shook her as strongly as a conception did—should, if it were a properly designed and orchestrated conception — here was some very strong and urgent need, that she should be attending to, reaching out towards …
And yet as she rode among the farms and ranches of the south, greeted by everyone with such kindness and recognition for the good times they had all enjoyed, it was there again, and more than ever — ‘You are at fault. Al·Ith, at fault …’
And she rode on, saying to herself, I am not, I am not, how can I be, if I am queen here, it is because you have chosen me, and you have chosen me because I am you, and you recognize it — I am the best part of you, my people, and I call you mine, as you call me ours, our Al·Ith, and therefore I cannot be at fault any more than you can — the fault is somewhere else, somewhere deeper, somewhere higher? And she kept riding up onto hills covered with the rich vineyards of the south so that she could stand and gaze towards the northwest, into the azure ranges of that other land — or she did until she rounded the central massif and could no longer gaze there, nor could she expect to until she climbed up into the plateau where she intended to ride fast straight across it, only briefly stopping in the capital to greet her children and us all, so as to stand on the very edge there, overlooking the west and the northwest to gaze into the blue hazes, until what she had to remember — and she knew that this was it — came into her mind.
All through the southern Zones she rode up and down and back and forth. Several times she encountered the men who, if things were right, she would have approached to irradiate her with their various and many qualities for the sake of the child which she might have conceived — but had she? And here again was a source of utter self-reproach and self-lack — for it was now nearly a month since she had been with Ben Ata, and she had no idea if she was pregnant or not. For of course one knew it, understood such a fact, through the responses and heightened intuitions of one’s entire being, not because of any purely physical thing. Guilty, oh, guilty … yet she was not, such a thought was in itself a reason for guilt — it was so foolish and self-fixated and self-bounded. And so rode Al·Ith, all seethe and conflict. Her mind was calm, clear, and in balance, while below rioted and writhed and moaned and gibbered emotions she judged as ludicrous.
And as for the rest of her, the higher regions in which she normally dwelt, and on which she relied — those distances in her which she knew to be her own real being — well, they seemed far enough these days. She was a fallen creature, poor Al·Ith, and she knew it.
Meanwhile, Ben Ata, Ben Ata rang in her blood and in the pounding of her horse’s hooves.
When she again reached the road that ran from the borders of Zone Four straight across the plain to the central plateau and its mountains, she turned her horse to her left hand, so as to ride on and up home. But the unmistakable voice spoke suddenly and clearly into her mind: ‘Turn round and go back to Ben Ata … ’ and, as she hesitated, ‘Go now. Al·Ith.’
And she turned her horse and went east. On emerging from Zone Four, in her dance of relief and triumph, she had flung down her shield and been pleased to forget it. She could not ride into Zone Four now without protection. Not knowing what to do, she did nothing: they would know of her predicament and provide.
As she rode she turned around continually to look back at the vast mass of the core of her land with its brilliances, its lights, its shadows … and now there was a thought that had not been there before … she was thinking at the same time of the blue distances beyond. So that this beautiful realm of hers was held in her mind extended, or lengthened: it had been finite, bounded, known utterly and in every detail, self-enclosed … but now it lapped and rippled out and upwards beyond there into hinterlands that were like unknown possibilities in her own mind.
As often as she turned to gaze back, she resolutely made herself look forward and confront what waited for her. Behind, all heights, distances, perspectives: before, Zone Four.
And Ben Ata. She found the thought in her mind that this great lump of a man so newly introduced in her life must balance in some way those far blue heights of Zone Two — but she did not smile. She did not seem now a creature who could laugh. What she did observe in herself, though, was a most unfamiliar impulse towards silliness. Never before in her whole life had she met any being, woman, man, or child, without an opening of her self to them, for the flow of intimacy to start at once — and now arts and tricks she had known nothing of were working in her without her volition, or so she believed. She would meet Ben Ata so, and so, and so — and she was imagining little glances, smiles, evasions, offers of herself. And she was revolted.
At the frontier she saw, as she had expected, a figure on a horse, and it was not Ben Ata, nor was it Jarnti. On a fine chestnut mare was a strong dark-haired powerful woman, with her hair done up in braids like a coronet round her head. Her eyes were straight and honest. But they were wary, and her whole being expressed a need for acceptance that was being kept well in check. Before her, on the heavy saddle that was Zone Four’s indispensable horse furniture, were set two glittering metal oblongs: she had brought a shield for Al·Ith.
‘I am Dabeeb, Jarnti’s wife,’ she said. ‘Ben Ata sent me.’
The two women sat on their horses facing each other, in open and friendly examination.
Dabeeb saw a beautiful slender woman, her hair flowing down her back, with eyes so warm and kind she could have wept.
Al·Ith saw this handsome female who in her own Zone would have been put, at first sight, in positions of the most responsible and taxing kind — and yet here she had on her every mark of the slave.
Her eyes never left Al·Ith’s face, for she was watching for signs of rebuke, or dismissal. Even punishment … yet she was, as it were, tripping over herself in eagerness and liking.
‘Are you wondering why I am here, my lady?’
‘No … oh, please don’t! My name is Al·Ith …’ and this reminder of the ways of this Zone made her whole self sink and shrink.
‘It is hard for us,’ remarked Dabeeb. But she spoke in a small stubborn self-respecting way that made Al·Ith take note of it.
‘I have not heard the name Dabeeb before.’
‘It means something that has been made soft by beating.’
Al·Ith laughed.
‘Yes, that is it.’
‘And who chose that name for you?’
‘It was my mother.’
‘Ah — I understand.’
‘Yes, she liked her little joke, my mother did.’
‘You miss her!’ exclaimed Al·Ith, seeing the tears in Dabeeb’s eyes.
‘Yes. I do. She understood things the way they are, that’s what she was like.’
‘And she made you very strong—the one-who-has-been-made-soft by beating.’
‘Yes. As she was. Always give way and never give in. That’s what she said.’
‘How is it you are here alone? Isn’t it unusual for a woman to travel alone?’
‘It is impossible,’ said Dabeeb. ‘It never happens. But I think Ben Ata wanted to please you … and there is something else. Jarnti had already got ready to come and fetch you … ‘
‘That was kind of him.’
A shrewd flash of a smile. ‘Ben Ata was jealous — ’ with the swiftest of glances to see how this was being taken. And she sat, head slightly lowered, biting her lip.
‘Jealous?’ said Al·Ith. She did not know the word, but then remembered she had read it in old chronicles. Trying to work out what it could mean in this context, she saw that Dabeeb had gone red, and was looking insulted: Dabeeb believed that Al·Ith meant Jarnti was not on her level.
‘I don’t think I have ever been jealous. We do not expect to feel that emotion.’
‘Then you are very different from us, my lady.’
The two women rode together down the pass. They were assessing each other with every sense, visible and invisible, they had.
What Dabeeb felt made her exclaim, after a short distance, ‘Oh, I wish I were like you, if only I could be like you! You are free! Will you let me come with you when you go home again?’
‘If it is permitted.’ And they both sighed, feeling the weight of the Order.
And Al·Ith was thinking that this woman had in her a core of strength, something obdurate, enduring: sufferings and pains that she, Al·Ith, had never imagined, had made her thus. And so she was curious, and eager to learn more. But she did not know how to ask questions, or what to ask.
‘If you, a woman, can ride to meet me, and with Ben Ata’s permission, does that mean that women now will be more at liberty?’
‘Ben Ata permitted it. My husband did not.’ And she gave a short shrewd laugh that Al·Ith already knew was characteristic.
‘So what will he do about it?’
‘Well. I am sure he will find a way to make himself felt.’ And she waited for Al·Ith to join her in a certain kind of laugh.
