One good thing—when he heard about Thaile’s occult talents, he stopped pawing her thigh under the table for a while.
Thaile withstood the head-splitting tension for two days and then said farewell. Even home was better than the Wide Place.
Noon on the second day of her return journey found her trudging along by herself through long grass by the Big River. There was no real path to follow, because pixies seldom saw the need to go anywhere. She wandered between thorn bushes and tufty thickets of bamboo. The sun was brutal.
Some distance off to her right, behind a hedge of tall reeds, the river oozed back and forth across the plain, dark and mysterious, broad and oily, reputedly full of deadly crocodiles. It also contained snakes. To her left, the edge of the forest seemed even more sinister, but over the treetops loomed the rocky peaks of the Progistes, blue in the haze. They were the only landmark familiar to a hill-country girl here in the muggy lowland.
The previous night she had stayed at the Shoom Place, granted shelter by a friendly old couple with no children still at home. Tonight she wanted to sleep on her own pile of ferns, at the Gaib Place, and she had far to go.
She was hot, she was tired. Her feet ached, her legs ached, and the flies were driving her mad. The highlands were hot in the dry season; noon in the valleys was an ordeal to be endured. All sensible people would be lying under a tree somewhere with no clothes on.
A pouch at her belt held some slices of heavy bread and a fat leg of chicken, generously provided by Shoom and his goodwife, but Thaile was too hot to think of eating. She was haunted by the problem of the College. She had the other problem, too, of what to tell her parents about Sheel. No one could lie to Frial.
However, at the moment she was very intrigued by a Feeling. There was someone ahead of her, coming her way, someone who was bubbling over with good cheer. She had Felt her—or possibly him—for over an hour now. She wanted to meet whoever this happy person was and find out what could possibly be so pleasurable on such an airless, stifling day. That was a more attractive puzzle than her own worries.
It was unfortunate that they were not traveling in the same direction, so that they might walk together and she might share the other’s bliss. But if they had been going the same way they would not have met, of course.
Strangers could be dangerous. A young woman traveling alone was never truly safe, not anywhere. Thaile knew the risk as a theoretical thing that in practice never applied to her or anyone she knew, like being struck by lightning. She ignored such absurd concerns as being beneath a woman’s dignity.
The unknown’s feelings drew close and then seemed to stop. Most likely the woman—or man—had halted for a noontime rest, which would give Thaile a chance to creep up unseen and inspect her. Or possibly him. Feeling was not directional enough to use for stalking, but straight ahead stood a single tiny clump of exactly three trees, apparently all alone in this wasteland of grass. There would be shade there. That would make a good place to aim for.
Abruptly there was change. Rapture became rage, howls of pain came drifting through the hot air from the trees. Thaile teetered for a moment on the lip of flight until she realized that she was not Feeling fear but fury. A bear or a lion or even a snake would have provoked much worse than that. She ran to help.
The screams guided her. She dashed around a last high clump of bamboo and stopped dead. Her quarry was dancing madly around in the nude, beating himself with a cloth that was probably his pants, yelling incoherently. A straw hat and a pair of sandals and some lunch lay forgotten in the trees’ shade. Even at that distance, Thaile could see the ants streaming over them—big red ants.
The victim came to a panting halt and began inspecting himself with care. His emotions settled down into a lower range, anger mingled with regret and a dash of self-contempt. Satisfied at last that he had dislodged all his assailants, he looked up and discovered his audience. He shrieked in horror and jumped vertically, while attempting both to turn his back and put on his pants before he came down again. In consequence, he collapsed on the ground in a squirming heap of extreme embarrassment. Thaile gave way to helpless laughter.
In a few moments she realized that the mortification and some real physical pain she was Feeling from the man were mixed with amusement, also. Apparently he could see the joke, and that seemed an unlikely male reaction under the circumstances. She choked down the rest of her laughter as he came over to her, respectable in his shorts but still breathless, streaked by dust and sweat from his exertions.
“I’m Leeb of the Leet Place,” he announced, “and . . . and . . . Oh, my! Oh . . . my!” He fell silent, staring at her open-mouthed. A wave of astonishment and happiness almost knocked her over.
He was only a boy, about her own age. He was short and bony and somehow comical. His mousy-brown hair was wavy instead of curled; it hung limp in sweaty straggles. His ears were very large, not at all pointy, and they stuck out absurdly. His nose was much too small for him.
But his eyes were pure gold and wide with wonder. “I’m Thaile of the Gaib Place,” she said hesitantly. He said, “Oh!” again faintly. ”Oh!”
“What’s wrong?” she cried, disconcerted. “You’re . . . You’re beautiful!”
Then his face turned bright red below its deep tan, all the way from his collar bones to the tips of his absurd ears, and again she Felt embarrassment, but it did not mask his joy and amazement. She felt her own face redden, also. She looked away quickly.
No one had ever called her beautiful before like that and meant it, and he did mean it.
Want you! his emotions said. Want you! Want you!
Even the lustful Wide had not projected desire as strong as that, and she thought it should have repelled her when coming from this Leeb as much as it had from him. But it didn’t. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t Wide’s want-you-to-make-me-happy. It was different and it reminded her of the wanting she had felt from Sheel when she cuddled and nursed her baby. It was a want-you-to-make-you-happy wanting-tenderness! She had never felt that from any man before. A little from her mother, maybe. But not the same.
When she dared look up, Leeb was staring at the ground, awkwardly scratching the swelling ant bites on his bony ribs. The wanting was overlain by continuing embarrassment and self-contempt at what he had said—but it was still there.
“If you can rescue your sandals,” she said, “and your hat, I’ve got some food we can share.”
He blinked at her. “Thaile? Thaile, you said?” She nodded.
“That’s a lovely name . . .” He was regarding her short hair with hope. “Goodwife Thaile?”
“No. Just Thaile.”
He closed his eyes as if saying a prayer to the Gods.
“Get your shoes, Leeb,” she said. “And tell me about it.”
They sat in the burning sunlight and chewed the bread together. They took turns biting chunks off the chicken leg; and Leeb talked. And talked and talked and talked.
There was only one thing he could talk about, the Place he had found. It was by the river, he said, on a hidden backwater. There were trees of all sorts. There was a very ancient well that he could easily clean out. There was open ground that had once been a rice paddy and could be again and would feed a huge family all by itself. There were fish galore! There was firewood and masses of withes to make wicker, which was all that was needed for a house in the valley. He was very good at weaving and he would make a big house! There were fruit trees running wild, and berry bushes. There was sweet grass for goats to give milk for, er, kids—he turned red again at that point—and an old couple lived about half an hour away, who would be pleased to have a young family in the neighborhood and who would lend them an ax and all sorts of other things to help them get started and probably leave them most of their household goods when they died, because their children all lived a long way away now . . .
It was perfect, he said. It would make the finest Place in all Thume. And his Feelings said that she would fit right in. “Look out for the ones that fall in love quickly,” her mother had once told her, “because they can fall out again just as fast.” Not Leeb, she thought. She had Feeling and she knew that what he was suffering wasn’t just lust, although there was certainly a flattering amount of that included. Leeb was sure that he had found the perfect place to be the Leeb Place and then he had found the perfect woman to share it with, the very next day. If a man believed in the Gods, he must believe in this.