Rosalind took it, doubtfully. She looked at it, and then down at the cross which had been displayed on every dress she had ever worn. Sophie watched her.
‘I used to wear one,’ she said. ‘It didn’t help me, either.’
Rosalind looked at me, still a little doubtfully. I nodded.
‘ They don’t much like insistence on the true image in these parts. Very likely it’s dangerous.’ I glanced at Sophie.
‘It is,’ she said. ‘It’s not only an identification; it’s a challenge.’
Rosalind lifted the knife and began, half reluctantly, to pick at the stitches.
I said to Sophie: ‘What now? Oughtn’t we to try to get as far away as we can before it’s light?’
Sophie, still dabbling her bodice, shook her head.
‘No. They may find him any time. When they do, there’ll be a search. They’ll think that you killed him, and then all three of you took to the woods. They’ll never think of looking for you here, why should they? But they’ll rake the whole neighbourhood for you.’
‘You mean we stay here?’ I asked her. She nodded.
‘For two, perhaps three, days. Then, when they’ve called off the search, I’ll see you clear.’
Rosalind looked up from her unpicking thoughtfully.
‘Why are you doing all this for us?’ she asked.
I explained to her about Sophie and the spider-man far more quickly than it could have been put into words. It did not seem to satisfy her entirely. She and Sophie went on regarding one another steadily in the flickering light.
Sophie dropped the bodice into the water with a plop. She stood up slowly. She bent towards Rosalind, locks of dark hair dangling down on her naked breasts, her eyes narrowed.
‘ Damn you,’ she said viciously. ‘ Leave me alone, damn you.’
Rosalind became taut, ready for any movement. I shifted so that I could jump between them if necessary. The tableau held for long seconds. Sophie, uncared for, half naked in her ragged skirt, dangerously poised; Rosalind, in her brown dress with the unpicked left arm of the cross hanging forward, with her bronze hair shining in the candlelight, her fine features upturned, with eyes alert. The crisis passed, and the tension lost pitch. The violence died out of Sophie’s eyes, but she did not move. Her mouth twisted a little and she trembled. Harsh and bitter:
‘Damn you!’ she said again. ‘Go on, laugh at me, God damn your lovely face. Laugh at me because I do want him, me !’ She gave a queer, choked laugh herself. ‘And what’s the use? Oh, God, what’s the use? If he weren’t in love with you, what good would I be to him – like this?’
She clenched her hands to her face and stood for a moment, shaking all over, then she turned and flung herself on the brushwood bed.
We stared into the shadowy corner. One moccasin had fallen off. I could see the brown, grubby sole of her foot, and the line of six toes. I turned to Rosalind. Her eyes met mine, contrite and appalled. Instinctively she made to get up. I shook my head, and hesitantly she sank back.
The only sounds in the cave were the hopeless, abandoned sobbing, and plop-plop-plop of the drips.
Petra looked at us, then at the figure on the bed, then at us again, expectantly. When neither of us moved she appeared to decide that the initiative lay with her. She crossed to the bedside and knelt down concernedly beside it. Tentatively she put a hand on the dark hair.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Please don’t.’
There was a startled catch in the sobbing. A pause, then a brown arm reached out round Petra’s shoulders. The sound became a little less desolate … it no longer tore at one’s heart: but it left it bruised and aching. . . .
I awoke reluctantly, stiff and cold from lying on the hard rock floor. Almost immediately there was Michael:
‘ Did you mean to sleep all day?’
I looked up and saw a chink of daylight beneath the skin curtain.
‘What’s the time?’ I asked him.
‘About eight, I’d guess. It’s been light for three hours, and we’ve fought a battle already.’
‘What happened?’ I inquired.
‘ We got wind of an ambush, so we sent an outflanking party. It clashed with the reserve force that was waiting to follow up the ambush. Apparently they thought it was our main body; anyway, the result was a rout, at a cost of two or three wounded to us.’
‘ So now you’re coming on?’
‘Yes. I suppose they’ll rally somewhere, but they’ve melted away now. No opposition at all.’
That was by no means as one could have wished. I explained our position, and that we certainly could not hope to emerge from the cave in daylight, unseen. On the other hand, if we stayed, and the place were to be captured, it would undoubtedly be searched, and we should be found.
‘What about Petra’s Sealand friends?’ Michael asked. ‘Can we really count on them, do you think?’
Petra’s friend, herself, came in on that, somewhat coolly.
‘You can count on us.’
‘Your estimated time is the same? You’ve not been delayed?’ Michael asked.
‘Just the same,’ she assured us. ‘Approximately eight and a half hours from now.’ Then the slightly huffy note dropped, a tinge almost of awe coloured her thoughts.
‘ This is a dreadful country indeed. We have seen Badlands before, but none of us has ever imagined anything quite so terrible as this. There are stretches, miles across, where it looks as if all the ground has been fused into black glass; there is nothing else, nothing but the glass like a frozen ocean of ink . . . then belts of Badlands . . . then another wilderness of black glass. It goes on and on … What did they do here? What can they have done to create such a frightful place? . . . No wonder none of us ever came this way before. It’s like going over the rim of the world, into the outskirts of hell… it must be utterly beyond hope, barred to any kind of life for ever and ever. . , . But why? – why? – why? . . . There was the power of gods in the hands of children, we know: but were they mad children, all of them quite mad? . . . The mountains are cinders and the plains are black glass – still, after centuries!… It is so dreary . . . dreary … a monstrous madness … It is frightening to think that a whole race could go insane. … If we did not know that you are on the other side of it we should have turned back and fled -‘
Petra cut her off, abruptly blotting everything with distress. We had not known she was awake. I don’t know what she had made of most of it, but she had clearly caught that thought of turning back. I went across to soothe her down, so that presently the Sealand woman was able to get through again and reassure her. The alarm subsided, and Petra recovered herself.
Michael came in, asking:
‘David, what about Rachel?’
I remembered his anxiety the previous night.
‘Petra, darling,’ I said, ‘we’ve got too far away now for any of us to reach Rachel. Will you ask her something?’
Petra nodded.
‘ We want to know if she has heard anything of Mark since she talked to Michael.’
Petra put the question. Then she shook her head.
‘No,’ she said. ‘She hasn’t heard anything. She’s very miserable, I think. She wants to know if Michael is all right.’
‘ Tell her he’s quite all right – we all are. Tell her we love her, we’re terribly sorry she’s all alone, but she must be brave – and careful. She must try not to let anyone see she’s worried.’
‘ She understands. She says she’ll try.’ Petra reported. She remained thoughtful for a moment. Then she said to me, in words: ‘Rachel’s afraid. She’s crying inside. She wants Michael.’
‘ Did she tell you that?’ I asked.
Petra shook her head. ‘No. It was a sort of behind-think, but I saw it.’
‘ We’d better not say anything about it,’ I decided. ‘ It’s not our business. A person’s behind-thinks aren’t really meant for other people, so we must just pretend not to have noticed them.’
‘All right,’ Petra agreed, equably.
I hoped it was all right. When I thought it over I wasn’t at all sure that I cared much for this business of detecting ‘behind-thinks.’ It left one a trifle uneasy, and retrospective . ..
Sophie woke up a few minutes later. She seemed calm, competent again, as though the last night’s storm had blown itself out. She sent us to the back of the cave and unhooked the curtain to let the daylight in. Presently she had a fire going in the hollow. The greater part of the smoke from it went out of the entrance; the rest did at least have the compensation that it helped to obscure the interior of the cave from any outside observation. She ladled measures from two or three bags into an iron pot, added some water, and put the pot on the fire.