Merlew’s voice asked: “How did it happen?”
“I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me. That’s what makes me suspicious. You’d think they’d tell a woman how her husband and son met their deaths.”
“Perhaps they didn’t want to upset you.”
“Upset me!” Ingeld’s voice was incredulous. “Do you think they’d care! I’ll tell you something. They almost left me to die in that fortress on the top of the plateau.”
“Oh no! What happened?”
“I can’t stand heights, and when I looked down all those steps, I felt dizzy. So they just turned their backs on me and walked off.”
“That’s disgraceful! And what did you do?”
“I just had to close my eyes and follow them. They were already out of sight and I couldn’t bear the thought of all those horrible spiders.”
Merlew sounded genuinely angry. “They shouldn’t treat a woman like that.”
Ingeld snorted. “They don’t know how to treat a woman! They’re savages.”
There was a brooding silence, and Niall felt it was time to withdraw. He was already ashamed at having overheard so much. But as he turned away, he heard Ingeld say:
“You seem to like the boy.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The way you were wrestling with him this morning. . .”
Merlew’s voice said coldly: “I don’t know what you mean. Wrestling is one of our customs.”
“The king thought you found him attractive.”
“Attractive! That skinny boy! You must be joking!”
“The others all seem to like him.”
“Of course they do. Because he’s a stranger. But the novelty will soon wear off.”
His cheeks burning, Niall tiptoed away. There was a strange, leaden feeling inside his chest, the same feeling he had experienced when he heard that Thorg and Hrolf were dead. He was tingling with humiliation. As he passed the soldier at the door, he felt that his face must be revealing everything he felt. But the man merely nodded in a friendly manner. He made his way back down the main thoroughfare, deliberately walking in the shadows in case someone spoke to him. Inside his brain, Merlew’s voice repeated again and again: “Attractive! That skinny boy! You must be joking!” It was true. He could see it now. To a king’s daughter, he was bound to look underfed and undersized. And he had imagined that she found him attractive. The thought made him writhe with embarrassment.
Yet when he thought back on this morning, he could have no doubt that she had been flirting with him. Why had she bitten his ear? Why had she given him that secret smile as he said goodbye to her? Had she merely been playing with him? His misery turned to a dull rage and he decided that he hated her. That, at least, was better than the emotional turmoil that made him feel like bursting into tears.
As he entered the sleeping chamber, Ulf’s voice said: “Where have you been?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I went outside.”
He settled himself down on the grass couch and pulled the blanket up to his chin. After a silence, he said:
“I’ve been thinking about tomorrow. I’ll come with you.”
Ulf grunted. “You’d better get some sleep. I want to set out early.”
But Niall knew his father well enough to detect the note of gladness in his voice.
They left the city an hour before dawn, at the same time as the antherds. Hamna and Corvig, who had obtained special permission from the king, accompanied them. Kazak himself walked with them as far as the entrance and embraced them both, kissing them on the forehead and both cheeks. To Niall’s relief, the king expressed no curiosity about why he had changed his mind. The streets of the underground city were deserted at this hour, and Niall had to swallow back a feeling of intense regret as he looked on it for the last time.
“Remember,” Kazak said, “you have my permission to return here with your family.” He added reflectively: “I haven’t seen Siris since she was a little girl.”
Ulf bowed respectfully. “I’ll discuss it with her, sire.” But Niall knew that he had no such intention.
“Do that,” said Kazak, and hurried back inside again; it was evident that he found the dawn wind too cold.
The eastern sky showed a streak of grey, but the sky overhead was still black. Ahead, the salt lake reflected the stars. It looked so beautiful that for a moment, Niall forgot his bitterness about Merlew. Then he recalled her comment about “that skinny boy”, and relapsed into sombre brooding. And for the next half hour or so, he daydreamed pleasantly of various situations in which he made her pay for the insult. She had been captured by the death spiders, and carried off to their city. Niall was her only hope. . .
Ulf said: “We’ve decided to avoid the plateau. Kazak says it would be quicker to cross the mountains to the north-west.”
Hamna said: “I cannot advise you, because I’ve never been that far. But I am told that the land on the other side of the mountains is easy to cross. There has been much rainfall in the past ten years.”
Now they had reached the shores of the lake and were travelling due west. They were more heavily laden than when they had left the burrow a week earlier — Kazak was generous with food supplies — but their loads felt lighter because they had been provided with panniers, held on the back with straps around the shoulders and waist.
As the sky lightened, Niall glanced back over his shoulder, and saw the spider balloons reflecting the rising sun. There were two of them, high up and moving in a direction that would carry them over the salt lake. He warned the others and they took cover in the undergrowth, under the twisted branches of a thorn tree. It was unlikely that the spiders would have seen them in any case; the light was still poor, and the balloons were at least two hundred feet up. Hamna and Corvig, he observed, did not seem to be in the least troubled or anxious. They produced fruit, bread and meat from their packs and sat eating as cheerfully as if on a picnic excursion.
When the balloons had vanished over the horizon and they were again marching along the shore of the lake, Niall said: “You don’t seem worried by the spiders.”
Hamna shrugged. “We’ve learned to live with them.”
“But. . .” Niall caught a warning glance from his father and relapsed into silence.
With the dawn, the wind rose and changed direction until it was blowing from the west. As the morning advanced, it became stronger, and acquired a dry, hot taste until it seemed like the breath of a furnace. Finally, it turned into a half-gale, carrying dust and grains of sharp sand that made their eyes smart. Hamna and Corvig looked increasingly depressed as their excursion turned into a test of endurance. They wrapped their mantles round their heads so that only a small slit remained, and plodded on obstinately. After half an hour of this, Ulf advised them to turn back. At first they refused, feeling it was a matter of honour to accompany the travellers on the first day of their journey. Ulf pointed out that the purpose of companionship was conversation, and that in weather like this, conversation was almost impossible. Hamna allowed himself to be convinced; they embraced, exchanged promises to meet again soon, and separated. Hamna and Corvig turned their backs on the wind with evident relief.
Now Ulf found himself wondering whether it was wise to choose the route over the mountains. It was longer than the route over the plateau, although less arduous. But in this cutting wind, which dried their mouths and chapped their faces, the advantage was neutralised. Leaning into the wind, peering out through the napping slits in their headcloths, they plodded forward at a rate of about five miles an hour. Niall looked longingly at the choppy waters of the salt lake; but he knew that bathing would be impractical. With no river to wash off the salt water, the aftermath would be even more discomfort.
By the time the sun stood directly overhead, both were exhausted. They decided to take advantage of the first clump of trees or bushes to halt for the midday meal. But for the next two miles, there was no sign of even a single tree. Half an hour later, they realised they were at the western end of the lake, heading out into the desert, towards a country of broken foothills and dry wadis.
At this point, Niall saw an object like a large rock a few hundred yards to their right. He tapped his father on the shoulder and pointed. Ulf nodded, and they hurried towards it. Another fifty yards made it clear that this was no rock, but the remains of a building. Most of it was buried in the sand; all that remained were the broken profiles of walls against the sky.