lightly up the stairs. Irad came in. Her hair was loose and she was panting for breath. "Don't say I'm here!" she whispered, and ran out again.
Diero stood up. She was like a willow, black and silver in the moonlight. She took up the flint and steel and struck a light. The little oil lamp bloomed yellow, changing all the shadows in the room and leaving the moon's cold radiance out in the sky. I didn't want to lose our quiet mood, and was about to ask Diero, petulantly, why Irad was playing hide-and-seek. But there was the noise of heavier feet on the staircase, and now Barna stood in the doorway. His face was almost black, swollen, in the tangled mass of his hair and beard. "Where is the bitch?" he shouted. "Is she here?"
Diero looked down. Trained in submissiveness all her life, she was unable to answer him with anything but a shrinking silence. And I too shrank from the big man blind with rage.
He pushed past us, flung open the bedroom door, looked around in the bedroom, and came out again, staring at me. "You! You're after her! That's why Diero keeps her here!" He rushed at me like a great, red boar charging, his arm upraised to strike me. Diero came between us crying out his name. He knocked her aside with one hand. He seized me by the shoulders and lifted and shook me as Hoby used to do, slapped my head left and right, and threw me down.
I don't know what happened in the next minute or two. When I could sit up and see through the dazzling blackness that pulsed in my eyes, I saw Diero huddled on the floor. Barna was gone.
I managed to get to my hands and knees, then get up. I looked into the bedroom. No one was there but a tiny shadow cowering against the wall by one of the beds.
I said, "Don't be afraid, Melle, it's all right." I found it difficult to talk. My mouth was filling with blood and a couple of teeth were loose on the right side. "Diero will be here in a moment," I said.
I went back to Diero. She had sat up. The lamp was still burning. In its weak pool of light I could see that the soft skin of her cheek was bruised. I could not bear to see that. I knelt down by her.
"He found her," she whispered. "She hid in your room. He went straight there. Gav, what will you do?" She took my hand. Her hand was cold.
I shook my head, which made it ring and spin again. I kept swallowing blood.
"What will he do to her?" I said.
She shrugged.
"He's angry—he could kill her—"
"He'll hurt her. He doesn't kill women. Gav. You can't stay here."
I thought she meant this room.
"You must go. Leave! She went to your room. She didn't know where to hide. Oh, poor child. Oh, Gav! I have loved you so much!" She put her face down on my hand, weeping silently for a moment, then raised her head again. "We'll be all right. We're not men, we don't matter. But you have to go."
"I'll take you," I said. "And them—Irad and Melle—"
"No, no, no," she whispered. "Gav, he'll kill you. Go now. Now! The girls and I are safe." She got up, pulling herself up by the table, and stood shakily a minute; then she went into the bedroom. I heard her soft voice talking to the child. She came out carrying her. Melle clung to her, hiding her face.
"Melle-sweet, you must say goodbye to Gav."
The child turned and held out her arms, and I took her and held her tight. "It will be all right, Melle," I said. "Do your lessons with Diero. Promise? And help Irad with them. Then you'll both be wise." I didn't know what I was saying. I was in tears. I kissed the child and set her down. I took Diero's hand and held it against my mouth a moment, and went out.
I went to my room, belted on my knife, put on my coat, and put the small copy of the Cosmologies in the pocket. I looked around the little room with its one high window, the only room of my own I'd ever had.
I left Barna's house by the back way and went round through the streets to the cobblers' barrack. In the great wash of moonlight the city of wood was a city