CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Practically every day something brought Doo to his mind: a sight, a sound, a sensation, and then once more she was with him there in the dark, in the night, in his misery, her soft hand laid gently upon his head; or she was running out into the road after him - and how forlorn and vulnerable she looked. He was glad he had been able to take her away from the squalor of her family's encampment; but what else had he done for her? Nothing! To avoid Dan's scorn he had pretended not to care for her at all. He had been off-hand and casual, and only when he was certain there was no danger of discovery did he dare show her any warmth. What was she to have made of him? One moment cold, the next friendly. The thought of his cowardice made him miserable. At night he lay awake, appalled by what he had done to her, and devastated by the knowledge that she had died without ever knowing his true feelings for her. Memories of Doo were at once sweet, and unbearably painful, and instead of fading, they had become stronger and more insistent. He had become convinced that she was haunting him.
He looked at Dan, his cheeks burning. "How can you have seen her when you know very well she's dead? You heard what they said on the boat. Everyone was killed."
"Then I've seen her ghost," said Dan evenly. Chaldez waited for an explanation. Dan told him that he had just come from a near-by village they both knew, and that he had seen her going into one of the houses. He was certain it was her because when he called her name she turned.
"And then . . . ?"
"She went into the house and I didn't see her again."
Three days later Chaldez saw her for himself; they almost bumped into each other. He had had to pass through the same village, and he had scrutinised each house as Dan's words repeated themselves in his head. There was no sign of Doo. On the way back he was passing the communal well when he accidentally stepped into the path of a figure struggling with a heavy leather bucket. The water slopped out of it as she tried to avoid him, and when she glanced up he saw that it was Doo. Their eyes met, but Chaldez quickly looked down, defeated by confusion and embarrassment. The person standing before him was not the slight girl he had last seen, but a young woman. Her features were recognisable but altered. Her face had grown longer, her mouth wider; her nose was well formed, but rather too bony to be handsome. Only her eyes, with their sad, gentle look, were unchanged.
Doo also found herself in the presence of a stranger; she had recognised Chaldez instantly, but he was inches taller than she remembered; indeed, as a wiskery-chinned 16-year old he had already out-grown most men. He would, in a few years' time, be sensationally handsome but as yet his features had not achieved the proportions which would bring this about. They did, however, give more than hint of what was to come.
"You're here!" he said stupidly. "Dan said he'd seen you."
"You're with Dan?" Her eyes dropped and he wished she would look at him.
He said: "I didn't know whether to believe him. They said everyone was killed . . . "
Now she looked at him, and he was overcome by confusion. He felt his cheeks burning. "Are you all right?" His voice sounded high, unnatural. Questions were rushing into his brain like a torrent, and all he could ask was if she was all right!
"I am to be married," she said.

Chaldez stared at her. "But that's im . . . " He was going to say impossible but the shock of what he had heard silenced him. His mouth went dry; he felt as though he was going to choke.
"I must go," she said. "I've been too long already." Her eyes were darting everywhere, but always avoiding Chaldez's.
He seized her shoulders. "I forbid you to get married! You must come back with me. You're place is with me."
She looked at him fiercely. "Please let go!" It was not a request.
Chaldez was aware that his raised voice had attracted the attention of the other women at the well and that they were now staring at them both. He dropped his arms. "I'll take that," he said, indicating the heavy bucket. She allowed him to take it. He walked with her in silence until they reached the house where, he supposed, lived the man who was to be her husband. She turned and looked him full in the face. "I am happy," she said. "I am very lucky," and she attempted a smile. Then she said "thank you," and taking the bucket from him started to walk away.
"Doo!" shouted Chaldez, and he ran to catch her up. Again he gripped her shoulders. "The gods never meant this to be. Come away with me."
"Go NOW!" she cried. She had turned to face him when he called, but now was looking beyond him, her eyes wide with alarm. He looked over his shoulder: advancing towards them both were a number of men, women and children; nearest was a small red-haired man. He was holding a short hoeing tool.
"It's him," she said, her voice not much more than a whisper.
She had hardly uttered the words than the man spoke to Chaldez. "What are you doing?" he demanded. Chaldez grabbed Doo's wrist and dragged her forwards so that the water in the bucket slopped and spilt. They were both confronting him now.
"You can't have her!" he bellowed. "I am Prince of Sair Jisenner and she is mine."
"Dog!" cried the red-haired man, and struck him with the hoe. Chaldez warded off the blow with his forearm, and felt nothing. He was aware then that Doo was shouting. "They'll kill you!" she screamed. "Run!"
Anger and hatred welled up in Chaldez. "I'll kill him" he retorted. He had no intention of running. Doo let the bucket fall and tugged wildly at his arm. Chaldez tried to shake her off but she was too tenacious; meanwhile the man stood, watching them both. Then he launched into a frenzied attack. Hampered by Doo, Chaldez had no alternative then but to turn and run, heading towards the fenced compounds of the house which Doo had been approaching and those of its neighbours. They were separated by a narrow path, and as he sprinted along it he heard the footsteps of his pursuers thudding along close behind him. Ahead were open fields just greening with shoots of oats and barley, and beyond was a rocky escarpment dotted with low shrubs. He ran over the uneven ground, the damp earth clinging to his feet. He was certain he would be caught, but when he reached the foot of the escarpment and for the first time looked back he saw that he had a good lead. He began scrambling up the steep hillside at once. When he was near the top he looked back again, and was certain that he was no longer being followed. He continued to the top with slightly less urgency, and set out in the general direction of his own village.
His escape gave him no satisfaction; fleeing as he had done merely filled him with disgust, and when he thought about Doo he was overwhelmed by a sense of loss. In the last few days the possibility that she was alive and near him had completely dominated his life. For months, indeed since the raid, he had had nothing to look forward to except the marginal improvement of his day-to-day existence: being a prince had ceased to have the slightest meaning; all his hopes of avenging the deaths of his mother and father, of taking his rightful place on the throne of Sair Jisenner, had dried up and vanished. Doo had caused them to re-materialise, perhaps because she had given his life meaning again, and her proposed marriage had done more than cast him back to where he was; it had sucked his heart out.
He was hours making his way back to his village, and was still some distance away when he was found by a group of three farmers. As they roughly seized him he was reminded of his original capture almost a year earlier; it seemed a lifetime away. They escorted him back to the village. His own master was still out searching for him; when he returned he asked for no explanation but coolly prepared a fire, and Chaldez realised to his horror that he was going to be branded.
A show was made of it. The villagers assembled, bringing their slaves so that they might learn from Chaldez's salutary lesson. Four men held him while his master applied the iron to the right side of his upper chest.
Chaldez was determined not to cry out but the pain was beyond anything he could have imagined, and despite gritting his teeth he did let out a grunt. The smell of his own burning flesh reached his nostrils, and the effect on his senses of that, coupled with the excruciating pain, made him lose consciousness.
Dan, forced to witness his friend's punishment, had been struggling wildly. Someone fetched a thong and his arms were bound behind his back. He shouted continuously, so only those closest to Chaldez knew that he made any noise at all as the glowing iron met his skin.
After the branding he was hobbled, a short length of coarse rope being tied tightly to each ankle, and that and subsequent nights he was secured by more rope to a substantial peg hammered into the earthen floor of his master's house. During the day time, while working in the fields, he was watched continuously; every villager, it seemed, had an interest in preventing his escape.
The burn on his chest had healed to the extent that it was beginning to itch when one morning, at sun-up, a troop of armed men entered the village and marched off every male old enough to bare arms, Chaldez and Dan among them.
They were taken to an encampment outside the town where they had first arrived. There Chaldez and Dan were separated; it appeared that Chaldez had been identified by someone as a run-away, and the scar on his chest proved it. He was put into a detachment of wretches and semi-cripples on whom fell every menial task connected with the day-to-day running of the camp.
The mood of black despair which had settled on him after his meeting with Doo was so impenetrable that he cared nothing about the indignities to which he was now subjected; he was hardly even aware of them.
When on the third day an officer called him out and marched him away he was indifferent to his fate.
He was put in front of a small, wiry man who first asked him his name.
"I am told," he said, his speech precise and clipped, "that you have had the training of a nobleman. If that is the case, I can use you."
Chaldez was handed a sword and told to demonstrate what he knew.
The tuition he had received in Eujinni, and later at the hands of Kaddigs, Datzcrig's steward, was apparent despite his long lack of practice, and later that day he was re-united with Dan in a company of 50 or so men who, he learned later, were the elite. The small, wiry man was Thweddag, their commander.