Al·Ith first heard of the Order, she believed it to be a joke. She and her sister laughed. All of Zone Three heard how they laughed. Then arrived a message that could only be regarded as a rebuke, and people came together in conferences and councils all over the Zone. They sent for us — the Chroniclers and the poets and the song-makers and the Memories. For weeks nothing was talked of but weddings and marriages, and every old tale and ballad that could be dug up was examined for information.
Messengers were even sent to Zone Five, where we believed weddings of a primitive kind did take place. But there was war all along their frontiers with Zone Four and it was not possible to get in.
We wondered, if this marriage was intended to follow ancient patterns, whether Zones Three and Four should join in a festival? But the Zones could not mingle, were inimical by nature. We were not even sure where the frontier was. Our side was not guarded. The inhabitants of Zone Three, straying near the frontier, or approaching it from curiosity as children or young people sometimes did, found themselves afflicted with repugnance, or at the least by an antipathy to foreign airs and atmospheres that showed itself in a cold lethargy, like boredom. It cannot be said that Zone Four had for us the secret attractions and fascinations of the forbidden: the most accurate thing I can say is that we forgot about it.
Ought there perhaps to be two festivals, simultaneously, and each would celebrate that our two lands, so different, could nevertheless mirror something, at least in this way? But what would be the point of that? After all, festivals and celebrations were not exactly pleasures we had to do without.
Should there then be small wedding parties among us, to mark the occasion?
New clothes? Decorations in our public places? Gifts and presents? All these were sanctioned by the old songs and stories.
More time passed. We knew that Al·Ith was low in spirits, and was keeping to her quarters. She had never done this before, had always been available and open to us. The women everywhere were out of temper and despondent.
The children began to suffer.
Then came the first visible and evident manifestation of the new time. Ben Ata sent a message that his men would come to escort her to him. This curtness was exactly what we expected from his Zone. A realm at war did not need the courtesies. Here was proof of the rightness of our reluctance to be brought low by Zone Four.
Al·Ith was resentful, rebellious. She would not go, she announced.
Again there was an Order, and it said, simply, that she must go.
Al·Ith put on her dark blue mourning clothes, since this was the only expression of her inner feelings she felt she still had the latitude to use. She gave out no instructions for a Grief, but that was what was being felt by us all.
Felt confusingly and — we suspected — wrongly. Emotions of this kind are not valued by us. Have not been for so long we have no records of anything different. As individuals we do not expect — it is not expected of us — to weep, wail, suffer. What can happen to any one of us that does not happen at some time to everyone? Sorrow at bereavement, at personal loss, has become formalized, ritualized, in public occasions seen by us all as channels and vehicles for our little personal feelings. It is not that we don’t feel! — but that feelings are meant always to be directed outwards and used to strengthen a general conception of ourselves and our realm. But with this new dispensation of Al·Ith the opposite seemed to be happening.
Never had our Zone known so many tears, accusations, irrational ill-feelings.
Al·Ith had all her children brought to her and when they wept she did not check them.
She insisted that this much must be allowed her without it being considered active rebellion.
There were those — many of us — who were perturbed; many who began to be critical of her.
We could not remember anything like this; and soon we were talking of how long it had been since there had been any kind of Order from the Providers. Of how previous changes of the Need — always referred to by us simply, and without further definition, in this one word — had been received by us. Of why, now, there should be such a reversal. We asked ourselves if we had grown into the habit of seeing ourselves falsely. But how could it be wrong to approve our own harmonies, the wealths and pleasantness of our land? We believed our Zone to be the equal at least of any other for prosperity and absence of discord. Had it then been a fault to be proud of it?
And we saw how long it had been since we had thought at all of what lay beyond our borders. That Zone Three was only one of the realms administered generally from Above, we knew. We did think, when we thought on these lines at all, of ourselves in interaction with these other realms, but it was in an abstract way. We had perhaps grown insular? Self-sufficing?
Al·Ith sat in her rooms and waited.
And then they appeared, a troop of twenty horsemen, in light armour. They carried shields that protected them against our higher finer air which would otherwise have made them ill, and these they had to have. But why head protection, and the famous reflecting singlets of Zone Four that could repel any weapon? Those of us who were near the route chosen by our unwelcome guests stood sullen and critical. We were determined not to give any indications of pleasure. Nor did the horsemen greet us. In silence the troops made their way to the palace, and came to a standstill outside Al·Ith’s windows. They had with them a saddled and bridled horse without a rider. Al·Ith saw them from her windows. There was a long wait. Then she emerged on the long flight of white steps, a sombre figure in her dark robes. She stood silent, observing the soldiers whose appearance in this manner, in her country, could only have the effect of a capture. She allowed plenty of time for them to observe her, her beauty, her strength, the self-sufficiency of her bearing. She then descended the steps slowly, and alone. She went straight to the horse that had been brought for her, looked into his eyes, and put her hand on his cheek. This horse was Yori, who became celebrated from this moment. He was a black horse, and a fine one, but perhaps no more remarkable than the others the soldiers were riding. Having greeted him, she lifted off the heavy saddle. She stood with this in her arms, looking into the faces of the men one after another until at last a soldier saw what it was she wanted. She threw the saddle to him, and his horse shifted its legs to adjust the weight as he caught it. He gave a comical little grimace, glancing at his fellows, while she stood, arms folded, watching them. It was the grimace one offers to a clever child trying something beyond its powers, yet succeeding. This was of course not lost on Al·Ith, and she now showed they had missed her real point, by the slow deliberation with which she removed the bridle and tossed that, too, to a soldier.
Then she shook back her head, so that the black hair that was bound lightly around it cascaded down her back. Our women wear their hair in many ways, but if it is up, in braids or in another fashion, and a woman shakes her hair loose, in a particular manner, then this means grief. But the soldiers had not understood, and were admiring her foolishly; perhaps the gesture had been meant for the onlookers who were by now crowding the little square. Al·Ith’s lips were curling in contempt of the soldiers, and with impatience. I must record here that this kind of arrogance — yes, I have to call it that — was not something we expected from her. When we talked over the incident, it was agreed that Al·Ith’s bitterness over the marriage was perhaps doing her harm.
Standing with loosened hair and burning eyes, she slowly wound a fine black veil around her head and shoulders. Mourning — again. Through the transparent black glowed her eyes. A soldier was fumbling to get down off his horse to lift her on to hers, but she had leapt up before he could reach the ground. She then wheeled and galloped off through the gardens in an easterly direction, towards the borders with Zone Four. The soldiers followed. To those of us watching, it looked as if they were in pursuit.
Outside
