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TAXILA'S CHILDREN<br />
"No wonder they built this place away from the village, any nearer and no one would have<br />
got any sleep."<br />
He started to relax, stretched out on the trestle, arms folded under his head and watching<br />
her busying herself around the room. He began to enjoy the rustic life, it could grow on him.<br />
A roof over their heads, a few sticks of furniture, domesticity and his own woman. He knew it<br />
couldn't last. It was a bubble that would prick in a week, a day or even in hours. His future<br />
didn't lay with Hara but she couldn't know that.<br />
They gathered more food and there was plenty of water. That night, they slept within the<br />
bower and played their tune on the creaking trestle. Outside, any nocturnal inhabitants might<br />
have paused at the strange sound but that would be all. It was a thousand pities that the men<br />
of Lynxe couldn't follow the example of the lesser species. On the fifth morning, Steve<br />
wandered out of the hut scratching his head and stretching to the dawn and nearly collided<br />
with Jabez. The old man was standing like a statue in the centre of the clearing. Steve had no<br />
idea how long he had been there. Steve glowered at him and looked around for the support<br />
troops.<br />
"I came alone, O Great Lord Steve-Holt."<br />
The thought was soothing in Steve's mind.<br />
"I have come to plead with my Lord that he will not turn aside from his people. Why has<br />
my Lord abandoned us? If he wanted the woman Hara, she was his to take. We would gladly<br />
have made a dwelling place for you both and honoured your union."<br />
"What do you want, Jabez?"<br />
Steve didn't take his eyes off the old man, even when Hara came to the door behind him.<br />
He heard her gasp.<br />
"I have come to plead with my Lord."<br />
The old man's voice quavered in his mind.<br />
"Leave us in peace. You wanted to murder Hara and would have done so if I had not<br />
stopped you. Now you come with sweet talk, as if nothing had happened. Is there any reason<br />
why we should trust you, or any of those you might have hiding in the trees behind you?"<br />
"My Lord does an old man injustice."<br />
The old rogue was weeping.<br />
He fell to his knees and clenched his hands, the tears coursed down his cheeks. Steve<br />
started to feel uneasy and turned helplessly to Hara. She looked stunned by the turn of events.<br />
Before he could stop her, she had moved forward to kneel beside the old man.<br />
"Please, my father - Do not weep. It is a misunderstanding, we will return."<br />
Steve threw up his hands in disgust. He had said it before and he thought it again, he would<br />
never understand women. They helped Jabez into the hut and gave him water, there was<br />
nothing else. He was abjectly thankful - it was as if he had been restored to life. Steve was<br />
still highly suspicious.<br />
"Apart from making peace with us, why else did you come here?"<br />
Hara shook her head in reproach, she had been sucked in completely by the histrionics.<br />
Steve wasn't so sure, Jabez gave him a soulful look.<br />
"Lord, I come with a petition. Your people wish for you to be in our midst when we<br />
celebrate the coming Festival of Fecundity. You are our declared Lord, who has come from<br />
the Great Gods themselves and might even be one, if I might dare breathe that thought. My<br />
Lord, it is our earnest plea that you bless our harvest and join in our thankfulness. We pray<br />
that you will be our Lord of the Harvest, wreathed in garlands and flowers. This is our season<br />
of greatest joy, when our Lord the Thane grants that we can rest from our labours. It will be a<br />
season of unsurpassed joy, if you would consent to bless us with your radiant presence!"<br />
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