Vana took ceremonious leave of Uduma. She went out of the still and sunny round into the wood where the day murmured and was dim under roof, above roof, and down the stream where the clay thickened and coloured the water. As she went her mind was torn within her, and she saw, as it were arising in the wood before her, Mardurbo making wealth, and her own loom and the web within and her field and three bondwomen, and afterwards the five children, and how they grew, and the little she would have for each. Vana’s children, and they should go in purple through the town.... This talk of ewes and women—and who ever saw a lamb turn from its dam or children turn from women?
Mardurbo—Mardurbo! Vana walked slowly, sat down at last upon the stream bank. The five bending toward Mardurbo—Mardurbo demanding from the five since he fought and was strong, and besides was going to make them rich—Mardurbo’s favour, Mardurbo’s disfavour—in the children’s eyes Mardurbo the waxing moon and she the waning—Vana drew sharp breath, struck at the air with her staff. “Fly, bad dream!” she said. But it would not avoid—it seemed to come toward her, between the trees, the strongest in fight and the richest—! Vana uttered a strangling cry. “Mardurbo! I know not if I wish life for you!”
She stared at the dark trees and the dark places between them. Slowly there rose in her mind Mardurbo as she had known him first—Mardurbo and she as striplings amid the wheat and the vines—Mardurbo before they came into the same house, and afterwards for a time, before the eldest boy was born, and the two years of her suckling him—Mardurbo before the days of the bondwoman whom he bought and to whom he gave a house.... Mardurbo and Vana, striplings among the wheat and the vines. Slow tears rose in Vana’s eyes. “Mardurbo! Mardurbo!” she breathed.
She took up her staff, rose to her knees and then to her feet, and went on down the stream to the clay-built town. And here, even outside the wall, she heard that Mardurbo had come home.
The men who told her exaggerated the wealth Mardurbo had brought. According to them it was exceeding much—in metals, in cattle and bondmen, in stuffs and weapons and tools to work with, in salt, in ornaments of silver, and all such matters! Mardurbo had come with a train—now the cattle were stalled without the wall, and the other goods heaped beside and within the house. To-morrow and the next day and the next Mardurbo would hold market. Horses were what were wanted in exchange.
Inside the wall Vana still heard of that much wealth the trader had brought. It seemed that the people by the sea had been hungry for horses. The town was excited over Mardurbo’s return.
Approaching her own house, she saw in the distance that goods were, indeed, heaped beside it and before it, and Mardurbo in the midst of his men directing the goods’ bestowal, and children and bondwomen and a number of town-folk watching. Sound came to her in a gush, and a perception as of bees at work. Her hand closed hard upon her staff. The honey—all the honey—to go to Kadoumin and the other kindred!
The children saw her and ran to her, the bondwomen saw her and snatched up distaff or water-jar. Mardurbo turned from sacks of salt and goods in bales that the people by the sea traded with. He came through the press to Vana as she came through it to him.
“Ha, woman!” cried Mardurbo. “I am back alive!”
Vana put her hands upon his. They drew each to each, with suddenness they embraced. Each felt, each showed a rude, a passionate fondness. “Glad I am that you live!”