Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

At this moment Terebinthia came silently into the room, her bare feet noiseless on the red-and-blue tiled floor. Slowly waving a great semi-circle of white plumes before her face, she looked round at the girls one by one.

"What did U-Lalloc say your name was?" she murmured at length, looking at Occula.

"Occula, saiyett."

"And yours?"

"Maia, saiyett."

"Well, Occula, you're lucky. The High Counselor wishes to play with his new toy. After what we saw this morning I'm sure you'll be able to please him."

"Am I to go to him now, saiyett?"

"I'll take you," said Terebinthia. "No, you needn't get dressed: you'll do very well as you are."

21: THE PEDLAR

Upon the city the heat lay like a thick, soft filling between one building and the next. In the half-deserted Caravan Market the porters sat idle on their haunches. The very dogs lay panting along the shady flanks of the fly-buzzing, tinder-dry laystalls. The level of the Barb had dropped six feet and more, and the cracked mud looked like a huge, meshed net spread to dry by the waterside. The leaves hung limp and motionless and not a bird was singing in the gardens beside the northern bank.

The highest room in the Barons' Palace, which overlooked the Barb, caught, as the sun sank, the faintest of breezes--barely enough to stir the muslin screens fixed across the window embrasures. The door had been left open and below, at the foot of the spiral stair, one of Kembri-B'sai's personal bodyguard stood posted to ensure that no chance servant or other passer-by should come within earshot.

Durakkon, High Baron of Bekla, having filled his cup from a porous, moisture-beaded wine-jar standing behind the open door, carried it across to the window and, drinking, stood looking out towards the brown, motionless water three hundred yards away at the foot of the Leopard Hill. Kembri was seated at the table. Sencho lay sweating on a couch, fanned by a deaf-mute slave whose eyes never wandered from the floor.

"What it comes to is this," said Durakkon at length. "We can tell Karnat as often as we like that Suba's his and that the Leopards have never been at war with him: but as long as the Urtans are continually sending raiding-par-ties over the Valderra to cut up his men, he can call us liars. Suppose he were to make that a pretext to cross the Valderra himself and try for Dari, what's to stop him?"

"That's what the fortress was built for," said Kembri. "It's impregnable, and Karnat knows that as well as we do. Anyway, the rains are coming any day now, so even Karnat won't be able to move for at least two months."

"I know that," answered Durakkon. "I was thinking of next spring; but I suppose it'll have to wait." He turned, facing into the room as the faint clangor of the clocks' gongs came up from the lower city. "There are more urgent matters. According to Sencho, we've got difficulties that won't keep through the rains."

Sencho began to speak of the latest reports from his spies in Tonilda. Even after nearly seven years of Leopard rule, several parts of that province had by no means lost their sense of allegiance to the fallen house of Senda-na-Say. The former High Baron's estates had, of course, been sequestered by the Leopards, and Enka-Mordet, Senda-na-Say's nephew, now farming an estate in northern Chalcon, south-east of Thettit, was kept under constant surveillance. Though he had, to all outward appearances, always taken care to avoid becoming a focus for local disaffection, he had recently gone so far as to protest on behalf of his tenants against the increasing incidence of kidnapping and slaving raids in the neighborhood. Similar protests had come in from other parts of Tonilda. Sencho was apprehensive of collusion and the possibility of a concerted insurrection.

"But if we arrest half-a-dozen landowners," said Kembri, "that may only lead to worse trouble. It's only smoldering now. Why not tell the dealers to go easy on Tonilda for a year or two?"

Sencho, motioning impatiently to the slave to place fresh cushions under his belly, pointed out that the problem would be solved when the new farms began to supply the market, thereby enabling the provincial quotas to be diminished. This, however, could not take place for another few years, since as yet the children born on the farms were not old enough to be sold.

"There are too many slaves, that's the truth of it," said Durakkon shortly. "There never used to be these armies of slaves in rich households, eating their heads off, most of them doing far too little, retained for nothing but show--"

"Turning heldro, are you?" asked Kembri, smiling up at him, chin on hands. (Heldril, meaning "old-fashioned people," was a colloquial term for those in the provinces-- particularly nobility--not in agreement with the Leopard regime.)

"I'm well aware there's money in the slave-trade," said Durakkon. "It's made fortunes and Bekla's profited by it; but you can't deny that in some ways it's turned the empire into a marsh where there used to be firm ground. The whole place is becoming lawless and dangerous. Every lonely stretch of road's infested with gangs of escaped slaves preying on travelers, terrifying villagers, even fighting each other--"

"Districts with troubles like that know their remedy," said Kembri. "If they're ready to pay for soldiers we'll supply them. And they only have to pay by results, too. You may remember how we cleared the highway between Herl and Dari three or four years ago. That cost Paltesh and Belishba far less than they used to have to pay in taxes for the upkeep of regular highway patrols."

"It cost them less money, I dare say," said Durakkon.

Sencho broke in. The merchants were not complaining, and they were the class who made most use of the highways. The general principle of Leopard rule was an excellent one: provinces, like citizens, paid Bekla on the nail for whatever they needed. The Leopards had ended the war with Terekenalt, reduced taxation and enabled hundreds, if not thousands, to enrich themselves by trade and merchandise.

"I dare say," said Durakkon again, stepping round the High Counselor's panting bulk as he crossed the room to fill his wine-cup once more. "And you, as a merchant yourself, ought to be able to tell a high price when you see it. The price is that the peasants hate us; and that nobody dares to travel alone along any lonely road in the empire." He paused a few moments and then said deliberately, "I've often felt myself to be nothing but the Leopards' hired assassin. Senda-na-Say may have been an antiquated blockhead, but at least he knew the most important thing was public safety: law and order."

"But he couldn't keep it," sighed Sencho, his hand disappearing to the wrist as he scratched his sweating buttocks. "That's why we're ruling now. We--"

"No point in talking like this," broke in Kembri. "You sent for us, sir, as I understand it, to discuss three things. First, stopping Urtah from continuing to provoke Karnat; secondly the state of affairs in Tonilda; and finally the problem of escaped slaves turned outlaw. I'll tell you my answers. As to Urtah, I think we should do nothing until after the rains. We could demand hostages from them now, but as there'll be half a dozen Urtan nobles staying in Bekla during the rains--including Eud-Ecachlon, the High Baron's heir, as well as that Bayub-Otal fellow--that hardly seems necessary. Let it wait for two months, and then warn Urtah that if there's any more raiding across the Valderra they'll be in trouble with us --not just with Karnat. As for Tonilda, I'll tell the governor that we'll lower the slave quota if the province will pay the difference in money. And I'll confirm once again, to every governor and baron throughout the empire, that the army's ready to rid any area of outlaws upon request--at the usual rates, of course. And now if that's all, sir, I must ask you to excuse me. I'm asked to supper with the Sacred Queen, and as you know she doesn't like to be kept waiting. Shall I send up your slaves to carry you down?" he added to Sencho.

Durakkon, his hand clenching on his wine-cup at the disrespect in the Lord General's voice and manner, placed himself in the open doorway, impeding him in the act of departing. "The Sacred Queen?" he said quietly; then looked down at the floor, pretending reflection. "That's another matter I wish to mention before I give you leave to go." Kembri said nothing and he went on, "As you know, it's over two a

nd a half years now since Form's began her second term as Sacred Queen. In less than eighteen months that second term will end. She'll be thirty-four. Apart from anything else, for a woman of that age to be Sacred Queen would be an insult to the god. What's to be done with Fornis when she ceases to be Sacred Queen?" Kembri, who had been listening with his eyes on the ground, looked up. "I think it may very well be, sir," he replied, "that when the time comes, that's one matter on which you and I will find ourselves in complete agreement. I have certain ideas; we'll discuss them later." Craning past the High Baron towards the stairhead outside, he called down to the sentry, "Karval! Send up the High Counselor's slaves!"

"No, no, banzi! Doan' try to take it all at once like that. Take a little at a time, and get used to that before you try to take any more."

"It keeps choking me. I'll never do it!"

"Yes, you will. It's like the hinnari. You think you'll never be able to hold six strings down with one finger, and then one day you find you can. Come on, now, try again."

"M'm--m'm--m'm!"

"Fine! Now just rock your head. That's right! You'll find you can take the whole lot just for a moment before you come up again. Once more! Right, that'll do for now. There, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

"But when there's someone else pushing too?"

"Then you have to close down a bit tighter. You're the one in control, remember, even if you never say a word. It's astonishin' how they accept what you do if only you do it the right way. If you doan' like whatever he's doin', you can pretend you're simply dyin' for him to do somethin' else and get him to go on to that--oh, yes, he will, if he thinks he's making you enjoy yourself. It plays on a man's vanity, you see. Flattery gets you everywhere, as long as they doan' realize what it is."

"You'll have to open a school, Occula." Both girls looked round to see Terebinthia leaning against one of the columns near the entrance. They wondered how long she had been there.

"Is there anything I can have the pleasure of doing for you, saiyett?" asked Occula.

"Not at the moment," replied Terebinthia, yawning and stretching her arms above her head. "There's a pedlar here, selling perfumes--soaps--jewelry--things like that. He's been talking with the High Counselor; but he's finished now. If you'd like him to come in here and show you what he's got, I have no objection."

"Shall we, banzi?" asked Occula. "It'll pass the time and we might pick up some gossip and news, even if we doan' buy anythin'. Where's he from, saiyett, do you know?"