Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

A second interlude had now begun. The windows were again opened for a time, but fewer guests left the hall, since most felt little inclination--or, indeed, ability--to move from where they lay. Ten or twelve slaves carried round silver vessels like that used by Sencho, while others followed with incense-burning censers and aspergills for sprinkling rose-water. Here and there men had already fallen asleep, and one or two of these, whom their girls knew from experience were unlikely to revive for some hours, were carried out, lying on their couches.

After about half an hour eating was resumed, but now the intensity of greed was succeeded by a kind of frivolous toying with sugared delicacies and sweet things. The formal seating broke up. Many of the guests formed small groups, joining friends at other tables or gathering about some shearna whom they admired. Round the flat-topped, marble parapet of the pool the servants placed trays of little cakes, syllabubs, custards, fruit, cream pancakes, jellies, junkets, caramels and the like. To these the slave-girls went and helped themselves, bringing back to their masters whatever they fancied. Meanwhile Durakkon and Kembri left the dais and began to wander among the company, making themselves agreeable and receiving congratulations and praise.

Sencho, having sent Meris to fetch a bowl of peaches in sweet wine, allowed her to feed him for a time, but then became petulant, pushing the bowl aside and sending her back several times for other delicacies, none of which served to revive the all-absorbing ardor of greed which had engrossed him hitherto.

Having rinsed his mouth and called for fresh cushions, he ordered Meris once more to pull the cloth off his body in order that he might drowse at greater ease; for torpor and indolence, following upon satiety, formed a very real and conscious part of the High Counselor's pleasure. Now that he was fully glutted, to lie naked in the presence of nobles and free women who thought it more prudent to hide whatever distaste they might feel-- or who might even feel admiration--afforded him peculiar satisfaction; him who had once begged for scraps outside a merchant's back door and subsequently, knowing what was good for him, pretended to enjoy gratifying that merchant and his greasy, foul-breathed friends. He thrust a hand under Meris's skirt but then, reflecting that perhaps even he had better, in accordance with custom, wait until after the kura, closed his eyes and in a minute or two had fallen asleep.

Maia, relieved to have carried out her duties so far without any serious blunder, felt free to relax. Meris, she noticed, seemed now to have become possessed by a kind of panting animationr and excitement.

The detached professionalism with which she had concentrated on ministering to Sencho had been replaced by a quick-glancing alertness and response to everyone around them. She sat smiling boldly at each guest who strolled past; and when a tall young man, wearing the Fortress cognizance of Paltesh, offered her his goblet, she almost snatched it from him, drained it dry, flung her arms round his neck and kissed him warmly on the lips. Emboldened by this example, Maia called a passing slave-boy and asked him to bring her some more wine. It was of beautiful quality, cool and deliriously refreshing--"Wonder what Tharrin'd say to this?" she thought--and as it mounted to her head she stood up, walked over to one side of the dais and stood looking out over the lamp-lit hall, from the center of which the rippling pool glittered up at her like an open eye.

The scent of jasmine and lilies was now stronger still on the warmed air. On impulse she picked up a crown of tiare blossom, four inches deep, which one of Kembri's guests had left lying on the table, and placed it on her own head. Mingled with the perfumes Ming the hall were smells of wine, of lamps, of the sweating slaves and the resinous polish in the warmed panelling, and beyond all these the fresh, cool smell of the rain outside--that same rain which she knew was falling, mile after mile, across the solitude of Lake Serrelind. "Only I'm not there now, see?" she remarked happily to a passing noble with a slim, graceful shearna on his arm. The girl glared haughtily at her, but the young man, obviously in a mood to be delighted by everything and especially by such a pretty lass, replied "Well, wherever it is, I should think you soon will be, if you go on looking like that," and gave her hand a quick squeeze before passing on.

Maia, still staring at the sparkling water and remembering the flocks of white ibis wading in the lake shallows on a summer morning, was recalled to her surroundings as the trumpeter sounded yet again.

Indeed he made her jump, for he was only a few yards away. Sencho, however, did not even stir. Not knowing what might be to follow, she hurried back to her stool. Half a dozen musicians had entered the hall--three hinnari players, a drummer, a flautist and a man with a kind of wooden xylophone called a derlanzel --and taken up their places in the open space round the pool. Meanwhile slaves, using hooked poles, lowered and extinguished several of the clusters of lamps. The outer parts of the hall grew dimmer, so that the center appeared brighter by contrast. The musicians, after tuning for a few moments, began to play a minor-harmonized refrain--no more than four bars--varied only by the changing rhythms of the drummer and the derlanzist. After they had repeated this several times, twenty young women in gauzy, transparent robes of gray, brown, green and white came running gracefully into the hall, took up their positions round the pool and then, at a signal from their leader, began to dance.

Maia had always taken a natural delight in dancing, and back in Tonilda had been reckoned a good hand at clapping, stamping and twirling in the ring. But she had never seen anything like this, the goddess Airtha's sacred Thlela; an age-old institution of Bekla, famous throughout the empire. All the girls, trained from childhood, were dedicated to the service of the goddess. They were neither free women nor slaves, but imperial property (like state jewels or a household guard), their function being to enhance and beautify the public occasions of the city, both religious and secular. Like soldiers, they lived together, were subject to the rule of their order and enjoyed the public respect and status proper to their vocation (though ordinary citizens perhaps honored rather than envied their restricted, exacting lives). Some, as they grew older, might, with the Sacred Queen's approval, leave the Thlela and marry, but others, having the dance and its way of life in their blood, spent their latter days as teachers, wardrobe-mistresses or such-like hangers-on of one kind and another. The entire business of the Thlela--recruiting, training, costuming and so on--was state-financed and it was universally regarded as one of the great glories of the city. Sencho himself, attempting a few years before to remove from it a girl he fancied--for such was his way when so inclined--had been met with an incredulous, outraged hauteur which had made even him think better of the idea.

Their dance now--as Maia, after a minute or two, grasped with growing delight and elation--represented the turbulence, flow and changes of a great river throughout the weathers and seasons of the year. This dance, the "Telthearna," had become a favorite at the Rains banquet, and many of those present, familiar with every sequence and movement, watched with discriminating eyes and appraising connoisseurship. What Maia felt, however, was the even greater, unrepeatable pleasure of a completely new experience, to which she responded with nothing apart from her own natural ardor and native wit. The look and behavior of wide expanses of water was something she knew everything about at first hand. She almost wept to recognize--and to realize that she recognized--the gray waves lapping at morning under a light wind, the sand-bars bared by summer drought and then a storm coming down upon the turbid, brown floods of the rain season. Luckily for her, the High Counselor's sleep remained unbroken, for the dance had reft her out of herself so completely that she would certainly have bungled any duties that might have been required of her. Indeed, the memory of that Telthearna, danced in Kembri-B'sai's great hall, remained with Maia all her life.

It came to an end at last in a gradual drifting away of the waters into distance and starlight, with a remote thrumming and vibration of the muted hinnaris, the girls sinking down to lie prone and at last motionless upon the floor. The Thlela never sought or received applause, which would ha

ve been regarded as impious and profane. A deep silence of admiration, however, lasted for a full minute; after which conversation gradually resumed.

At this point Durakkon, together with a small group of nobles from the older aristocratic families, left the banquet. Others began strolling out--some to gamble in the private rooms; others with their slave-girls or shearnas, waving to their friends and promising to return later.

More lamps were quenched and the hall became dimmer still, save for the central window embrasure in the longer wall. This, the sill of which stood about five feet from the floor, was so wide and deep as to resemble a small, open-fronted room, the shuttered window forming a wall at the back. Here the lamplight remained bright, so that the recess looked not unlike a stage.

First the dancing-girls of the Thlela and then the serving-slaves left the hall (among them Maia's salt-boy, who grinned at her as he passed). The last to go drew a mesh of thin, gold-tin ted curtains between the columns of the colonnade. The musicians, however, remained in their places, playing a quiet improvisation of chords which did no more, as it were, than lightly to color the air with sound.

For a while the murmur of talk and laughter continued, but Maia could sense behind it an expectancy and tension, as though some fresh excitement were now awaited. Suddenly the tall young man from Paltesh, who had offered his goblet to Meris, appeared in the lamplight at the foot of the window embrasure. In one hand he was holding a cushion and this, waving it over his head, he tossed up into the embrasure with a cry of "Otavis!"

At this there was some cheering and several other men echoed "Otavis! Otavis!" But at once another young man strode up to the embrasure, threw in a second cushion and cried "Melthrea!" at which there were further cries of support and approval.

Other men followed, one by one adding cushions to the growing pile now beginning to form a bed in the embrasure. Each, as he threw his cushion upward, called out a name--Otavis, Melthrea, Nyctenthis, Pensika and so on-- while one of Kembri's girls, a slim Lapanese with dark hair falling to her waist and ruby bracelets on her bare arms, made marks with chalk on one of the tables. , Watching, Maia became aware that Meris was breathing hard and uttering low cries of excitement. "Eighteen!" she exclaimed at length, as Elvair-ka-Virrion himself, tossing up his cushion, called "Otavis!" and paused to refill his goblet from one of the caldrons before returning to his place.

"I don't think she'll be beaten now!" she added, glancing round at Maia, "Fat lot of chance we'll ever have! That bitch Terebinthia hardly ever allows us out."

"But what's it all about?" asked Maia.

"Why, they're voting to elect the Kura Queen, of course," answered Meris. "First they decide how many cushions are going to be thrown altogether, and then the men draw lots for who's to throw them. It's always fifty at the Rains banquet, and the girl who gets most cushions is the Kura Queen."

"A shearna?"

"Oh, Maia, don't be damn' silly; shearnas don't perform the kura! The Kura Queen's always a slave-girl, but the thing is she gets a prize of a thousand meld, and very often she's freed afterwards. It's the one bit of luck every girl hopes for: I might have got it if only I'd stayed with Han-Glat. He always lends his girls very freely, you know, so they have plenty of chances to make friends and become popular. But you're making me lose count. How many's that, Ravana?" she called to a girl near-by, who was watching as closely and excitedly as herself.

"Twenty-one for Otavis now!" answered the girl. "Good luck to her! She lent me forty meld last year and never asked for it back."

A few moments later a cheer went up as it became clear that Otavis's total number of cushions could not now be beaten. The few remaining to make up the fifty were flung into the embrasure and two girls, climbing up, spread them evenly over the sill. As they slid down again a brief silence fell. Then into the pool of lamplight stepped the strikingly beautiful girl in the pale-gray robe embroidered with corn-sheaves, whom Maia had noticed on the staircase. She was smiling, but Maia could see tears glistening in her eyes and it was plain that she was half-overcome with excitement and delight. Amidst cries of acclamation and a hammering of goblets she raised her arms to the company, placed both hands on the window-sill and vaulted up into it as lightly as a leaf, turning, as she did so, to sit facing the hall. In this position, while the music became louder and its rhythm more marked and insistent, she slowly and deliberately loosened her robe at the throat and, drawing up her shoulders in a kind of smooth, graceful shrug, caused it to subside like gray foam about her, until she was sitting naked to the thighs. Then, as she held out one slim foot, a broad-shouldered young man, clad only in a pair of leather breeches, came forward, drew off her sandals and laid them side by side on the floor.

"Spelta-Narthe!" whispered Meris. "I wondered who she'd have lined up."

"Who's he?" asked Maia.

"Well, he is a slave--strictly speaking--but a very privileged and senior one. He's Elvair-ka-Virrion's huntsman. He's well-known to be able to do it anywhere. He's been invited into quite a few Leopard ladies' beds, so they say."

Otavis, now completely naked and so beautiful that the sight drew fresh murmurs of admiration from every man in the hall, rose slowly to her feet, stepping out of the tumble of gauze about her ankles and letting it fall to the floor. Then, laughing as she bent down and gave him her hand, she helped her partner up into the embrasure and, kneeling before him in the posture with which a kura customarily began, swiftly and deftly made him as naked as herself.

Ever since Occula had told her what a kura was, Maia had had at the back of her mind a feeling of distaste and aversion. She had, she now realized, unconsciously been imagining other people watching herself and Tharrin forced against their will to exhibit that which they would have wished to keep private between themselves. What she saw now, however, was altogether different in mood. The beauty and her partner, who knew very well what they were doing and were obviously proud of it, went about their business with a light-hearted, jocund gaiety and entire lack of shame which, she realized after a minute or two, had already brought to her own lips a smile of complicit enjoyment. This outrageous behavior, pursued with a kind of sportive warmth which involved and was meant to involve the watchers, was marked by the one quality essential to prevent it from being sordid or disgusting: it was frivolously playful. The tone of the love-making was very light, the emphasis all on provocation, amusement and ingenuity rather than on any pretended depth of passion which, by being plainly insincere, would have struck a false note. "This is not passion," the participants seemed to be saying. "This is sport--bird-song to awaken you in the garden of pleasure." Maia's response was unforced and spontaneous. Indeed, at one point, when Otavis, facing the company and leaning back in her partner's arms as she sat astride his lap, looked down for a moment, feigning shocked astonishment, and then once more opened her arms to the onlookers with a dazzling smile, as though delighted to find herself thus flagrantly displayed, Maia felt so deeply excited that she could only stand gazing silently amid the general laughter and acclamation.

After some six or seven minutes it became clear that most of the watchers no longer needed any further stimulation or example, even of so expert and charming a nature. In the dim light, men lay in the arms of their girls, who openly caressed them in front of others similarly engaged and too much preoccupied to pay heed. From all sides came cries of tension and excitement, with here and there a quick squeal of protest or half-hearted remonstration. Otavis and her huntsman, their task complete, slipped down unnoticed from the window embrasure, picked up their clothes and stole away together.

As the sport intensified, Meris sprang suddenly to her feet.

"Baste it!" she cried, turning to Maia and speaking with such fury that Maia jumped, supposing for a moment that she must have done something wrong. "What are we sodding well supposed to be made of--cream cheese?"

In an instant she had loosened the neck-cord and belt of her robe and stepped out of it even more swiftly than Otavis. Rathe

r as a flowering shrub may look somewhat the worse for wilting in strong sunshine yet still strikingly beautiful, so Meris, plainly off-balance with wine and inflamed lust, was none the less a sumptuous sight, standing in nothing but her sandals and bracelets. Even Maia, who had of course seen her naked more than once, found herself looking with admiration at the lithe, taut flow of her limbs and body, informed now with a kind of questing voracity. No wonder, she thought, that all those wayfarers had gone to their grief on the Herl-Dari highway; and no wonder, either, that the tryzatt had spared the girl to blame for it.

"Maia," said Meris with lofty dignity, "jus' look aft' that till I get back!"

Picking up her robe from the floor, she folded it, with a kind of lunatic precision, across the High Counselor's belly, stepped down from the dais and was immediately lost to view in the shadowy hall, which to Maia now resembled nothing so much as Lake Serrelind at windy nightfall--a blurred, tossing expanse, noisy with fluid babbling and cries not unlike those of unseen birds. Reckon this must be one bit as got left out of that dance, she thought.

She had just retrieved Meris's robe and laid it by her stool when she felt a touch on her shoulder.

Turning, she caught her breath to recognize Elvair-ka-Virrion. He was alone and plainly sober. She stood up, palm to forehead. "My lord!"

Without hesitation Elvair-ka-Virrion drew her to him and kissed her.

"I'm not a lord, I'm a man. Maia, do you know you're by far the most beautiful girl in the room? I've never forgotten you from the moment I saw you in the Khalkoornil that day. You've conquered me, Maia! Come and make love with me! You'll make me the happiest man in Bekla-- and the luckiest!"

Maia, thrown for the moment into utter confusion, shrank back as though scorched from this blaze of ardor. As El-vair-kaVirrion waited for her reply, gazing passionately into her eyes, she recalled what Occula had impressed so emphatically upon her.