Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

In the event Maia did not leave the High Counselor until the following morning.

Her own reactions to the whipping had been startlingly unexpected, and might have puzzled her if she had been in the habit of dwelling upon her own feelings: but such was not her nature. At first she had been filled only with revulsion at the sight of the grotesque, carved face leering up between Meris's legs, at her haunches quivering as Terebinthia struck her, and at the yet more grotesque figure of the High Counselor quivering ecstatically in harmony. Then, suddenly and entirely without volition, she felt in herself, with a rush of spontaneous excitement, that same pleasure which she knew to be Sencho's. Like a swimmer ceasing to struggle against a current; like a desert traveler gulping down the water that was supposed to last two days; like an enraged soldier who cannot restrain in himself the impulse to strike a superior--so Maia, whether she would or no, was swept away by a surging, headlong exhilaration. Ah! Ah! Meris shuddering, Meris writhing. Sencho panting, Meris uncontrollably pissing in the black man's face ha ha, Terebinthia's big deldas swinging as she wielded the thick, pliant leather smack, oh no it wasn't Meris smack it was that sneering nobleman who had dared to shout at Lady Maia from his boat smack, it was filthy Genshed with his knife smack, oh yes, it was Zuno lolling under his awning harder, harder! while she and Occula trudged in the hot smack sun it was Perdan who had thrown her against the cart on the road oo yes it was smack grubby little Nala threatening to sneak on her and Tharrin oh smack! it was Morca Morca Morca More!

As the kitchen-maids finally carried Meris away, Maia realized that she herself was panting, hot and viscid. Biting her lip, eyes downcast, she picked up one of Sencho's towels, covertly thrust it between her legs and cast it aside, hoping no one had noticed. Thereupon, turning her head for an instant towards the couch, she realized that her master, at all events, was entirely aware of what she had done; yes and of all--of every last thing--that she had felt. Her own feelings, she knew beyond a doubt, were even now forming a part of that sighing pleasure in which he lay, weak with excitement yet raised--with herself caught up and swirling in the same spiral--to an elation far beyond anything so absurd as pity for a fool like Meris. It came as no least surprise when Terebinthia was ordered to strip her. She would have been astonished--oh, bitterly disappointed!--if it had been otherwise. While Terebinthia obeyed, she sat still and exalted as a princess; and as soon as the others had gone out, herself got up unbidden and quenched two or three of the lamps until the light remaining in the room was to her own satisfaction. Then, climbing on to the couch without a word and needing no instructions from Sencho thank you very much, she began her work without haste, with no vestige of diffidence and without--oh, certainly without--any anxiety that she might show herself clumsy or inexperienced. She would be the one to decide what they would do together, and to this the High Counselor would raise not the least objection.

24: MATTERS OF STATE

Durakkon sat moodily at the window, watching the rain drifting over the Bramba Tower outside.

"But do you want a campaign against Kamat?" he asked Kembri. "I should prefer to avoid it."

"What I want to do, sir," replied Kembri, "is to reconquer Suba for the empire."

"But--er--it was ceded to Karnat less than seven years ago, at the time when you and Fornis came up from Paltesh. You deliberately let him take it in return for leaving us undisturbed to depose Senda-na-Say."

"Yes, and at the time that bargain served its purpose. But nothing's going to alter the fact that the proper place for Terekenalters and Katrians is the far side of the Zhairgen. That's the only logical western boundary for the empire. Otherwise we can't call ourselves secure. If we could only recapture Suba, it would do the Leopard cause a whole power of good; gain us a lot of popular approval and help to put an end to all the trouble we're having in Urtah and Tonilda. Don't you agree, Sencho?"

The High Counselor replied that he had no doubt of it.

"At the moment we've got Sendekar on the Valderra, with a fairly strong force," went on Kembri.

"They're spending Melekril in garrison at Rallur. I mean to join them as soon as the rains are over, with enough men to cross the Valderra and recapture Suba."

"And if you succeed we'll return it to Urtah, presumably," said Durakkon. "As you know, Suba was a dependency of Urtah before it was given to Karnat. Does the old High Baron know you're planning to recapture it?"

"No, sir, certainly not. We don't want schemes of that sort leaking out in a place like Kendron-Urtah. They'd never be kept secret: Karnat would get to hear in no time. Besides," he added after a few moments, "if we do succeed in getting Suba back, we may not return it to Urtah at all. Queen Fornis, for one, would like to see it become part of Paltesh, and I've been thinking that that might very well be best from our point of view."

"But that would be totally wrong," said Durakkon, "and unjust to Urtah."

"But it would be most expedient, and a better thing altogether for the Leopards," said Kembri. "If we were to make Forms a present of Suba, she'd be much less likely to start any trouble when her reign as Sacred Queen comes to an end. Have you thought of that, sir?"

Durakkon had indeed been reflecting most uneasily about what was likely to ensue when the time came to insist to Fornis that at the age of thirty-four she could not expect to be reinstated as Sacred Queen of Airtha for a third term of four years. The people as a whole would undoubtedly regard such a step as an affront to the god and therefore very unlucky: but Fornis was resourceful and domineering, a very alarming adversary indeed and a woman not lightly to be antagonized.

"But my immediate worry," went on Kembri, without waiting for Durakkon to answer him, "is the prospect of campaigning on the Valderra and in Suba while we still know so little about what may be being brewed up in Urtah without the old High Baron's knowledge. He himself only wants peace and quiet, of course. As long as he's alive, he'll go on preventing the Urtans from flying at our throats for being the villains who gave away Suba. But if he dies-- and I'm told now that he may die at any time--what's going to happen then? The heir's Eud-Ecachlon--a slow fellow; not many ideas of his own--but he hates Fornis like poison and who's to blame him, seeing she made him look a complete fool over that betrothal? He could easily be influenced into coming out against us. I don't want to start crossing the Valderra into Suba with Karnat in front of me and then find Urtah up in arms at my back."

He looked at Sencho, but the High Counselor said nothing.

"Then there's the bastard," continued Kembri. "I mean Bayub-Otal, the High Baron's son by the Suban dancing-girl. He'd been promised the rule of Suba on his father's death, so he's the most embittered Urtan of the lot. I've often wondered about having him killed off, but that certainly would lose us the old High Baron's support for good and all. Even if it could be made to look like an accident-- and I doubt it could--he'd never believe it: we can't risk it. But Bayub-Otal's up to something on his own account, or else I'm much mistaken. I'd like to know what it is. Sencho, you'd better hit on some way of finding out for us. After all, he's spending Melekril here in the city."

Sencho, however, did not respond to this as positively as the Lord General had been hoping. The High Counselor resented being told by Kembri or anyone else how to run his secret intelligence network or where he should put his spies, and had always been firm that he did not act on the orders of the Lord General or of any other Leopard leader. This obstinacy and independence, he was shrewd enough to realize, was ultimately his only safety in dealing with his fellow-conspirators--Fornis, Han-Glat and Kembri. As long as reliable information about threats of sedition could reach them only through him and as long as they did not know how much he knew or where his agents were working, they could not afford to get rid of him.

He began speaking in general terms about Kembri's contention that to reconquer Suba would be good for the Leopards' standing throughout the empire. Ending disaffection, he pointed out, was more than a matter of recapturing an unproductive ar

ea of marshland and waterways and making a present of it to Fornis: while as for Uriah, it was not really this relatively stable, prosperous and civilized province which gave the deepest cause for anxiety, but rather the more inaccessible fringes of the empire: remote, tribal areas, where his spies and agents were unavoidably fewer and whence information took longer to reach him.

"You mean Chalcon, don't you?" said Durakkon.

Sencho nodded, and went on to speak of his uneasiness about that isolated area of foothills and forest where the marches of northern Yelda joined those of southern Tonilda. This was the outlying region--wild country a good three days' journey or more from Thettit--in which, after the Leopards' seizure of power, Senda-na-Say's nephew Enka-Mordet had been suffered to settle on the last remaining family estate. The High Counselor, whose cunning included an instinctive and often startlingly penetrating ability to sniff out concealed enemies (the strongest reason for the fear in which he was held), felt an intuitive certainty that something dangerously against the Leopard interest was hatching there.

"What, then?" asked Durakkon, forgetting for a moment to conceal his contempt. "Are you sure you're not just assuming that Enka-Mordet's the sort of man you were yourself eight years ago?"

Sencho ignored this. It was well understood between him and Kembri that provided they refrained from openly quarreling with Durakkon or sneering at his intermittent, futile attempts to assert his nominal authority, they could always, ultimately, dominate or prevail over him, since he lacked self-confidence and was dependent upon them to maintain his position.

Chalcon, continued the High Counselor, might not at this moment seem so great a cause for anxiety as Urtah. Yet as far as Santil-ke-Erketlis, its most influential baron, was concerned, he himself felt more-or-less certain, despite the lack of any specific evidence, that something was being secretly cooked up against Bekla. There had been furtive comings and goings of messengers--too many to be attributable to mere fanning and husbandry--between Erketlis and Enka-Mordet; while both were retaining in their households more young, able-bodied men than any normal estate-owner required during Melekril.

"Well, if we're going to take punitive action in Chalcon," said Kembri, "it ought to be now, immediately, in spite of the rains; awkward as that'll be. In the first place no one will be expecting it, and secondly it can be done and over before my Suba campaign begins next spring. The last thing we want is trouble on the Valderra and in Chalcon at one and the same time."

"But this jumping to conclusions is unjust," said Durakkon. "Santil-ke-Erketlis--you've got nothing definite against the man, and if you kill him you'll only stir up the whole of Chalcon against us, just when there are no men to spare from the Valderra front. Young Santil's father and mine were close friends," he added inconsequently.

To be sure, replied the High Counselor: he had never suggested killing Erketlis. He was entirely in agreement that the objections were too strong. Nevertheless, he and the Lord General were both convinced that something-- a lesser stroke--ought to be executed in Chalcon, with the object of frightening those heldril who were coming together round Erketlis and of showing them that Bekla, distant though it might be, was well-informed about disaffection and not prepared to let it go unpunished.

To take such action during the rains would make the effect more telling.

"Action?" queried Durakkon. "You do mean killing, then?"

Sencho shrugged. What else? On every count, the most suitable man of whom to make an example was Enka-Mordet.

"Enka-Mordet," said Kembri. "Yes, he's the right man to put out of the way. We should probably have done it before, but this is a good occasion none the less. He's the only remaining close relative of Senda-na-Say, and that means there's always a danger of some heldro bunch making use of him as a figurehead to mount a revolt. We know he's talked rebellion on and off, but never quite enough for us to arrest him: enough to show the way he feels, though. And now Sencho's found out that he's hatching something or other with Erketlis."

"Which may be nothing at all," said Durakkon. "Mere suspicion. If--"

"The real thing," went on Kembri, cutting him short, "is this: when we kill Enka-Mordet, it'll have a salutary effect on every heldro in the province who has a hand in whatever he and Erketlis are up to. Chalcon won't rise on account of Enka-Mordet, though it probably would on account of Erketlis. He's never been a man of that sort of weight. We shall hit them just hard enough to make them think, and no harder."

The discussion continued for almost an hour, at the end of which, predictably, Durakkon had been prevailed upon reluctantly to agree. As to means, Sencho was reassuring about the practicability of a swift blow. Two hundred reliable men from, say, the Belishban force at present quartered in Bekla should be sufficient for the task. None but the baron and his wife, his two grown sons and a daughter of sixteen need actually be put to death. There were, however, one or two relatively minor matters connected with obtaining further information. If Kembri had no objection, he would himself have a private word with one of the tryzatts before the Belishbans left.

"All right, so we make an example of this man and his family," said Kembri at length. "But that still doesn't mean we don't need to find out a lot more about Erketlis and whatever it is he has in mind. As long as we don't know what it is, we can't forestall it; and all we know at the moment is that messengers keep coming and going to his place from Enka-Mordet and one or two more. Aren't there any of his servants in your pay, Sencho?"

The High Counselor replied that he had always been wary of trying to bribe servants native to a remote area; nothing was easier for such people than to tell their master what was afoot and then go on giving the briber false intelligence. In the case of a man like Santil-ke-Erketlis, trying to bribe his house-servants, most of whom felt themselves virtually members of the family, would simply be asking for trouble, while to plant a stranger in the place would be next to impossible. Even supposing that they were to make use of bribed servants, there was little chance of such people learning anything of a matter which at this stage was probably known only to a few men of rank. Ideally, they needed to get at the messengers; yet to waylay them would be useless, for this would only give the game away.

"Then--?" Kembri put more fuel on the brazier with his own hands and refilled Sencho's goblet.

There was one device, said Sencho, which he himself thought worth trying. He reminded Kembri of the gang of young robbers on the Herl-Dari highway who had been dealt with by the army some four years before. He might remember that they had made use of a girl as a decoy.

Kembri frowned. "But you can't put just any girl on a job like seducing messengers. She'd have to have a lot more than looks. Looks would be essential, of course, but on top of that she'd need to have all her wits about her; to be sharp enough to ask the right questions without being suspected and understand the gist of anything she managed to get hold of. I doubt we could find anyone capable of it."

Sencho smiled. It so happened that he had in his household the very girl who had acted as decoy for the Belishban gang. She was an unusually attractive and wanton young woman--both Han-Glat and himself had had a good deal of pleasure from her--and she was not only quick-witted, but also very much on the make. His notion was to promise her her freedom, together with enough money to set herself up as a shearna, in return for finding out what they needed to know.

"All very fine," objected Kembri, "but you say the girl's a Belishban, and you want to plant her in Chalcon to seduce local messengers. She'd be far too obviously a stranger. Besides, she couldn't live in the province on her own, indoors or out. Who'd look after her?"

Sencho explained his scheme. The girl had recently neglected her duty and been well whipped for it.

Nothing would seem more natural to his own household than a decision on his part to sell her. Lalloc could sell her, by arrangement, to the woman Domris, who owned the Lily Pool in Thettit-Tonilda. At this moment he was making use as an agent of a Tonildan pedlar, a man thoro

ughly familiar with the whole province. Under cover of selling his wares, he reported regularly to the High Counselor in the course of periodic visits to Bekla. This man, acting on instructions, would, as soon as the rains ended, unobtrusively convey the girl from Domris's house, after which she would simply appear as his own doxy, traveling with him. In this role she could, of course, be as Belishban as she liked. Once they reached Chalcon the two would act on their own initiative, by the kind of methods he had described, to find out what messages were passing to and from Erketlis. In point of fact the pedlar had already told him the names of two men who were acting as messengers; one a man called Tharrin, and the other--

To Durakkon's disgust Kembri, bellowing with delighted laughter, pushed aside the deaf-mute slave and himself took over the task of rubbing the High Counselor's belly while complimenting him on the ingenuity of the plan. Provided Sencho's assessment of the girl was as shrewd as most of his judgements, it seemed to offer an excellent chance of success. He would like to see this remarkable girl for himself.

He had recently done so, replied Sencho, at his own Rains banquet two nights before.

Kembri was surprised. What, the very pretty child with golden hair? No, not her, said the High Counselor; the other.