Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

"Why, Occula, Whatever's the matter? You've been so strange--well, all day, really. Is it an omen you've had, or what? Anyone'd think you reckoned you weren't com-ing back here."

Very deliberately, Occula put her two hands on Maia's shoulders and kissed her.

"I loved you, banzi. I was always straight with you. Doan' ever forget that, will you? Look, I'm goin' to hide Kantza-Merada under the floorboard here, along with the money." Then before Maia could answer, "Now let's get you dressed in that tunic thing. Are you goin' to put your hair up? I think you should--but at that rate you'll need combs. Where are they? Then we can all go and have a jolly romp with Piggy, can' we?"

Sencho was also in good spirits, and with reason. Four years before, in return for his part in the appointment of the present chief priest of Cran, he had succeeded in bringing it about that the High Counselor should in future receive one-twelfth of the annual temple revenues, payable after each spring festival. While eating the chief priest's roast quails that afternoon, he had learned that the twelfth due to him for this year was a larger sum than he had expected, partly on account of the temple's recent recovery, with substantial interest, of a loan made to Lalloc, and partly on account of its share of the confiscated estate of Enka-Mordet. He was also twelve thousand meld to the good over Dyphna, and expected to get a new girl for not much more.

The Barb party was an occasion which he usually enjoyed.

Flattery, sycophantic servility from men higher born than himself, the exercise of power and the granting of favors on profitable terms as and when it suited him-- these things he relished. The food would be excellent; and there would, of course, be other pleasures. He felt fully recovered from his recent indisposition (which must, he now felt, have been due to nothing more than the depressing effect of the rainy season) and delightfully full of his customary appetites. During the time when he had not been himself the black girl had done well. She had turned out most skillful and reliable. Expensive as they had been, he had shown himself sharp in buying her and the Tonildan. Lying in the bath and enjoying Milvushina's ill-con-cealed aversion to washing him, he had the two girls brought in, approved their clothes and then told Terebinthia to make sure that they were equipped with towels, extra cushions and everything else necessary to his comfort. Milvushina had just finished drying him when Ogma appeared to announce the arrival of the litter-bearers.

The distance to the lake known as the Barb, beside which Durakkon's guests were to meet, was not much over half a mile--about twenty minutes' journey for the heavy litter. Near the foot of the Leopard Hill the curving, northern shore was laid out as an arboreal garden, its lawns extending down to the water. There were groves of willows and cypresses, and two great zoan trees standing on either side of the inlet known as the Pool of Light. Planted about the lawns were scented shrubs--flendro, witch-hazel, jain-gum, capercaraira and many more--and arbors of evergreens to give shelter, when necessary, from the wind.

Tonight, however, was almost as mild and balmy as midsummer, with a half moon already high in a cloudless sky. The scent of spring flowers filled the air and not the least breeze ruffled the surface of the water or stirred the foliage. Nevertheless, in case anyone should feel cold, charcoal braziers had been placed here and there, and from a distance these glowed and twinkled between the trunks of the trees. A chain of colored lamps--pink, blue and green--surrounded the widest of the lawns, ending (or beginning) at the entrance in a serpent's head and tail, in imitation of that encircling the pavement of the temple. Here a gold-clad equerry was receiving the guests and presenting them to Durakkon and his wife, beside whom Elvair-ka-Virrion was standing as proxy for his father. Fordil and his musicians were already playing--some gentle, plaintive Yeldashay melody which carried softly on the shadowy air; while some way off, beside a grove of birches, the cooks had set up their kitchen, with fires burning in trenches under grills and spits. At a little distance beyond, the southern end of the gardens was closed by a thicket of zoan trees, mixed with evergreens--juniper and ilex.

A considerable number of guests had already arrived and were strolling on the grass or sitting on benches near the water. Maia caught sight of Sarget and two or three of his friends, and as she and Occula followed Sencho's litter several young men, including Shend-Lador, smiled or waved to them, but clearly felt it more prudent, in the High Counselor's presence, not to go the length of approaching or speaking to his girls.

It did not take Maia long to realize that they might have another reason. This was, she sensed, a rather more staid occasion than any upper city party which she had hitherto attended. It was true that a few shearnas were present in company with younger men, but jnost of the women looked like the wives or grown daughters of barons and similar notables. Also, she soon perceived that a large proportion of the guests were visitors from the provinces, and important ones at that. Many were wearing jewelled cognizances--the fountains of Kabin, the Paltesh fortress, the corn-sheaves of Sarkid and the like.

Once, as they passed by, she heard Yeldashay Spoken, and a few minutes later quickly averted her gaze from a dark man of about twenty-eight or nine, his face sickeningly disfigured and seamed with scars, whose fur-cloaked shoulder was adorned with a golden bear emblem.

"That's Bel-ka-Trazet, the High Baron of Ortelga," whispered Occula.

"Give me a regular turn, he did! 'Nough to give anyone the creeps!"

"He's famous as a hunter. Durakkon invites him to hunt."

While many of the guests--especially the Beklans--were dressed in the fine, well-cut materials and glowing colors to which Maia had grown accustomed in the upper city, the clothes of several of the older provincial visitors suggested clearly enough that they were not--to say the least-- over-particular about niceties of style and fashion. Her eye fell upon a shock-haired, stubbly-bearded man leaning on a thumb-stick and looking like nothing so much as an old drover, who was surrounded by five or six people plainly full of respect and gratified to be in his company.

"Whoever's that?" she asked Occula.

"No idea, banzi, but he could easily be a baron from somewhere quite important. A lot of the provincial barons make a point of comin' up to Bekla for the spring festival. Their wives enjoy it, and I dare say they often feel like a bit of an outin' themselves after being shut up all through Melekril; and then, of course, some of them have to pay their tribute, renew their vows to their overlord--all that sort of thing. Or they may want to have a word with Durakkon, or just let him see they're still about. Barons who sulk in their own dumps all the year round are apt to be regarded with suspish, you know. You can bet Piggy's goin' to be noticin' all right--who's here and who isn', I mean.

A lot of them almost make a point of not dressin' up for it--you know, they're not all that wealthy, some of them, and they're proud. They reckon what's good enough for Kowshittika's good enough for Bekla, and they doan' care who sees it."

"Well, I reckon, all this lot, 's a pity Milvushina isn't here 'stead o' me," said Maia. "Be more in her line than mine. Might have done her a bit of good, too."

"That's why she's not been brought, of course," said Occula. "Truth is, I think Piggy's begun to realize he may have bitten off a bit more than he could chew when he helped himself to Milvushina like that. I only hope to Cran he doesn' decide the safest thing's to put her out of the way."

"You really think he'd do that?"

"I'm bastin' well sure of it, banzi. You've never really got it through your head, have you, what a cruel brute he is? Still, never mind that now. Here we are, I think."

They had come to a stretch of turf close by the waterside and not far from the kitchens and supper tables. The soldiers put the litter down and Sencho was helped by the girls to rise and take a few steps as far as a low bank, bordered by flowerbeds, where a kind of divan had been prepared with cushions and brightly-colored rugs. Maia busied herself in making him comfortable, while Occula gave instructions to Durakkon's butler--who had been waiting for the High Counselor--about what he wished to drink.

Maia herself was exhilarated by the atmosphere and arrangement of the party, which was rather like an aristocratic version of a village festival. For those who wanted to eat formally there were tables under the trees, and here slaves waited upon any guest who came and sat down. Many, however, preferred simply to go to the cooks' tables, get their plates filled and then join groups of friends beside the water or in the arbors. She caught sight of the drover-baron walking about, gnawing a drumstick as he made himself agreeable to old friends: no one appeared to think him in the least odd.

Sencho displayed all his habitual gluttony, more than once requiring Maia to bring three or four different dishes together, in order that he might taste each before deciding what to enjoy next. His greed, however, was leisurely and interspersed with much talk and business. The two girls, carrying out their duties as unobtrusively as possible, were frequently required to stand aside as people approached, ostensibly to greet him and pay their respects, but in reality to beg favors, offer some promise, bribe or bargain, or circumspectly try to influence him against an enemy or rival. Sencho, often seeming, disconcertingly, to know as much about their affairs as they did themselves, said for the most part much less than the suppliants, while they for their part became more and more loquacious and self-revealing in their efforts to move him. Now and then he was deliberately and insultingly inattentive; yet once, when a baron from Paltesh mentioned so

mething relating to the affairs of an Urtan dowager who had begged a favor of him an hour earlier, he instantly connected the two and told Maia to go and find the woman and tell her to return. It was clear to both girls--the only witnesses of the earlier interview--that he meant to make use of the young baron to prove her a liar and put her out of countenance.

Going up through the gardens on this errand, she happened upon Elvair-ka-Virrion. He was leaning against a tree, sharing raisins from a silver bowl with a tall, dark-haired young woman and her brother (or at all events, thought Maia, the two of them looked very much alike). Seeing her, he at once called her over.

"Maia!" said Elvair-ka-Virrion, smiling and taking her arm for a moment as though they had been equals.

"You grow more beautiful every day."

She felt embarrassed, knowing that if he persisted in conversing with her it must sooner or later transpire that she was a slave. Might as well get it over with, she thought. She murmured something, raised a palm to her forehead and stood waiting with bent head.

"This is what our slave-girls look like in Bekla nowadays," said Elvair-ka-Virrion to his companions.

"You ought to come and live here, T'maa."

The young man laughed and said something complimentary.

"Are you attending on the High Counselor?" asked Elvair-ka-Virrion.

"Yes, my lord. I must go now, an' all--he's sent me to find someone, you see."

She was off before he could say more, but after a few yards found him at her elbow.

"Maia, is Milvushina here tonight?"

"No, my lord. He left her at home."

"That's the son and daughter of a Yeldashay baron with me. They've been asking about her. They knew she was alive: they say everyone in Chalcon knows what's happened to her."