Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

"All right, Maia, leave him now. You've done enough!"

It was Elvair-ka-Virrion, together with some other young man whom she did not know. Together they took Shend-Lador between them and began wading back towards the bank. Maia, swimming, reached it before them, put her hands on the stone coping, vaulted out and turned, sitting with her legs in the water.

She felt exhausted, and now noticed for the first time a deep scratch along her arm. It was bleeding and it hurt. No one was paying any attention to her. They were all gathered round Shend-Lador as Elvair-ka-Virrion heaved him up onto the grass.

"What's your name, child?"

She looked up. Standing over her was the Sacred Queen, gazing down with the same intent, unsmiling expression that had startled her in diving from the zoan tree.

Maia, having no idea what it was correct for her to do, and all-too-conscious of her wet, bleeding, dishevelled nakedness, scrambled up and knelt at the queen's feet.

"I said, what's your name?"

"Maia, saiyett. Maia of Serrelind."

"Stand up."

Maia did as she was told. The queen was only slightly taller than herself. She was wearing a white cloak over a pale-green robe gathered at the waist with an enamelled belt, in which was sheathed a pair of silver knives. A little way behind her stood a dark, middle-aged woman in a plain but very fine dress of gray silk who must, Maia realized, be in attendance.

"What are you doing in Bekla, Maia? Have you come up for the festival?"

"No, saiyett. I'm in the household of the High Counselor."

"In the household of the High Counselor. Are you? Do you know who I am?"

"Yes, saiyett."

"You call me 'esta-saiyett.' You're a slave, you mean? Abed-slave?"

Maia nodded.

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen, esta-saiyett."

The queen unexpectedly stretched out one hand, rubbed her fingers along Maia's bleeding arm and licked them.

"Then why aren't you with the High Counselor now?"

"I ought to be, esta-saiyett. I was just going to--"

She stopped, confused, for the queen, without the slightest alteration of manner, had begun to stroke and pinch her wet, naked buttocks.

"Plump, aren't you? You eat well, I suppose?"

Before Maia could answer, a sudden, bellowing cry-- unmistakably the cry of a man in mortal agony--carried across the entire length of the gardens, instantly silencing every vestige of talk and murmur between. Hard upon it came the screaming of a girl and terrified calls for help. The voice came from among the trees more than four hundred yards away, but Maia would have known it at any distance, for it was Occula's.

Sencho, gulping the last of a bowl of thrilsa mixed with mulled wine and honey, lay back in the cushions and signed to the black girl to rub his belly. He was enjoying a happy sense of full satisfaction. The petty deception attempted by the Urtan dowager, who had returned in alarm and self-abasement, had been exposed, and her mortification had been most enjoyable. Although he knew that several other provincial dignitaries were hoping to speak to him, he did not intend to talk to anyone else tonight. Replete with the excellent and copious dinner, he now felt disposed towards pleasures less mentally strenuous than those of withholding sought favors or playing off one petitioner against another. Besides, his cunning mind knew very well when it had exerted itself sufficiently for the time being. Though by no means incapable, he nevertheless knew that he would now do better to desist from further business.

He felt inclined for the Tonildan girl, but she had not as yet returned from her errand to fetch the dowager. Still, there was no immediate hurry. He would rest for a time and allow his dinner to settle, for the girl, being young and enthusiastic, often tended to be somewhat over-energetic as well. Half-dozing, he began to indulge one of his favorite fantasies--that of devouring the world and everything in it. In his imagination he gorged like an ogre on great flocks of cattle, acres of crops and teeming cities; gulped down pools, lakes and rivers; stuffed himself with basketsful of fat babies and barrow-loads of succulent, chubby little boys and girls. Then, when nothing remained of his feast, he would sleep it off while the gods, at his command, created a fresh world, ready to be consumed when he awoke.

Soon his meditation turned to imaginings of delicious cruelty. He thought, one by one, of the personal enemies whose ruin he had contrived, and of all those by whose deaths he had profited. He had watched them die, some of them, and been present, too, when they were condemned. Some had begged for mercy, offered all their wealth in exchange for their lives---wealth which the Leopards had acquired anyway, through the forfeiture of their estates. Half of Enka-Mordet's estate would come to him shortly. Ah, but the singular, subtle pleasure of enslaving his daughter--he had had to take special, discreet steps to make sure of that! It had been expensive, of course--the secret instruction and bribery of the soldiers--but it had been worth it.

The infliction of humiliation and anguish on a well-bred girl was a pleasure for which, unfortunately, opportunity all too seldom arose. The sort of women who fell into his power rarely had enough pride or social standing to make their humiliation really amusing. Indeed, many of the coarser kind of young women often seemed positively to enjoy being ill-treated by a man as exalted as himself. It had certainly been pleasant to debase and nauseate that expensive shearna who had come to his house with Kembri's son a few weeks ago. She had thought herself become too exalted for such pastimes: she had found out that she was wrong. Nevertheless, where popular, well-connected shearnas were concerned, one had to be careful about giving way to impulses of that kind. Yet where was the pleasure in degrading slave-girls who had no dignity of which to be deprived?

As the sensations of satiety in his distended belly began to subside under the skillful ministrations of the black girl, his lust became more urgent and he looked about in growing annoyance for the Tonildan, who should certainly have come back by now. She was beginning to fancy herself too much, was that child.

She probably even supposed that he entertained some sort of feeling for her. He knew very well that she thought herself his favorite. Her disillusionment in this respect might, perhaps, be coupled in some way with tormenting Milvushina. Perhaps Terebinthia would be able to devise something really original.

Meanwhile his immediate craving was simpler.

The black girl was bending over him, whispering solicitously and sliding her warm, pink tongue between his lips. She was good at her work. He had grown to trust her; she had shown herself one of his best purchases ever. During his recent indisposition she had proved better than Terebinthia, seeming to know exactly what he needed and how to help him to recover his spirits. The true reason for this, he knew, was the existence of some strange affinity between them. She possessed, he had come to realize, a ruthlessness, a well-masked savagery in certain ways akin to his own. At his heart lay a murderous hatred of the rich world that had spurned a starving ragamuffin from its doors--until that ragamuffin had learned to pander to its filthy desires. He longed for that world's destruction. So did she. At least, she longed for some sort of destruction. He was no fool; he could perceive that. She was like him to the extent that hatred was what made her live; though hatred of precisely what he had not as yet been able to discern, for she was inscrutable. Now that he came to think of it, she might make a useful secret agent.

Now she was looking into his eyes, murmuring very close and low in a language unknown; sibilant and eager, an invitation, a promise of something lewdly delectable. In response to this cryptic incitement he began to have second thoughts. To have her to gratify him now would be more enjoyable, all things considered, than the Tonildan. How pleasant his life was! His great wealth, his enemies destroyed, every luxury and indulgence at his command! Her strange, unknown words sounded in his ears like an affirmation of security, an invincible charm. Yes, she understood him very well, this fellow-pirate. He was in haste for her.

Even the High Counselor co

uld not gratify his lust openly, in the gardens of the Barb and the presence of provincial barons and their wives. Impatient, he raised himself in the cushions and looked about for the soldiers.

"The boat, my lord," whispered the black girl. "There's a boat, do you see? Just down there, look. We'll go a little way off, in the boat. That'll be the easiest Way."