Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

Diffidently at first, but then with increasing confidence and freedom, Maia found herself talking about her childhood in the hovel; of the increasing burden, as she grew older, of being the eldest of four, and of how she used to escape, in summer, to the falls and the solitude of the deep water.

"Never had a stitch on, sometimes, half the day. It was the only place, you see, where I could be sure of being left alone."

"A naiad! And how did you come from that to Bekla?" asked Fornis, laying aside the comb and again fondling the little boy as he came up to take it away.

Maia, who had been chattering happily enough, hesitated and fell silent. The queen must know very well that she had come into the possession of Lalloc, who had sold her to Sencho. About this, and of her journey from Puhra to Bekla, she was perfectly ready to talk. What she did not want to speak about was her seduction by Tharrin and how her own mother had sold her to the slavers. For the first time she found herself wondering whether Morca might later have come to feel sorry for what she had done.

Fornis perceived her reluctance. "Sad story? They always are. I shouldn't have asked. Never mind; wouldn't want to go back, would you?" She stood up. "I've kept you talking too long, but I was so fascinated by what you were telling me. You can go on over supper. There'll be no one except you and me and Shakti here, so you can feel quite free."

The gallery, Maia now realized, as they strolled along it, with Ashaktis and the little boys following, ran entirely round the interior wall of the building, which was a hollow square. They were two floors up.

Although darkness had now fallen, she could make out below, through the trellised arcading, a garden courtyard with a carved, central fountain-basin. There was a smell of jasmine, and great moths were flitting here and there. The roosting mynahs had settled down: she could see them in the dark--little groups of darker black--crowded together under the opposite cornice.

"The whole of this upper story's private, you see," said Fornis, as they turned a corner of the gallery.

"No one ever comes up here except my personal people." She turned into a doorway. "This is my supper-room. I designed the decorations myself; it's in traditional Palteshi style--to re-mind me of home, you know."

Maia, however, although she had been virtually asked to do so, was too much startled to admire the room, for standing just inside the doorway, in the attitude of a dignified, respectful upper servant, was none other than Zuno, dressed in a gold livery embroidered across the breast with a leopard in silver thread. His hair was trimmed and curled in imitation of the style in vogue among Elvair-ka-Virrion and his friends, and in one hand he was holding a white wand almost as tall as himself. Upon the queen's entry he bowed, so that Maia recognized him a moment before he, returning to the upright, recognized her. With this advantage, she had just time to compose her features, meet his eye gravely and enjoy his startled though instantly-con-trolled reaction.

"Everything in order, Zuno?" asked the queen, looking round the tranquil, candle-lit room.

Zuno bowed again.

It plainly was. The honey-colored paneling of the little hall, which measured about twenty-five feet by fifteen, had been polished with pine-scented beeswax, so that the walls and floor, gleaming gently in the candlelight, gave off a light, resinous aroma. A single step of smooth slate, banded cream and gray, surrounded the sunk rectangle of the central floor, in the middle of which stood the flower-strewn supper-table. Beside this were two couches, spread with as many cushions as even Sencho could have wished. A charcoal brazier glowed in one corner of the room and near it stood a third, slightly older boy, as handsome as the queen's two pages now taking up their places to wait at table. Several copper vessels were standing on the charcoal, and from these came a mixture of delightful odors which made Maia realize how hungry she was.

"Come here, Vorri," said the queen, calling the lad over from beside the brazier. "M'm, getting a nice, big boy now, aren't you? Almost too big to be hanging round the Sacred Queen. I shall have to start thinking what I'm going to do with you; but just now you can pour me some wine."

"Oh, esta-saiyett," he answered, with a charming, rather coltish manner, somewhere between the studied deference of Zuno and the artless grace of the little boys, "I daren't leave the cooking, or your savory pancakes will be spoiled."

"Why, are you cooking the supper, then?" asked Fornis, surprised.

"No, esta-saiyett," interposed Zuno, again inclining gracefully from the waist ("He don't miss any chance o' doin' that," thought Maia), "the dinner itself--the trout and the boar--are being prepared in the kitchens, as usual, and the children will go down for them. But I thought the soup and the crayfish pancakes would be better if they were prepared here."

"Excellent!" said the queen, motioning Maia to one of the couches and settling herself on the other. "Then pour the wine yourself, Zuno. And you'd better get back to your pancakes, Vorri. Oh, you're like a little pancake yourself, aren't you? M'm, take care I don't eat you by mistake!"

To Maia the dinner was exquisitely enjoyable, as much for the comfort and surroundings as for the food.

Nor was conversation any problem, for she had nothing to do but lie basking in the queen's favor.

Fascinated by the charm of this extraordinary woman, who only a few hours before had Struck the fear of Cran into her, she no longer felt in the least out of her depth or nervous of her ability to reciprocate.

Fornis, with no trace of condescension, put her entirely at her ease. They might almost, she thought, have been two young women back in Meerzat, having a bit of gossip. In her pleasure and excitement, one detail escaped her notice. Ashaktis, sitting on a stool beside Fornis's couch and from time to time joining smoothly in the talk, tasted everything the queen ate before serving her.

Although Maia stuffed herself heartily (which clearly pleased the queen), she was careful not to drink more than a little of the excellent wine. "Never do 'f I was to get tipsy," she thought. "That'd be a right old mess, that would, on top of a bit of luck like this."

As the courses, carried up from below, succeeded one another and sheer appetite began to slacken, she became, as she had at Sarget's party, more aware of the elegance and style of her surroundings.

Although nothing could have been called ostentatious, no one suddenly set down in it by magic (which was just about what had happened to her, she reflected) would have had the least difficulty in at once perceiving this to be the dining-hall of a wealthy aristocrat. It resembled, she thought, one of Sencho's rooms to about the same extent as her pleasure with Elvair-ka-Virrion had resembled the kind of thing Sencho used to require of her. The truth, she now realized, was that whatever the future might hold in store, she was glad to think she had done with Sencho.

"Barla, little sweetheart," said Fornis at length, "do you think you could go down all by yourself to the kitchens and bring up the syllabubs? Tell them to give you another bowl of serrardoes, too, and some lipsica. Have you ever tasted lipsica?" she added to Maia, as the little boy, naked as he was, took up a silver tray and went out of the room. "It's made of fermented peaches. Ikat's the only place where they know how to make it."

"No, I haven't," said Maia. "That's something I don't think even the High Counselor went in for--not while I was with him, any road."

"What sort of things did he go in for?" As she spoke, Fornis got up, walked round the table and seated herself beside Maia.

"Well, there was one drink he particularly liked as was made of a mixture of pears and white grapes," answered Maia. She giggled. "Sometimes I had to give it to him in a spoon; that's when he'd got too full up to move, you know---"

"I didn't mean his drinks," said Fornis. Maia, leaning back on the cushions and looking up at her, now saw again the sorceress who had gazed up through the moonlit leaves of the zoan tree. "You did other things for him as

well, didn't you?"

Maia's answering smile was complicit. "Oh, ah! All sorts of funny things."

"Tell me. Come on, tell me!"

Maia, disconcerted now, looked down, picking at the gold tassel of one of the cushions.

"The candles make it rather hot in here, don't they?" said Fornis. "Let's go outside and get some fresh air."

The moon had risen, throwing, through the trellised arcading, criss-cross patterns of light over the tiled floor of the gallery. Scents of tiare and lenkista filled the cool, shadowy air. Without the least hesitation or uncertainty Maia took the Sacred Queen of Airtha in her arms and kissed her again and again. Together with gratitude for her release, she felt full of a passionate delight both in her surroundings and her good fortune. To her surprise, she realized that she genuinely desired the queen, who was responding to her with a kind of obeisant but passionate self-surrender, leaning backwards with closed eyes.

"Bite me, Maia! Harder! Harder!"

Beyond the rooftops an owl called somewhere in the trees, and the sound, agonizingly, brought back Occula to Maia's mind. At all costs she must find a way to intercede for Occula. Yet if she were to confide in the queen, might not the queen become jealous? How soon could she safely introduce the subject? She considered, even in the act of complying with the lithe, panting woman in her arms; and answered herself, sensibly enough, "After she's had what she wants."

"What sort of things did you do for Sencho, then?" whispered Fornis, releasing her. "Did you ever have to punish him?"

"Punish him, Folda?" Maia was puzzled. "How d'you mean?"

At this moment there broke out from below a sudden clamor; a crash and clatter of something falling was followed by the terrified screaming of a child, the growling and snarling of some fierce animal, stumbling feet and cries of alarm. Zuno came darting out of the supper-room, leaving the door open behind him, ran to the stairhead and vanished down the stairs.