Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

"None between your legs--I mean, in the private parts? Only that can be serious, especially if it goes unnoticed: we'd better make sure. You don't mind that, either? My hands, I mean?"

Lying down on the bed, she answered, "I shan't bite, U-Nasada."

"Bite? Like the akrebah, you mean?"

"No; like the Sacred Queen's dog." And while he examined her she told him the story of Fornis's unhesitant handling of the guard-hound which could have bitten either of her hands through.

"Well," he said at length, "I'm as good as certain you've got nothing to worry about, though it might be as well to make sure tomorrow. My eyes are every bit as old as I am, you see, and though doctors often have to work by lamplight, it's not ideal. You're not to go putting those wet clothes back on: you're to get into bed now, Maia of Serrelind. That was my other reason for coming--to make sure you get a good night's sleep. Will you take a sleeping-draft if I make one? It's not very strong."

"Yes, I'll do whatever you say, U-Nasada." She drew up the ragged coverlet and put a cushion under her head.

"Comfortable?"

"I never noticed this morning--I was that tired--but it's a deal more comfortable than I reckoned. What's in this mattress, then?"

"Dried sedge and rushes are what they mostly use here. A few feathers, perhaps. Better than straw, I've always found."

He pulled up his sleeve, disclosing round his forearm a broad leather strap with six or seven small pockets, each of which contained a stoppered, bronze phial. Seeing Maia stare, he unbuckled it and handed it to her.

"Never seen anything like that before?"

"No, I never." Maia was fascinated by the novelty of the contrivance and the neatness of its workmanship.

"I made it myself. It comes in useful."

"You ought to make some more. You could sell them in Bekla: get rich."

He laughed. "Perhaps I will one day. Tell me about Bekla. Is that where you learned not to be ashamed of showing people that you're beautiful?"

She told him how she had been enslaved; about Occula, Lalloc, Terebinthia and the High Counselor.

She found herself longing to tell him the truth about Kembri and her flight from Bekla, and with a little encouragement might even have done so. He listened silently, however, sitting hunched on the three-legged stool and scarcely moving except now and then to trim the smoking lamp.

"And are you tired of all your adventures?" he asked at length. "You're young to have had so many."

"Oh, U-Nasada, it's the danger I'm so tired of," she answered. "You can't imagine how tired! Danger--it scares you--it wears you out."

"You're not in danger now."

"No: but I wish I knew what was going to happen."

"I think I can help you there: we'll talk tomorrow evening. It's too late now--time to sleep."

Searching, he found a clay cup, into which he poured the contents of one of the phials, mixing it with water from the covered jar by the bed.

"This is just dried okra leaves, really. There's some tessik mixed in, but only a touch." He smiled. "You'll wake up in the morning, I promise."

She drank it down. It was bitter and sabulous, leaving grains on her tongue.

"Did you like being at the High Counselor's?" he asked.

Maia realized that if Bayub-Otal or Lenkrit had asked this question, she would unthinkingly have replied "I was a slave-girl." But for some reason that was not good enough for this man. He deserved a better answer--chiefly because he had not asked the question contemptuously, as they would have done. He knew very well, she thought, that there were some things about the High Counselor's which she had enjoyed; and he wasn't blaming her for it, either.

"I didn't like being shut up indoors so much." He waited. "Oh, but the clothes, U-Nasada, and the food! A girl like me, see, couldn't ever have expected to live like that. The upper city--you've no idea--oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"

He was not in the least offended. "And did you enjoy giving him pleasure?"

"Well, I did after Occula'd taught me the right way to look at it. It was work, see? I didn't get much real, bodily pleasure myself--well, you couldn't, could you?--but I did enjoy feeling he was rich and powerful and could have anything he liked, and that what he liked was me. He was. a brute, really--a filthy beast, everyone knew that. If I hadn't suited him, he'd just have got rid of me. But he didn't; that's the truth of it, U-Nasada. I mean, that was what I liked."

"Did you always live by Lake Serrelind--before Bekla, I mean?"

"Yes, all my life."

"You're quite sure?"

She frowned, puzzled. "Yes, of course. Why?" Then she laughed. "Dare say that's why I took to Bekla, d'you reckon? Country girl never been anywhere before?"

"And your father--he died when you were still quite a little girl?"

"No, I was nine when he died: I remember him well. I liked Dad: he was always good to me. It was only after he died, really, that Mother got so bad-tempered and sour."

"I suppose there's never been any doubt that he was your father? Has anyone ever told you anything else?"

If she had not taken such a liking to him--and if she hadn't been beginning to feel so drowsy--she would have resented this.

"Never." She giggled. " 'Course, I wasn't just exactly there at the time, was I?"

He laughed too; then shrugged, evidently dismissing the subject. "Feeling sleepy?"

"M'm, very. Thank you, U-Nasada. I don't feel half so bad about everything now. You'll see I don't get ill, won't you?"

"Well, that's what I promised Anda-Nokomis. If only you do what I tell you, there's no reason at all why a healthy girl like you should get ill here. Suba's not half as bad as it's painted, you know, to people who understand it. Shall I tell Luma to bring her bed in? You won't wake, but you may as well have her here. Looking after you's what she's been told to do."

"Yes, ask her." But before the Suban girl had dragged her mattress and blankets up the ladder, Maia was sleeping so soundly that she did not stir even when Luma stumbled over her sandals in the dark.

47: AT LUKRAIT

It was an hour after noon, still and humid among the overhanging trees and beds of reeds. There was not the least breeze. The only sound near at hand was the hollow slop-slop under the rectangular, flat-bottomed boat as it made its way over tangles of weed, muddy shallows and deeper places. One could more or less tell the depth of the water, thought Maia, by the sound it made under the planking. It was like one of Fordil's zhuas, rim and center--above deep water the boat made a more cavernous sound. One might make a dance out of it. She and Fordil might devise a dance about the swamps and their miles of shady, watery waste. What would the story be? What stories did these people tell among themselves? Anyway, when would she ever see Fordil again?

She was sweating all over, and although she was trying to cool her face with a cloth dipped in the water, the water itself was lukewarm. She felt dirty and untidy. What on earth would they say in Bekla to see her now, the High Counselor's fifteen-thousand-meld bed-girl, with black finger-nails, her golden hair full of dust of ashes, a torn smock and hairy armpits? O Cran! she thought, and what are they going to think when we arrive at this Melvda place and maybe that king's going to be there an' all? Likely they'll put me on scrubbing floors--that's if there are any to scrub.

They had left the village in the boat--a kilyett, as they called it--a little before noon--U-Nasada, Tescon, herself and Luma. All three of the others appeared equally at home when it came to paddling and steering what seemed to her a heavy, clumsy craft, not even quite regular in shape. Tescon had explained to her that Subans, as marsh-dwellers, used two or three different kinds of boat, according to the particular need. Fo

r fishing and for short trips--which might be no more than a couple of hundred yards--they used either rafts or else what they called dords -- light, oval coracles with a kind of well or hollow keel for carrying gear. For longer journeys, however--especially such as might involve moving through tracts of swamp between villages--the proper craft was the flat-bottomed kilyett, fourteen or fifteen feet long, which drew no more than a few inches and in which one could sleep at a pinch. Unless it was actually stuck on mud, a kilyett could be forced through almost anything in the way of reeds or undergrowth, while if everyone got out it could even be dragged for short distances overland.

The village, she had discovered when they came to leave it, lay on a kind of spit or neck of firm ground between the Valderra to the east and a wide expanse of marsh on the west. It was through this marsh that their journey had at first lain; though how anyone could tell the way was past her comprehension. In and out of the mournful swamps they had wandered, under and between trees festooned with pendent moss and shaggy creepers; over shallow mud beds where the boat had skirred, slowed and grated, until she felt sure they were going to stick fast: across pools and small lakes, heading straight for what looked like impenetrable banks of reeds on the further side, through which, at the last moment, they pushed and crushed their way into the next pool; down corridors of water flanked by boggy thickets, out of which, at their approach, flew great flocks of long-billed waders. Once or twice Maia ventured questions or offered help, but although the Subans always answered her courteously, she soon grasped that she was more hindrance than use and might as well accept that she was about as valuable as a tailor in a smithy.

Together with her anxiety about the future, she was now beginning to feel, more acutely than at any time since leaving Bekla, two further deprivations. One was of the luxury and comfort of the High Counselor's household, which had softened her and to which, she now realized, she had become more accustomed than she had supposed. During the first two or three days she had enjoyed standing up to the journey, never envisaging that anything could go wrong with Kembri's plan. Now, however, it was no longer a matter of bearing hardship with the prospect of reward. Gone forever were the delicious meals, the soft bed, the clothes and jewels, the ready availability of Ogma to do whatever was wanted, the admiration of the Leopards and her own future as a dancer. Oh, and above all, she had lost Occula! "Kantza-Merada blast this damned, dirty sink of web-footed bastards!" she whispered under her breath.