"Well," he replied slowly. "Well--what do you think yourself--don't you think--while these difficult times last-- that's something of a matter--isn't it--which ought to re-main, perhaps, between the temple and the Lord General? As you know, the girl--your companion, you tell me-- was involved in the murder of the High Counselor, wasn't she?"
"It's not for me to contradict you, my Guardian, but I reckon otherwise. In any case, I beg you to take pity on my anxiety about a dear friend to whom I owe more 'n what I can say. At least please tell me whether you positively know her to be dead--that is, whether she died here in the temple during the time I was gone from the city."
He made no reply, only looking down at the table, patting it with his fingers in a gentle rhythm.
"If she is dead, my Guardian, surely it can do no possible harm to tell me? It seems--well, a small thing to ask, like."
He evidently thought so, too. She could discern in him a certain feeling of anti-climax. This public idol and acclaimed beauty, this new, unassessed and still uncommitted personality in the upper city's endless currents of power-maneuver, had sought him out for a talk. Yet now it transpired that apparently all she wanted to know was the whereabouts of a black concubine.
For an instant she saw him almost imperceptibly shake his head in perplexity. Then he looked up, smiling.
"If I positively knew her to be dead, Serrelinda, I would tell you as much: I hope that helps you."
"Then she is not?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you any more."
"Where is she? Is she--?" But here she checked herself. She dared not even imply that she knew about Fornis.
He smiled again and spread his hands, as though embarrassed by a question that she should really have known better than to ask.
She covered her lapse, speaking of other things, and a few minutes later thanked him and took her leave, the chief priest courteously wishing her all prosperity and summoning yet another priest to escort her from the temple.
"One more--oh, very trifling thing, my Guardian," she said.
He turned at the door.
"There is a young man here, serving a sentence. His name is Sednil. He used to be a friend of someone--well, of someone I know."
He smiled patiently. "I believe--I can't really be certain--that we have three or four men here--of that kind. My officer of the household would know, of course, and I'm sure he'd be very ready to talk with you. It would-- er--be most pleasant for him, I'm sure."
He was gone, leaving her, thus put out of countenance, to cover her embarrassment by conversing with the priest. They returned along the corridors and down the staircase.
Arrived in the principal interior court below, where numerous suppliants, priests and servants were coming and going about their business, she had just contrived some remark about the swallows flitting in and out under the cornice when suddenly she caught sight of Sednil emerging--in a furtive manner, or so it seemed--from a doorway opposite. He was stooping under a great pannier strapped to his back, which appeared to be full of masons' rubble or something of the sort.
It was, in fact, a few moments before she recognized him, but in those moments he had nevertheless already attracted her attention by reason of being easily the dirtiest and most wretched-looking person in the whole court. Indeed, it was rather startling to come upon such an object even casually present in a beautiful and imposing place designed and used expressly to confer credit on the city.
Maia, inclining graciously towards the priest as an indication of thanks and farewell, walked swiftly across the court and touched Sednil on the shoulder. Starting and jerking up his head, he plainly did not remember her for a moment. Then, uncertainly, and plainly not in the least knowing what he might have to expect, he said, "Maia! Well--of course I'd heard--" but on the instant broke off, turning away. She had the impression that if it had not been for the heavy basket he would have shrugged his shoulders.
"Sednil, listen; I want to help you--"
"O Cran!" he said. "Don't you start, too--"
"I mean it--"
"--Like Nan and all the rest. Why can't you let me alone?" Yet he made no further move to go.
As she hesitated he said, "I can't stop about here. You'll get me into--"
"Sednil, I must know; where's Occula? Tell me, quickly. Is she still here or not?"
"What's it to you?"
"Oh, Sednil! You want money? Aren't I your friend--"
He gave a quick, bitter laugh and seemed about to reply, but she cut him short.
"At least tell me if you know she's dead. Please!"
"I don't know she's dead."
"Then do you know she's alive?"
As though finally maddened by her insistence--f or she had him by the arm, and under the weight of the basket he could not break free--he burst out, "She was taken away by the queen's woman--the Palteshi woman. Now will you--"
"When? The same day as I was brought here?"
"No, the day after: the chief priest didn't want--"
At this moment a burly, scowling man in a sacking apron came hurrying out of the doorway near which they were standing, caught sight of Sednil and immediately dealt him a swinging buffet on the side of the head.
"What the hell d'you think you're doing? You know damned well you're not supposed to carry that stuff across this court, don't you? You lot go round the back, where you can't be seen. Just because that's heavy--next time I'll have you whipped--"
Maia, who had never been in a position of authority in her life, had in the first instant felt more cowed and caught in the wrong than Sednil, who looked about as startled as an ox by the all-too-familiar blows of its peasant master. Now, however, like someone suddenly remembering that she has unaccustomed money in her purse and therefore need no longer stand hungry outside the cookshop, she sprang into action. Looking the overseer--or whatever he was--straight in the eye, she said firmly, "It was me as called the man: I wanted to speak to him."
The overseer looked at her in surprise. The intervention of a priest or a noble being within his comprehension, he would have known his proper response, but girls who looked like demi-goddesses, clad in authority and diamonds, had not come his way before. After a few seconds he opened his mouth to reply, but had got no further than "Saiyett--" when Maia stayed him with an uplifted hand. "Please don't trouble yourself further; I shan't keep him a moment. You may leave us now."
She turned back to Sednil. "Then you think she's still with the queen?"
"Yes. Without she's dead she is."
There was a cough at her elbow: she turned to see the priest who had accompanied her down the staircase.