Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

Now he suddenly assumed a kind of stilted, homespun dignity and authority, like that of a gate-porter or a domestic steward. Perhaps, after all, he had not been made governor of the prison for nothing.

"Saiyett, little as you may wish it, I must request you to come back to my room, for I have something to say to you of a private nature. I regret to inform you that you have no choice, for the gates are locked and I can't let you leave until you've heard me. I've no wish to hurry you, however. You can either come with me now or stay here and come as soon as you feel ready."

"Very well," she said, "I'll come. But before I do--" She pointed to Tharrin. "Bring someone now--now! --to close his eyes and lay him out properly. And then see that he's treated decently and burned as he should be. I'll pay for everything. Will you promise me that?"

"Yes, saiyett: in fact I'll go and see to it at once." He went out, and she heard him call a name: there were footsteps and muttered instructions, too low for her to catch the words.

They walked back together in silence. Once Maia stopped short, clutching the governor's arm as from somewhere not far off sounded a scream. He only grasped her wrist and led her on, through the iron-bound door and back down the passage to his room. Here she was overcome by a fresh seizure of grief; but now, from very exhaustion, she wept almost silently, sitting at the table, her head on her arms.

At length, regaining some degree of composure, she said in a voice of cold accusation, "U-Pokada, when I first came here, the day before yesterday.'you asked me whether I'd brought poison, and told me as you had to make sure prisoners didn't kill themselves."

He nodded, looking at her with pursed lips, like a man with something on his mind and unsure whether to tell it or not.

"Tharrin had no reason to hang himself. So if one of your men didn't hang him, who did, and why? And how did he get a rope?"

Still he said nothing, and she burst out, "I warn you, U-Pokada, I'm going to make a public matter of it. I'm going to see you ruined for this." She snatched up the parchment, which was still lying where he had left it on the table. "Here's a pardon, sealed by the Sacred Queen herself, for a man who was in your charge--"

He was trembling now, the big, fleshy hulk of a man, fear written all over him, even his silver earrings shaking in his head.

"Saiyett--saiyett--"

"Yes?" But he said no more. "Well, what?"

"Saiyett, I tell you--what I'm going to tell you--it--it puts my life in your hands. I tell you, and perhaps you get me hanged upside-down--if I tell you--"

"You mean you did murder him?"

"No, saiyett, no? I didn't murder him, no! I'll tell you the truth, I'll trust my life to you because I believe what everybody says, that you're a kind-hearted, good lady. Once you know the truth, then you're not going to be angry any more, you're not going to ruin me, because you're just and fair--"

She stamped her foot. "Stop this stupid nonsense! Say what you have to say and get on with it!"

Pokada, having shut and locked the door, went over to the window, which he closed after peering outside. Then he sat down on the bench beside the table.

"Saiyett," he whispered, "do you know a Palteshi woman in the upper city? A woman close to the Sacred Queen?"

"Ashaktis, do you mean? A dark, middle-aged woman, with a Palteshi accent?"

"Sh! Saiyett, sh! We've got to whisper--"

Still angry, but nevertheless affected by his fear, she lowered her voice. "Well? What about Ashaktis, then?"

"Saiyett, it was very early this morning: it was only just light. I was up, with two of my men, preparing for the executions. Only there are things we navesto see to--the priests come--well, I don't need to tell you about that. But then Elindir, the man on the gate, he comes and beckons me to one side, so no one else can hear, and he says there's a woman come; and then he gives me a note with the queen's seal which says I'm to see her at once. But Elindir says she won't come further than the gate."

He stopped, as though expecting Maia to reply. She said nothing and after a few moments he resumed.

"I went to the gate-house and there was the woman all muffled up--her face, too--nothing I could know her by again except her voice, her Palteshi accent. She said no one was to know that she'd gone into the prison. She hid behind a curtain while I called Elindir and told him she'd left. She told me to do that, and then to send him away again on some errand.

"Then she showed me another note from the queen, saying that I was to take her to the prisoner Tharrin in his cell. No one was to see her on the way. So I sent away the two men who were waiting for the priests, and took her to Tharrin myself. He was sleeping, saiyett, and when I woke him he smiled and said 'Is it Maia come?'

"The woman told me to go away and wait up the passage, by the far door. And then after--oh, not very long, saiyett--five minutes, I suppose--she came back up the passage and she said 'Now give me back both those notes.' So then she had both the notes herself, you see, and I took her back to the gate and let her out. And the last thing she said, saiyett, she said 'If the queen gets to hear one word from any living soul about my coming here, you'll hang upside-down, do you understand?'

"And then, not ten minutes later, we found Tharrin dead, just like you saw. Seven years, saiyett, seven years I've been governor here and not one condemned man has ever been able to kill himself before."

Still Maia said nothing. "Saiyett, I've told you because you said you'd see me ruined. But now you know the truth, you won't want to do that, will you? If the Sacred Queen gets to hear--"

"No, I won't say anything, U-Pokada," replied Maia listlessly. She stood up. "I'll go now. Come to the gate with me, please."

"Saiyett," he said, "there's one thing you can comfort yourself with. At least you saved him from worse: he didn't have to go to the temple. And you and I, We're no worse off, are we, as long as we both say nothing?"

Her jekzha was gone, and rather than wait while another was fetched she put up her veil and walked away, down through the reeking lanes of the Shilth towards the Sheldad. Whether anyone spoke to her or tried to accost her she had no idea. In the Sheldad she found a jekzha and returned to the upper city.

65: A GLIMPSE DOWN THE PIT

The knife-blade was strong--too strong to bend or break on bone--and its point was very sharp.

When she had told him that she would only need it for an hour, Brero had lent it to her without asking any questions. It was belted on her left side and her cloak hid it completely.

She had put her diamonds in their box and buried it in the garden. She would have liked to give them away--to Occula or even to Nennaunir--but that would have meant explanations and anyway there was no time. Delay was the last thing endurable now.

Nevertheless she set out on foot, partly because she did not want her soldiers to be accused, later, of having known where she was going, but principally because she wanted to feel herself alone with her purpose, deliberate and si-lent, pacing down the avenues and flower-bordered walks of the upper city.

Behind her the Barb glinted in the mid-morning sunshine and the gray-green shadows on Crandor deepened as the sun moved southward above the summit.

I was born dirt-poor, she thought. I was sold for a slave and I shall have died mistress of my own house in the upper city. Nothing's going to alter that.

This time she did not make her way to the garden of the queen's house, but straight to the further gate, where the porter, recognizing the Serrelinda as readily as would any other servant in the upper city, was prompt to accept both her five meld and her telling him that she had an appointment to see U-Zuno.

Slowly, as though in a dream, she walked across the courtyard towards the side, stone front--the way she had come with Ashaktis on the morning when the Sacred Queeri had taken her from Kembri. She met no one, but this did not surprise her. If, as she believed, the gods had appointed her their agent, then the gods would ensure that she was not hindered.

Climbing the broad steps, she paused a few momen

ts before raising and letting fall the heavy, bronze knocker. It was bigger than her own hand, made to represent a crouching leopard. The sound, plangent and resonant, pleased her. Just so should the arrival be announced of an emissary of retribution.

Yet it was not Zuno but a very ordinary servant who opened the door; a middle-aged, stooping, graybearded man; some house-slave, it would seem, who had merely happened to be working near-by, for he was wearing a sacking apron, in the front of which he had stuck his duster and hearth-brush.

"Her Sacred Majesty's--" he began, before she had spoken.

"Are you the servant whose duty it is to answer this door?" she asked, staring at him coldly and haughtily.