Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

"Poor JarviFs dead," replied Maia. "And so are the two soldiers."

"Then they must have gone, miss." Ogma stood up hesitantly, clutching Maia's arm.

"You'd be the better for some djebbah," said Maia. "Come downstairs with me." It was clear to her now that Ogma, though badly shocked, was able to walk and in no danger of bleeding to death.

Together they went down to the kitchen. The fire was still in: Mai put on more wood. It did not occur to either of them to leave the house or run away. Maia, indeed, was beyond all deliberation and hardly knew what she was doing. She searched through two or three cupboards for the djebbah before catching sight of it in full view on an open shelf. The bite of the liquor cleared her head and partly pulled her round.

She poured some for Ogma and made her sip it until it was all gone. The girl still sobbed and whimpered, fingering her bound-up cuts. Once, when a wood-knot exploded in the fire, she leapt up with a cry of fear.

Maia fetched a stool, sat down facing her and took her hands.

"Now; tell me what happened, Ogma." There was no pause in the girl's weeping and Maia shook her gently. "Come on, dear, pull yourself together! You must tell me!"

"Oh, Miss Maia--Lord Randronoth--" She stopped.

"What about him? Come on, Ogma, tell me!"

"Well, I'd just lit the lamps, miss, and put them round the house like I always do, when he came in from the garden, dressed just in his breeches. He seemed--oh, ever so angry and put out, like. So I asked him were you coming in to supper now, but he never answered me: he just went up to your bedroom and shut the door. So then I didn't know what to do, miss, and I went down the garden to look for you, but I couldn't find you: just your clothes, like, laying on the ground. I didn't know what to think. I was frightened."

Ogma stopped as though she had no more to say. She was clearly still in a state of shock, ready to retreat into stupor from her own recollections. Maia shook her again.

"Ogma! You can't go to sleep now? Go on!"

Ogma rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. "When I came back--when I came back into the house, miss, the soldiers--the soldiers asked where you were and I said I didn't know. So then they said Lord Randronoth had told them to watch from the roof and wake him when the soldiers came--"

"The Lapanese soldiers, you mean? Count Seekron?"

"I don't know, miss. They didn't say--just 'the soldiers'. But then they said, 'We'll have a drink first. Bring us some wine in the parlor,' they said. Well, I knew that was wrong, Miss Maia, but I was frightened of them, you see, and I didn't know where you were or when you was coming back, like, so I did what they told me. I'm sorry, miss--"

"That doesn't matter now. Just go on."

"Well, I brought the wine, miss--only not the best, it wasn't: I thought for the likes of them--"

"Oh, never mind that! What happened, for Cran's sake?"

"Well, miss, they got to drinking, see, in the parlor, and then there come a knock, and I don't know why, I reckoned it might be you, though why you'd be knocking on your own door, but I wasn't really thinking, see--"

"So then?"

"Well, then I went to the door, miss, and Jarvil had opened the panel, see, to look who it was, and then he shut it and he turns round to me and he says, 'I don't know what to do,' he says. 'It's the Sacred Queen.' "

"The Sacred Queen!" cried Maia incredulously. "That's not possible! She's miles away, out on the plain, this very minute."

"No, miss: I looked out and it was the Sacred Queen there; her and a big, rough-looking man dressed like an officer, miss, and the queen was sort of dressed up like a soldier, too, and they was all covered with dust, like they'd come a long way; and the queen, she calls out, very angry-like, 'How much longer am I to be kept waiting?' she says. 'Are you going to open this door or do you want to hang upside-down?' she says. Oh, and when I looked out through the panel, the way she looked back at me, miss, it frightened me that much, you can't imagine--"

"Oh, yes, I can! Well, so what happened then?"

"I opened the door, miss, and--"

"You opened the door?"

"Yes, miss. Well, you weren't there to ask, see, and she was that angry, I didn't know what else to do--"

"Ogma, did you know that she hates me and wants to kill me? That she has done for weeks?"

"No, I didn't know, miss: I'd no idea. Leastways, not then I hadn't--"

Maia could scarcely believe her ears. Bitterly, she recalled the advice of Nennaunir and her other friends about engaging a shrewd, quick-witted woman to run her household.

"Well, go on."

"Well, the moment I opened the door, miss, they both pushed past me and the big man put his hand over JarviPs mouth and stabbed him with his knife. And then the queen, she grabbed me and pulled my head back and she had a knife, too, and she says, 'You make a sound,' she says, 'and I'll cut your throat.' But then after a moment she said, 'Now, you tell me where Randronoth and Maia are,' and she was holding this knife against my throat, miss, and she said, 'Are they upstairs?' and I said, 'Yes! Yes!' Only I was that frightened I hardly knew what I was saying, you see, "So then she said, 'You come with me and show me,' she said. She twisted my arm up behind me, miss, and she put her hand over my mouth and we went upstairs like that. And the big man, he'd drawn his sword and he went into the parlor. But I never heard no more of that, see, because when we got upstairs she never asked me which door nor nothing, she just threw open your bedroom door and there was Lord Randronoth laying on the bed, kind of half-awake, like. So then she gave me a great push against the wall as fair winded me, and she ran straight across and began stabbing at Lord Randronoth--oh, it was that dreadful, miss, I can't tell you no more, really I can't--"

"If I can hear it, you can tell it. Go on, Ogma!"

"Oh, the blood! The blood everywhere, miss, and the queen, she was--she was shouting and laughing, and she kept stabbing him again and again, and then she sort of rubbed all her hands and her arms and face, miss, with the blood, and then she sat down beside him on the bed and she very near cut his head off--I never seen--I never dreamt--laughing all the time--"

Ogma became hysterical. When at length Maia had been able to restore her to something faintly resembling self-possession she went on, "So then the queen come back to me, miss; only I was standing against the wall, you see, and I was screaming. And she says, 'Stop that,' she says, 'or I'll stop it for you.' And then the big man, he come up the stairs and his sword all covered with blood, and he says to her, 'I've finished; have you?' And she says, 'No, not yet. I'm only half-done,' she says.

"She was holding me by the hair, miss, and she says, 'Where's Maia?' And I said, 'I don't know.' So then she cut me with her knife and she says again, "Where's Maia?' and I says, 'I don't know!' So she was cutting me, and every time I said, 'I don't know! I don't know!' she cut me, miss, and she--well, it was like she'd been drinking or something o' that; she was--she was kind of staring and excited and--oh, I can't rightly tell. So then at last she said, 'Would you like me to put your nasty little eyes out?' she said: and I screamed out, 'I don't know, saiyett; I swear I don't know! I only know she's not here.'

"So then the big man, he says, 'Oh, come on, Fornis. It's obvious she doesn't know: we're only wasting time. You can kill Maia later: we've got to be going.'

"So then the queen said to me, 'Shall I kill youf No, you're not worth killing, are you? You'll be able to tell dear Maia all about it, won't you?' Or--or 'twas something like that, miss, as she said, but tell you the truth I don't just rightly remember. So then they went away--I remember that--but I don't remember anything else until I heard you downstairs. I must 'a just gone off, like."

While Ogma was speaking, Maia's sense of unreality and nightmare had intensified. She sat staring before her, trying to get her thoughts into frame. How could Fornis be in Bekla? Obviously she must be, yet it seemed impossible. Did Eud-Ecachlon know? And she herself--what was she to do now? Where could she go for safety?

At this moment sh

e heard light, hurried footsteps com-ing through the porch and into the hall. For a few moments she sat petrified. Then Occula's voice called, "Banzi! Banzi, are you here?"

Maia jumped up and ran out into the hall. Occula, dressed in a leather tunic and breeches, with a knife at her belt, was standing in the parlor doorway, staring at what lay within. Hearing Maia, she drew the knife and spun round quickly, then ran forward and took her in her arms.

"Oh, banzi,thank the gods! I thought--oh, never mind--"

"What is it, Occula? What's happened?"

"Never mind that, either! There's no time to talk! Banzi, you've got to get out fast! Get out now! Understand? Now!"

"But where to, Occula?"

"There are people who'll help you. Listen to me carefully."

"But Occula--"

Ogma had come into the hall; a pitiful sight, crying and wringing her hands, her arms bound with strips of bloody toweling. Occula stamped her foot with impatience.

"I've no time, banzi, for Cran's bastin' sake! Your life's in deadly danger! Shut up and listen! Have you got any money?"

"Yes, plenty. But--"

"Then take it all with you. Now understand this. You're not to go by the Peacock Gate or you'll be killed, d'you see? Fornis has got men there. Go across, quick as you can, to the western walls. If you meet a sentry, bribe him. They're all old watchmen, anyway: there's very few soldiers left in the place, except Fornis's--"