"I doan' blame you," said her friend. Suddenly she threw back her head and laughed like the old, undauntable Occula, the canny girl on the way up. "But you reckoned I could, did you?"
Maia hesitated, then laughed too. "Well, I s'pose I reckoned you was a bit more professional, like."
For a moment Occula ground her teeth and her lip curled. "Oh, banzi, how right you were! Yes, I can do it all right. I give every bastin' satisfaction! This year's great success, you might say. My only problem is not to get a little too enthusiastic, you know? That'd be one way to finish my dirty work, wouldn' it? The most expensive way, and you might say what's expense, when it's for the peace of Zai's soul and the honor of our family? But banzi, I mean to get what I want cheaper than that, believe you me. I'm going to walk up out of the underworld on my two feet, like Kantza-Merada, you wait and see if I doan'."
As Maia, only half-comprehending, looked into the familiar, dark, slightly bloodshot eyes under their silvered lids, she added, "Of course you know everythin' now, doan' you? Pretty well everythin', anyway."
"You mean, what you did--that night---Sencho--"
"Of course."
"Yes, I think so. But Occula, was it planned--well, right from the start? From the Lily Pool?"
"Never you mind about the Lily Pool, banzi. That's neither here nor there. Less you know, less risk you run, right?"
"But you couldn't have known we were going to be sold to Sencho--"
"No, I didn'," replied Occula. "Unless there's somethin' I doan' know about, that was just a bit of luck. Lalloc's no heldro, you can be sure of that: he sold us to Sencho in the way of business. Still--" she grinned--"it wasn' entirely unlikely, was it? Couple of nice girls like us, and old Piggy's well-known tastes."
"But you knew about Zirek, the pedlar?"
"Not a thing, until he started talkin' about Cat Colonna. But after that, of course, and once word had got back where we'd landed up, banzi--"
"Got back? To whom?"
"Why, toUantil, of course."
Maia, lying in her friend's arms, was silent, reflecting. A great many things were becoming clear in retrospect. At last she said, "So it was Meris with Zirek that day, by the Peacock Gate."
She felt Occula nod, and went on, "Where's the two of them got to now, then?"
"I doan' know," said the black girl grimly. "I only hope they're better off than I am, that's all. But I've got another job to do, banzi, you see, before Zai's soul'll be at peace. Why d'you think I stayed in the boat when I could have bunked with them? I've not finished yet---not finished the goddess's work."
The next instant she had burst out laughing, rolling over on her back and tugging at Maia's dress. "Come on, sweetheart, let's have a look at you! That Ashaktis woman told me you'd been ripped from head to foot in the Valderra. Were you?" She pulled the dress over Maia's head, followed by her shift. "Oh, Shakkarn, not a bit of it! Just one or two nice, honorable scars, enough to make a few jolly lads want to kiss 'em better, eh? That's my banzi! What you goin' to be, now you're back? Remember what we used to say at old Piggy's--thousand meld a bounce!"
"I know: but somehow I just don't fancy it, Occula. Anyway I don't need money--not at the moment, any road."
"Doan' talk so wet-headed, banzi. A girl can always do with twice the money she's got: firs' law of the universe. Think of your old age."
"Well, 'tain't just exactly that--" Maia, halfway through dressing again, hesitated. She longed to pour out to Occula the whole story of Suba, to tell her of Zen-Kurel and ask her advice. But was there time?
Soon Zuno would return: soon she must be gone.
"No, why the hell should you?" said Occula unexpectedly. "You saved the city, didn' you? Why not stick to your dancin'--for a bit, anyway? You can well afford to."
"But Occula, dearest, how can you be so pleased that I saved the city? If only Karnat had got here--"
"Karnat, banzi? No, 'course we doan' want Karnat takin' Bekla. Santit's goin' to take Bekla--Santil and no one else."
"But what's it to you either way? You're not Beklan."
"No, no. But you know me, banzi; girl on the make-- always was. Karnat--I doan' know Karnat an' he doesn' know me. But Santil--I'm one of his most successful agents, aren' I? If only I'm still alive when Santil takes Bekla, he might give me a nice, big piece of thrilsa for helpin' him, doan' you think? A bigger piece than ever Karnat would. Or a pottery cat, even. Pottery cat? Oh, Cran, I almost forgot! Banzi, can you do somethin'; without fail? I was goin' to try and do it some other way, but now you're here it seems providential. Tell me, d'you often go into the lower city?"
"No, not often, but I can do."
"Do you remember the old woman in the sweet-shop, that day you were with Eud-Ecachlon? Well, go down there and tell her to clear out; now, at once! Tell her I said to get out like shit from a goose, right? This last lot of arrests in Tonilda--oh, never mind. But you must do it tomorrow, banzi! Promise me!"
"But the people, Occula! They always crowd me so. Couldn't I send Ogma? She's with me in my house now, you know."
"Ogma's not the girl to let in on a thing like this: it wouldn' be safe. But if it's not done before this time tomorrow, it'll be too late. It was only the purest stroke of luck I found out myself. Fornis doesn' always keep her mouth shut, thank Cran: 'specially when she's enjoyin' the prospect of a little cruelty. It's not just her life--the-old woman's, I mean--it's a hell of a lot of other people's, too, believe me."
"I'll do it, darling," said Maia.
There was a tap at the door and Zuno returned.
"Precious banzi," said Occula, embracing her, "come again if you can--it's like a drink of water in the desert-but be very careful. Zuno'll let you know when it's safe--" she turned to him--"woan' you?"
"Yes, I will," he said. "But now she must go, and quickly too. The queen's due back any minute."
They reached the foot of the stairs--Maia once more wrapped in the hooded cloak--to find Lalloc chatting with a gray-haired, elderly woman in the stone-floored store-room.
"You may take this--ah--young woman back with you, U-Lalloc," said Zuno. "I've talked with her, and I'm afraid she wouldn't do for the Sacred Queen."
"Some people don't know when they're lucky," said the old woman drily. She stood up, selected a key from her belt and unlocked the door into the courtyard.
57: MILVUSHINA TRANSFORMED
In her delight and relief at being with Occula once more, the change in her friend had not a
t once struck Maia. It did so later, however--and forcefully--as she lay awake in her great, soft bed, hearing the scarcely-audible lapping of the Barb and the intermittent calling of plovers from the slopes of Crandor beyond. It was now, in darkness and solitude, that she realized that, more than the warnings of Sessendris and Nennaunir, more than the urbane dissimulation of the chief priest, Occula's air of strain and urgency, of having little time to spare in a taut conflict against odds, had stirred in herself a true sense of impending danger. If Occula was afraid, then indeed there must be something to be afraid of. Maia found herself recalling the mysterious, hypnotic ascendancy which the black girl had exercised over Sencho during the last weeks of his life, at one and the same time inducing apathy and soothing petulance, bringing him step by step to a state of dependency on herself in which he had all but connived at his own death. She recalled, too, with an understanding denied to her then, what it had cost Occula spiritually to exert this influence, to exploit Sencho's cunning, vicious temperament so subtly that he had indulged himself in her ministrations without once coming to suspect what awaited him. She remembered the night when, for all the world like some highly-strung hinnarist driven to desperation by an intricate passage, Occula had given way to hysteria in the belief that she had lost her power to prevail upon the High Counselor and incline him to her will.
How much more discerning and deadly an antagonist must be the Sacred Queen! And if Occula was up to the hilt in nothing less than the planned overthrow of the Leopard regime by the heldril, then she, Maia, must even now be standing on the lip of the same abyss. She had supposed--the kindly Sendekar had assured her--that she was returning to fame and fortune, the darling of the city, of all girls in the empire the most to be envied. To the recent warnings of her friends her reply had been, in effect, that she would take good care to sing small and keep out of harm's way. Yet now, at Occula's behest, she had promised to take a step--if only a small one--which, if ever it were to come to light, would condemn her outright as an agent of Santil-ke-Erketlis.