Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

He looked up with a puzzled expression, as though taking what she had said seriously and considering it. He'd always been a bit slow, she recalled. "I was only teasing, Euda. I'm sorry you've got all these problems, honest I am. I cert'nly wouldn't like to have to govern a province-- any province."

"Oh--wouldn't you? Wouldn't you really?" He looked up at her earnestly, with a kind of concern in his voice. He really was a funny old chap, she thought.

"Well, that's one thing I'm not likely to find myself doing, so I needn't worry, need I? Euda, tell me, Anda-Nokomis--that's to say, Bayub-Otal--will they let him out, do you think? Is that what you came to talk to me about? Could I help? I mean, if your poor old father's dying, like you say--"

"WeH, that's one thing, that's part of it, yes." He paused. "Yes, of course, I came to see Kembri. Urtah's a divided province and that's its trouble, I suppose; and it's the Leopards' trouble too--they can't rely on it as they'd like to. Suba--it was Kembri and Fornis who sold it to Karnat, you know. Then my brother tried to get it back for himself--and the price was helping Karnat to take Bekla." (But he must know I know all this, she thought.) "And he'd have succeeded too, if you hadn't stopped him. What that would have meant for Urtah nobody knows, do they, since it didn't happen?"

As Ogma came in to clear away the dinner, Maia led Eud-Ecachlon back into the garden.

"But all most people in Urtah want is a quiet life," he continued, as they strolled down towards the Barb.

"Like most people anywhere, I suppose. You see, it's eight or nine years now since Suba was given to Karnat, and what's Suba to an Urtan farmer with his beasts to feed and his harvest to get in? But then, on the other hand, there's my poor old father. He loves Bayub-Otal, and ever since the fight at Rallur he's been breaking his heart to think of him shut up in that fortress at Dari-Paltesh. I believe that's what's killing him--the uncertainty. We've been entreating Kembri for months to pardon Bayub-Otal, simply so that the old man can die in peace. But Kembri doesn't trust us, it seems. He doesn't trust Urtah not to try to regain Suba, not to use Bayub-Otal against Bekla."

"And you want me to try to persuade him: is that it?"

"Oh, no, Maia. No, no, that isn't why I came at all." Eud-Ecachlon came to a kind of indeterminate stop in his walk, looking down and kicking with one foot at the grass. "They all think the world of you in Urtah, you know. Oh, yes, everybody does, I assure you." .

"Well, I must say you do surprise me, Euda, saying that. I'd have thought--well, you know--the girl who put paid to poor Anda-Nokomis--"

"Oh, no, Maia, no; the girl who stopped the bloodshed and saved Uriah from Karnat. That was what you did it for, wasn't it? That's what I was told you've always said, anyway; that you did it to stop the bloodshed."

"So I did. I've nothing against Anda-Nokomis--leastways, not any more. I'd be real glad to hear as he'd been let out. Time 'twas all forgot, I reckon."

They had almost reached the shore, and she turned aside to that same marble seat where she had sat to listen to Randronoth's emissary Seekron.

"Of course," said Eud-Ecachlon, looking out across the water, "I've never been married, you know. I was betrothed to Fornis once--did you know that? It was--oh, long ago now, when we were both young; before her father died, and before the Leopards came to power. I was in love with her. Can you believe that? I thought she was wonderful--a girl like a goddess. Her father, Kephialtar of Paltesh--he wanted the marriage, but she didn't. She took her father's boat on the Zhairgen and sailed it two hundred miles to Quiso. You've heard the story, I expect."

"I've--yes, well, I've heard something about it, Euda, of course. But 'twas all before I was born, you know. Want my opinion, though, I reckon you were lucky. Married to Fornis? Doesn't bear thinking about, does it?"

He gave a short laugh. "You're right, Maia, of course. But somehow that business knocked the stuffing out of me. You know--to be made a fool of, publicly, by someone you love, when you're young and--well, ardent, I suppose you'd say. Somehow I never could face the idea of marriage after that. Of course it's always disappointed my father; worried him, too. The succession, you know."

Maia, while not unsympathetic, was now beginning to wonder how she could tactfully bring about his departure, for she had half-promised Milvushina a visit that afternoon. She had been afraid that after dinner he might make advances to her, perhaps reminding her how she had once been all fervor, speaking of his return and crying "Soon, soon, soon!" However, he hadn't, which saved a lot of trouble.

Perhaps now was the time to ask him to be sure to join her supper-party the evening after tomorrow and bid him good-bye until then. She began "Euda--"

But he was still speaking. "I've always known I haven't really got what anyone would call great powers of leadership--not for a ruler, that is. People don't actually dislike me, but they don't fall down and offer to die for me, either; not like the Terekenalters for Karnat, or even the Subans for Bayub-Otal, come to that. But with a girl like you-- well, they'd only have to see you, wouldn't they?"

She was still preoccupied with what she had been about to say. "I'm sorry, Euda, I'm afraid I wasn't just exactly following you."

He turned beside her on the seat and took her hand.

"My father would rest in peace. And you-p-you've got dangerous enemies here--it's common knowledge. You'd have none, would you? And it would do more than anything else to reconcile Urtah to Bekla."

She started up from beside him. "What are you saying, Euda?"

"And I've already put it to Kembri that as part of the arrangement--as a sign of the Leopards' approval and goodwill--he should release Bayub-Otal on a firm promise that he'll give no more trouble. Kembri said he felt sure you'd be delighted. You'd realize, he said, that the arrangement would solve all manner of problems, for you and for Bekla. But apart from that, to be the first lady in the land--"

"Euda, are you asking me to marry you?"

"I'm asking you to marry me and to become High Baroneness of Urtah: for the sake of my people and myself. That's why I came to Bekla. And I assure you it's with my father's full approval."

Moaning, she sank down on the grass, her face buried in her hands. "O Cran! O Cran and Airtha!"

He stroked her hair. "What's the matter? It's a shock, Maia, is that it? I suppose I've done it clumsily. I'm afraid I'm not stylish and dashing, like Elvair-ka-Virrion---I know that. I'm just a held

ro; I don't know how you go about these things in Bekla--"

"No, no; 'tain't that. Oh, I dunno what to say! You can't want me --a girl from Sencho's---"

"Don't talk like that! That's all past and over! I'm speaking to the renowned, heroic beauty Maia Serrelinda." Then, as she said no more, her face still in her hands, he went on, "Are you afraid of it? You shouldn't be. Do you know what they think of you in Urtah? Let me tell you something. Only the other day, on my way here, I was talking to one of my principal tenants, a prosperous farmer down towards the southwest of the province. It seems his daughter knows you--a girl called Gehta. She met you when you were with Bayub-Otal on the way to Suba. 'She saved us all,' he said. 'I'd give her half my farm if she asked me for it. Why, if once those Terekenalters had got across--' "

With a dazed air, Maia, who could scarcely take in what he was saying, rose to her feet. "I--can I think it over, my lord? I need time--"

"Does it need thinking over? To be High Baroness of Urtah?"

"I--oh, don't think as I don't feel all the honor you're doing me, Euda. No, it's--"

"I'm old, is that it? The upper city's smart and gay--"

"Oh, don't talk like that, my lord! It's not right for a high baron's heir to be talking like that--"

"Perhaps it's not. No, you're right, of course. Well, you'd be able to change me a good deal, I expect; a girl like you. If ever there was a girl who was obviously favored by the gods--"

Maia, realizing that with this rather awkward, insensitive man their talk could hardly come to an end unless she were to bring it about herself, made a supreme effort to regain her composure.

"You'll understand, my lord--Euda--that this is all a surprise to me; unexpected, like. I feel sort of confused. I can't talk any more just now. Would you mind leaving me?"

"But what shall I tell Kembri?" he asked.

At this she could flare up, her tongue loosened naturally and spontaneously.

"Kembri? What in Lespa's name has Kembri got to do with it? This is between you and me, isn't it?"

He took it without a retort. "I'm sorry. When shall I see you again?"