Plainly they did not know what to make of her youth, her Tonildan accent, the richness of her clothes and the authority and confidence of her manner. They stood looking back at her with stupid, hesitant grins of mingled bravado and uncertainty.
"Where do you come from?" she asked one of them sharply.
"Kabin--if it's any business of yours, dearie."
Neither was armed, but they could only, she thought, be part of the levy. She called to a passing tryzatt, who at once came over and saluted her.
"You know me, don't you?"
"Yes, of course, saiyett."
"These two men have been molesting my servant."
The tryzatt instantly felled one of the men with a blow to the stomach, spun the other round by his jerkin and slapped his face.
"Just leave them to me, saiyett: I'm sorry you've had the bother. Kabin's sent us up some right ones this time, and that's a fact."
Maia took Lokris by the arm, led her back to her jekzha, helped her in and told the men to go on.
After a few words of sympathy from her and thanks from Lokris, she asked, "But how do you come to be down here, Lokris? Whatever brought you into the market, any-way, at a time like this?"
Lokris explained that she had been fetching a fresh sup-ply of medicine for Milvushina.
"The doctor says she has to take it regularly, saiyett, but what with one thing and another I never noticed until last night that we were clean out. Of course I came straight down this morning, but the 'pothecary who's always made it up for her, his shop's shut and I couldn't make anyone hear. So I came on to this other man I know in the colonnade and simply went on knocking until he let me in."
"Well done!" said Maia. "Did you get it?"
"Oh, yes, thank you, saiyett. I'm very glad indeed for your help and for the lift back, too. To tell you the truth, I think the sooner I'm back the better."
"Nothing wrong, I hope?" asked Maia quickly.
Lokris lowered her voice, while at the same time her manner underwent a subtle change from that of a servant speaking to a lady to that of woman speaking to a woman.
"Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion's back," she said. "Did you know?"
"No, I didn't," answered Maia. "When?"
"Yesterday morning," said Lokris. "There was another officer with him, Captain Shend-Lador, and his own soldier-servant, and that was all. Seems they'd left the army in Lapan and been traveling four days, just the three of them. They came in by the Red Gate."
"The Red Gate?" asked Maia in amazement.
The Red Gate into the citadel, on the summit of Mount Crandor, was a low arch in the south wall of the city, through the whole width of which flowed a swift brook, the Daulis. The bed had been artificially deepened, making it impassable except to those who knew the subaqueous windings of a narrow causeway of living rock left standing about two feet below the surface. Shend-Lador, of course, as the son of the citadel commander, would be familiar with these.
"He didn't want--or else he didn't dare-to come through the city, you see," said Lokris. "His servant went round by the Peacock Gate and told the Lord General that was he waiting up by the falls--the W
hite Girls. So then a mesage was sent up to the citadel to open the Vent for them."
"How is Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion?" asked Maia.
Lokris looked round at her quickly, as though astonished to be asked and not immediately knowing how to reply.
After a moment she took refuge in a return to formality.
"What can I tell you, saiyett? He's taking it very badly, but of course that's no more than one would expect."
"Taking it badly?"
Lokris perceived that in certain respects the Serrelinda was still ingenuous.
"Saiyett, I don't know, of course, how much you've heard, but the truth is that Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion is as good as ruined. People are saying that he mismanaged the campaign in Chalcon so badly that a great many lives were lost that needn't have been. If it's true, hat's bad, of course, but it's not the worst of it for his reputation. The battle they lost--everyone says he actually ran away, and him supposed to be commander-in-chief. The captains deposed him and sent him home. And no one would even go along with him--only Captain Shend-Lador."
"Is the Lord General very much upset?" asked Maia.
"The Lord General refused to see him," answered Lok-ris. "He left to take over the command in Lapan this morning, and I heard that he meant to tell the army that Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion was no longer his son and he was going to disinherit him."
Maia's immediate feelings, as she recalled Elvair-ka-Virrion's invariable courtesy to the slave-girl she had once been and his kindness and help over the auction at the barrarz, were of indignation.
"I don't see as they've any call-" she was beginning, when their conversation was interrupted.
The jekzha-men had succeeded, with a good deal of difficulty, in getting round the north and part of the west side of the market-place. Near the Bronze Scales the Bek-lan regiment were drawn up, their ordered ranks and uniform breastplates forming an island of trim regularity in the surrounding commotion. The officers were standing together at one side, and Maia recognized three or four, including the commander, Kerith-a-Thrain, a soldier of exceptional prestige and distinction. They were all looking in one direction and, following their gaze, she saw the High Baron Durakkon himself, fully accoutred and accompanied by two or three aides, approaching from the Street of the Armourers. This, of course, was the direction in which she herself was going. The crowd had fallen back on either side, but after a moment's consideration Maia thought it best simply to tell her jekzha-men to halt where they were until the High Baron had passed.