Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

"There's no hard feelings as far as I'm concerned, Maia."

"Hard feelings, Zirek? Why should there be?"

"Well, you saved the damned Leopards all right, didn't you, swimming the river? But just speaking personally, I wouldn't have cared to see the empire fall to Karnat: I'd rather see it fall to Santil. Perhaps it will now, if only the gods are kind. Besides, you helped us kill Sencho, didn't you, even if you didn't know it at the time? So I say, no hard feelings."

Magnanimity sat strangely on him, she thought. In his rags and pallor he looked squalid as any beggar.

But he was clean---life in the upper city had made her sensitive and fastidious on this score--and there was something about him which suggested that in spite of everything he had retained both humor and self-respect.

"I knew all along as it must 'a been you and Meris," she said. " 'Cos d'you know, I saw you, that same morning in the crowd at the Peacock Gate? But what beats me is, however did you get away? I reckoned you must be dead for sure."

"It was the tryzatt on the western wall that night," he answered. "He was a Tonildan, you see, who'd been a servant of Senda-na-Say. It was all arranged beforehand: he got us out along the rampart. He was never suspected, and for all I know he's still in the service."

"And you've been hiding here ever since? All these months?"

"Yes, and I'm basting near mad with it!" broke in Meris. "I wish to Cran I'd never said I'd do it! Oh, Maia, you can't imagine--"

"Steady, love," said Zirek. "It's over now, good as. We're going to get out tonight, remember? We owe everything to N'Kasit here," he went on, turning back to Maia. "He's hidden us all this time, and he didn't stand to get anything out of it. Once we'd done the job, you see, we were no further use to the heldril."

"Well, even I'm not quite as canny as that," said N'Kasit, with the trace of a smile. "All the same," he said to Maia, 'it was touch and go more than once. It's not easy to search a place like this, of course--full of holes and corners piled up with stuff--but Kembri's lot were very thorough and they came back more than once. Luckily, I've got a good reputation. The Leopards think I'm a loyal, reliable army contractor."

"And what the hell are you doing here, Maia?" asked Meris, in none too friendly a tone.

"I want to get out of Bekla with you," replied Maia.

Meris stared, bunking and twitching. N'Kasit broke in, "She's got good reason. Fornis reached Bekla this afternoon; her and Han-Glat--"

"Fornis?" cried Zirek. "Never!"

"Yes; so the Serrelinda's just told me. I know it seems incredible, but isn't everything about that woman incredible? She" (he pointed to Maia) "got home this evening to find Randronoth of Lapan and her own porter murdered and her house turned upside-down. And she was lucky, at that: they missed her. Occula sent her here to us."

"Occula? That girl's got more courage than all the rest of us put together," said Zirek. "But you say you want to come with us, Maia? That's a shade awkward, is that."

"But I can't go on my own, Zirek. Please--"

"Well, the trouble is, everyone knows you by sight, don't they? And Fornis is sure to have left orders at the gates. They'll obey her all right, you can be sure of that. Eud-Ecachlon'll be no match for her; he may even be dead already."

"Seekron might be a match for her, though."

"Seekron? Who's he?"

Maia told them of Randronoth's plan to seize the city and what she had already seen from the western ramparts.

"Cran alive! That alters things!" said Zirek. "Couldn't be better for us, N'Kasit, could it? Eud-Ecachlon, Fornis and Seekron all at each other's throats. The whole place'll be--"

"There's another thing, Zirek," broke in Maia. "I've got money with me--a fair old bit, too--reckon you'll find it come in useful." She smiled. "I suppose you could have it off me and then go by yourselves, but I hope you won't."

"Cran and Airtha, what d'you take me for?" he replied with a touch of asperity. Then he grinned, recalling the jaunty lad who had come to sell his gew-gaws to Sencho's concubines. "The money'll come in handy, I dare say, but it's the pleasure of your company that makes such a delightful prospect, m'dear. You never know, we might even need a swimmer, too, 'fore we're done. How soon do we start, N'Kasit?"

"Soon as you like," replied N'Kasit. ''But remember, Zirek, it was your own decision to take the Serrelinda. I didn't force it on you, and I don't want anyone saying later that I did."

"You must be the only man in Bekla who's ever thought of her company as being forced on anyone," replied Zirek. "You cold old fish! I hope you make your fortune! You deserve to. When Santil gets here, he'll cart you off to the upper city and make you a baron, I expect." He took the merchant's hands in his own. "Thanks for all you've done. May the gods bless you! What more can I say? I hope we meet again one of these days. Can you give us some good, stout shoes, and perhaps a bite of food to take along with us?"

"Shoes--you're in the right place for those, and cloaks too," said N'Kasit. "They can come out of stock. The food'll have to be bread and cheese--what there is of it."

Twenty minutes later, Malendik having been sent out to look up and down the street, Maia, Meris and Zirek slipped unobtrusively out of a side door and set off down-hill towards the alleys of the Shilth.

86: "OPPORTUNITY IS ALL"

It was no more than three hundred yards to the gate of the gaol. As they reached it Maia stopped and turned to Zirek. "I'm going in here, Zirek. It won't take long."

"Why, what the hell d'you mean, Maia? This is the gaol, for Airtha's sake!"

"I know; that's 'zackly why I'm going in. The Ban of Suba's in there. Fornis brought him up here as a hostage, but he's coming out with us now."

"Maia, have you gone stark, raving mad? It can't be done! What makes you think they'll hand him over to you?"

"Money," she answered. "Come on, quick; let's get it over with."

"You didn't say anything about this to N'Kasit, did you?"

"No; but I'm going in all the same. You can either come with me or wait out here."

"But--but it doesn't make sense, Maia! If it wasn't for what you did at the river, he'd never have been taken prisoner at all, would he?"

"Maybe," she said, "but sometimes things change. Are you coming or not?"

It was Meris who replied. "No, we're not: you'll never come out of there alive, Maia. You might as well go and give yourself up to Fornis straight away."

Maia looked at Zirek, but he only nodded in corroborat

ion. Without another word she turned and left them, walking resolutely across the road and up to the gate of the gaol without once looking back.

The mucous-eyed, listless gatekeeper was on duty in his lodge. She gave him twenty meld. Once, she thought, it was nothing at all: then it was five. You pay your own fear.

"I have to see U-Pokada at once: I'll wait in his room."

The stuffy little room was in darkness and she made the man leave her his lamp. She could not sit still, but paced up and down--five steps this way, five that--praying passionately to Lespa, yet hardly knowing what she was saying in her tension and anxiety.

At length the door opened and Pokada appeared with a second lamp, wiping his dyed beard with the back of his hand. Evidently she had interrupted his supper. His manner suggested none of his former obsequiousness. He shut the door behind him, bowed and stood waiting without a word.

"I hope I find you well, U-Pokada," she said.

"I am well, thank you, saiyett; but busy. How can I help you?"

"U-Pokada, I'm in haste too, so I'll tell you straight out. I'll give you ten thousand meld, money down, to hand two prisoners over to me immediately."

"Ten thousand meld, saiyett? That's a lot of money." He paused, then repeated unsmilingly. "Yes, that's a lot of money, ten thousand meld."

"Well," she said, "it's no less than I'll pay, I assure you."

He seemed to be deliberating. "Which two would those be, saiyett, I wonder?"

"Lord Bayub-Otal, the Urtan, and a Katrian officer named Captain Zen-Kurel."

"Ah. Yes. Well, saiyett, if you'll excuse me, I'll just go and look at my lists. I take it those are two of the prisoners who came in this afternoon, with the Sacred Queen?"

"Yes, they are."

He went out. The silence returned. How lifeless this dismal place seemed always to be! she thought.

Every least, intermittent noise was like a stone thrown into a pool. Someone went quickly by outside. A dog barked. A door banged. There was a sound of running feet dying away in the distance.

She stood looking out of the north-facing window. The comet had become so dim that anyone not having seen it before would hardly, she supposed, have spared it a glance. A mere glow in the sky it seemed, no longer the radiant emissary of Lespa. Filled with sudden misgiving, she shivered and turned away.