Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

Two of the attendant soldiers came forward to help him to his feet, but he waved them away, content to clutch her arm. Ah, but he hardly needed help! He felt young again, on his way to the iron-hills of Gelt, on his way to make money once more in Kabin of the Waters: a sharp fellow, one who knew very well how to sail with the stream; one who had grown fat on the blood of his enemies. Only a few steps, yes, just a few gasping steps to the waterside. Slaves had filled the narrow flat-bottomed boat with cushions and into these he sank, while the black girl, seated at his feet, loosed the cord, took up a paddle and pushed gently away from the bank.

"We needn't go far, my lord," she said, smiling down at him. "Just up among those trees. No one'll see us there."

Now the boat was gliding smoothly, only a few feet from the bank, slipping quietly up the margin of the lake, past the scullions dousing their fires and the cooks packing up their utensils after the evening's work. There was a pleasant smell of smoldering logs. The black girl had slipped out of her clothes and now sat naked on the thwart, her body gleaming in the moonlight as she bent, dipped her paddle and rose again, this side and that, gently guiding the boat towards the zoan grove bordering the far end of the gardens. The moon had dropped behind the trees and the inshore water was lying in deep shadow. Into this warm seclusion the boat slid with scarcely a ripple--merely a light chuckling under the bow and then a gentle scraping as it touched the bank and came to a stop. Laying down her paddle, the black girl knelt and secured the cords fore and aft to two projecting roots.

Now she was stretched beside him, fondling him, her fingers deft and busy under his thin robe. In growing excitement he began caressing her thighs, clutching her, fondling her breasts.

"You're the god Cran, my lord," she whispered, "and I'm your Sacred Queen."

Laughing, she mounted astride him, sinking down upon him, panting. Her rapid plungings began to shake and agitate the boat, sending a succession of ripples out across the water.

"Ah, now, my lord!" she cried. "Now! Now!" Yet thereupon, unexpectedly, she rolled quickly over and away from him, slipping out of his embrace.

As she did so, two figures rose silently out of the undergrowth of the zoan thicket. The taller, holding a wooden stake sharpened to a point at one end, plunged it downward into the huge belly, leant on it and then, jabbing, levered it back and forth. His companion, a woman carrying a knife, crouched down and drove it again and again into the folds of fat at the High Counselor's throat. Once only he cried out--a roaring bellow which died away as the blood filled his mouth and spurted over his neck and shoulders.

The black girl, snatching the knife, drove it twice into her own thigh and once into her arm. Then, while the attackers made off, one dragging the other by the wrist, she began to scream. As her blood ran down, mingling with her master's, he clutched in agony at the stake jutting from his paunch, shuddered and lay still.

When the first of the soldiers and kitchen-slaves came bursting through the undergrowth from the gardens, they found only the High Counselor's concubine beside the body, sobbing hysterically, calling on her gods and beating blindly, with bloody hands, at assailants who were nowhere to be seen.

40: INVESTIGATION

The murder of Sencho-be-L'vandor, High Counselor of Bekla, at a state festivity, within earshot and almost within sight of the High Baron, the Sacred Queen and some two or three hundred assembled dignitaries of the empire, spread not only shock but something close to panic, first through the upper and then the lower city. The deed was bewildering and minatory as an earthquake tremor. None could tell what might be going to follow; whether this was simply an isolated act of vengeance carried out by two of the great number with good reason to hate the High Counselor, or the prelude to an organized, armed insurrection against the Leopard regime. How many murderous agents might there be in the city? How many in other cities--in Thettit, Ikat, Dari-Paltesh? Who might be those marked down as their victims?

Fear and suspicion ran everywhere: among the guests, making haste to be gone from the gardens; many, as they went, arranging to remain together for the rest of the night and set out for home no later than dawn; among slaves and servants, warned by their masters to go armed, to keep strict watch and trust no one: among soldiers, an hour ago glad not to have been sent to the Valderra, now ordered to search cellars and attics in the dark; among tradesmen and merchants, fearful for their stock; among shearnas and their admirers, both, as they learned the tidings, reflecting how little they really knew of this other who lay staring and wondering beside them in the lamplight; among the priests of Cran, hiding the temple treasures and sending young Sednil hotfoot to the upper city with an urgent request for the guard to be doubled. Fear was in the creak of a door, the howling of a dog, the sound of footsteps outside.

The sheer audacity of the killing intensified the dread it evoked. If the High Counselor, in the very midst of his luxury, could fall a victim, with slaves and soldiers on every hand, then who could count himself safe? And the unknown killers had vanished like ghosts at cock-crow. From the upper city, completely walled round and sentineled, out of which was no egress save by the Peacock Gate, they had simply disappeared. Search, next day, of every slope and cleft on Mount Crandor revealed no least trace of them. So incredible was this that many wondered whether in fact there had ever been any assailants at all. The High Counselor's black concubine, who had been with him when he met his death, had, of course, been held for questioning, as had the other, the Tonildan girl who had accompanied him to the gardens that night. To some, despite the gruesome and brutal nature of the High Counselor's wounds, it seemed more likely that the black girl herself had killed him than that two intruders, for whose existence there was only her word, should have contrived to escape from the upper city unseen. But no, said others: she might, to be sure, have taken a knife with her in the boat unnoticed by her tipsy, lecherous master; but the stake had been cut from the zoan thicket and sharpened there (shavings had been found; and the stump). And this the girl would not have had time to do, even supposing that her master had been too gorged and heedless to stop her. Ah, but might it not have been left there, ready for her use, by an accomplice? Well, possibly. Anyway, they all concluded, she was unlikely to come out of the business with her life. Whatever part she might or might not have played, the authorities, if only to be on the safe side, would no doubt put her out of the way.

Such was the general opinion, which did not fail to reach the ears of Maia in her cell in the temple of Cran.

By noon of the third day after the murder the Lord General was back in the city, having been overtaken by the news when no more than two days' march away. He, after no more than the barest of consultations with Durakkon, at once set about seeking the truth. So far as was known, Sencho had never made any written lists of suspects or known dissidents, preferring to keep what he knew in his own head. A few names, however, were already known to the Lord General, while others were now given to him by certain of Sencho's agents who, scenting blood-money, came forward of their own accord. Kembri at once sent lists to the various provincial governors, ordering the arrest of all known suspects of secondary importance-- servants, drabs, watermen and the like. Those of higher rank, he judged, would be best left alone for the time being. Apart from anything else, most would not be easy to apprehend without using soldiers--soldiers whom at the moment he could ill spare. Meanwhile the lesser fry-- perhaps fifty or sixty in all--were to be sent under guard to Bekla.

Kembri, flanked on one side by the chief priest of Cran and on the other by the governor of Tonilda, looked up at the black girl standing before him on the other side of the table. Her eyes, bloo

dshot and heavy-lidded with sleeplessness, nevertheless returned his gaze steadily.

"You say," said Kembri, "that the High Counselor wanted you to go with him to some secluded part of the gardens?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Who actually suggested that--he or you?" ' "He wished it, my lord. He wanted me to do what he usually required one or other of us to do after he'd had supper: but since we were in the gardens and not in his house, we had to go somewhere out of the way."

"Very well: but the soldiers are clear that they heard you suggesting the boat."

"Yes, my lord. Seein' what he wanted, to take the boat was the most discreet and convenient thing. I simply told the slaves to put cushions in the boat and then I helped the High Counselor into it."

There was a pause.

"Well, go on," said Kembri.

"I took the boat up under the trees, my lord, where we couldn' be seen, and began doin' what the High Counselor wanted."

"And then, according to you, two people came out from among the trees and attacked him?"

"Yes, my lord."

"You were actually lying above him at that moment? Isn't that so?"

"Yes, my lord. One of them pulled me away and stabbed me while the other set on the High Counselor."

"Why didn't they kill you, do you suppose?"

"They tried to, my lord, but I fought and struggled and I suppose they must have been in a hurry to get away."

There was a longer pause, while the Lord General continued to stare up at the girl. At length he said, "If you want to avoid torture, I suggest you tell me now what more you know about this business."

"I know nothin' more, my lord."

"Then I'll tell you what we know. You came up to Bekla several months ago from a house in Thettit called the Lily Pool: you came at your own request. Among the men who sometimes came to that house there was a licensed pedlar, who also used to go from time to time to the High Counselor's house here, in the upper city."