Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

It was Sednil, carrying a candle. It had not occurred to her that it might be he who would come. She flung her arms round his neck and clung to him, weeping.

"Oh, Sednil, I'm so frightened! I just wish to all the gods as I was back at home! I'd never--"

"Easy, girl, easy now! It'll only be worse if you let yourself go to pieces. As for the gods, you can forget about them: they won't help you."

"It's the being alone, like; the having to go alone. I need--oh, someone to help me--"

He held her away from him, looking at her intently, a young man, yet already with every mark of skepticism and disillusion on his drawn, hard face.

"People's no different from animals--clawing each other; who's strongest, which can make t'other most afraid. Just set yourself to do what the animals do, girl: survive! Once you stop taking that much trouble, no one's going to do it for you, no more 'n if you were a rat in a ditch."

She nodded, paradoxically comforted a little by his bleak words, as people sometimes find themselves when unrealistic longings are cut away like broken tackle in a storm and at least they can see clearly what they have no alternative but to make the best of.

"People like you and me," whispered Sednil, fondling her, "we can't afford to be fools. Crying and carrying on-- that's a luxury; that's only for rich people. Listen, d'you know what that Tamarrik Gate's made of? I'll tell you: tears! The tears of thousands of ordinary people who were taxed and starved to pay for it, that's what. So it come expensive, didn't it?" He spat on the floor. "Wasn't me made that up, either."

"Who, then?"

"Oh, some drunken poet used to be a friend of Nennaunir. He's dead now, anyway. You better come on now, Maia, else there'll only be trouble. They've told me to go with you as far as What's-his-name--Bayub-Otal--where he lives."

"Oh, I'm glad it's you that's with me, Sednil. That makes it a bit better, sort of."

He nodded without replying and she followed him out of the door. There was no moonlight in the gallery or the staircase, and the candle, as they went on, threw a dreary succession of shadows which rose up before them and wavered either side before merging into the blackness behind. Once she heard a squeak and scamper in the wall and once drew back her bare feet from a cockroach scuttling out of the light.

At the foot of the stairs a priest was seated by the door. Raising his lamp, he looked Maia up and down in silence. Having apparently satisfied himself that her appearance was sufficiently bedraggled and wretched he nodded, slid back the bolts and held the door just wide enough for them to slip out one behind the other, into the moon-blanched courtyard.

Neither spoke until they had left the temple behind and were walking side by side down the Kharjiz, empty as a forest track.

"Not even a beggar. No one--nothing," murmured Maia.

"They don't let beggars sleep along the Kharjiz," replied Sednil. "There's rich merchants live round here, and they wouldn't want beggars dying outside their homes, would they? When the prisoners are marched to work in the morning, they have to pick up their chains and carry them, not to wake the rich people up."

They passed through the Slave Market, with its carved reliefs along the bases of the rostra, and Maia remembered as though it were long ago her shocked embarrassment when she and Occula had first seen the platform for the girls.

"What you said back there," said Sednil after a little, as they turned out of the Khalkoornil and entered the tangle of narrower streets near the western clock tower. "Said you didn't like being alone. But that's when you're safest, when you're alone: there's no one to twist you or let you down then, is there? Just remember that, and you might come back safe."

She nodded, blinking back tears. Sednil stopped and looked about them for a moment. "It's only just round the comer now." Suddenly he gripped her arm. "Here's a night-patrol coming, see? I've been wondering when we'd meet one."

Two soldiers in light armor, swords at their belts but without shields, were approaching at the unhurried pace of sentinels or watchmen. One carried a lantern, its flame barely visible in the moonlight. Sednil stood still as they crossed the street and came up to Maia and himself.

"What are you doing out at this time of night? Where are you going?"

"I'm a temple servant on business for the chief priest," replied Sednil. "Here's my token."

He drew out of his pocket a flat piece of wood about two inches square, which bore lettering and a painted Leopard cognizance. The soldier, taking it from him, examined it.

"Never seen one of these before."

"Keep it; I'm carrying several. That's what they're for. Take it to the temple if you want. They'll tell you I'm authorized."

The man paused and shook his head, clearly in two minds.

"This young woman--is she a temple servant too?"

"I'm escorting her to where she has to go."

The two soldiers looked at each other. "The fun sometimes gets a bit rough in the temple, does it?" asked the second soldier sardonically. "How did her face and clothes get in that state?"

"I've no idea," answered Sednil, "but I know what my orders are, and if you hinder me you'll have to answer to the temple for it."

There was another pause. Then the first soldier, pocketing the token, said curtly, "All right, not so much of your damned lip. 'Way you go."

Round the next corner, standing in the shadow of the western clock tower, Sednil pointed to one of a row of small, stone-built houses opposite.

"That's it; the third one, see? But how you're going to wake him--" Suddenly he gave a low whistle.

"Why, there's a light, look, shining through the ground-floor shutters-- see it? Either someone's up or else they've forgotten the lamp. Were you told he'd be up?"

"No," said Maia.

"We'd better have a look, then," said Sednil. "Quiet, now."

Maia followed him across to the front of the house. In the room behind the shutters she could hear someone moving quietly about. After a few moments Sednil plucked her sleeve and pointed silently to a chink. Shutting one eye and peering through, Maia saw Bayub-Otal pass across her line of vision carrying a folded garment. A moment later he came back the other way, empty-handed.

Sednil, leading her back to the opposite side of the street, took her in his arms and gently kissed her swollen mouth.

"Good luck! And don't forget what I told you. Keep a jump ahead of the bastards--whoever they are--and maybe we'll meet again yet."

Maia was filled with sudden panic.

"Oh, Sednil!" She looked at him piteously. "Come with me! Come on! You could be free! You could escape! I'll tell him--"

"Don't be daft! The guards on the gate have been told who they're to let through. You know they have."

With this he turned and walked away, leaving her alone.

Now that there was nothing to do but go on, Maia felt a sudden access of resolution. Pausing only a few seconds, she ran across the road and knocked rapidly three or four times on the shutters.

There was a sudden, startled movement in the room, but no one spoke. She knocked again.

"Who's there?" said Bayub-Otal's voice sharply.

"My lord, it's Maia! Maia! Let me in, for pity's sake!"

"Maia!" A panel of the shutter opened and she saw him standing before her. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, let me in, my lord! Please let me in quickly!"

Swinging back a second panel to widen the opening, he helped her into the lamp-lit room. As he closed and barred the shutters behind her, Maia sank down on the floor as though exhausted. Bayub-Otal supported her to a bench by the table.

"I heard you'd been taken to the temple for questioning." Then, for the first time catching a clear sight of her face, "Gods! What's happened? What have they done to you?"

"Oh, my lord, there's no time to explain! Won't you help me? You promised--you promised you'd help me to get out of Bekla if ever I asked you."

"But I don't understand," replied Bayub-Otal. "How do you come to be here?"

"I

escaped, my lord; from the temple; not an hour ago."

"From the temple? How?"