Maia (123 page)

"Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion, saiyett."

In the terrible distress and grief consuming her, Maia's self-possession was like a frail raft on a swirling flood. In imminent danger of being overwhelmed, it still remained afloat, though barely.

"But I must see him alone, Lokris. Are you sure there's no one with him?"

"Yes, saiyett."

"How can you be sure?"

"I am sure, saiyett."

"Well, then, will you please go in and tell him as I'm here?"

For a moment Lokris hesitated. Then she said, "Saiyett, I think it'll be better if you simply go in yourself; and take the lamp with you."

Maia stared, but Lokris merely averted her eyes, looking down. After a moment Maia raised the latch, putting her shoulder to the heavy door. It yielded and she stepped inside.

The room was not quite in darkness, for it faced west and was still faintly twilit. One would not have expected to find anyone in it, however, unless they were either asleep

or making love. Yet this was not a bedroom. No; this, with its profusion of stools and small tables, its sideboard covered with silver dishes and goblets and its trophies hung on the walls, had the appearance of some kind of anteroom, perhaps adjoining a hall next door. Holding up her lamp, she looked round her in perplexity.

"Elvair?" she said timidly; but there was no reply.

She turned this way and that, looking round the big, shadowy room in apprehension, and was just going to hurry out again when she realized that someone)-a motionless figure-was sitting on a tall, armless chair by the window. The back of the chair was towards her and its occupant seemed gazing out towards the darkling west. Maia, carrying her lamp, crossed the room and stood beside the chair. The figure was, indeed, Elvair-ka-Virrion.

He looked as a man might who had spent days in prison. He was hollow-cheeked, pallid and unwashed and his hair and beard were unkempt. She could smell his stale sweat. His torn, travel-stained clothes must be those in which he had come back from Lapan. One of his boot-straps was broken and trailing on the floor. Beside him stood a tray on which were plates and the remains of untouched food. She saw mouse-droppings and a fretted, nibbled crust.

He did not move as she touched his shoulder.

"Elvair? Elvair, it's Maia."

He looked up for a moment. "Maia. Oh, yes." Dropping his chin on his hands, he resumed his abstracted staring towards the west.

She knelt beside his chair and put her hand on his wrist.

"Elvair, I'm so sorry-I'm very sorry that I've only come to add to your troubles. I wouldn't do it if I hadn't got to, honest."

It would be easier, she thought, if only he would ask her what her news was and she could answer him. But as she waited he put aside her hand, stood up, took two or three steps across to the window and continued gazing out into the near-darkness.

Maia, still kneeling on the floor, began to cry-for Mil-vushina, for Tharrin, for Sphelthon, for her own terror of death, for the loss of Zenka, the fallen darkness and the hopelessness of the entire world.

He seemed unaware of her weeping; but she was weeping from the heart, and for some little time continued without any attempt to control herself or to speak again;

while he stood silently, his back turned, both of them as it were isolated in separate cells of suffering. At last Maia recalled that she had come in fulfillment of the promise she had made to Milvushina.

"Elvair? Elvair, I've brought bad news; but you must hear it."

For all the response he made he might not have heard her. In a sudden passion she jumped up and ran across to him, tugging at his arm and beating her fist on his chest.

"She's
dead,
Elvair; Milva's dead! She told me I was to come and tell you she loved you and she didn't blame you for anything. She didn't blame you for anything!" As he still said nothing she stood in front of him, put her two hands on his shoulders and cried, "Do you hear me? Milva's dead, I tell you! The baby's dead and Milva's dead!"

For a moment he looked coldly into her eyes, much as he might have looked at a servant who had had the temerity to interrupt him while absorbed in some complicated matter. Then, once more staring over her shoulder, he muttered just audibly, "I don't care. Go away."

As though he had struck her, Maia started back. As though he had struck her she drew in her breath and raised one hand to her cheek. Then, like one suddenly perceiving in the room the presence of something monstrous and appalling, she snatched up the lamp and ran stumblingly to the door.

Lokris was seated on a bench about twenty yards up the colonnade. As Maia came out she stood up, but if she had not caught her arm Maia would have run past her.

"Let me help you, saiyett: these corridors can be a little treacherous after dark. I wouldn't want you to fall. Please take my arm."

They walked on together, Maia with the one lamp held in her left hand, Lokris with the other in her right. As they reached the landing on the first floor Lokris asked, "Will you wish to leave the palace now, saiyett?"

"Yes," she answered. "Yes, I'll go now, Lokris. Only I shall need some shoes-sandals-anything wiH do."

"Take mine, saiyett: I think they'll fit you well enough."

Lokris took off her sandals, knelt and strapped them on for her.

"Will you be needing anything else, saiyett? A jekzha?"

Maia had, of course, no money with her, and in her

shocked and broken state of mind could not face the embarrassment of asking Lokris to go and get her some and waiting while she did so.

"No, Lokris, thank you: I'll walk on the terrace for a little while."

Lokris accompanied her as far as the north door of the palace, and here they parted without having spoken of what had taken place.

It did not matter where she went, she thought. It didn't matter what happened. The gods, who had done this to Milva, could now do whatever they liked with her. She would go home, and Randronoth could kill her if he wanted. Go home-yes, that would surprise the gods. The gods would not be expecting that.

Slowly she descended the road down the Leopard Hill into the upper city. Although many people passed her, hurrying in both directions, it did not really strike home to her that any upheaval was taking place. The barracks of the upper city-a square, gloomy building-lay about a quarter of a mile ahead, and here she could see torches and hear noise and commotion. But she merely walked on, stumbling once or twice in Lokris's sandals, which were not in fact a very good fit.

She thought of the handsome, dashing young man who had spoken so charmingly to Occula and herself in the Khalkoornil on that first afternoon in Bekla, when they were being taken to Lalloc's. She remembered the sound of Milvushina's weeping on the night when she and Occula had returned from Sarget's party-that same night when she had cursed Bayub-Otal and vowed to harm him if she could. She thought of the good-natured, sympathetic El-vair-ka-Virrion, who had made love with her and later had been so ready to help her with his notion of the auction at the barrarz; and again, of Milvushina smiling as she sat on the couch in the Sacred Queen's supper-room. Behind all sounded old Nasada's thin, dry voice, "Get out of Bekla. It's a devils' playground."

Once or twice, as she made her half-shuffling, ungainly way along the road in the elf-light of moonrise, men spoke

to her; but she did not even hear them, passing on in a trance of wretchedness which communicated itself without the need for any reply on her part. It was a night, however, when few in the upper city were of a mind to be accosting girls. So far as property owners and their servants were concerned (and most dwellers in the upper city were either one or the other) all thoughts were centered upon Santil-ke-Erketlis and the defeated Leopard force in the south. If Erketlis and his heldril were indeed to take the city, as he had said he intended, what was the prospect for merchants-and especially for slave-traders? And beyond these material fears lay the deep, superstitious anxiety engendered by the news of Durak-kon's death at the hands of Fornis. There was a general, intuitive feeling that that business was neither conclusive nor concluded; it must inevitably have some further outcome; and though no one could guess what that might be, the prospect gave rise to uncertainty and dread.

About the streets people were hastening hither and thither, nearly all, so it seemed, concerned in one way or another with the safety of their property. There were not many to take more than momentary notice of a distraught girl in tears, obviously intent on some destination. No doubt she had received bad news. Many had.

Yet all of a sudden Maia, now well past the barracks and less than three furlongs from her own house, found her way blocked by a man standing squarely in front of her. Moving to one side, she tried to walk past him; but he spread his arms, and rather than have him grab hold of her, as he seemed about to do, she stepped backward, looking down at the ground and ignoring him in the hope of being left alone.

"Ah!" he cried. "A shadow will cover the city! A shadow!"

She recognized him then, with the weary resentment of one who, though deep in affliction, understands that nevertheless there is to be no escape from the tedium and vexation of having to deal with an intrusive eccentric. Jejjer-eth, as he was commonly known (the name had a slightly obscene meaning in Beklan), was a familiar figure in the streets and markets of the lower city; one of those grotesque, half-crazy declaimers and self-styled prophets who always knock about large cities; fantastically clad, of no fixed abode, part laughing-stock and part accorded, by the common people, a kind of rough recognition for having

shown themselves to possess at least a crude form of moral courage and sincerity; who stand in public places orating disjointed nonsense about imminent wrath and judgment to such as have nothing better to do than listen untU they weary of it, while wags shout ribald questions over their heads. "A shadow will cover the city" was notorious as one of Jejjereth's favorite utterances. Maia could recall having once seen him in the Caravan Market, his rags fluttering as he was dragged off the Scales and sent packing by two of the municipal slaves. Sometimes he would stand at one or other of the lower city gates, haranguing visiting pilgrims and other passers-by until the sentries, having decided that he had had his fair turn, moved him on. To come upon him in the upper city was all but incredible. At any other time she would have wondered how he could possibly have got in. Now, she merely hoped he would let her alone and go away.

"A shadow!" he cried. "A shadow to enshroud the evil- the gluttons and their trulls, the liars, the murderers and men of blood!" He made a wide, sweeping gesture, spreading his grimy cloak before her like the wing of some huge, tattered bird.

"The whores! The murderers' whores shall hang upside-down, with their legs apart to let in the blowflies!"

"Jejjereth," she said quietly, as he still blocked her way, "please let me pass. I've never done you any harm and I want to go home."

Now he peered at her closely. "Maia! Maia swam the river!"

"Yes, yes," she replied soothingly (she was only humoring a zany by completing a catch-phrase), "Maia saved the city. Please let me go by."

"Saved the city!" he shouted. "Yes, Maia saved the city for the cruel to commit more murders, for the wicked to enjoy more lust and greed! But a shadow will cover the city-"

By this time several people had stopped-household slaves and the like, to whom the sight of him in the lower city was familiar enough.

"What in Cran's name are you doing up here, old fellow?" said a night-watchman, taking him by the arm. "Who let you in, eh?"

Jejjereth, having turned to face him, spoke behind his hand in a voice which everyone could hear.
"She
let me

in," he said.
"She
let me in-to call down vengeance on corruption! Yes, to go even to the Barons' Palace! Jejjer-eth's not afraid to strike, no, no-"

"What, this girl here? Don't tell me
she
let you in-"

"No! No! Not her! It was the Leopardess-the swift one, with the green-ah! She let me in, to bring judgement-"

"Which Leopardess, old boy?" asked someone else. "Come up here to baste a few expensive ones for a change, have you?"

"A shadow will cover the city-"

"Yeah, and a bull will cover a cow an' all. And you've been covering a Leopardess, is that it?"

"Perhaps that is it,"put in the night-watchman. "Some of these rich women in the upper city've got peculiar tastes y'know. Now come on, old lad," he said, gripping Jejjereth more firmly. "Never mind about Leopardesses an' that; you just hop it to the Peacock Gate, else you'll know all about it, see?"

Suddenly and frighteningly, Jejjereth drew a long, sharp-pointed knife from under his cloak.
"She
gave me this," he said, grinning round at them.
"She
gave me this: she said, 'Take this
folda,
go to the Barons' Palace and strike down the wicked-' "

"Here, you'd better just give that to me," said the watchman, startled. "That's dangerous, that is. Might hurt someone."

Maia, glad to have avoided further unwelcome attention, left them at it and continued on her way.

Ten minutes later she was walking up to the door of her own house. Although she could almost find it in her heart to hope that he might, she did not believe that Randronoth would kill her. It was more likely that he would still want to do what he had been tricked out of doing. Oh, she thought, if only her ashes were blowing over Serrelind, and Kelsi and old Drigga weeping for her! If only it could all be over!

Suddenly she saw that the door of her house was standing wide open. Lamplight shone from within. She stopped- she was about forty yards away-but there was nothing to be heard. As she stared, puzzled, at the open doorway, she began to make out beyond it signs of confusion and disorder. A big, painted vase which had had its place in the porch was fallen and smashed to fragments, and a long, white splinter was projecting from the woodwork of the

inner door. Near it, on the floor, she could glimpse something which looked like a bundle of old clothes tossed down all anyhow.

What could this mean? Robbers? Some violence between Randronoth and Eud-Ecachlon, informed of his presence in her house? She approached the door cautiously, but there was nothing more to be seen, and still she could not hear a sound.

Suddenly, at the very foot of the steps, she stopped short with a scream. What had looked like old clothes on the floor of the porch was in fact the dead body of Jarvil. His eyes were fixed, his teeth clenched and the hilt of a knife, which one of his hands was clutching, protruded from his chest.

To Maia's enormous credit her first thought was for Ogma. Sickened and terrified though she was, she did not run away, and hesitated for no more than a moment as she listened once more for any sound from within the house. There was none. As quietly as she could she entered the porch, stepped over the body and opened the inner door into the entrance hall.

Here, as was customary of an evening, three or four lamps were burning. She looked about her in the silence, wondering whether or not to call out to Ogma. Jarvil, she remembered, used to keep a club in his lodge by the door. She went and got it, and with this in one hand stole up to the open door of the parlor.

The room was frighteningly devastated. One of the silken wall-hangings had been ripped down.Both the small tables lay overturned and broken, and the ornaments and artifacts from them were scattered over the floor. A jug and two goblets were lying in a pool of spilt wine. The silver mirror, too, had fallen from the wall: as she moved, it caught the lamplight, flashing a moment in her eyes. Two of the cushions on the big couch had burst open, and their flock stuffing was strewn across the room.

Maia, however, noticed little or nothing of this in detail, for there was worse to be seen. On the far side of the room, in the shadow beyond the lamplight, were stretched the bodies of Randronoth's two soldiers. A dark, glistening expanse of blood, half-dried, covered the tiles around them. One had had time to draw his sword, which lay beside him-a typical Gelt short-sword, the broad blade tapering to a point. The other must simply have been trying to

escape: he was stretched prone, one arm extended, the hand apparently dragged or fallen from the latch of the door leading into the garden. His dead face was turned towards her.

She ran out quickly into the hall but then, turning faint, stood leaning dizzily against the newel-post at the foot of the staircase.

Now, after some moments, she could indeed hear a noise-a kind of low, suppressed whimpering and moaning from upstairs. The voice was Ogma's. She listened intently, but could hear no one else. She called out, "Ogma! It's Maia!"

The whimpering stopped on the instant, but there was no reply. She called again, "Can you hear me?" This time, after a pause, Ogma's voice answered faintly, "Miss Maia?"

"I'm in the hall: can you come down?"

"I'm-I'm hurt, miss," replied Ogma in a weak, tremulous voice.

Maia ran upstairs. Lamplight was shining from her bedroom and she went in. The first thing she saw was the body of Randronoth, dressed in nothing but a pair of breeches, lying across her bed. It was the most appalling sight imaginable. His throat had been cut-the head, indeed, almost severed-while across his chest and stomach were three or more ragged, gaping stab-wounds. Coverlet, sheets, pillows-all were drenched in blood.

Ogma was half-lying near the door, her back against the wall. She was bleeding from eight or nine cuts, each about two inches long, in her shoulders and upper arms. In one hand she held a blood-stained towel, with which she was weakly dabbing at these wounds.

"Oh, Miss Maia," she cried faintly, "I'm that bad!"

Maia knelt, raised the girl to her feet and then, herself desperate to get out of the room and away from the horror on the bed, supported her to the bathroom. Here she set about washing her cuts and binding them up. Although she was scarcely capable of coherent thought, the wounds nonetheless struck her as odd; all were of more or less the same length and depth-almost like surgical incisions-as though inflicted deliberately and, as it were, at leisure. Little as she knew about wounds, these seemed hardly of a kind likely to be inflicted by violent men in an attack.

The cold water made Ogma flinch and cry out, but after

a while, when Maia had bandaged her as best she could, she began to recover herself a little.

"There isn't-there isn't anyone else in the house now, miss, is there?" she faltered.

"Poor JarviFs dead," replied Maia. "And so are the two soldiers."

"Then they must have gone, miss." Ogma stood up hesitantly, clutching Maia's arm.

"You'd be the better for some djebbah," said Maia. "Come downstairs with me." It was clear to her now that Ogma, though badly shocked, was able to walk and in no danger of bleeding to death.

Together they went down to the kitchen. The fire was still in: Mai put on more wood. It did not occur to either of them to leave the house or run away. Maia, indeed, was beyond all deliberation and hardly knew what she was doing. She searched through two or three cupboards for the djebbah before catching sight of it in full view on an open shelf. The bite of the liquor cleared her head and partly pulled her round. She poured some for Ogma and made her sip it until it was all gone. The girl still sobbed and whimpered, fingering her bound-up cuts. Once, when a wood-knot exploded in the fire, she leapt up with a cry of fear.

Maia fetched a stool, sat down facing her and took her hands.

"Now; tell me what happened, Ogma." There was no pause in the girl's weeping and Maia shook her gently. "Come on, dear, pull yourself together! You
must
tell me!"