Maia (34 page)

"But if I don't belong to you, my lord, how can I do the work?"

"That you'll be told in my good time. You and I may never actually meet again. It's possible that it could turn out to be dangerous. You'd better think it over. But I'll deal fairly with you, Maia. If you do well-and survive- you'll be set free; with plenty of money, too. Enough to make a good marriage-set yourself up as a shearna- whatever you want."

As Maia remained silent, trying to take this in, he went on, "The men you'll have to deal with will be Urtans- touchy, proud, humorless people. You'll need to be resourceful and sharp, so for a start-and as a test-you can

find a way of your own to let me know your answer within the next three days."

Before she could reply he picked up a bell from the table by the bed and rang it two or three times. The fair-haired woman came in and stood by the door, palm to forehead. Kembri tossed the beaded purse to her.

"I like to be generous to a girl who's pleased me. Is my bath ready?"

"Yes, my lord."

Without another word the Lord General left the room.

Maia, upon her return, found Terebinthia, Occula and Dyphna sitting round the stove. This surprised her, for at this time of day either the saiyett herself or at least one girl would usually be in attendance upon the High Counselor. Before she had a chance to ask questions, however, Occula, jumping up and helping her off with her wet cloak, inquired cheerfully, "Hullo, banzi; back in one piece? Well basted?"

"Basted? You mean split and sun-dried," answered Maia, sliding off the heavy silver bracelets, which she found cumbersome. She was in a mood to reply to Occula's ribaldry in kind, for to herself she no longer seemed the girl who had been given her instructions by Terebinthia earlier that afternoon.

"Got the speedin' trick, had he?" said Occula. "Took you up and took you down; is that the tale? His tail or yours?"

"Here, I'll tell you-" Maia, laughing, stopped suddenly as she saw Terebinthia staring at her in the manner of one waiting for another to remember what she ought not to have to be reminded of. She took out the Lord General's purse and handed it over.

"It's still sealed, saiyett."

"So I see," replied Terebinthia. "If it hadn't been, I should have felt unpleasantly surprised. The seal is customary, but I deliberately didn't tell you. I suppose Occula did?"

"No, I didn', saiyett," said Occula. "To tell you the

truth, I clean forgot. Maia deserves all the credit. Can we see what he's given her?"

"We can," answered Terebinthia, breaking the little red seal and spilling the contents of the purse on her palm. "Well, well!" Maia had the impression that for a moment she was quite taken aback.

"Whew!" said Occula. "Two hundred and forty meld! That's about as big a lygol as ever I've heard of, saiyett, but of course I doan' know how they go on in Bekla."

"It's very good indeed," said Terebinthia. "Well done, Maia! Here you are, and mind you look after it." She counted the coins again. "In fact, you may have a full hundred. It ought to be ninety-six, but I confess I wasn't expecting the Lord General to be quite so generous, and I can't be bothered to go and find the change just now."

"Thank you very much, saiyett."

"Just think, banzi," said Occula. "Do that a hundred and fifty times an' you'll be a free girl-long as your back's not broken."

The night: the close, secret, rain-whispering night. Heads close together under the bedclothes, barely a sound even from lips close to ears. Maia lay trembling in Occula's arms, the black girl listening intently as she clasped her close.

"… so then he said… put you to death… secrets… dangerous…if you survive… a fortune!… answer in three days."

For a while Occula made no reply, merely calming Maia as she might have calmed an animal or a baby, with quiet endearments and soft, meaningless sounds. At last, putting her own lips as close to her ear as Maia's had been to hers, she breathed, "You'll
have
to do it, banzi: you've no choice. If you tell him you woan', he'll decide you're a risk, however much he enjoyed bastin' you. He'll reckon he's told you too much already; an' that could be fatal."

"But why ever should he choose me?" asked Maia desperately. "I don't know anything-hardly been in Bekla any time at all-"

"Ssh!" For Maia's voice had risen well above a whisper. "He told you why himself-or most of it. You look too young-you act too young-to be suspected: that's one thing. But he reckons you're a girl who can turn people's

heads-you seem to have turned his all right for a couple of hours, by all you've told me. You doan' realize yet- lots of girls never do realize-what sort of effect a girl can have on men. They're not made like us. They get obsessed, you know-crazed, distracted-like a dog hangin' round after a bitch. They doan' think about warmth or kindness or friendship, like we do. They just go out of their minds to baste you. Sometimes it sends them as near mad as makes no difference, and they'll do anythin', tell you any-thin', just to get it. Far as I can make out, Kembri as good as told you that himself, but you doan' seem to have taken it in. And on top of all that, he must have decided that you're no fool."

"But how could he? He never said a word until-"

"You
never said a word either, did you? Probably that had a lot to do with it."

"He said it might be dangerous-"

"There's
always
danger for the likes of us. But cheer up, banzi. It could all turn out to have been worth it, you know. Anyhow, I should try to look at it that way, for you'll have to do it."

"But he said I was to tell him in three days. How can I?"

"I've thought of that, darling:
I'll
do it for you."

"You
will? How?"

"Like this. You tell Miss Pussy-cat tomorrow that while you were with Kembri you told him about your friend the black girl, and he said I sounded unusual and he'd like to have a go at me. That'll sound much more convincin' than if you said he wanted
you
back. You've nothin' to gain out of me goin', you see."

"But she won't take my word for a thing like that-"

"No, 'course she woan'. But she'll hope to Cran it's true, because she'd like another hundred and forty meld. I bet she'll never give Piggy a trug of what she took off you today. By the way, he's out of order, you know. Gorged himself sick at dinner an' they put him to bed. That's why we were all off-duty when you got back. So she's on her own. She'll send round to Kembri's saiyett, who'll ask Kembri. And he's expectin' to hear somethin' from you, so he'll realize what it's all about and say I'm to come."

"But he said I wasn't to tell a soul-"

"Ah, but for the matter of that I could perfectly well be bringin' him a message I didn' understand myself, couldn'

I? 'My friend thanks you for being so kind, my lord, and she'll be happy to do anythin' she can for you.' Somethin' like that. Great Cran, there are hundreds of ways I can tell him, sweetheart! Just leave it to me."

"Oh, Occula, I love you so much! Why, now
you're
trembling! What is it?"

For some time the black girl made no reply. At last she whispered "Oh, what an evil, terrible city this is! I came to it in bloodshed nearly seven years ago an' it hasn' changed an atom! Pray, banzi-only pray that we both survive!"

The following morning, however, she was her usual self, passing the time by inventing ridiculous games in which she and Dyphna competed first, to tell a story containing the most and biggest lies, and then to dress up as different kinds of men paying court to Maia, whom they hit over the head with a bladder every time she failed to stop herself laughing.

Sencho was still sick; and likely to remain in bed for two or three days, so Terebinthia told them. A doctor had prescribed a purge, rest and quiet. Three or four nondescript people who had come for instructions had been sent away and told to return in three days' time.

Maia, having been made to act out her false message until Occula was satisfied that she could deliver it convincingly, asked to see Terebinthia alone. The saiyett, having heard her, inquired whether the Lord General had given any indication of when he wanted the black girl to come; but here Maia, as instructed by Occula, pretended to be unable to remember. Terebinthia thereupon reproved her for not taking more trouble to commit to memory the details of a message from so exalted a personage as the Lord General, but went so far as to smile when Maia replied that she had really been in no condition to memorize anything accurately when she was feeling less like a girl than a bucket of soapsuds.

The porter's underling having been dispatched to make inquiries at the Lord General's house, both girls could not help feeling some anxiety. Occula, however, turned out to have been right in supposing that Kembri would put two and two together. The reply was that the Lord General wished to see the black girl that very afternoon; and after a scented bath Occula, having silvered her eyelids, put on

her golden nose-stud and necklace of teeth and obtained Terebinthia's approval of her orange metlan and hunting-jacket, set off in the same jekzha that had carried Maia the day before.

She returned quite late, explaining that as she was about to leave the Lord General's house ins saiyett had brought her a message that the young lord Elvair-ka-Virrion wished her to come and drink wine with himself and a few friends in his rooms. Naturally, she had done as required. There had been one or two other girls there, including Otavis and a celebrated shearna named Nennaunir, who was very popular among the younger Leopards.

"But I didn' do any more on my back," she added, handing over Kembri's lygol of two hundred meld and pocketing the eighty which Terebinthia returned to her, "I just met several rich young men and did my best to make them remember me. I think something might come of it later, saiyett."

After supper she complained of a headache and said she was going to bed. Maia remained for some time with Terebinthia, helping her to look through and take stock of the wardrobe of beautiful and expensive clothes maintained for the High Counselor's girls. The saiyett, having ascertained that Maia could ply a needle at least passably, set her to stitching two or three torn linings and frayed hems, dismissing her only when she was ready to go to bed herself.

Maia, expecting Occula to be already asleep, came into their room to find her sitting by the lamp, bent over the pedlar's pottery cat, which she was holding upside-down on her lap and apparently scratching open with the point of her knife.

"What you on with, then?" asked Maia, sitting down on the bed and reaching for the hairbrush. (Since seeing the girls at the Rains banquet, she had taken to a regular use of brush and comb every night before going to bed.)

Occula put the cat back on the shelf.

"Oh, nothin'. Passin' time-wastin' time. A cat ought to have a venda, banzi, doan' you think? Imagine how miserable you'd be without one."

Maia shook her head in perplexity. "Thought you was supposed to have a headache?"

"I have. Gome on, let's go to bed and put the lamp out. I'll tell you a story-two stories. I want someone's arms

round me who loves me, jus' for a change. You'll do for now."

Under the bedclothes she whispered, "Well, it worked, banzi. He basted me for a start, but I think he must really have spent almost the lot on you yesterday. He as good as said so, actually, a bit later on. Didn' stop him gettin' down to work for a quarter of an hour, though, before he thought to ask why I was there."

"What did you say?"

"I gave him your message; that you were ready to oblige him at any time; nothin' more than that. And then I told him- well, you know-that I was your friend and a bit about how we met and how I'd always done my best to look after you. I told him about that little tick Genshed, too-might do him a bit of harm, you never know. Anyway, after a time he asked whether you'd told me what he'd said to you yesterday, and of course I didn't know a damned thing. So then he said what did I think of you, and I said-oh, banzi, I'm so clever-I said I thought you'd do wonders in time, but I couldn't help bein' a bit worried because you were so inexperienced. And then, as if it was a huge joke, I told him about what happened at Khasik-all about Zuno and the Ortelgan rope-merchant and his golden bear. 'See what I mean?' I said. 'She turns people upside-down, but she's much better when she's got me to look after her. Still, my lord, I niustn' go borin' you with a lot of silly chatter.'

"So then he had some food and wine brought in and we talked about nothin' for a bit, and then he basted me again, and after that he told me to get dressed and go home. I'm certain he was waitin'to see whether I'd bring the subject up again. If I had, of course, he'd have guessed you'd been talkin' to me. I just acted as though I'd completely forgotten the whole thing. He gave me my lygol and I was actually goin' out of the room when he called me back and told me to shut the door and sit down.

"And then, banzi, he told me more or less what he told you; that he needs eyes and ears, and in particular that he wants to know more about the Urtans. What it comes to- or so I believe, though of course he didn' say it-is that for some reason he can' persuade Sencho-or doesn' trust him-to find out whatever it is that he wants to know about these Urtans. Neither of them really trusts the other; crooks never do. But my guess is that Sencho's becomin' less and less useful." Occula suppressed a chuckle. "Not pullin' his

weight, as you might say. But all the same, you see, he knows so much that nobody else knows, that Kembri and Durakkon daren' get rid of him."

Maia threw back the covers as far as her waist and lay silently on her back, thinking. A lull had fallen in the rain. She could hear the wind stirring the leaves, and the minute pattering of some small animal-mouse, jerboa or long-tailed
chidron
-along the foot of the wall outside. At last, covering their heads once more, she whispered, "But what's all this to us? We're just slaves. Whose side are we on?"

"The side that suits us best, of course," answered the black girl. "Kembri's said he'll pay you and free you, and I trust Kembri as much has I trust any bastard in this damn' city. Besides, it'll get us out into company, and that's what we need, to get on."

"Us?"

"Oh, yes; I forgot to tell you, banzi. I convinced the Lord General that you need me to help you. Experienced girl, you know. Whatever this work is-r-and I doan' know any more than you do-I'm goin' to be in it with you. One or other of us ought to be able to make an Urtan talk, doan' you think?"

But nothing happened. The next day passed, and the next, and another. Sencho, at length recovering from his indisposition, had one of the cooks whipped and sold; and later the same day sent for Lalloc to discuss buying another.

Maia's feelings towards the High Counselor remained strangely ambivalent, fear and fascination succeeding each other like sunlight and cloud-shadow on a hillside. She came to perceive that for him, as Occula had said, the humiliation of others was an important ingredient of sexual pleasure. One evening, when Maia and Occula were with him in the bath, Terebinthia entered to tell him that a shepherd lad from Urtah, secretly in his pay, had come twenty miles through the rain to report to him, and was waiting wet through in the courtyard. The High Counselor, having replied that the boy deserved to be treated hospitably, thereupon had him brought in, stripped of his wet clothes and rubbed down; after which he made him sit beside the bath while he himself continued what he had been doing with the girls. At length, telling Maia to re-