Maia (45 page)

"You'd better tell me, Maia. Whose daughter is she?"

"Enka-Mordet's, my lord; the baron you killed in Chal-con."

At this he stared. It was obvious that he knew nothing of Milvushina. She told him all that she had learned, together with an account of how she and Occula had found Milvushina at Sencho's upon their return from Elvair-ka-Virrion's party, and of the way in which Milvushina had borne her affliction since then.

"We heard, my lord, as you'd told your men to bring her back for the High Counselor."

"Did you indeed?" replied Kembri. "Well, one day I may decide to see this girl for myself. Meanwhile, you can take it from me that she wouldn't do for this work with Bayub-Otal. There's a particular reason why you've been

selected. When you succeed in finding out what it is, you'll know you're well on the way to success."

This was baffling; but the Lord General said no more by way of explanation. For some little time he remained standing with his back to her, looking out at the rain. Maia, having drained her cup, tilted it in her hand and sat tracing the serpent pattern with one finger. Twilight was falling, but despite her disappointment over the way the afternoon had turned out, she felt in no hurry to return to Sencho's. The red glow of the stove seemed inviting her to linger before its warmth and let the wine finish its work.

"I'll give you a piece of advice, Maia," said Kembri suddenly, turning back into the room. "I'm speaking to you now simply as a man to a woman. Only a few slave-girls get as far as the upper city. That means they leave behind them far more who don't: and often that's the ruin of them, because they start forgetting where they came from and deceiving themselves into thinking they're exceptionally gifted-" he shrugged-"too clever to lose. The vital thing for adventurers-whether they're men or women-is never to forget that they're insecure. Self-deceit's fatal; it only leads to a dangerous sense of overconfidence. A girl in your position's entirely dependent on her wits. If they fail you've nothing to fall back on at all."

Suddenly Maia felt that they were indeed talking on equal terms.

"You're
an adventurer, aren't you, my lord?"

A brief, surly nod. "You're young, Maia, but as far as I can see you're no fool. Just don't start thinking you're beyond the reach of disaster, and you might go a long way. I've already told you something about Otavis. I remember her when she was. a young, inexperienced girl like you. She gave us a lot of help, so
we
helped
her.
That's why she's free now, with enough money to set herself up in the style a high-class shearna ought to have."

As though about to go, he walked round the end of the bench towards the door. But his sudden, gratuitous advice, not unkindly spoken, had induced in Maia a typically spontaneous impulse towards the only kind of reciprocation at her command. Getting up, she stood with one bare arm outstretched along the back of the settle.

"You wouldn't care for something before you go, my lord?"

He turned, and from the shadows by the door looked

back at her where she stood in the orange glow from the stove.

"You little trollop! Are you importuning the Lord General?"

She giggled. "Well, without you help me, my lord, I can't get out of this dress, see?"

He hesitated a moment; then bolted the door.

Before she left he said, "Well, audacity can be an advantage-sometimes-to a girl like you. You've still got a light heart, Maia, and a trick of making men go along with it. It's a natural gift; if I were you I should hold on to it as long as I can."

Stirring uneasily, Sencho woke little by little from a confused sleep to meet the dark-brown, slightly bloodshot eyes of the black girl gazing down at him. The sight of her, sedulous and compliant, was reassuring, recalling to him that he was now High Counselor of Bekla, wealthy and powerful, master of spies throughout the empire, possessor of information indispensable to Durakkon, Kembri and the Leopard regime. For a few moments, still half-asleep, the stupor of his fancy identified her with his own dark, hidden knowledge of plots and conspiracies running underground-plots which he would reveal and bring to ruin as soon as he was ready. This girl was his to do with as he might wish. But she, like his secret knowledge, was too valuable to him to part with or expend lightly. He was reliant on her: she was his security.

Laying her hands on his swollen body, the girl began to knead and caress him, murmuring gently the while in her own tongue, to the sound of which, though he understood not a word of it, he had become more and more used during these past days while she had attended him, easing the strange infirmity clouding both his mind and his luxury. Her soft speech was like a spell to assuage sickness and anxiety. Relaxing, he gave himself up to the soothing sense of being enfolded, body and mind, in her skilled attentions.

He could not remember exactly how or when the illness-if illness it was-had come upon him. Indeed, he did not believe himself truly ill, for he had suffered no

pain or fever; and of poison he had no fear. Not only were his cooks reliable but Terebinthia, he knew, was continually vigilant.

His lassitude and loss of appetite and lubricity, so it seemed, had stolen upon him by slow degrees, as gradually as winter. At first with impatience, he had felt in himself a disinclination for those pleasures which he had formerly found so enjoyable. His sleep, too-once a smooth refreshment after gratification-had become broken, and troubled by disturbing dreams-fantasies which tended to linger after awakening and from which he could find relief only in the black girl's ministrations.

In lucid moments he felt her presence as a danger. He must make himself do without her-sell her; have her killed, perhaps. She was a sorceress (for Senchor like many of the cunning and cruel with no belief in religion, was full of superstition and vague notions of necromancy). He had become addicted to her; less to her body-for the intermittent pleasure he could still derive from that was not exclusive of others-than to her mysterious, sustaining power, like a thick, dark fluid which seemed continually passing from her into himself. Sometimes this seemed to him an actual reality; she represented a kind of drug, at one and the same time euphoric and harmful, which he knew to be nocuous yet could not do without. When she was absent he became peevish, full of vague dread and at the mercy of all manner of nebulous fears. Yet when she returned, he felt her spirit scattering those fears only the better to dominate him itself. When he dined, solacing himself with no more than a shadow of his former gluttony, it was by her will; and when he gratified himself, whether by means of her body or another's, it was as though she led him out into a paddock and stood by while he carried out what her husbandry had appointed. Her pig to be fattened; her goat to perform its task.

There were days when he could recall clearly the instructions he had given to his various agents; and the suspects-each one of them-for whom he had laid snares. Chalcon was a dangerous center of disaffection. Tonilda, he had long been aware, was full of spies and counterspies, many already known to him. He had a list of names- more than fifty, ranging from servants, shopkeepers and secret messengers to disaffected barons-against whom treason could be proved. At the right time, when it suited

him, he would have them arrested. The right time would be when he had enough evidence against Santil-ke-Erke-tlis, whom he knew to be the Leopards' most influential enemy. The killing of Enka-Mordet had possibly been premature, he reflected. Perhaps, on the other hand, it had put a stop at the outset to what might otherwise have become a full-scale revolt. Other heldril, minded like Enka-Mordet, would not have failed, now, to realize that there was little which remained unknown to the High Counselor. Ah! but to have acquired his haughty, delicate young daughter for nothing-and without even Kembri's knowledge, too-that had been extremely clever. As soon as he felt better, he would apply himself properly to breaking her in. Some reason might be found for Terebinthia to whip her; yet there were subtler and more enjoyable forms of degradation; delightful inventions of his own, for which at the moment, however, he lacked true inclination or energy. For the time being he must confine himself to milder humiliations.

Once or twice, during these last few days, he had felt about to rouse himself sufficiently to hear and give instructions to some of the spies who had come to report to him. More often, however, he had let matters slide, simply telling Occula to see that they were paid and dismiss them until they were due to return.

He fell asleep again, and in this sleep dreamed of an unknown, black goddess with white slits for eyes; thick-lipped, her breasts sharp and pointed as weapons, who revealed to him the likeness of Fravak, his long-dead master; then of the Katrian boy executed for his murder; of the servant-girl raped in Kabul-these and more. "How is it that you know these people?" he challenged her; and to this she replied, in some strange tongue which in his dream he nevertheless understood, "Most strangely are the laws of the nether world effected. Do not question the laws of the nether world."

Waking in discomfort, he called once more for Occula, and when she came told her to ease the itching and prickly heat tormenting him. The black girl, gazing at him gravely, assured him that all would be well if only he would do as she said. He should order the slaves to carry him into the small hall: he would find himself more comfortable there. Indeed, she assured him, for his own ease and well-being he would in general find it best always to go wherever she

suggested. Complying, he felt the power of his own cunning compromised and diminished, yet felt, too, immediate relief and reassurance as she caressed and whispered to him, changed the sweat-soaked cushions and fanned him while he drank the wine she had brought.

Sometimes Dyphna or the Tonildan girl would take Oc-cula's place, but at such times he was disturbed and fretful, for he felt at the mercy of shadows-had she conjured them?-and dared not let her be absent for long, his enigmatic comforter. All was paradox. "I am bewitched: I am not my own master," he once broke out suddenly to Terebinthia. Yet when she asked him what he meant, he was not aware that he had spoken but, queasy and restless, merely told her that he felt disinclined for supper tonight, and once more fell asleep, to dream of Occula, transformed to Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable, preserver and destroyer, floating with him upon dark water towards some undisclosed destination of voluptuous enjoyment and impending menace.

Bayub-Otal drained his goblet, gestured for it to be refilled and leaned back in his chair, smiling at Maia across the table. His face, in the candlelight, was flushed and a few drops of sweat glistened at his temples. During dinner the room, which was not large, had become too warm. Now that the shutters had been opened to cool it, they could hear that the rain had slackened. Light gusts of wind were blowing and the air smelt fresh. In the colonnade, below, a girl's voice, soliciting, spoke to some passer-by, who replied sharply and presumably walked on. The exchange gave Maia a pleasant sense of satisfaction. Even if she did not care for Bayub-Otal's company, at all events she was not plying for hire on the streets of the lower city.

They had dined well, in a private room at "The Green Grove", a well-known tavern situated on the north side of the Caravan Market. "The Green Grove" catered not only for prosperous traders and merchants but also, on demand, for aristocratic customers prepared to pay for the best food and wine. During Melekril there was little in the way of custom from provincial traders and the like, and Bayub-Otal's small party-himself, Haubas, Ka-Roton and three girls-had had the benefit of the best cooking and service the house could provide. Maia, who still could not

take for granted the marvel of unlimited, delicious food, had not allowed her task of cutting up Bayub-Otal's meat to interfere with doing the fullest justice to the hare soup, baked carp, stuffed lamb and succeeding dishes, and was now sitting alone with Bayub-Otal over mulled wine, figs and thrilsa. She was glad the other Urtans had taken their girls upstairs for a time, since both-strangers to her- were prosperous shearnas a good six or seven years older than she, and neither had shown herself particularly friendly to the sixteen-year-old slave-girl. "Why couldn't he have let us bring Actynnis?", she had heard one of them whisper. "She was dying to come." "Little slave-girls are cheaper," giggled the other, but broke off as Maia leant across to ask her for the salt.

"Did you enjoy the dinner?" asked Bayub-Otal, fanning himself with a fig leaf pulled from the basket.

"Very much, my lord," replied Maia. Then, making no attempt to suppress a belch, she laughed and added, "That's how much!"

"You'll never grow up to be a shearna at that rate."

Her task, she reminded herself, was to appear as simple and innocent as possible.

"P'raps I don't want to be a shearna."

"What would you like to be?"

Maia paused, smiling at him between the candle-flames. "There were four of us girls back home: I was the eldest, but dare say Kelsi'll be married now 'fore ever I am."

Bayub-Otal made no answer and she went on, "I told you how I used to swim in the lake-oh, sometimes for hours. It was lovely."

He pushed the candlesticks to one side, so that the light no longer lay directly between them.

"When you told me you belonged to the High Counselor, I was in two minds whether to see you again."

"It's not my fault, my lord, if I belong to the High Counselor. Fin still the same girl."

"The same girl as whom?"

"As swum in the lake."

"You won't be for long if you stay in
his
household. You tell him all you get to hear, I suppose-you and your black friend. That's the other use he has for you. Very serviceable, I'm sure."

A more experienced girl would have passed over the

taunt. Maia felt nettled and showed it, for he had, of course, come close to the truth.

"We're not spies, my lord; we're his household girls. I shan't go telling him anything you say. If you don't believe me, why do you want my company?"

He walked across the room and closed the shutters on the dripping darkness outside. Then, turning to the slave who had waited on them and pressing a couple of coins into his hand, he said, "Bring us in some more mulled wine. After that you may go."

"You're angry," he said, when the door had closed.

"Don't make much difference, my lord, does it, whether I am or not? I'm here to do as you like."

He cracked and peeled a nut with his left hand.

"What I'd like? Then what I'd like is simply for you to listen to me for a little while: I'll tell you a story which I dare say you may not have heard, though it's certainly known to the High Counselor. Do you want to hear it?"

"Seeing as you want to tell it to me, my lord."

"When I was born, my mother was a girl little older than you are now. She came from southern Suba-the marshland delta where the Valderra runs into the Zhair-gen. There are more channels there than a cat has whiskers."

Maia, forgetting her annoyance, laughed. "How many's that, then?"

He smiled back. "I don't know, but that's what they used to say when I was a child. Ah! 'When I was a child': we all love the place we come from, don't we? You loved your lake. In Suba the grass grows very tall-as tall as a man-in great swamps, with
sheldin
trees lining the banks of the channels. Evenings, the sun sets-oh, far away, out beyond Katria-and there are shoals of little silver fish-
margets,
they're called-that leap out of the water, here and gone, like rain pattering. It's all water-ways there- water-ways and reeds-and the children can paddle a raft almost as soon as they can walk. The Urtans call us marsh frogs: they say that when our enemies come we dive into the water." He laughed. "So we do. People who want to be lost take a lot of finding in that country."

"Lespa of the Stars-didn't she come from there, my lord?"

"So they say. But if she did, she couldn't have been more beautiful than my mother."

He pushed the wine-flagon across to her and waited while she refilled her goblet.

"My mother was a dancer-the most famous and beautiful in all Suba; in all the empire, really. At festival-time men used to travel three, four days' journey just to see her dance. I hardly ever saw her dance, myself; but I've talked to men who did, before she was-before she was
married,"
said Bayub;Otal with emphasis. "That's to say, before I was born, when she was at her greatest as a dancer.

"The baron of southern Suba at that time-Nor-Zavin; he's dead now-he was suspected by the Urtans-I don't know how justly-of secret dealings with Terekenalt, and he badly needed to convince the High Baron of Urtah that he was loyal to him. He sent him all sorts of gifts-unusual, singular things that they'd never seen in Urtah. He knew of my mother, of course. All Suba knew of her. So he bought her from her parents. It was a forced sale: he was a baron, and even though she wasn't a slave they had no real choice, though I suppose you could say it was a fair deal in its way. He paid them far more than she'd have fetched in the hands of men like Lalloc. It kept them in comfort for the rest of their lives." He paused. "Break up this thrilsa for me, Maia, and have some yourself."

Maia did as he asked. The slave returned with the mulled wine, put it down and went out.

"Well," went on Bayub-Otal slowly, "so she was taken away-crying, I dare say-to Kendron-Urtah. And there she danced for the High Baron and his court. Do you know his name?"