Maia (64 page)

"I know all that, Folda: but as it happens, this girl's your own property. She's down in the temple of Cran at this minute. It's my friend, Occula. She never killed Sencho, I can promise you that. She didn't know anything about it. Did, she'd 'a told me."

"You mean the black girl who was with Sencho that night?"

"Yes, esta-saiyett. Occula-she's exactly what you want, believe me."

"How very interesting!" said Fornis. "What makes you so sure?"

"Because we was months together at Sencho's and I know what she likes: her tastes an' that."

"I see." Fornis paused. "Well-and yet you say she didn't kill him?"

"I know it, esta-saiyett."

"What a pity!" said Fornis unexpectedly. "Sencho'd lived too long. He wasn't useful to us anymore. Perhaps
I
killed him, did I?" She laughed again. "No, I didn't, as it happens; but I rather wish I had. Well, we'd better start thinking what we're going to do, hadn't we? I'll write to the chief priest under my personal seal, saying that I've decided after all that you're available to be used as Kembri wishes, but he's to send me Occula instead. Then Shakti can take you down to the temple this morning and bring Occula back with her." She paused. "But mind this, Maia, and make very sure you don't forget it! One word about last night to anyone at all, and that gorgeous body of yours will be hanging upside-down by the road for the flies to blow. Have you got that? Now let's go and bathe, and if that Deelguy girl hasn't got the water hot I'll have her whipped as well as the dog-boy."

It was after midnight. Maia, who had been awake-how long? she wondered; well over an hour-was looking out from the temple of Cran over the still, moonlit city. The room where they had told her to sleep until it was time to set out was high up, under the cornice, and from its window she could see, across the roofs of the lower city and the great square of the Caravan Market, the dark shape of the Peacock Gate and the walls extending on either side of it.

To the right and beyond, a mile away on the Leopard Hill, rose the Barons' Palace, its slender towers soaring, in the moonlight, above the deep-shadowed outline of its north front. Remote and far-off it looked now; nothing to do with her anymore, the girl who had danced the senguela to the acclamation of Sarget's guests.

There was not a breath of wind. She looked down on the flat roofs tilting this way and that below her. The shadows of their parapets cast hard, slanting lines and the moonlight picked out, here and there, a medley of objects; brick cisterns, pear-shaped water-jars, shrubs growing in pots, here a coil of rope, there a pallet-bed for use in the heat of summer. The moon, now risen high over Crandor, had dimmed Lespa's stars with a light, almost as bright as day.

Somewhere a dog was howling and from another direction, so far off that her ear caught it only intermittently, came a sound of music. Here and there a few lamps still burned in windows, but since she had begun her pensive, melancholy watch they had grown fewer and fewer, until now only two or three remained: watchers by the sick, perhaps, she thought; or lovers abed who preferred a dim light to darkness. It seemed much longer than an hour since the lamp-shutters of the clock towers, both of which she could see, had swung open to signal midnight. Surely they must be due to open again any moment now. There was not a soul in the streets below; the Kharjiz, Storks Hill and Masons Street all empty. Only in the distant Caravan Market a few figures-porters or sweepers, perhaps-were moving slowly here and there; like autumn flies on a window-sill, she thought. How long now till someone came for her?

Her shoulder was hurting, as it had for hours past, and she could not bear to think what she must look like. Kem-bri and the chief priest, who had seen her again that morning to give her her detailed instructions, had assured her that she would not have to suffer a great deal to make it look as though she had been questioned. The temple guards, however, told off to see to the actual business, had taken a rather different view. They had not been as brutal as if she were a real prisoner, but Maia in all her life before had never been really knocked about or ill-used, and the fear and shock had been almost worse than the pain. She had a black eye and a badly swollen lip, a four-inch burn across her right shoulder and livid bruises across her thighs and buttocks. The soiled white tunic-which Bayub-Otal might remember her to have been wearing in the gardens-had been brought down from the queen's house and she had had to put it on again. Hair, finger-nails, knees, feet- all were filthy. Probably, she thought, the tracks of her tears showed plain down her grimy face.

The chief priest, cold and reserved (disappointed, perhaps, in his hopes), had refused to let her see Occula. Maia had half-expected as much, and on the way from the queen's house to the temple had begged Ashaktis to look after her friend and give her all the help she could. This Ashaktis had promised, though rather casually.

"That's if the queen likes her, of course," she had added; and Maia had judged it best to say no more.

What she now felt above all, leaning on the sill and looking out over the checkered, sleeping city-more than her injuries and dirt, more even than the danger into which she was going-was for loneliness. For the first time since the day when she had been carted by the slave-traders to Puhra, she had no friend to whom she could turn, no one to comfort or help her. The exploit on which they were sending her, she knew, was a pure gamble on Kembri's part. She was being thrown down like a die on a gamingtable. If the throw proved a loser, they would merely shrug their shoulders: she would be no great loss. If she won for them they would pocket the winnings, and for what they might award her in return she had nothing but Kembri's word, given as an inducement. Yet what else could she do but try to succeed? She could not hope to escape. Where to, anyway? She had no money and knew next to nothing of the empire, its various provinces and towns; while as

for trying to get out of it on her own, she would not know how to begin. She could only go through with the adventure. If she succeeded she must, surely, end up better off.-Yet if only there had been a mate, a friend, someone to share the frightening, hazardous future!

There were fewer lights now. The dog howled on. In the nearer clock tower, a few hundred yards to her left, the shutters opened and the lamps beamed out for the hour, followed at once by those of the further tower half a mile away to the west. At this moment she heard footsteps outside the door and the latch was lifted.

"Maia? Ah! Waiting, were you?"

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 Nen-naunir. 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-OtaJ'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?"

"One of the guards-I gave him-I gave him what he wanted, to let me go."

"I see. And do you think they've found out yet that you've escaped?"

"I don't know. Not yet, perhaps, but they're bound to soon. Oh, please help me, my lord!"

"But how did you know where I was?"

"I knew where your lodgings were, my lord. Sencho knew-he knew everything like that. You
will
help me, my lord, won't you? If they catch me now-"

"Yes, I'll help you," said Bayub-Otal, "but we'll have to be quick. You're lucky to have found me here. I was warned, not an hour ago, to leave the city at once. I was intending to leave tomorrow anyway, but apparently they mean to arrest me on suspicion of having to do with the murder."

Kembri must have arranged this, thought Maia, to make sure that Bayub-Otal would be up and setting about his own flight when she arrived. That would make him less likely to question her too closely.