38: THE TEMPLE OF CRAN

It was two hours after dawn. Durakkon, clad in the golden, black-dappled robes of the High Baron, was standing with a small entourage on the rostrum outside the Blue Gate. On either side of him rose the backward-sloping walls of the outer precinct, forming a kind of funnel down which the paved roadway led eastward from the gate itself to the junction, outside the city, of the highways from Thettit-Tonilda and Ikat Yeldashay.

In spite of the water sprinkled on the stones below, dust covered Durakkon's robes and had filled his mouth and nose. For half an hour he had been standing on the platform, while below him the Tonildan and Beklan regiments, some three thousand men in all, marched out of the city for the Valderra front. The two contingents, having mustered in Bekla upon the first slackening of the rains and spent several days in equipping and refitting, had been assembled by Kembri at dawn that morning in the Caravan Market.

Apart from his anxiety to reach the Valderra as soon as possible, the Lord General wanted no delay in getting the men out of the city, where soldiers in the mass were always liable to cause trouble through fighting, theft, rape and the like. Watched by the usual crowd of grieving girls, proud but sorrowful parents, envious younger brothers and angry tavern-keepers, trulls and similar creditors making last, vain efforts to collect what was due to them, the regiments had been inspected and addressed by Kembri and then marched out of the city by the nearest gate.

Durakkon, thinking it only fitting that the High Baron as well as the Lord General should be present at their departure, had decided against coming to Caravan Market (where he could only appear second in importance) and taken up his position outside the Blue Gate. Notwithstanding the dust and discomfort, it had proved worthwhile. Several of the companies had cheered him as they passed and he had spoken personally with eight or nine senior officers.

Although it was common knowledge that as High Baron he lacked force and domination, Durakkon had a fine presence and a name for honesty and benevolence at least. The feeling of most of the men, as they recognized him standing on the platform, had been that although it was not going to make any difference either to their comfort or their success, he had nevertheless done the decent thing in turning out to see them off, and accordingly they cheered him sincerely.

There was another good reason for the regiments' early departure. This was the day fixed for the spring festival. Kembri had originally intended to get them out the morning before, but had been unable, owing to the late delivery of certain supplies. It was now vital that they should be gone before the festival began, for otherwise they—or even the city itself—might very well get out of control. During the past three days crowds from all over the provinces had been pouring into Bekla. The lower city, even without the soldiers, was already thronged to overflowing, and the householders on whom they had been billeted were impatient to see the back of them and attract paying lodgers instead. From the point of view of law and order they were probably leaving in the nick of time.

During their departure all incoming traffic through the Blue Gate had been stopped. As the last company of the Tonildan regiment came out from between the walls, turning north and then west in the rear of the column, hundreds of wayfarers, who had been waiting beside the road as the soldiers went by, came surging down the outer precinct towards the Blue Gate.

Durakkon, not having foreseen this, found himself cut off on the rostrum and unable to take his departure, for clearly the High Baron could not jostle his way back into the city among pilgrims and drovers. His entourage was insufficient for an escort and in any case the crowd was too dense. So on the platform Durakkon remained, coughing in the dust raised by the sweating, shoving tide below. He had dispatched one of his aides for an officer and thirty men to accompany him back to the upper city. He could do no more.

Durakkon had always had a sincere feeling for the common people. That, indeed, was what had seduced him into the seizure of power and the predicament of rule. Now, not ill-humoredly despite his discomfort, he stood looking here and there about the precinct below, observing this person and that among the multitude pushing on towards the gate. Here, if anywhere, he could see, almost as though depicted on a great scroll, the range of his subjects—men and women from every part of the empire, as well as some from beyond its borders.

A gang of thirty or forty market women, typical of those who regularly tramped the twenty-odd miles to the big commercial gardens along the banks of the upper Zhairgen to buy fruit and vegetables for sale in Bekla, went past together, each carrying on her head a full pannier. Close behind came a Kabin bird-catcher, capped and belted with bright feathers and hung about with wicker cages containing his prisoners for sale. Two, Durakkon noticed, were already dead. Three solemn-looking, gray bearded men, each wearing the corn-sheaves emblem of Sarkid—by their bearing, persons of standing back home—looked up as they passed and saluted him by raising their staves. Following them, singing raucously and waving leather bottles as they rallied those around them in the crowd, came a troop of long-whiskered Deelguy with silver rings in their ears and at least four knives to each man's belt. Among these, and apparently accepted by them as companions, were a lank, tough-looking young man in the uniform of a licensed pedlar, and a pretty, dark-haired girl—Belishban, by her appearance—who was limping and plainly very tired. Probably, thought Durakkon, she had been walking all night. For a moment he had a vague notion that he had seen her somewhere before. However, he could not remember where, and next moment she was gone, leaning heavily on her pedlar-lad's arm.

But now the High Baron recognized a wealthy Gelt iron-master, one Bodrin, carried in a chair on the shoulders of four slaves. Calling down to him by name, he invited him to join him on the rostrum. The man climbed up, and after the usual courtesies Durakkon began questioning him about the supplies of iron to be expected from Gelt now that the rains were over. (Although a paved road ran sixty miles from Bekla to the Gelt foothills, consignments of iron were suspended during Melekril.) Below, the festival crowds surged on—pilgrims from as far as Ortelga and Chalcon, craftsmen and merchants up from Ikat, from Thettit, from the upper Zhairgen valley, from Cran alone knew where; some with their women and some without; and all manner of strange earners of livings—piemen and itinerant confectioners, quack-doctors, traveling actors and their wenches, professional letter-writers, hinnarists, cloth-sellers, vendors of knives, of glass, of bone needles and cheap jewelry; and along with these, plain sight-seers and folk up for a frolic; people who had come to see the Tamarrik Gate and people who already knew it well. Many of these, unable to obtain lodgings, would sleep on the streets.

At length Bodrin, palm to forehead, took his leave, descended from the rostrum and continued on his way. Durakkon, still aloft above the crowd, felt suddenly old and tired, a prisoner cut off from all the energy and vibrant life below. Wearier than the poor lass with the pedlar, he thought, for he had been tramping for seven years to stay in the same place. Once he had been full of confidence and determination to be a just ruler, to put down oppression and champion ordinary folk against those who cheated and exploited them. He had even had some idea of an end to slavery. But his vision, like the charitable bequest of some stupid, kindly old lady, had never reached its intended recipients.

Somewhere along the way it had been intercepted, pilfered, nullified; by Kembri, by Sencho, by Fornis, by men like Lalloc. Was there, he wondered, one single peasant—man, woman or child—whose life was any the easier for his rule?

He thought of his wife, the daughter of a baron of Sarkid, whom he had married twenty-eight years ago, loyally fulfilling her role as High Baron's consort in a society where many now regarded the very concept of marriage as obsolete foolishness; of his sons, one on the Valderra, the other an officer in the new fortress at Dari-Paltesh. He called to mind, too, the pretty, golden-haired girl, with her soft Tonildan burr, whom he had watched Kembri question and browbeat the other night; a child enslaved, snatched from her home, eager to make her fortune by whoring, spying and delation. Whatever good she might contrive to dredge up for herself from the mud into which she had been pitched, he had conferred none on her.

He wondered how much longer he would have to go on living. At his age he could not realistically seek service— and death—in the field. Already he was showing signs of infirmity and it would look merely foolish. The prospect of something like another twenty years of increasing inability to hold his own against Kembri and Sencho seemed to him like slow death in a dungeon. Yet at all costs he must try to keep his dignity for the remainder of his life— whatever that might be.

From somewhere away to his right he heard shouted commands and men marching. The soldiers were coming through the gate to escort him back to the upper city, opening a lane through the crowds, pushing people back with the shafts of their spears. Their officer, reaching the foot of the rostrum, looked up and saluted, right forearm across his chest.

"If you'll allow me to say so, my lord, I wouldn't delay. My men can't hold back a crowd like this for long."

"Thank you," replied Durakkon. "I'm coming."

In the High Counselor's house also, preparations for the spring festival were proceeding. Sencho, irritated by the prospect of the three-quarter-mile journey down through the lower city to the Temple of Cran, the long, tedious rites and the unavoidable foregoing of dinner and other customary pleasures, lay morosely in the bath while Terebinthia laid out his robes and regalia.

Slave-girls, of course—even the High Counselor's—could not be present at the temple ceremony, but since Sencho was virtually helpless without attendants, Occula and Maia were to walk beside his utter as far as the temple precinct, wait until the ceremony was concluded and then accompany him back.

For the Sacred Queen's spring festival the aristocracy of Bekla, as well as the numerous provincial barons who made the journey to attend, were usually dressed, in accordance with ancient custom, as though for a wedding, while those of rank wore or carried their privileged insignia. By the same token propriety required that slaves, insofar as their presence might be unavoidable, should be dressed plainly and inconspicuously: or rather, this was what would once have been expected, in the days of Senda-na-Say and his predecessors. Of late years, however, fewer and fewer inhabitants of the upper city had continued to regard the ceremony with the fervor felt by their forefathers. The rites were not, indeed, cut short or treated lightly, but they were observed rather than celebrated—a tradition of empire rather than an invocation of the god from the hearts of his worshippers. The dignitaries attending did so because it was expected of them, and because to have been absent would have given rise to criticism.

Accordingly, in the matter of dress, no one was particularly concerned to find fault with departures from the sober ways of the past, those who might privately feel troubled preferring not to risk being thought hidebound or puritanically out of date. Least of all was anyone likely to suggest that so powerful and vindictive a public figure as the High Counselor might be acting tastelessly or irreverently by attiring his slave-girls in travesties of traditional styles. Occula was dressed in a plain white frock of fine wool, its long sleeves slashed and the weave, from shoulders to knees, so open as to reveal her body beneath.

Maia's dress, which in cut followed exactly the homely garment of a household servant of a hundred years before, was made of very thin blue silk which clung so closely that the effect was, and was meant to be, immodestly provocative.

"Great hoppin' Shakkarn, banzi!" muttered Occula, as on Terebinthia's instructions they went together to fetch hot towels from the steam-room, "you hang around the Tamarrik Gate like that for a bit and half the jig-a-jigs in town'll be rubbin' themselves up against you."

"Reckon you'll be safe, then, do you?" answered Maia, trying the heat of a towel on her bare forearm, clapping the steam out of it and dropping it into the basket.

"Oh, they'll all have come off jus' lookin' at you before they get anywhere near me," replied the black girl. "Any-way," she went on, with a certain change of tone, "Kantza-Merada's protectin' me today. And you'll remember I said that, woan' you?" she added, turning to look directly into Maia's eyes. "Do you love me, banzi? Really?"

"You ought to know."

"Then remember this. Tonight, at the Barb, whatever I tell you to do, do it, and doan' ask any questions. No" (holding up a pale palm), "that's enough! But remember we were lovers, banzi, and that I was always straight with you."

Before Maia could reply she had taken the basket and was leading the way back up the passage.

When the girls had finished dressing the High Counselor and helped him into the small dining-hall to await the arrival of his litter, Terebinthia, kneeling, begged him, in the customary terms, graciously to hear the petition of his faithful and devoted slave Dyphna, who had completed five years in his service. This was the signal for Dyphna to come forward, prostrate herself, offer the payment for her freedom and formally request Sencho to grant it to her. Usually, in Bekla, the freeing of a girl who had earned her price and given her master pleasure and satisfaction was the occasion for mutual compliments and some little informal ceremony. The girl would be asked to rise and drink with her master and would receive his thanks, good wishes for her future and so on, before receiving a present and taking formal leave of the household; sometimes being escorted by an admirer (invited beforehand) to begin her new life as a shearna or sometimes even as a wife.

Such wearisome niceties, however, were not for Sencho. Having told Terebinthia to count the money, he lay silently, with closed eyes, from time to time scratching himself under the oppressive robes; and as soon as the säiyett had assured him that the sum was correct, waved the girl away, at the same time calling for Milvushina to hold a pot for him to pass water before setting out for the lower city.

At one time Maia would have been overcome at the idea of being seen publicly in such a dress. Feelings of shame, however, usually stem not directly from ourselves but rather from anticipation of what we know or suppose others are going to think of us. Also, such feelings tend to vary according to one's self-confidence or social position. It was only a few months since Maia, in her one good dress, had sat with Tharrin in the tavern at Meerzat, nervous of the unaccustomed wine and embarrassed by the hot glances of the fishermen. Ah! but things had changed, she reflected. She'd learned now all right, no danger, what people in Bekla reckoned to a girl whose looks and accomplishments could attract the favor of the rich and powerful. As long as she could maintain that favor, even poor people, acquiescent in the ways of their rulers, would accept her at those rulers' valuation and never think of her origins—except perhaps to admire her for rising above them. Nor would they stop to consider that it was their taxes which had put gowns on her body and jewels round her neck. Only if she fell from favor would their envy and malice come to the top. Meanwhile she and Occula represented that very best which some could afford while others couldn't.

The only modesty she felt now was that appropriate to a junior; a prudent sense of the unwisdom of making enemies through showing conceit or presumption. The cobblers, weavers and potters along the streets were welcome to stare out of their doors at her and imagine, poor fellows, what they would like to do to her. That did not matter. The important thing was, in the event of meeting such as Sessendris or Nennaunir, to be careful to assume an air of demure gratitude for favors received; and on no account publicly to claim acquaintance, act familiarly or even smile at any aristocrat who might have bedded her or watched her dance naked in the Barons' Palace.

This morning the Peacock Gate stood open and the guards were concerned only to watch for unauthorized ingress from the lower city; not that anyone wished to go that way, for as the hour of noon approached almost the whole populace wanted only to get as near as possible to the Tamarrik Gate, or at least to line the streets leading to it and watch the nobility assembling for the ceremony. Many of the country people who had earlier flocked past Durakkon at the gate were standing on each side of the steep Street of the Armourers, or thronging the Caravan Market and Storks Hill, down which the dignitaries from the upper city would be coming.

Soldiers lined this route. Those between the Peacock Gate and Caravan Market were from the Yeldashay regiment, but lower down, Durakkon's Green Guard had been posted along Storks Hill as far as the Temple of Cran itself. These men, all above normal height, made a fine spectacle with their open-link mail over jerkins of green-dyed leather, and polished helmets flashing above the crowd whenever one or another of them turned his head.

The flat-roofed, stone buildings shone white in the noonday sun. The rainless air itself seemed fulgent and there was an unbroken murmur of expectant talk among the crowds, every now and then rising in excitement as they recognized some well-known figure passing. Old men nodded and mumbled to one another about festivals of years gone by. Women chattered, children squealed and pointed, lasses rolled their eyes and flaunted their finery, sweetmeat vendors pushed about, crying their wares. Municipal slaves went continually to and fro, sprinkling water to lay the dust.

It was along the paved route kept open by the soldiers through this staring, babbling throng that the two girls were required to walk, gazing nowhere but straight ahead as they followed the litter in which sprawled the monstrous, bloated figure of the High Counselor. Continuously, from about a hundred yards in front, a sound of cheering preceded them as Elvair-ka-Virrion, accompanied by Shend-Lador and three or four more of his closer friends, made their way down together on foot. The cheers, dying away as the young Leopards passed on, were not renewed for Sencho.

Maia, shortening her pace to accord with that of the litter-bearers as they began the final, steep descent of the Street of the Armourers into the Caravan Market—the spot where she had exchanged ribaldry with the apothecary's 'prentice on her way to Eud-Ecachlon's lodgings— constantly heard murmurs rising on either side. The countless pairs of eyes round her, which she could sense but not return, seemed stripping her naked. Well, but they're only people, she said to herself. Ah, yet if only she'd been free just to gaze back at them! This enforced detachment and indifference, she thought, didn't suit her style; she felt as though she were pretending to be a creature of some other species, kept for its beauty yet not consciously aware or concerned that these were men around her—a peacock on a lawn, perhaps, or Zuno's white cat among the guests at the inn.

The litter swayed on across the Caravan Market, past Fleitil's brazen scales towards the colonnade in which stood "The Green Grove." Once a child's clear voice reached Maia, "Oh, look, mum, the pretty ladies!" and a minute or two later, lower but still plain, a man's, "No, the fair one in the blue." She felt a quick spurt of superstitious reassurance, for the accent had been unmistakably Tonildan.

At the entrance to Storks Hill the litter stopped, evidently in response to an order given by Sencho, for they could see the tryzatt bend down as though listening to him. The girls, standing still in full view of the crowd, resembled, in their exposed yet inaccessible youth and beauty, ripe fruit on the trees of an enclosed orchard; a provocation the more alluring for being forbidden; enough to make a man forget all normal promptings of safety and common sense. Suddenly, Maia heard from only a few yards away a sharp cry, "Back! Get back there!" and, turning her head in alarm, saw a soldier ramming the butt of his spear into the stomach of a big, shambling fellow, whose eyes remained fixed on her even as he went down among the crowd.

"Piggy gone mad, or what?" muttered Occula out of the side of her mouth. "We'll all be basted to buggery in a minute, standing here."

The tryzatt, straightening up, now turned and beckoned Maia to the side of the litter. Sencho, clutching her by the arm, told her to go into "The Green Grove" and fetch him some cooled wine. The kindly tryzatt, however, overhearing, anticipated her and brought it himself. Sencho, having gulped at leisure until he had finished the entire beaker—Maia standing by him the while—then required her to take a towel and wipe the sweat from his face and shoulders. She returned to her place beside Occula flushed with embarrassment.

"What was all that about?" asked the black girl.

"Drink," replied Maia in a whisper.

"That all?" said Occula. "Thought you must be havin' a quick thrash."

At the foot of Storks Hill an even thicker crowd surrounded the Temple of Cran. In the tile-paved precinct below the portico, close by the new statue of Airtha, the tall figure of Durakkon was standing among his barons and such of the army's senior officers as were not on the Valderra or at Dari-Paltesh.

Their wives, together with the company of the Thlela, were assembled a little apart. Each new arrival, as he reached the precinct, formally greeted Durakkon, whereupon he was either, if of sufficient importance, invited to join those round the High Baron or else courteously conducted to some other group, among his equals. There was a blaze of color from cloaks, robes and plumed hats, and a mingling of scents on the air, not only from perfumes but also from the spring flowers bed-ded round the edge of the precinct. Viewed from a little above, as one descended Storks Hill, the scene conveyed a breath-taking impression of wealth and power, so that even Occula momentarily lost her sang-froid, murmuring "Kantza-Merada!" in a tone of startled admiration which Maia had never heard from her before.

Yet now before the girls' eyes was disclosed a sight even more astonishing than that of the Leopard gathering. Be-yond the precinct, on the right bank of the Monju brook where it ran out of the city beneath the walls, stood the fabled Tamarrik Gate, designed and constructed eighty years before by the great Fleitil, grandfather of Fleitil the sculptor. This, a wonder of the empire rivalled only by the Barons' Palace and the Ledges of Quiso, was (until its destruction by the Ortelgans several years later) an integral part of the cult of Cran, conferring upon it a numinous splendor virtually irresistible alike to the dullest heart and the most skeptical mind. In function it was a water-clock, driven like a mill by the brook; but this is like saying that Alexander the Great was a soldier.

A swift-flowing carrier from the Monju encircled the whole area of the Tamarrik, its shelving inner bank planted with tall, plumed ferns. At intervals, ducts admitted water into one or another internal part of the complex. Along the lower courses of the walls of these ducts grew expanses of green liverwort, while the parapets, where the stones remained dry, were covered with blue-tongued lichens, their scarlet apothecia upstanding like myriads of minuscule warriors on guard above the sacred water below.

Immediately within the ring of the carrier stood a double half-circle of sycamores, between the leaves of which (the water driving their concealed mechanism) appeared from time to time, half-visible, the likenesses of the seven deities of the empire—Cran, Airtha, Shakkarn, Lespa, Shardik, Canathron and Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable.

The Tamarrik Court itself faced due south towards the temple precinct and Storks Hill. In the center, on a circular bronze platform ten yards in diameter, stood the sundial of Cran. The life-sized, naked figure of the god, cast in bronze covered with silver leaf, reclined on a bed of malachite grass, speckled with red and blue flowers of carnelian and aquamarine. It’s great, erect zard, stylized and engraved with fruit, flowers and ears of corn, formed the gnomon of the dial, and round it, in a shallow spiral precisely designed and placed for the indication of time throughout the day, stood, in various postures of an arrested, ecstatic dance, twelve silver girls, each the guardian of an hour-point on the dial at her feet and herself representing one of the empire's twelve provinces or independent domains—Bekla, Belishba, Chalcon, Gelt, Lapan and Kabin of the Waters: Ortelga, Paltesh, Tonilda, Urtah, Yelda and Sarkid of the Sheaves. The spiral dial above which they danced was a concave groove, about a foot broad. At its summit sat a golden, purple-lacquered kynat-bird, which every hour, by the operation of the water, released, as though laying an egg, a silver ball to roll down the spiral and be caught at its foot in a cup held by the figure of a kneeling child. (To keep the sundial and waterclock in synchronicity, a skilled task, required continual vigilance and adjustment and was carried out by six of the priesthood, their sole duty being to attend to this business from dawn till sunset.) Behind and above the dial, but in front of the square gateway at the back of the Tamarrik Court, stood the famous concentric spheres of silver filigree—threads criss-crossing between slender, silver ribs—which represented the city and the sky above it. Bekla, standing in the midst of an open plain, commanded a virtually hemispherical view of the stars and accordingly, accurate observation of their places and movement had been a function of the priesthood from earliest times. The inner sphere, over five feet in diameter, was fixed, and reproduced on its upper hemisphere all the principal features of Bekla—Mount Crandor and the citadel, the Barons' Palace, the Barb lake and the various towers and gates of the lower city. Its under-side represented in relief Cran and Airtha in majesty, their arms extended to uphold the city above them. Enclosing this, yet sufficiently open in workmanship to leave all these details plainly visible, the outer sphere bore, upon its thin, curved ribs of silver, great jewels set in the forms of the various constellations. This had been constructed to be manually rotated in conformity with the movement of the heavens themselves and, like the dial, required constant attention to ensure its precision.

A stone canopy protected the spheres from wind and weather, and this bore on its pediment four dials which showed the month of the year, the phase of the moon, the day and the hour. From its roof one end of a narrow bronze bar, trough-shaped, projected over the courtyard below. This was balanced on a fulcrum mounted on the parapet, and its padded inner end rested on the surface of a deep silver drum. At sunset a priest, climbing to the roof, would scatter corn into the trough. The sacred white doves, alighting to eat, as they came and went would cause the finely-balanced bar to tilt and fall back, so that the drum seemed to beat of itself, to signal to the city the end of work for the day. Aloft, crowning the edifice, rose on its pedestal the wind-harp known as the Voice of Airtha, from whose music omens were divined.

Beyond the gate, just outside the city walls, stood the grove of tamarrik trees universally believed to be sprung from the seed cast down from Crandor's summit, ages before, by Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable. That the whole marvel stood in a deliberately-made breach in the walls symbolized the impossibility of an enemy ever taking the city by storm.

Occula and Maia, halting on the edge of the precinct while the High Counselor's litter was carried on into the temple, stood gazing in awe and astonishment at one and another part of the wonder before them.

Maia, unable to imagine the purpose or meaning of the dials (except that they were obviously magical and on that account disturbing), was nevertheless delighted by the nympholeptic spiral of hours, the reclining god and the purple-and-gold kynat above. Gazing, she remembered with amusement how, on the night of the Rains banquet, she had been disconcerted by the sight of the erotic fountain in the Lord General's lower hall.

"What the hell are you gigglin' about?" asked Occula rather tensely.

"Just thinking I know now why you're always swearing by Cran's zard," answered Maia.

"He did even better than that, though, did Fleitil," said Occula, with more composure. "D'you know what happens at the ceremony?"

"Well, yes, kind of—that's to say, Tharrin told me a bit about it, once."

Suddenly she caught her breath, all her ribaldry gone as for an instant the face of Lespa looked out at her from among the leaves.

"Oh, Occula! Did you see?" She turned and, despite the crowd and the blaze of noon, seemed almost ready to run.

"Steady!" said the black girl. "It's only a trick, banzi. Cran and Airtha! you were Lespa yourself the other night— and very good, too, by all I hear."

"Why, whatever can valuable property like you two be doing standing out here in the boiling sun?" said a voice behind them.

They both looked round. It was Nennaunir, strikingly beautiful in a purple robe cross-stitched with gold thread, her high-piled hair fixed with jewelled, ebony combs. Maia, hoping she had not noticed her naive alarm at the face in the leaves, smiled back at her.

"Oh, we're just gettin' toasted, ready for the supper-party by the Barb tonight," said Occula. "It'll go easier with sunstroke, I dare say."

"But have you really been told that you've got to stand out here all through the ceremony?" persisted Nennaunir.

"Well, tell you the truth, I'm not sure," answered Maia. "Reckon as long as we're back here 'fore the end—"

"You can't go in?"

"We're slaves, aren't we?" said Occula.

Nennaunir looked quickly and covertly round the crowded precinct, rather like a child contemplating mischief. Then, dropping her voice, she whispered, "I'll get you in, if you like—both of you," and at once began leading Maia towards the temple. Occula hesitated a moment and then, shrugging her shoulders, followed.

The temple steps and portico, built of stone blocks, faced east across the precinct, presenting a solemn and majestic front. The rear of the building, however, rather like that of a theater (which to some extent it was), comprised all manner of storage and robing rooms, administrative quarters and other odd corners—the priests' refectory and kitchen, offices for conducting temple business, tally-rooms, cellars, a yard and shed where parts of the mechanism of the Tamarrik Gate were overhauled and maintained—and so on. Nennaunir, slipping quickly along a sunk path running beside the temple's south wall, turned, between two out-buildings, into a paved yard piled with firewood on one side and empty wine-casks on the other. Here a dark, scowling young man, dressed in the gray-green smock of a temple slave, was sitting on a stool, peeling brillions into a pail with a broken-bladed knife. He had dirty fingernails and a stubble of beard, which he scratched with the knife as he paused, looking up at the newcomers.

"Hullo, Sednil," said Nennaunir, halting beside him in a cloud of perfume and trailing gauzes. "Found you easily, didn't I? How are you, my darling?"

The young man looked up at her with a grin which, while probably meant to express bravado, only succeeded in making him look mortified and rather pathetic.

"I was all right until just now. What d'you want to come round here for, looking like that?"

"I didn't come here to torment you," said Nennaunir. "Really I didn't, Sednil. Cheer up! Honestly, I believe it won't be much longer—"

"Three years," said he. "D'you call that long or short?"

"It might be' much less," answered Nennaunir. "It might, Sednil, truly. I'm doing my best, but it's a matter of finding the right person and the right moment."

"Like when you're on your back with someone else, you mean?" said Sednil, spitting into the peel-bucket.

"Well, that might turn out to be a good time, yes. You must be realistic, darling. I shan't miss any opportunity I get, I promise you."

Sednil made no reply, only continuing to gaze at her like a man looking through the barred window of a cell.

"Sednil, it will be all right—you wait and see! And look, I've brought two charming friends of mine to meet you— Maia and Occula. They both belong to Sencho, poor girls."

"Cran help them!" said Sednil. "Why aren't they squashed flat?"

"Well, there you are, you see; there's always someone worse off. They want to go in and watch the ceremony. You'll help them, won't you?"

Sednil said nothing.

"Won't you?"

"It's risky," said Sednil.

"I'm sure they'd really appreciate it. They'd show themselves very very grateful, I expect."

At this moment there rang across the city the clangor of the gongs striking noon, and from the steps of the temple a trumpet sounded.

"Yes or no?" said Nennaunir. "I'll have to be quick: I've got a friend waiting."

"Oh, twenty, I dare say," answered Sednil bitterly. "All in line." He turned to the girls. "Well, come on, then!"

By this time Maia, who had not been paying much attention to the talk, was as much agog as a child being taken to a treat. Smiling at the young man and taking his arm, she thanked Nennaunir warmly and then set off with him through the door, across an untidy, deserted kitchen and along a stone-floored passage.

"You're a friend of Nennaunir?" she asked conversationally.

"I used to be," said he.

"Before you came to the temple, you mean?" Maia was puzzled.

"How long did you get?" asked Occula from behind them.

"Five years. Oh, she's not a bad sort, I suppose. All the same, she knew the truth of it and never said a word. Oh, never mind! What's the use?"

Maia still felt none the wiser.

"You mean you're here against your will? Couldn't you— well, run away or something? I mean, all these crowds of people from all over the empire—"

"Run away? Where d'you come from, lass? Look!" Sednil, pausing by a window on the staircase they were now climbing, stretched out one hand. Across the back extended a white scar, fully three inches broad, in the shape of a pair of crossed spears. In parts the flesh was proud, and in one place the wound had not entirely healed.

"M'm—so that's the forced service brand, is it?" said Occula, craning over Maia's shoulder. "I've never seen one before. Did it hurt?"

" 'Course it basting well hurt!" replied Sednil irritably. "What d'you think?"

"I don't understand," said Maia. "You mean it's—"

"If a man who's been branded like that can't show a token—either from whoever he's workin' for or else a 'released' token once his time's up—it's death straight away," said Occula. "That's why he doesn' run, banzi. He'd have to run to Zeray." She turned back to Sednil. "I didn' know they sent people like you to the temple. It's usually the Gelt mines, isn' it, or somewhere like that?"

"Yes, but Nennaunir persuaded one of the priests to ask for me, on a promise of good conduct. She's got friends everywhere, that girl—priests and all. I've seen one or two things while I've been here, I can tell you."

They had reached the top of the staircase and now Sednil, turning to the left, led them into a gallery which ran the length of the back of the temple. About thirty yards along this was a door set in the inner wall. As he opened it the girls could hear from below the murmur and movement of a crowd.

"Now, we've got to keep quiet," whispered Sednil, "and mind you do."

Maia followed him into what seemed for a moment to be darkness, the more so as he immediately closed the door behind them. Then, as she stood still in uncertainty, she became aware of light, its source, however, somewhere below them. Sednil, taking her hand, led her forward until she found herself looking down, from the rather alarming height of a roof-level balcony, into the interior of the Temple of Cran.

Fifty feet below lay a circular, tessellated pavement, some nine or ten yards across, slightly sunk below a surround of veined, gray marble. Immediately within this surround the tiles formed a border depicting a crested serpent with red, green and blue scales, which stretched entirely round the edge of the pavement until, at the eastern point, it grasped its own tail between its jaws. Round its body was twined an intricate design of vines, fruit and corn, the various motifs being repeated at regular intervals throughout the circle.

Within this again was a variant of the divine group represented on the inner sphere of the Tamarrik Gate.

Upon a ground of green malachite inlaid with colored blooms and with animals, birds and fishes, the golden-bearded figure of Cran stretched out its arms, whilst opposite, Airtha of the Diadem extended hers towards him. Each of their hands rested upon the base of one corner of a rectangular marble slab, about two feet high, standing in the center of the pavement.

Maia was so much fascinated by the design and by the brilliant colors in the pavement—of which, of course, looking directly down from above, she had the best possible view—that it was some little time before she began to notice the less ornate central altar-slab and the figure lying upon it. When she did so, however, her first reaction was one of bewilderment and disappointment. Somnolence and passivity was not what she would have expected at the very core of the empire's worship. She had always imagined the god in his temple armed with lightning, majestic, vigilant and mighty to protect the empire. The reality was much unlike.

The low, marble slab was carved in the form of a couch resting upon scrolled clouds. Upon this lay a life-sized, bronze figure of Cran; but very different from that of the Tamarrik dial with its attendant circle of ecstatic nymphs. The god, his head and shoulders raised on marble pillows, was supine, in the posture of one asleep. Indeed, he plainly was asleep, for his eyelids were closed, giving him—since his body was unmoved by breathing—the appearance al-most of one dead. He was naked, and his flaccid zard, like any mortal man's, lay across the hollow of his thigh. Something about its appearance puzzled Maia, though from this height she could not quite make out what it might be: it was flexed, and seemed to be fashioned out of narrow, overlapping, cylindrical scales. But apart from this, she had never before seen the god represented without his attributes—crown, lightning and serpent torques. She would hardly have recognized him. The figure, in fact, displeased her. It seemed an unworthy, almost impious, representation, not at all god-like, inappropriate in its resemblance to mere humanity.

The three of them were standing, she now realized, near the top of an octagonal lantern tower, the whole of the interior of which was open to and visible from the floor of the temple. This was supported upon the lintels and square columns of a circular arcade surrounding the pavement below. At a height of about thirty feet, a narrow gallery ran round the lantern (their own standpoint was a mere box just below the roof), and below it were narrow windows admitting daylight to the floor of the temple below. This was augmented by eight branched candlesticks, each carrying some twenty or thirty candles, which had been placed round the edge of the pavement, one in front of each column.

Looking between the columns to the further side of the arcading, Maia could glimpse tiers of stone seats rising one above the other. It seemed strange to her that the temple should apparently not be lit by windows at ground-floor level. She was not to know that these had all been shuttered, to intensify the effect of the lit central pavement and the sleeping figure of Cran.

The temple was filling. As the girls continued looking down, a scarlet-robed priest, carrying a staff, entered beneath one of the lintels, followed by Durakkon and a train of barons and other nobles. These, conducted round the edge of the pavement to the west side of the arcade, passed between the columns and seated themselves within. On Durakkon's right, Maia noticed, was her admirer Randronoth, the governor of Lapan. Sencho himself she could not see anywhere, and could only suppose that special arrangements must have been made to spare him the unendurable discomfort of having to sit upright.

The placing of the various notables, their wives (who occupied a separate bay of the arcade) and the remainder of those eligible for admission, took a considerable time, the priests continually disappearing between the columns, reemerging, conferring under the candelabra, and once or twice leading out some important personage to seat him more befittingly. The assembly, however, showed no impatience and there was no noise above a low murmur of talk as they waited for the ceremony to begin.

At length the priests retired, the central circle stood empty; and complete silence fell. It was hard to believe that nearly a thousand people were seated in the twilight beyond the columns. Maia, allowing herself a tiny, nervous cough, was overcome as the sound seemed to fill the roof and echo round the walls. Frightened, she crouched quickly down behind the balustrade. After a moment Sednil's hand, trembling slightly, and rough compared with those she had become accustomed to, caressed her shoulders and drew her back up beside him. Glancing sideways, he put a finger to his lips and then returned to watching the floor below.

Side by side two files of priests were entering in procession. Parting, they paced slowly round either edge of the pavement until the leaders met once more, whereupon all halted, turning inward to face the central stone before which their leader, advancing, had taken up his station.

Maia, though familiar from infancy with the myths and legends of the gods told her by old Drigga, had heard relatively little about the actual worship of Cran as performed in Bekla. To her, therefore, as perhaps to no other person in the entire temple, everything seemed fresh, direct and heartfelt. The chief priest, in an invocation to the god interspersed with chanted responses from his followers, told of the harsh quenching of the land and the hardships suffered by the people during Melekril. While he still slept, Cran's sacred empire had been threatened by the chaotic powers of winter—storm, rain and darkness.

Of themselves his people had no resource or defense, weakened as they were by hunger and by their sins. They implored him to waken and renew the fertile year.

This opening part of the spring liturgy, which was very ancient and couched in ornate, archaic language, expressed a dignified yet heart-broken sorrow which overpowered Maia entirely, leaving her beyond even tears. The priests' hymns, supporting their leader's pleas with lyric descriptions of the failing land and of mountains, plains and forests languishing under the long weeks of cloud and rain, found a ready response both in her imagination and her memory. She even found herself feeling sorry for Morca, huddled in the drafty hut with the mud outside stretching down to the bleak shore.

Symbolic fire was carried in—a brazier borne between two priests on an iron pole—for the burning of the past and the winter season. And now the chief priest, kneeling, again implored Cran to waken and return to his people. Yet still the god lay sleeping on his marble bed.

At this point Maia, who as an audience was never insensitive or slow in response to a story or a dance, began to feel a mounting tension and superstitious dread. This, she realized, stemmed not from the priests' expressed fear that the god would not waken, but on the contrary from her own inward realization that inevitably he would. All her life she had been listening to tales by the fire, playing singing-games and at village festivals taking part in old dance-rituals and the like. Without reflection she knew that in stories and dramas the thing that seems impossible is always the thing that finally happens. The haughty maiden, rejecting gift after gift from her suitor, finally relents; the forgotten, friendless prisoner is released, the invincible giant falls to a trick, the magically trance-bound sleeper wakes. As the next part of the ritual began, with the bringing to the god of gold and jewels—the temple treasures— as a further inducement to return, she felt the hair rising at the back of her neck. Against all course of nature and possibility, ultimately the bronze figure below was going to waken. But how? And what would come to pass when it did? Craning forward, she looked down more intently still. No—she was certain that no human being could be concealed within that case of jointed metal.

Each episode of the service lasted for some time, for as one offering after another was vainly made to the god, the priests extolled its particular properties and merits in a succession of anthems—some solemn, some lively, but all appropriate. Their rhythmic power and melodic beauty made Maia want to dance. Swaying silently in harmony with the lilt of a song in praise of wine (while flagons were poured into crystal jars placed before the god's couch) she felt her hips gently pummeling against Sednil's and turned to smile at him, feeling a natural pleasure in being close to a young fellow before whom she did not have to act the part of the compliant slave-girl. Sednil, looking round at her and licking dry lips, put an arm round her shoulder and pressed her against his side; but to this Maia, who in imagination was back among her younger sisters, dancing in the dust outside the door, attached for the moment little importance.

After the gold, jewels and wine, fine robes and then weapons and food were offered to the god; ornamental spears of silver; tasselled, polished bows and an inlaid, damascene sword and shield; roasted haunches from a goat, a sheep and a bull-calf, while the priests sang in praise of food and feasting. The smell of the roast meat, wafted up to the roof, made Maia's mouth water, for she and Occula, both become accustomed to good living, had today eaten nothing since an hour or so before setting out from the upper city.

At last the worshippers seemed driven to despair. The priestly chorus, prostrating themselves round the edge of the pavement, proclaimed, in a sobbing lament, that the god must himself have become the victim of winter and accordingly would never return. The chief priest, casting off his robes to reveal, beneath, the leather jerkin of a slave, called aloud upon any man or woman whatsoever who would come forward to save the empire in its peril. At the same time the candles round the arcade were extinguished and from outside the wailing of mourners was heard. As they ceased and all became silent, the god, in the dim daylight slanting down from above, lay alone among his unavailing gifts.

After a pause, during which the frightened weeping of a young girl—too young to be present, perhaps—could be plainly heard from among the women's seats, the silence was broken by a sudden, heavy knocking on the great door of the temple. The chief priest, rising to his feet, looked about him in apparent surprise. Taking up his staff, he made his way out and could be heard ordering the door to be opened. A few moments later rose the sound of girls' voices singing as they approached. Then a beautiful little child, about eight years old, crowned with spring flowers, ran into the middle of the pavement, flung out her arms and cried, "The Sacred Queen! The Sacred Queen!"

The girls, dressed alternately in green and in white, their arms laden with blossom (the scent of which rose up to Maia), entered, as had the priests, in two files, singing, as they came, that the empire was about to be delivered, since they were now bringing to the god the most precious gift in heaven and earth.

When at length they too halted, each was standing beside one of the prostrate priests, whom she raised to his feet, smiling at him in comfort and reassurance.

The girls, all young and beautiful, mimed this part of the ceremony with an air of happy gaiety, to which the priests responded by showing first astonishment, then disbelief and finally, puzzled expectation as their new companions turned towards the eastern entry, each raising one arm, both in indication and in greeting. The chief priest resumed his robes. Then, as he knelt to receive her, trumpets sounded and Queen Fornis herself entered alone.

Since becoming Sacred Queen of Airtha, Fornis had had the shrewdness to modify considerably the ways of her youth and to appear in public only to planned effect. (Maia, for example, had never yet set eyes on her.) She took the greatest care of her appearance and now, although in her thirty-fourth year, still possessed the flawless skin and al-most luminous auburn hair which had made so deep an impression on the eleven-year-old Occula in the palace of Senda-na-Say. Together with these she had retained an extraordinary, energetic vitality, which was manifest in her manner, her movements and everything she did. A kind of swift, confident power and domination emanated from her, exhilarating in their effect and to most of the people evidence enough, together with her beauty, that she must be god-favored, the veritable talisman and luck of the empire.

As she now appeared, pausing for a few moments under the eastern arch, Maia heard Occula, beside her, utter a kind of stifled moan. She turned quickly towards her, but the black girl had already controlled herself and was once more looking down in silence, biting her lip.

Queen Fornis was dressed in the white, full-skirted robe of a Beklan bride and carried a long, trailing bouquet of green-and-white golian lilies, the first flowers of spring. In this she conformed to tradition.

Like Sencho, however, she did not hesitate to modify old forms of dress to her taste. Her present robe, like the one in which Occula had first seen her, was half-transparent, ornamented with green ribbons at the sleeves and shoulders and gathered at the waist with a broad, green sash. Upon her head was the crown of Airtha, most sacred and costly of the temple treasures, its aquamarines and huge, irregular emeralds catching the light of the re-lit candles as she stepped forward onto the central pavement. Maia, staring, caught her breath.

"Never seen her before?" murmured Sednil in her ear.

Shaking her head, Maia became aware of Occula leaning towards her on the other side.

"Those emeralds are Zai's," whispered the black girl through clenched teeth.

"But the crown's old, surely?" answered Maia.

"I doan' care," said Occula. "That big one in the middle— I've held it in my hand—I'd know it anywhere."

Now began a ritual of question and answer between the chief priest and the beautiful lady. Who was she, he asked, and whence had she come, professing power to save the empire and revive the year? In a clear, musical voice, with no more than a trace of Paltesh in the accent, she replied that Airtha of the Diadem had spoken to her, bidding her have no fear to put herself forward, for the goddess had appointed her as her chosen vessel.

Yet why did she think she could succeed where all other attempts had failed? Because, she answered, Airtha possessed her. This was even now Airtha of the Diadem speaking through her lips; she who had power to succor all things living, yes and even to raise the dead in the world beyond. She had come to awaken the god by bringing him the most precious gift in the world.

At this the chief priest prostrated himself; yet, giving as justification his sacred responsibility, he still wished to learn what warrant she might have for saying that she was the chosen incarnation of the goddess. To this she made no spoken reply at all, merely standing motionless while two of her maidens came forward, took her flowers and then divested her of her robe. It was fastened down the front with gold clasps, and as it fell open and was smoothly drawn away from her shoulders and arms, leaving her completely naked, neither her easy posture nor the calm, joyous expression of her face altered in the slightest degree. "Here is my warrant," she seemed to say. "Judge for yourself, since you have sought to know. Before, in using mere words, I was making a concession to your human nescience."

The chief priest, veiling his gaze, as though dazzled, with a forearm before his brow, begged her to deign to tell them what gift it might be—this greatest gift—which she had brought to waken the god and rejuvenate his power. And to this she answered "Love."

Thereupon began, somewhere beyond, a low, barely-audible throbbing of zhuas. The chief priest and his followers withdrew, while the queen's attendants re-grouped themselves under the eastern arch, singing as they did so the wedding hymn with which all brides in Bekla were customarily escorted to the marriage-chamber. Meanwhile the little girl, unaided, extinguished the candles for the second time and then, once more raising her arms to the assembly, preceded the women out of the temple.

The queen, left alone with the sleeping god, turned, walked slowly to the side of the marble couch and, kneeling down, took his bronze fingers in her own. Maia, watching spellbound and recalling what it felt like to act before an audience a part of this nature, could detect in her manner no hint of artificiality or of anything that did not appear spontaneous and natural. Bending forward, Fornis kissed the god's lips and then, lying down lightly and easily beside him, put one arm round his shoulders and pressed her body against his.

And now it was all that simple Maia could do not to cry out in fear, for as she watched, the god's bronze eyelids slowly opened, disclosing blue-irised, black-pupilled eyes which, though unmoving and lacking speculation, appeared nevertheless most startlingly alert. The figure, too, seemed to be raising itself from the hips, and as it did so the queen, stretching one arm behind the head of the couch, picked up a cushion to support its shoulders.

Who will take it upon themselves to condemn what followed as lewd or unnatural? The Shilluk of the White Nile, perhaps, whose custom it once was to wall up their king, together with a nubile virgin, to die in the dark of hunger and thirst? The ancient Carthaginians, who sacrificed children by fire to a calf-headed image, playing music the while to drown their screams? The inhabitants of Quilacare in southern India, where every twelve years the king, standing on a high scaffolding, would cut off his nose, ears, lips and genitals, scattering them among the people before cutting his own throat? Or the Christian peasants who on St Stephen's Day hunted down wrens along the hedges? The celebrant who to one is clearly nothing but a capering, mud-smeared charlatan of a witch-doctor, to another is a dread figure of power, expert by long study in dangerous communion with ghosts and gods. What to an alien is indecency, to the devout and instructed is a symbolic enactment of the magnanimity of the immortals, by whose mercy men live and in whose grace they hope to die.

Before the eyes of the rulers and dignitaries of Bekla, Fornis lay beside the god, kissing and stroking him like any lass with her mortal lover. She fondled his shoulders, his smooth-plated belly and gleaming thighs. Then, laughing with mischief and half-pretending shame, as girls will in play, she performed for him such other things as are done by lovers in the mounting excitement of desire. So realistically did she enact her part that Maia, utterly absorbed, felt her own loins moisten and her breath come short.

As she gently caressed and drew apart the overlapping bronze scales so cunningly fashioned by Fleitil, the god's zard lengthened and grew rigid in his lady's hand, at its full extent locking with a minute click, inaudible to the watchers but to the queen the signal that she needed to hear. Thereupon, mounting her lover and drawing his jointed arms about her shoulders, she sank down astride him, crying out ecstatically and displaying to her worshippers, in the plunging of her thighs, all that they needed, for their spiritual renewal and fulfillment, to behold: and in what ensued she displayed the most skillful artistry, for not only did the great crown remain in place round her glowing hair, but never once did she lose the sacred thing which she had received.

Maia, hardly aware of what she did, turned and pressed herself against Sednil, thrusting her tongue into his mouth and at the same time pushing him back into the shadows. An hour ago it had briefly occurred to her to wonder why Nennaunir should have been at the trouble of seeking out this lad and asking him to run the risk of taking them into the temple. She knew now all right, no danger. Whatever it was that he might have done, Nennaunir evidently felt she owed him a good turn; and at this moment Maia felt no least objection to performing it for her.

"Sednil! Oh, Sednil—"

"Well, that makes things a lot easier, banzi," remarked Occula composedly. "I knew it was goin' to be one of us, but I'm not really in the mood, myself. You could charge him double if you like—he's got nothin'."

"Not here, not here," muttered Sednil. "Your clothes'd get dirty and it'd show. There's a room along the gallery. But we'll have to be quick! We haven't got long."

Coming out into the yard, Occula and Maia made their own way back to the precinct, where Durakkon and some of the other nobles, in accordance with custom, were tossing handfuls of small coins among the crowd. After the girls had stood waiting for a considerable time in the blazing sun, the tryzatt of the litter-bearers came out to summon them back to the rear of the temple. Sencho, who had decided that it was not necessary for him to appear a second time in the hot, crowded precinct, had been lying down in the chief priest's private apartments. Here, having deigned to spend three-quarters of an hour over a light meal, he was ready for the girls to help him to his litter.

The return to the Peacock Gate was arduous for the soldiers who, partly through heat and the weight of their burden and partly on account of the crowds, were several times forced to put the litter down. While the High Counselor had been taking his ease in the temple, the sentinels lining the roads had been dismissed, and again and again it was necessary for the tryzatt to go ahead to clear the way. Sencho, however, drowsing in the cushions, showed no particular impatience, merely telling Occula to close the curtains and leave him undisturbed; and the good-natured tryzatt, emboldened by the High Counselor's lethargy to act on his own initiative, lent Maia his cloak, remarking tactfully that it would keep off the dust. Maia was glad to cover herself, having already attracted more than enough unwanted attention while crossing the Caravan Market.

"Nice bastin', banzi?" asked Occula as they plodded uphill in the wake of the litter. Her sarcasm was no more than teasing, but Maia, sweating and uncomfortable, was quick to resent it.

"Yes, it was!" she replied sharply. "And you needn't be so damned spiteful, either. I was sorry for the poor boy, that's what. He's a prisoner in that place, isn't he? He was desperate for it."

"He wasn' the only one," said Occula. "Cran! you were like a damn' cat on a roof—just with watchin' that cruel, wicked woman, that's what."

Maia was about to retort when something in Occula's voice checked her. Turning her head, she saw that the black girl was on the verge of weeping. She took her hand and kissed it.

"I'm sorry, dear. I don't wonder it upset you. You hate her, don't you?"

"Of course I hate her!" cried Occula. "Didn' she murder my father—"

"Hush, love, hush! Someone'll hear—"

"And you mark my words, banzi, one day I'll—"

As the black girl bit on her fingers, Maia could see the tears falling on the back of her hand.

"Seven years! Seven years, and Zai's spirit—"

"Try not to take on, dear! You're not yourself—it's the sun and all the standing about. Anyhow, thank goodness here's the gate, and about time, too. Oh, I shall be glad to go in the pool when we get back, won't you? I hope he'll let us have a bit of a rest, seeing as we've got to go to that Barb party tonight. I wonder whether— O great Cran! Occula! Look! That's Meris over there! Meris! And the pedlar man—what's he called? Zirek. Look! going through the gate now!"

"Strikes me you're the one's been in the sun, banzi. How the hell can it be Meris when you know perfectly well she's been sold into the back of beyond?"

"But I tell you it was Meris, Occula! They've gone now, but—"

"Banzi," said Occula, gripping her wrist and turning upon her with a look of desperation, "shut up! Doan' ask me why—just shut up! Tell me about your lake in Tonilda, go on! Tell me about Tharrin—tell me about any damn' tiling you like!"

Maia, frowning with vexation, made no reply, and together with two or three other groups of nobles and attendant slaves they passed on under the arch into the upper city.

"Banzi," said Occula presently.

Maia went on humming the wine anthem without replying.

"Banzi."

"Well?" Maia felt tired and sulky. "Got yourself into a better temper?"

"There's somethin' else I've just thought of, and it's very, very important. Piggy may sleep this afternoon— probably will, I dare say. But if he sends for you, doan' let him have anythin', d'you see? Tell him it's the wrong time of the month, tell him you've broken your wrist, hurt your mouth—tell him anythin' you like. But whatever you do, doan' let him have anythin'! You can get away with it. He'll take it from you."

"But why, Occula?"

"Never mind. Just do as I say. Anyway, p'raps you woan' have to."

In the event this last proved correct, Sencho, carried to the small hall, told Terebinthia that he would sleep until sunset, when he was to be awakened for the supper party. He confirmed that Maia and Occula were to accompany him. The following day he wished to see Lalloc about buying a girl to replace Dyphna.