54: HIGH LIFE

The soldiers always began by declining the money which Maia offered them, and always she insisted that they should accept it—a fraction of what she herself could have come by in far less time and without exertion. Among the many privileges conferred upon her together with her beautiful little house beside the northern shore of the Barb, was that of calling upon soldiers to draw her jekzha whenever she had occasion to fare abroad. Otherwise she could certainly never have visited the lower city at all, to go on foot being out of the question, while no jekzha-man or attendant slave could possibly have protected her from the adulation of the common people.

It was seldom that she passed the Peacock Gate, however. The crowds and their devotion half-frightened her, and although she always responded as she knew they wished, yet upon coming home she would find herself exhausted, consumed with a sense of the precarious and unnatural, as though looking vertiginously down from some dizzy pinnacle upon that real world to which she could never descend.

For three weeks and more after the Terekenalt army had been thrown back across the Valderra she had lain gravely ill, scarcely able to tell night from morning, let alone to understand the full import of what she had achieved or of the news which had been proclaimed throughout the army and the city. A frailer girl would have bled to death, they had told her, or else died from shock and exhaustion. As it was, she had often been in worse pain than she had imagined possible, at times being afraid even to stir, for every least movement seemed to bring agony spurting from an injured limb. What had really carried her through—as on the river bank with the soldiers—had been the knowledge that she had succeeded—had not Sendekar himself told her so?—had prevented the bloodshed and saved the lives of the Tonildans stationed down the river. Their commander had come on tiptoe to visit her, a gruff, taciturn man standing almost inarticulate beside her bed, trying as best he could to convey their thanks: but she no less than he had found few words, slipping back into half-oblivion even before he was gone. The clamps with which they had fastened her gashed thigh caused her continual discomfort, and she had had to be scolded for worrying at them like an animal.

Her litter-borne return to the city had been secret and nocturnal, for although she was sufficiently recovered to leave fortified Rallur—no place for a convalescent—Sendekar had been advised that she must at all costs be spared the crowding and ovations inseparable from a daylight en-try into Bekla. Also, as he—a Yeldashay professional soldier, not on close personal terms with the foremost members of the Leopard regime—had come to realize, there were those in the upper city who would in any case have sought to prevent it.

Arriving tired out after the trying, five-day journey, Maia had been touched and comforted to find Ogma already installed as her housekeeper, together with old Jarvil, the porter from Sencho's former household, with whom she had always got on well. Ogma—who had, of course, been expecting to be sold on the open market, like the rest of Sencho's slaves—had been even more startled and delighted than Maia by this caprice of fortune (the idea had originated with Elvair-ka-Virrion) and at once set about looking after her devotedly. Thanks largely to her attentions, it was not long before Maia felt well enough to begin the exciting business of ordering her life in Bekla for herself.

She had been surprised—despite her incomparable celebrity, happily and unexpectedly surprised—by the genuine warmth and kindness shown to her by Nennaunir, as also by Sessendris, Kembri's household säiyett. In the days when she had been a slave at Sencho's she had always assumed (as she had, for example, at Sarget's party) that Nennaunir's friendliness was to a large extent no more than politic—a keeping-in with a girl whom she had perceived to stand well with the Leopards. She had certainly felt this about Sessendris on the night of Elvair-ka-Virrion's party—that night when she had first met Bayub-Otal. Not long after her return to Bekla, however, something took place which showed her that (over-influenced, perhaps, by Occula's worldly-wise skepticism) she had in this instance been somewhat too canny.

One beautiful evening, about ten days after her arrival, as she was sitting at the open window of her parlor overlooking the Barb, watching the cranes feeding in the shallows and listening to one of Fordil's hinnarists whom she had hired to play to her (it delighted her to be able, now, to spend money in this way), Ogma came in to tell her that an unaccompanied lady was at the door. It turned out to be Sessendris. Maia, surprised and taken rather unawares, was at first constrained and on her guard. After several minutes, however, she began to feel intuitively that whatever motive the handsome, urbane säiyett might have in coming to see her, she meant her no harm. For a time they conversed of those matters which had all Bekla by the ears—the killing of Sencho, Maia's swimming of the Valderra and Sendekar's capture of the traitor Bayub-Otal in the course of Karnat's retreat. Maia, however, recounted little of her own experiences, and in particular omitted any mention of her journey to Urtah with the Subans or the night crossing at the ford. As the evening light faded from the sky, leaving at last only streaks of pale rose and darkening purple reflected from the windless expanse of the Barb, Ogma brought in serrardoes and a flask of Yeldashay and Maia, sipping and nibbling in the window-seat, fell silent and waited, feeling that someone as experienced as Sessendris should need no further encouragement to bring her to the point of her visit, whatever that might be.

"Well, Maia Serrelinda, savior of Bekla, princess from Tonilda—" Sessendris, seated on a polished stool with up-curved, scrolled arm-rests, leant back against the table, smiling at Maia over her wine-cup—"what now? How does a girl follow up a conquest like yours?"

"Don't know as I've had all that much time to think about it," answered Maia. "It's all like a dream still: I'm just taking things easy. My leg won't be right for a bit yet, they say, though it's nowhere near as bad as 'twas."

"And who else has been to see you?" asked Sessendris. The question, which might have been typical of idle conversation, was asked in a tone which made Maia look up quickly, sensing something direct and concerned in the säiyett's voice.

"U-Sarget's been," she replied. "Matter of fact, he was here very soon after I arrived: and then Shend-Lador and two or three of his friends, along with Nennaunir. Of course I'm not up to all that much yet, you know. Eud-Ecachlon called only yesterday evening, but I was feeling that done up I had to tell my porter I couldn't see him."

"But the Lord General hasn't been, has he?"

"No."

"Nor the Sacred Queen?"

"Well, no."

Sessendris waited, gazing at her with raised eyebrows.

"You mean—well, but I don't see a great lot in that," said Maia. "I mean, people like, that, if they want to see you, they send for you, don't they? And I dare say they reckon I'm not back to rights yet. Nor I am."

"Yes, but Durakkon came? And you'd never met him before, had you?"

"Oh, I hardly knew what to say!" Maia flushed at the recollection. "He gave me these diamonds—did you ever see the like?" (she touched her neck) "and then he said as he'd come to thank me on behalf of the city and the empire, and that neither he nor anyone could ever—" She broke off. "Well, don't matter all he said, but I'll not forget it, tell you that. He put it—well, what you'd call stately. I reckon he deserves to be High Baron. No, I hadn't met him before, but I'd say he's what a High Baron ought to be."

Sessendris shrugged her shoulders and was silent for a little. At length she said, "I've taken a risk coming here, you know. I always pretend I don't hear anything, but of course any good säiyett knows how to pretend that. Let's go on pretending, shall we? For instance, can you tell me— for I simply can't imagine—whose idea it was that you should join Bayub-Otal and leave the city by night for Urtah?"

Maia started. "Bayub-Otal?"

Sessendris smiled. "You thought I didn't know? Who do you suppose took the Lord General's message to let you through that night to the guard commander at the Gate of Lilies? Oh, Maia, you're such a dear, beautiful baby still! You don't really understand anything, do you? Listen: all the common people from here to Paltesh are wild about you. They know you saved us all. They'd give you the moon if they could. And Maia, I'm common people! My father was a baker in Sarkid. I love you too, and I feel grateful to you from the bottom of my heart. But has it occurred to you that there may be people who don't?"

Uncomprehending, Maia was nettled. "Don't know as I ever really thought about it all that much."

Sessendris bit her lip with frustration. "Look; here's a girl who's sent on an utterly desperate assignment. She succeeds beyond anything that could ever have been expected, she's battered almost to death in doing it and saves an army and probably the empire as well. The Leopards vote her a house, servants, money, privileges, attendance by uniformed soldiers. By Airtha! and they just about knew what was good for them, didn't they? If they hadn't, the army'd likely have torn them to pieces. The High Baron, who's at least got the bluest blood in Bekla if he hasn't got anything else, visits her in person to thank her. But the man who actually sent her, and the woman who consented that he should— they don't come. Why not, do you suppose?"

"General Kembri, d'you mean? Well, but he must have everything to do from morning till night, what with the war and that. That rebel baron, Santil What's-his-name in Chalcon, on top of all the rest, and then—"

"Maia, dear, I can't stay much longer: I'll have to go before I'm missed. But I'll ask you something else. How long does the Sacred Queen normally reign, do you know?"

Maia pondered. "Well, I can't just rightly say. Four years, isn't it?"

"And how long has Queen Form's reigned?"

"Well, I suppose two lots of four years: I never really thought about it."

"Start now. This next Melekril her second reign's due to end. She's thirty-four or thirty-five—I forget which: older than any Sacred Queen before her, anyway. The other morning, while I was down in the lower city on the Lord General's business, I overheard two porters talking in the colonnade. One of them said, 'Why don't they make the Serrelinda Sacred Queen? That'd bring us all the luck in the world, that would, for if ever the gods loved a girl it's her. Must do, else she'd 'a bin dead by his time.' "

Maia laughed. "Why, I couldn't be Sacred Queen: that's crazy! Everyone knows I've been in and out of bed—"

"But Maia, that doesn't matter! The Sacred Queen doesn't have to be a virgin. It certainly wouldn't stop the people acclaiming you; and there are certain Leopards who'd like to get rid of Kembri and put themselves in his place, you know. They'd be quite ready to make use of you if they decided it would serve their purpose. When you were a slave-girl you hadn't any enemies. Now you've saved the army and the city, you have. That's how the world works, dear. But I'm not your enemy, and that's why I'm here this evening."

"General Kembri wouldn't harm me," said Maia. "I'm sure of that. Why, he promised me my freedom and Cran knows what else if only I could do what he wanted, and I reckon he's been as good as his word and all."

"He couldn't dare be anything else, after Sendekar'd told the army what you'd done. And you're quite right to think he hasn't got anything against you personally. But what I'm trying to tell you is that you're a public figure now, and whether you like it or not, you're almost certainly seen as a rival by Fornis, whose position's difficult enough anyway at her age, with her second reign due to end in a matter of months. Fornis can be like a raving maniac when she hates someone, you know. She'd be ready to let Karnat in—burn the city—smash the empire—anything at all, be-fore she'd give up her power. She wouldn't care what she did!"

Maia stood up and began walking to and fro.

"I can't see this, Sessendris. Whatever should Queen Fornis have against me? I've nothing against her! I've never even put myself forward—"

"You're young, you're very beautiful and you're a public heroine; the people used to worship her, and now they worship you. That's what she'll have against you, and she'll be watching Kembri like a hawk to see whether he favors you or not. He might feel himself forced to, you see, by sheer weight of public feeling. 'Maia for Sacred Queen!' And then—"

"I'll go away—I'll leave Bekla—"

"That would be quite fatal, dear. Everyone would be wondering what you might be up to behind their backs. Remember Enka-Mordet. No, it's not that bad, Maia. By all means stay here and enjoy all you've earned. All I'm saying is, take the greatest care. Don't give anyone the remotest grounds for thinking you might be aiming higher, and don't listen to anyone who may suggest to you that you should. And now I'm off; I've stayed too long as it is. Good-night, golden Maia, and may Lespa guard you! Tell Ogma and the porter to forget I came here. No one else saw me."

When Sessendris was gone and Ogma had brought in the lamps, Maia asked her to bring her needlework and sit with her for company. Yet although Ogma (who had never in her life been five miles from Bekla) did her best, talking of this and that and from time to time asking Maia to thread her needle—for her sight was poor—Maia herself was but indifferent company, preoccupied as she was with all that Sessendris had said. At last Ogma, perceiving that her mistress was not herself, but attributing it merely to fatigue and her state of health, suggested bed; and for some reason this homely proposal at last drew from Maia what was really in her heart.

"Ogma, what's become of Occula? Have you heard anything about her?"

Ogma, limping across the room with her work over her arm, stopped and turned.

"No, not once, Miss Maia. Not since—well, not since that last evening, when you both went to the gardens with the High Counselor. But then they took her away to the temple, didn't they?"

"Yes, but is she with the Sacred Queen now, 's far 's you know?"

"With the Sacred Queen, miss?" Ogma was visibly surprised and agitated. "Oh, Cran! If she went to the Sacred Queen anything could have happened to her."

Maia stared at her, frowning.

"You didn't know, miss? The queen's got a terrible reputation that way."

"I always thought there was some as was devoted to her," said Maia, remembering Ashaktis.

"Maybe her own Palteshis," said Ogma, "and any as might just happen to suit her, like. But there's others as she's—well—got rid of, so they say."

The realization that she had been several days in Bekla without making any inquiry about Occula showed Maia more plainly than anything else how weak and shocked she must really have been. She had been sleeping badly, troubled with pain as well as with anxiety about her scars (for she had four or five gashes altogether, though none so grievous as that on her thigh). Again and again she had woken from nightmares of fire in the dark, of roaring water and the boy Sphelthon crying on the blood-drenched ground. Protean they were, these fantasies, casting themselves like amorphous nets round her distressed mind; tormentors continually emerging in new and unexpected guises. The fire would dance before her, its flames murmuring "Shagreh, shagreh," as they refused to cook her food. The water would become an insubstantial ladder on which she dared not set foot. Or she would be placidly swimming when the wretched boy, a weeping horror, would rise up out of deep water and fasten his bloody mouth on her flinching body. One night of full moon, having lain for two hours afraid to fall asleep again, she had resorted to her old solace, gone down to the Barb and, plunging in near the outfall of the Monju brook, swum half a mile to the Pool of Light, stepping out naked into the gardens before a gaping sentry of the Lapanese regiment. (Ogma had returned his cloak next morning, and this latest story of the Serrelinda lost nothing in the telling.)

But yet another preoccupation she had, besides her own health and recovery. Incessantly she dwelt on the memory of Zen-Kurel, recalling over and over each moment of their brief hours together, from the king's supper table to the daggers lying discarded on the floor and the running footsteps receding into the moonlight. She longed for him; she missed him every hour. Where was he? What had happened to him in the fighting? Had she saved his life? Surely she must have! To have known for certain that she had saved his life would have meant more to her than the knowledge of having saved the army and the Tonildan detachment. Karnat's force had suffered no very heavy casualties in the fighting: Sendekar had told her as much before she left Rallur. The king himself, she knew, was not among the dead, and Zen-Kurel had been one of his personal aides. She imagined him wading into the water, helping to pull the king ashore as the last rope was cut, translating to the king the answers of the few Beklan prisoners who had been taken back into Suba; then, perhaps, sent back across the Zhairgen with dispatches for Keril-Katria. Of course he would have distinguished himself. He would no doubt be promoted—though she knew nothing about such things or what he might realistically expect. One thing, however, she was sure of. Whatever his adventures, he would not have forgotten her, any more than she had forgotten him.

The glaring inconsistency of her situation in regard to Zen-Kurel, which would naturally have been the first thing to occur to (for instance) Occula or Nennaunir if they had learned the whole story, did not strike Maia at all. It never once crossed her mind that her exploit must, of course, have come to the ears of all Suba, Katria and Terekenalt, or that Zen-Kurel—if he were still with King Kamat—had good cause not only to curse her very name and his own disclosure to her, but also, if he valued his life, to utter no word of their love to a living soul. Still more extraordinarily, if anyone (such as Occula) had pointed this out, Maia, while she would have been deeply grieved, would nevertheless have remained in no doubt that Zen-Kurel still loved her and had not renounced her in his own mind.

She, for her part, was scarcely ever free from the thought of him. She knew herself to have remained deeply in love with him. How could this be? A man whom she had known and with whom she had made love for perhaps four hours altogether: and she a girl who had, to use her own words, been in and out of bed with half a dozen men, both in the upper and lower city. Yet she herself knew why. Alone of them all, Zen-Kurel had sincerely respected her womanhood'—yes, where even Elvair-ka-Virrion had not, for all his fine words and elegant ways. And then, she had not come to him as a slave-girl, but as the magic Suban princess of the golden lilies. "He asked me to marry him—he meant it—to marry him—" she whispered, swimming down the moonlit Barb.

Yet it was not even this sincere asking that lay at the heart of the matter. Others, no doubt, given the opportunity, might well have asked as much. It was that she herself could, she knew, create so much by loving a man like Zen-Kurel. In the midst of all the danger, uncertainty and squalor of Suba, he had had the power to carry her with nun to a little island of security where they had dwelt together—for just how long was no matter. And thence had flowed into her a joy, a power and confidence which had enabled her to save thousands of lives.

This, amazingly, was Maia's own, personal view of what had happened. Within herself she seemed to carry the seed of a great tree only waiting to grow and flourish, which now could not spring up for lack of soil—his presence. And this was frustration and torment.

Therehad lain the promise—there for the picking up, like a jewel lying on the ground. For a few hours she had held it in her hand. And by her own deed—the deed that had made her fortune—she had cast it away from her, as she had thrown her clothes into the Valderra. "It's only the beginning, Maia—we'll meet again in Bekla." He had meant that. If she had chosen, she need have done nothing but await their reunion—whenever and wherever it might have taken place.

Why had she, then, by her own deed, made it impossible? Not for luxury, wealth and fame; that much she knew. She would gladly forgo all that to lie once more in his arms in flea-bitten Suba. No, she had done what she did out of her own womanliness—because of Gehta and her dad, because of Sphelthon at the ford, because of the Tonildans downstream of Rallur. Yes, and for Zenka's own sake, too—poor, feather-brained boy, boasting that he'd kill twenty Beklans for her sake! She'd saved his life as surely as anyone else's in the whole silly, nasty business. He might be a bit disappointed now, but if only she could have him to herself for an hour or two she'd soon make him see it different; for a week or two; for a year or two: well, say a lifetime. She could do something, make something out of life with a lad like that, as she knew she never could with a showy gallant like Elvair-ka-Virrion.

When Shend-Lador and his friends had come to see her, she had asked them what news they could give her about the Terekenalt prisoners taken in the fighting. They knew no more, however, than Sendekar had already told her; namely, that there were something like seventy prisoners altogether, Subans, Katrians and Terekenalters, foremost among whom was the traitor Bayub-Otal. All had been sent under guard to the fortress at Dari-Paltesh, where they were to remain until the Lord General could spare time to consider what was to be done with them.

"Some of them are bound to have ransom value, you see, Maia," explained Shend-Lador. "And anyway they've all got hostage and exchange value against our men who got collared and taken into Suba. The Lord General will sort it out as soon as he's finished off Erketlis."

"But Anda-No—I mean, Bayub-Otal's a son of the High Baron of Urtah. Haven't the Urtans said anything about him?" she asked.

Shend-Lador laughed. "Not much they can say, is there? He was taken red-handed fighting for Karnat against the empire. Oh, no, Maia, you needn't worry: his number's up if anyone's is—public execution in the Caravan Market, I should think. Soon as there's time to spare for it, that is."

He knew the names of no other prisoners, and neither did Sarget or Nennaunir. Durakkon, of course, she had not presumed to question. Nor, lacking Occula, had she disclosed to anyone the true nature of her interest.

During these days of her convalescence, her principal source of information was Ogma, who talked to hawkers at the door and brought back gossip with her shopping from the lower city. One day she returned so eager to talk that she came straight into the parlor and, clumping her way across the room with her basket still on her arm, came to a stop beside the couch on which Maia had been resting in the sunshine.

"Oh, miss, I was buying some vegetables—only we're right out of brillions as well as beans, and they had some nice fruit, all sorts, so I thought well, as you'd given me the money and we're not short nowadays, are we? any more than we were at the High Counselor's, I might as well get some while they were there. And while I was buying them there was this woman come in as I know to talk to—I've met her two or three times in the shops, see— and she's married to a Tonildan, a man from east of Thettit, only they've been living here for quite a few years now, and she began telling me—"

Maia got up and half-lowered the slatted blind against the mid-day sun. An air of inattention, she had found, often worked in bringing Ogma to the point.

"Well, this man has friends down Thettit way, miss, and they sometimes come up here on business—buying glass, only that's what he makes and there's none at Thettit, you see—and these men said this woman, that's to say my friend in the shop as I was talking to, they asked her did she know why Lord Erketlis had declared against Bekla and started fighting?"

"Why, has there been any fighting?" asked Maia. "I thought Lord Erketlis was lying low in Chalcon. He hasn't got all that many men, has he?"

"Oh, well, that's right, miss—at least, I think so—but I mean the real reason why he's started making trouble and declaring against the Leopards an' that."

Maia waited.

"It only shows, miss, doesn't it, as there's justice above?" pronounced Ogma sententiously. "I mean, there's some as brings down judgement on their own heads. That wicked man—of course I know you and Miss Occula had to do what you did; you hadn't got no choice—well, we none of us had, had we? And Miss Dyphna—"

"Ogma," said Maia, "what are you trying to tell me?"

Ogma leant forward, round-eyed. "Miss Milvushina!"

"Milvushina? What about her?"

"Well, we all knew, didn't we, miss, why the High Counselor was at the trouble of getting Miss Milvushina for himself? Because she was what she was—a lady—that's why. And he persuaded the Lord General—it's my belief he did—to send those soldiers to kill her father and mother just so he could have her for—well, for his horrible ways and that. Only I was there in the house all that night when you and Miss Occula was at Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion's party— the night when the soldiers first brought Miss Milvushina; and even the tryzatt, he was that disgusted by what he'd been made to do, like, and Terebinthia told me I wasn't to say a word outside and if I did she'd have me whipped and sold—"

"Ogma, what is it you want to tell me?"

"That was his own death, miss," whispered Ogma, stabbing with her forefinger, "what he done then, the High Counselor. This friend of mine in the market had it all from her husband's friends down in Thettit. Miss Milvushina, see, she was promised in marriage to Lord Santil-kè-Erketlis—"

"Great Cran!" said Maia, startled at last into full attention. "Ogma, are you sure? She never said a word about it to me or Occula."

"Well, no, miss, likely not," said Ogma. "I mean, Miss Milvushina wasn't never one for telling a great deal at all, was she, if you know what I mean? But now it seems as Lord Santil's made a proclamation down in Chalcon and Tonilda, telling everyone what he's doing and why, and all such things as that: and the chief of it is, he says that it was all arranged between him and Lord Enka-Mordet that he was to marry his daughter, and it was going to be a public thing as soon as the rains ended, only for what happened to poor Lord Enka-Mordet. And he says—that's to say, in the proclamation he says—that he was the one as had the High Counselor murdered, and that he'll never rest until he's revenged Lord Enka-Mordet and the dishonor that's been done to himself by Miss Milvushina being taken away."

Maia, sitting in the sun-dappled window-seat, considered this in silent wonder.

"It only shows, miss, doesn't it," resumed Ogma, "as the gods above—"

"Where is Milvushina?" interrupted Maia. "I remember now—that's to say I heard—that after the murder Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion took her into his own household, although by law she ought to have gone to the temple. The Sacred Queen was very angry about it."

"She's still with Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion," said Ogma. "He's said as he won't give her up. But that's not all, miss, either." She paused for effect.

"Well?" asked Maia.

"They say—that's to say, there's them as are saying, miss—that the Sacred Queen was for sending her back to Chalcon," said Ogma. "The rumor is that the Sacred Queen told General Kembri that Bekla had enough troubles as it was and to send the girl back and good riddance, But it seems Miss Milvushina said as she didn't want to go, and when the queen said she-was temple property and to be disposed of as such, Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion said no, because she shouldn't never have been enslaved in the first place, so by rights she wasn't a slave at all. So then Queen Fornis got very angry, but when she told General Kembri to see to it, he said he was too busy and anyway it wouldn't make any difference, because Lord Santil wouldn't want her back now she's been—you know. So that's it, you see, miss, and it only goes to show, doesn't it—"

"Then you mean Milvushina's living with Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion now?"

"Oh, yes, miss," said Ogma, "and what's more, they say he's going to command a special band of soldiers they're raising, to go to Chalcon and put down Lord Erketlis; that's as soon as they're ready. And Miss Milvushina, she's said all along that he's been that good to her in her trouble that she means to stay with him here in Bekla."

And what did all this matter to herself? thought Maia, dismissing Ogma to go and set about cooking dinner. Once, there had been a time when she would have been wild with jealousy and full of resentment against Elvair-ka-Virrion. "You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen." "Thank you for my pleasure. It was much the best I've ever had." This was not disillusion on her part, however: it was sheer lack of interest. With her new understanding, her opened eyes, she knew that Elvair-ka-Virrion was no man for her. He had once bedded her; she had enjoyed it; it had been a step up. He was the son and heir of the Lord General, while she was now the most celebrated, acclaimed woman in the empire. And that was all—that was the size of it. What could she and Elvair-ka-Virrion possibly create together, apart from mere physical pleasure? Milvushina was welcome to him. She did not want him. She wanted her Zenka.

She was in a situation of success and wealth such as she could never have dreamed of, and she had been warned that she had powerful enemies—potential enemies, at all events. She had betrayed the confidence of the man she loved, and by doing so had saved thousands of lives. She was revenged on Bayub-Otal as thoroughly as she or any-one could possibly have desired; yet now she only regretted it and pitied him. What a tangle of contradictions!

Ah! she thought, if only I could go and tell it all to that old Nasada! She could see him so clearly in her mind's eye—his fish-skin robe, his bushy eyebrows, his kindly, penetrating stare, his way of really listening to what you told him and then answering something you'd never have thought of for yourself.

"Oh, if only I could talk to Nasada!" she said aloud. "He'd make sense out of all this: he'd help me to know myself. Only I shaH never see him again, that's for sure. And Zenka? Never see Zenka again? Oh, no!"

She burst into tears; but, as is so often the way, having given rein for a time she felt better, and was able to enjoy entertaining Nennaunir to dinner and showing off her new furniture and other possessions.

Nennaunir's news was all of the forthcoming Chalcon expedition.

"There won't be anyone left here, you know, to go to bed with," she said, shaking her head with mock concern and smiling mischievously at Maia across the table. "You've saved the city and ruined the shearnas, Maia. Soon everyone'll be off to stick spears into Santil instead of zards into us."

"But no one's got to go as doesn't want, surely?" asked Maia. "Not from the upper city, anyway?"

"Well, the thing is," answered Nennaunir, "that Kembri's doing all he can to make them feel they ought to. As a matter of fact," she went on, dropping her voice and looking over her shoulder for a moment to make sure Ogma was not in the room, "I believe he's more worried than he cares to let people know. Galatalis—you don't know her, do you? A sweet girl, and so pretty; you'd like her, Maia—she was with him a few days ago and she told me he really didn't seem himself at all."

"But he was going to lead the army on the Valderra, surely?" said Maia. "Isn't he going to now, then?"

"Not if I know anything about it," replied Nennaunir. "Before the murder, oh, yes, he meant to take the army into Suba and attack Karnat on his own ground. A nice, offensive summer, my dear, with plenty of honor and glory for whoever was in command. But that's all changed now, you see. What with the trouble in Chalcon and all the unrest growing in the provinces since the murder, Kembri hasn't got the men to spare for attacking Karnat in Suba. He's had to give up that idea and leave the Valderra to Sendekar, with just enough men to hold it defensively. That's my guess, anyway."

Maia told her what she had heard from Ogma about Milvushina and the proclamation of Santil-kè-Erketlis.

"So Sencho signed his own death warrant when he decided to help himself to a baron's daughter for fun?" said Nennaunir. "Good! I've never been more glad to hear of anyone's death. But Santil—he's a danger to all of us, you know, Maia."

"How's that, then?" asked Maia. "He hasn't got the men to make all that much trouble, surely?"

"No, but don't you see, he's openly in arms against the Leopards. No one else in the empire has got as far as that before, not since they've been in power. And as long as they can't put him out of business, they can't afford to ignore him. There he is, offering at least a full belly to anyone who'll join him. As I see it, the longer he can keep going, the longer he's likely to. Men on the run will go to him instead of to Zeray. Anyone who's got on the wrong side of the Leopards will know where to head for, and there's quite a few of them, I should think, wouldn't you? Elleroth, for one; and Elleroth's the sort of man people will follow."

"Who is this Elleroth?" asked Maia. "I remember, now, the Urtans were talking about him."

"He's the son and heir of the Ban of Sarkid," answered Nennaunir. "I met him once, a year or two back, when he came up here; a very amusing, dashing sort of lad, from all I saw of him. Sarkid's never had slavery, you know, and when the Leopards came into power the Sarkidians made it clear that they were quite ready to quarrel about that if they had to. The House of Sarkid claims to be descended from a legendary hero called Deparioth, who was a slave until he became Ban himself and set all the slaves free. That was hundreds of years ago, of course, but they've always stuck to it like glue. I suppose Sencho and Kembri must have decided that as long as they didn't try to spread their ideas outside Sarkid, it wasn't worth fighting about. But now Elleroth's taken a bunch of his lads to join Santil, and you can bet those diamonds you're wearing, dear—aren't they marvelous? I've never seen bigger, not even the Sacred Queen's—did the city give them to you?"

"Yes, Lord Durakkon gave them to me himself," said Maia, "when he come here to thank me. Made me cry, tell you the truth."

"I don't wonder. Well, we know that's one Leopard who's not going to want anything from you in return, don't we? Where was I? Oh, yes, you can bet your diamonds that Kembri's got a headache about that. He must have decided he can't afford to leave the city himself, what with not having caught Sencho's killers and wondering where the next bit of provincial trouble's going to start. But he's sending Elvair—that's what I heard—with a specially raised force—Lapanese, Ortelgans, Belishbans, all sorts—to rout Santil out and finish him off. The Leopards must be desperate to stop the revolt spreading, I should think, wouldn't you?"

"Then why don't they send Milvushina back?" asked Maia. "I mean, whatever she says, they could make her go, surely?"

"Wouldn't make any difference now," said Nennaunir. "Heldril aren't called heldril for nothing, you know: 'old-fashioned people'. As far as Santil's concerned, she's damaged goods and no wife for him any more. No, it's the insult to his honor that he's angry about. He was betrothed to a baron's daughter and the Leopards enslaved her and took her virginity, when by rights she belonged to him. As far as Santil's concerned, that's that, but he's in honor bound to revenge it. Sencho can't have known she was betrothed to Santil, or even he'd have thought twice, I imagine."

"But if it can't make any difference, Nan, why's Fornis so keen to send her back? Only I was told she regular fell out with Kembri over it."

"Ah!" Nennaunir put a finger to her lips. "Well, I'll tell you what I think I know, Maia, because you're who you are and I've always liked you. But for Cran and Airtha's sake don't go repeating it; I never said anything, did I?"

Maia shook her head.

"Where's your servant?" asked Nennaunir, looking round into the room behind them.

"In the kitchen; asleep, too, if I know anything about her."

"She can't possibly hear us?"

Maia shook her head.

Nennaunir leant forward where she was sitting. "It's my belief that Fornis is almost at her wits' end," she said, dropping her voice. "She's had nearly two reigns as Sacred Queen, and that's something that's never been known be-fore. Her second acclamation was all a put-up job, you know. There were plenty of people who shook their heads— secretly, of course, or they'd have found they'd shaken them off, I dare say—when she got the Leopards to agree to a second reign. Now that's due to end next Melekril, and what does she mean to do next? No one knows. But she'll try to stay where she is, that's my guess. And any girl in the upper city she thinks might be a rival, she'll put her out of the way if she can. Milvushina's a baron's daughter. Elvair-ka-Virrion's made her his consort and apparently Kembri's supporting him. I bet the two of them have decided Fornis is no more use to them—the people would never agree to a third reign—and they're looking for someone to succeed her as the next Sacred Queen. And if I know anything about it, that someone's Milvushina.

"But that's not the whole size of it, not by a long way. You're in danger yourself, Maia. Yes, you are! I don't want to frighten you, but with a standing and a following like you've got now, I'm certain Fornis must have her eye on you. If I were you I should take great care: don't give her the slightest grounds for thinking you're ambitious."

"I shan't," said Maia. "Sessendris has told me the same already."

Nennaunir nodded. "She's nice; you can trust her. Did she tell you they've just made another lot of arrests in Tonilda? No one important, though—all little people. They're bringing them up to Bekla now."

She was silent for a time, but then suddenly burst out "Fornis! Oh, Cran, she really frightens me! I'm lucky to be here myself; did you know that?"

"No, I never," said Maia. "How could I?"

"Well, I just wondered whether Sednil might have told you anything: about how he came to be doing five years as a branded man, I mean. Poor lad, he's doing it for me, that's the plain truth. But what could I do? I had no choice, else I'd be dead."

"How ever was that, then?" asked Maia.

"It was all along of that Randronoth, the governor of Lapan," said Nennaunir. "He's well-known to have a fancy for very young girls: did you know?"

Maia laughed. "I ought to: I had to spend the night with him once, when he was staying at Sencho's. Sencho offered him his choice and I was the one he picked. He didn't half have a go at me an' all!"

"Ah, yes: Randronoth wouldn't miss the chance of a girl like you. Well, then, you may perhaps know as well, do you, that the Leopards have had their doubts about him for some time? He's not entirely trusted, only they've never been able to prove anything. He really only held on to his governorship this last year or so by keeping in with Sencho. What'll happen to him now is anybody's guess.

"But I was going to tell you about Queen Fornis and Sednil, wasn't I? It happened more than two years ago, when I was still living in the lower city. I'd had a lover for some time before—an officer—but he'd been killed in bat-tle, and after that I had quite a struggle for a bit. For some reason no one rich or powerful seemed to fancy me. In fact I was seriously thinking of selling myself to Lalloc, if only he'd promise to place me in some wealthy household up here. And it was during that bad time that I took up with Sednil. He's a Palteshi, you know, like me, and we'd first met in Fornis's army, when we were just banzis. He was working for a jewel-merchant in the lower city, but he used to make a bit extra by—well, by helping to get people interested in me—traders coming up to Bekla and so on. We lived together. Sednil was always very good about money; almost too good, really. He'd take money direct from men for introducing them to me—he regarded that as payment for work he'd done himself, you see—but he'd never take a meld of mine. He was terribly proud that way; he used to say he'd rather starve. Still, there was no danger of that, because what with the jewel-merchant and the tips from my visitors he was doing reasonably well.

"He was a lot of comfort in those days, was Sednil, and he was no fool. Saw things straight, you know, and often gave me good advice."

"Ah, he gave me some, too," replied Maia. "What you'd call down-to-earth."

Nennaunir nodded. "Well, one time Randronoth had come up from Lapan to see Fornis and the Leopards on state business, and the next evening he was drinking with some of his own men down in 'The Serpent.' He's always been very free-and-easy among his own men, has Randronoth. And it was while he was there that Sednil fell in with him and managed to get him interested in me. Of course I fairly jumped at it; it was much the best opportunity I'd ever had in my life. Well, you know how it is, don't you? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This did: I gave him a simply marvelous time; he really wondered which way the moon was going round. Actually, that was when I turned the corner, because later, when I'd got too old to suit his taste, he recommended me to several people in the upper city. But that isn't what I was going to tell you, That night, when he was feeling really contented and satisfied—and still a bit tipsy, too—he gave me a huge great ring he had—for a present, you know. I tried to refuse it, because I was afraid he'd only regret it later and that'd cost me more than the ring could possibly be worth; but he was very insistent and in the end I decided the easiest thing would be to take it.

"It wasn't a girl's ring at all: only a man could possibly have worn it. It was made like a coiled silver dragon with a great ruby in its mouth half as big as your little fingernail. So I thought, "Well, if ever he asks for it back he can have it—always the honest shearna, that's me—and if he doesn't, I'll hang on to it for a year or so and then sell it. So next morning, off he goes as happy as a stag in autumn and I slept for the rest of the day. I'd left the ring lying on my dressing-table.

"Well, early that afternoon Master Sednil came in—he had a key, of course—and the first thing he saw was the ring. He'd never have taken it to sell—not without asking me—but it struck him as absolutely marvelous, and he couldn't resist putting it on and wearing it when he went back to the jewel-merchant's a bit later. He was going to show it off to him, you see. I never woke up until after he'd gone, and even then I didn't miss the ring. I had no idea at all what he'd done.

"Well, he was crossing the Caravan Market when as luck would have it he ran right into that woman of Queen Fomis's—you know, Ashaktis. Apparently the ring—and no one could possibly have mistaken it for any other—had originally been given to Randronoth by Fornis herself; and Ashaktis recognized it. And before Sednil knew what was happening she'd called two of the market officers—they all knew her, of course—and had him arrested and dragged up in front of Fornis.

"Fornis never even asked him what he had to say for himself. She just sent for Randronoth and asked him. Well, naturally, he wasn't going to say he'd given away the Sacred Queen's present to a shearna in the lower city. He said he'd lost it: must have dropped it in the street.

"Sednil was frightened to death, of course. He simply told the queen the truth about where he'd found the ring and asked for me as a witness. But meanwhile Randronoth had got to me first, and I won't tell you how much he gave me to swear I knew nothing whatever about it. I took it, and I've never looked back. But before you think too badly of me, Maia, let me tell you I wouldn't have kept quiet if the Sacred Queen had sentenced Sednil to hang, or to the Gelt mines. I thought he might even be let off altogether—after all, Randronoth hadrgot the ring back—but Fornis was cruel as a cat. You could see she was enjoying it. She had him branded in the hand then and there, and she stayed herself to watch it done; and then she gave him five years' forced service—more than any city magistrate would have given him. And from that day to this I've been doing everything I can, not just to make it easier for him, but to get him set free. Only I daren't try too hard. Fornis— oh, believe me, no girl's safe who risks displeasing Fornis! There've been several girls she's taken a dislike to who've simply vanished. That's why I'm saying, Maia, for Cran's sake be careful!"

"Nan," broke in Maia, "tell me, where's Occula?"

"Occula?" answered Nennaunir. "They took her to the temple for questioning—oh, weeks ago now. That's all I know. She may be dead. But if she is dead, she certainly wasn't publicly executed. Either she's still alive in the tem-ple, or else they killed her there."

"No," said Maia. "No, Nan. I can't tell you how I know— I daren't—but I know for a fact that she was sent for out of the temple by the Sacred Queen."

"Then all I can say is, Cran and Airtha help her!" replied Nennaunir.

Maia began to cry.