57: MILVUSHINA TRANSFORMED

In her delight and relief at being with Occula once more, the change in her friend had not at once struck Maia. It did so later, however—and forcefully—as she lay awake in her great, soft bed, hearing the scarcely-audible lapping of the Barb and the intermittent calling of plovers from the slopes of Crandor beyond. It was now, in darkness and solitude, that she realized that, more than the warnings of Sessendris and Nennaunir, more than the urbane dissimulation of the chief priest, Occula's air of strain and urgency, of having little time to spare in a taut conflict against odds, had stirred in herself a true sense of impending danger. If Occula was afraid, then indeed there must be something to be afraid of. Maia found herself recalling the mysterious, hypnotic ascendancy which the black girl had exercised over Sencho during the last weeks of his life, at one and the same time inducing apathy and soothing petulance, bringing him step by step to a state of dependency on herself in which he had all but connived at his own death. She recalled, too, with an understanding denied to her then, what it had cost Occula spiritually to exert this influence, to exploit Sencho's cunning, vicious temperament so subtly that he had indulged himself in her ministrations without once coming to suspect what awaited him. She remembered the night when, for all the world like some highly-strung hinnarist driven to desperation by an intricate passage, Occula had given way to hysteria in the belief that she had lost her power to prevail upon the High Counselor and incline him to her will.

How much more discerning and deadly an antagonist must be the Sacred Queen! And if Occula was up to the hilt in nothing less than the planned overthrow of the Leopard regime by the heldril, then she, Maia, must even now be standing on the lip of the same abyss. She had supposed—the kindly Sendekar had assured her—that she was returning to fame and fortune, the darling of the city, of all girls in the empire the most to be envied. To the recent warnings of her friends her reply had been, in effect, that she would take good care to sing small and keep out of harm's way. Yet now, at Occula's behest, she had promised to take a step—if only a small one—which, if ever it were to come to light, would condemn her outright as an agent of Santil-kè-Erketlis.

It was all very well for Occula to stress the vital importance of warning the old woman at once. Occula had never seen for herself the sort of thing that happened when Maia went into the lower city. And if, following her visit, the old woman and her son immediately fled, was not some conclusion sure to be drawn? She fell asleep at last resolved upon only one thing. Having given her word to Occula, she would not fail her.

Next morning, as is often the way, the simplest and most practical course entered her head at once. She would go down to the lower city incognito. She need not take her own jekzha; she could travel veiled—many older women did, especially in the dusty streets of summer—while to the guards at the Peacock Gate it would, surely, seem quite natural if she were to explain that she had grown weary of the crowds pressing about her and wished for once to be able to visit a friend in peace and quiet.

After breakfast she was already beginning her preparations—for the thing' would be best over and done as quickly as possible—when she heard the unknown voice of some servant talking to Jarvil at the door. A minute later Ogma came hobbling up the stairs at her best speed, beginning to speak even before she was in the room.

"Oh, Miss Maia, whatever do you think? It's Miss Milvushina—oh, she's down below this minute, miss, and looking so beautiful, oh, you'd never think it was the same girl as was always crying her eyes out at the High Counselor's, such a change for the better, oh, do you remember, Miss Maia—"

"Quiet, Ogma!" said Maia sharply. "She'll hear you. Is she alone?"

"Yes, miss. Only just her maid came with her. And you'd never believe—"

"Then take her in some wine and nuts and tell her I'll be down directly. Then please come back and help me finish dressing. Show the maid into the kitchen."

And what might this portend? she wondered. To be sure, she and Milvushina had never quarrelled and she had often done her best—inadequate as she had always felt it—to comfort the Chalcon girl in a misery and loss so terrible as to lie beyond normal comprehension. Yet for all that, she now realized, her present surprise arose because she had never expected Milvushina to seek her out or particularly want to see her again. They had had little or nothing in common and Milvushina, on account partly of her youthful immaturity and partly of the lonely wretchedness which had made her desperate to hold on to her own identity, had never been very successful in concealing her innate sense of superiority to the Tonildan peasant lass.

And then again, Maia had once or twice been an involuntary witness of obscene humiliations inflicted by Sencho on the aristocratic Milvushina—humiliations best forgotten. No, indeed, what possible reason had Milvushina to want to renew acquaintance with herself? Well, presumably she was about to discover. She had better put on her best front, go downstairs and see.

Wearing her diamonds and a robe of dark-blue silk with a train of jet beads trailing at the hem, Maia entered her parlor to find Milvushina no less splendidly turned out. Her green dress of finely-knitted wool was shot with silver threads which matched the chain binding her black hair, while round her neck was a collar of emeralds with a single ruby in the center. Her big, dark eyes were emphasized at the outer edges with touches of a lighter green, and at her shoulder was a gold, enamelled brooch in the form of a crouching leopard. Immediately upon Maia's entry she sprang up, smiling and stretching out open arms.

Maia's first impression was the same as Ogma's. This was a transformed Milvushina; so much so that for one confused instant she actually wondered whether it could really be the same girl—a measure of the difference which self-respect and happiness (or the lack of them) can make to almost any human face and demeanor. The change lay principally in Milvushina's startling, hitherto-unseen air of animation, energy and alertness, compared with which her bearing at Sencho's was now revealed as uncharacteristic, a mere facade of taut moral courage, a keeping-up of appearances. Maia found herself thinking (her unaided imagination could not have run to it before) that this, no doubt, was the girl for whose hand Santil-kè-Erketlis had lost no time in making an offer; the girl who had not been seen since that morning in the rains when the Beklan soldiers had come down upon her father's house. She, Maia, would probably have to start making her acquaintance all over again—or something precious close to that, anyway.

While she was still upstairs, she had decided that she would be hanged if she was going to let Milvushina condescend to her or get under her skin. Now, however, with her own swift way of responding to the mood of the moment, she felt that she was going to have no need of such defensiveness. Milvushina might have the air of a princess and unconsciously effuse the authority of a baron's daughter, but nevertheless her present feelings towards Maia were evidently as warm as Maia felt her own becoming towards her.

She began, naturally, by praising Maia's heroism, saying that she had felt she could not rest content without coming to add her own thanks to those of the entire city. Yet she contrived to express this in words which to Maia—who ever since Rallur had been the recipient of so much praise— seemed not only spontaneous and sincere, but original too. When she had responded appropriately and they were beginning to talk of other things, something else struck Maia, inwardly, as extremely amusing; the more so as the joke was against herself. Although Milvushina's manner, which formerly had all-too-often seemed one of condescension and restraint in the presence of an inferior, was not essentially changed, it now appeared to her simply that of a lady by implication sharing with another lady a proper sense of their common superiority. Well, it'sall according, I s'pose, thought Maia, with a wry admission to herself that as usual Occula had been right. Anyone's manner's just how it happens to strike someone else from where they're placed. She's changed all right, but I suppose I must have changed even more.

Not all the emeralds and silver in Bekla, however, could have quenched Maia's rustic curiosity or changed her conversational style to one of dignified restraint and elegant composure. Soon she was taking the lead in quizzing Milvushina about clothes and jewels, about her servants and what kind of hospitality she gave and received in the upper city. To all this Milvushina replied smilingly, cordially and without constraint. It was not long before the two girls (whose combined ages were less than thirty-four) had gone chattering upstairs to look through Maia's wardrobe.

After a while Milvushina, spreading across her lap a transparent, mauve robe embroidered with light and dark butterflies, which she had been admiring, sat down on the end of the bed and looked out across the Barb.

"This must sometimes remind you of Serrelind, I suppose," she said. "Do you ever miss Tonilda?"

"Precious little," answered Maia. " 'Twasn't as if we was exactly in clover, you know. To say the least," she added.

Milvushina, looking up from the enormous eyes, nodded. "I know: but has it ever struck you that at least what you remember's still there? I can understand you not wanting to go back—that wasn't really what I meant when I asked whether you ever missed it. At least it's still there, behind you, like the foot of a staircase—it still exists. Mine doesn't. It's vanished off the face of the earth."

Maia, having considered briefly what reply to make to this rather unexpected remark, took refuge in tossing it back again.

"Does that make you miss it more, d'you think? Don't know as I'd much care if our old hut was gone—nor my mother neither, if you really want me to be honest. But then it's different for you, isn't it?"

She sat down beside Milvushina and took her hand. "I heard tell as—well, as there was those who wanted you to go back to Santil-kè-Erketlis; but you didn't want. Well, and I heard, too, that—well, that things wouldn't have been the same if you had. But suppose they could have been—" She stopped, and then resumed, "Santil—that was what you wanted in the first place, was it? Before—before—you know?"

"Well, yes," answered Milvushina. "It was what my father wanted, you see, and it would have been a very honorable marriage, to a man who's still young and the foremost baron in Chalcon. But now I've done what you and Qccula both did. Since everything's changed and can't be altered, I've made the best of it and changed myself too."

"Are you all that much changed, then?" asked Maia. " 'Course, we didn't know each other a year ago, but just strikes me as now you may have got back to more what you used to be, like."

Two red-and-gray gazefinches alighted on the window-sill and began pecking at the millet-seed which Maia had sprinkled. To her, feeding the birds was a luxury almost as pleasurable as hiring a hinnarist.

Once, there would have been no millet to spare for the likes of her to be feeding to birds.

Milvushina's glance turned quickly towards the finches, then back to Maia with a smile.

"That night—you know—the night of— his— murder— there were two friends of my family up here for the festival."

"Oh, ah," said Maia. "I 'member now; I met them in the gardens with Elvair-ka-Virrion; a brother and sister?"

"That's right. Seld-T'maa and his sister Varriah. Their parents used to be old friends of my father. Did you know that they came to—to the house that night, to see me?"

"Well, funny thing you should ask that, 'cos it so happens Elvair asked whether I thought Terebinthia would let them see you, and I said yes, I reckoned she would."

"She did. They were actually with me—we were talking together—when news came of the murder. You can just imagine, can't you? The whole place was in utter confusion: Terebinthia went straight to the gardens. And that was when T'maa said he'd get me out of Bekla. He felt certain he could get me out through the Peacock Gate with himself and Varriah and we'd be off to his father's in northern Yelda."

"Whatever went wrong, then?" asked Maia.

Milvushina laughed. "I refused: or should I say I declined?"

Maia caught her breath. "You never!"

"Well, you see, Elvair and I already understood each other. The night of Sarget's party—that night when you danced; oh, and weren't you good, Maia? I'll never forget it—we—well, we came to an understanding as early as that, really. And as things turned out, the day after the murder he simply came and took me away. Terebinthia—he bribed her an enormous amount to let me go: I was on the temple's inventory of the household, you see. But as it was, that very afternoon I was in Elvair's rooms at the Lord General's house. Terebinthia took the money and got out as quick as she could. I believe the temple are still trying to find out where she's gone."

They both laughed, and Maia shook her head Wonderingly. "Well, there's a tale! Who'd ever have thought! When T'maa asked you, you weren't in two minds at all, then?"

"Not for a moment. You see, there wasn't anything for me to go back to. Oh, I don't mean I'd have been poor. I never really thought about that one way or the other. No, it's just that people in Chalcon don't think about things the way they do here. Never been there, have you?"

Maia smiled. "No, but I've been in Suba. Reckon it can't be all that much different."

"I'm a spoiled bargain, my dear. That's all they'd have seen in me, even though they'd have treated me kindly for my father's sake. Shop-soiled in Bekla." She tossed her head and stamped her foot; at which the finches flew away. "But not to Elvair. I'm not damaged goods to him. And he's all the world to me."

This showed the free-and-easy Elvair-ka-Virrion in something of a new light, thought Maia: yet it sounded genuine enough—he might very well have fallen sincerely in love with this beautiful, high-born girl in her distress, and determined to save her from degradation and slavery. And for her sake he had gone the length of openly defying the temple authorities. Presumably he—or at any rate his father—could have afforded thirteen or fourteen thousand meld for Milvushina. But to have bought her would have been to accept the contention that she was legally a slave. Yes, and to have people saying, too, that his consort had once been a slave.

"So he really loves you?" she said. "Well, I'm that glad! I am truly."

"He's made life worth living again," said Milvushina. "That's what it comes to. Apart from everything else, he's given me standing and position here in Bekla, and I suppose I wouldn't be human not to like that."

She paused. "It's all so strange, though."

"Strange?" asked Maia. "But you're a baron's daughter—?"

Milvushina laughed—the same happy sound which had so much startled Maia at Sarget's party.

"Bekla isn't Chalcon, dear. The kind of standing a Chalcon baron's daughter has is quite different from a Leopard's wife. I've had just as much to learn as ever you can have had, Maia, believe me."

"D'you see much of the Lord General?" asked Maia.

"He's been very kind to me," replied Milvushina. "You know the Sacred Queen tried to make trouble about me and Elvair? She told Elvair to send me back to Chalcon, and when he refused she told Kembri to make me go. But Kembri wouldn't." She picked up a carved onyx rabbit which one of Shend-Lador's friends had given to Maia, and began stroking it. "He says I'm the luck of the em-pire!"

"Did he say that to Fornis?"

"I don't know," said Milvushina. Then, suddenly, "Maia, are you afraid of her?"

"Yes, I am," said Maia, "and I'll tell you straight, I wouldn't want anyone telling her I'm the luck of the em-pire, that I wouldn't."

"Well, you are, aren't you? Oh, but Elvair wouldn't let anything happen to me! It's only that—oh, Maia, I do feel so frightened sometimes! I wish Elvair hadn't upset the chief priest and the Sacred Queen, even though I know it was for my honor. He told them straight out that I'd never been a slave—well, and that's true—and he wasn't going to pay a meld for me. But now, quite soon, he's got to go away, you know, to fight in Chalcon—"

"To fight Erketlis, isn't it? You don't mind that, then?"

"I only met Santil twice in my whole life," answered Milvushina. "And even then it wasn't the two of us alone. That's how things are done in Chalcon, you know. He was very charming, but, oil—it's not like Elvair. How could it be? When Elvair's made his name as a commander—as he surely will—and come back to Bekla, then I'll let myself feel safe and happy. I don't trust Fornis, Maia; not an inch. I have all my food tasted before I eat it. Do you?"

Before Maia could answer, Milvushina suddenly stood up, swaying on her feet, put her hands up to her face and took a few tottering steps across to the window.

"Oh, Maia! I'm so sorry, I think I'm going to be sick!"

She leaned over the sill, retching. Maia, thoroughly frightened by this sudden crisis following immediately upon her talk of the poisoning, jumped up and threw an arm round her shoulders.

"What can I do, dear? Shall I send for a doctor? Ogma! Ogma!" she called hysterically.

"No, no, it's all right, Maia," answered Milvushina quickly. "There's nothing wrong; don't worry. In fact the doctor says it's a good sign. Means everything's going on well." She sat down again. "It's all right. It's passed off." She wiped her sweating forehead and looked up at Maia smiling, one hand on her belly.

Maia stared. "You mean—Elvair's baby?"

Milvushina nodded happily. "No one else's, that's for sure. If you'll stay with me I'll lie down for a little while and then I'd best be getting home." She flung her arms round Maia's neck. "Home! Yes, really home—something I thought I'd lost for ever! Oh, I'll make him such a home before I've done, you see if I don't!"

And now at last Maia did feel real envy, but not on account of Elvair-ka-Virrion. Why should she have her man, she thought, and not me mine? It was only for an instant. The next, she was once more mistress of herself and sat down beside the bed, holding Milvushina's hand and sending Ogma for cold water, a towel and some fresh fruit-juice.

"I'm so glad, dear," she said. "Just think—that night when Occula and me came back and found you alone— who'd ever have guessed it'd all turn out so well?"