63: THEBARRARZ

What—even though it may involve neither pain nor danger—is more bewildering and agitating than to learn something of the greatest importance about oneself—something entirely unsuspected and highly extraordinary; verging on the unique: to find oneself in a situation which very few indeed (and none available to talk to) can have been called upon to face? Some there be who have found themselves heirs to kingdoms; others the sudden possessors of some hitherto undreamt-of knowledge or truth. Others again have stumbled, all unawares, upon some huge discovery, daunting, of incalculable import. Visions have been vouchsafed to simpletons, landfalls made by the lost and desperate, revelations bestowed upon purblind stumblers in the dark. My very self is changed for ever; I am not and can never again be the person I was. Why me, God, why me? My dazzled, peering eyes cannot make out the import, the perspective: a fly on the window-pane or a far-off mountain? But first and foremost, God, am I beneficiary or victim?

Maia sat in her garden above the Barb. From time to time she beat with the flat of her hand upon the seat-slats beside her, staring out unseeingly across the water. Again, she sprang up and began pacing back and forth over the grass; then gripped the rail of the fence with both hands and rocked herself backwards and forwards. To Ogma, peeping from an upstairs window, it was plain that her mistress must have learned something to upset her: no doubt an affair of the heart, she thought with sluggish, lukewarm envy (for such things lay so far beyond Ogma's horizon that she had little real idea of them), yet for the life of her she could not imagine who it might be. Well, she knew that Maia was to attend Elvair-ka-Virrion's barrarz that night. No doubt more would become clear later, for to give her her due Miss Maia had never been one to make herself out better than anybody else, to act stand-offish or keep secrets.

In Maia's heart there was a kind of fighting. Part was inflamed with excitement by what Tharrurhad told her, part full of trepidation, exposed and fearful as a fledgling just flown from the nest. She was, in fact, in a state of shock. Again and again she called before her mind's eye that grim, long-ago night which Tharrin had described to her—the exhausted girl, in mortal terror, stumbling on through the mud and rain she knew not whither, her belly big with—with herself! She, too, had taken part in that dreadful journey towards death—and life! She saw her dear father—Ah, no! Now her father no longer—striding in out of the darkness with the lass in his arms: Morca staring in bewilderment and consternation: the dim-lit vigil over the sweating, babbling girl: Drigga heating water, making up the fire, comforting, reassuring. Then her thoughts leapt to the ash-tree by the lake—her own tree, from which she had so often dropped blissfully down into the water, to swim away, to escape from her drudgery and chores. Where exactly could the grave be? She called the surrounding ground before her mind's eye. There was nothing to see, no mound—well, no, they'd have made sure of that. Could it be that bit over by—But then she began to cry again and couldn't think straight any more.

Her father was not her father. And Kelsi and Nala and little Lirrit—oh, she'd been so fond of Lirrit, she'd been the one she really loved best—they weren't her sisters at all! And Morca? Well, at least that made what she'd done a bit more understandable. They mustn't be left alone, they mustn't go in want.

She'd send them money. And Tharrin—she'd need to keep an eye on Tharrin: send one of her soldiers back to Serrelind with him: ah, make sure he got there and all, and the money too.

And she herself? She was a Suban—a marsh-frog! Well, half, for sure, anyway. But her real father—had he been-a Suban? No, not if they'd been living in eastern Urtah: he'd have been an Urtan. Where exactly was the village? It shouldn't be difficult to find out—they'd not have forgotten the murder after as little as sixteen and a half years. There'd be people there who'd known her father and mother.

Nokomis! She was sister's daughter, then, to the fabulous, legendary Nokomis! Well, that explained a whole basting lot, as Occula would no doubt have remarked. And more than that, she and Bayub-Otal were cousins! And before the implications of this, poor Maia fetched up literally at a standstill and all of a shake, like a boat in the eye of the wind. "Oh, it's all too much at one go, that it is!" she said aloud, as though declaring to the gods that she was just not going to play any more. She sat down on the grass and began chewing daisies; and a few minutes later Ogma came to tell her that dinner was ready.

Today she could eat all right. Both horror and uncertainty had left her. She knew what she meant to do, and her confidence was only slightly less than her determination. After the meal, telling Jarvil to admit no one, she lay down on her bed, escaping into sleep with the relief of a slave pitching a heavy load off his back and not caring which way up it landed, either.

When she woke, Ogma was rattling pails in the bathroom and a beaker of milk, its top covered with muslin, was standing on the table beside her bed. The sun was setting and the swifts were darting and screaming high up in the cooling air. A passer-by called to someone in the quiet road outside. A scent of planella drifted in from the garden. Suddenly it seemed to Maia that some god was revealing to her a truth—that the world was not, in fact, transfixed upon a few sharp, pyramidal points of great matters.

Rather, it was supported easily upon countless passing moments, a myriad diurnal trivia, like the host of befriending butterflies in old Drigga's story, who carried the wandering princess up and over the ice mountain.

She drank the milk and stretched luxuriously, smelling the planella, admiring again the workmanship of the onyx rabbit and listening to the sound of water pouring into the bath. "I'm not cold or hungry or ill," she thought, "and I've got me." Somewhere outside, the bluefinch sang his little phrase, "Never never never never let -you-fear." It was the only one he knew. She laughed, sat up and swung her feet to the floor. She'd show them!

She would wear the cherry-colored robe with the bodice of crystals—one of four or five which they had given her on her return to the city (for the authorities, having taken over Sencho's great mass of possessions and effects, had been weeks in disposing of them, and she had returned in time to be offered her pick of the wardrobe). The cherry dress had been lucky on the night of the senguela: it would be lucky now. For the rest, her diamonds and a spray of planella in her hair (which she would comb out loose over her shoulders) would do very well. Sixteen-year-old Maia had no need to wonder what Fornis might keep in her cabinet of unguents.

Coming downstairs in the rose-and-saffron half-light reflected from the Barb, over which the bats were already flittering, she found her two soldiers—summoned by Ogma—waiting to take her to the Lord General's house. She gave them ten meld apiece and told them to go and drink it. "Half a mile up the Trepsis Avenue, on an evening like this? I'm walking!" At this their eyes opened wide, for in the upper city the only women who walked in public were slaves. But the Serrelinda—well, for the matter of that she might have been going to swim it (oh, yes, they'd heard that story all right) and no one would have had a word to say.

"But when shall we come to the Lord General's to bring you home, then, säiyett?" asked Brero. "You needn't," she said. "I'll send you a message tomorrow morning." At which he clapped his hand over his mouth to suppress an appreciative guffaw. She didn't mess about, did she, the little säiyett? Someone or other wasn't half going to be lucky.

The avenue seemed as full of scents as a flowerbed of summer bees, stirring and mingling, here and gone. Roses, lake water and planella, wood-smoke and dew, clipped grass and a sharp, resinous smell from where someone was sawing logs. She, the Serrelinda, was floating to her destination on the fragrance of the world, like the butterfly princess on her magic quest. She was on her way to save poor old Tharrin from the Sacred Queen. Ah, and after that she'd have to start thinking about Bayub-Otal and all. Shakkarn alive! He, the rightful Ban of Suba, was not only her liege lord but her own kith and kin!

And anyway, even setting all that aside, she'd begun to think rather differently of him since Suba and since Nasada. Funny, she thought, how you get to altering your ideas about people as you .find out a bit more about them. Like Milvushina.

Am I beautiful, Zenka? Zenka, am I the girl you can feel proud of? You never had the chance to show me off, Zenka, did you; to feel proud of your sweetheart in public, among other Katrians? "You're the most beautiful girl in the world," he answered. "I'm always with you, all the time: I'll never leave you." She broke off a spray of yellow Claris trailing over a wall beside her. "Take this, my darling," he said, "and wear it for me: if I knew of anything more beautiful to give you, I would. Well, we're on active service now, you know. Have to grab what we can get." Oh, thank you, Zenka! I love you so much! Oh, do you remember how we chose a dagger? And you said—

From behind her sounded the soft flit-flat, flit-flat of a jekzha-man's feet in the dust and then a girl's voice, "Maia! What in the world are you doing here?"

It was Nennaunir, wrapped in a gossamer-thin, azure cloak, a crystal-and-gold ring on one finger of the hand that held the rail as she leant towards Maia, her high-piled hair set now not with one but apparently about five garnet combs.

Maia laughed. "Walking to Elvair's party."

"Walking? You're out of your mind! Where are your soldiers, for Cran's sake?"

"I sent them off to get drunk."

"Whatever for?"

" 'Cos I wanted to walk."

Nennaunir shook her head and looked serious. "It won't do you any good, Maia—not in the long run it won't— doing eccentric things like going about on foot in the upper city. I mean that as a friend. You've got a position to keep up, my lass. You can't just take it into your head to go strolling up the Trepsis Avenue in the twilight, loaded with diamonds. People may even start thinking you're a human being. Get in here with me, come on."

Meekly Maia obeyed, settling herself comfortably beside Nennaunir as the man went on. The shearna seemed drenched in kepris—in the confined space of the jekzha it was quite overpowering—and this reminded Maia that she herself had forgotten to put on any scent. Never mind, she thought. There's sure to be some flowers; I can always pick up a jasmine wreath or something.

"I called round for you, as a matter of fact," said Nennaunir, "and Ogma told me what you'd done, so I was looking out for you. That girl, by the way," she went on after a few moments, "I don't think she's quite what you need, Maia, to be honest. Please don't take this the wrong way, but a girl as young as you are needs someone sharper and—well, knowledgeable about people and affairs and what's going on. It's a great pity you couldn't have kept that woman Terebinthia to look after you. I'm sure she'd have been delighted, if only it had been put to her."

"Shemight have been, but I shouldn't."

"Why, was she a bitch?"

"Hard as nails and mean with it. The house-slaves all hated her; always sniffing about. I used to feel she was like water round a boat: you always had to be taking care to keep her outside, kind of. Oh, no, Nan, I couldn't never have done with her—not after I'd had to obey her at Sencho's and do what she told me. Surely you can see that?"

"Well, p'raps. But all the same, Maia, just you and that poor little club-footed ninny together in that house—I'm not happy about it. Oh, I'm sure she's first-rate in the market; and she cooks a nice meal, I don't say she doesn't. But the upper city's a tricky place, and she's not at all the right sort to be personal slave to a young and inexperienced girl shot up into a big public position. I warned you only the other day: there's all kinds of unscrupulous people who'd like to make use of you; to say nothing of possible enemies. You ought to get yourself someone older and shrewder, someone who can see what's what and keep you straight. I wish I had, years ago; I'll tell you that."

"I'll think about it, Nan: really I will." Maia, like most of us when some more experienced friend criticizes arrangements which we had thought suitable enough but now begin to have sneaking doubts about, felt resentful, but had no wish to fall out with a good friend like Nennaunir.

"For instance," went on Nennaunir, turning her sleek, shining head and looking Maia over appraisingly, "Terebinthia would never have let you go to a barrarz dressed like that. Whose idea was that—yours or Ogma's?"

"Mine. Whatever's wrong with it? I wore this at Sarget's party in the Barons' Palace and—"

"I know, darling. I was there—remember? But it's not right for a barrarz."

"What is a barrarz? Elvair was on saying that—'a barrarz'"

Nennaunir silently drove one fist twice into the other palm, like a girl tried close to the point of outburst.

"So Ogma didn't know about a barrarz? Honestly—"

"Don't be cross, Nan: just tell me. There's a first time for everything, you know."

"First time?" replied the shearna. "I'm worried about you, that's all. There can be situations where a girl only has to be wrong once, you know."

"But is a barrarz one of them?"

Nennaunir burst into soft, happy laughter.

"No, fortunately not. Of course you'll do very well as you are, Maia dear. I didn't mean to be a cat, truly. You're very lucky—you'll always look marvelous; for quite a few years, anyway. I heard you met King Karnat dressed in nothing but your shift and a bunch of golden lilies. Is that true?"

Maia stared. "How on earth did you know that? I never told a soul!"

"Oh, news travels, dear; news travels." Then, before Maia could question her further, she went on, "Anyway, a barrarz: Cran help me, I should know! I've been to enough of them. It's the custom in Bekla—and elsewhere, for that matter—the night before soldiers are leaving on active service, for the commander to give a party for his officers—and some of the tryzatts too, sometimes. Well, it's apt to become a pretty rowdy affair, as you can imagine. They boast and shout and sing and drink themselves silly and naturally they generally get to basting the girls as well. The thing is, they're usually in a mood to be pretty open-handed—you know, ready to spend what they've got be-fore they go. Many a good lygol I've had at a barrarz, though I admit I generally earned it right enough. I lost my virginity at a barrarz, actually—the one Kembri and Han-Glat gave in Dari-Paltesh before they marched on Bekla seven years ago."

"So how do you dress for a barrarz, then?"

"Like a soldier's doxy, dear. At an upper city barrarz as classy as this one's going to be, it's fancy dress, really; but my job's to amuse people, after all."

Leaning back in the jekzha, she opened the azure cloak.

The flimsy, pale-green robe she was wearing beneath it was not only transparent, but in some curious way seemed less to cover than to display and intensify the smooth white-ness of her body. Crowning each of her breasts was a slightly convex silver figure, about two inches high, representing a laughing cherub. At their groins the craftsman had left holes in the silver, and through these Nennaunir had drawn her nipples. At her waist, beneath and not outside the robe, was a silver girdle, its clasp fashioned in the likeness of a naked nymph leaning backwards, half-reclining on her elbows. The aperture between her lustrous, updrawn thighs was superimposed lipon Nennaunir's navel.

"Clever workmanship, isn't it?" said the shearna, drawing Maia's forefinger down to feel the smooth, weighty quality of the silver.

"But will all the girls be got up this kind of style?" asked Maia.

"Oh, no, I shouldn't think so," replied Nennaunir. "I just thought it'd be fun to wear these tonight: I got them in Ikat about two years ago. But here I've been chattering away and giving you all sorts of bad advice, and I nearly forgot what I really wanted to talk about—why I came round for you. Listen—this is terribly important. I believe a real chance has come up to get Sednil out of the temple; that is, for you to, if only you'll give it a try. Will you, dearest Maia? It would mean everything to me, and I'll always do you a good turn if ever I can."

"Meget him out?" said Maia. "How?"

Nennaunir paused for a few moments, gazing across the road at a wide, sloping bank of scented tigris, over which the moths were darting and hovering like tiny humming-birds. At length she said, "You told me you once spent the night with Randronoth, when you were still at Sen-cho's."

"Yes, I did," said Maia. "What about it?"

"Tell me, how did you get on with him?"

"Well, I don't just rightly know how to answer that," said Maia. "He didn't half enjoy himself, and he said as much, both to me and to old Sencho; but then men like that generally do enjoy their selves, don't they, whether you do or not? I mean, they don't bother much about any give-an'-take. Far as I was concerned, it was all just part of what we had to do, like."

"Well, whatever you may have thought at the time, it seems you really blew his ears apart for him that night," said Nennaunir. "Of course, Randronoth's a notorious baby-snatching goat— I'm too old for him, now; he usually likes them about fourteen—but apparently even he'd never known anything like you in all his basting life."

"Very nice of him, I'm sure," said Maia. "Can't remember doin' anything as I thought such a great lot of myself."

"No, of course not; how could you? But can you remember anything else about Randronoth?"

Maia, reflecting, frowned. "Well, I don't just exactly know what you're on about, Nan, but I do remember one thing as struck me. He was very much taken with the clothes and jewels as I was wearing, and he asked me whether I had any idea what they might have cost: he reckoned it must 'a been all of seven thousand meld, he said. So I says, "Well, what you got in your arms now cost more 'n twice that"—which was true enough an' all. Only that seemed to get him going more than anything else. Seemed as if just the very idea of what I'd cost and what the clothes had cost and what the jewels had cost was enough to drive him wild."

"Yes, well, I'm surprised, because to tell you the truth Randronoth's already given me his own version of this; I mean, without exactly knowing what he was saying; just while he was telling me how marvelous you were. That man's got a kind of obsession about extravagance, though I don't believe he's ever realized it—not consciously. Randronoth loves to feel that there's any amount of wealth and expense tied up with his basting—it gets him excited. Give him some little banzi behind the hedge at a village festival and he wouldn't want her—probably couldn't do it. But Lalloc could doll the same girl up in a gold net and jewels and offer her for far too much, and Randronoth's zard would be splitting his breeches. It's a funny world, isn't it? That was what really led to all that trouble over poor Sednil, you see. I didn't want Randronoth's damned ring: as I told you, it wasn't a girl's ring at all. But it was the most valuable thing he happened to have with him, so he had to give it to me: it was part of the thrill; and to do him justice he never seems to regret these little larks afterwards. Even his bribe to keep me quiet was far more than it need have been."

"But what about Sednil, then?" asked Maia.

"Well, now we come to it, pet; and if you don't like it, just say so; I shan't mind. Randronoth's up here again. He comes up every summer, you know, like all the provincial governors, to hand over his tax money. That's why he's brought so many soldiers with him. I hear they've drunk 'The Serpent' dry already and now they're starting on 'The Green Grove'. Anyway, he came round to see me and all he could talk about was you."

She paused, but Maia said nothing.

"He said he wanted you more than anything he'd ever wanted in the world," continued Nennaunir. "The lovely, inaccessible Serrelinda.' He knew you weren't a shearna, so could I help him—would I speak to you?"

"But—but why ever didn't he come and ask me himself, at that rate?" asked Maia.

"It seems he did," replied Nennaunir. "He went to your house this afternoon, but your porter sent him packing— said you weren't to be disturbed on any account. More or less told him to go and jump in the Barb, I gather."

"I was asleep. I'd said as I didn' want to see anyone."

"Oh—well, apparently Randronoth took it to mean you didn't want to see him."

"Well, that's quite right," said Maia. "I don't feel inclined for anybody nowadays; not just at present."

Nennaunir was no less swift than Sessendris had been. "Someone you fancy, is there? Someone who's not here?"

"Well, maybe—I don't know, really, Nan. Only I just don't feel like becoming a shearna for the present, that's all."

"Well, that's sensible enough. Who'd work if she hadn't got to? But listen—I asked Randronoth whether he'd be ready to do something out of the ordinary if only he could go to bed with you, and of course he said oh yes, he'd drink the Zhairgen dry and walk backwards to Zeray and half a dozen other stupid things. So then I reminded him about Sednil and said did he think that if he put his mind to it he could get him out of the temple; and he said he was pretty sure he could."

"How?" asked Maia.

"Well, you see, he's got quite a few branded men working for him in Lapan; all the provincial governors have. And if he were to have a word with the household officer of the temple, who's in charge of the labor there—and slip him a few hundred meld, I dare say—he could probably fix up an exchange. A body for a body—why should anyone else care? Then once Sednil's been down in Lapan for a bit, Randronoth could probably arrange to have him discharged. Anyway, that's what he said and I think he'd keep his word—he's always been straight enough with me— if only he can get what he wants. And what he wants is you."

Before Maia could answer they had arrived at the terrace flanking the door of the Lord General's house, where a group of girls and young officers were standing together in the sunset, drinking and talking as they waited for sup-per to be announced. Their arrival was the signal for Shend-Lador and a half a dozen others (among whom Maia recognized the big, bearded man whose breeches she had pulled about his knees in the Barb) to come crowding round their jekzha, shouting greetings and compliments and holding out willing hands to help them down.

"We'll talk about it later, Nan," whispered Maia quickly. "I'll try and help if I can, honest. Just let me think it over."

Nennaunir nodded and at once, with the air of having never a care in the world, leapt headlong from the jekzha as lightly as a hare, to be caught by the bearded man, whom she immediately kissed and allowed to carry her up to the terrace with her arms round his neck.

Maia followed somewhat more sedately. Elvair-ka-Virrion himself came forward to hand her down and Milvushina—who, Maia noticed with relief, was dressed as demurely as herself—embraced her and led her over to where several porous, earthenware pitchers of wine, beaded with moisture, were standing in the shade under the terrace wall.

"Elvair's told me about your plan," she murmured. "I hope you'll succeed, Maia, with all my heart. You ought to: you seem to grow more beautiful every day. Being a public heroine obviously suits you."

Maia inquired about the baby.

"Oh, I'm fine," answered Milvushina. "Sick as a cat every morning, and back-ache to go with it. The doctor says they're all good signs: the worse you feel, the more it shows he's getting all he needs."

"It's a he, then?" smiled Maia.

"Elvair's been sacrificing to Airtha every third morning for a month," said Milvushina. "He dedicated his sword today, and swore to make over all his Chalcon spoils to her; prisoners, too. I never said anything, but I don't really want to see Santil become a temple slave: he's a very honorable, upright man, you know..Everyone in Chalcon admires him. I don't think he ought to be humiliated."

"You're in no doubt he'll be captured, then?" asked Maia.

"Elvair's certain it'll all be over in two months," replied Milvushina.

As they talked on, Maia gradually became aware that at this, the first party she had attended since her return to the city, she was plainly regarded as virtually a different girl from the Tonildan who had been one of Sencho's concubines. Nennaunir, a goblet in one hand, was already surrounded by young officers, among whom she was laughing and chattering with all her customary animation. A little further along the terrace stood the composed, elegant figure of Dyphna, talking gravely with Fordil and Sarget.

They were evidently conferring about music, for every now and then Fordil, nodding or questioning as he did so, would beat a rhythm with one hand upon the table beside them. She glimpsed Otavis, too; still as startlingly beautiful as at the Rains banquet, but now dressed, for the barrarz, in a kind of provocative imitation of traditional Deelguy dress, with loose, gauzy breeches, two gold hoops round her neck and her hair in thick plaits fastened below each shoulder to cover her otherwise bare breasts. Several other shearnas were present—she recognized the black-eyed, merry little girl whom she had seen snubbed at the Rains banquet by Kembri's steward—and more were arriving, as well as several ladies who, like Milvushina, were evidently wives or sweethearts. There must, Maia thought, now be over a hundred men gathered on and near the terrace, yet none— as would undoubtedly have been the case last year—had come up to her of his own accord. Once she caught, from a little distance, a low voice, "That's the Serrelinda, look— the girl in red." It seemed as though the entire company were filled with a kind of constraining awe of the girl who had saved them all from Karnat of Terekenalt.

A moment later, however, a man's voice behind them greeted first Milvushina and then herself. Turning, she saw Randronoth of Lapan. Plainly, here was one man who was neither daunted by the Serrelinda nor too respectful to look her up and down with the air of a boy scarcely able to contain himself before a bowl of strawberries.

"We met last year, Maia, at the High Counselor's: I hope you haven't forgotten." His eyes gazed into hers with a confident directness which said, " I certainly haven't: and I don't believe you will have, either."

She paused, smiling, yet uncertain how to reply. She had no wish—as much for Milvushina's sake as her own— for him to begin talking of Sencho's household. But before she could speak he went on, "The death of the High Counselor was a terrible shock to me. When the news reached us in Lapan I could scarcely believe it at first."

The three of them had conversed for no more than a short time when suddenly, bowing to Milvushina and asking her, somewhat perfunctorily, to excuse him, he took Maia's arm, led her some yards along the terrace and, halting beside the wall, turned to face her.

"Maia! Listen to me, Serrelinda! There's nothing I've ever wanted in my life so much as—"

But at this moment she felt her arm taken yet again: Elvair-ka-Virrion was beside them.

"Lord Randronoth, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm afraid I must take Maia away from you—for a little while, at any rate. My Ortelgan officers are Very anxious to meet her, and—well, you know a commander's responsibilities—such a bore—but this is a barrarz and I have to consider my combatants first, as I'm sure you'll understand."

It was said jokingly, yet Maia could nevertheless sense a slight taunt in his tone of voice, even as she saw the look, quickly quenched, of disappointment and chagrin on Randronoth's face. Next moment she was walking beside Elvair-ka-Virrion across the terrace, among the general concourse now going in to supper.

The barrarz was evidently not to be held in the panelled hall on the second story, where the Rains banquet had taken place. The guests were being conducted to a less ornate, stone-floored room on the ground floor. It occurred to Maia, in the light of what Nennaunir had told her about the boisterousness to be expected on these occasions, that the Lord General had probably had in mind the risk of damage to his property. There was, for instance, no statuary in this hall and no display of such ornamentation as vases or carved lamp-stands. The chairs, tables and benches were strong and plain and the unfringed cushions of the couches were all made of the same stout, green growth. Nonetheless, there was no cause for anyone to feel that Elvair-ka-Virrion was stinting his hospitality. Great quantities of cold meat, together with bread, fruit, nuts, cheeses, peeled eggs, cucumbers, gherkins and the like were already spread across the tables, and as the slaves hurried in and out, smells of roasting drifted into the hall from the adjacent kitchens. Maia had never seen such a display of wine-jars. Also—and this, as always, delighted her—there were flowers everywhere, sprays, garlands and bouquets, filling the place with color and perfume. As a background to the guests' entry, Fordil and his men, already established on a low platform to one side, had struck up a repetitive, plaintive strain which, after a few moments, she recognized through the babble and hum of talk as an old Tonildan air, "The Island of Kisses". She had forgotten it—hadn't heard it for many a long day—not since leaving home, in fact. To encounter it unexpectedly here—found, as it were, in an old drawer of the heart— filled her with pleasure and a sense of propitious luck.

"Did you really mean it about the Ortelgans?" she asked Elvair-ka-Virrion, looking back at him as she reached across the table for some sprays of jasmine to take the place of the scent she had forgotten. "I didn't know they was soldiers at all: didn't know there was an Ortelgan regiment, even."

"Well, you're quite right; they're not regulars," he answered, helping her to trim the jasmine and fasten it in her hair. "But you see, their High Baron, Bel-ka-Trazet, wants to feel he can count on our help against the Deelguy if ever they should need it, so he's sent me five hundred Ortelgans under a young man called Ta-Kominion—a bar-on's son. I gather he had a bit of a job persuading some of his barons to go along with the idea—not all of them love us, you know—but Ta-Kominion himself seems a good lad. He's very young, it's true, but he's a good leader and a regular fire-eater; he can't wait to get to Chalcon."

He took her arm again as they threaded their way among the benches and couches, where stewards were seating the guests, towards the upper part of the hall.

"The Ortelgans'll feel enormously flattered to have the Serrelinda seated with them for supper, and that'll be all to the good from my point of view. But Iwas thinking of you, too, Maia—" he smiled, and gave her a quick kiss on the shoulder— "I really was. Ta-Kominion's a very impulsive, susceptible sort of lad, and I know his father's rich enough. There's one of their barons here, too, though he's not part of the Chalcon contingent; a man called Ged-la-Dan, who's made a fortune out of eshcarz and ziltate from the Telthearna. His men dive for it, you know. It just crossed my mind that the Ortelgans'll probably be able to bid quite a lot if they want to."

"It's very good of you, Elvair, to be at all this trouble on my account."

He laughed. "Feeling nervous?"

She shook her head. "Never. Oh, no, there's nothing as I—"

Suddenly she stopped, staring in front of her and as quickly turning her head away in revulsion. Some thirty feet off, beyond a group of young Beklan officers and their girls, was sitting the same hideously disfigured man whom she had last seen in the gardens of the Barb on the night of the High Counselor's murder. This, she now recalled Occula telling her, was Bel-ka-Trazet, the High Baron of Ortelga. She forced herself to look at him again. In this clearer light his face appeared even more ghastly, the left eye askew and pulled horribly down the cheek, half-lost beneath a great, seamed ridge of flesh running from nose to throat. As he spoke to the two men beside him his lips twisted crookedly, and she saw him pause for a moment and collect himself, grimacing as though the very act of utterance were a trial.

"Oh, Elvair," she said, "that Bel-ka-Trazet—oh, I don't mean to—only it's enough to make anyone take on bad. You surely don't mean that he— that you want me to—"

"No, don't worry, Maia," answered Elvair-ka-Virrion. "You can take it from me that Bel-ka-Trazet won't be putting himself forward as far as you're concerned. He's very proud, you know—severe and harsh even with himself. They say he never makes advances to women, because he'd rather not think they might be pitying him. Would it upset you to help a cow to calve?"

"No, 'course not."

"Well, it would a lot of girls. But then you're used to it, you see. This is much the same. It won't bother you to be in his company after a little while. I like the man, myself. Grim he may be, but he's always been honest with us; and incidentally he's one of the best hunters in the whole empire."

He led her across to the Ortelgans, and as he began speaking to Bel-ka-Trazet she glanced aside to see the other two men staring at her in the way to which she had become accustomed. The High Baron bowed, taking her hands in his own, and she forced herself to look directly at him and smile as naturally as she could.

"I'm honored to meet you, säiyett," he said, speaking with a peculiar, grating ring in his voice, so that she guessed that his throat, too, must have been injured. "There's no one in Ortelga who hasn't heard of what you did for the empire in Suba. Perhaps, a little later, if you haven't grown tired of telling the story, my friends and I might be privileged to hear it."

There were murmurs of agreement from his two companions. The older man, Ged-la-Dan, struck her unfavorably; a typical Ortelgan, unsmiling, dark and thick-set, looking less like a nobleman, she thought, than a butcher or a drover; however, there was nothing servile about his manner and he was dressed as richly as anyone in the room, with an elaborately-pleated, purple veltron and four or five strings of polished ziltate and penapa encircling his bull neck. By contrast, Ta-Kominion seemed a mere boy—barely eighteen, she guessed—fair-haired and very tall, with an eager, restless look, a ready smile and something compelling and persuasive in his manner which conveyed the impression that he placed unbounded confidence both in himself and in whomever he was speaking to. It was as though his eyes were saying, "I know I can rely on you: I know you're my friend, and I'm heartily glad of it." She felt a kind of generous warmth in him which made the prospect of supper with the Ortelgans more agreeable than it had seemed a few minutes before. Within her, the invisible Zen-Kurel instantly approved, assuring her that had things been different he and this man might have become good friends and comrades-in-arms. I can see why they've sent him to go with Elvair, she thought. Reckon I'd follow him all right if I was a soldier."

She now saw that there was a girl with them; but whether wife, mistress or shearna it was hard to tell.

She, too, was dark; slightly built and quick-moving; pretty enough, with an intense, wide-eyed look—nervous, perhaps, thought Maia, of so many strangers and of the unusual surroundings. (It did not occur to her that she might also be nervous of the Serrelinda.) She smiled, but in response the girl merely gazed at her for a moment before dropping her eyes.

As Elvair-ka-Virrion, after speaking a few more words to Bel-ka-Trazet and the others, left her with the Ortelgans, she turned enquiringly towards Ta-Kominion. "Your friend?"

"Yes, this is Berialtis," he answered, putting the girl's hand into Maia's. "She's a very wise girl. She can tell you all about the Ledges, if you like."

"I don't want to talk about the Ledges," said the girl quickly.

"The Ledges?" Maia was mystified.

"Berialtis grew up on Quiso," said Ta-Kominion, "but she didn't fancy becoming a priestess—sensible lass—so she went back to Ortelga. She's come along to look after me while we help Elvair to tidy up in Chalcon."

"You'll be a bit of a traveler time you're done, then; same as me," said Maia to the girl.

Herself feeling amiable enough, she was nevertheless aware that for some reason the girl did not like her.

Could this be merely resentment—envy—she wondered; or did Berialtis perhaps suppose that she might have designs on Ta-Kominion? Somehow, she felt intuitively, neither of these explanations quite fitted.

There was something else about the girl—a kind of general detachment and preoccupation, hard to define exactly, but as though she were not, for some reason or other, heart-and-soul in the occasion.

Yet she was evidently a free woman and no slave. She was expensively, if rather quietly, dressed, in a plain blue robe and matching sandals which must have cost a good deal, and she had just spoken to Ta-Kominion as no slave-girl would. But if she was a shearna, why this inappropriate aloofness and lack of warmth, the very reverse of Nennaunir or of any competent professional? Perhaps this was the best Ortelga could put up in the way of a shearna? Probably it wasn't so very different there from Suba. This girl was just a variant of Luma, only she happened to be pretty. (But I'm a Suban, she thought yet again: O Shakkarn, I'm a Suban!)

As they seated themselves and the slaves began serving food and drink, Maia entered upon her task of making herself agreeable to Bel-ka-Trazet. She soon perceived what Elvair-ka-Virrion had meant. This must once have been a warm-spirited, accomplished young nobleman, full of ardor and enjoyment of his own ability and of the promise before him. He felt his disfigurement bitterly—however could it have happened? she wondered. Elvair-ka-Virrion had spoken of his skill as a hunter: a wild beast, then, perhaps?—but he'd be damned if anyone was going to be given the slightest cause either to pity or reject him because of it. Authority, self-possession, restraint, formidability, irreproachable correctness; these were the weapons with which he compelled the respect of his own people—no doubt a rough, superstitious lot who, unless he could make them fear, trust and admire him, would probably regard him as a man accursed. These were his harsh comforters, the tutelary demons who companioned him and gave meaning and purpose to his ravaged, deprived life. He lived with eyes in the back of his head. "Look at Trazet trying to exploit his affliction." "Look at Trazet making up to that shearna. Wonder how she's feeling, poor girl?" No one was going to be given any least opportunity even to think things like this, let alone to utter them. What was it that Elvair-ka-Virrion had said—he was turning his is-land into a fortress? He's turned himself into a fortress an' all, she thought.

The High Baron's face was incapable of adopting the normal expressions which commonly complement speech, yet soon she began to find his conversation full of interest and his company absorbing. Her beauty—which, she knew, constrained so many men because of their self-conscious sense of their own desire for her—plainly caused him no more of a tremor than Fordil's hinnari would bring to a man tone-deaf. Yet he was neither detached nor incurious; and this was flattering. He quickly set about establishing to his own satisfaction that peasant or no, she was no fool. And this discovery once made, he showed his respect for her by talking more freely and making his conversation more demanding. They spoke of Terekenalt and Katria, of King Karnat (with whom, he told her, he had hunted leopards) and the waterways of Suba. He asked her for opinions, and seemed to weigh them as seriously as he might those of his own barons. She found herself talking to him of Meerzat and Serrelind, and then even of her life in Sencho's house; for here, she felt, was a man without contempt for another's misfortune; one who, on the contrary, actually admired suffering and loss which had not been allowed to defeat the sufferer. To him, as to no one else she had met—unless indeed it was Nasada—all human beings, men or women, slave or free, evidently came alike. That was to say, he had slight regard for their rank or station, but treated them in accordance with his own estimation of their capacities. Unlike Nasada, however, he had little use for compassion. She recalled that he was widely renowned as a hunter. Perhaps, she thought, he saw men and women as he might see a quarry. The courageous, resourceful and adroit—these he respected and felt to be worth contending with. The timorous or slow were merely tedious and a waste of time.

Now and then Ged-la-Dan, by contrast uncouth and insensitive, put in a few words, sometimes complimenting her on something which did not deserve a compliment or again, asking her some question which unconsciously revealed a half-envious and half-contemptuous notion of her life in Bekla as a kind of stream of luxurious and extravagant frivolity, and of herself as a girl available to anyone who could pay. Her response to this was a blend of Occula and Nennaunir—part worldly-wise banter, part simulated warmth. Yet Ta-Kominion, she sensed, could perceive very well that she was thus employing the courtesan's skills to humor a boor. He, for his part—a young man in the company of his elders—said little, but his eyes seldom left her, so that she found herself feeling an altogether un-shearna-like sympathy for Berialtis. True, she herself had come with a motive, and to this end she spared no pains to arouse the two Ortelgans. Yet she wished that, in accordance with the usual way of things, there could have been a third girl in the company. Perhaps Bel-ka-Trazet disdained such concessions to convention: no one need bother themselves to provide a girl for him. Or perhaps Elvair-ka-Virrion had been over-zealous to leave her a free hand. Still, it was becoming clear that conventions were going to matter less and less as the barrarz got under way. Several of the guests were fairly drunk already, and she had seen Nenoaunir and another girl whose name she did not know openly walking here and there among the tables, graceful, pausing and predatory as herons in a stream.

As the feasting began to draw to an end and she got up to fetch the Ortelgans a tray-full of sweet things from the central table already filled by the slaves, there suddenly broke out a roar of acclaim and elation, and some ten or twelve young officers wearing the wolf cognizance of Belishba sprang up and made their way purposefully to the center of the hall, not far from where she was standing. By no means sure what they might be up to, she made haste to get out of their way.

Having pushed the central table to one side and rather blusteringly persuaded several people near-by to move their benches and couches to make an open space, the young men formed up in a line. Then, Unking arms and taking their time from the tallest of their number, whose bare chest was tattooed with two fighting leopards in red and blue (he could have done with some soap, thought Maia, wrinkling her nose as she made her way back to the Ortelgans), they began to sway and intone all together, gesturing as they did so with uniform, rhythmic motions.

Happening to meet Nennaunir—who had thrown off her cloak to display her transparent robe and silver ornaments to full advantage—she smiled and raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

"Oh, it's an old Belishban custom, dear," said the sheama. "A kind of wild warriors' dance: they call it a straka. In the old days they always used to do it before a battle: I thought somehow we wouldn't get off without one."

The leader had begun a series of what seemed to be chanted adjurations to his followers, though these were in no language even remotely known to Maia.

"Kee-a, kee-a, kee-a! U-ay kee-a, u-ay kee-a!"

"Ah,hi hal" responded his comrades, side-stepping as one.

"Bana, bana, bana! Hi-po lana, hi-po lana!"

"Bah,way mal"

They sniffed at the air like hounds, baring their teeth and tossing their heads as they stamped and turned, grimacing fiercely, clapping their hands and brandishing imaginary spears.

Gradually the ferocity and pace of the dance increased. Their wide-stretched eyes glittered, they stooped their shoulders and bent their heads towards the floor, growling and snarling as they uttered the responses. They turned about with upstretched arms, then paired off and made believe to stab and savage one another. At times the leader's utterances would cease and then, after a moment's silence, they would burst all together into a kind of demonic chorus, as inarticulate yet plain in meaning as the baying of wolves.

The unhesitating unanimity with which they pounded the floor, clapped, suddenly paused to thrust out their tongues or slap their buttocks before resuming their ritual clamor, was hypnotic and infectious, stirring the onlookers until the hall was filled with battle-cries, yells of approbation and the hammering of knives and goblets on the tables. The Belishbans, leaving the center of the room, began to prance and stamp their way in a line among the tables, making believe to stab the men and drag the girls away as they maintained their chanting. At length, nearing the door that led out onto the terrace, the leader, suddenly introducing a quicker, pattering chant—"Willa-wa, willa- wa, willa-wa"—snatched the beautiful Otavis—who happened to be the girl nearest to hand—almost out of the arms of Shend-Lador and tossed her bodily to his followers. As two of them caught and held her, the others closed about her in a group, whereupon the whole crowd, setting up a kind of quivering motion with their shoulders, formed a rotating circle about her as she was carried out of the room in their midst.

Maia, who had watched the whole extraordinary act with the breathless absorption always aroused in her by any dance—she would have liked to join in, or at least to have had the chance to learn it—turned to her companions to see Ta-Kominion grinning with excitement and obviously as much affected as herself.

"Oh, that was just about something! I've never seen the like of that before," she said. "Have you?"

"Only once, and that was at Herl, when I was no more than about nine."

"Can you do it?"

He shook his head. "Oh, no; it's not half as easy as it looks. You have to be a Belishban to be able to do it properly. It's the desert blood in them, they say. They used to do it out in the Harridan desert, where the sound carries for miles, to let the enemy know they were com-ing."

"What enemy?"

"Oh, any old enemy," answered Ta-Kominion, fondling her shoulders. "I'm glad we're going to have them with us: I don't think Erketlis is going to care for them at all, do you? What do you think of them, my lord?" he asked, turning to Bel-ka-Trazet. "Fierce enough for you?"

The High Baron paused, laying aside his unfinished apri-cots in sweet wine with an air of having made a sufficient concession to the practice of eating such rubbish.

"Why don't you tell that young Elvair to take along a herd of bulls to drive at the enemy?"

"Oh, you do them an injustice, my lord, I'm sure. There's a lot more to them than that."

"I'd be glad to think so," replied Bel-ka-Trazet. Ta-Kominion waited respectfully, and after a few moments the High Baron went on, "What happened at Clenderzard, Ta-Kominion; do you remember?"

"The Deelguy thought they'd beaten us, my lord, but we made fools of them."

"Do you remember me forbidding your father to attack them?"

Ta-Kominion roared with delighted laughter and at once turned to Maia as though she were the perfect companion with whom to share the joke.

"My father had us all lined up in a wood, Maia, and we were just going to dash out to meet the Deelguy when the High Baron here came up through the trees. 'You'll do no such thing—no such thing!' My father said, 'Why, my lord, we'll all be taken for cowards.' 'No such thing! No such thing!' "

Even Ged-la-Dan was grinning. It had evidently become a legend on Ortelga. "So what happened then?" asked Maia politely, since it seemed to be expected of her.

"Why, so then the Deelguy came rushing in among the trees, but they couldn't get to grips with us. They couldn't see properly after the bright light outside, you see. Besides, they're plains people; they're not used to woodland at all and they got confused. We broke them up into groups and made a horrible mess of them. Oh, but I'll never forget my father's face, my lord! 'No such thing! No such thing!' " Still laughing, he reached across the table and refilled Maia's goblet.

"When you get to Chalcon you'll do well to remember my advice to your father."

Bel-ka-Trazet's low, hoarse voice rasped like a hoof on dry stones. "I asked you, didn't I, whether you wanted to lead this expedition, and I gave you a fair and honorable chance to refuse?"

"You did, my lord; but I didn't refuse, did I?"

"We have to keep in with Bekla," said Bel-ka-Trazet, "so we've agreed to send five hundred men against Erketlis. Either you'll gain experience, Ta-Kominion, or you'll be no great loss to Ortelga."

"Thank you, my lord," replied Ta-Kominion happily. He seemed, Maia thought, quite used to this sort of thing from the High Baron.

Bel-ka-Trazet leant forward and gripped his wrist so hard that he winced. "You're a reasonably good leader, Ta-Kominion—the men trust you—but you're very young. See your men come back alive, that's all: not everything's to be achieved by rushing head-down at the enemy. Remember the wood at Clenderzard. And if you should have to get them out on your own—"

"Get them out, my lord?"

"If you have to get them out on your own, which wouldn't surprise me at all," said Bel-ka-Trazet, "get out through Lapan. It's further, but you'll be safer than if you try to get out through Tonilda. In Tonilda they hate the Leopards."

Ta-Kominion was about to reply when there was a further distraction. The Belishbans had come back into the hall, carrying Otavis shoulder-high in their midst. It was plain that she had made a hit among them while they had been out on the terrace. Excited and full of self-assertion among strangers, they felt that they had won a prize and meant to show it.

"Give her back!" yelled Shend-Lador, playing up to them, clenching his fists and squaring up in mock rage.

"Not on your life!" answered the tattooed leader. "She's a soldier now, this girl! She's too good for you! She's joining up with us!"

"We'll have to initiate her," cried another of them, "if she's to be a Belishban officer. Isn't that right, boys?"

There was a general outburst of agreement, above which the leader shouted, "What's it to be?"

"Toss her in a blanket!" bellowed a voice.

"Yes! Yes!" they cried. "Get a blanket! Send her up to Lespa!"

Shend-Lador and two or three of his friends began protesting and were obviously ready to quarrel in earnest; but Otavis, sitting on high among the Belishbans, only shook her head, laughing. "No, let me alone, Shenda! Don't be a spoilsport! You don't think I'm afraid, do you? What's the bounty?" she called down to one of the Belishbans.

"What bounty, sweetheart?"

"When you join up as a Belishban officer, of course! How much d'you get?"

"Oh, I see. Five hundred meld we get when we join."

"Right!" said the beauty, taking off her earrings and necklace and passing them down to him. "Just look after those for me, then. Five hundred meld, and don't forget it, any of you!"

After a few more unavailing protests from the young Leopards, two slaves were sent out and returned with a woven coverlet taken from some bedroom near-by. The Belishbans spread it on the floor and Otavis, as lightly and readily as though she were going to make love, lay down on her back, folding her arms under her breasts.

As eight of the Belishbans, four on each side, stooped to grasp the edges of the coverlet, hiding Otavis from view, Maia turned to Ta-Kominion.

"It's crazy! She'll be hurt for certain! Can't you go and ask Elvair to stop it?"

He shook his head. "If she'd said she didn't want to do it, I would; but she's a clever girl. She's after her five hundred meld, isn't she? And a bit more than that, if I know anything about it."

Before Maia could answer there broke out among the Belishbans a quick, chantey-like chanting. As it culmi-nated, Otavis suddenly appeared flying upward, her gauzy Deelguy breeches billowing, one of her plaits come adrift to expose the breast beneath. She seemed entirely in command of herself and showed no least sign of fear as she went up about ten feet and then, her body tilting a little to one side, fell back into the taut coverlet among yells of delight.

"Higher this time!" shouted one of the Belishbans. "Come on, get some zip into it, boys!"

Again Otavis shot up, this time with so much force that she actually half-vanished for a moment into the vaulted dimness above the lamplight. As, flushed and dishevelled, she fell back into the coverlet without having uttered a sound, cheers and applause broke out all over the hall, and Elvair-ka-Virrion called "That'll do!"

"No, no!" shouted the big Belishban leader, holding up his hand as though exercising the authority of the frissoor (which he never asked forethought Maia). "Three times! Three times it's got to be, before she's an officer! Let her go, boys!"

"The beam! Mind the beam, you fools!" yelled Elvair-ka-Virrion suddenly. But Otavis had already been heaved out of the coverlet, this time in a kind of half-crouching posture which suggested that she had not been entirely ready.

The vault of the hall was spanned, at a height of about fifteen feet, by tie-beams, and straight towards one of these the shearna (Cran, she must weigh next to nothing! thought Maia) was sailing up as lightly as a squirrel. At Elvair-ka-Virrion's cry she turned her head, instantly saw her danger and flung out her hands. Then, as deftly as if she had intended it from the outset, she caught the beam, let her body swing down until she was hanging vertically, paused a second and then dropped back into the outspread coverlet. A moment later she had climbed out and was standing among the Belishbans, smiling as she deliberately wiped her grimy hands on the leader's cheeks.

A perfect tumult of acclaim broke out, lasting for almost ,.a minute. Elvair-ka-Virrion, striding forward, embraced Otavis and kissed her.

"Right, that's it! Now—where's her lygol?" he shouted, turning to the surrounding Belishbans. "This is going to cost you all forty meld apiece, and I never saw it better earned in my life!"

"Ay, it damned well was, too!" answered one of them, slamming down four ten-meld pieces on the table.

Drawing his knife, he offered it hilt-first to Otavis and knelt at her feet. "Give me a ringlet, säiyett! Gut me off a curl to take to Chalcon and I'll wear it every day till I come back!"

"Why, at that rate she'll have none left!" cried the leader, also falling on his knees. But Otavis, smilingly raising them to their feet and returning the knife, merely strolled across to the table, called to a slave to bring some warm water and stood rinsing her hands while the Belishbans, one after another, put down their money.

"You've lost her, Shend-Lador," said Elvair-ka-Virrion. "They'll never let her go now!" The shearna, however, shook her head and, having beckoned to Shend-Lador to come and pick up the money for her, kissed her hand to the Belishbans and led him out of the hall at a run.

"Good lass! She knows what she wants after that little lark!" said Ta-Kominion approvingly.

Ged-la-Dan grunted and drained his goblet. "So do I." Reaching out a hand, he grasped Maia's ankle where she sat curled up on the couch. "Listen, my girl, I don't know how mudi—"

Before he could say more, however, Elvair-ka-Virrion was beside them, cooling his flushed face with a painted fan and bowing to Bel-ka-Trazet.

"I've come to borrow Maia, my lord. It won't be a real barrarz, you know, unless she dances for us."

Maia, glad of the opportunity to be elsewhere, got up readily enough, excused herself to the Ortelgans and went across to where Fordil and his men were sitting cross-legged among their outspread battery of leks, zhuas and plangent strings. As the master-musician rose to meet her, smiling with obviously sincere pleasure, she found herself thinking that she could have lived happily enough as a professional dancer, devoted from dawn till dusk to the service of the gods, falling asleep each night tired out with the worship of holy movement; wind and stream, fire and cloud; Lespa's contented slave. Might her aunt Nokomis even now, perhaps, be pausing a moment, in some celestial dance among the stars, to look down on her niece and bless her?

"Not the senguela tonight, U-Fordil," she said, stooping to kiss his brown, wrinkled hands and gray-stubbled cheeks. "It's got to be something simpler and shorter, that they can afi follow. I'm sure most of them know precious little about dancing."

"But they know about beautiful girls, don't they, säiyett?" he answered. "What was that old Tonildan tale you danced for me in your house, the day I came up to play to you? I could follow that easily enough, even though I'd never seen it before. Didn't you tell me you made it up yourself?"

"Oh, Tiva'? Yes, I made that up, U-Fordil. That's to say, I heard the story when I was little from an old woman at home, and I just made up the dance for fun."

"Well, anyone could enjoy that, säiyett, the way you did it for me. And if we just keep one of those Tonildan dance-rhythms going on the drums and I follow you with the hinnari, this lot aren't going to find fault, are they?—not in this mood and not with someone like you to look at."

She had first begun to devise the dance in Sencho's house during Melekril last year, at the time when Occula had been encouraging and teaching her. It had been rudimentary enough then, but the idea had stayed with her and grown in her imagination, so that since returning from Suba she had rounded it out and turned it into something at least approaching a finished dance. It was old Drigga's tale of Tiva, the fisher-girl of Serrelind; how, at his desperate plea, she had spared the life of a great fish she had caught one day in her nets; and of what had ensued. Certainly, she thought, anyone ought to be able to follow it, and it should go down well enough. Smiling and nodding to Fordil, she walked back to the middle of the hall, where at Elvair-ka-Virrion's order the slaves were already beginning to move the tables for her.

She waved them away. She had already decided how she was going to present this, and it wouldn't need all that much space.

As soon as she had received the frissoor from Elvair-ka-Virrion, she took up her position standing on a couch on the dais and picked up the embroidered coverlet in which Otavis had been tossed—for it had been left lying on the floor. She tried its weight. It was a shade heavy, certainly, but not more than she could manage gracefully. The lamps would do as they were. She signaled to Fordil, and as the zhuas began their rolling imitation of a long swell on Lake Serrelind the hinnari took up again, very quietly, "The Island of Kisses."

Maia stood aloft on the couch, one hand shading her eyes, the other behind her on the tiller. She was Tiva, the girl from Meerzat who, when her fisherman father died, had rejected all suitors, determined to carry on his business on her own account. Again and again she flung out the coverlet into the surrounding water, and each time she hauled it in, the pattering leks reflected her excitement in the catch, which she sorted and slung either overboard or into the well of the boat. As she worked she swayed, feet apart to keep her balance on the tilting planks, and constantly flung back her hair in the sharp wind.

At first there had been a certain amount of chatter and inattention among the audience, many of whom were still full of Otavis. But as Fordil, most skilled and responsive of accompanists, gradually began to play louder, and the beat of the zhuas, becoming slower and heavier, suggested Tiva's arrival above deep water, the interruptions gradually died away. While she was throwing out the anchors fore and aft and then setting her weighted ledger-lines on either side of the boat, Maia could sense that she had them entirely with her.

Then followed the sudden running out of the line, the startled realization that she had hooked something really big (the drummers' efforts here were masterly), the prolonged struggle of playing the fish and finally her incredulous, staring wonder as at last it broke surface some distance from the boat.

At this point one of Shend-Lador's friends, who had clearly had a good deal to drink and was equally clearly longing to be caught by the Serrelinda, jumped up and took it upon himself to become the fish.

Maia, secretly irritated—for he was a clumsy lad, without presence or grace—nevertheless went along with this, playing the big fish as it ran among the couches and dived headlong for refuge beneath the great rock of a table. At last, bringing it gasping alongside, she whispered to the young man to be so good as to leave it at that; and covered his departure by a convincing struggle to get the real, imaginary fish into the coverlet-net and haul it aboard.

Then followed the fish's agonized plea for his life, Tiva's pity for him and her final agreement to spare him and plunge with him to his palace in the depths of the lake to receive her reward. Maia simulated the struggles of the fish by jerking movements of her own arm as she held him down, and convincingly suggested his difficult speech by bending her head, ear close to the table-top, frowning as she tried to comprehend the sibilant, fishy whispering.

The plunge overside in a pellucid, splashing glissando from the hinnari, the slow, groping descent into the green depths and the arrival at the bottom of the lake—these Maia executed with the style of a swimmer as well as of a dancer. Then she was weaving among the weedy couches and rocky benches, in and out, following the great fish through the underwater twilight. She had been half-ex-pecting one or other of the young men to grab at her or otherwise to intrude on and spoil what she was trying to express, but on the contrary the hall was now completely silent, save for the deep beat of a single zhua and a sudden patter from the leks as a shoal of little, silver fishes darted past her in the gloom.

The fish king's gift of the magic, restorative stone, the regaining of her boat and its return to land—all this Maia enacted more simply and directly than she would have done if she had been dancing merely for her own pleasure, for she knew that this audience would become restive if she were to make it too long.

Then Fordil himself, having realized that there was no other way, spontaneously came forward to enact the king's herald, crying silently through cupped hands to this side of the hall and that, proclaiming with mounting anxiety and desperation the news of the king's mortal illness. He was just about to depart in despair when Maia came forward, humbly offering to do all in her power to cure the king. The herald at first rejected her, but she persisted with gentle confidence, and at last was escorted to the royal palace.

The lack of a king defeated even Maia's ingenuity. However, it mattered little. Holding the unseen magic stone aloft before her in her cupped hands and thereby contriving to suggest that it was both heavy and a thing of awe-inspiring and miraculous power, she vanished slowly, step by step, into the twilight beyond the lamps—the shadowy recesses of what she hoped her audience would perceive to be the royal bed-chamber. Then, after a pregnant pause, during which the zhuas, first suggesting the slow, labored breathing of the sick king, gradually quickened to become his restored, healthy heart-beat, Fordil's men, at a cry of triumph from Tiva off-stage, burst into cries of joy. Thereupon Maia reappeared, crowned with flowers, to perform a whirling dance of elation and triumph, which she brought to an end by kneeling in tranquil adoration over the dark waters of the lake, head bent and arms outstretched in homage and thanks to the great Lord Fish.

The music ceased and Elvair-ka-Virrion came forward to take her hand and lead her back to her couch.

Everyone was applauding, everyone seemed eager to touch her for luck and to call out praise and congratulations. Yet suddenly she found herself, with a quick flutter of dread, remembering Tharrin, hunched in his cell in the lower city, awaiting her return and placing all his hopes on her. The night's real venture was still to come. "Forgive me, Zenka," she whispered. "And great Shakkarn, blow your divine breath into their loins: make them burn for me!"

Ta-Kominion received her rapturously and insisted on accompanying her back across the hall to thank Fordil and give him his lygol. When he saw Maia hand over four hundred meld the young Ortelgan's eyes widened, yet he said nothing. Maia, for her part, felt that she had never given away anything with a gladder heart. Her gratitude to Fordil knew no bounds.

A sudden thought struck her. "U-Fordil, did you ever see Nokomis?"

"Nokomis?" He nodded. "Once, säiyett. It's—oh, nearly thirty years ago now: I was still an apprentice. My master and I spent ten days in Kendron-Urtah."

"What was she like?"

He shrugged, spreading his hands. "What can I say? I suppose since then not a single day's gone by without my remembering her. At least it's freed me from the miseries other people seem to carry about with them."

"Funny old fellow, isn't he?" said Ta-Kominion as they returned. "He may look like an old beggar who's been tidied up and made presentable, but I'll bet he's got plenty salted away from all that twangling he does."

Nennaunir would have let it go: the Serrelinda was young enough to feel indignant.

"He's a great artist, my lord! He's in the service of the gods!"

"Ah! And you too?" Ta-Kominion's smile was friendly but mischievous.

"Well, of course I'm not in the Thlela, no. I never had the chance, and anyhow I'm not that good. But I'd like to dance for the gods—"

"Whatgods?" It was Berialtis who had spoken, and Maia, turning towards her, saw her dark eyes, wide and unsmiling, fixed on her with an expression somewhere between condescension and contempt.

"What sort of a question's that, then?" flared Maia. "Am I s'posed to answer it?"

"Yourgods!" cried Berialtis. "Your gods don't exist! Their worship's nonsense! And as for your Sacred Queen—"

"Berialtis!" The file-like rasp of Bel-ka-Trazet's voice frightened Maia. It had no effect, however, upon the Ortelgan girl, who seemed not even to have heard the High Baron as she continued to speak in an utterance almost trance-like and no longer directed specifically at Maia.

"God's truth flows from the Ledges of Quiso. There's healing there for the sick, comfort and wisdom for the wretched and lost. Bekla possessed that wisdom once, until greed and corruption destroyed it. A Sacred Queen whose business is whoring with a brazen image—"

The girl's voice had risen. People near-by were turning to stare.

"Berialtis," said Bel-ka-Trazet, "if you want to go home alive, be quiet!"

"But Lord Shardik will return to his faithful people," continued Berialtis, speaking now in a kind of sibylline monotone, "on that good night the children are taught to pray for. The Power of God will shatter the idolatrous baubles of the Tamarrik Gate, and once again his priest-king will walk through the streets of Bekla. God will re-veal his truth through Lord Shardik and the Chosen Vessels—"

"Ta-Kominion!" said Bel-ka-Trazet, in a tone as minatory and unnerving as anything Maia had heard in her life, "you brought this girl with you. If you value your life and hers, get her out of here before I have to speak again!"

Ta-Kominion had been staring at Berialtis with a kind of rapt attention, apparently oblivious to all else and hanging on her every word. Even Maia, though she had only the vaguest idea what the girl was talking about, could not help thinking that this divinatory passion—or whatever it was—was very becoming to her dark, intense style of beauty. Might that, perhaps, be the real reason behind this carry-on? The High Baron's voice, however, would have penetrated the trance of a sleep-walker.

"My lord," muttered Ta-Kominion as though against his will, "the girl's only speaking the trutli—"

"And this is no time for it!" hissed Bel-ka-Trazet, rising to his feet and standing over Ta-Kominion like some ghoul of nightmare. "If you do not—"

What might have happened next Maia was never to know, for at this moment Elvair-ka-Virrion appeared once more beside them. She had not felt so much relieved to see anyone since the night when she had recovered consciousness among the soldiers on the bank of the Valderra.

"Maia," said Elvair-ka-Virrion, smoothly ignoring the altercation, of which he could hardly have failed to be aware, "I think I'd be inclined not to wait any longer before starting our little venture. Otherwise they'll all be too drunk and a lot of them may have made—well, other arrangements, you know. What do you say?"

"I'd be glad to, my lord."

For the second time she jumped up, smoothing down the skirt of the cherry-colored robe. Ta-Kominion and the High Baron seemed too much preoccupied with each other to notice her, and she was about to leave without more ado when suddenly Ged-la-Dan grabbed her by the wrist.

"Where are you going this time, girl?"

She gave him her most dazzling smile. "You'll see in a moment, my lord."

"I want you here. You just understand, now, I'm not a poor man. I can—"

Elvair-ka-Virrion interrupted him.

"Well, Ged-la-Dan, if you've taken such a fancy to Maia, that may turn out to be very fortunate for you, as you'll see in a minute. But first of all I've got to take her with me—for the best of reasons. Sorry!"

Thereupon he took her arm and led her back towards the center of the room, leaving Ged-la-Dan with some spluttering protest dying on his lips.

The barrarz was momently becoming more disorderly and rowdy. A group of Palteshi officers, linked arm-in-arm and swaying back and forth, were singing a bawdy song in chorus, with Nennaunir and the little, dark-eyed shearna in their midst. One of them grabbed at Maia as she passed.

"A girl of renown, from the top of the town: 

Dari town, Dari town, that's where we laid her down—"

Elvair-ka-Virrion, seizing his arm, bent it back to make him let go and whisked Maia away, passing Shend-Lador and his friends, one of whom was doing his best to drink a goblet of wine standing on his head.

Elvair-ka-Virrion leaped onto a table, kicked a space among the knives and dishes and then, beckoning to the chief steward, took his staff of office and hammered on the table for silence. As soon as the babble and clamor had partly subsided he shouted, "Listen! I've just this mo-ment been told of a magnificent surprise for all of you! Something you weren't expecting! This is really going to make you glad you came!"

"We're glad now!" bawled Shend-Lador; at which there were shouts of assent.

"Well, then, you listen to me!" repeated Elvair-ka-Virrion, once again pounding with the staff. "There are going to be a lot of surprises in the next month or so—but they're all going to be unpleasant ones for Santil-kè-Erketlis. This is a pleasant one—for all of you!"

He had their attention now. He's clever, thought Maia, putting it as he's only just heard of a surprise: say that, always makes anyone want to know what it is.

"We've had one victory this year already," went on Elvair-ka-Virrion, "when we saw Karnat off at Rallur. He got his feet wet in the Valderra and had to go back to Suba to dry them." (Laughter and cheers.) "And we all know, don't we, who we owe that to? Sendekar!"

At this there was more cheering, broken after a few moments by a shout from the far end of the hall.

"What the hell d'you mean—Sendekar? He didn't swim the Valderra!"

"Maia'svictory!" cried a girl's voice. (That's Otavis, thought Maia: good for her!)

"Yes! Maia's victory!" replied Elvair-ka-Virrion. "Of course it was Maia's victory! Sendekar's not here tonight, more's the pity, but Maia is, and she's got something for Bekla that even Sendekar hasn't!"

At this there was more laughter. Someone called out "Whatever can that be?" while someone else miaowed like a cat.

"Expeditions like this cost money, believe it or not!" went on Elvair-ka-Virrion. "All your arrows and shields and spears have to be paid for, and we can't squeeze all the money out of the wretched peasants."

"You've got all old Sencho's money, haven't you?" shouted Ta-Kominion.

"Yes, but not his belly," replied Elvair-ka-Virrion. "It burst, and made a mess from here to Chalcon: that's what we've got to go and clear up. Now will you all listen? As you know, we've none of us been able to see a great deal— not nearly as much as we'd like—of Maia Serrelinda since she came back from the Valderra. She's been recovering from her honorable wounds and enjoying a well-earned rest. But as you've all seen, she's here tonight. And she's come on purpose to help Bekla! Maia, come up here, beside me!" He stretched out his hands. "Here she is! The bravest and most beautiful girl in the empire!"

Maia, having taken his hands, was jumped up onto the table. Elvair-ka-Virrion stood her in the brightest patch of lamplight.

"Maia isn't a shearna, although there must be hundreds of people who wish she was. She doesn't need to be a shearna, because the Council have voted her the income she deserves for saving us all!"

At this the cheering broke out in an even more heartfelt tone. Maia's dance had already delighted everyone, but now that they had been reminded of her heroism and saw her, as it were, displayed before them as a living epitome of the beauty and desirability of womanhood, it was as though fresh admiration came gushing spontaneously from depths of feeling hitherto unplumbed.

"So!" shouted Elvair-ka-Virrion above the uproar. "So— you must all have thought that this beautiful girl was as far beyond you as Lespa. But, entirely out of her love and devotion to the city, she herself has decided otherwise."

Now there was silence; or the nearest thing to silence with which he had been heard so far. One or two people even called impatiently to others to stop talking, and a slave who was clattering some dishes was hustled out of the hall by the steward.

"I'm not saying the Council's stinted us for money," said Elvair-ka-Virrion. "They haven't. And I'm certainly not saying that this expedition of ours is ill-found. It's not. But any little jaunt of this kind can always do with more money, if only to provide for emergencies. And that's what's coming our way now, thanks to this splendid girl.

"We're all soldiers here, so I'll be plain; and that'll save time, for which some lucky devil's going to be grateful, as you'll realize in a minute. Maia's told me that she'll spend the night—and she's particularly asked me to say that she'll spend it warmly and generously—with whichever one of you puts up the most money for our expedition. In other words, the favors of Maia Serrelinda—which will probably never be availabl; to any of you again, since she's not a shearna and isn't planning to become one—are up for auction tonight, and tonight only; and she's assured me that she's not going to keep one meld of it for herself."

Taking Maia's hand, he raised her arm over her head.

Then, above the fresh outburst of excitement spreading through the hall, he called out, "Come on, then! Where's my first bid?"

This was the moment which Maia had been awaiting with some misgiving. From the first she had wondered whether Elvair-ka-Virrion's plan would work, and only her determination to save Tharrin at all costs had induced her to agree to it. It was not that she doubted the effect of her own beauty. This she had now come to accept, just as a champion athlete or wrestler must, if his daily life and dealings with other people are to make any sort of sense, realize and acknowledge that in this respect he is above the rest and that from the public point of view that is his raison d'etre. When necessary she could—at all events to friends like Milvushina or Nennaunir—speak of it without self-consciousness; and she had learned to handle gracefully unexpected incidents like the homage of Selperron. But she also knew that men mostly prefer to admit to and pursue their desires privately, or at any rate only among their friends. If Elvair-ka-Virrion had negotiated an assignation for her she would have felt no qualms, and this was what she had in fact suggested while they were walking by the Barb that afternoon. He, however, had objected that it would be impossible at the very large sum she was trying to raise. Besides he, a prince of Bekla, could hardly tout and pander on her behalf. If, however, the thing could be put across as a kind of game, played in the libertine surroundings of a barrarz, that would be another matter. This proposal she had accepted gratefully. Yet would they really, she had wondered, even at a barrarz, and even for the Serrelinda, be ready to put their lust on display and openly bid against one another for her embraces?

She need not have worried. She had under-estimated either their concupiscence or her own allure, or both. Instantly, as Elvair-ka-Virrion asked his question, Ta-Kom-inion sprang to his feet.

"A thousand meld!"

This—about four months' wages for a farm-hand or a laborer—coming from so young a man, plainly struck the company as a flamboyant flourish rather than a serious offer. There was more laughter, mixed with ironic cheering, and someone, imitating a drill tryzatt on parade, shouted, "Quicker than that, my man! Quicker than that!"

Before anyone else could speak Elvair-ka-Virrion called out, "You'd better all realize that although this may be a barrarz, we're completely in earnest. Anyone who makes a bid will be held to it; and there's one other thing I forgot to say. The money's to be paid tonight, either in coin or else in something of indisputable value, like jewels or gold."

"I said a thousand meld and I damned well meant it!" cried Ta-Kominion. "I'll say it again—a thousand meld!"

At this moment Maia noticed that four or five slaves were extinguishing the lamps round the outer edges of the hall, while others were removing those on the tables near-by. It must have occurred to Elvair-ka-Virrion that his potential customers would feel more unconstrained in a dim light.

"Twothousand meld!"

That rough voice, she knew, was Ged-la-Dan's. The thought of having to spend the night with this sweaty, boorish Ortelgan, who had pulled her by the ankle and called her "My girl" within an hour of meeting her, filled her with revulsion. O Cran, she thought, I'd rather be back with old Sencho! At least he used to have baths. O Lord Shakkarn, don't let it be him!

There was no more laughter or cheering now. It had suddenly come home to the company that this had at least the makings of a highly dramatic matter. Just as a crowd, gathered round to banter and laugh at two men quarreling, cease their raillery when the first actual blow is struck, so these roisterers had become vigilant and attentive upon hearing Ged-la-Dan's counter-bid. Although most of them were youngsters lacking anything approaching the means to take part, this only made it all the more exciting.

To watch wealthy people competing seriously for a rich prize, which only one of them can attain, to the chagrin of the rest—this has aroused and attracted onlookers for thousands of years, and always will.

Maia, glancing sideways, saw Nennaunir bite her un-derlip and turn her head towards the man beside her with a quick, wide-eyed look of excitement. Directly beneath the table on which she was standing, a broad-shouldered tryzatt who looked like a Yeldashay was staring up, never taking his eyes off her as he tapped and tapped unconsciously with one hand on the table-top beside him.

"Three thousand meld!" shouted Ta-Kominion.

"Be quiet, boy!" snarled Ged-la-Dan.

The lighting round the edge of the hall had now become so dim that Maia could not see clearly, but it appeared as though some sort of scuffle had broken out. A dish clattered on the floor: then Ta-Kominion's voice, quick and gasping, said "By the Ledges, if you don't—"

"Silence!" This was unmistakably Bel-ka-Trazet, who after a short pause came composedly forward into the brighter light, grasping Ta-Kominion's arm firmly in his own. A pretty, brown-haired girl in a yellow robe gave a little cry and sprang away at the sight of his face, whereupon the High Baron of Ortelga calmly sat down where she had been reclining, motioning to Ta-Kominion to sit beside him.

"You'll excuse us, my lord," he said to Elvair-ka-Virrion in his strained, rasping voice. "My friend here said three thousand meld and he's perfectly serious. Pray continue."

"Three thousand meld!" echoed Elvair-ka-Virrion. "Three thousand meld for the favors of the most beautiful girl in the world! Come now, gentlemen, haven't you got blood in your veins!"

"Yes, but not gold!" shouted one of the Belishbans.

They seemed to be conferring among themselves. Their dialect was unfamiliar to most Beklans, but to Maia, who had lived and worked with Meris, it was plain enough.

"—and then we'll draw lots."

"Well, no wrangling afterwards, then."

"You game, Yerdo? Two hundred each?"

After some more muttering the big leader, breaking away from the group, took a step towards Elvair-ka-Virrion and called out "Four thousand meld!"

At this there were cries of disbelief and protest, but he added quickly, "My lord, my friends and I are making this bid between us. Then we'll draw lots among ourselves to see who's the lucky man."

Suddenly Maia realized that the business had become one of local pride—just as Elvair-ka-Virrion had foreseen that it might. The Belishbans were determined to secure her for themselves if they could; when they returned to Herl, at least one of them must be able to boast that he had made love with the one and only Serrelinda—he and he alone of all those under Elvair's command. It was certain that there was no other girl throughout the empire, however beautiful, who could have had this sort of effect upon her admirers, be they never so ardent. As she grasped this she blushed down to her neck and for all she could do the tears started to her eyes. In her mind's eye she could see the green-and-white stretch of the Serrelind waterfall, the scarlet trepsis-bloom and the long-stalked lilies in the shadows. "You dazzle me—reckon I'll dazzle you!"

"Why was I born? Ah, tell me, tell me, Lord Cran! 

Isthar, is thai a steer—' "

"Speak to them, Maia," whispered Elvair-ka-Virrion. "They'll all go crazy now, if only you can make them."

Stretching out open arms, she looked from one flushed, eager face to another; yet not a word could she say. Laughing, and quickly dashing the tears from her eyes, she pulled the sprays of jasmine from her hair and tossed them down among the Belishbans. Still she said nothing: but the mere sight of her, tongue-tied and overcome by their adulation, the tears wet on her glowing cheeks, was enough to accomplish Elvair-ka-Virrion's purpose. All round the hall could be heard mutterings and whispers as little groups of men began consulting among themselves—Beklans and Palteshis, Tonildans, Lapanese, Urtans and Yeldashay.

"She's too good for Belishba!" shouted a gray-haired man with the look of a veteran and a golden fountain embroidered across his robe. "Kabin shall have her! Four thousand five hundred!"

"Six!" answered one of the Belishbans immediately.

"Four thousand seven hundred!"

It was at this instant that Maia, in the act of bending forward to accept a goblet which one of the young men was holding up to her, became once more aware of Randronoth. The governor of Lapan was seated on the end of a near-by couch, elbow on knee and chin on hand, gazing at her as though there were no one else in the hall. A slave who was going round with a full wine-jar, stopping beside him, spoke to him twice, but Randronoth appeared neither to see nor hear him. There was no companion or girl with him, and this isolation emphasized and heightened the intensity with which he was regarding her.

After a moment, with no movement or alteration of his gaze, he said quietly, "Five thousand meld."

No sooner had he spoken than Maia felt certain that she had been continually in his thoughts ever since the night which he had spent with her; and that if that encounter were to have taken place now—many long months, several men and much garnered insight and experience later—she would certainly have recognized it for what it was; the inception of nothing less than an all-absorbing physical obsession. He was a man whose thoughts ran continually upon coupling, dominated by an inward concept not of ideal womanhood, of companionship or even of a girl able to amuse him or do him credit in public, but simply of a certain visual semblance and certain physical characteristics which excited him beyond all measure. And to this fantasy she—and in all his experience she alone—conformed entirely. This she could now perceive as plainly as if he had told her in so many words. What had haunted him since that night had been simply his physical recollections of her—visual, tactile; possibly even olfactory, too, for the matter of that. And despite—or perhaps because of—his ready opportunities for pleasure elsewhere, these had set up in him a relentless craving which her subsequent renown and exaltation had only served to inflame, for they had made him suppose the chance of actually basting her again to be gone for ever. Yet tonight, at the barrarz, it had suddenly reappeared, like a hunter's quarry given up for lost but now come wandering randomly, unexpectedly back out of the forest. At whatever cost, he was not going to let it go again.

He would be a procurer's dream, she thought: a man utterly in the grip of a specific and compulsive desire. There were no lengths to which he might not go.

Ah, but was there anyone else, any competitor to push him as far as she was hoping? His bid seemed to have altered the entire tone of the proceedings. The laughter and ribald gaiety had now drained away entirely, as though Randronoth had cracked a fountain-basin. Plainly many of those present—the provincial soldiers if not the Beklan girls—were feeling a shade uneasily that things had gone beyond anything they were used to or had ever experienced. Five thousand meld for a night with a girl—even the Serrelinda! Well, they'd heard tell of the extravagances of the Leopards and the vices of the upper city. Here they were, in all reality. And what, pray, might be going to happen next?

"Five—thousand—meld," said Elvair-ka-Virrion slowly and deliberately. "Well, of course that's not a trug more than Maia's worth, ladies and gentlemen—she's as far be-yond value as the Tamarrik Gate—but at the same time it's a good deal by the standards of simple human beings like you and me. So from now on I shall be taking bids in thousands. As you know, that's the custom in Bekla when bidding reaches this sort of level, whether for jewels or gold or anything else. Now, who'll offer—"

He was interrupted by the crash of an overturned bench and a sudden commotion from the dimness beyond the lamplight. A cry of protest was followed by a snarling reply; "Well, get out of the way, then!" and a moment later Ged-la-Dan came striding forward, his hand clenched on his goblet. Raising it towards Maia, he drank off the contents, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and, looking directly at Randronoth, said, "Six thousand meld!" as though striking a blow.

Randronoth, who had never once taken his eyes off Maia, did not even turn his head. Outwardly he appeared entirely calm, his hands lightly clasped between his open knees as he remained seated on the end of the couch, tapping one foot to the rhythm of the barely-audible hinnaris. Turning her head to meet his gaze, Maia suddenly felt as though, after looking out across the glittering surface of a lake, she had leaned over the gunwale to stare directly down into the depths below; a place of predatory silence, its nature utterly distinct from the windy, sunny world of the Belishbans and of Ta-Kominion. To this man there was no passion so serious as lust.

Randronoth took his time—partly, perhaps, with the intention of riposting to Ged-la-Dan's outburst with a pose of deliberate nonchalance. Yet also, Maia felt, he was savoring the moment inwardly and enjoying it for its own sake. She was in no doubt at all that he would continue to bid. Now that he had taken the vital step; had surrendered all prudence, jumped, into the raging cataract of his own desire and left all else behind him on the bank, he had become like a man lost in music or prayer. To himself his surroundings were as nothing. He had, of course, heard Ged-la-Dan, but felt him as a stimulus rather than an obstacle.

Looking inquiringly at him, Elvair-ka-Virrion waited. A deeper silence fell. At length Randronoth, as though deliberately dropping a pebble into a pool, said quietly, "Seven thousand," and fell to examining his fingernails.

In the same instant Maia felt Elvair-ka-Virrion's hand on her shoulder. Before she could guess his intention he had loosed and pulled the cord at her neck. The cherry-colored robe slid to her waist and then to her ankles, dropping as smoothly and readily as on the night when she had danced the senguela. She was standing in her diamonds, her shift of transparent muslin and a pair of silver sandals.

If there was one girl in Bekla able to take this kind of surprise in her stride it was Maia.

Nennaunir—even Occula—would probably have felt impelled to respond provocatively, or perhaps to simulate embarrassment as a trick to tantalize her audience still further. Maia appeared not even to notice that the robe had fallen. Her hands did not move, nor did she turn her head to look at Elvair-ka-Virrion standing behind her. Only, she shrugged slightly and then smiled, as though on balance amused and relieved to find herself disencumbered of the robe, which seemed to have fallen from her as naturally as autumn leaves from a tree, disclosing more clearly its essential, pliant grace.

Serene and natural indeed she looked. Yet human desire is also natural, and Maia, standing as good as naked before two hundred men, could no more have failed to disturb them yet further than the smell of approaching thunder can fail to make uneasy the beasts of the wild. The young soldiers, unmindful of their own girls, pressed forward, jostling and staring, some in their excitement stumbling over benches or into one another. Maia, still smiling, gazed calmly down upon the throng of upturned faces bobbing and dodging hither and thither below her as men moved sideways or stood on tiptoe, instinctive and self-forgotten as children in their eagerness to see her more closely.

Randronoth, however, neither moved nor altered his expression. One might almost have supposed that he had been expecting the robe to fall. Either he was in no haste to gaze at her nakedness, so clearly was its recollection fixed upon his mind, or else—and more probably, thought Maia—to him, the sight was one not to be diluted by being shared with others. He could not stop this display, yet he would have no part of it. He meant to feast alone, in his own good time. Although she felt no desire or affection for him, she could not but be moved by so consuming an infatuation. If she were not much mistaken, he was ready to ruin himself for her. A more hardened girl might have felt contempt, but what Maia felt was something akin to fear. To be the possessor of such power was frightening; and the man's obsession, too, was frightening in itself. This isn't like the others, she thought—Kembri, Sencho, Elvair. They were just enjoying themselves; but this man'll stop at nothing, nothing at all. 'Tain't natural. Might it not even, in some way or other, prove downright dangerous to let him have what he wanted?

Only for a moment did she think thus. Then she recalled Tharrin, weeping with terror in Pokada's stuffy little room; and the cruel eyes of the Sacred Queen staring contemptuously into her own. As she turned her head away from Randronoth to assume once more her role of the transcendent yet tormentingly flesh-and-blood paragon of de-sire, a girl's voice—Nennaunir's—suddenly called "Maia, look out!"

The shearna, who, together with four or five young Bek-lan officers, had pressed forward almost to the foot of the table on which Maia was standing, had been the first to see her danger. Ged-la-Dan, glaring with rage, the sweat standing on his forehead, had snatched up a knife which some slave had overlooked in clearing away and was lurching forward, his thick-set bulk sending four or five men stumbling this way and that. Reaching the table, he grabbed and pulled at it, so that Maia would have fallen if Elvair-ka-Virrion had not flung his arm round her. The Ortelgan, glaring upward, leaned forward for a moment as though to clutch her round the legs. Then, straightening up, he turned on Randronoth, still seated impassively on his couch, took a step towards him and roared, "Eight thousand! Eight thousand! And let that do, damn you, unless you want—"

Elvair-ka-Virrion hit him across the back of the neck with the steward's staff, and he flung up his hands, his voice cut short. One of his penapa necklaces broke, and the big, rosy-pink stones (like a lot of half-sucked sweets, thought Maia) were scattered over the floor.

A girl screamed, and there were cries of anger and contempt. The Belishban captain grabbed another knife and rushed at Ged-la-Dan, shouting something incomprehensible and getting close enough to spit in his face before two of his comrades dragged him back.

"Damned Ortelgans!" called a voice from somewhere beyond the lamps. "Why don't you go home and jump in the Telthearna?"

It was at this moment, while Maia hung trembling in Elvair-ka-Virrion's arms and Ged-la-Dan still stood facing Randronoth (who looked alertly up at him but made no move) that Bel-ka-Trazet came forward. As calmly as though breaking a dead stick from a tree, he took the knife from Ged-la-Dan's hand, whispered something in his ear and then turned to Elvair-ka-Virrion.

"I must beg your pardon, my lord, on behalf of my companions and of Ortelga." He paused, and for a mo-ment his horrific face appeared yet more distorted as he struggled with his feelings. "You'll realize that this is no easier for me to say than it would be for" (he swept the room with a gesture) "for anyone else. Please accept my apology. Let us now forget this incident and proceed."

His self-control and resolute air of propriety was in such marked contrast to what had gone before as to have an immediate effect. Most of those present, angry and contemptuous though Ged-la-Dan's behavior had made them, could still appreciate what this must be costing him and feel themselves in favor of sparing his feelings. An intensely proud man, he was doing what had to be done, and hating every moment of it.

As he broke off Nennaunir, looking, in her erotic trinkets, the very epitome of a wanton, tripped demurely forward, flung her arms round his neck and kissed him on his slashed, twisted lips.

"Of course we understand, my lord, and all of us gladly accept your apology. I know I'm speaking for everyone here."

She is a clever girl, thought Maia: she really is. They'll remember that; the girl who embraced Bel-ka-Trazet of her own accord and kissed him.

But now Nennaunir was speaking to her. "All right, Maia darling? Going on? We're all enjoying it if you are."

Even though she was well aware that this was four-fifths the adroitly acted self-advancement of an experienced courtesan, Maia could not help feeling grateful. No doubt the shearna would have been only too delighted to be standing where she herself was standing now, but if this were so, any envy she might be feeling was under full professional control. Ever since her own return to Bekla, Maia reflected, Nennaunir had never said a spiteful word to her, either in public or in private, and had always been ready with friendly advice.

She smiled. "I'm fine, Nan, thanks."

Thereupon she nodded to Elvair-ka-Virrion, who kissed her cheek before releasing her and turning back to Bel-ka-Trazet.

"And your friend's bid, my lord: shall we forget that, too?"

"By no means," replied Bel-ka-Trazet. "It was made, and I will accept personal responsibility for it."

"Well, then," continued Elvair-ka-Virrion smoothly, turning to Randronoth, "I have eight thousand offered, it seems, and that's against you, my lord."

The governor of Lapan nodded in acknowledgement, but said nothing. Suddenly Maia was filled with dismay. The enormous sum reached had apparently daunted even Randronoth. He was not going on; and who could blame him? And she—O dear Lespa! she would have to spend the night either with Ged-la-Dan or with Bel-ka-Trazet. Biting her Up, she struggled with a rising nausea. She began to salivate, and quickly emptied her mouth under pretense of drinking again from her empty goblet. O Shakkarn! she prayed silently, Shakkarn, only save me! I can't face it!

Once again Elvair-ka-Virrion addressed Randronoth.

"Would you like a little time to consider, my lord? Shall we have a short interval now?"

Immediately Randronoth rose to his feet. For one agonizing instant Maia thought that he was about to walk out of the hall. For several moments he paused, as though to relish the last morsel of the occasion (the most extrav-agant, surely, in which even he could ever have participated, thought Maia). At length he answered, "No, thank you. It's for everyone else, not for me, to take time—to regret what they've let slip." Then, with Elvair-ka-Virrion looking inquiringly at him, as though for formal confirmation of what he had just implied, he added almost casually, "Nine thousand meld."

A long murmur, as of completion or fulfillment, ran through the hall. Maia, whispering, put her hand quickly on Elvair-ka-Virrion's arm. "For Cran's sake stop now, Elvair! I can't take no more! I'd rather find the other thousand myself!"

"Sure?" asked Elvair-ka-Virrion.

"Yes, my lord! I just can't stand n' more, not now I can't."

Elvair-ka-Virrion nodded, smiled and turned towards the guests as though to address them again.

However, he had no need. It was clear that the legendary auction of the Serrelinda—for legendary it became in Bekla, and indeed throughout the whole empire—was concluded. Friends and sycophants were gathering round the governor of Lapan, addressing him with the half-congratulatory and half-envious admiration usually shown by people towards a man who has done something which, though they may consider it reckless and foolhardy, they cannot help wishing they had had the gall to do themselves.

Randronoth, however, plainly wanted none of this. It was not for show or notoriety but for that incomparable body (mounted by Sednil for nothing in a dusty attic of the temple) that he had bid nine thousand meld. As a slave handed him his cloak he raised his hand unsmilingly to those around him, walked over to where Maia was still standing beside Elvair-ka-Virrion on the table and, climbing up beside them, put the cloak round Maia's shoulders. Having stooped and picked up the cherry-colored robe, he was about to help her down when Elvair-ka-Virrion stayed him.

"The money, my lord? A mere detail, of course, but we need to know—"

"She shall have every last meld in coin by dawn tomorrow," answered Randronoth. "Where would you like it brought, säiyett?"

"To my house, please," replied Maia.

Now that the horrible prospect of Ged-la-Dan had been lifted from her, she felt light as a summer cloud.

She'd done it! Fornis was defeated, Tharrin was saved! All that remained was to spend the night with Randronoth. Weary though she now felt, his craving, she knew, was such that little more than acquiescence would suffice. Smiling in her relief, she kissed him warmly and lingeringly, cheek and lip.

"Let's go there now— now— shall we?" And then, with a sudden rush of spontaneous ardor, "Oh, thank you, my lord, for—for winning! I'm that glad as 'twas you!"

Yet during the hours that followed—-those hours during which Randronoth seemed almost demented, so that even after his desire had spent itself once, twice and again he could not let be, but must still be caressing and touching her with hands, lips, tongue; embracing and fondling as though the gratification of his lust had been a mere preliminary to the more serious business of satisfying some even deeper need—she could not help wondering, as it would never have occurred to her to wonder last year in Sencho's house, what it was that he supposed he had bought. Her feelings were in no way engaged: her heart was far away; she was indulging him like a child, and this not because she had any particular wish to hold back or give him short weight, but because that was all she had it in her to do. Such as she had to give she was giving him— and little enough to her it seemed. Yet of this shortcom-ing—a mantled sun, a clouded sky—he was plainly unaware. He knew no better. The strings were not in tune, but this he could not perceive. Once, dropping off to sleep, she dreamed vividly that Zen-Kurel had come into the room and was standing silently beside their bed. She started up with an anguished cry, but Randronoth only laughed, took her by the shoulders and fell to kissing her breasts. Yet hadn't her distress been obvious? she thought, once more acquiescing. Well, if it had not, perhaps that was all for the best.

Throughout the whole night, though he was unfailingly courteous and also showed himself considerate and adept enough, she was roused no more than once, and that at the outset; and this impersonal, animal want once met, fell back upon the kind of pretense that Occula had taught her to employ with the High Counselor. It was not difficult: she remained sincerely amiable and compliant, for the thought of Tharrin saved burned like a bright lamp in her heart, filling it full of tolerance—pity, even—for this poor, besotted man, who could see yet not reach her, his heart like a moth on a lighted window-pane.