Maia

  After a moment's thought he replied, "Very well," and put out his hand to help her down the stairs.

  While he was instructing the soldier she called Ogma into the parlor.

  "Ogma, don't argue with me or act anything out of the ordinary, d'you see? Just bring some wine and nuts and that out into the garden, and do it quickly!"

  As soon as he had joined her she led him into the garden, poured the wine, handed him his goblet and drank deeply herself.

  "Ah! That's better! I'm feeling a lot better now," she said. "Give me your arm, Randro; let's have a little stroll. There's something I want to show you, down by the shore. Did I ever tell you about the golden lilies I picked for King Karnat in Suba? No? Well, 'twas like this, see--"

  Talking on, she drew his arm through hers, leading him gently and leisurely on among the shrubs and flowerbeds, fragrant in the cooling air of evening. The western sky was reddening and there was no least breath of wind.

  "Do you know something, Randro?" she said. "I've longed for you so often since that night of the barrarz. You were wonderful! We had so much pleasure, didn't we? Do you remember in the morning, when you thought you were finished and then you found you weren't?"

  "Yes, I do," he replied. "I wouldn't be likely to forget that, would I?"

  "We can't make love now, though," she said, and drew his hand from her waist up to her bosom. "What a pity! For there'll be no chance later tonight, will there? Not once Seekron gets here. You'll have far too much to do."

  "I thought you didn't want to make love," he answered.

  "Why, when did I say that? You never asked me, did you?"

  They had reached the marble bench near the Barb.

  "You've seemed so angry and upset all day. Naturally, I thought--"

  "Sometimes being upset brings a girl on all the harder; didn't you know that?" She kissed his ear, nibbling the lobe. "It's all the strain and excitement and that."

  "Maia, are you serious? Do you really want to make love?"

  For answer she flung her arms round his neck, kissing him passionately and pressing herself against him.

  He responded, panting, and caressing her with trembling hands.

  "Let's go back to the house, then. Come on!"

  "Oh, no, Randro! I couldn't! I mean, I couldn't let myself go; not with the soldiers there and everyone knowing. No, I'm afraid we'll just have to leave it for now."

  She pressed herself to him still more ardently, putting one hand on his thigh. "It's a shame, isn't it?"

  "No one can see us here."

  "Oh!" She stood back, wide-eyed, holding her hand over her open mouth. "Oh, Randro, no! How can you--"

  He smiled delightedly. "You're Lespa; I'm Shakkarn. Why not?"

  "Oh, no!" But his fingers had already begun to unfasten her robe at the neck, drawing it down and drawing down her shift to bare her deldas, which he stooped to kiss.

  "Well--well--I don't know. Oh, Randro, it's so nice!" She kicked off her sandals, let her clothes fall and stood naked before him. "You, too! You, too! Only just turn round a moment, darling: I want to make water and I can't do it with you watching."

  "Can't you?" He gave her a playful smack on the buttocks. "All right." Turning his back, he began pulling his leather jerkin over his head.

  Now! she thought. Now! And she ran, ran, bounding through the grass to the water, her deldas leaping, her hair flying behind her. Splash! Splash! Hopping ankle-deep, wading knee-deep, deeper, two or three agonizingly slow, pushing, thigh-deep steps. Then she had plunged forward and struck out into the Barb.

  Behind her she could hear Randronoth calling "Maia, come back!" And then, "Maia, this will cost you your life! I warn you, come back!"

  On she swam, never once looking round. The water was smooth--far smoother than Serrelind as she had known it many a time. Yet in her haste and desperation, she realized, she was swimming too fast: at this rate she would be exhausted before ever she could reach the western end of the Barb. Besides, there was a slight but steady current against her, for she was in the line of flow between the infall and outfall of the Monju brook. She must settle down, for she had more than half a mile to go. Would Randronoth try to follow her round by the bank? No, almost certainly not, for he would realize that if she saw him waiting for her on the bank she would simply stay in the water, while he would be bound to draw attention to himself and disclose his presence in the upper city.

  83: AT THE BARONS' PALACE

  Maia's swim down the Barb took her over half an hour. Although, naturally, the thought of Milvushina was never entirely absent from her mind, the necessity of swimming distracted her, eased her tension and afforded her the comfort of exercising a familiar skill at which she was adept. It was satisfying, too, to think that this skill had enabled her to get the better of Randronoth.

  Once she scattered a flock of black swans, the great birds, with their red beaks, all rising together from the water, circling wide to her left and re-alighting near the infall of the Monju behind her. As she rounded the pen-insula, swimming more slowly now and from time to time turning on her back to rest, there came into sight the gardens where Sencho had died, the tree from which she had dived and the inshore pool where she had saved Shend-Lador. They looked different now, she thought, and in a way unfamiliar. The difference, she realized after a few moments, lay in herself--in the eyes with which she saw. They were the same, but she was no longer the slave-girl who had accompanied Occula and the High Counselor on that fatal evening. There returned to her mind the unsolved mystery of Zirek and Meris. What could have happened to them after they had fulfilled their task? Were they dead? But if so, where were their unfound bodies? Might they, after all, have escaped? Did Occula know? Herself and Occula--were they the only people left in the city who knew who had killed Sencho?

  Before her rose the grassy terraces of the Leopard Hill, and above them the Palace, its twenty round towers clustering darkly, like a bed of gigantic reed-maces, against the sunset sky. At this sheltered, western end the water, reflecting the reddened clouds, was glass-still; so still that her approach sent long, undulant ripples shorewards. She could see no one--no sentry by the waterside, not a soul looking down from the verdant slopes. It might have been the enchanted castle in one of old Drigga's tales--the stronghold of Canathron, who returned to it each night. And if, she thought, Canathron were even now to come flying home out of the flames of the sunset, would he spread his healing wings and save Milvushina?

  But she had never prayed to Canathron; and this seemed no time to start, when she had just hoodwinked and outwitted the governor of Lapan.

  About a hundred yards out, she found herself in her depth; but being still far from spent, swam gently on--it was easier than wading--until, coming to rest at length on the gravelly sand inshore, she stood up, sluicing her body with cupped handfuls of water.

  Milva, she thought: Milva. What could she do to help her? Although she could recall the birth of each of the girls she had once believed to be her sisters, none had involved any complication or danger: Morca had always given birth almost as easily as slipping off her pattens. Whatever was wrong, it would be beyond any knowledge or experience which she possessed. She knew Lokris for a sensible, level-headed woman: it would be most unlike Lokris to say that Milvushina was in a bad way unless it were true. Deep--atavistically, indeed--in every woman lies the fear of this occupational danger, just as in every man there lies the fear of death by conflict or violence. As she stepped onto the bank Maia had no thought for anything else. She had even forgotten her own nakedness; or rather--as with the wounded or the grievously ill--in her present circumstances nakedness was a matter of no particular consequence. She hadn't time now to be bothering about such trivialities, the unimportance of which must surely be as plain to anyone else as to herself.

  Zig-zag she climbed the Leopard Hill, up the narrow paths between the low stone walls and little, secluded arbors designed for meditation, confidential talks and lovers' meetings. There were n
o lovers there now; no friends disputing about music or sculpture, no circumspect councilors seeking a quiet word in private. Though Maia did not know it, Eud-Ecachlon, as soon as he had heard Crevin's report, had alerted everyone of consequence in the upper city and sent runners to warn the lower city marshal to close and double-guard all gates, including the Peacock Gate. Shock and panic were already spreading across the whole Bekla. The High Baron, lord of the empire, betrayed and cut down by--of all people--the Sacred Queen, in full view of thousands! In all the city's history such a deed had never been imagined, never dreamt of. What might be fated to follow an event so unthinkable? The legends, the annals, the lore of the priests were alike silent. The dead--might they now rise from their graves and walk the streets; the earth quake, the rocks be rent, the Temple of Cran fall? Not for nothing, then, after all, had Lespa set her great light to burn in the northern sky.

  As the sunset--a brilliant, glowing chiaroscuro of saffron, crimson and green--faded and dusk darkened the terraces below, the two sentinels at the eastern door of the palace, new-levied peasant strangers to Bekla, their nerves already shredded by rumor and speculation, but most of all by the unconcealed alarm and dismay of their superiors, were suddenly stricken aghast to see the shadowy form of the goddess Lespa walking intently towards them in the failing light. There could be no mistaking the apparition. Very beautiful she was, with a more than earthly beauty, a matchless young girl immune to age or death; quite naked but, goddess-like, without the least air of self-consciousness or shame. Her superb body was glistening with drops of water from the clouds through which she must have descended, while her long hair, also damp, fell in a golden drift about her shoulders. Her bare feet made no sound.

  Despite its marvelous beauty her face--and what else would you expect?--was very sorrowful, grave and absorbed, yet with a purposeful look, as though she well knew her divine intention, whatever it might be.

  Letting fall their spears, the sentries fled into the palace.

  Maia, having entered under the portico, looked about for someone to guide her. There was no one to be seen, however, and she climbed the first staircase she came to, which brought her out on an open landing hung with tap-estries. Yet here, too, all was deserted.

  In this shady, eastward-facing place she felt, for the first time since setting out, a touch of cold. She had not seen the sentries run, but now it occurred to her that her nakedness might hinder her mission.

  Eud-Ecachlon, who was presumably somewhere in the palace, might have her apprehended, or perhaps some rougher man, a soldier or servant, might molest her. As she stood in perplexity she remembered the night of the senguela, when she had pulled down one of Sarget's wall-hangings to dress up as the prying old woman. Opposite her was a window, with curtains of green and blue silk. Scrambling up into the embrasure, she found that she could lift down the pole and slide them off. One would be enough. As a Tonildan peasant girl she had learned two or three different ways of draping and knotting a rectangle of woven cloth into a garment. Those who possessed such things had been lucky: most wore sacking or homespun. In less than two minutes Maia was at least presentably clothed and making her way down the upper corridor.

  Rounding the next corner she saw coming towards her a girl carrying a bundle of clothes.

  "The lady Milvushina," she said. "Where can I find her?"

  "The lady Milvushina, saiyett?" answered the girl. "They say she's very ill--"

  "I know that!" said Maia. "Just tell me where she is."

  Turning, the girl guided her down the corridor, climbed a staircase and in silence pointed to a closed door a few yards further on. Maia thanked her with a nod, tapped on the door and entered.

  Four women, one of whom was Lokris, were gathered about a bed on the opposite side of the big, luxurious room. With them was an elderly, graybearded man, his bare arms streaked with blood. All five looked round at her and the old man, staring severely, seemed about to speak.

  "I'm Maia Serrelinda, doctor," she said, before he could do so. "I've come because I was sent for."

  Silently, he laid one hand on hers and, looking into her eyes, shook his head. One of the women was silently weeping. Suddenly, Maia caught her breath in an involuntary spasm of fear and horror. That smell--that terrible smell-- when had it last overcome her, where had she known it before? Next moment she knew. She was back in the darkness and firelight on the banks of the Valderra, kneeling beside Sphelthon, the dying Tonildan boy. For a moment she actually seemed to hear his voice. Then the doctor's hand was gripping her wrist and she was turning with him towards the bed.

  Milvushina, very pale, her forehead and chin beaded with sweat, lay covered only with a sweat-damp, crumpled sheet. Her long, black hair was tumbled about her. One bare arm was stretched across the bed. Her breathing was labored and uneven. Her mouth was open, as were her great, dark eyes, yet it seemed as though she saw nothing, for they were staring fixedly upward toward the ceiling. Maia's immediate impression was of a being isolated be-yond reach of anyone round her. She looked partly like an animal caught in a trap and partly like someone com-pelted to expend, upon some immense labor, nothing less than every scrap of energy at her command.

  Maia took her hand.

  "Milva," she said. "Milva? It's Maia: I'm here."

  Slowly, Milvushina seemed to return from a great distance. Her head rolled, her eyes found Maia's and she gave the faintest trace of a smile.

  "Maia," she whispered.

  "Yes. You must rest, darling," answered Maia. "I won't leave you. It'll be all right, you'll see."

  Very slightly, as though even this was an effort, Milvushina shook her head. "I'm dying." ,

  "No, you're not, dearest."

  Milvushina's hand clenched weakly on Maia's. After a few seconds, having gathered strength to speak again, she murmured, "Don't--don't--I need you--" She broke off, shutting her eyes and biting her lower lip, apparently seized once more with pain.

  Maia bent her head to her ear.

  "I won't go away."

  It seemed doubtful whether Milvushina had heard her. Her hand lost its grip and she began once more her heavy, intermittent panting.

  Maia stood back from the bed. "What's happened?" she asked Lokris. "What's gone wrong?"

  "It was the news, saiyett," answered Lokris, "and then Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion refusing to see her or speak to her. She went into premature labor this morning, but she's only bled ever since and we can't get the baby born."

  "Can't you cut her?" asked Maia, turning to the doctor.

  "I have cut her, saiyett. I'm very sorry. Believe me, I've done all I can--all anyone could. These cases are always dangerous. No doctor can ever be sure---"

  "You mean she's dying?"

  "Saiyett, the loss of blood--"

  "There's no hope?"

  He shook his head. "The internal bleeding can't be stanched, you see. I've given her a drug for the pain. There's nothing more I can do."

  Maia, falling on her knees beside the bed, laid her cheek against Milvushina's shoulder. She did not move as the women drew off the sheet and once more began changing the blood-drenched dressings.

  When they had finished the room seemed very silent and dim. Later, Maia became vaguely aware that someone had brought more lamps. Later still, Milvushina stirred, moaned and spoke without opening her eyes.

  "Maia?"

  "Yes, dear; I'm here."

  "Tell Elvair--tell--"

  "Yes, Milva?"

  "I love him. I--don't--blame--" Suddenly, startlingly, her utterance became clear and lucid. "He's being silly. No blame. I love him, say."

  "I'll tell him."

  "Promise?"

  "Yes, Milva: I promise."

  Milvushina's hand pressed hers once more. She seemed to be trying to say something, but no words came.

  Someone brought a stool and Maia sat on and on beside the bed, holding Milvushina's hand and watching in the lamplight the slight movements-of her lips and eyelids. They ceased. After a lo
ng time--as though, having resisted to the last, she had finally been compelled, against every spark of her will, to acquiesce--she knew that Milvushina was dead.

  She stood up, gazing down at the body. Milvushina looked unbelievably young--about twelve--a child with enormous eyes that stared and stared unblinkingly, as though in accusation. It was the eyes that were staring, not Milvushina. She had gone, leaving this sorry likeness behind.

  Maia realized that she was very thirsty. She turned to Lokris. "Bring me some water, Lokris, please."

  "You mean, to drink, saiyett?"

  When Maia had drunk the water she said, "You say Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion's here in the palace?"

  "Yes, saiyett."

  "Take me to him, please."

  Another woman might perhaps have asked questions or argued, but it had no doubt occurred to Lokris that she could not be blamed for doing as she was told and also that in the circumstances that would be the least troublesome thing to do as far as she herself was concerned. Picking up a lamp, she walked halfway to the door and turned, waiting for Maia to join her.

  The doctor touched Maia's arm. "I trust you won't lay blame on me, saiyett. I assure you I did all that was possible."

  "No," she replied, shaking her head. "No, you needn't worry."

  Making their way down the passage, neither she nor Lokris spoke. Maia had little awareness of their surroundings. Once a middle-aged woman--seemingly some kind of upper servant--coming out of a doorway, stopped short and cried in a low voice, "Oh, Lokris, what's happened?" Lokris caught her eye, shook her head and walked on.

  On the landing where Maia had taken down the curtains a lamp was now burning. Lokris picked it up and handed it to Maia.

  "I think you may need this, saiyett."

  "Shall I? Why?"

  But Lokris only nodded, leading her up the staircase to the second story. Maia could hear a murmur of voices behind a door, but this they passed, entering a colonnade like the one in Kembri's house where she had attended the Rains banquet. At its far end they came to another closed door, ornately carved, with recessed panels and a great latch of bronze, the stop cast to resemble a hound and the fall-bar a bone clenched in its jaws. Here Lokris stood to one side, inclining her head.