Ah, yes: Kembri remembered her now: a handsome girl. If only she could avoid arousing suspicion, she should prove virtually irresistible in a back-of-beyond spot like Chalcon. And as long as she was apparently chance-met on a road, or at some wayside inn, the fact that she was a Belishban would add to her attraction rather than make her suspect, as it would if she were a servant in some baron's house.
"But it occurs to me," went on Kembri, "that whatever you may think, Sencho, of the drawbacks to family servants as spies, it couldn't do us any harm to plant a local girl in Erketlis's house as well. Haven't you got any Tonildan girls?"
Sencho replied that he had indeed, but it was certainly not his intention to send back to Tonilda a young woman who had just cost him fifteen thousand meld and worth every trug. He could not resist enlarging a little on the subject. The girl had already shown every sign of a pleasingly carnal disposition. She was a sharp little thing, too-- had a good head on her shoulders. As a concubine she was, of course, immature but already capable of a good deal, with a certain capacity for invention to compensate for her rough edges.
"Rough edges?" Kembri, recalling the girl he had seen at the banquet, chuckled. "That's what you call them, is it? Well, you must let me borrow her some time." (In point of fact the Lord General, irritated at Sencho's having brushed aside his suspicions and anxieties about the Ur-tans, had just been visited by an idea for pursuing the matter on his own account, but this he did not disclose to the High Counselor.)
"On the usual terms." Sencho began helping himself to buttered crayfish and plovers' eggs, which the slave had just carried in.
"Of course. Yes, I'd fancy her: I'll send someone to see your saiyett--Terebinthia, isn't it?--about an arrangement. But now we'll eat."
Getting up from beside the High Counselor, he made his way across to the table.
"Let me pour you some wine, sir," he said to Durakkon. "It's no good troubling yourself with doubts and regrets about Enka-Mordet: it's an essential part of the High Baron's job to be ruthless when necessary, you know."
He poured the wine, but Durakkon, after raising the goblet absently to his lips, had still not emptied it by the time the Lord General and the High Counselor took their leave.
25: TEREBINTHIA BRINGS NEWS
"Oh, we used to just about dread Melekril, and that's a fact," said Maia, stretching a bare arm out of bed for another handful of grapes. "I can remember waking up and, you know, hearing the rain and that and thinking 'Isn't it ever going to stop?' "
"We used to take it fairly easy at old Domris's," said Occula. "Same as they do here. You couldn', I suppose?"
"Well, you can't, can you?--not when there's beasts to be seen to, and then sometimes we'd have to take the boat out; and then there'd be firewood to get in--oh, I can remember being almost up to the knees in mud, just going down the lane to borrow a bucket."
"So you reckon this is a better life?"
"Well, isn't it?" Maia giggled. "We're the cows now-- someone else has to look after us, don't they?"
"Come on, then, pretty cow, let's get up. Stove'll be goin' nicely by now. I'm hungry, aren' you?"
"Oh, the dancing, Occula! That dance you said you'd teach me--the--"
"So I will: soon as we've had somethin' to eat." She raised her voice. "Ogma! Can we have some breakfast, dear, please? Dare say I can play a hinnari well enough for all you'll need to begin with."
An hour later Occula, having laid the hinnari aside on a bench, was standing opposite Maia on the open floor near the pool, her hands moving this way and that in smooth, fluid gestures.
"First thing you've got to realize, banzi, is that this isn' village dancin'. Your hands aren' just somethin' at the ends of your arms. You've got to use them, and your fingers too. Each finger's got to be able to move separately--like this, see?"
"Oh, I'll never be able to do it, Occula!"
"Yes, you will. If I could, you can. You're made for it, actually; but it takes skill and practice. Wouldn' be any point otherwise, would there?"
"What did you say the two parts are called?"
"The selpe" and the reppa. The whole point of the senguela, banzi, is that although you're only one dancer, you've got to play three parts. First of all you're Lespa, then you're Shakkarn and then you're the old woman. And you've got to act each of those parts; be them, not just dance them. You've got to act them so well that your audience see what isn' there. In the sort of dancin' you've been used to, there are a lot of other people and everybody more or less has to keep together. But then they're only concerned with amusin' themselves and each other. This you do alone, and you're doin' it for people to enjoy watchin' you. So once you've mastered the skills and the actin', you can dance more or less as you like; you can pretty well make it up, as long as you're graceful and as long as you act the different parts so well that everybody can follow you. Anyway, let's leave the finger-movements for now: you can practice them half an hour a day. Look, I'm just goin' to keep a rhythm goin' for you--I can't play this thing much better than that, anyway.
You're Lespa bathin' in the pool, right? And you've got to feel you're Lespa, banzi; you've got to become Lespa! Lie down to start with; shut your eyes and think; pray if you like. And then you're goin' to turn into Lespa, simply burnin' for it, but half-frightened as well. If you doan' believe it, nobody else is goin' to. Now then--these are what they call the water-chords. Lie down and concentrate--"
Towards the end of the morning they were still at it when Maia, as deeply absorbed and self-forgotten as even Occula could wish, took a few whisking steps backward among the imagined trees and found the silent Terebinthia at her elbow. She started, stumbled and broke off. Occula stopped playing.
"Well, I dare say you may become quite good in time, Maia," said Terebinthia, taking her arm to help her regain her balance. "But take care to develop your own style: don't copy some other girl's. Dyphna's shimmer than you, and that makes a difference. Work with your body and not against it."
"Do you know the senguela, then, saiyett?" asked Occula.
"Very well: I've seen many girls work out their own ideas of it. But now I have to interrupt you on one or two matters. First of all, the pedlar's here again. He's been taking orders for various things the High Counselor wants from Thettit, and he's setting off again this afternoon."
"What, in the rain, saiyett?" asked Occula.
"So it seems," said Terebinthia. "It's a matter of profit, I dare say. No doubt pedlars ready to travel in the rain make more money, or he may simply have been ordered by the High Counselor to go at once. He says if you have any messages for anyone in Thettit-Tonilda, he can take them."
"That's nice of him, saiyett," said Occula, slackening off the strings of the hinnari and hanging it up on the wall. "Could he come in for a moment, do you think, if we're not puttin' you to too much trouble? I've a friend in Thettit--one I think he may already know."
The pedlar, clumsy in great boots reaching to his knees, was carrying a cape shaped, as though for a hunchback, with a recess to contain his pack. Laying this down and opening his tunic at the neck, he leant against one of the columns by the door-curtains and took a long pull at the goblet which Terebinthia offered him.
"Why, you girls live in a bed of roses," said he, wiping his mouth. "I don't know where there's a better drop than that--no, not from Bekla to Thettit."
"I doan' envy you your journey, Zirek," said Occula. "You'll be walkin' straight into the rain, too. How far will you get tonight?"
"Oh, I'll get as far as Naksh easily enough," he answered. "I'm used to it, you know. I always say if the boots can do it, I can. Still got your Cat Colonna? It was you I gave it to, wasn't it?"
"Oh, d'you know, I dropped it?" said Occula. "It broke, of course: I'm sorry, after you gave it me for nothin'."
"Well, some cats fall off a roof and land right way up," said the pedlar, "but pottery cats you'd hardly expect it, would you? Never mind: I can let you have another, seeing as your master's been kind
enough to give me a good bit of profitable business. I think I've got a nice, striped one somewhere." He opened his pack. "Yes, here she is: with my compliments. But now I can't stop about--not with seven or eight miles to do before dark."
"Could you give a message to a friend of mine at the Lily Pool?" asked Occula. "A shearna called Bakris?"
"Bakris?"
"That's right. Before I left there was some talk of her comin' up to Bekla this spring on business."
"What d'you want me to tell her, then?"
"Well, I thought if Bakris happened to be here for the spring festival, there might just possibly be a chance for us to meet--at the feast by the Barb in the evenin' perhaps--that's if she can get someone to take her and if I happen to be one of the girls the High Counselor takes with him. I'd be workin', of course, but there might be a minute or two to spare all the same."
She glanced a moment at Terebinthia, but the saiyett made no comment.
"Well, that's easy enough," said the pedlar. "I'll drop in and give her your message." He drained his goblet. "And now I'll be off. See you again after Melekril, for I don't mean to tramp that road twice in the rain, I'll tell you that."
Bowing to Terebinthia, he went out. Occula was about to take the hinnari down again when she and Maia became aware that the saiyett evidently had more to say.
"One or two matters, I said, Occula," remarked Terebinthia coldly.
"I'm sorry, saiyett: forgive me."
"I will forgive you. In fact, I have your comfort so much at heart, both of you, that I'm going to make you an offer. Would either of you like Meris's room?"
"Meris's room, saiyett? You mean, change over, and her to have ours?"
"No, that isn't what I said. I asked whether either of you would like Meris's room. If one of you would, then the other can stay in the room where you are now and have it to herself--for the time being, at all events."
"What about Meris, then, saiyett?"
"Meris is to be sold. In fact, she has already been sold."
"Cran and Airtha!" said Occula, startled out of her usual deferential manner. "Bit sudden, wasn' it?"
Terebinthia made no reply.
"Who to, saiyett?" asked Maia.
"That doesn't concern you," replied Terebinthia. "Well, am I to have an answer or not?"
Occula and Maia looked at each other.
"I'd really prefer to stay with Maia, saiyett," said Occula. "We--well, we're quite happy as we are, you know."
"Very well: as long as you realize that that means when another girl's been bought, she'll have Meris's room to herself. I don't want to hear any complaints from either of you. And now, something else: suppose I were to agree, Maia, to your going out, do you think you could behave properly and do us credit?"
"Going out, saiyett?" Maia looked up nervously.
Terebinthia, with the complacent air of one who has something unexpected and pleasant to disclose, sat down and called to Ogma to bring some wine, evidently waiting for Maia to question her further. Since Maia said nothing, however, but only continued to look at her with apprehension, she finally turned towards Occula and remarked, "Apparently Maia doesn't want to go: perhaps you'd better go instead, Occula. What do you think?"
"I've no idea, saiyett, until you tell me," replied Occula rather pertly.
Maia drew in her breath, but as usual Occula had judged Terebinthia's mood correctly and was sailing with the wind.
"Somethin's pleased you, saiyett, hasn' it?" went on the black girl. "Woan' you be kind enough to tell us what it is, instead of teasin' my poor little Maia, who really doesn' deserve it after all she's done for the High Counselor?"
She put one arm round Maia's neck and kissed her. "Ask her, banzi," she breathed in her ear. "She wants it."
"Well, always do the best I could, saiyett," said Maia. "Where'm I s'posed to go, then?"
"Somewhere--very exalted," replied Terebinthia deliberately. "That is, if I choose. You may think, Maia, that just because some important personage has taken a fancy to you, I have no say in the matter. But I could quite easily advise that I don't think you're ready yet for an honor of this kind, and that would be the end of it."
"But wouldn' that rather depend, saiyett," asked Occula, "on how badly the--er--personage wanted her?"
"Not at all," replied Terebinthia. "It would depend on what the High Counselor, whose property she is, thought of my advice."
"Saiyett," said Occula, "I doan' think Maia's quite grasped yet what this is all about: but I have. The plain truth is, isn' it, that someone who saw her at the banquet has asked the High Counselor whether she's--well, available; and you're pleased about it, aren' you?"
Terebinthia nodded. "Yes. Yes, on the whole, I am. And Maia certainly ought to be." She paused.
"Now listen, Maia. First of all, if you've got any idea of trying to run away when you get outside, don't. It would be a shame to see a girl like you hanging upside-down, which is what happens to runaway slaves."
"Run away, saiyett?" replied Maia incredulously. "But I'm better off here than I've ever been in my life!"
This was uttered with such obvious conviction that Terebinthia dropped the matter.
"Now the next thing. Do you know the rules?" she asked.
"The rules, saiyett?"
"No, of course she doesn'!" cried Occula. "She doesn' even know what you're talkin' about. Oh, saiyett, do tell us who it is! I'm like a goat in heat to know!"
"All in good time. Maia, do you know what a lygol is?"
"No, saiyett. Well, that is, I've sort of heard the word, but--"
"A girl like you can expect to receive not less than a hundred meld as a--well--a token of esteem, after a visit of this kind. That's called a lygol. But you are not a girl in a pleasure-house, do you see? You're the property of the High Counselor, lent as a favor to another personage of importance. You don't ask for a lygol, either in advance or afterwards. You accept whatever you're given with graceful thanks." She took a step forward and, putting a hand under Maia's chin, lifted her face to her own. "And the rule in this household is unusually generous. You're allowed to keep two-fifths of it. The rest is a matter between the High Counselor and myself; do you see? So don't try to be clever. You'll only wish you hadn't, and I'd hate to see you finish up like Meris."
As Terebinthia said this, staring into Maia's eyes, she looked, for a moment, so appallingly omniscient and malevolent that Maia, with a little cry, drew back, trembling.
"Of course I won't, saiyett!"
"Then we understand each other," said Terebinthia, patting her cheek. "Now, as you know, the High Counselor doesn't keep litter-slaves. In the normal way you'd walk, accompanied by Jarvil or one of the house-servants. However, you can't do that in the rain; you wouldn't arrive fit to be seen. A covered jekzha will be best. When you arrive there'll be someone like me, and she will pay the jekzha-man, do you understand? Be ready about two hours after noon tomorrow. In fact, I'll come and dress you myself."
She drained off her wine and turned towards the door.
"But who is it, saiyett?" cried Occula, running after her and seizing her arm. "Who is it? Who is it?"
"Oh, yes, to be sure; I'd quite forgotten," said Terebinthia, pausing in the doorway. "I'm glad you reminded me. It's--the Lord General Kembri-B'sai."
With a light clashing of the bead curtains she was gone, leaving Occula and Maia staring at each other across the cushioned bench.
"Lespa's stars, banzi!" said Occula. "Do you realize, my girl, what you've been and gone and done?" She caught Maia's two hands, swung her round and bowed to her like a dancing-partner. Then, imitating Terebinthia's voice, "The Lord General Kembri-B'sai!"
"Oh, don't!" cried Maia desperately. "Oh, I only just wish it had been you, Occula! Whatever am I going to do?"
"How about lying down on your back, with your legs apart?" said Occula. "For a start, anyway." She ran a hand through her wiry curls. "After that your guess is as good as mine. But do try not to make a mess of it, s
weetheart, woan' you? It's one hell of an opportunity."
26: KEMBM'S PLEASURE
Maia, a green silk cloak thrown over her pale-blue metlan, silver necklace and bracelets, was met in the covered forecourt of the Lord General's house by the same gracious, fair-haired woman who had opened her litter on the night of the Rains banquet. Her easy, professional affability was so welcome and reassuring that Maia forgot to ask her to pay the jekzha-man, who stood about stamping his feet and coughing until told sharply to go and see the porter.
Thereupon the saiyett led Maia through the courtyard and up a different staircase, which led into a long gallery. Brilliantly-colored, woven hangings covered the whole length of the wall opposite the windows, and in front of these, at regular intervals, stood seven jewelled and painted statues representing the gods and goddesses worshipped throughout the empire: Cran, his hair cloven with lightning, his arms lifted in the act of parting the sky from the earth; Airtha of the Diadem, big-bellied and smiling, suck-ling a crowned infant at each golden breast; Shakkarn, horned and hoofed with topaz, his bearded mouth frothing sulphur as he thrust forward like a spear his ruby-headed zard; white Lespa, a rippling, floating vision of mercy, crowned with stars and bending forward in the act of scattering dreams from her opal-studded basket upon the sleeping earth; Shardik the bear, his eyes two smoldering garnets, one huge, clawed paw raised to smite as he ramped upon his terraced Ledges; Canathron, glaring from a thicket of copper flames and raising aloft his serpent's head and condor's wings; and lastly Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable, cowled, her face invisible, poised on Crandor's summit as she pointed with one lean finger to the tamarrik seed sprouting at her feet.
Maia, following her guide and stealing past these tremendous presences in so much awe that she scarcely dared to glance at them--for if asked, she would not have been at all sure that they did not embody the actual deities themselves--came to a dark-and-light, zig-zag-panelled door which recalled to her the decorated walls of the dining-hall above. Here the saiyett stopped and, turning to Maia with a smile, made her a little, ironical bow as she held open the door with one bare, white arm.