"Piggy gone mad, or what?" muttered Occula out of the side of her mouth. "We'll all be basted to buggery in a minute, standing here."
The tryzatt, straightening up, now turned and beckoned Maia to the side of the litter. Sencho, clutching her by the arm, told her to go into "The Green Grove" and fetch him some cooled wine. The kindly tryzatt, however, overhearing, anticipated her and brought it himself. Sencho, having gulped at leisure until he had finished the entire beaker--Maia standing by him the while--then required her to take a towel and wipe the sweat from his face and shoulders. She returned to her place beside Occula flushed with embarrassment.
"What was all that about?" asked the black girl.
"Drink," replied Maia in a whisper.
"That all?" said Occula. "Thought you must be havin' a quick thrash."
At the foot of Storks Hill an even thicker crowd surrounded the Temple of Cran. In the tile-paved precinct below the portico, close by the new statue of Airtha, the tall figure of Durakkon was standing among his barons and such of the army's senior officers as were not on the Valderra or at Dari-Paltesh.
Their wives, together with the company of the Thlela, were assembled a little apart. Each new arrival, as he reached the precinct, formally greeted Durakkon, whereupon he was either, if of sufficient importance, invited to join those round the High Baron or else courteously conducted to some other group, among his equals. There was a blaze of color from cloaks, robes and plumed hats, and a mingling of scents on the air, not only from perfumes but also from the spring flowers bed-ded round the edge of the precinct. Viewed from a little above, as one descended Storks Hill, the scene conveyed a breath-taking impression of wealth and power, so that even Occula momentarily lost her sang-froid, murmuring "Kantza-Merada!" in a tone of startled admiration which Maia had never heard from her before.
Yet now before the girls' eyes was disclosed a sight even more astonishing than that of the Leopard gathering. Be-yond the precinct, on the right bank of the Monju brook where it ran out of the city beneath the walls, stood the fabled Tamarrik Gate, designed and constructed eighty years before by the great Fleitil, grandfather of Fleitil the sculptor. This, a wonder of the empire rivalled only by the Barons' Palace and the Ledges of Quiso, was (until its destruction by the Ortelgans several years later) an integral part of the cult of Cran, conferring upon it a numinous splendor virtually irresistible alike to the dullest heart and the most skeptical mind. In function it was a waterclock, driven like a mill by the brook; but this is like saying that Alexander the Great was a soldier.
A swift-flowing carrier from the Monju encircled the whole area of the Tamarrik, its shelving inner bank planted with tall, plumed ferns. At intervals, ducts admitted water into one or another internal part of the complex. Along the lower courses of the walls of these ducts grew expanses of green liverwort, while the parapets, where the stones remained dry, were covered with blue-tongued lichens, their scarlet apothecia upstanding like myriads of minuscule warriors on guard above the sacred water below.
Immediately within the ring of the carrier stood a double half-circle of sycamores, between the leaves of which (the water driving their concealed mechanism) appeared from time to time, half-visible, the likenesses of the seven deities of the empire--Cran, Airtha, Shakkarn, Lespa, Shardik, Canathron and Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable.
The Tamarrik Court itself faced due south towards the temple precinct and Storks Hill. In the center, on a circular bronze platform ten yards in diameter, stood the sundial of Cran. The life-sized, naked figure of the god, cast in bronze covered with silver leaf, reclined on a bed of malachite grass, speckled with red and blue flowers of carnelian and aquamarine. It's great, erect zard, stylized and engraved with fruit, flowers and ears of corn, formed the gnomon of the dial, and round it, in a shallow spiral precisely designed and placed for the indication of time throughout the day, stood, in various postures of an arrested, ecstatic dance, twelve silver girls, each the guardian of an hour-point on the dial at her feet and herself representing one of the empire's twelve provinces or independent domains--Bekla, Belishba, Chalcon, Gelt, Lapan and Kabin of the Waters: Ortelga, Paltesh, Tonilda, Urtah, Yelda and Sarkid of the Sheaves. The spiral dial above which they danced was a concave groove, about a foot broad. At its summit sat a golden, purple-lacquered kynat-bird, which every hour, by the operation of the water, released, as though laying an egg, a silver ball to roll down the spiral and be caught at its foot in a cup held by the figure of a kneeling child. (To keep the sundial and waterclock in synchronicity, a skilled task, required continual vigilance and adjustment and was carried out by six of the priesthood, their sole duty being to attend to this business from dawn till sunset.) Behind and above the dial, but in front of the square gateway at the back of the Tamarrik Court, stood the famous concentric spheres of silver filigree--threads criss-crossing between slender, silver ribs--which represented the city and the sky above it. Bekla, standing in the midst of an open plain, commanded a virtually hemispherical view of the stars and accordingly, accurate observation of their places and movement had been a function of the priesthood from earliest times. The inner sphere, over five feet in diameter, was fixed, and reproduced on its upper hemisphere all the principal features of Bekla--Mount Crandor and the citadel, the Barons' Palace, the Barb lake and the various towers and gates of the lower city. Its under-side represented in relief Cran and Airtha in majesty, their arms extended to uphold the city above them. Enclosing this, yet sufficiently open in workmanship to leave all these details plainly visible, the outer sphere bore, upon its thin, curved ribs of silver, great jewels set in the forms of the various constellations. This had been constructed to be manually rotated in conformity with the movement of the heavens themselves and, like the dial, required constant attention to ensure its precision.
A stone canopy protected the spheres from wind and weather, and this bore on its pediment four dials which showed the month of the year, the phase of the moon, the day and the hour. From its roof one end of a narrow bronze bar, trough-shaped, projected over the courtyard below. This was balanced on a fulcrum mounted on the parapet, and its padded inner end rested on the surface of a deep silver drum. At sunset a priest, climbing to the roof, would scatter corn into the trough. The sacred white doves, alighting to eat, as they came and went would cause the finely-balanced bar to tilt and fall back, so that the drum seemed to beat of itself, to signal to the city the end of work for the day. Aloft, crowning the edifice, rose on its pedestal the wind-harp known as the Voice of Airtha, from whose music omens were divined.
Beyond the gate, just outside the city walls, stood the grove of tamarrik trees universally believed to be sprung from the seed cast down from Crandor's summit, ages before, by Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable. That the whole marvel stood in a deliberately-made breach in the walls symbolized the impossibility of an enemy ever taking the city by storm.
Occula and Maia, halting on the edge of the precinct while the High Counselor's litter was carried on into the temple, stood gazing in awe and astonishment at one and another part of the wonder before them.
Maia, unable to imagine the purpose or meaning of the dials (except that they were obviously magical and on that account disturbing), was nevertheless delighted by the nympholeptic spiral of hours, the reclining god and the purple-and-gold kynat above. Gazing, she remembered with amusement how, on the night of the Rains banquet, she had been disconcerted by the sight of the erotic fountain in the Lord General's lower hall.
"What the hell are you gigglin' about?" asked Occula rather tensely.
"Just thinking I know now why you're always swearing by Cran's zard," answered Maia.
"He did even better than that, though, did Fleitil," said Occula, with more composure. "D'you know what happens at the ceremony?"
"Well, yes, kind of--that's to say, Tharrin told me a bit about it, once."
Suddenly she caught her breath, all her ribaldry gone as for an instant the face of Lespa looked out at her from a
mong the leaves.
"Oh, Occula! Did you see?" She turned and, despite the crowd and the blaze of noon, seemed almost ready to run.
"Steady!" said the black girl. "It's only a trick, banzi. Cran and Airtha! you were Lespa yourself the other night-- and very good, too, by all I hear."
"Why, whatever can valuable property like you two be doing standing out here in the boiling sun?" said a voice behind them.
They both looked round. It was Nennaunir, strikingly beautiful in a purple robe cross-stitched with gold thread, her high-piled hair fixed with jewelled, ebony combs. Maia, hoping she had not noticed her naive alarm at the face in the leaves, smiled back at her.
"Oh, we're just gettin' toasted, ready for the supper-party by the Barb tonight," said Occula. "It'll go easier with sunstroke, I dare say."
"But have you really been told that you've got to stand out here all through the ceremony?" persisted Nennaunir.
"Well, tell you the truth, I'm not sure," answered Maia. "Reckon as long as we're back here 'fore the end--"
"You can't go in?"
"We're slaves, aren't we?" said Occula.
Nennaunir looked quickly and covertly round the crowded precinct, rather like a child contemplating mischief. Then, dropping her voice, she whispered, "I'll get you in, if you like--both of you," and at once began leading Maia towards the temple. Occula hesitated a moment and then, shrugging her shoulders, followed.
The temple steps and portico, built of stone blocks, faced east across the precinct, presenting a solemn and majestic front. The rear of the building, however, rather like that of a theater (which to some extent it was), comprised all manner of storage and robing rooms, administrative quarters and other odd corners--the priests' refectory and kitchen, offices for conducting temple business, tally-rooms, cellars, a yard and shed where parts of the mechanism of the Tamarrik Gate were overhauled and maintained--and so on. Nennaunir, slipping quickly along a sunk path running beside the temple's south wall, turned, between two out-buildings, into a paved yard piled with firewood on one side and empty wine-casks on the other. Here a dark, scowling young man, dressed in the gray-green smock of a temple slave, was sitting on a stool, peeling brillions into a pail with a broken-bladed knife. He had dirty fingernails and a stubble of beard, which he scratched with the knife as he paused, looking up at the newcomers.
"Hullo, Sednil," said Nennaunir, halting beside him in a cloud of perfume and trailing gauzes. "Found you easily, didn't I? How are you, my darling?"
The young man looked up at her with a grin which, while probably meant to express bravado, only succeeded in making him look mortified and rather pathetic.
"I was all right until just now. What d'you want to come round here for, looking like that?"
"I didn't come here to torment you," said Nennaunir. "Really I didn't, Sednil. Cheer up! Honestly, I believe it won't be much longer--"
"Three years," said he. "D'you call that long or short?"
"It might be' much less," answered Nennaunir. "It might, Sednil, truly. I'm doing my best, but it's a matter of finding the right person and the right moment."
"Like when you're on your back with someone else, you mean?" said Sednil, spitting into the peel-bucket.
"Well, that might turn out to be a good time, yes. You must be realistic, darling. I shan't miss any opportunity I get, I promise you."
Sednil made no reply, only continuing to gaze at her like a man looking through the barred window of a cell.
"Sednil, it will be all right--you wait and see! And look, I've brought two charming friends of mine to meet you-- Maia and Occula. They both belong to Sencho, poor girls."
"Cran help them!" said Sednil. "Why aren't they squashed flat?"
"Well, there you are, you see; there's always someone worse off. They want to go in and watch the ceremony. You'll help them, won't you?"
Sednil said nothing.
"Won't you?"
"It's risky," said Sednil.
"I'm sure they'd really appreciate it. They'd show themselves very very grateful, I expect."
At this moment there rang across the city the clangor of the gongs striking noon, and from the steps of the temple a trumpet sounded.
"Yes or no?" said Nennaunir. "I'll have to be quick: I've got a friend waiting."
"Oh, twenty, I dare say," answered Sednil bitterly. "All in line." He turned to the girls. "Well, come on, then!"
By this time Maia, who had not been paying much attention to the talk, was as much agog as a child being taken to a treat. Smiling at the young man and taking his arm, she thanked Nennaunir warmly and then set off with him through the door, across an untidy, deserted kitchen and along a stone-floored passage.
"You're a friend of Nennaunir?" she asked conversationally.
"I used to be," said he.
"Before you came to the temple, you mean?" Maia was puzzled.
"How long did you get?" asked Occula from behind them.
"Five years. Oh, she's not a bad sort, I suppose. All the same, she knew the truth of it and never said a word. Oh, never mind! What's the use?"
Maia still felt none the wiser.
"You mean you're here against your will? Couldn't you-- well, run away or something? I mean, all these crowds of people from all over the empire--"
"Run away? Where d'you come from, lass? Look!" Sednil, pausing by a window on the staircase they were now climbing, stretched out one hand. Across the back extended a white scar, fully three inches broad, in the shape of a pair of crossed spears. In parts the flesh was proud, and in one place the wound had not entirely healed.
"M'm--so that's the forced service brand, is it?" said Occula, craning over Maia's shoulder. "I've never seen one before. Did it hurt?"
" 'Course it basting well hurt!" replied Sednil irritably. "What d'you think?"
"I don't understand," said Maia. "You mean it's--"
"If a man who's been branded like that can't show a token--either from whoever he's workin' for or else a 'released' token once his time's up--it's death straight away," said Occula. "That's why he doesn' run, banzi. He'd have to run to Zeray." She turned back to Sednil. "I didn' know they sent people like you to the temple. It's usually the Gelt mines, isn' it, or somewhere like that?"
"Yes, but Nennaunir persuaded one of the priests to ask for me, on a promise of good conduct. She's got friends everywhere, that girl--priests and all. I've seen one or two things while I've been here, I can tell you."
They had reached the top of the staircase and now Sednil, turning to the left, led them into a gallery which ran the length of the back of the temple. About thirty yards along this was a door set in the inner wall. As he opened it the girls could hear from below the murmur and movement of a crowd.
"Now, we've got to keep quiet," whispered Sednil, "and mind you do."
Maia followed him into what seemed for a moment to be darkness, the more so as he immediately closed the door behind them. Then, as she stood still in uncertainty, she became aware of light, its source, however, somewhere below them. Sednil, taking her hand, led her forward until she found herself looking down, from the rather alarming height of a roof-level balcony, into the interior of the Temple of Cran.
Fifty feet below lay a circular, tessellated pavement, some nine or ten yards across, slightly sunk below a surround of veined, gray marble. Immediately within this surround the tiles formed a border depicting a crested serpent with red, green and blue scales, which stretched entirely round the edge of the pavement until, at the eastern point, it grasped its own tail between its jaws. Round its body was twined an intricate design of vines, fruit and corn, the various motifs being repeated at regular intervals throughout the circle.
Within this again was a variant of the divine group represented on the inner sphere of the Tamarrik Gate.
Upon a ground of green malachite inlaid with colored blooms and with animals, birds and fishes, the golden-bearded figure of Cran stretched out its arms, whilst opposite, Airtha of the Diadem ex
tended hers towards him. Each of their hands rested upon the base of one corner of a rectangular marble slab, about two feet high, standing in the center of the pavement.
Maia was so much fascinated by the design and by the brilliant colors in the pavement--of which, of course, looking directly down from above, she had the best possible view--that it was some little time before she began to notice the less ornate central altar-slab and the figure lying upon it. When she did so, however, her first reaction was one of bewilderment and disappointment. Somnolence and passivity was not what she would have expected at the very core of the empire's worship. She had always imagined the god in his temple armed with lightning, majestic, vigilant and mighty to protect the empire. The reality was much unlike.
The low, marble slab was carved in the form of a couch resting upon scrolled clouds. Upon this lay a life-sized, bronze figure of Cran; but very different from that of the Tamarrik dial with its attendant circle of ecstatic nymphs. The god, his head and shoulders raised on marble pillows, was supine, in the posture of one asleep. Indeed, he plainly was asleep, for his eyelids were closed, giving him--since his body was unmoved by breathing--the appearance al-most of one dead. He was naked, and his flaccid zard, like any mortal man's, lay across the hollow of his thigh. Something about its appearance puzzled Maia, though from this height she could not quite make out what it might be: it was flexed, and seemed to be fashioned out of narrow, overlapping, cylindrical scales. But apart from this, she had never before seen the god represented without his attributes--crown, lightning and serpent torques. She would hardly have recognized him. The figure, in fact, displeased her. It seemed an unworthy, almost impious, representation, not at all god-like, inappropriate in its resemblance to mere humanity.
The three of them were standing, she now realized, near the top of an octagonal lantern tower, the whole of the interior of which was open to and visible from the floor of the temple. This was supported upon the lintels and square columns of a circular arcade surrounding the pavement below. At a height of about thirty feet, a narrow gallery ran round the lantern (their own standpoint was a mere box just below the roof), and below it were narrow windows admitting daylight to the floor of the temple below. This was augmented by eight branched candlesticks, each carrying some twenty or thirty candles, which had been placed round the edge of the pavement, one in front of each column.