Without the least appearance of haste or discomposure Fornis nevertheless moved very swiftly. She seemed not to run, yet Maia found herself running to keep up with her. When the noise broke out they had been some little way along the gallery, the supper-room lying between them and the stairhead.
Pausing an instant at the open door to call to Ashaktis and the two boys, "Stay where you are!", Fornis shut it and then, with a kind of rapid gliding, descended the stairs two at a time.
The staircase consisted of two short flights running one way and the other, with a small landing halfway down. As Fornis and Maia reached this and turned, they saw below them, at the foot of the stairs, a group of four or five house-slaves pointing and gabbling as they stared at something out of sight.
Becoming aware of the queen, they fell silent.
"Get out of the way!" said Fornis. Passing through them, she turned into the corridor, followed by Maia.
The little boy Barla was lying on his back on the floor. Beside him was his silver tray and the wreckage of the syllabubs and other delicacies which he had been carrying. He had stopped screaming, but was beating feebly with his hands at an enormous hound, which had him by the throat. Two youths were shouting at the hound and trying, quite ineffectively, to make it let go. One was holding a chain from which dangled a broken leather collar. The other kept repeating hysterically "It'll kill the boy! It'll kill him, for Cran's sake!"
Fornis, having paused a moment to take in the situation, went unhesitatingly up to the hound and seized it by the back of the neck. After a few moments, however, since it had no collar and she could not get a purchase, she let go and took up a stance astride it, facing its head. Then she bent forward, gripped its front legs and pulled it bodily upwards, her bare hands on either side of its jaws. Since the hound, however, did not release the child's throat, the upper part of his body was also lifted, his head hanging backwards and his long hair brushing the floor. Fornis, still holding the beast's legs and speaking to it in a low, firm voice, struck the side of its head two or three times with her elbow, whereupon it loosed its hold and the little boy fell back, to be instantly dragged clear by one of the youths.
"Chain!" said Fornis, holding out one hand and snapping her fingers without looking round. The other youth put the chain into her hand. Having secured one end round the dog's neck, she mutely held out the other to be taken from her. Then she straightened up and looked about her.
"Is the child much hurt?"
"No, Cran be praised, esta-saiyett," replied the first youth, who was holding the little boy in his arms.
"Nothing serious, as far as I can see. But it--"
"Then put him to bed. And as for you," she said, turning to the other youth, "what the hell do you suppose you were doing? You're in charge of the dog, aren't you?"
"Esta-saiyett, I was patrolling the house as usual with the dog on its chain. When it saw the little boy it turned savage. Those children very seldom leave the top floor, you see, so it doesn't know them. I did my best to hold it, but it broke its collar and got the child down."
"And why did it break its collar? Isn't that part of your business, to see that the collar's sound?" The youth made no reply and she slapped him hard across the face. "Why should I have to drag your damned dog off my page with my own hands? You'll get a good whipping for this. Well," she said, turning sharply round upon the watching house-slaves, "why are you all standing there like a pack of fools? Clear this mess up, and then get back where you belong! And where have you been?" she added, as Zuno appeared at the far end of the corridor, followed by a man wearing a leather coat and knee-boots.
"Esta-saiyett, I went to fetch the kennel-man."
"And a damned lot of use that would have been by this time!" said Fornis. With this she took Maia's arm and led her back up the staircase.
"You can come with me tomorrow and watch him whipped, if you like. This man I've got now does it really splendidly."
Maia, who was feeling a good deal shaken, made no reply. The queen turned towards her with shining eyes.
"Would you like to whip me? You would, wouldn't you?"
Without waiting for an answer she called through the door of the supper-room, "Shakti! Send the boys! We're going to bed!"
"You need them, do you, to see to the lamps and that?" asked Maia. "Only I can easy do that, and we can be alone."
"Oh, no, Maia," replied Fornis, putting her arm round her as they walked together down the moonlit gallery. "I don't need them for the lamps! They're going to stay with us all night."
The mynahs were moving and rustling outside the windows, uttering their liquid whistles in response to the first light. On cushions strewn upon the floor the little boys lay sleeping as only children sleep--with the appearance of having been absorbed into a higher state of existence, a better world where they abide perfect as summer leaves or pebbles in a clear brook. And a right old job it'd be to wake them and all, thought Maia enviously, recalling how often she had had to shake and pummel Kelsi and Nala out of bed in the mornings.
Fornis, sprawled beside her, stirred and muttered a few words in her sleep. "They'll never taste it, Shakti." She was no sort of sleeper, thought Maia; a kind of intruder or fugitive in that country which the little boys entered as of right. She had been in and out of sleep all night, dragging Maia behind her like a beast on a rope.
Ah, and some right old tricks they'd been up to an' all, thought Maia glumly; and none of them had really worked. To her it had been as though Fornis were seeking to satisfy hunger with hay, flowers, reeds--anything but food. Short though her amatory career had been, Maia could tell when mutual accord was present and when it was not. Some people, like Sencho, were incapable of it anyway and one therefore left it out of account when dealing with them. But Fornis, lacking it, was like a bird with an injured wing; flying lopsided for a spell; alighting perforce, yet almost at once impelled to try to fly once more. All this Maia knew well enough because she had felt it no less in herself. They just hadn't hit it off.
Her racking anxiety for Occula might have had something to do with it, but apart from that she knew that what Fornis wanted she, Maia, didn't like--to say the least--and was unable to give. It was a more than disappointing outlook for a girl in her situation.
Fornis rolled over, clutching at Maia in her sleep, but then started, as though frightened at finding another's body in her arms. She struggled a second and opened her eyes, staring into Maia's for some moments before recognizing her. Maia kissed her and stroked her shoulders.
"Is it morning?" asked Fomis.
"Just about."
"O Cran and Airtha! Did you sleep?"
Maia, shaking her head, could not suppress her chagrin. "You always that restless?"
Fornis smiled. "Some people I've slept with have said I chased them up and down the bed. I hate sleep, anyway: it's a waste of time."
She got up, naked as she was ("and she's all they say, no danger," thought Maia), walked across to the window, stepping over the sleeping children, and opened one of the shutters. The first light glinted on her hair and the creamy skin of her shoulders.
"You're right, it's dawn." She shivered a moment. "Chilly, too."
Once again Maia set herself, as convincingly as she could, to simulate eagerness and renewed appetite.
"Come back to bed, Folda." She opened her arms. "Come here and kiss me."
The queen blew out the lamp, lay down beside Maia and gazed into her face, cupping it between her hands.
"I took a fancy to you that night by the Barb because you're so pretty and beautifully made. I dare say there's not a prettier girl in the empire."
Maia, sensing more to come, made no reply.
"But now I'll tell you something, my child," said Fornis, "seeing that I've been at it for years. If two people like us fancy each other for their looks but aren't actually in love, it only works if they like the same things. You're as pretty as a lily in a pool, but you don't come with me, do you, to where I want to
go?"
Still Maia said nothing.
"Tickle, tickle," went on Fornis, "anyone can do that. The little boys can do it: but that's not what I wanted from you. The truth is, my nasty tastes Simply aren't yours, are they, however hard you try? In fact, they disgust you-- No!" (holding up a hand) "you needn't try to tell me they don't."
She flicked one of Maia's nipples with her fingernail, hard enough to hurt.
"I thought Sencho would have turned you into a real, depraved little beast. From what you said to me, I believe you yourself even thought he had. So let me tell you, dear, that whatever you may have thought, he hasn't. I am depraved and I know. You're not even cruel, are you? Cran only knows how or why, but you've remained naturally decent." (She uttered the word contemptuously.) "One day it'll catch up with you, I expect--if you live that long. You'll end up dull as a cow in a field."
Maia spoke at last. "I done my best, Folda."
"Oh, I know: but I'm talking about natural inclination-- and you haven't got it."
"Well, not for--" Maia hesitated. "No."
There was a pause. "As a rule," said Fornis at length, "when anyone's been with me like this, and I find they don't suit me, I get rid of them for good."
Maia turned cold: she felt her bowels loosen. "You've-- you've done that?"
"Oh, yes!" replied Fornis lightly. "It would never do, you see, to have people around who could repeat scandal about the Sacred Queen. So one way or another they have to disappear. That's part of the fun, actually. Now and then it might be Zeray, but sometimes even Zeray isn't far enough."
Maia clutched at her, sobbing. "Oh, esta-saiyett, please! I didn't mean--"
"Quiet!" said Fornis quickly. "You'll wake the boys. But I've decided not to put you out of the way, Maia, because of this plan that Kembri's got for you: and if you and he think I don't know what it's all about, you must be even bigger fools than I took you for. I agree with him that if only you can bring it off, it could be very valuable. In my opinion Bayub-Otal's a most dangerous man; and since he's taken this fancy to you--which is perfectly understandable--you're probably the only person who can bring it off. I hope you do."
"Oh, Folda--thank you--thank you! I'm. sorry--I'm ever so sorry I couldn't--"
"You think it's blasphemy, don't you?" flashed the queen suddenly, gripping her upper arms and digging her nails in so hard that Maia cried out.
"I never said so!"
"No, but you were thinking it. 'What am I doing, polluting the Sacred Queen?' That's what you were thinking."
Since the truth was that Maia had begun thinking exactly this from the moment when she realized that she and the queen were not sensually at one, she could find no reply. As she hesitated, the child Tikki stirred in his sleep, and this distracted Fornis, who turned her head to look at him.
It was at this instant that Maia was seized with a sudden, desperate inspiration. There was no time to consider it, the idea that had leapt into her mind. She knew only that it offered a chance to save Occula from torture.
"Folda, please don't be angry. You see, I can still do you a very good turn--better 'n what you can imagine. Now that I've been with you and realized what you like, I know someone who'd suit you right down to the ground-- someone as might 'a been made for you."
Fornis laughed. "Maia, you're simple, aren't you? I know you mean well, but even I can't reach out and help myself to other people's property just as I've a mind to. Some other girl you know in someone's house, is it? I can't go taking any slave-girl in the city. Apart from anything else, I have to be very discreet about my pleasures. That's why I have the little boys."
"I know all that, Folda: but as it happens, this girl's your own property. She's down in the temple of Cran at this minute. It's my friend, Occula. She never killed Sencho, I can promise you that. She didn't know anything about it. Did, she'd 'a told me."
"You mean the black girl who was with Sencho that night?"
"Yes, esta-saiyett. Occula--she's exactly what you want, believe me."
"How very interesting!" said Fornis. "What makes you so sure?"
"Because we was months together at Sencho's and I know what she likes: her tastes an' that."
"I see." Fornis paused. "Well--and yet you say she didn't kill him?"
"I know it, esta-saiyett."
"What a pity!" said Fornis unexpectedly. "Sencho'd lived too long. He wasn't useful to us anymore. Perhaps I killed him, did I?" She laughed again. "No, I didn't, as it happens; but I rather wish I had. Well, we'd better start thinking what we're going to do, hadn't we? I'll write to the chief priest under my personal seal, saying that I've decided after all that you're available to be used as Kembri wishes, but he's to send me Occula instead. Then Shakti can take you down to the temple this morning and bring Occula back with her." She paused. "But mind this, Maia, and make very sure you don't forget it! One word about last night to anyone at all, and that gorgeous body of yours will be hanging upside-down by the road for the flies to blow. Have you got that? Now let's go and bathe, and if that Deelguy girl hasn't got the water hot I'll have her whipped as well as the dog-boy."
42: A NIGHT JOURNEY
It was after midnight. Maia, who had been awake--how long? she wondered; well over an hour--was looking out from the temple of Cran over the still, moonlit city. The room where they had told her to sleep until it was time to set out was high up, under the cornice, and from its window she could see, across the roofs of the lower city and the great square of the Caravan Market, the dark shape of the Peacock Gate and the walls extending on either side of it.
To the right and beyond, a mile away on the Leopard Hill, rose the Barons' Palace, its slender towers soaring, in the moonlight, above the deep-shadowed outline of its north front. Remote and far-off it looked now; nothing to do with her anymore, the girl who had danced the senguela to the acclamation of Sarget's guests.
There was not a breath of wind. She looked down on the flat roofs tilting this way and that below her.
The shadows of their parapets cast hard, slanting lines and the moonlight picked out, here and there, a medley of objects; brick cisterns, pear-shaped water-jars, shrubs growing in pots, here a coil of rope, there a pallet-bed for use in the heat of summer. The moon, now risen high over Crandor, had dimmed Lespa's stars with a light, almost as bright as day.
Somewhere a dog was howling and from another direction, so far off that her ear caught it only intermittently, came a sound of music. Here and there a few lamps still burned in windows, but since she had begun her pensive, melancholy watch they had grown fewer and fewer, until now only two or three remained: watchers by the sick, perhaps, she thought; or lovers abed who preferred a dim light to darkness. It seemed much longer than an hour since the lamp-shutters of the clock towers, both of which she could see, had swung open to signal midnight. Surely they must be due to open again any moment now. There was not a soul in the streets below; the Kharjiz, Storks Hill and Masons Street all empty.
Only in the distant Caravan Market a few figures--porters or sweepers, perhaps--were moving slowly here and there; like autumn flies on a window-sill, she thought. How long now till someone came for her?
Her shoulder was hurting, as it had for hours past, and she could not bear to think what she must look like. Kembri and the chief priest, who had seen her again that morning to give her her detailed instructions, had assured her that she would not have to suffer a great deal to make it look as though she had been questioned. The temple guards, however, told off to see to the actual business, had taken a rather different view. They had not been as brutal as if she were a real prisoner, but Maia in all her life before had never been really knocked about or ill used, and the fear and shock had been almost worse than the pain. She had a black eye and a badly swollen lip, a four-inch burn across her right shoulder and livid bruises across her thighs and buttocks. The soiled white tunic--which Bayub-Otal might remember her to have been wearing in the gardens-had been brought down from the queen's house and she ha
d had to put it on again. Hair, fingernails, knees, feet-- all were filthy. Probably, she thought, the tracks of her tears showed plain down her grimy face.
The chief priest, cold and reserved (disappointed, perhaps, in his hopes), had refused to let her see Occula. Maia had half-expected as much, and on the way from the queen's house to the temple had begged Ashaktis to look after her friend and give her all the help she could. This Ashaktis had promised, though rather casually.
"That's if the queen likes her, of course," she had added; and Maia had judged it best to say no more.
What she now felt above all, leaning on the sill and looking out over the checkered, sleeping city--more than her injuries and dirt, more even than the danger into which she was going--was for loneliness. For the first time since the day when she had been carted by the slave-traders to Puhra, she had no friend to whom she could turn, no one to comfort or help her. The exploit on which they were sending her, she knew, was a pure gamble on Kembri's part. She was being thrown down like a die on a gaming-table. If the throw proved a loser, they would merely shrug their shoulders: she would be no great loss. If she won for them they would pocket the winnings, and for what they might award her in return she had nothing but Kembri's word, given as an inducement. Yet what else could she do but try to succeed? She could not hope to escape. Where to, anyway? She had no money and knew next to nothing of the empire, its various provinces and towns; while as for trying to get out of it on her own, she would not know how to begin. She could only go through with the adventure. If she succeeded she must, surely, end up better off.-Yet if only there had been a mate, a friend, someone to share the frightening, hazardous future!
There were fewer lights now. The dog howled on. In the nearer clock tower, a few hundred yards to her left, the shutters opened and the lamps beamed out for the hour, followed at once by those of the further tower half a mile away to the west. At this moment she heard footsteps outside the door and the latch was lifted.
"Maia? Ah! Waiting, were you?"