Maia

  As they came on down the Sheldad, with its multi-col-ored shops and ornate, stylish buildings, the crowd on either side broke into jeering and brutal laughter. A trades-man, lifting the pole which he used for raising and lowering the pent-shutter of his shop, jabbed with it, over the shoulders of the soldiers, at the man who was trying to sing. Missiles showered upon the prisoners--garbage, broken pieces of wood, a stone or two, an old shoe, a dead rat. One who tripped and fell was pelted until the nearest soldier, with a kind of rough sympathy, pulled him to his feet and supported him for a few yards, so that his tormentors were obliged to desist. Over all the hubbub carried the sharp, intermittent voice of the tryzatt, looking over his shoulder and continually urging his men to keep the prisoners closed up and moving.

  Maia, cowering in the jekzha, felt as though trapped in a nightmare. It was all she could do not to get out and run away. This kind of cruelty was entirely foreign to anything in her nature. The whipping of Meris had been altogether different--for one thing, those whom she considered her superiors had been in deliberate control of it--from this unforeseen, frenetic, all-enveloping savagery.

  Intuitively she knew that these people were going to die. One had only to look at them: they could never come back from the place where they were. Some might well be close to death now: they looked it.

  Animals could not have suffered like this, for their owners, if only out of consideration for their own gain, would never have allowed animals to be treated half so badly.

  And then, suddenly, she caught her breath; mouth open, hands pressed either side of her chin, rigid with incredulous, unspeakable horror; with a shock even beyond screaming. For it was Tharrin out there in the road: Tharrin lurching, tottering, wild-eyed, a long streak of blood down one side of his face, dragging his feet in broken sandals, suddenly flinging up one arm and ducking away from nothing, from an anticipated missile that he had only imagined. For one long moment--as though to put her in no doubt--he turned his head and stared full at her, but with no more recognition than a crazed cat looking down from a burning roof. Never in her life had she seen so appalling a look on any human face. Even if it had not been Tharrin's, it would have been enough to put her beside herself.

  After a white--how long?--they were gone, followed by a rag-tag of urchins running behind, shouting with glee. The crowd broke up, the jekzha moved on. They were turning into the Caravan Market before the jekzha-man realized that Maia was sobbing hysterically.

  "Yes, nasty business, saiyett, ain't it?" he remarked paternally over his shoulder. "I don't go a lot on it meself. But you've no need to take on that way, y'know. They're all villains, the 'ole lot of 'em, else they wouldn't be there."

  "Where--where are they going?" she faltered, digging her nails into her palm and forcing herself to speak with something approaching self-control.

  "Oh, it'll be the Old Jail," he answered. "The one down in the Shilth."

  "Where's that?"

  "The Shilth? That's the butchers' quarter, saiyett, about halfway between here and the Sel-Dolad Tower. Roughish kind of neighb'r'ood, that is, 'specially at night."

  "Take me there, please."

  "What's that, saiyett? Did you say take you there?"

  "Yes, please."

  He stopped, looking back at her puzzled.

  "Now, you mean?"

  "Yes, please."

  He hesitated. "Saiyett, it's none of my business, but--"

  "Please do as I ask: or if you prefer, get me someone else. I realize I've kept you rather a long time already."

  She passed him down ten meld, at which he nodded, shrugged and turned back into the Sheldad.

  During the next twenty minutes the facade which presented to the city the buoyant, resourceful and heroic Serrelinda crumbled, exposing a shocked and panic-stricken girl of sixteen, as devoid of worldly-wisdom as of dissimulation. Yet though she sat trembling and weeping in the jekzha, never for a moment did it occur to Maia to go home and concern herself no further with the condemned wreck who had once been her lover. On the contrary, by the time they had turned off the Sheldad and begun picking their way uphill through the fetid, fly-buzzing lanes of the Shilth, Maia had in effect been stripped of every coherent thought save her determination first to see Tharrin and then to do everything in her power to save him.

  Outside the walls of the jail--a dirty, ill-repaired but nonetheless very solid group of buildings, once a shambles, enlarged and converted some years before to meet the Leopards' need for another prison--she paid off the jekzha-man and told the gatekeeper that she wished to see the governor. The gatekeeper, an aging man with con-junctive, mucous eyes, did not trouble himself to look directly at her while telling her that it was out of the question. She repeated her request peremptorily.

  "Come on, now, lovey, run away," he said, scratching himself and breathing garlic over her. "It's no good, you know--you'd never be able to pin it on him, anyway. Do you know how many girls have come here trying, eh?"

  Maia lowered her veil and threw back the hood of her cloak.

  "I've no time to waste, and I'll be damned if I'm going to bribe you a meld! I'm Maia Serrelinda, from the upper city, and if you don't take me to the governor at once, I'll see to it that the Lord General himself learns that you refused to do as I asked."

  He stared at her, a stupid man taken aback, resentful but slow to react.

  "You say you're the Serrelinda--her as swum the river?"

  "Yes, I am. And don't have the impertinence to ask me why I'm here: that's no business of yours. Are you going to do as I say, or not?"

  "Well," he muttered. "Well. Just that it's awkward, that's all." He seemed to be trying to weigh up which would be worse for him--to refuse her or to risk the governor's displeasure. At all events this was what his next question suggested.

  "You can't--well--tell me what it's about, saiyett?"

  "Certainly. I wish to see a prisoner."

  His face cleared. "Oh, you didn't say. If it's n'more'n that--" She waited. "Only he's busy with the prisoners himself, saiyett, y'see. Don't know what he'll say. Still, I'll take you--"He turned away and she, following, stepped through the postern door to one side of the barred gate, which was promptly closed behind her.

  He was striding ahead across the yard, swinging a stick in one hand, but she--to some extent brought to herself by her annoyance--retained enough self-possession not to hurry after him, so that after a little he was obliged to wait until she came up with him at her own pace.

  The governor was a big, fleshy man with silver earrings and a beard dyed chestnut. He, too, evidently supposed at first that her errand must lie at his own door, for he began "Well, my dear, but you shouldn't have come here, you know." He drew up a rickety bench for her beside the table in a little, bare room looking out on an equally bare and dismal courtyard. It was twilight now and turning slightly chilly. Seeing him grope and fumble once or twice to close the window, she realized that his sight must be poor. Yet really so poor, she wondered, that he could not tell whether or not he had ever seen her before?

  "We have never met," she said coldly. "I am Maia Serrelinda, a personal friend of the Lord General Kembri B'sai."

  Instantly he had taken his cue, bowing and leering.

  "Friend of the Lord General? Oh, friend of the city, saiyett, friend of the empire! And let me assure you, you have a friend in me, too, if I'm not presuming. To what-- er--to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

  Maia, not unnaturally, could tell a lecher when she saw one, and realized with a touch of relief that this part of her task at least was going to be relatively easy.

  "Sir, I want to see--"

  "Ob--Pokada, saiyett, Pokada's my name; that's if you care to use it, of course."

  "U-Pokada, I need to talk to one of the prisoners who were brought in from Tonilda a little while ago."

  His face fell. "Oh. I see. Well, naturally, saiyett, I'd always prefer to oblige a beautiful lady like yourself if I could. If only it had been someone
who's here for theft or frauds--that sort of thing, you know. But political prisoners: no one's ever allowed to see political prisoners. That's a strict rule."

  She got up and stood beside him, pretending to be weighing her words, letting her body's scent steal over him and slowly drawing through her fingers the silk kerchief she carried at her wrist. After a little she murmured, "Well, I suppose--I suppose no one need know, U-Pokada. I mean, only you and me; I shan't tell anyone."

  He hesitated. "Well, saiyett--"

  In, a few minutes he had talked himself into promising that he would see what he could do tomorrow.

  "No, it must be now, U-Pokada: I want to see him now, and then I'll go away and no one else will know at all."

  It was getting dark in the room. He went to the door and called for lamps, continuing to look down the passage until they were brought by a disheveled old woman whose head jerked with a continual tic.

  When she had gone he came back and laid a hand on Maia's wrist, slightly clenching his fingers as he did so.

  "Saiyett, it's risky. I oughtn't to do this; but you know-- well, 'Beauty's a key to unlock every door'. "

  He hummed a moment, delighted with himself for having hit on so apt a phrase. The line came from a popular tavern song of the day.

  "Is it a man?" She nodded. "His name?"

  "Tharrin. From near Meerzat, in Tonilda."

  "Your friend? A lucky--oh, well" (he laughed) "he would be a lucky man if only he wasn't here, eh? But you've made me a lucky man, saiyett. Oh, yes, indeed!"

  At the door he stopped. "I have to ask: you haven't brought him poison?"

  She looked up in amazement, wondering whether she had heard aright. "Poison?"

  He nodded.

  "Brought him poison? Why ever should you think that?"

  "Well, sometimes, you know, saiyett, prisoners--especially political prisoners--want to die quickly, and their friends want to help them. I have to see that doesn't hap-pen."

  She had heard tell of such things, but to find herself dealing with them in all earnest made her feel still more strange and bemused. She tried to collect her thoughts. The man needed convincing: the most convincing thing, it seemed to her, would be the truth.

  "U-Pokada, I mean to get this man released. I have influence. That won't harm you, will it?"

  "Harm me? Oh---no, saiyett, not in the least." He paused, apparently searching for something more emphatic. "No, no, I should be glad! Whatever would please you would please me. Wait here, I beg you, and be patient. I don't know the man, you understand, but I'll find him."

  Alone, she waited in the empty room for what seemed a long time. It grew quite dark outside. She thought of Luma, sitting lethargic for hour after hour on the kilyett as it drifted down the Nordesh. She herself could not sit still, now pacing up and down, now opening the window and leaning out to pick fragments off the grimy creeper below the sill. Surely by now the man had had long enough to find anyone in the prison? Could he have betrayed her-- sent a messenger, perhaps, to the chief priest?

  Should she go now, quickly? Yet if he had in fact betrayed her, to run away would avail her nothing.

  The door opened behind her and she turned, but could not see clearly across the bright patch of light from the two lamps standing on the table between. As she came back to the bench the door closed and then she heard the lock click. Tharrin was standing before her, shivering in the stuffy room, not raising his eyes from the floor.

  She had forethought that he was bound to look bad at close quarters; but not that he would smell worse than any animal (animals groom themselves), that the rims of his eyes would be crusted, his beard matted with old crumbs and dried spittle and that he would mutter and shake ceaselessly, cringing and wringing his hands like an old beggar.

  "Tharrin," she said timidly--for it seemed almost as though she were interrupting some horrible dialogue between unseen beings--"Tharrin, it's Maia."

  He made no answer and she put a hand on his wrist. "It's Maia, Tharrin."

  Now he looked up, peering with half-closed eyes, as though through some kind of haze or distance between them.

  "Maia? Oil--I remember." He seemed about to say more, but then suddenly began to cry, or rather to whimper, dry-eyed and cowering, shaking his head and hunching his shoulders as though standing out in heavy rain.

  "Tharrin--oh, poor Tharrin--listen to me! You must listen to me, you must trust me! I'm going to help you; believe me, I'm going to get you out of here, Tharrin. But I can't do it unless you'll talk to me. There's things I've got to know. Come on, sit down here and talk to me."

  As she pulled him gently by the arm he suddenly screamed, but so weak and puny a sound that it would scarcely have startled a bird. Drawing him down beside her on the bench, she could feel his ribs and backbone under his tattered robe. She recognized the robe. It was the one he had been wearing when they parted on the quay at Meerzat.

  "Tharrin, dear, listen to me. I know just how you feel, because I've been through it, too. But I can help you: I've got money and influence: I'm a friend of powerful people; I'll save you. But to do that, I've got to know what's happened. Tell me what they say you've done."

  "Sencho," he muttered after some moments. "Sencho was too clever for us, wasn't he?"

  "Sencho's dead, dear: weeks and weeks ago." She wondered whether Pokada might be eavesdropping.

  "Yes, of course," he said. He looked up at her piteously. "They're going to torture us, Maia: you can't know what it's like to wake and sleep day after day with the thought of that. People--people went mad coming up from Thettit. Made no difference: they're here just the same. Every day you wake up you remember--" He rocked himself backwards and forwards on the bench. She could see the lice crawling in his hair.

  "Listen, Tharrin. Do you realize that I've become fa-mous and rich? If I ask to talk to the Lord General, he'll see me; very likely the High Baron himself would see me. Do you know that?"

  He nodded listlessly. "Oh, yes, I'd--I'd heard. 'Maia swam the river.' I knew it must be you." Then, with no change of tone, "The bread's all green and moldy, you know."

  She realized that after many days of ill-treatment and fear he had in all actuality become incapable of sustained thought--that his mind must spend all its waking time in virtually ceaseless flight from what it could not endure to apprehend. She wondered what his dreams could be like. Yet she would not allow herself to weep: this was no time for weeping.

  "You were working secretly for the heldril in Tonilda, weren't you? Isn't that right?"

  A nod. She took his hand in hers.

  "That's where all that money used to come from? The money you used to give Morca? The money you spent on me?"

  Another nod. "I never thought--" he whispered.

  "You took messages to Thettit? And to Enka-Mordet and people like that? And you brought messages back, did you?"

  "Money for us at home. More money than I could have got any other way." He paused. Then, "Can't you kill me, Maia? Haven't you got a knife or something?"

  "No, dear, no such thing. I'm going to get you out of here safe, I promise you." She forced herself to kiss his cheek. "Ipromise! Now listen to me, Tharrin, because this is very important. I'm going to speak to some of my powerful friends, and p'raps they'll want to see you; I don't know. If we're going to save you--and we are--you've got to pull yourself together and get ready to put on a good appearance. Now I'm going to call in that head jailer or whatever he calls himself, and pay him to see you get everything you need. A bath and some clean clothes and proper food, and a comfortable bed. I'll bet he can fix all that if he wants to, and I'm going to see to it as he does want to. But you've got to trust me, Tharrin. You've got to be your own best friend. Come on, now, it's not too late to pull yourself together. This is Maia, your golden fish in the net; remember?"

  "Yes, I remember. But I--I let you go. The slave-traders; I never even tried--"

  "Never mind, dear. No need to talk about that now. You just stand up and try t
o look as manly and strong as you can, because I'm going to call him in and tell him what we need. You cheer up, now. Everything's going to be all right."

  She had about three hundred meld with her. It was not a very great deal, but it would do for a start and she could promise more. She went to the door, rapped firmly on it and called "U-Pokada!"

  60: PILLAR TO POST

  It was not easy, even for the Serrelinda, to get hold of the Lord General at so busy and troublous a time.

  He was not at his house the following morning, though she arrived there so early that the steward--as she could perceive-- was embarrassed, his slaves being still at work in the reception rooms and the place not yet ready to receive callers and petitioners. Both the Lord General, he told her, and the young Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion were already gone to the Barons' Palace; he understood that later in the morning they meant to go down to the lower city to review the troops leaving for Thettit tomorrow. The lady Milvushina, however, was upstairs in Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion's rooms. Should he tell her the saiyett had come?

  It had not previously crossed Maia's mind to tell Milvushina of her trouble. Thinking quickly--the man in his scarlet uniform standing deferentially before her--she realized that she had no great wish to do so.

  No great wish? She hesitated. What did she mean in thus replying to herself?

  Milvushina had gone out of her way to show herself a friend; to speak of herself and her situation without reserve; to make common cause with Maia, warn her, talk of her own anxieties and expectations. If Maia were to tell her now of Tharrin she would--oh, yes, certainly she would--show every sympathy and probably even promise to put in a word. She would be all benevolence. Yet in her mind would arise, unexpressed, a picture of the grubby little peasant girl tumbled on the shore by her mother's fancy man. In a word, it wasn't what Milvushina would say, but what she wouldn't say, which made Maia reluctant to tell her her trouble or ask for her advice. Often, although we may not be ashamed in our own hearts--may even be proud or glad--of something we have done, because by our own standards it was genuinely good--good, if you like, to ourselves and to the gods, who understand everything--yet nevertheless we still feel troubled by the idea of it becoming known to someone else whom we feel to be inflexibly different in outlook from ourselves. "Oh-- she just wouldn't understand." "So you're ashamed?" asks an inward voice. No, no, inward voice; don't be so simplistic. Do you think there is only one color in the spectrum; or that some animal is universally "unclean" because one out of the world's countless religions has always maintained so? It is, rather, just that her values are not ours; that's all.