The opposite wall consisted of nothing more solid than decorative wooden tracery, through which lamplight was shining. From below rose sounds of talk and laughter and the clatter of plates and goblets.
Elvair-ka-Virrion, turning to her with a finger on his lips, led her across to the tracery wall.
Through this Maia, from a height of perhaps thirty feet, found herself looking down into the Lord General's dining-hall. It was less crowded than on the night of the Rains banquet, for Elvair-ka-Virrion had invited no more than sixty or seventy people altogether, men and girls. The serving-tables were spread with food--the mere sight of them, together with the smells of roast meat, vegetables, herbs and sauces, aroused Maia's appetite--and the flower-crowned guests were moving among them for slaves to fill their plates and goblets. Several men had already seated themselves at tables on the dais itself, while others, accompanied by their girls, had strolled further down the hall, forming casual groups. Maia could see Nennaunir, in a saffron robe and a necklace of what looked like real rubies, talking with two young men who were obviously competing for her favors. As she watched, one of them suddenly turned towards the other with a quick look of anger, whereupon Nennaunir burst out laughing, slapped his hand and held out her goblet for him to go and refill.
Elvair-ka-Virrion pointed towards the right-hand side of the dais. Here a little knot of five men were talking among themselves as they sat together round the end of one of the tables. All had long hair gathered behind their necks in the Urtan style, and wore daggers at their belts. In guests from any other part of the empire this last would have been regarded as an insult to their host, but among the Urtans wearing daggers at all times was a custom so obstinately retained that it had become tolerated, so that shearnas were sometimes asked jestingly whether they wore them in bed.
Although the group included no girls, they were plainly enjoying themselves, laughing and talking animatedly and sometimes turning their heads to call out to passers-by or guests at other tables. Suddenly Maia saw Occula (to whom Terebinthia had given a tunic made entirely of overlapping, scarlet feathers, which left her oiled limbs bare except for a pair of belled anklets and a serpentine brass torque on one arm) saunter across to where they were sitting and offer one of them--an older man who looked to be in his mid-thirties--a dripping rib of beef. As she bent and whispered something in his ear he laughed, whereupon she sat down on his knee and, with one arm around his neck, shared the meat with him, from time to time putting her hand on his to turn the bone for the next bite of her gleaming teeth.
Maia, eyebrows raised, turned inquiringly toward Elvair-ka-Virrion, but he shook his head, whispering, "No, that's Eud-Ecachlon, the heir of Urtah."
"Then which?"
"The man on his right; his half-brother."
Maia looked down once more. Beyond Occula's be-feathered, red shoulder she now observed a thin, dark man; rather tall, it seemed. Half a fowl was lying on the dish before him, and as she watched he put down the drumstick he had been gnawing and turned for a moment to speak to Occula. Maia, quick as always to form a first impression, thought she perceived in his manner a kind of detachment, almost distaste. As he looked at the black girl where she sat on Eud-Ecachlon's knee, his rather narrow, unsmiling face had an expression she could only describe to herself as haughty. A clever but humorless man, she thought: tense, highly-strung yet tenacious, not altogether at ease among his companions; for that matter not at ease, perhaps, in the world itself, yet determined to hold his own. He might be twenty-four or twenty-five, but the lamplight and the distance made it hard to judge.
As she watched him talking to Occula--the black girl leaning across to answer him, so that her necklace of teeth hung forward like a row of tiny, curved knives--she noticed something odd. The Urtan sitting on his further side-- a big, good-natured-looking fellow with a fair beard and gold earrings--leant across, took the fowl in one hand and proceeded to slice it with his knife. The dark man glanced towards him with a nod of thanks, then stuck the point of his knife into a piece of the cut-up meat, dipped it in the sauce beside his dish and ate it.
Elvair-ka-Virrion, his face dappled by the light shining through the tracery, again caught her eye, nodded and led her back into the corridor, closing the door silently behind them.
"You'll know him again?"
"Yes, my lord; who is he?"
"His name is Bayub-Otal: he's a natural son of the High Baron of Urtah."
"A natural son?"
"He might very well have had no standing in Urtah at all. He might have been sent away--brought up as a peasant--and no wrong would have been done either to his mother or himself. But she was a great beauty and a much-admired and very charming woman--to say the least. The High Baron loved her passionately--more than he loved his wife, for that was nothing but a political marriage between baronial families. Bayub-Otal's mother was a Suban dancing-girl. When she died--well, never mind how she died--the High Baron was heart-broken. That's why Bayub-Otal's always been treated as though he were a legitimate son. And if it had remained under Urtan dominion, he'd have stood to inherit Suba. He'd been promised Suba: that was what his father intended for him."
This last was of little interest to Maia: but what she had actually seen was.
"That other man--he was cutting up his meat for him?"
"Bayub-Otal has a withered hand. It was--injured, when he was a boy."
As they walked back down the corridor Maia was silent. At length she asked, "What--what sort of a man is he?"
"That I can't tell you, Maia: I've had very little to do with him. They say, though, that he's full of resentment and that he's no fool."
"And I'm to deceive him?"
Elvair-ka-Virrion stopped short and turned to face her.
"Who said that? Not I!"
Half-child as she was, she gave way to a touch of impatience.
"Reckon you did!"
"I did not. Maia, understand, you're simply to make him like you, talk to you, want to see you again--nothing more than that."
"But why, my lord? I mean, what for?"
"Never mind. Trust me, it'll all turn out very much to your advantage. Now I'm going to leave you. Wait here a minute or two, then go down this staircase and Sessendris--you know, my father's saiyett--will be waiting for you. Go in and have supper with the Urtans. Remember, I hardly know you--I've only seen you at Sencho's. Sail your boat well, pretty Maia! I'm sure you can. Thank you for my pleasure. It was much the best I've ever had in my life! I'm not going to spoil it by giving you a lygol, but believe me I'll do far more for you than that one day."
He kissed her unhurriedly, tilting her face between his hands, smiled and was gone.
Sessendris, seated in a cushioned recess opposite the foot of the staircase, looked up at her as she came down the stairs.
"You're becoming quite a regular visitor, Maia."
"Thank you, saiyett. Come to that, I'm beginning to feel quite at home."
She'd best start acting her part directly, she thought. For all that this woman was supposed to know, she had no reason to feel nervous. Rather, indeed, the reverse, for had she not just received a favor with which any slave-girl in Bekla would have been overjoyed?
Sessendris evidently felt this too, for she showed every intention of keeping on the right side of a girl who was so clearly on the way up.
"Is there anything you need before you go in? There's a nice, big mirror in that room over there; and you're welcome to use this comb, if you like--it's my own."
As they walked across the lobby together she went on rather archly, "Well, and which do you like best--the son or the father?"
Maia, turning her head for a moment to look her in the eye, gave her a smile which meant "You surely don't expect me to answer that?"
"No preference?" persisted Sessendris teasingly.
Maia tossed her head. "Spring's nice. So's summer, isn't it?"
The polished silver wall-plaque was, if anything, bigger than the one at the High C
ounselor's. She surveyed herself in it with no little satisfaction. She was wearing a dress of soft, fine wool--blue flecked green, with an open weave. The effect of the pale-green satin under-skirt was to make the wool above it appear of a different shade, lighter and greener than the bodice. Her only jewelry was a necklace of the creamy, dusky-streaked beads of semiprecious stone called eshcarz, which the Ortelgans dived for in the Telthearna and traded in Bekla, together with their rope and feathers.
Sessendris obligingly held a towel for Maia to dry her hands.
"I expect you're feeling pleased, aren't you? I wouldn't be surprised if you received some more favors tonight."
"I'll need to eat something first, saiyett," answered Maia.
"I'm that sharp-set, I'd say no to Shakkarn himself until I've had some supper."