"Yes, Zirek: I know him, my lord."
"Some little while ago the High Counselor sold one of his girls, named Meris, to the Lily Pool. You know that?"
"I knew she'd been sold, my lord, but not where she'd gone. We weren' told."
"That girl and the pedlar left the Lily Pool together a few days ago, before the spring festival. Since then they've not been seen. But you were the last person ta see them, weren't you?"
"If you're askin' me whether they were the ones who did the killin', my lord, I can' say one way or the other. It was dark and the attack was very swift and violent. I couldn' have recognized anyone, whether I knew them or not."
"No, you didn't need to, because you knew they'd be waiting there, didn't you? That was why you took the High Counselor there."
"No, my lord: I was well off in that household, as the saiyett Terebinthia will tell you. The High Counselor liked me: I had no reason to kill him. May I also respectfully point out that if I'd been an accomplice I might have been expected to have escaped with the killers?"
"Take her away!" said Kembri. "And bring in the Tonildan!"
The black girl, clearly still in pain from her wounds, limped out between the two soldiers in attendance.
"What do you make of that?" asked Kembri, turning to the governor as the door closed.
The governor, an elderly, shrewd man, hesitated.
"You're asking, of course, whether I think she knows more than she's telling us. It's tempting to conclude that she might, but it seems to me just as likely that she mightn't. After all, when she persuaded this woman in Thettit to send her up to Bekla, neither she nor anyone else could possibly have known that Sencho was going to buy her."
"No; but Lalloc may have thought that Sencho was likely to fancy her."
"Lalloc, Lord General? He'd be the last man to join in a plot. All the slave-traders are Leopards to a man: they know which side their bread's buttered."
"That's true," replied Kembri. "We can leave Lalloc out of it. But in fact I'm less interested in this girl's personal guilt or innocence than in how much she may know. Do you suppose she knows who was behind the killing and what they mean to do next?"
"She may very well have had some sort of hand in it and yet still know next to nothing," cut in the chief priest. "She could have been given instructions without knowing where they came from, let. alone anything about the people at the top. She'd better be tortured: that's the only way to make sure."
The door opened and the soldiers brought in the Tonildan girl. She was plainly terrified; staring wildly about her and scarcely able to put one foot before the other. Her long, fair hair hung in a dishevelled mass about her shoulders. Her face and hands were grimy and her eyes circled with dark rings.
Appearing thus, she looked even younger than her years--a mere child, devoid of all self-possession or power to dissemble. Kembri found himself thinking that if she was innocent he felt sorry for her.
"Bring up that bench," he said to one of the soldiers. "Let her sit down."
The girl half-fell onto the bench, breathing hard and staring out of her blue eyes like a trapped animal.
"You come from Tonilda, don't you?" said Kembri.
The girl nodded speechlessly.
"Did you know Occula before you came to Bekla?"
"No, my lord: we met on the way here. At Puhra, 'twas."
"I see," said Kembri. He leaned across the table. "Now, if you don't want to die, tell me who told you that the two of you were to take part in murdering the High Counselor."
At this the girl broke into a torrent of weeping.
"I never knew nothing about it, my lord! I wasn't nowhere near when it happened, even! I--"
The soldiers shook her and she became silent.
"We know that," said Kembri. "The truth is, you weren't where you should have been, were you? You were supposed to be attending on the High Counselor. You had no business to leave him--"
"But he'd sent me, my lord! He'd sent me, himself, to find an Urtan lady and tell her as he wanted to see her--"
"Yes, we know that, too. But after you'd found her and delivered your message you didn't go back to him, did you? Your job was to distract attention; to entice everyone you could to watch you in the water down at the other end of the garden. What happened when you went to look for the Urtan lady, and why didn't you go back to the High Counselor as soon as you'd found her?"
"First I happened to meet Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion, my lord, and he began talking to me, but I told him as I had this errand to do. And then, while I was on looking for the lady, I met Lord Bayub-Otal."
"Bayub-Otal?" said Kembri sharply. In all the turmoil of the last few days he had forgotten this girl's connection with Bayub-Otal---a suspect if ever there was one. Now it returned to him forcefully. "Well, and what did he say to you?"
"He said, my lord, as I needn't go on being a slave-girl if I didn't want. And then--"
"He said what?" asked Kembri. The chief priest, who had been conferring with the governor of Tonilda, looked up sharply.
"My lord, he said if ever I wanted to leave Bekla I'd only to tell him."
Kembri and the governor looked at each other.
"And what did you reply to that?" asked the governor.
"I said, my lord, that if he meant as he wanted to buy me, he'd better speak to the High Counselor, not to me: and then he was off, he just went away very sharp, like."
"To speak to the High Counselor, you mean?"
"I can't say, my lord. At the time I reckoned he must have, and I thought as that was likely to make the High Counselor mad at me. I mean, he might think I'd suggested the idea myself, like. So I reckoned I'd wait a little while 'fore I went back; only he was always in a better frame of mind after he'd been with a girl, you see."
"You mean, you thought you'd leave him to Occula?"
"Yes, my lord, I did think that."
"Well, and what then?" said the governor.
"So while I was waiting, Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion, he came up to me again, and asked was I a good swimmer."
"Why did he ask you that?"
"Well, his friends was all playing round the water, see? So I says yes, I was good, and then he said if I could swim so well I'd better show everyone. So I just done what he said." She paused; then burst out passionately, "It's true, my lord! He'll tell you himself!"
"You can leave that to us," said Kembri. "All right; take her away!"
When the soldiers had gone he said, "My son's already told me that it was he who put her up to the swimming game: but I wanted to hear what she had to say herself. Actually, I doubt she was deliberately trying to distract attention from the killing."