"She put on the breeches and stuck a short spear in her belt and then she was up the tree like a squirrel. She'd gone something like thirty feet before any of them really understood she meant to do it. After that they just stood and watched like folk round a burning house. Khumba kept saying 'O Lespa, make her come down! O Shakkarn, what am I going to say to her uncles when she's dead? They'll hang me upside-down!' I admit I was praying my-self. It would have frightened anyone to see her.
"She got up to the nest she'd had her eye on--must have been all of eighty feet, and the upper, branches swaying under her like grass in the wind. Both the herons went for her. She killed them with her spear, and after that she wrung the necks of five young ones and carried them down-- she couldn't throw them down, you see, what with all the twigs and brush below her. 'There!' she says to the Suban boy. 'And I've a good mind to make you eat one raw. The next time I tell you to do something, you damned well do it, d'you see?' He never answered a word; and he never came out with us again. But there were plenty more who were only too glad to, for the story got around, you see; and she always paid well. I don't believe there was anyone else in the empire, man or woman, who'd have climbed that tree. Bat that was nothing at all, if only we'd known what was to come."
"And you say she's got a use for me?" asked Maia, with considerable apprehension. "Only if it's along of the swimming--"
Ashaktis burst out laughing. "The swimming? Are you ready to come out now? I'll rub you down."
Maia did so, dried her face and stretched out on the couch while Ashaktis toweled her.
"What's the Sacred Queen's vocation?" asked Ashaktis after a little. "Do you know?"
"Why, she's the bride of Cran," said Maia. "She's Airtha in human form, isn't she, as makes the crops grow and the babies come?"
"Yes, that's quite right. The Sacred Queen doesn't have to be a virgin--there's never been any fixed law about that. Occasionally in the past she's been a married woman or even a shearna. It's entirely a matter of popular acclaim--or it's supposed to be. But all the same, Miss Fornis has always taken good care that in spite of all her wild ways, no one's ever been able to link any man's name with hers. That adds very much to her real power, of course."
"I see," said Maia, shuddering deliciously as Ashaktis's strong fingers massaged the muscles along her shoulders.
"But she's still flesh and blood, for all that, isn't she?"
"Flesh and blood? Well, yes, I s'pose so, kind of."
"She gets to learn a lot about almost everyone in the upper city," went on Ashaktis. "She knew a lot about Sencho, for instance. You were quite a favorite with him, weren't you? You were very good at doing what he liked-- you used to put your heart into it?"
Maia felt nattered. She did not know that she had acquired so wide a reputation.
"Well, 'twasn't all that difficult; not really."
"You mean because you enjoyed it yourself?"
"Well, yes, I s'pose so. Only he'd send for me and no one else, see? And then he used to get that worked up sometimes, it made me feel--well, made me feel I was good at it."
"Well, the Sacred Queen feels you probably are, too."
Maia, rolling over on the couch, stared up at her.
"She really takes an interest in nice, spirited girls," went on Ashaktis. "Of course, some of us aren't as young as we were--that can't be helped. But I don't bear you any grudge, I assure you. All you've got to do is show her your talents--just as you did with Sencho."
Maia was about to reply when suddenly her earlier thoughts returned to her mind with force.
"Oh, saiyett--Ashaktis--there's something you've got to do for me! Please! Only it's terribly important. Do you know U-Sarget? He's a rich man in the upper city. You must know him! I've got to get a message to him--about my friend Occula!"
"Now just calm yourself, child," said Ashaktis, putting her hands on Maia's shoulders. "You obviously haven't grasped what I've been telling you. Do you realize that by tomorrow morning you'll probably be able to ask favors of the queen herself?"
Before Maia could answer, the Deelguy bath-slave drew aside the door-curtains and, palm to forehead, announced "Saiyett, the Sacred Queen!"
Maia, looking frantically round for something to put on, could find only the towels on which she was lying; and with these she was still fumbling as Fornis entered the bathroom. It did not occur to her that some few days before she had stood naked beside the queen on the shore of the Barb.
On this occasion, however, Queen Fornis was less alarming. Indeed, not only her appearance but her whole manner was altogether different. There was nothing in the least imperious or daunting in the way she came up to Maia, took her by the hand and, smiling, drew her down to sit beside her on the couch.
Her hair, now gathered behind her head, like any village girl's, with a plain green ribbon, fell nearly to her waist, flaring out on either side almost like a cloak. She wore no jewels, the lacquer was gone from her nails and she was barefooted. Her thin, white surcoat, belted with a green cord and buttoning down the front, was stitched from neck to hem with a pattern of flying dragons in minute, brilliantly-colored beads.
Neither the material itself nor the beads were of any great value. All lay in the workmanship, which must have taken months to complete.
"Well, Maia," she said, smiling and speaking as to a guest, "you're looking much better now; and feeling better, too, I hope. Has Ashaktis been looking after you properly? I always seem to meet you when you've been in the water, don't I? I didn't think that tunic thing you've been wearing was going to be much more use, so I've brought you a new robe. Are you ready to put it on?" Pulling aside the towel, she rubbed her hand up and down Maia's back from neck to thighs. "Oh, yes, you're quite dry enough. And you must be starving for some supper. As soon as you're ready we'll go and eat."
Thereupon she clapped her hands and two chubby little boys, about nine or ten years old, came in through the curtains, carrying between them a plain but very soft and finely-woven woolen robe of pale blue. Both children were exceptionally beautiful, with long hair falling over their bare shoulders, white, even teeth and the fair skin and blue eyes of Yeldashay. On their heads were crowns of scented, white tiare blossom, but otherwise they were naked.
"Aren't they lovely?" said the queen, as the two children, without a trace of self-consciousness, stood beside Maia and held up the robe for her to put on. "I only bought them a few weeks ago, but they're learning well. What is it you need--" seeing Maia glancing round the room--"a comb?"
"Well, yes, esta-saiyett--er--that's to say, if it's no trouble," faltered Maia.
"I'll do it for you, if you like," said the Queen, taking a heavy, carved comb which one of the little boys, without being told, at once brought to her from the shelved recess. "What beautiful hair! Is it your father's or your mother's?"
Maia, who was beginning to feel more relaxed, laughed. "Don't know, really, esta-saiyett. Reckon it's mine!"
"You needn't call me 'esta-saiyett' now," said Fornis, stroking her hair as she combed it. "What am I called, Shakti?"
Ashaktis smiled. "Folda. But Maia won't know what that means."
"What does it mean, Maia; do you know?"
"No, I don't, esta-sai--I mean, Folda."
"It's old Urtan for a hunting-knife. But your hair," she went on, working out a wet tangle with the comb.
"You mean you've never had to curl it; not even with all that swimming in Lake Serrelind?"
"But did I ever tell you about swimming in the lake?" said Maia, confused. She looked up into the green eyes and, as the queen's lips, prompting her, pouted to shape the word, added "Folda."
"No, you didn't," replied the queen, "but you told me you came from Serrelind, and where else would you have learned to dive and swim like that? Tikki, my sweetheart," she called to one of the little boys, "where are the nuts?" In an instant the child was beside them, offering a silver basin of serrardoes mixed with flakes of a gingery spice.
Form's, puttin
g one arm round him, nibbled his bare neck and shoulders. "M'mm! Keep still!" Then again to Maia, "Tell me about Lake Serrelind! I've never been in Tonilda, you know."