"Er--saiyett--I wonder whether I may perhaps--"
"Well," said Maia to Sednil, "that's what Nennaunir asked me to tell you! And to give you this, with her love."
Thereupon, very deliberately and taking her time, she took out a hundred-meld piece, pressed it into Sednil's hand, put her arms round his neck, kissed both his dirty cheeks and then walked slowly out of the temple.
"Oh, it makes me that wild!" she exclaimed to her soldier, Brero: but when he asked her what, she merely replied "Don't matter," and said no more.
It was during this return journey from the temple that she encountered Selperron and received his gift of flowers. When he first stopped her jekzha she thought, for a split second, that he was an assassin. She recovered herself instantly, but did not altogether forget the moment.
56: A SECRET VISIT
Lying awake before the birds began to sing, listening to the tiny sounds of darkness and feeling the now-familiar throbbing along her half-healed thigh, Maia considered her next step. Obviously, the chief priest must by now have learned that she had spoken with Sednil and what about. No doubt they had had the hundred meld off him too: that would not surprise her in the least.
The unnatural complexity and imponderable danger of her situation enraged as much as it frightened her.
Why should she be frustrated in a matter which was en
tirely innocent and natural? Surely to Cran it ought to be understandable--acceptable at face value--that she should want to know the whereabouts of her greatest friend? Yet evidently it was not; and she had now given the suspicious priests something to fasten on and wonder about. Why exactly might the Tonildan girl be so anxious to get in touch with Sencho's black concubine? Simply because she had been fond of her--well, that might perhaps be all there was to it, and then again it might not. Maia, they knew, had herself spent a night with the queen--after which the queen had immediately sent for Occula. She had no idea of the relations between Fornis and the chief priest. To what extent did they confide in each other? Were they united in distrust of Kembri, or did they fear each other? Did the chief priest know anything about Fornis's private pleasures? Would he tell Fornis that she had been inquiring about Occula? If so, what would Fornis do? These inconclusive reflections, in the half-darkness and solitude before dawn, were enough to frighten any girl.
But if she gave up searching for Occula, what self-respect could she have left? It was not only that she herself needed Occula and could not bear the thought of continuing her life without at least finding out what had happened to her. Occula, if she was still alive, might quite possibly stand in need of her help. At the very least she had a duty to the gods and to all the sacred obligations of friendship to discover whether Occula was still alive. But how?
Suddenly there came into her head the recollection of Zuno, bowing at the doorway of the queen's supper-room and finding himself confronted by the girl whom he had compelled to trudge seven miles from Naksh in the heat of the day. Zuno owed his present position to Occula, and if anyone in all Bekla had reason to know that the two of them were bosom friends, it was surely he. "You never know when he might not be able to do us a bit of good," Occula had said. It was like one of old Drigga's tales, she thought. All those weeks ago, in Sencho's house, Occula had, in effect, given her a key to keep and told her that one day she would come upon the door it would open. But Occula--why, yes, just like a tale!--had had no idea that it would turn out to be a door behind which she herself was imprisoned.
Maia, like virtually everyone in the Beklan Empire, thought naturally and unconsciously of the world as a kind of divine machine (rather like the Tamarrik Gate) working in conformity with fixed, recurring accordances, correlations and principles. Some of these were, of course, self-evident--as that unusually large flocks of crows presaged ill-fortune, or that conception was more likely when love was made under the full moon. Others, however, were riddling and enigmatic, their homeopathic connections hard to discern; in some cases impossible without personal revelation through the favor of a god. In the old tales--and they, of course, were plainly the revealed truth of the gods, or why else could they have held good age after age?--no deed or occurrence, however apparently casual or improbable of consequence, was without its unforeseen fruition, good or bad. These, old Drigga had explained, were often ironic jokes on the part of the gods at the expense of mortals who had not the common sense or humility to keep their eyes and ears open to divine tidings. Here, obviously, was a clear instance. The real reason why Occula had been prompted to get Zuno his place was that the gods had known that one day the deed would yield advantage. It followed that Occula must still be alive and that she, Maia, was fated to find her. Greatly comforted by her intelligent arrival at this perception, Maia fell asleep again; and later that morning, after breakfast and a bath, sent Jarvil down to the lower city with a message to the slave-dealer Lalloc that she wished to see him on business as soon as possible.
Whether or not Lalloc was in the city she had no idea. For all she knew, he might be anywhere from Herl to Kabin, buying stock or engaging fresh agents. Logically, however--that was, in accordance with the supernatural design perceived by her--he was bound to be on hand; and so it proved. The slave-dealer, dressed and be-jewelled in the florid style she remembered but now, many eventful months later, saw plainly (as she had not before) to be so tawdry and garish as to proclaim him the cheapest of imitation Leopards, presented himself in her parlor early that evening.
Maia, simply dressed in a gray Yeldashay metlan with crimson sandals and a gold chain at her neck, received him smilingly and with a careful avoidance of any condescension or superiority. The evening being warm and cloudless, she took him out to sit on the miniature terrace overlooking the Barb, where Ogma brought sweet wine, honey cakes and the little, sticky jellies called prions, which came up from Ikat. She had reckoned this sort of thing would probably be to Lalloc's taste and so it evidently proved, for he partook copiously, while giving every sign of feeling that much of the credit for her new standing was attributable to himself.
"Well," he said, after admiring the house and inquiring about her health in a manner so superficial and perfunctory that from any person of breeding it would have been insulting, "so you don't minding doing business, eh, with the man who once soil you?"
"Not in the least, U-Lalloc," answered Maia. "You've never done me any harm as I know of."
"Well, well," said Lalloc, rubbing his hands together so that the rings clicked on his fingers, "I nower harm any of my girls, thot's it. Nower treat anyone bad. Where's the sense; 'cos you nower know where they going to fonnish up, eh? Now you fonnish up queen of Bekla and we're still good friends, isn't it?"
"I'm not the queen of Bekla, U-Lalloc," said Maia quickly. "I'll thank you to remember that, and not use that kind of talk where I'm concerned, either here or anywhere else. I don't reckon as Queen Fornis'd like it, do you?"
"No, no, of course, jost my joke," replied the slave-dealer, putting his feet up on a stool and helping himself to another handful of prions. "But oil the same, now you're big, important lady--most important ower come from me, I toll you--"
Maia cut him short. "U-Lalloc, I need another good, reliable girl in the house--someone strong, but young enough to be ready to do what Ogma tells her; and I need a man as can help the porter, too."
"Ah, no trobble, saiyett. There's plonty coming in jost now, this time of year. Perhaps you like to comming down tomorrow, see as monny what you like. Or I bring one or two up here--whatever you like. How moch you want to spend, saiyett? Woll, I jost bring up the best, thot's it, eh?"
They talked on for a time, Maia half-serious and asking such questions as occurred to her; for after all, she might in all earnest enlarge her establishment--she could well afford it.
"Well, that's quite satisfactory, U-Lalloc," she said at length, standing up and leaning over the balustrade.
"I'll think it over--what you've told me--and let you know. I'm obliged to you for coming up here so promptly. By the way, how's that young man of yours as brought me and my friend up from Hirdo last year? Is he still with you?"
It would be better, she had decided, not to reveal to Lalloc that she knew what had become of Zuno.
The less that people--especially people like him--thought she knew about Fornis's household the better.
Lalloc began telling her effusively--again, one would have supposed that it reflected credit upon himself--about Zuno's advancement to the post of personal steward to the Sacred Queen, contriving to suggest that the position was that of a state official rather than a servant. Having let him talk on for a time she said, "Well, I'm sorry he's left your service, U-Lalloc, 'cause now things are going so well with me, I'd have liked to meet him again. He was--" it cost her an effort, but she got it out--"he was good to us on the way up to Bekla, and I'd have liked to give him a little token of esteem."
"Well, that's kind of dofficult, saiyett," replied Lalloc.
"The Sacred Queen--she keep her personal household very private, yoss, yoss."
"Still, I suppose you might sometimes have occasion to go there, U-Lalloc, on business--"
"Ollways when I'm going it's at night, saiyett--"
Yes, thought Maia, with those poor little boys, I'll bet. I wonder how many she's got through in seven years? She said casually, "Well, I s'pose at that rate you can go ther
e without anyone being all that much surprised to see you. So I could just go along with you and see Zuno, couldn't I? No one else need know it's me, of course, 'ceptin' Zuno himself."
Before he could answer she went on, "I'll have to leave you now, U-Lalloc, just for a minute or two: I'll be back directly. While I'm gone you can be having a look at this pretty little carved box. You'll appreciate the workmanship. It's from Sarkid, or so I was told."
She had put eight hundred meld in the box. Probably twice as much as she need have, she thought irritably, taking care to make plenty of noise over going upstairs and calling to Ogma. But hadn't Occula herself once advised, "Always bribe too much, banzi: the gaols are full of people who've offered too little."
The moment she came back to the terrace and before he could speak, she said "Please keep the box, U-Lalloc, as a gift from me. As to the other matter we were talking about, I'll meet you on the shore--just down there, see?-- tomorrow night, about an hour after sunset. No one will be able to recognize me, don't worry. I'm sorry I can't stay any longer now." And with this, turning away, she called, "Ogma, will you please show U-Lalloc to the gate and tell Jarvil to get him a jekzha?"
Cran and Airtha! she thought; what have I done? The chief priest knows I've been questioning Sednil; and now this man can say I bribed him to get into the queen's house and see Zuno. What if it all gets back to the queen? Ah, no, but it's fated, else the gods wouldn't have put Zuno there in the first place.
Come to think of it, it'd probably be a deal more dangerous to disregard a favor like that from the gods.
There was no moon and only the lightest of breezes stirred the surface of the Barb lapping against its grassy banks in the dark. The night was so still that Maia, pacing back and forth among the flowering shrubs and clumps of lilies, could hear the faint plashing of the Monju outfall, almost a furlong away beyond the trees. Already--or so it seemed--she had been waiting much longer than she had expected. Perhaps something had happened to prevent the slave-dealer from keeping their appointment? Well, but in that case would he not at least have let Ogma know as much?