"Whatever's the matter?" Fornis, peering in the mirror while with one finger she rubbed the rouge in just below her eye, spoke with an air of slightly irritated surprise.
"I beg you--please spare that girl, esta-saiyett, as--as a favor to me. I don't know what she's done, but--"
"My dear Maia, neither do I: I haven't the faintest idea. That's a kitchen-maid, or something of the kind, I believe."
"But I knew her once, esta-saiyett: that's why I'm asking."
"Knew her?" Fornis, frowning, looked perplexed to the point of annoyance, as though Maia had used some inappropriate or unintelligible word.
"Yes, esta-saiyett; when I was a slave, I knew her."
"Oh, when you were a slave. I see!" She raised her voice slightly. "Shakti, Maia wants you to let that girl go; apparently she used to know her when she was a slave. Just send her back wherever she came from, will you?"
At that moment Maia felt certain that either Ashaktis or Fornis herself had known--probably the poor girl had boasted about it in the kitchens--of her own acquaintance with Chia, and that the beating had been deliberately arranged as soon as Fornis had learned that Maia was downstairs and asking to see her.
As Ashaktis pulled the girl to her feet, threw her clothes round her and nodded to the young man to drag her out of the room, Fornis turned back to the dressing-table and began polishing her nails with a strip of bone bound in soft leather. Maia waited for her to speak, but she said nothing and after a minute or two laid the bone aside, stood up, opened a wardrobe and began looking through the gowns hanging there.
I'm the Serrelinda, thought Maia: I'm the Serrelinda. If I could swim the Valderra-- Yet in her heart she knew that such thoughts had no real validity. If Fornis wanted the Valderra swum, she would simply order two people to go and do it; and if they drowned, two more.
"Esta-saiyett," she said, "I've come to ask you--to talk to you, if you'll very kindly hear me, about a man called Tharrin."
"A man called Tharrin?" said Fornis, looking up sharply as though Maia had discourteously interrupted her. She paused. "I think you mean a man called Sednil, don't you?"
Maia, momentarily startled and discomposed, hesitated. The green eyes rested upon her with a cool yet expectant stare.
"No, esta-saiyett," said Maia, keeping her voice steady with an effort. "Tharrin's a Tonildan political prisoner, and I'm told by the Lord General as he's one that's your property. He happens to be my stepfather--my mother's husband--and I've come to beg you to be so good as to-- to enter into my natural feelings, like, and let me buy him from you. You'd be doing me and my mother and sisters the greatest kindness."
"Did you have a pleasant talk with the chief priest the other day?" asked Fornis rather absently, taking a gown out of the closet and holding it up against her body as Ashaktis came back into the room.
"Yes, thank you, esta-saiyett." She did not know what else to say.
"You've been quick enough to come here this morning. It didn't occur to you before to come and ask me about your friend Occula, rather than the chief priest?"
"No, esta-saiyett: well, only I didn't feel it would be right to presume on our earlier acquaintance in that way. I reckoned as you might not like it."
"I see. But you don't feel that now, over this--this-- Tharrin?"
"Yes, I do feel it, esta-saiyett, very much. I've been afraid to come, 'cos I didn't want to displease you. Only he's my stepfather, see, and I owe him a lot, and the Lord General told me as there wasn't any other way 'ceptin' to ask you."
Fornis beckoned to Ashaktis to help her on with the gown. Maia stood unspeaking. After a time the Sacred Queen shook out her skirt and then sat down for Ashaktis, kneeling before her, to put on her sandals.
"I suppose you know, don't you," she said, without looking at Maia; "perhaps your friend Sednil, or somebody like that, will have told you, what sort of prisoners are normally allocated to the Sacred Queen and why?"
"No, esta-saiyett." Her voice came in a frightened whisper.
"Those who are known to have been so basely treacherous and criminal that they can't decently be sold into slavery are allotted to the temple for sacrifice. There are eight such prisoners in the group brought in yesterday-- seven men and a woman. Naturally I don't know their names, but with your wide acquaintance among those sort of people I expect you do."
"No, esta-saiyett. All I know is as the Lord General told me that Tharrin was--was out of his hands, 'cos he belonged to you."
There was another long pause while Fornis took off the sandals, tried on another pair and then began washing her hands in a basin held by Ashaktis.
"What extraordinary company you seem to keep, Maia," she said at length. "Kitchen-slaves, lower city shearna's pimps--I don't know. But of course if your stepfather's a criminal and a traitor, I dare say that accounts for it."
In spite of her terror, it occurred to Maia that she might very well have replied that the queen herself was among those who had sought her company. She said nothing.
"Well, so you want to buy this--person," said Fornis. "However, it's from the temple, not from me, that you'll have to buy him, as I've explained. And we don't drive bargains with the Lord Cran, do we?"
"I'm only asking to pay a fair price, esta-saiyett. I'm not suggesting bargaining."
"I see. And what would be a fair price, do you think?"
"I don't know, esta-saiyett."
"Neither do I, for no one has ever had the temerity to make such a request before. I shall have to think it over carefully: you may come back in three hours' time."
Maia knew that the queen was hoping she would lose her self-possession and plead for an immediate reply-- perhaps weep. She raised her palm to her forehead and left the room.
Zuno was standing at the foot of the lower staircase. As they were crossing the hall side by side he murmured al-most inaudibly, "What is it that you came to ask her?"
She hesitated, and he added, "You can trust me, I assure you."
"My stepfather--from Tonilda--he's a prisoner--one of the lot that's to die, so she said. I came to ask her to let me buy him."
They were close to a little alcove at the further end of the hall, near the door by which she had entered.
Zuno, looking quickly round, drew her into it and stood facing her.
"What did she answer?"
His manner startled her. This was a new Zuno, his customary air of supercilious detachment set aside, a man dealing with her directly and speaking to a fellow-being.
"She says she'll think it over. I'm to come back in three hours."
"You couldn't--er--forget about it, I suppose?"
She shook her head. "Couldn' do that, no."
"You owe your stepfather a lot?"
"Whatever he's done, I can't just stand by and let that happen to him."