22: THE RAINS BANQUET

In the midst of the dry, tawny plain Bekla, at the foot of Crandof's slope, lay like a tilted stone on the bed of a pool. For weeks the pool had been land-locked; the air inert, unstirring, so that no flow (one might imagine), even the most sluggish, could take place above its towers or across the long walls.

Sometimes, indeed, it seemed to move a little, back and forth, with a turgid languor caused by no wind; perhaps by the jostling of sweating bodies or the babel of voices, just as still water round a stone might momentarily be troubled, before settling once more, by the passing of some weary, trapped fish.

Beyond the city, harvest was ended and summer hung dry and empty as a husk. The little herd-boys lay in the shade, paying no heed to cattle too listless to stray from the banks of shrunken rivers where the baked mud could afford them no relief. The work of the world was to wait for rain, and weary work it was—heavier even than the thundery cloud-banks piling up, day after day, above the Tonildan mountains a hundred miles to the east.

Slowly, as though their mass were too great for even the gods to move without exertion, these clouds began to advance westward above the plain; and below them went a mist white as wool, creeping through the treetops of the Tonildan forest, moving silently on across the expanse of Lake Serrelind, thickening among the hovels of Puhra and Hirdo. And behind the mist, at first indistinguishable from it, came rain; a rain that joined the mist to the clouds, so that everything—villages, roads, huts in fields, boats on rivers—was isolated first by mist, then by rain, and at last by mud. Yet villagers, travelers, farmers, fishermen—all were prepared, forewarned by the fleecy mist, its approach visible for miles as it billowed up and over the low saddles between the ridges of the plain and flowed down to fill the hollows below.

This isolation was relief, deliverance at last from the arid remnant of summer, a warrant to sit idle and cool under a roof while outside, far and wide, further than the eye could see, the gods went about their share of the world's work so that in time man might return to plow, sow and graze cattle once more.

The rain, advancing out of the mist, fell with a quiet hissing upon dried grass, trees and dusty roads. At last the soft, slow wind which bore it reached and flowed over Bekla itself, spilling currents of cool air through its streets and alleys. Everywhere sounded pattering and trickling. Soon the gutters were flowing, the winking surface of the Barb was almost visibly rising and fountains which had stood dry for weeks began to spout water. Householders, opening their windows, sat by them silently, watching and smelling the rain in rapt contentment, while the homeless beggars, gathering in the colonnades, spat and nodded together, their sores and scabs eased by the moist coolness. Sencho, drowsing in the bath, woke at the long-awaited sound and, erecting with pleasure, sent for Occula and Meris to join him. Fleitil and his journeymen-assistants, having made their wedges and blocks firm round the base of the new statue of Airtha by the Tamarrik Gate, covered it with a canvas tarpaulin, packed their tools and set off for the nearest tavern, there to drink to the prospect of two months' profitable studio work under cover.

As evening began to fall Durakkon, standing at one of the east-facing windows of the Barons' Palace, watched the mist top the low ridge four miles away and inch down the slope, obliterating yard by yard the highway to Thettit. He could make out no single traveler on the road, but this was not surprising.

Travelers would be unlikely to have delayed leaving Naksh for Bekla as late as the afternoon, for they too would have seen the mist, which often advanced faster than a man could walk; and as the roads were now, a wayfarer overtaken by it might well find himself at the mercy of worse than rain. Just as Senda-na-Say, waking by night at Puhra in the crackling fume, had encountered not only smoke but the death that lay within it.

Senda-na-Say had been a fool, thought Durakkon. He had unthinkingly assumed that the empire should and could be governed in the light of traditional, unchanging principles. He had never appreciated that new social forces had emerged within its society's complex structure; or if he had, had believed that concepts like honor, duty and the hereditary authority of the High Barons of Bekla could be stretched indefinitely, to embrace and control them. He himself, Durakkon, had known seven years ago that he and not Senda-na-Say was the man to move with the times and guide the empire along new paths. That was why he had taken the opportunity offered to him by Kembri and Sencho. They had needed a real and indisputable nobleman, a man of high rank, to lend respectability to the Leopards' seizure of power. He had seen the chance to fulfill his ideals, to give the empire enlightened, modern rule and greater prosperity; to sail with the irresistible current and not against it, to bring about the beneficial changes which Senda-na-Say would never have effected in a hundred years. Senda-na-Say had been a foolish, honorable man. The days of honorable men were past.

And his own ideals—what had become of them, those ambitions? He thought of the unspeakable Sencho, spinning his spy-nets, subsidizing delators and peculating the revenues as he lay stuffing and rutting among his trulls; of Kembri bargaining with the highest bidder for the use of Beklan soldiers to sustain the internecine feuds of the provinces. They, of course, remained untroubled by recurrent dreams of smoke and fire by night and the screaming of women from upper stories.

Prosperity, he thought: yes, there was certainly plenty of that for those—and they were not a few—in whose power it lay to attain it. Standing at the window, looking out across the upper city, he saw a green-shirted pedlar emerge from the gate of Sencho's house and trudge quickly away towards the Peacock Gate, clearly in a hurry to get back to his lodgings before the rain could reach him. That pedlar, enjoying the protection of the law—only a month before, two men found guilty of waylaying a licensed pedlar had been sentenced to hang upside-down on the ridge between Naksh and Bekia—would certainly, since he had judged it worth his while to call at Sencho's, be carrying goods of higher price and quality that those to be found in a pack eight years before. As the man disappeared under the arch of the Peacock Gate, the oncoming streamers of mist began creeping across the Thettit highway, a mile beyond the eastern walls.

Durakkon turned from the window, hearing outside the room the voice of the soldier on duty. In accordance with his own orders, someone was being denied access. Nevertheless, he thought, he might as well deal with the matter now—whatever it might be--rather than later. He went across to the doorway.

"What is it, Harpax?"

"My lord, a messenger from the Sacred Queen; one of her attendants."

"Admit her."

He recognized the woman who entered; Ashaktis, For-nis's personal maid, a Palteshi who had come with her from Dari and remained with her ever since. Fornis, feeling, like himself, the need to be continually on her guard against assassination, restricted her personal entourage largely to Palteshis.

"So the rains are here at last, Ashaktis," said Durakkon, by way of greeting.

"Yes, my lord, Cran be blest for them! The Sacred Queen commends herself to you, my lord. She is unwell—"

"I am sorry to hear it," said Durakkon perfunctorily.

"It is not serious, my lord, but she thinks it best not to leave her house for the time being. She has asked me to say that nevertheless, she needs to speak with you and accordingly begs that you will be so good as to visit her this evening. Naturally, she hopes that her request will not put you to inconvenience and that you will be at liberty to have supper with her."

He had better go, thought Durakkon. It was quite probable that Fornis had in all earnest come across something of which he ought to learn without delay. Calling in Har-pax, he ordered an armed bodyguard to be ready in half an hour. Seven years ago, he reflected, he could have walked alone and unarmed through any part of the upper and most parts of the lower city.

Before the rain began to fall that evening and washed on through the night, drumming on roofs and shutters, running in brown rivulets down the steep streets below the central walk—the Street of the Armorers, Storks Hill and the Street of Leaves—turning the outfall of the Barb to a chattering torrent racing past the Tamarrik Gate through all three open sluices, calling a two months' halt to trade and war alike, not only the powerful and wealthy but also those who catered for or pandered to them had already been preparing for the weeks ahead. In many respects life in Bekla during the rains was anything but inactive. In Beklan idiom the season was called "Melekril"; a word meaning, literally, the disappearance into cover of a hunted animal. Although supplies of fresh food were diminished, a certain amount still reached the markets and was bought by the rich, who traditionally passed the time in entertaining one another, often on a lavish scale. Vintners, grocers and bakers commonly laid in large stocks well before the onset of the rains, while herds of cattle were driven into the covered pounds outside the Gate of Lilies, there to be fed on roots and hay, for slaughter as required. The well-paved and -drained stone streets of the city made social intercourse easy enough for ladies carried in their utters. Among men, the customary practice was to walk through the warm rain with a stout cloak and overshoes.

The household of Kembri-B'sai had for some days past been fettled against the coming of the rains, for the Lord General customarily entertained freely during Melekril, partly because, like many successful soldiers of fortune, he enjoyed the display of wealth and the flattery and admiration of lesser personages; but also because he found this an excellent way of keeping his ear to the ground, of hearing rumors and assessing the undercurrents running through the life of the city.

For several years past he had given a banquet on the evening after the rains began, and this had now become something of an institution. Even as Durakkon was setting out for the house of the Sacred Queen, Kembri's servants were already on errands about the upper city, carrying his invitations for the following night. Meanwhile, slaves were preparing the great hall, polishing, sweeping, filling and trimming lamps, ensuring the flow of water to the pools and fountains and setting up the extra benches, couches and tables necessary for so large a number of guests. Several smaller rooms off the hall were also made ready, some for privacy and conversation, others for gambling or for still more pleasant diversion. The housekeeper, plate-master, chief cook and butler, themselves dignitaries in their own right in a household numbering over two hundred servants and slaves, held last-minute conferences and is-sued final instructions to their underlings. Great masses of fresh flowers from the gardens, kept shaded and watered for cutting at the last possible moment, were brought in and banked in the pools, ready to be made next day into wreaths, garlands and decorations.

Kembri, as was his custom, had already instructed two of his army doctors to be in attendance; for experience had taught him that it would be unusual if the night's entertainment did not give rise to some illnesses, to say nothing of quarrels and injuries. Then, having supped, he betook himself—again by custom—to sleep at the house of one of his senior officers, for his own would be full of disturbance throughout the night.

"Banzi, have you used that stuff Terebinthia gave you?"

"Oh, Cran, yes! It felt horrible. I couldn't hardly do it!"

"But you did do it? Properly? You stuffed it right up?"

"Yes. Well, she saw to that."

"Good! Only whatever happens you must not go and let some bastin' idiot make you pregnant. That'd ruin everythin', that would."

"Oh, Occula, I wish you were coming too! I feel so nervous—"

"Well, it's bad luck in a way, but it can' be helped. Old Piggy-wig wants you and Meris and that's the end of it. Cran knows why! A big feast like this, he'd do much better to take two reliable, experienced girls like me and Dyphna, but there you are. Let's have a look at you. Oh, my goodness, banzi, it's lucky all the girls doan' look like you! There'd be rape every day!"

In spite of her agitation Maia could not help smiling. One glance in the wall-mirror had already been enough to tell her that no barefoot, hungry, cow-herding lass on the shores of Lake Serrelind had ever looked like this. The toes of her white leather slippers were stitched with crimson beads which matched the pleats of her full, Yeldashay-style skirt. A close-fitting, ribbed but flexible silk bodice both supported her bosom and left it almost completely uncovered, except by the tumble of well-brushed, golden hair falling two-thirds of the way to her waist. On one side of her head was fastened a spray of crimson keranda, the tiny, nacreous blooms of which gave off a fragrance perceptible five feet away. After much consultation, Terebinthia and Occula had agreed that she should wear no jewels at all, but that her eyelids and nipples should be gilded. The effect was startling and even Terebinthia, by glances if not in so many words, had shown herself not unimpressed.

"Now you listen to me carefully, banzi," said Occula, drawing her down to sit beside her on a bench by the pool. "You look good enough to eat—every lustful Leopard's little lump of loveliness. A few jaded palates are goin' to be tickled up no end, I wouldn' wonder. You look exactly what you are, my dearest—the pretty peasant-girl the goddess took a fancy to immortalize. Now for Cran's sake— no, for Kantza-Merada's sake, for I'm serious—remember this and doan' forget it! You're not goin' to a country dance or a festival in Meerzat to find yourself a nice boy. You're workin'! You're Piggy-wig's personal property, got it? You're there to do whatever he wants, and so that he can show you off same as that damn' fountain of his. If you forget that and let some rich man take you off into a corner without his permission—in fact, if you treat your master disrespectfully in any way at all—he can have you whipped or sold or anything he likes. And from what I've seen of this fat brute he'd be quite likely to. Now, do you understand?"

"Yes, Occula. But what do I do if another man—some powerful man—comes and asks—well, you know—"

"You answer, "That's for my master to say." No one's more powerful than Sencho, anyway. Now this is the other thing. If you get any chance to oblige him or please him or do somethin' of your own accord before he tells you, take it. Whatever you think he wants, do it. Now you do see, banzi, do you?"

"What does she see?" asked Meris, coming into the room in a cloud of lime perfume. "Her deldas sticking out? Occula, can you fix these blasted earrings for me? I can't get the pins out on the other side of the lobes."

The Belishban girl's shining, black hair was coiled round her head in thick braids fastened with gold combs, leaving her olive-skinned, dark-eyed face to speak, as it were, for itself. It certainly did that, thought Maia. Her striking beauty had a sulky, lascivious quality, as though, sated with luxury, she were now determined to refuse herself to everyone, except to a man who could make her feel differently about it. She was wearing a thin necklace of plaited gold, gold bracelets on her bare arms, and a close fitting robe of jade-green, gathered at the waist with a gold belt and falling to her ankles. The general effect was provocative in the last degree.

"You look like a trap ready to go off any minute," said Occula. "Jus' keep still while I slip 'em in."

"Are you girls ready?" called Terebinthia from the other side of the bead curtains. "Remember, you have to get everything prepared and be waiting by the High Counselor's couch when he arrives. Meris, by this time you ought to know everything that has to be done. Mind you tell Maia, and see she doesn't make any mistakes."

"Very well, säiyett," answered Meris. "Have you seen my cloak anywhere?"

"I have it here," replied Terebinthia, "and Maia's too."

No other Beklan noble left his house so rarely as Sencho. Detesting exertion, or any interruption of his pleasures beyond what was necessary for the maintenance of his power and influence, he never visited the premises of merchants or craftsmen, but made them—as he had made Lalloc—bring their wares to him. When summoned by Durakkon he was obliged to obey, if only for the sake of appearance, but otherwise—and this seclusion was an important constituent of his power and of the fear he inspired—he attended only the greater religious ceremonies and perhaps half a dozen parties and banquets a year— those of the Sacred Queen and the other principal rulers.

Accordingly he did not keep litter-slaves, having little employment for them, but was accustomed, when he went abroad, to make use of soldiers. This evening he had ordered no fewer than twenty, under a tryzatt. Six of these, with two more for torch-bearers, were to carry the girls in a closed litter, arriving at the Lord General's house half an hour before Sencho himself.

Terebinthia, as mindful as any good huntsman or shepherd of her responsibility for her master's property, had ordered the big litter to be set down in the outer lobby of the women's quarters and left there. Once the girls had got into it, she closed and pinned the curtains and then called the soldiers back.

Having reminded them of their orders not to speak to the girls and to take every care to carry them smoothly despite the mud, rain and falling dusk, she accompanied them as far as the gate, where old Jarvil, the porter, was waiting with the torch-bearers.

The distance to Kembri-B'sai's house was about three-quarters of a mile. Nevertheless, the journey lasted half an hour, for as they approached the gates they fell in with any number of other litters, the bearers jostling and pressing forward upon one another in the gathering darkness, all eager to get out of the rain.

"Silly bastards!" said Meris, holding on to a strut of the litter and peering out through a chink in the curtains. "Why isn't there someone to keep all these damn' turds in order and let them in one or two at a time? Look, there's two lots actually come to blows over there! Thank Cran we've got soldiers! That's one consideration for belonging to Sencho, anyway."

" 'Tis awful stuffy, isn't it?" said Maia. " 'Nough to make anyone take on bad. Hope it isn't much further."

"When the barons and the big shearnas start arriving later, their litter-bearers'll all be properly directed," said Meris, "but of course that'd be too much trouble to take over the likes of us. Oh, look! One of those torch-bearers isn't half a fine, big fellow, can you see?"

At this moment the tryzatt, standing outside, apologized to them for the delay and inconvenience, which he was now, he said, going to cut short. Thereupon, raising a cry of "Way for the High Counselor's girls!" he strode ahead of them, the litter following through the surrounding darkness and hubbub. The close air, their own exhaled breath in the confined space, the continual dipping and lurching as the soldiers lost their step in the crowd and the incessant drumming of the rain on the roof were beginning to make Maia turn sick and faint, when suddenly the noise subsided and she saw the glow of lamplight between the curtains. A moment later the litter was put down and she heard the orders of the tryzatt as he collected his men and left.

"Can we get out now?" she asked Meris, her curiosity and eagerness mounting as she realized that they must have arrived.

"Not yet," replied the Belishban girl. "You have to wait till the head steward or the säiyett comes and opens your litter. There'll be someone like Terebinthia, only not such a bitch—well, she couldn't be, could she? It isn't very long, as a rule."

A minute later the curtains were drawn apart by a smiling, fair-haired woman of about thirty-five, dressed in a sky-blue robe fastened with two emerald brooches.

"You must be U-Sencho's girls?" asked this lady, on whose shoulder Maia now saw the cognizance of a chained leopard in gold.

"Yes, säiyett," replied Meris, taking the hand extended to help her out of the litter.

"It's nice to see the High Counselor's doing himself as well as usual," smiled the other, evidently wishing to say something hospitable and pleasant. "Have you been to the Lord General's Rains banquet before?"

"Yes, once; with General Han-Glat, säiyett," said Meris, "before I joined U-Sencho's household."

"Oh, you've been with General Han-Glat?" said she, with a rather knowing smile. " I see. And what about this lass?" she went on, giving her hand to Maia in turn. Then, as Maia stepped out and the lamplight fell on her, "Oh, what a pretty girl! But you're only a child! How old are you?"

"Fifteen, säiyett."

"And of course you haven't been here before, have you?"

"I've only been in Bekla just a short time, säiyett: I don't know a great lot about anything much."

"Oh, you're charming! From Tonilda, aren't you? What's your name?"

"Maia, säiyett. Yes, from Lake Serrelind."

"How nice! Well, I've got a lot to see to, so I can't stay talking any longer now, I'm afraid. Will you both be making your way upstairs?"

"Told you she'd be better than Terebinthia, didn't I?" said Meris, as they picked their way to the foot of the staircase between the litters filling the covered courtyard.

"No one's ever spoke to me like that before," answered Maia. "I mean, 's if I was a young lady. I thought we was slaves?"

"We are," said Meris, "and I shouldn't forget it if I were you. But we're the High Counselor's bed-slaves. For all she knows we might have influence with him, you see, and she's not taking any chances."

Maia made no further reply, being so much startled by their surroundings that she had scarcely heard what Meris had said. It was not her way to think ahead or try to imagine what a place would be like before she saw it, but she had always had a very lively apprehension of what was before her eyes.

Looking round now, she felt sheer astonishment, mingled with something not unlike fear. Although darkness had fallen, the staircase was brilliant— brighter than day, or so it seemed to her, for the sources of light were so close. There were innumerable lamps— more, thought Maia, than she could possibly have seen before in all her days. Some, suspended by silver chains, where hanging in clusters from the high ceiling; others, all the way up the staircase, projected from the wall on copper brackets. At the top of the flight stood two bronze candelabra, fashioned to resemble sestuaga trees with their white spikes of bloom. The blooms were lighted candles— more than a hundred to each tree—and beside them stood two pretty girls, costumed as leopards in golden silk embroidered with black spots, whose tasks were to tend and replace the candles, welcome guests and—probably most important—simply to look beautiful. One of these, catching Maia's eye, gave her a friendly smile, which made her feel a little less nervous.

The staircase itself was of green-veined marble, with broad, shallow steps and a balustrade made of some gleaming, black wood unknown to Maia, which had been polished with a resinous oil, sharp and fresh to the smell. Putting one hand on this, she felt its glossy smoothness, with never a hint of a splinter, and saw her forearm reflected in a surface dark as a forest pool.

There were any number of girls both above and below them; blonde, fair-skinned Yeldashay; a little group of Ortelgans, talking together in their own tongue; two Belishbans, distinguishable by their accent like Meris's; an arrestingly lovely girl in a robe of pale gray, embroidered with the corn-sheaves of Sarkid; two broad-nosed, plaited-black-haired Deelguy, dressed in characteristically bright-colored style, with necklaces of coins and gold hoops in their ears. All these and many more were climbing the stairs with a kind of leisurely eagerness. Suddenly Maia realized what underlay this poised, controlled yet confident excitement. "Every single one of them's here," she thought, "because she's so out-of-ordinary beautiful that she belongs to a rich man in the upper city; and she knows it." And then, with a kind of incredulous jolt to her thoughts, "And— I'm one of them!"

The spacious landing on the first story was laid out to represent a glade. The greensward was a carpet of thick pile, varying from level, smooth expanses to slumps and patches three or four inches high, all inter-woven with clusters of flowers; some from the life—primulas, white anemones and purple trails of vetch—others fancifully imagined. Upon this stood bushes and shrubs of bronze and green copper, their flowers and fruit carved from quartz, beryl and many other kinds of semiprecious stones, which sparkled in the lamplight. Among them, here and there, were life-size silver pheasants, quails, partridges and hares, watched from a little distance by a crafty, golden fox and a white marble ermine half concealed in the undergrowth.

Through the midst of this make-believe game-park a path speckled with embroidered daisies led to a pool in which real goldfish were swimming among lilies and scented rushes. The fountain group at its center represented a naked couple, almost life-size. The boy, his head thrown back ecstatically, reclined on his side among the reeds, while the caressive hand of the laughing girl kneeling beside him appeared to be causing the fountain to play in spurting, intermittent jets. Maia, blushing, and equally unable either to gaze naturally at the. fountain or to look away from it, noticed that most of the girls around her hardly spared it a glance.

Passing the pool, she unexpectedly saw that beyond, at the far end of the hall, rose a second staircase. It had never entered Maia's head that any house could consist of more than two stories. Yet so it was.

They were now going to ascend again; and it must be safe, for the stairs were crowded not only with girls but with male slaves in crimson uniform, one on each side all the way up, facing inward and holding silver candelabra. There were no lamps here, so that the candles formed a kind of tunnel of light leading upward through the lofty dimness above and around. Peering through this, Maia could glimpse expanses of painted walls— beasts and hunters, forests and falling water—all lying in shadowy gloom beyond the slaves' extended arms and the lambent, yellow flames.

At the top of the staircase stood a brazier of charcoal, tended by two more leopard-maids. From time to time one of these threw a pinch of incense on the glowing fuel, so that a thin cloud of scented smoke filled the landing and drifted down towards the girls as they came up. But indeed there was such a confusion of perfumes, both from the girls themselves and from the masses of lilies, jasmine, trepsis, planella and tiare banked about the staircase, that Maia felt quite overcome, and stopped for a moment, leaning on the balustrade. Meris, a step or two above her, looked round impatiently. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing!" answered Maia, laughing. "Just lucky it's my nose and not my eyes; reckon I'd be blinded else!"

Beyond the brazier, she and Meris found themselves in a broad corridor. This was open along its inner side, being flanked only by fluted, gilded columns. Within and a little below these lay the dining-hall itself which, passing through the colonnade and descending two or three shallow steps, they now entered.

After the flamboyance and display below, the hall at once impressed Maia with its calmer, restrained atmosphere; as though here, decoration and the delight of the eye were intended to become adjunct, subordinate to other pleasures. Over eighty feet long—by far the largest room Maia had ever been in—it contained no pictorial or statuary decoration whatever, being beautified almost solely by the quality and variety of its woodwork. The smooth, narrow planks of the floor were a light tan color, waxed and polished, while the long steps by which the girls had descended from the outer corridor were of the same black, gleaming wood as the balustrades on the lower staircase. The colonnade extended along only two sides of the hall, the other two being panelled with five or six kinds of wood differing not only in color but in grain: one resembling concentric ripples and maculate with knots; another brown, regular and close as honeycomb; and yet another very dark, but with a polished surface which, like starlings' wings, revealed its damascene intricacies only when seen in a strong light. All these were contrasted in bold patterns: lightning-like zig-zags of pale against dark; luteous chevrons recessed in bevelled surfaces of chestnut; showers of dark stars minutely inlaid with patterned slips of white bone, so that they seemed to twinkle along the hollow-chamfered cornices. Above the lamps, the transoms spanning the vault were encrusted with fragments of fluorspar fine as gravel, which from the high dusk of the roof returned a faint glitter, like an echo of the light below.

The illumination here was more subdued than that on the staircases, for while there were indeed a great many lamps, all were in baskets of silver filigree, the effect of which was to perforate the light, so that it fell like petals over the tables and couches. Here and there, but particularly round the Lord General's table, this was augmented by foliated candelabra, forming pools of greater luminescence to emphasize the grandeur of the chief dignitaries.

In the center of the hall, within a low, curving marble surround, lay another lily pool—the work of Fleitil.

This had no central fountain, but more than fifty tiny jets, arranged symmetrically over the surface and barely clear of it, kept the water in continual, light movement with a rippling and pattering as of raindrops.

From the bed a copper cylinder, in the form of an erect, swaying serpent, rose through the pool and on up to its outlet in the vault of the roof. This was in fact a flue, for the pool was floored with glass (the lilies being potted), and below it was a chamber in which lamps had been placed to illuminate the water from below and make it sparkle among the lily-leaves.

Along the shorter wall, three doors led to the kitchens. These had been wedged open, and through them slaves were coming and going, putting their finishing touches to the preparations for the banquet. The long, oak tables and benches were interspersed with couches, for throughout the empire at this time it remained a matter of local custom—or simply of personal choice—whether one ate sitting or reclining, and a particularly prolonged and enjoyable dinner might well begin with the first and conclude with the second. Upon a dais at one end stood the Lord General's table, surrounded with ferns and scented shrubs in leaden troughs. All the tables were scattered with fresh flowers, which two slaves were sprinkling with water. Silver caldrons filled with different kinds of wine stood at the foot of the steps below the shorter colonnade, and a steward was inspecting these and removing any motes or flies which he found before covering them with muslin and placing beside each a bronze dipper and jug.

A great many girls were now entering, and Maia noticed that almost all, as they came through the colonnade and down the steps, made their way towards a tall, grave man wearing a Leopard cognizance on a crimson uniform like that of the slaves on the staircase. This, she guessed, must be the chief steward, for as each girl spoke to him, presumably giving her master's name, he would consult some sort of list or plan which he was holding, before directing her to one or another of the tables.

Meris plucked her sleeve. "Come on, Maia! We haven't got much time."

"D'you want me to—to ask him where we're to go?" asked Maia rather hesitantly; she felt timid of the authoritative, unsmiling figure, having just watched him snub with glacial propriety a little, merry-faced, black-eyed lass, rather like a nubile squirrel, whose manner he had evidently considered pert.

"Great Cran, no!" said Meris. "We don't have to ask where the High Counselor's couch is!"

They threaded their way among the girls and slaves, Meris leading. Maia, stopping to gaze with wonder at the coruscating pool, grew absorbed and came to herself to find that she was alone. A moment later, however, she caught sight of Meris stepping up onto the dais, and hurried to rejoin her. Stumbling against a lad carrying a tray full of silver salt-cellars, she clutched at his shoulder to save herself from falling.

"Oh—I'm so sorry—I—"

The boy turned towards her, the oath that he had been about to utter dying on his lips. " 'S all right," he answered, smiling. "You can bump me with those as much as you want. Like some salt on them?"

He seemed about to oblige her without waiting for a reply, but Maia—-who in Meerzat would have been well up to a little banter of this sort—only hastened quickly away.

On the dais, Meris was already engaged in altercation with an elderly slave lugging a wheeled basket full of cushions, some of which he had just given her.

"Come on, far more than that, damn you!" she said, stamping her foot.

"There's no more to spare," answered the man gruffly. "I must go and do—"

"You must do—" Meris gripped him by the shoulder— "what I tell you to do! Either you put ten more cushions on that couch at once, or I'm going to the chief steward."

"There's others—" began the man.

"I don't give a baste for the others," snapped Meris. "I'm here to see the High Counselor has what he needs. Now get on with it, unless you want a whipping!"

They were both standing beside a huge, upholstered couch, measuring something like ten feet by five, placed close to the Lord General's table. This was already thickly strewn with cushions and two or three leopard-skins, while beside it stood an array of basins, ewers, towels, two urns of water and a tray covered with bunches of herbs and jars of oil and ointment. As the slave, still grumbling, began taking more cushions from his basket and putting them on the couch, Meris turned away to inspect these various items.

"I only wish to Cran Terebinthia was here," she said to Maia, whose brief absence she had apparently not noticed. "Tell you the truth, I don't know as much as I ought to about all this stuff. Let's only hope the chief steward does. He must have looked after Sencho plenty of times before now."

"But what's it all for?" asked Maia, as Meris dipped her finger in a jar of ointment, rubbed her forearm and smelt it.

"Why, to help him to stuff himself silly, of course," answered Meris. "You've never done this before, have you? Never mind. Long as we've got all we need, I can tell you want to do. For a start, you can bank those extra cushions up so that they overlap each other. No, not like that! They have to curve out and round, to support his belly; and we'll keep a few back, so that we can add more when he wants them."

She continued their preparations energetically, twice sending Maia with fresh demands to the household slaves. At length, standing back, she said, "Well, that's all I can think of. And we sit on these stools here. I should think the guests'll be up any minute."

All the girls were waiting, now, in their places; some seated on stools, like Meris and Maia, others standing behind the benches. The slaves were ranged along the walls and the carvers behind their tables. The hall had fallen quiet and there was a general air of expectancy.

After about a minute a soldier, dressed in black and gold, appeared between the central columns and sounded four notes on a long, slender trumpet. This done, he made his way to the dais, taking up a position not far from Maia and Meris. Behind him the guests began entering the hall in groups, talking and laughing together as they came.

Back in Tonilda, Maia's path had very seldom crossed that of rich men. Once, when she was no more than nine and swimming in the lake, some noble of Serrelind, sailing his boat, had shouted to her to get out of the way as the bow came gliding swiftly down upon her. Frightened, she had had time to stare up a moment into his intent, else-. where-gazing face as the boat swept past, leaving her bobbing in its wash.

And again, during a festival in Meerzat, she had watched as two roistering young blades, in great boots and feathered hunting-caps, set upon a fisherman and then carried off his pretty young wife, laughing at her screams and shouting that it was all in sport.

Now the room was full of such voices and such men, dressed in splendid robes or brilliant, open-weave shirts and silken breeches, carrying silver goblets and tooled leather knife-cases, conversing with confident indifference to everything but themselves and their own affairs. They made her so nervous that as a group approached the dais it was all she could do to remain seated on her stool. 'Keep still!' whispered Meris. 'Stop fidgeting!'

Among the guests walked several shearnas, and at these Maia looked with some surprise. She had been expecting a galaxy of outstanding beauty, and at first felt puzzled and rather disappointed that while some were certainly beyond argument beautiful, as well as being magnificently robed and jewelled, many struck her as nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly (and thereupon feeling even more acutely her own lack of experience and maturity) she recalled what Occula had said about authority and style. These girls were strolling, talking and laughing among the nobles with assurance, treating them as equals and giving every appearance of being entirely at ease.

In that moment it dawned upon her that a girl like Meris was nothing but a pretty face one end and a hot tairth the other, and that this was Sencho's compass—all he could rise to. She realized intuitively that for all his wealth and power, few of the girls sauntering among these nobles would care to consort with the High Counselor, any more than an intrepid hunter would want to go ratting. They fairly emanated style, accomplishment and wit. Whom they would they encouraged and whom they would they teased or brushed aside. What they were offering to their admirers, she grasped with some awe, was their company; just that; as much out of bed as in. Occula, she remembered, had remarked that they themselves had got to be better than the others. Well, here were the others. She felt dis-heartened. 'S'pose they feel like I do when I'm swimming,' she thought. And then, 'But where do such girls come from, I wonder, and how do they get to be—'

Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted and she started. Through the colonnade, not forty feet away from her, appeared the young man who had spoken to Occula and herself in their jekzha at the top of the Khalkoornil. Dressed in a saffron-colored robe embroidered across the breast with a snarling, crimson leopard, he was talking animatedly to a brown-haired, demure-looking girl who, as Maia watched, smiled at him sidelong and then said something which made him turn towards her with a quick burst of laughter, laying one hand on her wrist.

A moment later he glanced towards the Lord General's table, caught sight of Maia, stared for a moment and then, murmuring a few words to his companion, came across to the foot of the dais and smiled up at her. Maia, uncertain what to do, got to her feet; whereupon the young man raised his palm to his forehead, at which her color rose.

"Well, well, the princess with the golden hair!" said the young man. "We met in the Khalkoornil, didn't we, the day they were bringing in the new statue of Airtha? Do you recall?"

"Yes, my lord," replied Maia, forcing herself to smile and look him in the eye.

"But I didn't introduce myself, did I?" said he.

Maia felt a sudden access of courage. If he wanted to tease, well, she might as well try her hand, seeing as he seemed so friendly.

"No, my lord, you must have forgot; but you're that notorious, see, I know who you are; only that's part of my business, that is."

The young man laughed, apparently delighted. "The devil it is! And is business good? You got yourself sold all right, then? Who to?"

"To the High Counselor U-Sencho, my lord."

His face fell. "Oh. Oh, well; I suppose you had no choice in the matter, had you? And your pretty black friend?"

"The same. But she's not here tonight."

"I'll hope to see more of you later on: I must get back now, or my friend'll be wondering what on earth I'm up to. Come to that, she could be right, you know." Thereupon, with a quick wave of the hand, he was gone.

"Bloody basting Cran!" said Meris. "Wasn't that Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion?"

"M'm-h'm."

"You've met him before?"

"Oh, ah."

But Meris had no chance to pursue her inquiries, for now all the guests had taken their places and were awaiting the Lord General and his party, who could be seen assembling in the colonnade outside.

The heavy, broad-shouldered figure of Kembri preceded his guests into the hall. Having ascended the dais, however, he turned and, in accordance with custom, gave his hand to each, himself conducting him to his place and putting on his head the flower-crown lying ready on the table. If one did not seem to him to suit a guest as well as it should, he laid it aside and chose another, taking his time until he and all the guests were content. While this ceremony was proceeding, ten soldiers carried Sencho on a litter down the steps, into the hall and up to his couch.

The High Counselor was not clothed, for he meant to enjoy himself, but for decency's sake was partly covered with a length of white-and-gold fabric, already clinging with sweat to his monstrous body.

Torques of jewelled silver were half-buried in the flesh of his arms and a great ruby ring, which he could no longer wear on any finger, hung by a chain among the rolls of fat at his neck. Maia wondered by what means he could have been brought up the stairs. The soldiers, halting, held the litter beside and on a level with the couch, while four slaves lifted him bodily from one to the other. At the same time Meris, standing ready with a towel wrung out in tepid water, wiped his face and shoulders, gesturing to Maia to place more cushions under his belly and beneath his legs. At length, sighing with pleasant anticipation and indicating that all was now to his satisfaction, the High Counselor waved the girls back to their places.

In all this he displayed no embarrassment or any sign that he felt in the least self-conscious or singular among the guests. Most, indeed, as he well knew, envied and feared him and, so far from being disgusted, were rather disposed to admire the wealth and luxury of a court where a man could become so fat that he could not walk ten steps across a room. Nor did it trouble him that every other guest on the dais was either alone, like Durakkon, or accompanied by some well-known shearna. His slave-girls had cost a great deal of money, showed to advantage and suited his personal inclinations and needs better than any free woman.

When Kembri had concluded his ritual of welcome, his guests all turned towards the body of the hall, extending their arms and acknowledging the applause and cries of congratulation from below. Then the Lord General greeted the company, wishing them a happy and profitable Melekril and conveying the regret of the Sacred Queen that she was unable to be present on account of an indisposition, which fortunately was not serious. Finally, he welcomed Durakkon as High Baron of Bekla, and formally asked his consent for the feast to begin.

An hour later, Maia was feeling completely bewildered. Once or twice, indeed, she had found herself wondering in all earnest whether she might not be dreaming. She would not have believed such gluttony to be physically possible; yet the banquet was not half-finished. She was not to know, of course, that greed is largely a matter of practice, that most of these nobles were well accustomed to eating to excess and that the whole feast had been carefully planned to make it easy and pleasant for them to do so.

Commencing with little, savory delicacies—biscuits baked with spices, fish-flavored pancakes and fowls' livers with peppers and mushrooms—they had, after a time, continued by mingling these with several sorts of soup; hare with artichoke; thick broth of fish; chilled, mint-flavored cucumber, and eggs beaten together with lemons. Next, whole baked bramba, bred in enclosed pools of the Barb, were carried in, smothered in savory butter and surrounded by poached trout and crayfish covered in a sharp, green seriabre sauce. Then, since even these Beklans were obliged to pause for a time in their luxury, there ensued an interval, while slaves opened the windows on the cool, rain-hissing night and carried round damp towels and bowls of lemon-water.

Maia, who as one of Sencho's attendant girls had been told by the chief steward to eat as much as she wished, was by now more than satisfied. She could not have continued for a bag of gold. Although Meris had warned her against drinking more than half a goblet of wine, she was so much excited and so little used to it that this alone had made her slightly tipsy. How long was it now, she wondered, since the evening when she had begged Kelsi for a mouthful of bread in the lane? Had Morca had the baby yet, and might it have been a boy? What was Tharrin doing for pleasure, now she was gone? These thoughts made her feel anything but homesick. Full-fed girls with exquisite clothes did not eke out their existence on the Tonildan Waste. Sitting demurely on her stool, she watched a plump, half-naked shearna with soft, white shoulders lean back on her couch while a big man in a purple tunic fed her with morsels of trout held in his fingers, and then supported her head on one arm as he tilted his goblet to her lips. The mere sight made her feel that she herself was no longer the same girl.

At length the windows were again closed round the cooled room and the trumpeter recalled those who had gone out to stroll in the colonnade. When all had returned, a procession of thirty slaves entered amidst cheers and applause, each pair holding between them an immense silver dish of venison. A second procession followed, carrying joints of beef; then a third with roast pigs and a fourth with pheasants and turkeys. The carvers set about their work, while bowls of vegetables and spices were placed on the tables for all to share as they pleased. At this point several of the men left the benches for couches near-by, their companions following to feed them where they lay.

Up to this point the High Counselor had required little or no help from either Meris or Maia, the household slaves having brought him food and drink in the same way as they had waited upon the rest of Kembri's guests. Now, however, with gestures and impatient gruntings, he conveyed to Meris wishes which she evidently understood for, having once more wiped his face and body (opening each crease between her fingers with sedulous care), she crushed a handful of pungent, sharp-scented herbs and held it for him to smell, at the same time pushing towards Maia a tubular, silver vessel with a bulbous base and pointing towards the foot of the couch. Maia, uncomprehending, stood looking uncertainly at the vessel, which was engraved all round with a stylized pattern of chubby little boys making water on each other's buttocks. Meris, fuming with impatience, had to tell her what to do. Thrusting her trembling hands under the gold-embroidered cloth, she groped among the folds of sweating fat and at length, having achieved what was required of her, felt the High Counselor respond with shuddering relief to the sensation of the cool rim. A household slave, attracting her attention with a touch on the elbow, passed her a clean cloth for the conclusion of her task, took the vessel from her, covered it with a towel and carried it away.

She had already turned to go back to her stool when Meris, snapping her fingers to attract her attention, picked up one of the bowls filled with perfumed oil. Thereupon she nodded to Maia to stand opposite her on the other side of the couch and draw back the cloth to bare the High Counselor's belly. As the Belishban girl held the bowl towards her, Maia understood that she was to rub her master with the oil.

After some moments, however, Sencho began to stir and shake his head in irritation. Meris, giving the bowl to Maia, herself undertook the task of rubbing, working smoothly with her fingertips as the High Counselor relaxed pleasurably under her more practiced ministrations.

"What does it do?" whispered Maia.

"Helps his belly to distend and hold still more," answered Meris. "Now wipe off what's left with that towel there—no, gently, Maia!—and put some fresh cushions that side while I help him to turn over."

Sencho, however, now wished to be supported into a half-sitting posture, and in this position gave instructions to a slave who had brought to the couch a small carving-table. Maia supposed that he would carve and then retire, but instead the High Counselor ordered him to cut up all the meat on the board—fowls, pork, beef and venison— and then to remain standing by the couch while he ate, Meris holding at his elbow a tray of sauces and vegetables.

During the next half-hour several guests, well aware of the power and wealth of the High Counselor, left their places below and made their way up to the dais to speak a few words to Sencho and—insofar as it was possible to pierce his preoccupation—ingratiate themselves. Receiving little response some of these, to keep themselves in countenance, began chatting with the girls and paying them compliments. Maia, praised and flattered by one man after another—and even by two or three of the shearnas, who were rather taken with her childlike beauty and ingenuous replies—began to feel admiration for her master and, for the first time, pride in belonging to a man whom rich nobles went out of their way to propitiate and whom she had seen, with her own eyes, consume more rich food than her entire family could have eaten in a week, as well as having drunk over half a gallon of wine.

"Will he be sick?" she whispered to Meris, seeing the Belishban girl bend down for a pottery basin as Sencho, gulping the last of the meat, lay back, clutching his belly, over which he could barely clasp his hands.

"The High Counselor very seldom cares to vomit," replied Meris in a matter-of-fact tone, as though Maia had asked her whether he liked to sleep after dinner. "If he needs to he'll tell you." Thereupon she began picking fragments of meat and vegetables out of the cushions and putting them in the basin, which she handed to a slave to be removed.

A second interlude had now begun. The windows were again opened for a time, but fewer guests left the hall, since most felt little inclination—or, indeed, ability—to move from where they lay. Ten or twelve slaves carried round silver vessels like that used by Sencho, while others followed with incense-burning censers and aspergills for sprinkling rose-water. Here and there men had already fallen asleep, and one or two of these, whom their girls knew from experience were unlikely to revive for some hours, were carried out, lying on their couches.

After about half an hour eating was resumed, but now the intensity of greed was succeeded by a kind of frivolous toying with sugared delicacies and sweet things. The formal seating broke up. Many of the guests formed small groups, joining friends at other tables or gathering about some shearna whom they admired. Round the flat-topped, marble parapet of the pool the servants placed trays of little cakes, syllabubs, custards, fruit, cream pancakes, jellies, junkets, caramels and the like. To these the slave-girls went and helped themselves, bringing back to their masters whatever they fancied. Meanwhile Durakkon and Kembri left the dais and began to wander among the company, making themselves agreeable and receiving congratulations and praise.

Sencho, having sent Meris to fetch a bowl of peaches in sweet wine, allowed her to feed him for a time, but then became petulant, pushing the bowl aside and sending her back several times for other delicacies, none of which served to revive the all-absorbing ardor of greed which had engrossed him hitherto.

Having rinsed his mouth and called for fresh cushions, he ordered Meris once more to pull the cloth off his body in order that he might drowse at greater ease; for torpor and indolence, following upon satiety, formed a very real and conscious part of the High Counselor's pleasure. Now that he was fully glutted, to lie naked in the presence of nobles and free women who thought it more prudent to hide whatever distaste they might feel— or who might even feel admiration—afforded him peculiar satisfaction; him who had once begged for scraps outside a merchant's back door and subsequently, knowing what was good for him, pretended to enjoy gratifying that merchant and his greasy, foul-breathed friends. He thrust a hand under Meris's skirt but then, reflecting that perhaps even he had better, in accordance with custom, wait until after the kura, closed his eyes and in a minute or two had fallen asleep.

Maia, relieved to have carried out her duties so far without any serious blunder, felt free to relax. Meris, she noticed, seemed now to have become possessed by a kind of panting animationr and excitement.

The detached professionalism with which she had concentrated on ministering to Sencho had been replaced by a quick-glancing alertness and response to everyone around them. She sat smiling boldly at each guest who strolled past; and when a tall young man, wearing the Fortress cognizance of Paltesh, offered her his goblet, she almost snatched it from him, drained it dry, flung her arms round his neck and kissed him warmly on the lips. Emboldened by this example, Maia called a passing slave-boy and asked him to bring her some more wine. It was of beautiful quality, cool and deliriously refreshing—"Wonder what Tharrin'd say to this?" she thought—and as it mounted to her head she stood up, walked over to one side of the dais and stood looking out over the lamp-lit hall, from the center of which the rippling pool glittered up at her like an open eye.

The scent of jasmine and lilies was now stronger still on the warmed air. On impulse she picked up a crown of tiare blossom, four inches deep, which one of Kembri's guests had left lying on the table, and placed it on her own head. Mingled with the perfumes Ming the hall were smells of wine, of lamps, of the sweating slaves and the resinous polish in the warmed panelling, and beyond all these the fresh, cool smell of the rain outside—that same rain which she knew was falling, mile after mile, across the solitude of Lake Serrelind. "Only I'm not there now, see?" she remarked happily to a passing noble with a slim, graceful shearna on his arm. The girl glared haughtily at her, but the young man, obviously in a mood to be delighted by everything and especially by such a pretty lass, replied "Well, wherever it is, I should think you soon will be, if you go on looking like that," and gave her hand a quick squeeze before passing on.

Maia, still staring at the sparkling water and remembering the flocks of white ibis wading in the lake shallows on a summer morning, was recalled to her surroundings as the trumpeter sounded yet again.

Indeed he made her jump, for he was only a few yards away. Sencho, however, did not even stir. Not knowing what might be to follow, she hurried back to her stool. Half a dozen musicians had entered the hall—three hinnari players, a drummer, a flautist and a man with a kind of wooden xylophone called a derlanzel —and taken up their places in the open space round the pool. Meanwhile slaves, using hooked poles, lowered and extinguished several of the clusters of lamps. The outer parts of the hall grew dimmer, so that the center appeared brighter by contrast. The musicians, after tuning for a few moments, began to play a minor-harmonized refrain—no more than four bars—varied only by the changing rhythms of the drummer and the derlanzist. After they had repeated this several times, twenty young women in gauzy, transparent robes of gray, brown, green and white came running gracefully into the hall, took up their positions round the pool and then, at a signal from their leader, began to dance.

Maia had always taken a natural delight in dancing, and back in Tonilda had been reckoned a good hand at clapping, stamping and twirling in the ring. But she had never seen anything like this, the goddess Airtha's sacred Thlela; an age-old institution of Bekla, famous throughout the empire. All the girls, trained from childhood, were dedicated to the service of the goddess. They were neither free women nor slaves, but imperial property (like state jewels or a household guard), their function being to enhance and beautify the public occasions of the city, both religious and secular. Like soldiers, they lived together, were subject to the rule of their order and enjoyed the public respect and status proper to their vocation (though ordinary citizens perhaps honored rather than envied their restricted, exacting lives). Some, as they grew older, might, with the Sacred Queen's approval, leave the Thlela and marry, but others, having the dance and its way of life in their blood, spent their latter days as teachers, wardrobe-mistresses or such-like hangers-on of one kind and another. The entire business of the Thlela—recruiting, training, costuming and so on—was state-financed and it was universally regarded as one of the great glories of the city. Sencho himself, attempting a few years before to remove from it a girl he fancied—for such was his way when so inclined—had been met with an incredulous, outraged hauteur which had made even him think better of the idea.

Their dance now—as Maia, after a minute or two, grasped with growing delight and elation—represented the turbulence, flow and changes of a great river throughout the weathers and seasons of the year. This dance, the "Telthearna," had become a favorite at the Rains banquet, and many of those present, familiar with every sequence and movement, watched with discriminating eyes and appraising connoisseurship. What Maia felt, however, was the even greater, unrepeatable pleasure of a completely new experience, to which she responded with nothing apart from her own natural ardor and native wit. The look and behavior of wide expanses of water was something she knew everything about at first hand. She almost wept to recognize—and to realize that she recognized—the gray waves lapping at morning under a light wind, the sand-bars bared by summer drought and then a storm coming down upon the turbid, brown floods of the rain season. Luckily for her, the High Counselor's sleep remained unbroken, for the dance had reft her out of herself so completely that she would certainly have bungled any duties that might have been required of her. Indeed, the memory of that Telthearna, danced in Kembri-B'sai's great hall, remained with Maia all her life.

It came to an end at last in a gradual drifting away of the waters into distance and starlight, with a remote thrumming and vibration of the muted hinnaris, the girls sinking down to lie prone and at last motionless upon the floor. The Thlela never sought or received applause, which would have been regarded as impious and profane. A deep silence of admiration, however, lasted for a full minute; after which conversation gradually resumed.

At this point Durakkon, together with a small group of nobles from the older aristocratic families, left the banquet. Others began strolling out—some to gamble in the private rooms; others with their slave-girls or shearnas, waving to their friends and promising to return later.

More lamps were quenched and the hall became dimmer still, save for the central window embrasure in the longer wall. This, the sill of which stood about five feet from the floor, was so wide and deep as to resemble a small, open-fronted room, the shuttered window forming a wall at the back. Here the lamplight remained bright, so that the recess looked not unlike a stage.

First the dancing-girls of the Thlela and then the serving-slaves left the hall (among them Maia's salt-boy, who grinned at her as he passed). The last to go drew a mesh of thin, gold-tin ted curtains between the columns of the colonnade. The musicians, however, remained in their places, playing a quiet improvisation of chords which did no more, as it were, than lightly to color the air with sound.

For a while the murmur of talk and laughter continued, but Maia could sense behind it an expectancy and tension, as though some fresh excitement were now awaited. Suddenly the tall young man from Paltesh, who had offered his goblet to Meris, appeared in the lamplight at the foot of the window embrasure. In one hand he was holding a cushion and this, waving it over his head, he tossed up into the embrasure with a cry of "Otavis!"

At this there was some cheering and several other men echoed "Otavis! Otavis!" But at once another young man strode up to the embrasure, threw in a second cushion and cried "Melthrea!" at which there were further cries of support and approval.

Other men followed, one by one adding cushions to the growing pile now beginning to form a bed in the embrasure. Each, as he threw his cushion upward, called out a name—Otavis, Melthrea, Nyctenthis, Pensika and so on— while one of Kembri's girls, a slim Lapanese with dark hair falling to her waist and ruby bracelets on her bare arms, made marks with chalk on one of the tables. , Watching, Maia became aware that Meris was breathing hard and uttering low cries of excitement. "Eighteen!" she exclaimed at length, as Elvair-ka-Virrion himself, tossing up his cushion, called "Otavis!" and paused to refill his goblet from one of the caldrons before returning to his place.

"I don't think she'll be beaten now!" she added, glancing round at Maia, "Fat lot of chance we'll ever have! That bitch Terebinthia hardly ever allows us out."

"But what's it all about?" asked Maia.

"Why, they're voting to elect the Kura Queen, of course," answered Meris. "First they decide how many cushions are going to be thrown altogether, and then the men draw lots for who's to throw them. It's always fifty at the Rains banquet, and the girl who gets most cushions is the Kura Queen."

"A shearna?"

"Oh, Maia, don't be damn' silly; shearnas don't perform the kura! The Kura Queen's always a slave-girl, but the thing is she gets a prize of a thousand meld, and very often she's freed afterwards. It's the one bit of luck every girl hopes for: I might have got it if only I'd stayed with Han-Glat. He always lends his girls very freely, you know, so they have plenty of chances to make friends and become popular. But you're making me lose count. How many's that, Ravana?" she called to a girl near-by, who was watching as closely and excitedly as herself.

"Twenty-one for Otavis now!" answered the girl. "Good luck to her! She lent me forty meld last year and never asked for it back."

A few moments later a cheer went up as it became clear that Otavis's total number of cushions could not now be beaten. The few remaining to make up the fifty were flung into the embrasure and two girls, climbing up, spread them evenly over the sill. As they slid down again a brief silence fell. Then into the pool of lamplight stepped the strikingly beautiful girl in the pale-gray robe embroidered with corn-sheaves, whom Maia had noticed on the staircase. She was smiling, but Maia could see tears glistening in her eyes and it was plain that she was half-overcome with excitement and delight. Amidst cries of acclamation and a hammering of goblets she raised her arms to the company, placed both hands on the window-sill and vaulted up into it as lightly as a leaf, turning, as she did so, to sit facing the hall. In this position, while the music became louder and its rhythm more marked and insistent, she slowly and deliberately loosened her robe at the throat and, drawing up her shoulders in a kind of smooth, graceful shrug, caused it to subside like gray foam about her, until she was sitting naked to the thighs. Then, as she held out one slim foot, a broad-shouldered young man, clad only in a pair of leather breeches, came forward, drew off her sandals and laid them side by side on the floor.

"Spelta-Narthe!" whispered Meris. "I wondered who she'd have lined up."

"Who's he?" asked Maia.

"Well, he is a slave—strictly speaking—but a very privileged and senior one. He's Elvair-ka-Virrion's huntsman. He's well-known to be able to do it anywhere. He's been invited into quite a few Leopard ladies' beds, so they say."

Otavis, now completely naked and so beautiful that the sight drew fresh murmurs of admiration from every man in the hall, rose slowly to her feet, stepping out of the tumble of gauze about her ankles and letting it fall to the floor. Then, laughing as she bent down and gave him her hand, she helped her partner up into the embrasure and, kneeling before him in the posture with which a kura customarily began, swiftly and deftly made him as naked as herself.

Ever since Occula had told her what a kura was, Maia had had at the back of her mind a feeling of distaste and aversion. She had, she now realized, unconsciously been imagining other people watching herself and Tharrin forced against their will to exhibit that which they would have wished to keep private between themselves. What she saw now, however, was altogether different in mood. The beauty and her partner, who knew very well what they were doing and were obviously proud of it, went about their business with a light-hearted, jocund gaiety and entire lack of shame which, she realized after a minute or two, had already brought to her own lips a smile of complicit enjoyment. This outrageous behavior, pursued with a kind of sportive warmth which involved and was meant to involve the watchers, was marked by the one quality essential to prevent it from being sordid or disgusting: it was frivolously playful. The tone of the love-making was very light, the emphasis all on provocation, amusement and ingenuity rather than on any pretended depth of passion which, by being plainly insincere, would have struck a false note. "This is not passion," the participants seemed to be saying. "This is sport—bird-song to awaken you in the garden of pleasure." Maia's response was unforced and spontaneous. Indeed, at one point, when Otavis, facing the company and leaning back in her partner's arms as she sat astride his lap, looked down for a moment, feigning shocked astonishment, and then once more opened her arms to the onlookers with a dazzling smile, as though delighted to find herself thus flagrantly displayed, Maia felt so deeply excited that she could only stand gazing silently amid the general laughter and acclamation.

After some six or seven minutes it became clear that most of the watchers no longer needed any further stimulation or example, even of so expert and charming a nature. In the dim light, men lay in the arms of their girls, who openly caressed them in front of others similarly engaged and too much preoccupied to pay heed. From all sides came cries of tension and excitement, with here and there a quick squeal of protest or half-hearted remonstration. Otavis and her huntsman, their task complete, slipped down unnoticed from the window embrasure, picked up their clothes and stole away together.

As the sport intensified, Meris sprang suddenly to her feet.

"Baste it!" she cried, turning to Maia and speaking with such fury that Maia jumped, supposing for a moment that she must have done something wrong. "What are we sodding well supposed to be made of—cream cheese?"

In an instant she had loosened the neck-cord and belt of her robe and stepped out of it even more swiftly than Otavis. Rather as a flowering shrub may look somewhat the worse for wilting in strong sunshine yet still strikingly beautiful, so Meris, plainly off-balance with wine and inflamed lust, was none the less a sumptuous sight, standing in nothing but her sandals and bracelets. Even Maia, who had of course seen her naked more than once, found herself looking with admiration at the lithe, taut flow of her limbs and body, informed now with a kind of questing voracity. No wonder, she thought, that all those wayfarers had gone to their grief on the Herl-Dari highway; and no wonder, either, that the tryzatt had spared the girl to blame for it.

"Maia," said Meris with lofty dignity, "jus' look aft' that till I get back!"

Picking up her robe from the floor, she folded it, with a kind of lunatic precision, across the High Counselor's belly, stepped down from the dais and was immediately lost to view in the shadowy hall, which to Maia now resembled nothing so much as Lake Serrelind at windy nightfall—a blurred, tossing expanse, noisy with fluid babbling and cries not unlike those of unseen birds. Reckon this must be one bit as got left out of that dance, she thought.

She had just retrieved Meris's robe and laid it by her stool when she felt a touch on her shoulder.

Turning, she caught her breath to recognize Elvair-ka-Virrion. He was alone and plainly sober. She stood up, palm to forehead. "My lord!"

Without hesitation Elvair-ka-Virrion drew her to him and kissed her.

"I'm not a lord, I'm a man. Maia, do you know you're by far the most beautiful girl in the room? I've never forgotten you from the moment I saw you in the Khalkoornil that day. You've conquered me, Maia! Come and make love with me! You'll make me the happiest man in Bekla— and the luckiest!"

Maia, thrown for the moment into utter confusion, shrank back as though scorched from this blaze of ardor. As El-vair-kaVirrion waited for her reply, gazing passionately into her eyes, she recalled what Occula had impressed so emphatically upon her.

"I can't, my lord: I'm attending on the High Counselor."

Elvair-ka-Virrion gave the sleeping Sencho a brief glance of contempt and turned back to her. "That pig? He won't stir. Maia, do you know what it is that's made it impossible for me to forget you? You're real —you're unspoiled— you're like some marvelous lily out on the plain that no one knows about, no one's picked; that no one had even seen until I found it. You're natural, you're honest." He waved his hand towards the hall. "You feel disgusted by all this, don't you? I don't like it, either. Let me take you to my own rooms. I only want to be good to you! You've stolen my heart, Maia!" Then, as she made no reply, "It's true! Don't you believe me?"

Maia's eyes filled with tears. "I'm a slave-girl, my lord! My master—"

"Oh, I'll make it all right with him," said Elvair-ka-Virrion. Yet this was spoken with less conviction than anything he had yet said: even Maia could perceive that it was bravado. The High Counselor, as Occula had already pointed out to her, had all the touchy, humorless pride of a parvenu. A young gallant like Elvair-ka-Virrion would no more be able to placate his vindictive anger, if it were aroused, than a child could hold a bull. In her mind's eye she seemed to see Occula silently shaking her head.

"I can't, my lord: not without my master's consent. Another time, p'raps—"

"No, now!" cried Elvair-ka-Virrion, dashing his fist into his palm and laughing at his own frustration.

Maia's self-possession collapsed. "Oh, my lord, please don't make it so hard for me! If you really want to be good to me, as you say you do, then go!"

For a long moment Elvair-ka-Virrion gazed at her; at her trembling lips and the tears in her eyes. Then he answered shortly, "Very well," turned on his heel and strode quickly down from the dais and away into the shadows.

Left to herself once more, Maia sat down. The encounter had upset her: she felt afraid. She had grown up in a simple world, where the worst troubles were empty bellies and toothache—bad enough in all conscience, but at least one knew what was what. Here, all was strange; it was like walking in the dark.

She had duly done as Occula had said. But was that really the best—the safest—thing she could have done? Suppose Elvair-ka-Virrion were now to make himself her enemy? "Lespa!" she whispered.

"Goddess Lespa!" But the stars outside were hidden behind clouds and rain: Lespa seemed far away.

Her head was beginning to ache. She wished they could go home to bed.

She had altogether forgotten her master, lying inert on his couch like some bloated alligator on a mudbank. But now, licking his thick lips and fluttering his eyelids, he began to stir and, struggling to turn on his side, reached out one arm towards a cloth lying at the head of the couch. Maia, jumping up, wrung out a fresh towel and wiped his face and body as she had seen Meris do. Then, supporting his head, she offered him wine and held crushed herbs to his nostrils.

Sencho, having rinsed his mouth with the wine, spat it back into the goblet, which Maia put down on the floor. As she once more bent over him, he put a groping arm round her neck and sucked one of her breasts, and at the same time drawing her hand down to his loins. Clearly he was still not fully woken from his stupor, for after a few moments his lips released her nipple and his head sank back upon the cushions. Yet what he wanted was plain enough: if it had been Tharrin, she would have known very well what to do. She paused, uncertain. At this moment the High Counselor, without opening his eyes, belched and then panted urgently, "Meris! Meris!" As Maia, now at a complete loss, remained unmoving beside the couch, he repeated, more forcefully and with a kind of snarling impatience, "Meris!"

In panic Maia turned and plunged down into the crowded hall, calling "Meris! Meris!" She tripped in a heap of yellow lilies and almost fell as her sandaled feet crushed the stems into a slippery pulp. Racing on towards the pool, she measured her length over a girl's buttocks and, picking herself up, heard behind her an oath and a male cry of anger. "Meris!" she called. "Meris!"

Suddenly, in the flickering half-light, there was Meris, lying in a scatter of cushions on the floor. It was as though Maia herself had conjured her up from some subterranean obscurity. Her shadow-dappled body was half-covered by a man's, round which her raised legs were locked, clutching and pressing. Her mouth was open, her eyes half-closed, her breath coming hard as though she were climbing a hill.

"Meris!" cried Maia, bending over her. "Meris!"

"What the hell?" murmured the Belishban girl dazedly. "Oh, Cran, Maia, it's you! Let us alone, damn you!"

Maia, reaching across the man's heaving shoulders, shook her roughly.

"Meris! He's awake! He's calling for you! For you, Meris! D'you hear me?"

"Sod off!" hissed Meris, baring her teeth like a cat. "Baste the High Counselor! Baste everything!"

Seizing the lobe of her partner's ear between her teeth, she bit it so that he cried out. "Oh, you're marvelous!" she babbled, her biting turning to frantic kisses. "Go on! Go on! I'll kill you if you stop!"

For a moment Maia stood irresolute in the throbbing gloom around her, alone in the tumult as though under the waterfall of Lake Serrelind. Then she turned and ran back towards the dais.

During the past few days Sencho's thoughts had reverted several times to the young Tonildan—whose name he had forgotten, if he had ever known it. Buying her from Lalloc had been an impulsive extravagance about which he was now rather in two minds. The sight of the lovely girl, naked and frightened before his couch, had reminded him of his young manhood, reviving that delicious, brutal rapacity which in those days he had now and then had a chance to gratify. She had, in fact, put him in mind of a certain lass, more than twenty years before, in Kabin, whither he had gone on business for Fravak. He had never known her name, either. A servant in the inn where he was staying, she was, he had suddenly realized at the time, entirely innocent and inexperienced, having left her parents' home only a few days before. That evening he had settled up with the landlord, overpaying him a little, and then unobtrusively carried his baggage-roll to one of the out-houses. Twenty minutes later, calling the girl out on some pretext, he had thrown her down, raped her and then simply walked away and put up elsewhere, trusting—successfully, as it turned out—to the unlikelihood of the landlord going to undue trouble over a simple and very young woman's unsubstantiated word against an open-handed customer who was now nowhere to be found. He could still hear, and relish in memory, the girl's shuddering sobs as he spent himself in her.

Similarly to have ravished this Tonildan child would have been delightful; but unfortunately he was no longer capable of forcing himself upon any girl. Perhaps, after all, he had better ask Lalloc to take her back and refund the money, for an innocent like her would take far too much training; and nowadays the hesitancy and clumsiness of an inept, nervous girl, however pretty, was more than he could endure.

He had consulted the sleek, self-possessed Terebinthia as she fanned him, lying in the vine-shaded verandah one afternoon of still, thundery heat before the rains. Her advice was to keep the girl, at all events for the time being.

In the first place, she felt, they needed to maintain a degree Of continuity in the women's quarters.

Yunsaymis and Tuisto had just gone and it seemed likely that Dyphna—who in any case lacked the salacity so much valued by the High Counselor—would soon be putting up the money to buy her freedom. Her departure would be perfectly acceptable: she had always behaved well and done everything required of her. About Meris, naturally licentious though she was, Terebinthia had always had grave reservations, for the girl was difficult and intractable, with a criminal record of violence. This young Tonildan, on the other hand, might turn out very well in time. In the first place she was physically splendid—exactly what the High Counselor liked. But also, she had shown certain promising signs. She had a sexual relationship with the black girl (Terebinthia missed very little), to whom she seemed devoted, and through this was learning fast. Given the chance, the black girl would no doubt teach her a lot. She had shown herself compliant, ready to learn and anxious to please. Being so young, she could probably be taught to do what the High Counselor liked without feeling the sort of resentment all too regrettably shown by Meris and other girls accustomed to straightforward basting. Sencho, well-fed and somnolent in the heat, had agreed to keep her for the moment and see how she developed.

It was in fact her beauty, together with her biddable docility, which had made him decide upon her as one of the two girls he would take to the Rains banquet, where he always liked to appear with something new and conspicuous. He would, of course, need an experienced girl as well. For an unconstrained occasion like this Meris would be better than the rather fastidious Dyphna. Nothing whatever disgusted Meris. She, like himself, was a born guttersnipe, and besides, would be better than Dyphna at ordering the Tonildan child about and teaching her how to attend to his needs. Of course it was possible that the Tonildan would be overcome with timidity, but on balance this might be rather enjoyable. Other people's distress was always pleasant.

In the event his judgment had proved correct. The two girls had attracted notice and favorable comment and several people, including Kembri, had complimented him on them. They had also attended him smoothly and on the whole competently, with the result that he had been able to enjoy the excellent dinner to the full. In the normal way he would have remained awake afterwards, watched the kura and then gratified himself, but so pleasantly excessive had been the meal that he had been quite unable to desist from sleeping for a time.

Waking slowly and while still half-stupefied, he felt himself consumed by an overwhelming ruttishness.

Dimly he was aware of a girl's soft, perfumed flesh and felt her supporting his head and wiping his body.

Clutching and mouthing, he found her breasts and, in a perfect madness of lust, pulled her hand down to his loins. Yet this, since she did nothing, only added to his frustration. Remembering now where he was and that Meris was in attendance upon him, he called for her, unable to understand why she was not instantly there. Then, to his outraged amazement, he suddenly found himself alone.

Helpless, and afflicted with his lust to the exclusion of all else, like a dog kept from a bitch in heat, he groaned, wallowing in the cushions. His torment became unbearable, for at such times he was quite unused to the least frustration or delay. Now fully conscious, he could see and hear all around him a frenzy of licentious enjoyment. He tried to raise himself on the couch and for a few moments actually succeeded. A slim, dark-haired girl was running towards him, laughing over her shoulder at someone out of sight behind her. Stretching out one hand, he contrived to clutch her thigh before, with a little shriek of amusement, she freed herself and fell across a near-by couch, where—as though on purpose to add to Sencho's torture— she was instantly mounted by the young man who had been pursuing her. Choking with rage, the High Counselor fell back, slavering down his chin and snorting like a tethered boar.

All in a moment his agony vanished, extinguished like a candle-flame, to be instantly succeeded by an exquisite sensation of moist, lubricious luxury. Within moments he was beside himself with pleasure, rendered all the more intense by reason of his sudden deliverance from the horrible thwarting he had undergone. Gasping, neither knowing nor caring what had happened, aware of nothing except that he was doing what he wanted, he gave himself wholly up to his gratification, concluding what needed to be little more than the briefest of effort with a roaring, bellowing flux such as he had not experienced for years.

Dazed, and dripping sweat from every pore, Sencho came slowly to himself and opened his eyes. The Tonildan girl, kneeling beside the couch, was rinsing her mouth from Meris's goblet and groping on the floor for the spray of keranda bloom which had fallen out of her hair. Looking up, she caught his eye for a moment and smiled shyly. The High Counselor, drowsy now but filled with a supreme sense of his own shrewdness in having recognized such an excellent thing when he saw it, fondled her shoulders for a moment, grunted with satisfaction and once more fell asleep.