60: PILLAR TO POST

It was not easy, even for the Serrelinda, to get hold of the Lord General at so busy and troublous a time.

He was not at his house the following morning, though she arrived there so early that the steward—as she could perceive— was embarrassed, his slaves being still at work in the reception rooms and the place not yet ready to receive callers and petitioners. Both the Lord General, he told her, and the young Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion were already gone to the Barons' Palace; he understood that later in the morning they meant to go down to the lower city to review the troops leaving for Thettit tomorrow. The lady Milvushina, however, was upstairs in Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion's rooms. Should he tell her the säiyett had come?

It had not previously crossed Maia's mind to tell Milvushina of her trouble. Thinking quickly—the man in his scarlet uniform standing deferentially before her—she realized that she had no great wish to do so.

No great wish? She hesitated. What did she mean in thus replying to herself?

Milvushina had gone out of her way to show herself a friend; to speak of herself and her situation without reserve; to make common cause with Maia, warn her, talk of her own anxieties and expectations. If Maia were to tell her now of Tharrin she would—oh, yes, certainly she would—show every sympathy and probably even promise to put in a word. She would be all benevolence. Yet in her mind would arise, unexpressed, a picture of the grubby little peasant girl tumbled on the shore by her mother's fancy man. In a word, it wasn't what Milvushina would say, but what she wouldn't say, which made Maia reluctant to tell her her trouble or ask for her advice. Often, although we may not be ashamed in our own hearts—may even be proud or glad—of something we have done, because by our own standards it was genuinely good—good, if you like, to ourselves and to the gods, who understand everything—yet nevertheless we still feel troubled by the idea of it becoming known to someone else whom we feel to be inflexibly different in outlook from ourselves. "Oh— she just wouldn't understand." "So you're ashamed?" asks an inward voice. No, no, inward voice; don't be so simplistic. Do you think there is only one color in the spectrum; or that some animal is universally "unclean" because one out of the world's countless religions has always maintained so? It is, rather, just that her values are not ours; that's all.

Maia, somewhat to her own surprise, heard herself asking to see Sessendris. The man raised his eyebrows slightly, bowed and requested her to be so good as to accompany him.

Sessendris was dressed in a long white apron, making bread, her beautiful arms covered with flour to the elbow.

"Maia!" she said, looking up with a smile and tossing back her hair. "How nice! You must wonder what in Cran's name the Lord General's säiyett thinks she's doing in the bakery. The truth is I enjoy it, and no one else in this whole house can make bread as well as I do. So you've caught me out, my dear. Now don't you go telling the whole upper city that the Lord General's säiyett's a baker, or you'll probably have me hanging upside-down!"

This unintentionally grisly pleasantry brought the tears to poor Maia's eyes. Apart from her initial collapse in the jekzha the previous afternoon, she had until now stood up pretty well to the shock and strain of the past fifteen hours; perhaps the better because the squalor, vulgarity and sordid ugliness, which to someone like Milvushina would have been almost the worst of it, were things she had grown up with.

Now, however, she wept, standing unreplying in front of Sessendris with the tears running down her cheeks. Sessendris, nodding to the kitchen-maid to leave them, sat down beside her on the flour-sprinkled table.

"It's nasty," said the säiyett, when she had heard it all. "The truth is, the world's nasty, Maia Serrelinda. Haven't you learned that yet? You ought to, I should have thought, after a few months with Sencho."

"I'm—I'm getting to know, I reckon."

"And you want to try to alter it, do you?"

"But Sessendris, surely they'll pardon him, won't they? I mean, if I ask them? They're always saying as I saved the city, and if—"

"Why d'you want him pardoned?" interrupted Sessendris. "Do you still love him?"

"No," replied Maia, so instantly and emphatically that the säiyett, nodding, was drawn to say, "I see: you love someone else, do you? Well, never mind about that for now. But in that case why do you want him pardoned? From what you've told me, he's as guilty as he can be, and he never lifted a finger to try to help you when you'd been sold as a slave: and he could have, couldn't he?"

"How could he?" asked Maia.

"Why, at the very least he could have gone to one of his heldro masters and asked him to follow you up. That's what happened with Missy upstairs, as I dare say you know; but by that time she didn't want it. Anyway, suppose you were to get him handed over to you, what would you do with him?"

"I haven't thought yet. Send him home, I suppose."

"To get into more trouble? He's been in and out of scrapes all his life, by what you've told me. He'll never change. You must know that, Maia, if you're honest. I just can't understand—well, what your idea is."

"To save him from suffering," said Maia.

"You're such a sweet, kind girl," said Sessendris. "D'you know, I used to be like you, believe it or not? You haven't grasped as much as I thought you had. Now you listen to me. You've gone up in the world. I've gone up in the world too: not like you— you've had a shower of stars poured into your lap—but still, I'm a long way above where I started. And when that sort of thing happens to you, you simply can't afford to be the person you once were. You can't be two people. You've become a new person and you've got to be her. To the upper city you're as good as a princess. Suppose you start begging for the life of this five-meld wastrel, the Leopards aren't going to think any the better of you, are they? They'll just think you can't tell shit from pudding."

"I'll go down into the lower city! I'll appeal to the people—" Maia was angry now as well as tearful.

"My dear, the people—they'd like it even less. Surely you can see that? The very last thing they want to think is that you're one of themselves. You're the magic Serrelinda, the girl who fooled King Karnat and swam the river. No one's good enough for you! And there you'd be, pleading for a—well, never mind. But you're living in the real world, Maia—the only one there is—and the world's been good to you. You've got to learn to accept it as it is." Sessendris stood up and once more began tossing the flour. "I'm sorry my advice is nasty medicine. But drink it! It'll do you good. The other won't, believe you me."

At the Barons' Palace she was obliged to wait for some time. Officers—some of whom she knew, others she had never seen before—were coming and going and there was an atmosphere of males intent upon male matters, in which she felt unhappily intrusive and out of place. She was touched when the Tonildan captain—the very one who had come to thank her in Rallur—catching sight of her alone and obviously ill-at-ease, excused himself to three or four companions with< whom he was about to leave and kept her in countenance by sitting down and conversing with her—as best he could, for he was none too ready of tongue—until a smooth and courtly Beklan equerry not much older than herself came up and begged her to accompany him to the Lord General.

In the Beklan Empire, maps—insofar as the term is appropriate—took-the form of rough models, more-or-less to scale, built up, from local knowledge and eye-witness reports, either on trestles and boards or simply on the ground, with clay, twigs, pebbles and the like. Kembri and Elvair-ka-Virrion were standing at a plank table laid out to represent Chalcon, the Lord General pointing here and there as he talked. Elvair-ka-Virrion, dressed in a Gelt breastplate over a purple leather jerkin, looked up and smiled at Maia as warmly and gallantly as on that far-off afternoon when he had seen her for the first time in the Khalkoornil.

"Maia! Are you here to join up? Come to Chalcon and help us beat Erketlis! Then we'll make you queen of Tonilda and give you a crown of leopards' teeth. How about it?"

She smiled, raising a palm to her forehead. "Happen I'd be less help than hindrance, my lord. All the same, there is something you can give me; cost you a lot less trouble an' all." Seeing Kembri also smiling, she added, "Reckon you must know as I've come to ask for something. Hadn't, I wouldn't be here."

This was the first time that Maia had met with the Lord General since the day when she had been released from arrest by the intervention of the Sacred Queen. He looked strained and tired, but his manner, as he put down the stick he had been using as a pointer and took her hands in greeting, at first seemed friendly and well-wishing enough. She could not help thinking that Nennaunir had been rather hard on him. While it would certainly have been nice if he had come to visit her together with the High Baron, he must have had lots more important things to do. (Maia was of course vague about military matters, but tended to think of them as necessarily occupying soldiers from morning till night and often longer than that.)

"I haven't had any chance before, Maia," said Kembri, "to thank you for what you did in Suba. I thank you now. You'll remember I always told you that you might very well become free sooner than you could imagine."

Somehow, as women can, she could tell that his words lacked real warmth and sincerity. For some reason, her success and fame were not particularly congenial to him. She felt mortified. There was no time to bother about that now, however. "If you really are grateful, my lord," she said, "please do something for me. It's not a lot to ask. There's a prisoner among those as came in last night—"

She had had opportunity, since leaving Sessendris, to take thought and prepare her story along less ingenuous lines. Tharrin was her dear stepfather. He had been the family's sole prop and mainstay in their poverty on the Tonildan Waste. She owed so much to him. When she had been enslaved he had sought her in vain—she had learned as much last night—and for her part she believed him innocent. If only his life were spared, she would see to it that he went home to those who desperately needed him and never fell foul of authority again.

When at length she had finished there was a pause. "But if this man was such a good father to you all, Maia," asked Elvair-ka-Virrion at length, "how was it that you came to be enslaved?"

" 'Twas poverty,, my lord—sheer hard times," answered Maia. "We was nigh on starving, see—"

"So he made ready money by acting as a rebels' courier," broke in Kembri. "Well, you may believe him innocent, Maia, but I can tell you that we know —Sencho knew—that every one of those prisoners is guilty twenty times over."

Maia said nothing, and after a few moments he went on, "Do you remember the day when we first talked about Bayub-Otal; the day you told me about the High Counselor and Milvushina?"

"Yes, my lord; I remember very well."

"So you won't have forgotten our talking about adventurers and their need to see clearly and not deceive themselves into thinking that just because they happen to have struck lucky, they can get away with anything."

"I'm not deceiving myself, my lord. It's only that I can't bear the thought of my stepfather being—being tortured and put to death."

"Tortured? Put to death?" said Elvair-ka-Virrion. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Why, he told me himself, my lord—I saw him in the jail last night—as he knew he was to be tortured—"

"The man's a fool, then," said Kembri shortly, "or more likely the soldiers have been amusing themselves by telling him tales." He picked up his stick and turned back to the map.

"Oh, don't be sharp with her, father," said Elvair-ka-Virrion. "A girl like her deserves better. Maia, let me explain. You ought to know—who better?—that human bodies are worth money. We only execute people if they're worth nothing—or if they've become so infamous that they have to be made a public example. These prisoners—they've got value as slaves. Provided these people answer our questions and tell us everything we need to know, they've got nothing to fear beyond being sold as slaves. You can probably buy your stepfather if you want to. In fact, I think the prisoners have already been apportioned. There's a roll somewhere, father, isn't there?"

"Over there." Kembri nodded towards another table.

"Apportioned?" asked Maia. "What's that, then?"

"Why, when a batch of prisoners like this comes in," said Elvair-ka-Virrion, "strictly speaking their lives are all forfeit. But any Leopard who wants can put in a bid for so many at a price, and then they belong to him and he has the disposal of them. They can be sold, or given away, or just kept as slaves in his household—whatever he decides. Ah, yes, here's the roll. What did you say your stepfather's name was?"

"Tharrin, of Meerzat."

"I see. Yes, here he is. Oh!" Elvair-ka-Virrion, whose manner had seemed full of reassurance, suddenly stopped short and put the roll back on the table. After a few moments he said, "Well, if I were you, Maia, I should try to forget about this."

"Why, what do you mean, my lord? Who—who's got Tharrin, then?"

"The Sacred Queen," replied Elvair-ka-Virrion. "He's one of eight prisoners marked for her personal disposal. I'm sorry, Maia. When the Sacred Queen has the disposal of prisoners, you see, that's usually—well, rather different, I'm afraid."

"But—but I could still buy Tharrin, my lord, couldn't I? From the queen?"

"You could try, certainly," said Kembri, "but if I were you I shouldn't." He went to the door and summoned the young staff officer. "Bahrat, the Serrelinda's leaving now. Show her to the door, will you? and then come back yourself."

Two porters opened the double gates and her soldiers drew the Serrelinda's jekzha into the garden court of the Sacred Queen's house. Dew was still lying on the lawn, the western side of which sparkled in the sun now well risen above the opposite rooftop. A green-and-white-plu-maged memmezah, red-billed and red-legged, was running here and there, foraging over the grass and now and then breaking into short, low flights. In one corner stood a little grove of purple-flowering lam bushes—somewhere between shrubs and trees—and among these four or five small, gray-green monkeys were leaping here and there, suddenly chasing one another and as suddenly breaking off. Bees droned among the flowerbeds. A peacock, trailing its tail, wandered pausingly across a narrow, stone-paved path and disappeared behind a low wall on its further side. There was a scent of lilies and of moist greenery and from time to time, from somewhere beyond the light pattering of the fountain, a bluefinch repeated its little, falling song.

Maia walked in the garden while her soldier Brero went to make inquiries. After a little she paused in the shade, leaning against a blossoming cherry tree. Looking up at the side of the palace facing her, she could recognize the gallery, with its trellised arcading, where she had embraced the Sacred Queen in the moonlight. Suddenly, as she stood gazing, a girl's scream sounded from above. It seemed like a cry of pain rather than of fear, and was quickly cut short, as though whoever uttered it had either been silenced in some way or had controlled herself. Maia wondered whether the girl—whoever she might be—had burned herself or dropped something heavy on her foot. At any rate it wasn't Occula—she could tell that. She fingered her diamonds nervously; chewed a blade of grass and picked at the cherry bark. Then, hearing the sound of a footstep on the path, she turned to see Brero coming towards her.

Somewhat to her surprise, the man told her that he had been given to understand that the queen would see her immediately. She followed him round the lawn and past the monkeys' grove to a stone doorway above which, in a recess, a little statue of Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable stood pointing downward at the sprouting tamarrik seed. Inside was a long, cool hall, elegantly tiled in red and white, where slim, fluted columns rose to a coffered ceiling. Scented shrubs were standing here and there in leaden troughs, and at the far end rose a staircase.

Zuno, waiting at the foot of these stairs, bowed to Maia without speaking and motioned to her to ascend. Arrived at the stairhead, she at once recognized the corridor where Form's had tackled the guard-hound with her bare hands. Passing the actual spot, she noticed several scratches still remaining on the polished boards. Then they were climbing to the second story.

Zuno stopped outside the queen's bedroom and knocked. After a few moments the door was opened by a woman— an obvious Palteshi—whom Maia had not seen before. She gave her name and the woman nodded to her to enter.

Fornis, half-naked in a pale-green dressing-robe embroidered with waves and fishes in silver, was seated at a dressing-table of inlaid sestuaga-wood. Open before her was a kind of cabinet full of jars of ointment, boxes of creams and unguents and bottles of lotion and perfume. Her shoulders and bosom were lightly sprinkled with an adhesive, golden powder which guttered where it caught the light. In one hand she held the heavy, carved comb with which she had combed Maia's hair in the bathroom, while with the fingertips of the other she was lightly rubbing an orange-tinted rouge into the skin round her cheekbones. As Maia raised her palm to her forehead, the queen turned her head and looked up at her over her shoulder.

Once again Maia saw, with that tremor which often comes upon us in the moment that we realize that we had forgotten the precise appearance of someone remembered with deep emotion—love, hatred or fear—the blazing hair, the ice-green eyes, the creamy skin, the buxom body at one and the same time opulent yet lithe and agile as an athlete's. Again she sensed the latent energy like a coiled spring, and the domineering, rapacious vitality which, striking upward through the leaves like a physical force, had literally thrown her off balance as she stood poised above the Barb.

Looking into those eyes, Maia knew that she was afraid. This was not Folda, the woman with whom she had eaten and drunk and whom she had failed to gratify. This was the legendary Queen Forms, who carried within her the power to confront warriors, to outface monarchs and barons, subdue the priesthood and set at nought—with im-punity, as it seemed—-the very gods themselves. Princess of Paltesh she might have been born, and Sacred Queen of Airtha she might have become; yet ultimately her power stemmed not from these titles, but from some inscrutable, transcendental source compared with which mere human attributes were trifles; a source whose servants, once sent into the world, were authorized to stick at nothing. This power—so it appeared to Maia now—-must have grown in Fornis like a tree. She had not always been thus; yet the seed had been born with her. Now it was full-grown.

Ah; so tall that men—and women, too—could hang upside-down from the branches.

"Good morning, Maia," said the Sacred Queen, somehow contriving, by her near-nakedness and casual pursuance of her cosmetic activities, to reduce to vain, pretentious triviality Maia's silk dress and diamond necklace. "I trust you've been enjoying yourself since your return to Bekla."

"Yes, thank you, esta-säiyett," replied Maia, by the queen's tone put beyond doubt that there was to be no sort of renewal of a friendly relationship between them.

She was about to go on to inquire after the queen's health and well-being when she became aware of a kind of struggling commotion taking place further down the room. Looking over Fornis's shoulder, she now saw Ashaktis seated astride a bench, beside which was standing a dark, hirsute young man in a leather jerkin.

It was not at either of these, however, that Maia looked for more than a moment, but at the figure between them; a dark-haired, big-built girl, stripped to the waist, who was kneeling on the floor. Ashaktis, leaning forward and gripping her wrists, was holding her prone along the length of the bench. The girl's back was criss-crossed with bloody weals; and in the moment that Maia took in the scene, the young man struck her again with a thin, pliant stick on which blood was glistening. At this the girl flung back her head, showing a plain, rustic face contorted with pain, and Maia saw that she had a marked cast in one eye. She recognized her then, in spite of the distortion caused by the gag in her mouth. It was Chia, the Urtan girl with whom she and Occula had fought and then made friends in Lalloc's slave-hall.

"Oh, esta-säiyett, please!" Maia, who from the first had felt all embarrassment at standing beside the queen lolling in undress, now fell on her knees at her feet.

"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-säiyett, 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-säiyett: 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-säiyett; 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-säiyett," 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-säiyett," 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-säiyett." 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-säiyett: 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-säiyett, 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-säiyett." 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-säiyett. 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-säiyett. I'm not suggesting bargaining."

"I see. And what would be a fair price, do you think?"

"I don't know, esta-säiyett."

"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."

Zuno was silent for some moments, gazing out into the garden. At length he said, "And how did she treat you?"

"Bad. I'm afraid of her. I mean, she could have said yes or no straight out; but she's cruel, isn't she? It's—I don't know—it's not so much what she does as what she is that frightens me. I don't understand it—I've never done her no harm!"

"You'd better understand several things, Maia, before you decide to go any further with this business. Before you went to Suba, she and Kembri were still on good terms. She believed he meant to see that she was acclaimed Sacred Queen for a third reign: Ashaktis told me as much. But when he allowed his son to help himself to Milvushina and then refused point-blank to send her back to Chalcon, Fornis guessed at once—she's very quick and shrewd— that he must have the idea of getting Milvushina acclaimed Sacred Queen instead."

He stopped, listening, and then looked quickly out of the alcove for a moment.

"Well, what of it?" asked Maia, made fearful by his tension and anxious, now, only to end this conversation and leave the house.

"When she sent you back to the temple to go to Suba," said Zuno, "that was by way of obliging Kembri. Her idea was that he could have you back and make use of you on the understanding that Milvushina would either be returned to Chalcon or else—well, put out of the way. She thought you'd probably die anyway, you see. But what happened was that Kembri refused to part with Milvushina and then you came back as—well, what you are now. She knows, now, that Kembri must intend to supersede her. Actually, he has no alternative: the people would never acclaim her for a third reign. Oh, she knows how to keep up appearances, but secretly she must be desperate. And she knows, too, who are her rivals. Kembri would prefer Milvushina: but left to themselves the people would undoubtedly prefer you."

Maia nodded. "I'd been warned already, come to that, only I never just 'zactly seen it quite so clear as what you've put it now."

Zuno gazed in silence over her head as though what she had said did not really call for a reply. In memory she saw again the aloof young dandy whose fastidious hauteur had outfaced the brigands on the highway. She took his hand and smiled.

"But you're not afraid of her, are you, U-Zuno?"

"I? Oh, I find her most tedious. The truth is, she's reached a state of mind in which she's the deadly enemy of virtually any young woman in the upper city who commands popularity. If I could help you, Maia, I would. But now you tell me you're actually soliciting favors from her." He shrugged his shoulders.

"That's playing into her hands. I can only advise you that I wouldn't want to offer myself as a plaything for her ingenuity. If I were you, I should desist. I say that as a friend."

Two slaves, carrying brooms and pails of water, were approaching down the hall. Zuno, nodding and murmuring "Certainly, säiyett, I quite understand," bowed and held open the door.