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 wood-work. 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-"