She would recall that drudging childhood she was glad to think she had left behind; of no further interest, remnant as a discarded dress or a faded bunch of flowers. Only for the rippling solitude of Lake Serrelind, and for her happy waterfall, did she still feel a pang of regret, and-yes! for Tharrin, that strolling, smiling, rather seedy adventurer. He was shallow, a rascal, of no account-this she could now see plainly. While she was daily before his eyes he had not been able to resist her; indeed, it had never occurred to him even to try-no, indeed, rather the reverse. Yet once she was gone, he had let that be the end of it. Too bad, but these things happened, didn't they? At least, they always had-to him. Easy come, easy go. "Wonder what mother said when he came back?" she thought. "Ah, and what he said an' all. Just about nothing, I dare say. All the same, he was kind and good-natured; he liked a good time; he made you laugh; we had a bit of fun. I wouldn't say no to him, not even now. Leastways he wasn't one to bite and pinch and set you crawling over the floor. Oh-" and here she gazed down pleasurably at her clothes and the jewels on her fingers and arms-"wouldn't I just about like to rub his face in this lot? 'See?' I'd say. 'This is what I've got out of you not being man enough even to try to get me back. 'Fraid I can't stop now-I've got to go and be basted by the Lord General of Bekla, for more than two hundred meld. Ta-ta!' "
Ah! The Lord General of Bekla. And thus her thoughts came sharply back to the present. Mostly, during the day, she was successful in keeping her anxiety at arm's length. Sometimes she was able to persuade herself that nothing at all would follow from what the Lord General had offered (or demanded of) her. Yet alone, in the rain-scented evening, with the thrushes singing in the green silence, the recollection of what he had said about danger would come trickling back into her mind like water under a door- indisputable evidence of worse outside. What sort of danger? When? Where? From whom? "If you survive." This, for all she knew, was probably the sort of thing generals commonly said to their soldiers. She wished Kembri had not said it to her.
Yet here, if the Lord General was to be trusted, lay the
hope of greater and quicker gain than she could expect from any other quarter. To be free, and set up as a Beklan shearna, and that before she was much older! This was the thing to dwell upon, this was the thing to hope for. "When I'm a shearna, I'll-" and as the clouds closed once more across the red sun and the rain returned, Maia's thoughts ran buoyantly on towards an indistinct but glorious future; for she was young and healthy and, like most people until they have met catastrophe face-to-face, had a vague idea that it could never really happen to her. She was lucky! Lucky Maia! Had not her very enslavement turned out, all in all, a big change for the better? As Terebinthia came in to summon her to the dining-hall she would dismiss her fears, turning from the window and unfastening her bodice to lie half-open in the way she knew the High Counselor liked.
Occula, too, though she never spoke of it, seemed by no means without anxiety. She had set up in their room the polished, black image of Kantza-Merada, and more than once Maia, returning unexpectedly, would find her prostrate before it, her face-certainly on one occasion- wet with tears. Maia became familiar with the words of that liturgy which she had first heard by the stream between Hirdo and Khasik:
"Most strangely, Kantza-Merada, are the laws of the dark world effected. O Kantza-Merada, do not question the laws of the nether world."
This and more Occula would repeat nightly, sometimes clasping the figure of the goddess between her hands as she did so; striving desperately, one might think, to wring comfort from it as juice from a fruit.
One night, as they were preparing for bed, Maia, happening to pick up the pottery Cat Colonna, saw that Occula had roughly scratched a few words-presumably with her knife-across the base. Slowly, she spelt them out. " 'Ready-do-as you wish.' What's that, then, Occula?"
"That?" For a moment Occula seemed startled. "Oh, that's-that's what we used to call an incised prayer. You know, you take the trouble to scratch it on, an' that makes the prayer-well, it sort of makes it work. That's a prayer of submission."
"Submission? To what?"
"Oh, I dunno-everythin': anythin': to whatever has to be done, that's all." She stood up, yawning and stretching smooth, black arms above her gown of white satin. "Come on, help me off with this. Cran, it's heavy! Unhook the back, banzi, and then hold it while I step out. Oh, I could sleep for days, couldn' you?"
28: A LITTLE AMUSEMENT
Maia, making up the charcoal brazier at the further end of the small dining-hall, returned to the High Counselor's couch, helped herself to a bowl of egg-yolks frothed in lemon, wine and sugar, and lay down among the cushions at his feet.
Sencho had spent the greater part of the morning in questioning and giving instructions to a succession of outlandish, raffish persons, most of whom were obviously poor and one or two, actual vagrants (or might they, Maia wondered, be merely disguised as vagrants?). The girls had not, of course, been in attendance. Terebinthia had brought the men one by one into the High Counselor's presence, and as each was dismissed paid him whatever meager sum Sencho ordered. None, however, had been allowed to leave until all had been heard; after which six or seven had been kept back for further questioning until Sencho had resolved to his satisfaction certain inconsistencies in what they had told him. Three, who arrived masked, had been kept in separate rooms until summoned.
Whatever the result of the morning's work, it was evidently pleasing to Sencho. As noon approached he seemed in excellent spirits, instructing Terebinthia to see that the small hall was prepared and that Maia and Occula were ready to add to his enjoyment of a well-earned dinner.
It was soon clear that his satisfaction with the reports of the spies had stimulated his greed to an even greater degree than usual. When at length, after more than an hour, the time came for an enforced rest, he showed no inclination to drowse, requiring instead that the girls should entertain him until he felt capable of eating again.
One of the High Counselor's amusements at such times was to misuse or spoil food in one way or another; for it pleased him to feel that he, who had starved and stolen
as a child, was now able not only to consume excessive quantities purely for his pleasure, but also to waste them if he wished. Sometimes he would have some emaciated beggar brought in off the streets and, having deliberately fouled a dish of veal or a game pie before his eyes, would graciously permit him to eat it before being sent away: or, ordering two or three girls to be brought up from one of the pleasure-houses of the lower city, he would promise a large sum of money to the one who could eat most in half an hour, watching intently as they gobbled, crammed and choked over the rich food to which their stomachs were quite unaccustomed.
Today he caused Terebinthia to fill a great, silver basin with clotted cream until it was almost brimming. Then, himself undressing Occula, he told her to sit down in it. The black girl did so, lending herself to the game by lolling and wriggling from side to side until the cream had covered her smooth, brown body from belly to thighs. Then, getting up, she stood obediently as the High Counselor proceeded to decorate her loins with an intricate pattern of cherries, almonds, fragments of angelica, sugared violets and the like.
Maia, excited by the extravagance and waste and by the bizarre sight of her pretty friend literally clothed in food, was as usual unable to confine herself to her proper role as a slave-girl, but must needs be joining in the sport, hanging pairs of cherries from Occula's ears and nipples and then, laughing at her own ingenuity, peeling the skin from the long finger of an itarg-fruit and thrusting it between her legs. Her fellow-feeling for the game pleased Sencho, who at length resumed his dinner by causing Occula to remain beside the couch so that he could lick the creamy confection from her body; while Maia, crouching, made use of the frothed egg-yolks to indulge him in a somewhat similar manner.