"Oh, but I've no voice, U-Sarget," answered Maia smilingly. " 'Sides, I don't know as I could just remember any of those old songs now; though I dare say if I was swimming in the lake they'd come back easy enough."
"Then we must get you swimming in the lake-or a lake," said Sarget. "The Barb, perhaps-"
"Good evening, Maia," said a voice behind them.
It was Bayub-Otal. Maia had not noticed him among the guests, and it had certainly not occurred to her that he might be a friend of Sarget. However, from the obvious pleasure with which Sarget now greeted him, this was evidently the case. He was wearing a plain, gray robe, without ornament, and round his neck a heavy, silver chain of striking workmanship, the individual links fashioned to resemble reed-clusters, rippling pools, willows, fish, waterfowl and the like. Sarget, smiling, raised a finger to touch it.
"I'm one person who's glad to see you're not afraid to wear a chain like that in Bekla."
"There is no chain like that," replied Bayub-Otal, returning his smile.
"I don't doubt it," said Sarget. "It's an heirloom, I suppose?
"My father had it made for my mother."
"I never had the luck to see her, but I've often heard tell of her. Well," went on Sarget, "here's the young lady you asked us to make sure of. Elvair-ka-Virrion can usually get what he wants if he puts his mind to it."
"I'm indebted to him-and to you. By the way, your spring hymn was really excellent-too good for the audience, perhaps. You should keep work like that for your friends in private. But we're delaying the others, aren't we?" And indeed those round them were clearly waiting only for their host to take his place. Sarget, bowing to Maia as though she had been a baron's wife, turned and went to his seat, leaving her with Bayub-Otal.
Here was a nice damned state of basting affairs! she
thought angrily. Terebinthia had told her that Elvair-ka-Virrion had asked for her and Milvushina to go to a party. She had said nothing about Bayub-Otal. But then, she thought, in all probability Terebinthia had not known herself. Elvair-ka-Virrion would not have said anything. In the ordinary way Occula might have guessed at the likely truth of the situation and pointed it out, but then she, of course, had not been herself last night.
Maia strove to control her disappointment. She had been simple enough to suppose that Elvair-ka-Virrion must want her again for himself. She might have realized that what was in fact going to be required of her was to continue her work on Bayub-Otal. And Nennaunir had remarked that she must be glad to get away from the High Counselor for a while! If only Nennaunir knew! she thought. She would actually have preferred Sencho, restored to his normal appetites and ready for the attentions of his favorite, than an evening with this cold, embittered Urtan who seemed- perhaps because no Beklan ladies of birth would consort with him-only to want to treat her as something she was not. Still, if she wanted to go on making progress in Kem-bri's good graces she had better get down to her job.
"You asked for me to come here tonight, my lord?" she said, leaning back on her arm and smiling up into his face.
"I hope you're not sorry," he answered. "Between ourselves, it's not the kind of occasion I care for much, but Sarget's one of the few people in Bekla whom I regard as a friend. I didn't want to refuse, and I thought if anyone could help me to enjoy it, it would be you."
"I'm going to see to it as you do, my lord."
It did not, in fact, prove such very hard work. The excellent dinner and wine, the luxurious surroundings, the friendly amiability of Nennaunir and others, Maia's confidence in her own beauty and the desire she obviously excited in everyone, it would seem, except Bayub-Otaclass="underline" these were more than enough to enable her to feel not unkindly towards him. She'd got the measure of him now, she thought, well enough. He didn't know what to do with a girl, but none the less-poor, disappointed loser-like anyone else he wanted to be able to show one to the world: and even apart from her own interests with Kembri, her easiest course was to try to get on with him as well as she could. Irritation might come easily to Maia, but her natural good nature did not readily admit of sustained dislike.
From time to time her eyes wandered to the next table, where Elvair-ka-Virrion was sitting near Sarget. Milvu-shina was beside him, and it was clear enough that he was enjoying her company. The Chalcon girl had resumed her habitual, grave demeanor and appeared to be doing little more than reply courteously to his remarks and questions. Maia could not help thinking that her somber self-possession became her very well; Elvair-ka-Virrion obviously thought so too, for he continued talking to her almost exclusively, apparently making every effort to suit his manner to her own. Once or twice-half-reluctantly, as it seemed-she smiled in response.
S'pose she reckons she's back among her own sort, thought Maia; and for a time, jealousy and resentment overcame her. Yet soon these, like her earlier annoyance, were at least to some extent dispelled by simple enjoyment and absorption in her surroundings.
The truth was that this evening Maia was beginning for the first time to grasp something of the difference between style and the mere show of opulence. This, not surprisingly, was a matter to which she had never previously given thought, since neither one nor the other had been exactly plentiful along the shores of Lake Serrelind. Now, she unexpectedly found herself contrasting the hall about her with the rooms in Sencho's house. Upon her arrival she had been surprised to see so few obviously precious things displayed. Sencho's two halls, as well as the garden-room, were full of hangings, furniture, statues and ornaments-many from the houses of enemies and victims-the costliness of which was plain enough. It suddenly occurred to Maia to wonder whether he would notice if some of them were stolen; and whether Terebinthia might in fact have sold a few without his knowledge. Be that as it might, it crossed her mind (in the act of gnawing a roast duck leg) that clearly someone-presumably Sarget himself-must have given careful thought to the appearance of this hall as a whole, and that his aim had been a display less of wealth than of restrained and congruent beauty and harmony. Restraint, she now realized, was not necessarily a sign of indigence. The purpose and effect of the moist ferns and varied green wall-hangings-however much or little they might have cost-were simply to provide a relatively unobtrusive yet appropriate setting for the guests' own magnificence-for Elvair-ka-Virrion's black-and-crimson,
silver-tasselled abshay, Nennaunir's night-blue robe and Bayub-Otal's unique silver chain.
Even more strongly than the decoration of the hall, however, the music made Maia aware of a difference in quality between Sencho's pleasures and those of Sarget and his friends. The very notion of music was so alien to the atmosphere of the High Counselor's household that it had never before even entered Maia's head to think of it as a deficiency. She would as readily have thought of missing the stars from a cellar. Yet it now struck her that obviously Sencho, if he wished, could well afford musicians as good as.these; and thereupon she realized also, not only that he did not want them-that music meant nothing to him- but also that this insensitivity could not really be attributed solely to the poverty and hardship of his origins; for Thar-rin, if he were somehow or other to become rich, would certainly take pleasure in having his own musicians: so, probably, would Zuno. She began to perceive more clearly why so many of these people despised Sencho even while they feared him and perforce afforded him the show of respect.
Smiling and conversing with Bayub-Otal, teasingly or otherwise as the mood took her (for Maia's conversational style knew little of reserve or convention), she was nevertheless almost continuously aware of the softly plangent, bitter-sweet tone of the hinnaris interweaving, darting here and there like swallows, back and forth in a patterned harmony above the dark water of the drums. In her fancy the intermittent flutes became gleams of light, the soft crescendos of the zerda and derlanzel a distant rustling of leaves. The minor, repeated phrases of the Paltesthi rogan which they were playing seemed infinitely vivid and compelling, moving her almost to tears. Bayub-Otal, she sensed, felt this also, and was aware that she felt it too; for gradually his conversation ceased and he sat unspeaking, gazing into his wine-cup and silently-almost imperceptibly-following the rhythm of the drums with his finger-tips. Once, turning his head, he caught Maia's eye with a half-smile and she, her task of pleasing him become that much easier, smiled back and for an instant rubbed her shoulder against his.