Sessendris shrugged her shoulders and was silent for a little. At length she said, "I've taken a risk coming here, you know. I always pretend I don't hear anything, but of course any good saiyett knows how to pretend that. Let's go on pretending, shall we? For instance, can you tell me- for I simply can't imagine-whose idea it was that you should join Bayub-Otal and leave the city by night for Urtah?"
Maia started. "Bayub-Otal?"
Sessendris smiled. "You thought I didn't know? Who do you suppose took the Lord General's message to let you through that night to the guard commander at the Gate of Lilies? Oh, Maia, you're such a dear, beautiful baby still! You don't really understand anything, do you? Listen: all the common people from here to Paltesh are wild about you. They know you saved us all. They'd give you the moon if they could. And Maia, I'm common people! My father was a baker in Sarkid. I love you too, and I feel grateful to you from the bottom of my heart. But has it occurred to you that there may be people who don't?"
Uncomprehending, Maia was nettled. "Don't know as I ever really thought about it all that much."
Sessendris bit her lip with frustration. "Look; here's a girl who's sent on an utterly desperate assignment. She succeeds beyond anything that could ever have been expected, she's battered almost to death in doing it and saves an army and probably the empire as well. The Leopards vote her a house, servants, money, privileges, attendance by uniformed soldiers. By Airtha! and they just about knew what was good for them, didn't they? If they hadn't, the army'd likely have torn them to pieces. The High Baron, who's at least got the bluest blood in Bekla if he hasn't got anything else, visits her in person to thank her. But the man who actually sent her, and the woman who consented that he should-they don't come. Why not, do you suppose?"
"General Kembri, d'you mean? Well, but he must have everything to do from morning till night, what with the war and that. That rebel baron, Santil What's-his-name in Chalcon, on top of all the rest, and then-"
"Maia, dear, I can't stay much longer: I'll have to go before I'm missed. But I'll ask you something else. How long does the Sacred Queen normally reign, do you know?"
Maia pondered. "Well, I can't just rightly say. Four years, isn't it?"
"And how long has Queen Form's reigned?"
"Well, I suppose two lots of four years: I never really thought about it."
"Start now. This next Melekril her second reign's due to end. She's thirty-four or thirty-five-I forget which: older than any Sacred Queen before her, anyway. The other morning, while I was down in the lower city on the Lord General's business, I overheard two porters talking in the
colonnade. One of them said, 'Why don't they make the Serrelinda Sacred Queen? That'd bring us all the luck in the world, that would, for if ever the gods loved a girl it's her. Must do, else she'd 'a bin dead by his time.' "
Maia laughed. "Why, I couldn't be Sacred Queen: that's crazy! Everyone knows I've been in and out of bed-"
"But Maia, that doesn't matter! The Sacred Queen doesn't have to be a virgin. It certainly wouldn't stop the people acclaiming you; and there are certain Leopards who'd like to get rid of Kembri and put themselves in his place, you know. They'd be quite ready to make use of you if they decided it would serve their purpose. When you were a slave-girl you hadn't any enemies. Now you've saved the army and the city, you have. That's how the world works, dear. But I'm not your enemy, and that's why I'm here this evening."
"General Kembri wouldn't harm me," said Maia. "I'm sure of that. Why, he promised me my freedom and Cran knows what else if only I could do what he wanted, and I reckon he's been as good as his word and all."
"He couldn't dare be anything else, after Sendekar'd told the army what you'd done. And you're quite right to think he hasn't got anything against you personally. But what I'm trying to tell you is that you're a public figure now, and whether you like it or not, you're almost certainly seen as a rival by Fornis, whose position's difficult enough anyway at her age, with her second reign due to end in a matter of months. Fornis can be like a raving maniac when she hates someone, you know. She'd be ready to let Karnat in-burn the city-smash the empire-anything at all, before she'd give up her power. She wouldn't care what she did!"
Maia stood up and began walking to and fro.
"I can't see this, Sessendris. Whatever should Queen Fornis have against me? I've nothing against her! I've never even put myself forward-"
"You're young, you're very beautiful and you're a public heroine; the people used to worship her, and now they worship you. That's what she'll have against you, and she'll be watching Kembri like a hawk to see whether he favors you or not. He might feel himself forced to, you see, by sheer weight of public feeling. 'Maia for Sacred Queen!' And then-"
"I'll go away-I'll leave Bekla-"
"That would be quite fatal, dear. Everyone would be wondering what you might be up to behind their backs. Remember Enka-Mordet. No, it's not that bad, Maia. By all means stay here and enjoy all you've earned. All I'm saying is, take the greatest care. Don't give anyone the remotest grounds for thinking you might be aiming higher, and don't listen to anyone who may suggest to you that you should. And now I'm off; I've stayed too long as it is. Good-night, golden Maia, and may Lespa guard you! Tell Ogma and the porter to forget I came here. No one else saw me."
When Sessendris was gone and Ogma had brought in the lamps, Maia asked her to bring her needlework and sit with her for company. Yet although Ogma (who had never in her life been five miles from Bekla) did her best, talking of this and that and from time to time asking Maia to thread her needle-for her sight was poor-Maia herself was but indifferent company, preoccupied as she was with all that Sessendris had said. At last Ogma, perceiving that her mistress was not herself, but attributing it merely to fatigue and her state of health, suggested bed; and for some reason this homely proposal at last drew from Maia what was really in her heart.
"Ogma, what's become of Occula? Have you heard anything about her?"
Ogma, limping across the room with her work over her arm, stopped and turned.
"No, not once, Miss Maia. Not since-well, not since that last evening, when you both went to the gardens with the High Counselor. But then they took her away to the temple, didn't they?"
"Yes, but is she with the Sacred Queen now, 's far 's you know?"
"With the Sacred Queen, miss?" Ogma was visibly surprised and agitated. "Oh, Cran! If she went to the Sacred Queen anything could have happened to her."
Maia stared at her, frowning.
"You didn't know, miss? The queen's got a terrible reputation that way."
"I always thought there was some as was devoted to her," said Maia, remembering Ashaktis.
"Maybe her own Palteshis," said Ogma, "and any as might just happen to suit her, like. But there's others as she's-well-got rid of, so they say."
The realization that she had been several days in Bekla without making any inquiry about Occula showed Maia more plainly than anything else how weak and shocked she must really have been. She had been sleeping badly, troubled with pain as well as with anxiety about her scars (for she had four or five gashes altogether, though none so grievous as that on her thigh). Again and again she had woken from nightmares of fire in the dark, of roaring water and the boy Sphelthon crying on the blood-drenched ground. Protean they were, these fantasies, casting themselves like amorphous nets round her distressed mind; tormentors continually emerging in new and unexpected guises. The fire would dance before her, its flames murmuring "Sha-greh, shagreh," as they refused to cook her food. The water would become an insubstantial ladder on which she dared not set foot. Or she would be placidly swimming when the wretched boy, a weeping horror, would rise up out of deep water and fasten his bloody mouth on her flinching body. One night of full moon, having lain for two hours afraid to fall asleep again, she had resorted to her old solace, gone down to the Barb and, plunging in near the outfall of the Monju brook, swum half a mile to the Pool of Light, stepping out naked into the gardens before a gaping sentry of the Lapanese regiment. (Ogma had returned his cloak next morning, and this latest story of the Serrelinda lost nothing in the telling.)