After a white-how long?-they were gone, followed by a rag-tag of urchins running behind, shouting with glee. The crowd broke up, the jekzha moved on. They were turning into the Caravan Market before the jekzha-man realized that Maia was sobbing hysterically.
"Yes, nasty business, saiyett, ain't it?" he remarked paternally over his shoulder. "I don't go a lot on it meself. But you've no need to take on that way, y'know. They're all villains, the 'ole lot of 'em, else they wouldn't be there."
"Where-where are they going?" she faltered, digging her nails into her palm and forcing herself to speak with something approaching self-control.
"Oh, it'll be the Old Jail," he answered. "The one down in the Shilth."
"Where's that?"
"The Shilth? That's the butchers' quarter, saiyett, about half-way between here and the Sel-Dolad Tower. Rough-ish kind of neighb'r'ood, that is, 'specially at night."
"Take me there, please."
"What's that, saiyett? Did you say take you there?"
"Yes, please."
He stopped, looking back at her puzzled.
"Now, you mean?"
"Yes, please."
He hesitated. "Saiyett, it's none of my business, but-"
"Please do as I ask: or if you prefer, get me someone else. I realize I've kept you rather a long time already."
She passed him down ten meld, at which he nodded, shrugged and turned back into the Sheldad.
During the next twenty minutes the facade which presented to the city the buoyant, resourceful and heroic Ser-relinda crumbled, exposing a shocked and panic-stricken girl of sixteen, as devoid of worldly-wisdom as of dissimulation. Yet though she sat trembling and weeping in the jekzha, never for a moment did it occur to Maia to go home and concern herself no further with the condemned wreck who had once been her lover. On the contrary, by the time they had turned off the Sheldad and begun picking their way uphill through the fetid, fly-buzzing lanes of the Shilth, Maia had in effect been stripped of every coherent thought save her determination first to see Tharrin and then to do everything in her power to save him.
Outside the walls of the jail-a dirty, ill-repaired but nonetheless very solid group of buildings, once a shambles, enlarged and converted some years before to meet the Leopards' need for another prison-she paid off the jek-zha-man and told the gatekeeper that she wished to see the governor. The gatekeeper, an aging man with conjunctive, mucous eyes, did not trouble himself to look directly at her while telling her that it was out of the question. She repeated her request peremptorily.
"Come on, now, lovey, run away," he said, scratching himself and breathing garlic over her. "It's no good, you know-you'd never be able to pin it on him, anyway. Do you know how many girls have come here trying, eh?"
Maia lowered her veil and threw back the hood of her cloak.
"I've no time to waste, and I'll be damned if I'm going to bribe you a meld! I'm Maia Serrelinda, from the upper city, and if you don't take me to the governor at once, I'll see to it that the Lord General himself learns that you refused to do as I asked."
He stared at her, a stupid man taken aback, resentful but slow to react.
"You say you're the Serrelinda-her as swum the river?"
"Yes, I am. And don't have the impertinence to ask me why I'm here: that's no business of yours. Are you going to do as I say, or not?"
"Well," he muttered. "Well. Just that it's awkward, that's all." He seemed to be trying to weigh up which would be worse for him-to refuse her or to risk the governor's displeasure. At all events this was what his next question suggested.
"You can't-well-tell me what it's about, saiyett?"
"Certainly. I wish to see a prisoner."
His face cleared. "Oh, you didn't say. If it's n'more'n that-" She waited. "Only he's busy with the prisoners himself, saiyett, y'see. Don't know what he'll say. Still, I'll take you-"He turned away and she, following, stepped through the postern door to one side of the barred gate, which was promptly closed behind her.
He was striding ahead across the yard, swinging a stick in one hand, but she-to some extent brought to herself by her annoyance-retained enough self-possession not to hurry after him, so that after a little he was obliged to wait until she came up with him at her own pace.
The governor was a big, fleshy man with silver earrings and a beard dyed chestnut. He, too, evidently supposed at first that her errand must lie at his own door, for he began "Well, my dear, but you shouldn't have come here, you know." He drew up a rickety bench for her beside the table in a little, bare room looking out on an equally bare and dismal courtyard. It was twilight now and turning slightly chilly. Seeing him grope and fumble once or twice to close the window, she realized that his sight must be poor. Yet really so poor, she wondered, that he could not tell whether or not he had ever seen her before?
"We have never met," she said coldly. "I am Maia Serrelinda, a personal friend of the Lord General Kembri B'sai."
Instantly he had taken his cue, bowing and leering.
"Friend of the Lord General? Oh, friend of the city, saiyett, friend of the empire! And let me assure you, you have a friend in me, too, if I'm not presuming. To what- er-to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"
Maia, not unnaturally, could tell a lecher when she saw one, and realized with a touch of relief that this part of her task at least was going to be relatively easy.
"Sir, I want to see-"
"Ob-Pokada, saiyett, Pokada's my name; that's if you care to use it, of course."
"U-Pokada, I need to talk to one of the prisoners who were brought in from Tonilda a little while ago."
His face fell. "Oh. I see. Well, naturally, saiyett, I'd always prefer to oblige a beautiful lady like yourself if I could. If only it had been someone who's here for theft or frauds-that sort of thing, you know. But political prisoners: no one's ever allowed to see political prisoners. That's a strict rule."
She got up and stood beside him, pretending to be weighing her words, letting her body's scent steal over him and slowly drawing through her fingers the sijk kerchief she carried at her wrist. After a little she murmured, "Well, I suppose-I suppose no one need know, U-Pokada. I mean, only you and me; I shan't tell anyone."
He hesitated. "Well, saiyett-"
In, a few minutes he had talked himself into promising that he would see what he could do tomorrow.
"No, it must be now, U-Pokada: I want to see him now, and then I'll go away and no one else will know at all."
It was getting dark in the room. He went to the door and called for lamps, continuing to look down the passage until they were brought by a disheveled old woman whose head jerked with a continual tic. When she had gone he came back and laid a hand on Maia's wrist, slightly clenching his fingers as he did so.
"Saiyett, it's risky. I oughtn't to do this; but you know- well, 'Beauty's a key to unlock every door'. " He hummed a moment, delighted with himself for having hit on so apt a phrase. The line came from a popular tavern song of the day.
"Is it a man?" She nodded. "His name?"
"Tharrin. From near Meerzat, in Tonilda."
"Your friend? A lucky-oh, well" (he laughed) "he would be a lucky man if only he wasn't here, eh? But you've made me a lucky man, saiyett. Oh, yes, indeed!"
At the door he stopped. "I have to ask: you haven't brought him poison?"
She looked up in amazement, wondering whether she had heard aright. "Poison?"
He nodded.
"Brought him poison? Why ever should you think that?"
"Well, sometimes, you know, saiyett, prisoners-especially political prisoners-want to die quickly, and their friends want to help them. I have to see that doesn't happen."