Maia

by Richard Adams

  "Will you get on and come to the point?" said Ran-dronoth.

  "I'm sorry, my lord. So after a little we saw their dust and then they came in sight. Well, you've told me to be quick, so I won't say more than that the patrol captain was right. There certainly were a lot of them, but just louts for the most part: just an armed mob. They was all yelling and shouting and no sort of order to them. They stopped about a quarter of a mile away from us, just as they were, in their different crowds and companies, all over the place. I could see Queen Fornis; there was no mistaking her. She was right in the center, with a crowd of Palteshi officers, and she was armed just the same as they were.

  "And then, before Lord Kerith-a-Thrain had had time to speak to him, the High Baron-I heard him very plain- he said 'Keep the men here, Kerith, I'm going out to talk to her about my son. I shan't need to take anyone with me.'

  "Well, then, Lord Kerith, he tried to argue, my lord, but I won't waste your time with that. In the end the High Baron walked out between the two armies all by himself, and we saw him go up to the queen, and the two of them was talking and then they disappeared together-back through the enemy's line, I mean.

  "Well, we was stood there a goodish time and then at last the High Baron came out and walked back to us: and he said to Lord Kerith-a-Thrain, 'She's promised to release my son. She's asked that we divide into two parts, as a sign of good faith-one here and one over there.' So Lord Kerith-a-Thrain said, 'I don't like that, my lord,' but the High Baron said, 'I want my son out of her hands: she's sworn by Frella-Tiltheh to do us no harm. Do as I say.'

  "Well, so then he went back, my lord, and Lord Kerith-a-Thrain broke us into two lines, facing inwards, I suppose about three or four hundred yards apart. And we stood watching while the queen and her Palteshi officers led their army forward between us. The High Baron was walking beside her, and a young man as must have been his son, I suppose.

  "And then, my lord, when they'd got fairly in between our two lines, the queen suddenly called out, and the men who were with her-four or five of them-they turned and set upon the High Baron and the young man and cut them down, and the queen stood and watched them do it.

  "When Lord Kerith-a-Thrain saw that, he called out to attack them and so we did. But there weren't enough of us, you see. I'm certain we could have held off any sort of attack they might have made on us, but we simply hadn't got the numbers to make an attack ourselves-specially split in two like we were. There wasn't the co-ordination, like, you see, and most of the lads were that shaken by what they'd seen-well, there was something uncanny about it, my lord; hundreds standing watching and the High Baron going along that quiet and trusting-almost like he was a kind of sacrifice, as you might say. I can see it now, and the queen standing over his body on the ground. We was going in all anyhow and-and-well, it didn't work out, my lord, that's all.

  "I never seen the end of it, because Lord Kerith-a-Thrain told one of our tryzatts to send two men back to Bekla at once with the news. So me and a mate of mine, Crevin, was told to get back here as quick as we could. I won't say I was sorry to be picked, either. Tell you the truth, I was glad to get out of it. We've never stopped, Crevin and me, for well over twenty-four hours. I'm all in and that's a fact."

  "Where's Crevin now?" asked Randronoth sharply.

  "Gone to the Barons' Palace, my lord, to report to Lord Eud-Ecachlon."

  Randronoth turned to Maia. "This may turn out all to the good: Fornis is bound to have had losses. You've done well," he said to Brero. "Here's twenty meld. You'd better go and get yourself something to eat and drink."

  "Why can't he bathe and eat here?" asked Maia.

  Randronoth shook his head. "No, not here."

  She felt angry. "Why not?"

  "That's all right, saiyett," said Brero, before she could remonstrate further. "I'll just be getting back to quarters now. I expect we'll meet again when things are quieter. I hope so, I'm sure."

  He saluted, turned on his heel and left the house.

  And now what? wondered Maia. But she could not think clearly, could not dispel the dreadful picture in her mind's

  eye-the brown, dusty plain in the fierce heat, the divided, inward-facing ranks of the Beklans watching uneasily; and between them the gray, stooping figure of Durakkon, with his son, pacing beside the Sacred Queen-yes, in all truth as though ensorcelled, she thought. Who else but Form's could have exercised this power to make a man hand himself over to his own destruction; and then devised so stylish a public ceremony of treachery and murder? What pleasure and satisfaction it must have given her! Far more than the relatively paltry affair of Tharrin.

  And what now? What now? Assuming that Fornis's Pal-teshis had succeeded in beating off the Beklan attack and getting between Bekla and Kerith-a-Thrain, they would probably reach the city some time tomorrow; certainly no later than the day after. Yet before then Randronoth's men would have arrived. What would Eud-Ecachlon do? He would presumably be forced to make common cause with Randronoth: he would have no choice. And he would probably have been safe enough in doing so, too, thought Maia, had his enemy been anyone but Form's. For Maia, who had thought she knew the Sacred Queen, was now beginning-as had others in the past-to descry in her undreamt-of, far horizons of cunning and cruelty, and attribute to her insuperable powers. If Fornis intended to take Bekla, no doubt she possessed the demonic means to do so.

  Randronoth was speaking. "What did you say?" she asked him dully.

  "I said, 'I'm going up to the roof to watch for Seekron. Will you please come with me?' "

  "I want to lie down," she said. "I feel bad."

  "Tell your slave to bring a mattress up, then."

  There was an awning over one corner of the roof, and here she lay in the hot, windless shade, hands pressed over her throbbing eyes. The Sacred Queen was coming: Zenka was in her power. And not only Zenka, but Anda-No-komis, towards whom her feelings were now utterly changed. She was a Suban by blood; he was not only her cousin but her rightful lord, to whom accordingly she owed a sacred duty of service and loyalty. Yet how could she hope to help either of them now?

  Her very thoughts had become hysterical. She was obsessed by the figure of the approaching queen, the queen never at a loss for some vile, unforeseeable stratagem.

  To her the queen no longer seemed a human opponent, but a kind of inanimate doom: a black pit; or rather, perhaps, a flexible, sticky web, in which the more one struggled the more one became enmeshed, until at length the victim hung inert-whether dead or dying was of no consequence, though the latter would afford the queen more enjoyment. So terrible now to Maia was this access of helplessness and despair that had it not been for Ran-dronoth's enforced restraint she might, despite her love for Zen-Kurel, have fled from the city-yes, alone and on foot-anywhere, so long as it was away from Fornis. She did not believe that the combined forces of Randronoth and Eud-Ecachlon-she did not believe that any power on earth-could prevent Fornis from entering Bekla and putting her to death.

  Once more-after how long she could not tell, though opening her eyes she saw that the sun was westering;-she was roused from her desolation by the sound of knocking below. She would have got up and looked over the parapet, but Randronoth, gripping her arm, held her where she was, himself kneeling beside her and waiting. After less than a minute they heard Ogma calling from below.

  "Can't I go down?" she said.

  "No: tell her to come up here."

  Before Ogma had uttered a word it was plain that her news was bad. She stared from one of them to the other as though afraid to speak. Maia, catching her fear, started forward.

  "What's happened? Who is it, Ogma?"

  "It's-it's Lokris, Miss Maia," stammered Ogma, but said no more, as though to remain silent might somehow prevent the news from being true.

  "Lokris? From Milvushina?"

  "Oh, Miss Maia, she's been taken bad! She's in labor before her time! Lokris says the midwives are there and the doctor too, and they're afraid for her. She's in a bad wa
y, Lokris says: and she's asked for you to go to her as quick as you can."

  "Milvushina!" cried Maia. "Oh, why didn't I think of it before? I might 'a guessed!"

  "Seems as 'twas all the upset and worry, Miss Maia; Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion coming back the way he did-"

  "Yes, of course-"

  "Lokris says ever since he got back, miss, he's shut

  himself up alone in the Barons' Palace. He wouldn't go to the Lord General's house. So in the end Miss Milvushina took Lokris with her and went to the Palace herself, but he wouldn't see even her; and that's where she was took bad. That's where she is now."

  "Oh, my lord-Randro-" Maia collected herself. "Ogma, go down and tell Lokris to go back and say I'm coming at once."

  As soon as the girl had gone she turned back to Ran-dronoth. "Randro, I promise you-I swear by Frella-Til-theh I'll say nothing to Eud-Ecachlon or to anyone else. I swear I'll come straight back here-oh, within the hour if you say so-only please let me go to Milvushina!"

  He shook his head. "This is war, Maia: Seekron will be here before sunset. Eud-Ecachlon-Elvair-ka-Virrion- they're the enemy. I can't let you go anywhere where you might talk to them."

  "But if I don't go it'll look more suspicious! Surely you can see that?"

  He shrugged his shoulders. "By tonight the city will be in my hands. Until then you must stay here. Anyway, what good could you do?"

  "She's my friend and she's in bad trouble! Oh, Randro, you said you loved me!"

  "This is no time to argue, Maia."

  Suddenly in the midst of her frenzied fear for Milvushina, an idea came into her mind; one so simple that she could only wonder that it should not have occurred to her before. This was Randronoth that she was dealing with- Randronoth who had paid nine thousand meld.

  She sat down and dried her eyes. After a little-he was still looking out southward-she said, "Well, I can see your point of view, Randro. It is war, and I know you've got to think of your men first. I'm sorry you reckon you can't trust me, but there it is: I must just try and accept it, mustn't I? Shall we go down, now, and have a drink in the garden? I could do with it, I know that. One of your soldiers could watch for half an hour, couldn't he?"

  After a moment's thought he replied, "Very well," and put out his hand to help her down the stairs.

  While he was instructing the soldier she called Ogma into the parlor.

  "Ogma, don't argue with me or act anything out of the

  ordinary, d'you see? Just bring some wine and nuts and that out into the garden, and do it quickly!"

  As soon as he had joined her she led him into the garden, poured the wine, handed him his goblet and drank deeply herself.

  "Ah! That's better! I'm feeling a lot better now," she said. "Give me your arm, Randro; let's have a little stroll. There's something I want to show you, down by the shore. Did I ever tell you about the golden lilies I picked for King Karnat in Suba? No? Well, 'twas like this, see-"

  Talking on, she drew his arm through hers, leading him gently and leisurely on among the shrubs and flowerbeds, fragrant in the cooling air of evening. The western sky was reddening and there was no least breath of wind.

  "Do you know something, Randro?" she said. "I've longed for you so often since that night of the barrarz. You were wonderful! We had so much pleasure, didn't we? Do you remember in the morning, when you thought you were finished and then you found you weren't?"

  "Yes, I do," he replied. "I wouldn't be likely to forget that, would I?"

  "We can't make love now, though," she said, and drew his hand from her waist up to her bosom. "What a pity! For there'll be no chance later tonight, will there? Not once Seekron gets here. You'll have far too much to do."

  "I thought you didn't want to make love," he answered.

  "Why, when did I say that? You never asked me, did you?"

  They had reached the marble bench near the Barb.

  "You've seemed so angry and upset all day. Naturally, I thought-"

  "Sometimes being upset brings a girl on all the harder; didn't you know that?" She kissed his ear, nibbling the lobe. "It's all the strain and excitement and that."

  "Maia, are you serious? Do you really want to make love?"

  For answer she flung her arms round his neck, kissing him passionately and pressing herself against him. He responded, panting, and caressing her with trembling hands.

  "Let's go back to the house, then. Come on!"

  "Oh, no, Randro! I couldn't! I mean, I couldn't let myself go; not with the soldiers there and everyone knowing. No, I'm afraid we'll just have to leave it for now."

  She pressed herself to him still more ardently, putting one hand on his thigh. "It's a shame, isn't it?"

  "No one can see us here."

  "Oh!" She stood back, wide-eyed, holding her hand over her open mouth. "Oh, Randro, no! How can you-"

  He smiled delightedly. "You're Lespa; I'm Shakkarn. Why not?"

  "Oh, no!" But his fingers had already begun to unfasten her robe at the neck, drawing it down and drawing down her shift to bare her deldas, which he stooped to kiss.

  "Well-well-I don't know. Oh, Randro, it's so nice!" She kicked off her sandals, let her clothes fall and stood naked before him. "You, too! You, too! Only just turn round a moment, darling: I want to make water and I can't do it with you watching."

  "Can't you?" He gave her a playful smack on the buttocks. "All right." Turning his back, he began pulling his leather jerkin over his head.

  Now! she thought. Now! And she ran, ran, bounding through the grass to the water, her deldas leaping, her hair flying behind her. Splash! Splash! Hopping ankle-deep, wading knee-deep, deeper, two or three agonizingly slow, pushing, thigh-deep steps. Then she had plunged forward and struck out into the Barb. Behind her she could hear Randronoth calling "Maia, come back!" And then, "Maia, this will cost you your life! I warn you, come back!"

  On she swam, never once looking round. The water was smooth-far smoother than Serrelind as she had known it many a time. Yet in her haste and desperation, she realized, she was swimming too fast: at this rate she would be exhausted before ever she could reach the western end of the Barb. Besides, there was a slight but steady current against her, for she was in the line of flow between the infall and outfall of the Monju brook. She must settle down, for she had more than half a mile to go. Would Randronoth try to follow her round by the bank? No, almost certainly not, for he would realize that if she saw him waiting for her on the bank she would simply stay in the water, while he would be bound to draw attention to himself and disclose his presence in the upper city.

  83: AT THE BARONS' PALACE

  Maia's swim down the Barb took her over half an hour. Although, naturally, the thought of Milvushina was never entirely absent from her mind, the necessity of swimming distracted her, eased her tension and afforded her the comfort of exercising a familiar skill at which she was adept. It was satisfying, too, to think that this skill had enabled her to get the better of Randronoth.

  Once she scattered a flock of black swans, the great birds, with their red beaks, all rising together from the water, circling wide to her left and re-alighting near the infall of the Monju behind her. As she rounded the peninsula, swimming more slowly now and from time to time turning on her back to rest, there came into sight the gardens where Sencho had died, the tree from which she had dived and the inshore pool where she had saved Shend-Lador. They looked different now, she thought, and in a way unfamiliar. The difference, she realized after a few moments, lay in herself-in the eyes with which she saw. They were the same, but she was no longer the slave-girl who had accompanied Occula and the High Counselor on that fatal evening. There returned to her mind the unsolved mystery of Zirek and Meris. What could have happened to them after they had fulfilled their task? Were they dead? But if so, where were their unfound bodies? Might they, after all, have escaped? Did Occula know? Herself and Occula-were they the only people left in the city who knew who had killed Sencho?

  Before h
er rose the grassy terraces of the Leopard Hill, and above them the Palace, its twenty round towers clustering darkly, like a bed of gigantic reed-maces, against the sunset sky. At this sheltered, western end the water, reflecting the reddened clouds, was glass-still; so still that her approach sent long, undulant ripples shorewards. She could see no one-no sentry by the waterside, not a soul looking down from the verdant slopes. It might have been the enchanted castle in one of old Drigga's tales-the stronghold of Canathron, who returned to it each night. And if, she thought, Canathron were even now to come flying home out of the flames of the sunset, would he spread his healing wings and save Milvushina? But she had never prayed to Canathron; and this seemed no time to

  start, when she had just hood-winked and outwitted the governor of Lapan.

  About a hundred yards out, she found herself in her depth; but being still far from spent, swam gently on-it was easier than wading-until, coming to rest at length on the gravelly sand inshore, she stood up, sluicing her body with cupped handfuls of water.

  Milva, she thought: Milva. What could she do to help her? Although she could recall the birth of each of the girls she had once believed to be her sisters, none had involved any complication or danger: Morca had always given birth almost as easily as slipping off her pattens. Whatever was wrong, it would be beyond any knowledge or experience which she possessed. She knew Lokris for a sensible, level-headed woman: it would be most unlike Lokris to say that Milvushina was in a bad way unless it were true. Deep-atavistically, indeed-in every woman lies the fear of this occupational danger, just as in every man there lies the fear of death by conflict or violence. As she stepped onto the bank Maia had no thought for anything else. She had even forgotten her own nakedness; or rather-as with the wounded or the grievously ill-in her present circumstances nakedness was a matter of no particular consequence. She hadn't time now to be bothering about such trivialities, the unimportance of which must surely be as plain to anyone else as to herself.

  Zig-zag she climbed the Leopard Hill, up the narrow paths between the low stone walls and little, secluded arbors designed for meditation, confidential talks and lovers' meetings. There were no lovers there now; no friends disputing about music or sculpture, no circumspect councilors seeking a quiet word in private. Though Maia did not know it, Eud-Ecachlon, as soon as he had heard Crevin's report, had alerted everyone of consequence in the upper city and sent runners to warn the lower city marshal to close and double-guard all gates, including the Peacock Gate. Shock and panic were already spreading across the whole Bekla. The High Baron, lord of the empire, betrayed and cut down by-of all people-the Sacred Queen, in full view of thousands! In all the city's history such a deed had never been imagined, never dreamt of. What might be fated to follow an event so unthinkable? The legends, the annals, the lore of the priests were alike silent. The dead-might they now rise from their graves and walk the streets; the