Maia (10 page)

Running across to the door leading into the courtyard, Occula beat on it frenziedly.

"Open this damned, bastin' door!" she screamed. "I'm goin' to Hirdo! I'm goin' to Hirdo!"

Perdan, stooping under the lintel, strode quickly into the room holding a length of cord in one hand.

"Now, miss, now!" yelled the old woman, picking herself up and following him across to the door. "You'll just find out-"

"Don't damage her, Perdan!" said Megdon quickly. "Just tie her up!"

"Kantza-Merada!" cried Occula. "Kantza-Merada, blot this damn' place off the face of the earth!" Kneeling, flinging back her head and raising both arms, she burst into a torrent of speech in a snarling, foreign tongue.

Maia, standing close beside the hearth, dropped the canvas ball into the red heart of the fire.

"Kantza-Merada!" cried Occula again. "Fire and smoke! Fire and smoke come down!"

Maia rushed across the room.

"Don't, Occula, don't! Not that! No, not that! You'll kill us all! You'll
kill
us!"

"Belch smoke and fall roof!" screamed Occula at the top of her voice. "Kantza-Merada, smoke and smother this filthy house!"

On the instant there leapt up on the hearth a quick, brilliant flash. As it vanished, masses of dense, black smoke began to pour into the room. Perdan, cursing, let go his hold of Occula. Megdon and the old woman, choking and gasping, were blotted out in an all-enveloping, acrid smother. Maia, terrified, felt Occula grab her wrist.

"Keep it up, banzi," whispered the black girl. "Go on!"

"Take it away, Occula!" screamed Maia. "Call it back! Don't kill them! Oh, no! not like that last time-" She could get no further. Her throat was full of the smoke, which seemed almost palpable, thick as wool and bitter. She felt herself suffocating, her head reeling, eyes burning under tight-shut lids. The invisible room seemed turning upside-down. She fell forward into Occula's arms.

At the same instant one or other of the two men contrived to get the door open. A few moments later Occula, stumbling through the swirling blackness, half-dragged and half-supported Maia outside. In the doorway she almost fell over the prostrate body of the old woman but, re-

covering herself, groped forward into the open courtyard and lowered Maia into a sitting position on the edge of a stone cattle-trough. Both girls were covered with a thick grime which clung in greasy, cobweb-like streaks to their faces, hair and clothes.

"Well done, banzi!" panted Occula. "Do you reckon it'll burn the damned house down?"

"That old woman, Occula!" gasped Maia. "We'll have to get her out or she'll die!"

"Hope so," answered the black girl. "No; no such luck: here she comes, look!"

The smoke was still pouring thickly both out of the windows and the door, but in the courtyard had dispersed into a somewhat thinner cloud. Through this, as they watched, Megdon and Perdan appeared, dragging the old woman between them. They laid her down on the cobbles and Megdon, kneeling beside her, raised her head with one hand and slapped her cheeks with the other.

"It's stoppin', look!" whispered Occula. "You wait here, banzi: I've got to be quick, now."

With this she ran up the courtyard towards the house. At her approach both men backed away in obvious fear, leaving the old woman lying where she was. Occula, spreading her arms, faced about and stood in the doorway. For several seconds she waited. Then, bowing her head and folding her hands at her waist she called, "O Kantza-Merada, take back thy fire! If it be thy will, spare this vile house at thy servant's plea!" Then once more she spoke in the unknown tongue; and at length fell silent, standing motionless as the smoke slowly thinned about her.

Meanwhile the old woman had come to her senses, sitting up on the stones and weakly clutching here and there at her fouled clothes. So forlorn and bedraggled did she appear, like some wretched old hen not worth the killing,, that Maia could not help pitying her. She stood up, intending to go and help her if she could; but at this the old woman gave a screech, got to her feet and hobbled across to the men on the other side of the courtyard.

Occula continued to stand in the doorway, gazing at the ground as though in a trance. The men were plainly at a loss, afraid to go near or even speak to her. So for a while they remained as they were, the black girl still as a statue; the men muttering to each other in low voices; the old woman moaning and rocking herself from side to side; and

Maia, a little distance away, sitting down once more on the edge of the trough.

At length Megdon, with the air of one compelling himself to act, went across to Occula. He seemed about to speak when the girl-taller than he-raised her head and stared at him. His words died on his lips and after a moment she, as though giving a command to some animal- an ox in the shafts, perhaps, or a dog-uttered the one word: "Hirdo!"

Megdon seemed about to reply when suddenly Perdan forestalled him.

"Let her go, the damned black witch, before she kills us all with her sorcery!"

"Ay, ay! In Cran's name!" whimpered the old woman.

Megdon said nothing. Occula turned and walked slowly back into the kitchen; and here the others, following one by one-Maia a little behind the rest-found her leaning, with folded arms, against the side of the hearth. The fire was burning normally, but the entire room and everything in it was coated with a foul soot clinging alike to walls and furniture. There was a disgusting, vellicative reek, as of burnt bones.

The old woman began to weep-from fear, it seemed, as much as from dismay.

Megdon turned to Perdan. "The girls Genshed's bring-ing'U have to clean this up tonight. It'll take hours. Shirrin can't do it on her own."

Perdan made no reply.

"Go and get one of the carts ready," said Megdon.

Perdan looked up. "I'm not taking her!"

"I'll drive it," replied Megdon. "Just go and get the damned cart ready, Perdan, that's all!"

Occula spoke from the fireside. "Food." She jerked her thumb towards Maia. "Get her some hot water. Fresh. clothes."

Half an hour later Maia, washed and changed, but still feeling as unsteady as though she had escaped from drowning, carried a pail of hot water up to Occula's room. The black girl was lying naked on the bed, her fouled shift crumpled across one of the stools. She had vomited into an old earthenware pot, and one arm was hanging down from the bed as though to grab it again at need. She looked up and grinned weakly at Maia.

"Cran! I thought we'd done for ourselves, banzi, didn'

you? I just hope they felt as bad as we did, that's all. Think you can clear this away without anyone seein' you? Oh, chuck the lot out the damned window-what's it matter? When they're ready to go, call me, and send that lout up to fetch my chest."

At Hirdo the track ran into the paved road between Thettit and Bekla. In this town the slave-dealers had no private quarters, as at Puhra, but paid the keeper of one of the inns to provide accommodation as often as they might require it.

The journey from Puhra, in the heat of the day, took more than four hours, and by the time they arrived both the girls-whom Megdon had been content merely to chain together by one ankle-were weary, less with actual fatigue than with that general sense of bodily discomfort peculiar to prolonged traveling. Maia, unable, during the afternoon, to keep from brooding on her betrayal and misery, would more than once have wept, but the black girl would not suffer it, scolding her fiercely in whispers and more than once threatening to abandon her altogether if she gave way in front of Megdon. (Megdon himself, leading the bullocks #nd obviously preferring to keep as far away from Occula as possible, was out of hearing.) Maia, knowing now what Occula was capable of and more than anxious not to antagonize her only friend, choked back her tears as best she could.

On reaching the inn Megdon had a stroke of luck, finding there a young man named Zuno, a kind of steward whom Lalloc employed as an agent, a traveling auditor of slave quotas and the like. Zuno was on his way back to Bekla; having just completed an errand to Thettit. Megdon at once insisted on handing the girls over to him (making use of the innkeeper as a witness) and forthwith departed precipitately, not even stopping to eat.

To Maia this young Zuno, with his quiet, authoritative drawl, seemed the finest gentleman she had ever set eyes on. Not only his dandified clothes but his aloof air intensified her already dismal sense of being altogether out of her depth among contemptuous strangers to whom she was

nothing but a little hoyden-a body for sale. She could not imagine herself conversing with him on any level at all, so cold and superior was his manner. And his appearance reinforced it. His long hair and curled beard were scented with sandalwood. The large bone buttons-eight in number-decorating his sky-blue
abshay
were each carved in a different likeness; one of a fish, another of a lizard, a third of a naked boy, and so on. His breeches of soft, thin leather clung close to his hips and thighs and were gathered into green, gold-tasselled half-boots. With him, in a wicker basket, he carried a long-haired, white cat; and to this, in his quiet, mincing voice, he talked a good deal, while saying little to anyone else.

Apart from all this magnificence, she intuitively sensed about Zuno a novel and (to her) puzzlingly strange kind of detachment-a detachment, as it were, of inward inclination as well as of outward manner-which daunted her because it lay outside her experience and she could not understand it. During the past year or so Maia had unconsciously become used to being looked at and spoken to by men in a certain way. The way, while it might take this form or that, always implied-as she very well knew- that they found her attractive and were in no hurry to get out of her company. The behavior of neither Perdan nor the vile Genshed had been out of accord with this: that is to say, while hating and fearing them, she had known only too well what they were feeling about her.

There was, however, something inexplicable about Zuno; something which confused her in a way that Genshed had not. He was like another order of being-a feathered reptile or a three-legged bird. His manner towards Occula and herself was one of detachment, and this stemmed-or so she sensed-less from superiority of social distance than from some curious absence of natural inclination. At first she could only suppose that the unexpected task thrust upon him by Megdon-a task which he could not very well refuse, since he was in Lalloc's employment and traveling to Bekla-was extremely unwelcome to him. But then it occurred to her that perhaps this might be what everyone was like in Bekla, for she had less idea of what people were like in Bekla than of what it might be like at the bottom of Lake Serrelind.

Worst of all, the man seemed to subdue even Occula. Upon their arrival the black girl had at once adopted an

entirely different bearing from that with which Maia had watched her dominate the household at Puhra. As Zuno- looking up from stroking the cat and picking his teeth with a carved splinter of bone which he took out of a leather case-gave them his instructions, the black girl stood with downcast eyes, murmuring only "Yes, sir" or "Very well, sir," and at length, as he turned back to his meal, raising her palm to her forehead and leaving the room without a word.

The innkeeper, though under orders to lock the girls into one of the rooms used for slaves in transit, affably brought them half a jar of wine with their supper and remained chatting for some little while, until tartly called by his wife to resume the evening's duties. Later a shy, smiling wench brought up hot water, but they were allowed no lamp. "Dare say they're afraid we might try to burn the damn' place down and run away," said Occula, climbing into bed. "How d'you fancy goin' up to Bekla with that sonsy little wafter and his pussy-cat, banzi?"

"I can't make him out," replied Maia dolefully. "I don't fancy him at all!"

The black girl chuckled. "Be terrible if you did, wouldn't it? But banzi, if you start lettin' fairies like that get you down, you're not the girl I took you for. Anyway, let's get to sleep. I'm worn out, aren't you?"

Maia fell asleep to the sounds of the tavern below- murmurs of conversation, the clink of pots and vessels, footsteps, closing doors, an occasional raised voice calling to a servant. Despite these, she slept heavily and did not stir for several hours.

When she woke the room was in darkness. Was it still early in the night, she wondered, or near dawn? She got up and went across to the barred window. The stars shone bright. There was not a trace of dawn in the sky, and no sound either from the inn or the road below. It must be' well after midnight. Everyone, everything was asleep but she. She was alone with her personal loss of all that had once made life familiar and secure, of her home and of all those upon whom she had ever relied for comfort and affection. She would never again make her way home, with the old, familiar hunger in her belly and the certainty of what tomorrow would bring. One of her mother's mordant sayings returned to her mind most bitterly: "Never's a long time."

What will become of me? she thought. What does it mean, to be a slave? How will the days be spent-what sort of people will be around me? And then, like the half-child she still was, "Is there anything nice at all to look forward to?" No, there was nothing-nothing. The future was a black pit: and Maia, leaning her forehead on the window-sill, covered it with hopeless tears.

"Banzi!"

Maia jumped, for once again the black girl had made no sound. Turning Maia away from the window, she clasped her in her arms and rocked her gently, stroking her hair as she continued to weep with great, shuddering sobs. At length Occula whispered, "Come back to bed, banzi. No sense standin' here. Least you got a bed. And you got me-'less you doan' fancy."

Leading Maia to her own bed, she got in beside her. For some little time they lay unspeaking. Slowly, Maia's weeping ceased, her tears though not her misery exhausted. At length Occula said "Why didn' you wake me?"

"I-I didn't think-you said-tough and cunning-"

"Oh, but not to each
other,
banzi! Only to men! Cran and the stars, how I despise men! I'm hard as stone-I hope. I wouldn' have given a baste if we'd choked one of those swine to death this morning. But a girl's got to be soft to
someone.
I can't be a brute to the whole world. For my own self-respect I've got to love somebody, else I'd soon be as big a bastard as Genshed or Perdan-and wretched into the bargain. Listen, Maia, I meant what I told you. I'll be your true friend, I'll stand by you and look after you. I'll
never
let you down! If you like I'll swear it by Kantza-Merada. You may be up to the neck in shit, but for what it's worth, you got me."

"Reckon that makes it a lot better," answered Maia, less because she felt it than because it seemed to her that she could not decently say anything else. Occula's flesh smelt pleasantly strange-light and sharp, something like clean coal.

Drawing Maia's head onto her shoulder, the black girl stroked her hair. "You haven' really told me about yourself yet, have you? Not properly. Why
did
your mother sell you? What's it all about?"

At this, the recollection of Tharrin shot up in Maia's heart with a vividness which the horror of the past two days had obliterated. Tharrin smiling at her as she lay in

the net; Tharrin laughing over the wine at Meerzat; Thar-rin panting in pleasure; Tharrin kissing her good-bye on the jetty before he went on board the boat.

"Tharrin," she said. "Tharrin-"

"Tharrin! Who's he? He loved you?"

"Loved me? Well-I suppose so, yes. He made everything a lot of fun.
I
loved
him,
anyway."

"One of those, eh?" said Occula."Come on then, tell me."

Hesitantly at first, then more freely as the memories came flooding, Maia talked of Tharrin. At last she said, "So that's why she must've done it, see? She must've found out. And that'd be like her, too. Mother was always one to bottle it up, like, when anything made her mad, and then go too far."

"And d'you think he'll come and look for you?" asked Occula.

Maia considered this for a moment, then choked back a fresh sob. "I
know
he won't! 'Twouldn't be-well, it just wouldn't be like him. Not Tharrin."

"You poor little beast!" whispered Occula, putting her arms round her once more.
"I'd
look for you-that I would- from here to Zeray and back."

From somewhere in the distance outside sounded the barking of a dog. A voice shouted to it; it ceased and the silence returned, empty and remote.

"Do
you
like me?" asked Occula.

"Like you?" answered Maia, surprised. "Well, 'course I do! You ask me that-after all you've done to help me?"

"Oh, that little bastard last night? That's nothin'-that was just a bit of sport. I didn't mean are you grateful. I meant do you
fancy
me?"

"How couldn't I?" Maia was all bewilderment.

Occula embraced her more closely, kissing her neck and shoulders. Her lips, in the dark, felt thick, pliant and soft."

"You had some nice times with Tharrin, then?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, it was lovely." Maia, accustomed to having someone else in bed with her and comforted by the warmth and quiet, felt her misery abating. Youth and health possess almost unbelievable resilience.

"Did he do it nicely?"

"M'mm." She felt drowsy again now, at ease in the soft bed. It might almost have been Nala lying beside her.

"What sort of things did he do? Did he ever do this?"

"Ah! Oh, Occula!"

A moment later the black girl's lips were pressed to her own, the tip of her tongue slipping between them into Maia's mouth. One hand gently stroked her thigh beneath her shift.

"But
he
let you down, didn' he, banzi?" whispered Occula. "Men-who wants men? Liars, cowards, baste-and-run, the lot of them. We'll make our fortune out of those fools, you wait and see! But
I
woan' let you down, banzi. I need you: I need you to be good to. Kiss me! Come on, kiss me like I kissed you!"

For a long moment Maia hesitated. The fascination of this extraordinary, exotic girl, her apparent omniscience, her domination and self-sufficiency seemed extending all about her, enveloping her like a protective cloak.
Here
was a refuge from loneliness and from dread of the future. One need only surrender everything to Occula to be shielded, defended. Just as the lake had once been her own place, just as she had felt safe in its deep water, which everyone else thought dangerous because it was not dry land, so Occula-cunning and violent; black devotee of some appalling goddess of vengeance and sorcery-must have been vouchsafed to her for a retreat and refuge in the terrible misfortune which had befallen her. Occula was her own and no one else's. Clipping her about, running her fingers through her crisp, amazing hair, she kissed her passionately-her mouth, her cheeks, her eyelids-kissed her until she lay back, laughing and breathless.

"Take off your shift," whispered the black girl, her hands already busy. "No, wait: let me. There, that's nice, isn't it? And is
that
nice? D'you fancy me, banzi-really?"