Maia (30 page)

In panic Maia turned and plunged down into the crowded hall, calling "Meris! Meris!" She tripped in a heap of yellow lilies and almost fell as her sandaled feet crushed the stems into a slippery pulp. Racing on towards the pool, she measured her length over a girl's buttocks and, picking herself up, heard behind her an oath and a male cry of anger. "Meris!" she called. "Meris!"

Suddenly, in the flickering half-light, there was Meris, lying in a scatter of cushions on the floor. It was as though Maia herself had conjured her up from some subterranean obscurity. Her shadow-dappled body was half-covered by a man's, round which her raised legs were locked, clutching and pressing. Her mouth was open, her eyes half-closed, her breath coming hard as though she were climbing a hill.

"Meris!" cried Maia, bending over her. "Meris!"

"What the hell?" murmured the Belishban girl dazedly. "Oh, Cran, Maia, it's you! Let us alone, damn you!"

Maia, reaching across the man's heaving shoulders, shook her roughly.

"Meris! He's awake! He's calling for you! For
you,
Meris! D'you hear me?"

"Sod off!" hissed Meris, baring her teeth like a cat. "Baste the High Counselor! Baste everything!" Seizing the lobe of her partner's ear between her teeth, she bit it so that he cried out. "Oh, you're marvelous!" she babbled, her biting turning to frantic kisses. "Go on! Go on! I'll
kill
you if you stop!"

For a moment Maia stood irresolute in the throbbing gloom around her, alone in the tumult as though under the waterfall of Lake Serrelind. Then she turned and ran back towards the dais.

During the past few days Sencho's thoughts had reverted several times to the young Tonildan-whose name he had forgotten, if he had ever known it. Buying her from Lalloc had been an impulsive extravagance about which he was now rather in two minds. The sight of the lovely girl, naked and frightened before his couch, had reminded him of his young manhood, reviving that delicious, brutal rapacity which in those days he had now and then had a chance to gratify. She had, in fact, put him in mind of a certain lass, more than twenty years before, in Kabin, whither he had gone on business for Fravak. He had never known
her
name, either. A servant in the inn where he was staying, she was, he had suddenly realized at the time, entirely innocent and inexperienced, having left her parents' home only a few days before. That evening he had settled up with the landlord, over-paying him a little, and then unobtrusively carried his baggage-roll to one of the outhouses. Twenty minutes later, calling the girl out on some pretext, he had thrown her down, raped her and then simply walked away and put up elsewhere, trusting-successfully, as it turned out-to the unlikelihood of the landlord going to undue trouble over a simple and very yotmg woman's unsubstantiated word against an open-handed customer who was now nowhere to be found. He could still hear, and relish in memory, the girl's shuddering sobs as he spent himself in her.

Similarly to have ravished this Tonildan child would have been delightful; but unfortunately he was no longer capable of forcing himself upon any girl. Perhaps, after all, he had better ask Lalloc to take her back and refund the money, for an innocent like her would take far too much training; and nowadays the hesitancy and clumsiness of an inept, nervous girl, however pretty, was more than he could endure.

He had consulted the sleek, self-possessed Terebinthia as she fanned him, lying in the vine-shaded verandah one afternoon of still, thundery heat before the rains. Her advice was to keep the girl, at all events for the time being.

In the first place, she felt, they needed to maintain a degree Of continuity in the women's quarters. Yunsaymis and Tuisto had just gone and it seemed likely that Dyphna-who in any case lacked the salacity so much valued by the High Counselor-would soon be putting up the money to buy her freedom. Her departure would be perfectly acceptable: she had always behaved well and done everything required of her. About Meris, naturally licentious though she was, Terebinthia had always had grave reservations, for the girl was difficult and intractable, with a criminal record of violence. This young Tonildan, on the other hand, might turn out very well in time. In the first place she was physically splendid-exactly what the High Counselor liked. But also, she had shown certain promising signs. She had a sexual relationship with the black girl (Terebinthia missed very little), to whom she seemed devoted, and through this was learning fast. Given the chance, the black girl would no doubt teach her a lot. She had shown herself compliant, ready to learn and anxious to please. Being so young, she could probably be taught to do what the High Counselor liked without feeling the sort of resentment all too regrettably shown by Meris and other girls accustomed to straightforward basting. Sencho, well-fed and somnolent in the heat, had agreed to keep her for the moment and see how she developed.

It was in fact her beauty, together with her biddable docility, which had made him decide upon her as one of the two girls he would take to the Rains banquet, where he always liked to appear with something new and conspicuous. He would, of course, need an experienced girl as well. For an unconstrained occasion like this Meris would be better than the rather fastidious Dyphna. Nothing whatever disgusted Meris. She, like himself, was a born guttersnipe, and besides, would be better than Dyphna at ordering the Tonildan child about and teaching her how to attend to his needs. Of course it was possible that the Tonildan would be overcome with timidity, but on balance this might be rather enjoyable. Other people's distress was always pleasant.

In the event his judgement had proved correct. The two girls had attracted notice and favorable comment and several people, including Kembri, had complimented him on them. They had also attended him smoothly and on the whole competently, with the result that he had been able

to enjoy the excellent dinner to the full. In the normal way he would have remained awake afterwards, watched the kura and then gratified himself, but so pleasantly excessive had been the meal that he had been quite unable to desist from sleeping for a time.

Waking slowly and while still half-stupefied, he felt himself consumed by an overwhelming ruttishness. Dimly he was aware of a girl's soft, perfumed flesh and felt her supporting his head and wiping his body. Clutching and mouthing, he found her breasts and, in a perfect madness of lust, pulled her hand down to his loins. Yet this, since she did nothing, only added to his frustration. Remembering now where he was and that Meris was in attendance upon him, he called for her, unable to understand why she was not instantly there. Then, to his outraged amazement, he suddenly found himself alone.

Helpless, and afflicted with his lust to the exclusion of all else, like a dog kept from a bitch in heat, he groaned, wallowing in the cushions. His torment became unbearable, for at such times he was quite unused to the least frustration or delay. Now fully conscious, he could see and hear all around him a frenzy of licentious enjoyment. He tried to raise himself on the couch and for a few moments actually succeeded. A slim, dark-haired girl was running towards him, laughing over her shoulder at someone out of sight behind her. Stretching out one hand, he contrived to clutch her thigh before, with a little shriek of amusement, she freed herself and fell across a near-by couch, where-as though on purpose to add to Sencho's torture- she was instantly mounted by the young man who had been pursuing her. Choking with rage, the High Counselor fell back, slavering down his chin and snorting like a tethered boar.

All in a moment his agony vanished, extinguished like a candle-flame, to be instantly succeeded by an exquisite sensation of moist, lubricious luxury. Within moments he was beside himself with pleasure, rendered all the more intense by reason of his sudden deliverance from the horrible thwarting he had undergone. Gasping, neither knowing nor caring what had happened, aware of nothing except that he was doing what he wanted, he gave himself wholly up to his gratification, concluding what needed to be little more than the briefest of effort with a roaring, bellowing flux such as he had not experienced for years.

Dazed, and dripping sweat from every pore, Sencho came slowly to himself and opened his eyes. The Tonildan girl, kneeling beside the couch, was rinsing her mouth from Meris's goblet and groping on the floor for the spray of keranda bloom which had fallen out of her hair. Looking up, she caught his eye for a moment and smiled shyly. The High Counselor, drowsy now but filled with a supreme sense of his own shrewdness in having recognized such an excellent thing when he saw it, fondled her shoulders for a moment, grunted with satisfaction and once more fell asleep.

"Couldn' be better," said Occula, filling a pink palm with oil and bending over Maia's shoulders. "Couldn' be better! Banzi, I never thought you had it in you!"

"I didn't," said Maia.

"Oh, and witty too! The girl's all talent! Can you sing as well?"

"I want to learn to dance, Occula. What was that dance you said?"

"The
senguela.
All in good time, my lass, all in good time. Just keep still while I finish rubbin' you down. You do me credit, banzi, that you do."

Even Terebinthia was smiling. On the day following the banquet, after leaving the High Counselor to sleep until the afternoon, she had woken him to a light meal, during which he had first told her of Meris's iniquitous dereliction of duty and then warmly congratulated her upon her advice about the Tonildan girl. No praise, it seemed, was too high for the way in which Maia had acquitted herself. Finally, Sencho, his lust renewed by his own account to Terebinthia, ordered her to fetch the girl then and there, in order that she might personally witness her remarkable talent. Alone with the High Counselor and Terebinthia, Maia at first felt nervous, but then, with peasant shrewdness, realized that, short of smashing a plate over his head, there was virtually nothing she could do which her master, in his present mood, would not find entirely pleasing. Having once more gratified him-while Terebinthia held a mirror to add to his enjoyment-she and the saiyett had left the

High Counselor to sleep and returned to the women's quarters.

The weather, after two days of rain, had turned colder. The stove had been lit and the murmur and movement of the flames, together with the steady, gentle sibilance of the rain outside, made a pleasant background for conversation.

Maia turned over on her back. "Oh, 'twas just lucky, honest," she answered. "Tell you the truth, I was frightened half silly. But I mean, someone had to do something."

"Or you could have been where Meris is now." Tere-binthia, seated near-by, was looking over the clothes and jewels which the girls had worn the night before.
"She's
the one to blame, the little fool: an experienced girl and simply couldn't control herself. Let that be a warning to you."

"But, banzi," said Occula, "you say Elvair-ka-Virrion came and pressed you, and you sent him away?"

"Oh, I do just about hope that was right an' all!" replied Maia. "Only strikes me as he may go an' take against me now, see?"

"Not he!" said Occula. "Not he! You couldn't have done better! He can' possibly hold it against you; and I shouldn't think any girl's ever treated him like that before in his whole life. He'll be even crazier about you now-you jus' wait and see! He'll think you're the most marvelous thing since Lespa flew away with the goat. He'll probably come round here and ask for you, I expect."

"But-" Maia spoke hesitantly, frowning and stabbing slowly at the floor with a splinter of firewood-"Meris was saying at the banquet that we're never allowed out, and nobody ever gets to see us."

"Ah; but that's just as
I
may decide, you see," said Terebinthia, holding up Maia's Yeldashay skirt to the light and examining it one side and then the other. "What it comes to is that I certainly don't allow any girl to go out by herself if I feel I can't trust her to do me and the High Counselor credit. It's most unwise to forfeit
my
confidence." She patted Maia's shoulder. "You've made a very good start, Maia. Mind you take care not to get conceited. What is it, Ogma? Has the High Counselor finished talking to those messengers from Tonilda now? Then I'd better

go and ask him whether he wants to see Meris whipped before supper or after."

"Don't like Meris, do she?" said Maia when Terebinthia had gone. She got up from the couch. "Meris must have rubbed her up the wrong way good and proper."

"Absolutely fatal," replied Occula. "Anyone could see all along that she had it in for her. Even without last night she'd have got Meris sooner or later. It only goes to show, banzi: one thing you
must
avoid in this game is makin' enemies, and particularly of people who have power over you."

Maia was rummaging in the alcove for her comb. "I say, Occula, what's happened to your Cat Colonna as the pedlar gave you? I thought you left it up here on the shelf?"

"Oh-er-I dropped it," replied Occula after a moment. "It was only thin pottery, so that was that. No great loss, really, was it? Come on now, bahzi, come and gild my eyelids, will you? And then you can do my nipples as well. We've got to get all polished up to attend that wretched girl's whippin'. And we know what Piggy's goin' to want after
that,
doan' we?"

"Blackberries I reckon those are, not strawberries," giggled Maia, searching along the shelf for the little jar of cosmetic gilt. "You got a knife or a coin or something? Only this lid's jammed on that tight."

The punishment referred to by Terebinthia and Occula as "whipping" was in actuality seldom or never inflicted with a whip, for the bodies of slave-girls of the quality owned by the High Counselor were far too valuable to be scarred or lacerated. Terebinthia's normal practice-of which he, as a connoisseur', approved, finding it fully as enjoyable as whipping-was to administer a sound smacking on the rump with a broad strip of leather about twenty inches long and perhaps an eighth of an inch thick. As an amusing adjunct to this spectacle Sencho, whose natural pruriency delighted above all in seeing women indecently degraded, had himself designed and had made a special block for the culprit. This consisted of a life-sized figure, carved in black wood, of a naked, grinning savage reclining on its back, the two hands cupped in front of the face to form a kind of perch or saddle. The girl to be punished, having been stripped, was compelled to crouch astride this

figure, facing its feet, her buttocks elevated and her groin supported on its hands. In this position, and effectively gagged-for the figure was realistically complete in its semblance of carnal arousal-she presented a charming and elegant spectacle of humiliation which never failed to afford Sencho the keenest enjoyment.

During the smacking of Meris, which Terebinthia, herself stripped to the waist for greater freedom, carried out with brisk and pleasing vigor, the High Counselor, his couch placed close beside the girl, lay watching in blissful silence. From time to time, signing to Terebinthia to pause, he would stretch out a fat arm to caress Metis's thighs, himself trembling with
frissons
of delicate, cultured pleasure. Indeed, so intense was his delight that he could scarcely bring himself to tell Terebinthia to desist, consenting at length only when the saiyett had respectfully pointed out that the girl was, after all, very valuable. For some time after Meris had been carried out he lay, with closed eyes, in a kind of transport, emitting sighs of satisfaction or sudden, quick groans of reminiscent delight. At length, coming to himself and growing once more aware of the four women waiting to learn his further wishes, he instructed Terebinthia first to undress Maia, whom he wished to remain with him, and then herself retire with Occula and Dyphna.

In the event Maia did not leave the High Counselor until the following morning.

Her own reactions to the whipping had been startlingly unexpected, and might have puzzled her if she had been in the habit of dwelling upon her own feelings: but such was not her nature. At first she had been filled only with revulsion at the sight of the grotesque, carved face leering up between Meris's legs, at her haunches quivering as Terebinthia struck her, and at the yet more grotesque figure of the High Counselor quivering ecstatically in harmony. Then, suddenly and entirely without volition, she felt in herself, with a rush of spontaneous excitement, that same pleasure which she knew to be Sencho's. Like a swimmer ceasing to struggle against a current; like a desert traveler gulping down the water that was supposed to last two days; like an enraged soldier who cannot restrain in himself the impulse to strike a superior-so Maia, whether she would or no, was swept away by a surging, headlong exhilaration. Ah! Ah! Meris shuddering, Meris writhing. Sencho pant-

ing, Meris uncontrollably pissing in the black man's face ha ha, Terebinthia's big deldas swinging as she wielded the thick, pliant leather smack, oh no it wasn't Meris smack it was that sneering nobleman who had dared to shout at Lady Maia from his boat smack, it was filthy Genshed with his knife smack, oh yes, it was Zuno lolling under his awning harder, harder! while she and Occula trudged in the hot smack sun it was Perdan who had thrown her against the cart on the road oo yes it was smack grubby little Nala threatening to sneak on her and Tharrin oh
smackl
it was Morca Morca Morca
morel

As the kitchen-maids finally carried Meris away, Maia realized that she herself was panting, hot and viscid. Biting her lip, eyes downcast, she picked up one of Sencho's towels, covertly thrust it between her legs and cast it aside, hoping no one had noticed. Thereupon, turning her head for an instant towards the couch, she realized that her master, at all events, was entirely aware of what she had done; yes and of all-of every last thing-that she had felt. Her own feelings, she knew beyond a doubt, were even now forming a part of that sighing pleasure in which he lay, weak with excitement yet raised-with herself caught up and swirling in the same spiral-to an elation far beyond anything so absurd as pity for a fool like Meris. It came as no least surprise when Terebinthia was ordered to strip her. She would have been astonished-oh, bitterly disappointed!-if it had been otherwise. While Terebinthia obeyed, she sat still and exalted as a princess; and as soon as the others had gone out, herself got up unbidden and quenched two or three of the lamps until the light remaining in the room was to her own satisfaction. Then, climbing on to the couch without a word and needing no instructions from Sencho thank you very much, she began her work without haste, with no vestige of diffidence and without-oh, certainly without-any anxiety that she might show herself clumsy or inexperienced.
She
would be the one to decide what they would do together, and to this the High Counselor would raise not the least objection.