Maia (53 page)

At one time Maia would have been overcome at the idea of being seen publicly in such a dress. Feelings of shame, however, usually stem not directly from ourselves but rather from anticipation of what we know or suppose others are going to think of us. Also, such feelings tend to vary according to one's self-confidence or social position. It was only a few months since Maia, in her one good dress, had sat with Tharrin in the tavern at Meerzat, nervous of the unaccustomed wine and embarrassed by the hot glances of the fishermen. Ah! but things had changed, she reflected. She'd learned now all right, no danger, what people in Bekla reckoned to a girl whose looks and accomplishments could attract the favor of the rich and powerful. As long as she could maintain that favor, even poor people, acquiescent in the ways of their rulers, would accept her at those rulers' valuation and never think of her origins- except perhaps to admire her for rising above them. Nor would they stop to consider that it was their taxes which had put gowns on her body and jewels round her neck. Only if she fell from favor would their envy and malice come to the top. Meanwhile she and Occula represented that very best which some could afford while others couldn't.

The only modesty she felt now was that appropriate to a junior; a prudent sense of the unwisdom of making enemies through showing conceit or presumption. The cobblers, weavers and potters along the streets were welcome to stare out of their doors at her and imagine, poor fellows,

what they would like to do to her. That did not matter. The important thing was, in the event of meeting such as Sessendris or Nennaunir, to be careful to assume an air of demure gratitude for favors received; and on no account publicly to claim acquaintance, act familiarly or even smile at any aristocrat who might have bedded her or watched her dance naked in the Barons' Palace.

This morning the Peacock Gate stood open and the guards were concerned only to watch for unauthorized ingress from the lower city; not that anyone wished to go that way, for as the hour of noon approached almost the whole populace wanted only to get as near as possible to the Tamarrik Gate, or at least to line the streets leading to it and watch the nobility assembling for the ceremony. Many of the country people who had earlier flocked past Durakkon at the gate were standing on each side of the steep Street of the Armourers, or thronging the Caravan Market and Storks Hill, down which the dignitaries from the upper city would be coming.

Soldiers lined this route. Those between the Peacock Gate and Caravan Market were from the Yeldashay regiment, but lower down, Durakkon's Green Guard had been posted along Storks Hill as far as the Temple of Cran itself. These men, all above normal height, made a fine spectacle with their open-link mail over jerkins of green-dyed leather, and polished helmets flashing above the crowd whenever one or another of them turned his head.

The flat-roofed, stone buildings shone white in the noonday sun. The rainless air itself seemed fulgent and there was an unbroken murmur of expectant talk among the crowds, every now and then rising in excitement as they recognized some well-known figure passing. Old men nodded and mumbled to one another about festivals of years gone by. Women chattered, children squealed and pointed, lasses rolled their eyes and flaunted their finery, sweetmeat vendors pushed about, crying their wares. Municipal slaves went continually to and fro, sprinkling water to lay the dust.

It was along the paved route kept open by the soldiers through this staring, babbling throng that the two girls were required to walk, gazing nowhere but straight ahead as they followed the litter in which sprawled the monstrous, bloated figure of the High Counselor. Continuously, from about a hundred yards in front, a spund of cheering preceded them as Elvair-ka-Virrion, accompanied by Shend-Lador and three or four more of his closer friends, made their way down together on foot. The cheers, dying away as the young Leopards passed on, were not renewed for Sencho.

Maia, shortening her pace to accord with that of the litter-bearers as they began the final, steep descent of the Street of the Armourers into the Caravan Market-the spot where she had exchanged ribaldry with the apothecary's 'prentice on her way to Eud-Ecachlon's lodgings- constantly heard murmurs rising on either side. The countless pairs of eyes round her, which she could sense but not return, seemed stripping her naked. Well, but they're only people, she said to herself. Ah, yet if only she'd been free just to gaze back at them! This enforced detachment and indifference, she thought, didn't suit her style; she felt as though she were pretending to be a creature of some other species, kept for its beauty yet not consciously aware or concerned that these were men around her-a peacock on a lawn, perhaps, or Zuno's white cat among the guests at the inn.

The litter swayed on across the Caravan Market, past Fleitil's brazen scales towards the colonnade in which stood "The Green Grove." Once a child's clear voice reached Maia, "Oh, look, mum, the pretty ladies!" and a minute or two later, lower but still plain, a man's, "No, the fair one in the blue." She felt a quick spurt of superstitious reassurance, for the accent had been unmistakably Ton-ildan.

At the entrance to Storks HiU the litter stopped, evidently in response to an order given by Sencho, for they could see the tryzatt bend down as though listening to him. The girls, standing still in full view of the crowd, resembled, in their exposed yet inaccessible youth and beauty, ripe fruit on the trees of an enclosed orchard; a provocation the more alluring for being forbidden; enough to make a man forget all normal promptings of safety and common sense. Suddenly, Maia heard from only a few yards away a sharp cry, "Back! Get back there!" and, turning her head in alarm, saw a soldier ramming the butt of his spear into the stomach of a big, shambling fellow, whose eyes remained fixed on her even as he went down among the crowd.

"Piggy gone mad, or what?" muttered Occula out of the

side of her mouth. "We'll all be basted to buggery in a minute, standing here."

The tryzatt, straightening up, now turned and beckoned Maia to the side of the litter. Sencho, clutching her by the arm, told her to go into "The Green Grove" and fetch him some cooled wine. The kindly tryzatt, however, overhearing, anticipated her and brought it himself. Sencho, having gulped at leisure until he had finished the entire beaker-Maia standing by him the while-then required her to take a towel and wipe the sweat from his face and shoulders. She returned to her place beside Occula flushed with embarrassment.

"What was all that about?" asked the black girl.

"Drink," replied Maia in a whisper.

"That all?" said Occula. "Thought you must be havin' a quick thrash."

At the foot of Storks Hill an even thicker crowd surrounded the Temple of Cran. In the tile-paved precinct below the portico, close by the new statue of Airtha, the tall figure of Durakkon was standing among his barons and such of the army's senior officers as were not on the Val-derra or at Dari-Paltesh. Their wives, together with the company of the Thlela, were assembled a little apart. Each new arrival, as he reached the precinct, formally greeted Durakkon, whereupon he was either, if of sufficient importance, invited to join those round the High Baron or else courteously conducted to some other group, among his equals. There was a blaze of color from cloaks, robes and plumed hats, and a mingling of scents on the air, not only from perfumes but also from the spring flowers bedded round the edge of the precinct. Viewed from a little above, as one descended Storks Hill, the scene conveyed a breath-taking impression of wealth and power, so that even Occula momentarily lost her
sang-froid,
murmuring "Kantza-Merada!" in a tone of startled admiration which Maia had never heard from her before.

Yet now before the girls' eyes was disclosed a sight even more astonishing than that of the Leopard gathering. Beyond the precinct, on the right bank of the Monju brook where it ran out of the city beneath the walls, stood the fabled Tamarrik Gate, designed and constructed eighty years before by the great Fleitil, grandfather of Fleitil the sculptor. This, a wonder of the empire rivalled only by the Barons' Palace and the Ledges of Quiso, was (until its

destruction by the Ortelgans several years later) an integral part of the cult of Cran, conferring upon it a numinous splendor virtually irresistible alike to the dullest heart and the most skeptical mind. In function it was a water-clock, driven like a mill by the brook; but this is like saying that Alexander the Great was a soldier.

A swift-flowing carrier from the Monju encircled the whole area of the Tamarrik, its shelving inner bank planted with tall, plumed ferns. At intervals, ducts admitted water into one or another internal part of the complex. Along the lower courses of the walls of these ducts grew expanses of green liverwort, while the parapets, where the stones remained dry, were covered with blue-tongued lichens, their scarlet apothecia upstanding like myriads of minuscule warriors on guard above the sacred water below.

Immediately within the ring of the carrier stood a double half-circle of sycamores, between the leaves of which (the water driving their concealed mechanism) appeared from time to time, half-visible, the likenesses of the seven deities of the empire-Cran, Airtha, Shakkarn, Lespa, Shardik, Canathron and Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable.

The Tamarrik Court itself faced due south towards the temple precinct and Storks Hill. In the center, on a circular bronze platform ten yards in diameter, stood the sundial of Cran. The life-sized, naked figure of the god, cast in bronze covered with silver leaf, reclined on a bed of malachite grass, speckled with red and blue flowers of car-nelian and aquamarine. Its great, erect zard, stylized and engraved with fruit, flowers and ears of corn, formed the gnomon of the dial, and round it, in a shallow spiral precisely designed and placed for the indication of time throughout the day, stood, in various postures of an arrested, ecstatic dance, twelve silver girls, each the guardian of an hour-point on the dial at her feet and herself representing one of the empire's twelve provinces or independent domains-Bekla, Belishba, Chalcon, Gelt, Lapan and Kabin of the Waters: Ortelga, Paltesh, Tonilda, Ur-tah, Yelda and Sarkid of the Sheaves. The spiral dial above which they danced was a concave groove, about a foot broad. At its summit sat a golden, purple-lacquered kynat-bird, which every hour, by the operation of the water, released, as though laying an egg, a silver ball to roll down the spiral and be caught at its foot in a cup held by the figure of a kneeling child. (To keep the sundial and wa-

terclock in synchronicity, a skilled task, required continual vigilance and adjustment and was carried out by six of the priesthood, their sole duty being to attend to this business from dawn till sunset.)

Behind and above the dial, but in front of the square gateway at the back of the Tamarrik Court, stood the famous concentric spheres of silver filigree-threads crisscrossing between slender, silver ribs-which represented the city and the sky above it. Bekla, standing in the midst of an open plain, commanded a virtually hemispherical view of the stars and accordingly, accurate observation of their places and movement had been a function of the priesthood from earliest times. The inner sphere, over five feet in diameter, was fixed, and reproduced on its upper hemisphere all the principal features of Bekla-Mount Crandor and the citadel, the Barons' Palace, the Barb lake and the various towers and gates of the lower city. Its under-side represented in relief Cran and Airtha in majesty, their arms extended to uphold the city above them. Enclosing this, yet sufficiently open in workmanship to leave all these details plainly visible, the outer sphere bore, upon its thin, curved ribs of silver, great jewels set in the forms of the various constellations. This had been constructed to be manually rotated in conformity with the movement of the heavens themselves and, like the dial, required constant attention to ensure its precision.

A stone canopy protected the spheres from wind and weather, and this bore on its pediment four dials which showed the month of the year, the phase of the moon, the day and the hour. From its roof one end of a narrow bronze bar, trough-shaped, projected over the courtyard below. This was balanced on a fulcrum mounted on the parapet, and its padded inner end rested on the surface of a deep silver drum. At sunset a priest, climbing to the roof, would scatter corn into the trough. The sacred white doves, alighting to eat, as they came and went would cause the finely-balanced bar to tilt and fall back, so that the drum seemed to beat of itself, to signal to the city the end of work for the day. Aloft, crowning the edifice, rose on its pedestal the wind-harp known as the Voice of Airtha, from whose music omens were divined.

Beyond the gate, just outside the city walls, stood the grove of tamarrik trees universally believed to be sprung from the seed cast down from Crandor's summit, ages

before, by Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable. That the whole marvel stood in a deliberately-made breach in the walls symbolized the impossibility of an enemy ever taking the city by storm.

Occula and Maia, halting on the edge of the precinct while the High Counselor's litter was carried on into the temple, stood gazing in awe and astonishment at one and another part of the wonder before them. Maia, unable to imagine the purpose or meaning of the dials (except that they were obviously magical and on that account disturbing), was nevertheless delighted by the nympholeptic spiral of hours, the reclining god and the purple-and-gold kynat above. Gazing, she remembered with amusement how, on the night of the Rains banquet, she had been disconcerted by the sight of the erotic fountain in the Lord General's lower hall.

"What the hell are you gigglin' about?" asked Occula rather tensely.

"Just thinking I know now why you're always swearing by Cran's zard," answered Maia.

"He did even better than that, though, did Fleitil," said Occula, with more composure. "D'you know what happens at the ceremony?"

"Well, yes, kind of-that's to say, Tharrin told me a bit about it, once."