Maia

Picking up her robe from the floor, she folded it, with a kind of lunatic precision, across the High Counselor's belly, stepped down from the dais and was immediately lost to view in the shadowy hall, which to Maia now resembled nothing so much as Lake Serrelind at windy nightfall-a blurred, tossing expanse, noisy with fluid babbling and cries not unlike those of unseen birds. Reckon this must be one bit as got left out of that dance, she thought.

She had just retrieved Meris's robe and laid it by her stool when she felt a touch on her shoulder. Turning, she caught her breath to recognize Elvair-ka-Virrion. He was alone and plainly sober. She stood up, palm to forehead. "My lord!"

Without hesitation Elvair-ka-Virrion drew her to him and kissed her.

"I'm not a lord, I'm a man. Maia, do you know you're by far the most beautiful girl in the room? I've never forgotten you from the moment I saw you in the Khalkoornil that day. You've conquered me, Maia! Come and make love with me! You'll make me the happiest man in Bekla- and the luckiest!"

Maia, thrown for the moment into utter confusion, shrank back as though scorched from this blaze of ardor. As Elvair-ka-Virrion waited for her reply, gazing passionately into her eyes, she recalled what Occula had impressed so emphatically upon her.

"I can't, my lord: I'm attending on the High Counselor."

Elvair-ka-Virrion gave the sleeping Sencho a brief glance of contempt and turned back to her. "That pig? He won't stir. Maia, do you know what it is that's made it impossible for me to forget you? You're real-you're unspoiled- you're like some marvelous lily out on the plain that no one knows about, no one's picked; that no one had even seen until I found it. You're natural, you're honest." He waved his hand towards the hall. "You feel disgusted by all this, don't you? I don't like it, either. Let me take you to my own rooms. I only want to be good to you! You've

stolen my heart, Maia!" Then, as she made no reply, "It's true! Don't you believe me?"

Maia's eyes filled with tears. "I'm a slave-girl, my lord! My master-"

"Oh, I'll make it all right with him," said Elvair-ka-Virrion. Yet this was spoken with less conviction than anything he had yet said: even Maia could perceive that it was bravado. The High Counselor, as Occula had already pointed out to her, had all the touchy, humorless pride of a parvenu. A young gallant like Elvair-ka-Virrion would no more be able to placate his vindictive anger, if it were aroused, than a child could hold a bull. In her mind's eye she seemed to see Occula silently shaking her head.

"I can't, my lord: not without my master's consent. Another time, p'raps-"

"No, now!" cried Elvair-ka-Virrion, dashing his fist into his palm and laughing at his own frustration.

Maia's self-possession collapsed. "Oh, my lord, please don't make it so hard for me! If you really want to be good to me, as you say you do, then go!"

For a long moment Elvair-ka-Virrion gazed at her; at her trembling lips and the tears in her eyes. Then he answered shortly, "Very well," turned on his heel and strode quickly down from the dais and away into the shadows.

Left to herself once more, Maia sat down. The encounter had upset her: she felt afraid. She had grown up in a simple world, where the worst troubles were empty bellies and toothache-bad enough in all conscience, but at least one knew what was what. Here, all was strange; it was like walking in the dark. She had duly done as Occula had said. But was that really the best-the safest-thing she could have done? Suppose Elvair-ka-Virrion were now to make himself her enemy? "Lespa!" she whispered. "Goddess Lespa!" But the stars outside were hidden behind clouds and rain: Lespa seemed far away. Her head was beginning to ache. She wished they could go home to bed.

She had altogether forgotten her master, lying inert on his couch like some bloated alligator on a mudbank. But now, licking his thick lips and fluttering his eyelids, he began to stir and, struggling to turn on his side, reached out one arm towards a cloth lying at the head of the couch. Maia, jumping up, wrung out a fresh towel and wiped his face and body as she had seen Meris do. Then, supporting

his head, she offered him wine and held crushed herbs to his nostrils.