Maia

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.

24: MATTERS OF STATE

Durakkon sat moodily at the window, watching the rain drifting over the Bramba Tower outside.

"But do you want a campaign against Kamat?" he asked Kembri. "I should prefer to avoid it."

"What I want to do, sir," replied Kembri, "is to reconquer Suba for the empire."

"But-er-it was ceded to Karnat less than seven years ago, at the time when you and Fornis came up from Pal-tesh. You deliberately let him take it in return for leaving us undisturbed to depose Senda-na-Say."

"Yes, and at the time that bargain served its purpose. But nothing's going to alter the fact that the proper place for Terekenalters and Katrians is the far side of the Zhair-gen. That's the only logical western boundary for the empire. Otherwise we can't call ourselves secure. If we could only recapture Suba, it would do the Leopard cause a whole power of good; gain us a lot of popular approval and help to put an end to all the trouble we're having in Urtah and Tonilda. Don't you agree, Sencho?"

The High Counselor replied that he had no doubt of it.

"At the moment we've got Sendekar on the Valderra, with a fairly strong force," went on Kembri. "They're spending Melekril in garrison at Rallur. I mean to join them as soon as the rains are over, with enough men to cross the Valderra and recapture Suba."

"And if you succeed we'll return it to Urtah, presumably," said Durakkon. "As you know, Suba was a dependency of Urtah before it was given to Karnat. Does the old High Baron know you're planning to recapture it?"

"No, sir, certainly not. We don't want schemes of that sort leaking out in a place like Kendron-Urtah. They'd never be kept secret: Karnat would get to hear in no time. Besides," he added after a few moments, "if we do succeed in getting Suba back, we may not return it to Urtah at all. Queen Fornis, for one, would like to see it become part of Paltesh, and I've been thinking that that might very well be best from our point of view."

"But that would be totally wrong," said Durakkon, "and unjust to Urtah."

"But it would be most expedient, and a better thing altogether for the Leopards," said Kembri. "If we were

to make Forms a present of Suba, she'd be much less likely to start any trouble when her reign as Sacred Queen comes to an end. Have you thought of that, sir?"

Durakkon had indeed been reflecting most uneasily about what was likely to ensue when the time came to insist to Fornis that at the age of thirty-four she could not expect to be reinstated as Sacred Queen of Airtha for a third term of four years. The people as a whole would undoubtedly regard such a step as an affront to the god and therefore very unlucky: but Fornis was resourceful and domineering, a very alarming adversary indeed and a woman not lightly to be antagonized.