Maia

She stood up, and they walked side by side through the colonnade and out into the empty corridor. At the far end, near the foot of that same staircase which she had descended earlier in the evening, they came upon a doorway leading outside, into a covered gallery overlooking the courtyard, where two or three lamps were burning. The outer rails, no more than waist-high, supported an arcade open upon the night, and here, in the cool, rain-scented air, they took a few turns. The light wind was blowing westward, away from them. Maia, stretching out one arm, could not feel the rain under the lee of the wall.

"Better?" asked Bayub-Otal.

"Oh, 'twas nothing, really, my lord. Just give me a turn, that's all. Reckon I wasn't the only one, either."

"I thought that girl was a friend of yours?"

"She's my closest friend."

"But you've never seen her do that before?"

"No, I never. Nor I never knew she was going to, neither."

"Was that why it frightened you?"

"Well, didn't it you?"

"Not particularly."

"Oh, go on with you!" said Maia, unthinkingly. "Can't have been no one in the hall as wasn't frightened! Not when she-you know, the knife?"

"What knife?"

"The knife she give your friend-at the finish-and her mouth all over blood-"

"I saw the blood. That's an old stage trick-they keep it in a little bladder in their mouths. But I didn't see a knife."

"Well, I did. And your friend must have, 'cos he took it from her and stabbed himself."

After a few moments' reflection Bayub-Otal replied, "Well, as to that, we can ask him, I suppose."

"That wouldn't signify. Like enough he won't remember. He looked that way to me."

Again Bayub-Otal was silent. At length he said, "Well, Maia-it is Maia, isn't it?-I'll tell you what I say, and you can believe me or not as you please. Your friend performed a very original act, which led up to her being able to hypnotize Ka-Roton. He's young, of course, and

not terribly clever; it's always easier with that sort of person. The darkness and the drums, and that trick of being able not to blink-it's very effective. Quite possibly he did think he saw a knife. But I'm surprised to hear you did."

Maia was nettled. "There was plenty more than me saw it, my lord."

He half-turned towards her where he sat on the stone parapet. Below them, the surface of the wet courtyard glistened for a few moments as a door was opened and shut. "So your friend's a sorceress?"

"Occula? Never!"

"Well, what I'm really asking is whether she often makes people-people like Ka-Roton, I mean-think they see what isn't there?"

"I told you; I've never seen her do anything like that before."

"Other things?"

"Why don't you ask her, my lord?"

She half-expected a sharp rebuke, but to her surprise he only replied,

"Well, perhaps I will. Shall we go back now? Someone ought to pay the girl her two hundred meld. In fact, I will. She certainly won them."

30: BAYUB-OTAL

Occula was neither at the Urtans' table nor elsewhere that Maia could see. She sought out Sessendris, who told her that the black girl had come over faint on leaving the hall.

"And can you wonder?" added the saiyett, who was plainly, despite herself, full of compelled if uneasy admiration. "It must have taken everything out of her. Were you frightened, Maia?"

"Yes, I was. Tell me, saiyett-at the end-did you see a knife?"

"That's what everyone's asking one another. I think I did, yes. But one thing's sure-the Urtan boy did, didn't he? No doubt about that."

Maia asked whether she might be taken to see Occula. Sessendris led her along two corridors to a small room where the black girl was lying on a couch wrapped in a fur rug. She looked haggard and consumed. Sessendris-

who was plainly nervous of her-having made the briefest of polite inquiries, left them together.

Thank Cran it's you, banzi!" said Occula. "None of these bastards has offered me a drink. Go an' get me a good, big one, there's a pet."

When Maia returned, she drank off the whole goblet at a draft.

"That's better." She sat up. "I'm fine."

"Bayub-Otal wants to pay you your two hundred meld," said Maia.

"Two hundred meld my venda! I didn' do it for two hundred meld!"

"What for, then, dearest?"

"Why, because that little tairth made me angry, that's why, sittin' there, pawin' your deldas as if he'd bought you. Well, he woan' be tryin' it again for a bit, I dare say."

"And that's really why you did it?" said Maia. "All that-just for me?"

"Well, it's like this, banzi," replied Occula. "You and I, we want to go up, doan' we, not down? I doan' mind you bein' basted by someone who's goin' to do you a bit of good and get you further. We were brought here for the Urtans, right? But when we actually come down to it, it's obvious that only two of them count for anythin'. And of those two, one's not interested. Ever seen a dead ox? Am I right?"

Maia could not help smiling at Occula's down-to-earth assessment. "Just about."