Maia

Occula whistled. "So that's what it's all about! They've got their suspicions about Bayub-Otal, have they? And they're hopin' he may let some cat out of the bag to you?"

"But if they want information so badly, why can't they get it from Sencho? I thought he was supposed to know about everyone all over the empire?"

"I doan' know, banzi, but if you ask me, it's like I told you-Kembri doesn' trust him anymore. So Elvair-ka-Virrion gave you a good bastin' and then went on straight away to tell you to get Bayub-Otal into bed? I reckon that was a dirty trick, even if we are slave-girls. He might have wrapped it up a bit nicer than that."

"No, Occula, that's just it. He told me I wasn't to let Bayub-Otal have anything, not on any account. I was to refuse him, but try to make him want to see me again."

"And you say he means to?"

"Well, I don't rightly know. When I told him we belonged to Sencho, you could see he didn't like that at all. It seemed to sort of change his mind, like."

"Well, at that rate we can only wait and see," said Occula. "But I shouldn' break your heart if nothin' comes of it. You'd be best out of this Urtan lark, I reckon. Plenty of people'll soon be interested in you without the risk of that-whatever it may be."

"But Occula, listen! Those young Leopards I was talking

to while you were with Eud-Ecachlon-there wasn't one of them particularly interested in me. It was you they were all asking about."

"Ah, but then they'd all just had a bit of yum-yum, hadn' they? If we were still there now, you wouldn' have to wait long." Qccula paused. "Yes, well, I daresay my act may have got them interested. It was meant to. We must think up somethin' for you, too, banzi. You see, however pretty a girl is, for the upper city she really needs more than just looks: she needs somethin' to make them think she's out of the ordinary. These Leopards help themselves to the cream and leave the milk for the lower city. Up here, just pretty girls are ten meld a dozen. Look at Meris-she was pretty enough. But you just compare her with Nennaunir. D'you know what Nennaunir's like? She's like a story people want to hear again and again- because they keep findin' new things in it. She's a clever girl, too: Terebinthia told me about some big Leopard she was with who asked her to advise him about his money, and apparently she did it so well that he made a fortune and gave her a bastin' great lump of it to keep for herself."

"Can't see me ever doing anything like that," said Maia.

"Nor me neither. But I can make people see knives that aren' there: well, sometimes, anyway-you know, when they've all had a few drinks. But we've got to find somethin' distinctive for you. Well, of course! We'll make you a dancer!"

The jekzha stopped and she peeped out through the rain-curtain. "But jus' now what we seem to have found is old Piggy's house, so we'd better go in, I suppose."

31: MILVUSHINA

Nevertheless, Occula refused to get down in the rain, insisting that the jekzha-man, before being paid and dismissed, should call the porter to open the gate and then pull them into the covered courtyard. To the sleepy Jarvil, however, she was all civility, thanking him for his trouble and even, with a detachment worthy of a baron's wife, sliding two meld of her own into his palm before taking the lamp he proffered and disappearing down the corridor to the women's quarters.

"D'you think there'll be any hot waiter?" said Maia, pausing at the door and taking the lamp from Occula to light another on a ledge near-by. "I wouldn't half like some, but I'm not going to knock poor old Ogma up at this time of night-"

"What in Cran's name's that?" said Occula suddenly, grasping her wrist. "Did you hear it?"

They both stood still, listening. For some moments there was no sound. Then, from somewhere beyond the door, they both heard muffled weeping-sobs, a shuddering, indrawn breath and then silence once more.

The two girls stared at each other.

"Dyphna?" whispered Maia at length.

"No, nor yet Ogma," answered Occula. "Someone else."

"Ought we to get Terebinthia; or Jarvil?"

"No, to hell with that!" said Occula. "If it were a man- but it's not. We'll find out for ourselves. Come on!"

Opening the door quietly, they went on through the bead curtains and across the main room, where the still pool lay glimmering in the reflection of their lamps. Their own room was empty.

"Dyphna can't be in her room or she'd have heard it too," said Maia.

"No, she's probably with Piggy," replied Occula. "Mer-is's room-we'd better go and look."

Picking up the lamp, she led the way. Maia, following and peering over her shoulder in the doorway, saw that there was indeed someone in the room-a girl sitting up in the bed, clutching the coverlet about her and cowering from the strange, black face of the intruder.

Slipping past Occula, Maia sat down on the bed and took the girl's hand in her own.

"You don't have to be afraid of us," she said. "Tell us who you are."