Читаем Maia полностью

She had never forgotten the day when Lalloc had first displayed her-the day when Sencho, beside himself at the mere sight of her, had vainly tried to raise himself from the cushions. Nor did she forget the night of the Rains banquet, when Meris had failed him and she herself had not. She was also well aware, of course, that he felt not the least affection for her and that if for any reason, such as illness or injury, she were to become less attractive he would simply sell her off for the best price he could get. Yet in a strange way this state of affairs suited her. She enjoyed the fact that her beauty and wantonness were sufficient in themselves and needed no supplement of emotion. Her own nature was down-to-earth. So was Sencho's.

Despite his delight in humiliating his girls, he was in this respect an easy master, since he wanted and expected nothing but pleasurable sensations, which Maia could provide without difficulty. If questioned about her work, she would probably have answered much the same as a farm-hand- that she could do it all right, but would have been happier if there was less of it. Dyphna, she knew, would have liked a more cultured, aristocratic master, and Occula one in whose house there Was more social life and opportunity for her ambition and quick wits. She herself had no such feelings-the reason, she had hitherto thought, being simply that she was not required to do anything beyond her.

She now discovered that there was more to it than this. Occula and Dyphna despised Sencho and found him tedious. To her his vulgarity, cruelty and salacity were offset by another quality-his enormous capacity for enjoyment-together with the knowledge that she herself was what he particularly liked. The transient indolence of his intermittent satiety-that too had been acceptable to her, as a night is acceptable between two days; but this new listlessness, unrelieved as one day succeeded another, began to seem like a long spell of rainy weather. Hunching her shoulders, as it were, she looked about her at a household become more wearisome than she had hitherto found it. If Sencho could not gormandize or rut, she was as much at a loose end as a farm-lad kept idle by snow.

"He keeps telling Terebinthia there's nothing the matter," she said one afternoon, after she had finished practicing the senguela-at which she had greatly improved- and she and Occula were lying together in the pool. "And if I ask her whether he's really ill, she gets cross. But if there's really nothing the matter, why doesn't he want anything? Don't want any girls, don't want any dinner: I just about wish he did, and that's the plain truth."

"It often takes them like that, so I've heard," replied Occula. "Gluttons, I mean, and lechers: people who've lived a long time the way he has. They get so their bodies jus' can't respond any more. Well, when there's nothing left in a barrel it runs dry, doesn' it? And take it from me, that's what's frightenin' old Pussy. She's afraid he's going to die."

"D'you reckon he is, then?"

"I doan' know, banzi. Always been in steady employment, myself. I jus' doan' know enough about people like

Sencho. But I'll tell you one thing-we ought to take damn' good care he doesn't have a fit or somethin' while we're stuffin' him or workin' him up to a bit of fun. We could easily get the blame, you see."

Nevertheless, it was remarkable to Maia that during these days Occula spent more time with Sencho than did any other member of the household-more even than Ter-ebinthia. He would send for her in the course of the morning, and she would remain with him for several hours. Once or twice Maia, entering the room on some errand from Terebinthia, had the notion that she had interrupted a conversation. Also, she received a vague impression that in some way Occula was influencing the High Counselor. One evening, for example, having been called unexpectedly to the small hall and finding, to her surprise, that he wanted her to gratify him, she sensed that in fact this had been instigated by Occula, who remained to encourage him and urge him on to satisfaction. Another day Occula was successful to some slight extent in re-awakening his greed, yet to Maia it seemed to come from the strength of her will rather than from his own appetite.

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Фантастика / Боевая фантастика / Научная Фантастика / Фэнтези