Maia

"Are you not?" said Zuno equably. "Then pray allow me at least to show you something which may be of interest to you." His air of disdainful indifference seemed already to have thrown the footpads into some uncertainty, for none made any further move as he bent down to search under the seat.

"Ah! This," he continued at length, straightening up and extending one arm over the side of the jekzha with an air of detached distaste, "is Shion's token of safe-conduct, issued personally to U-Lalloc at Bekla. If you do in fact work for Shion, you will no doubt recognize it. If you do not, I would strongly advise you to remove yourselves

altogether from this length of road, which Shion regards as his territory."

The leader looked at the token, but whether he recognized it neither Occula nor Maia could tell. It was plain, however, that both he and his mates were disconcerted. Muttering, they drew together on one side of the road. As they did so, Zuno very deliberately returned the token to his scrip, put the scrip back under the seat, snapped his fingers to the two slaves and then, settling himself comfortably, said, "Go on! And be careful to keep clear of those pot-holes in front."

Maia, who was on the side nearest to the three men, followed the jekzha without daring even to glance in their direction, expecting at any moment to feel a blow on her neck or a hand clutching her shoulder. Even Occula was breathing hard. But nothing happened; and when at length they plucked up courage to look behind, the men had disappeared.

"I'd never have thought I could feel grateful to a man, banzi, let alone to a wafter," whispered the black girl, wiping the sweat from her forehead. "You've got to admit he's got his wits about him. 'Course, it was us they were after; you realize that, doan' you? Did you see the way they were lookin' at you? Cran and Airtha, I'm glad we didn' have to settle for a jolly-baste with that lot, aren't you?"

"You mean we'd-?" Maia stared.

"Well, better than gettin' our throats cut, perhaps," said Occula cheerfully. "But we'd never have got to Bekla, would we? Flat on our backs in some damned cave. I'll do him a good turn, this boy, if ever I get the chance, damned if I doan'."

About noon they turned off the road and halted in the shade of a grove of ilex trees, where a little stream wound among clumps of rushes and purple-flowering water-thelm. There was a glitter of flies and a warm, herbal smell of peppermint. Zuno, after feeding the cat, gave the girls some bread and cheese and waved them away, spreading his cloak on the grass and settling himself for a nap. When they had gone about twenty or thirty yards, however, he raised himself on one elbow and called, "You are not to go out of earshot. I don't want to have to call you twice."

"We shall be ready whenever it may suit you, sir," replied Occula.

The girls wandered down to the stream. Shrunken by summer drought, it was hardly more than a chain of pools- the biggest barely four feet deep-divided by narrow bars of gravel, through and over which the water trickled in glistening films. Dragonflies hovered and darted over the reeds, and from somewhere among the trees a damazin was calling. The heat was intense.

"Come on, let's go in the water," said Maia. "We can eat later."

"Yes, you go on in, banzi," said Occula. "I'll come and join you a bit later. The Deelguy woan' come peepin'; they wouldn' dare. But if anyone else comes-like those bastards this mornin'-doan' try to hide or anythin' like that. Make as much noise as you can and run back to Lord Pussy-cat like shit from a goose. Understand?"

Kissing Maia on both cheeks, she strolled away along the bank and was lost to sight among the reeds.

Maia, comforted by the familiarity of solitude and clear water, slipped out of her clothes and into the deepest of the pools. Although there was barely depth to swim, she made a stroke or two across and then drew herself up onto the opposite bank. For some time she lay prone, easy and almost content-for Maia was a girl who lived, if not from moment to moment, yet certainly from hour to hour- simply to listen for the call of the damazin and to feel the flow of the calid water round her body.

"They think I'm beautiful!" she murmured aloud. "Well, happen I might just be lucky an' all." And for the moment it really did seem to her that she was lucky, and that her future, dark, uncertain and inauspicious as it must have appeared to anyone else, could not but turn out right in the end.

After a little it occurred to her to wonder what had become of Occula. "Whatever she wanted to do, she's had time enough to do it," she thought. Idly, she splashed some" of the water up between her breasts, pressing them together to hold it in a miniature pool and bending her head to sip. "I'll go and look for her. I must get her to come in too." She waded out through the reeds, slipped on her clothes and walked upstream in the direction which the black girl had taken.