Maia

"When I was up north, I was asked to deliver a letter to a lady in Nybril called Almynis. Do you happen to know where she lives?"

He chuckled. "Oh, ah, yes, saiyett, of course. Very nice lady. Rich lady, too. It's not so far from here, her house. Shall I tell the boy to take the letter for you?"

"No, thank you. I have to talk to her myself. But I'd be grateful if the boy could come along to show me the way."

"Of course, saiyett: Fllcallhim."

"The other thing: I've-er-got rather a large sum of money here: I'd rather not go out with it on me. I was wondering if you'd very kindly look after it until I come back?"

"Certainly, saiyett: but I hope you don't want any of that there writing, saying how much an' that. Only there's no one in this house can write."

"Oh, I know I can trust you," she smiled. "It's only that it isratheralot-all I've got, actually."

"How much, saiyett?"

"Well-seven hundred meld." And she looked at him wide-eyed.

"Oh, yes: that'll be all right, saiyett. It'll be perfectly safe with me."

She counted it into his hand and two minutes later was on her way, escorted by the pot-boy. It was not very likely now, she felt, that her room would be searched.

The lad's dialect was so thick that she couldbarely understand him. He was happy enough, however, for she had given him five meld for himself-more than he saw in a week, very like. As they reached the top of the hill and came over the crest she could see, sure enough, the cloud-banks out to the east, more than a hundred miles away.To her left, below her and beyond the walls, lay the river bank along which they had come with Tolis. On the right, along the nearer bank of the Flere, extended what was evidently the wealthy neighborhood of the little town. There were several stone-built houses; not large by Beklan standards, but trim and quite well-maintained. One, with what seemed from this distance a very pretty, neat little garden extending down to the river, reminded her poignantly of her own house in the upper city. I wonder who's living there now, she thought; and the tears pricked her eyes, for she had loved it dearly, her house.

Shepointed. "Isthat Almynis's?"

"Naw, saiyett. Fu'r 'long: artside o' warls."

It did not take long to reach the walls. They were obviously very old, not mortared, built of rocks and stones piled on a base of natural crags and all of five feet thick. Those who raised them, thought Maia, all those years ago, must have heaved and dragged and carried every rock for miles around. There were no steps, as there were leading up onto the Beklan walls. The boy, like one doing an accustomed thing and seeming to need no permission, disappeared into a near-by shed and came out with a ladder which he set up and climbed. Maia having scrambled after him, he pulled it up and then lowered it for them to descend on the other side.

A track ran parallel with the walls, towards the gates in one direction and down to the Flere in the other. The boy left the ladder lying under the wall and they set off towards the river.

The grasshoppers zipped in the short grass. The heat was intense. There was no one else on the track, but some oxen were gathered in a shady place, watched by a little, ragged girl who begged from the lady as she passed. Maia gave her a

quarter-meld: she took it and ran back to her beasts without a word.

The boy stood still, pointing. "Therr!"

About two hundred feet below them lay a square, white dwelling. It was larger than her house in Bekla, very smooth and clean-looking in the glaring sunshine. On the flat roof bay-trees and laurels were standing in big, terra-cotta pots. She could not see a single stain or crack in the wall facing her. The pale-gray, louvred shutters, like closed eyelids across the windows, suggested the very acme of shadowy coolness and seclusion within. On this nearer side, a lower stone wall projected at right angles from the town walls, then itself turned at a right angle and so ran down to the shore. Within this enclosure lay the garden, entirely surrounding the house. It was profuse with arbors, little groves and bright flowerbeds. A green lawn extended down to the river, where she could see a stone j etty and a small boat-house.

From the baking hillside above, where the stones, flickering in the sun, were too hot to touch, the place looked a veritable sanctuary of verdurous ease. Maia could see two men trudging back and forth from the river, each carrying two buckets on a yoke. Clearly, their j ob must be to water the garden almost continuously throughout the day. Nothing less could possibly keep it looking like that. It shone and guttered, vibrant in contrast to the still, dried-up scrubland. As she stood gazing, a faint scent of lilies came drifting upward.