Maia

"Anight, saiyett?" asked the boy. She nodded rather abstractedly. In the light of her twenty-four hours' experience of Nybril she had not been expecting anything quite like this. To say the least, she thought, Mesca had not been guilty of exaggeration. This Almynis obviously had money and knew how to make good use of it, too. Occula ought to come and have a look at this; it might cool her off a bit about the Lily Pool.

Dismissing the boy, she walked on down the hill. Since she could see no gate in the garden wall facing her, she rounded the right angle and followed it down its length to the shore. Still there was no gate, but the wall came to an end some yards short of the water's edge, and she walked round it onto the lawn. Not far off was one of the water-carriers, white-bearded, stooping and gnarled, with a wide, flat straw hat on his head.

"I've come to see the saiyett Almynis. Will it be all right to go up to the house?"

He squinnied up at her, old eyes peering out of a crumbling dwelling-as it were from far away-at youth and beauty which once, perhaps, he might have hoped to attain. Not any more. Not now.

"Whynot?"

She gave him five meld, at which the poor old fellow uttered an exclamation, touched it to his forehead and called down a blessing on her. She went on between the trees and shrubs with their smell of moist greenery. Glittering gnats were darting among them and butterflies fanned their wings on the stones. The double doors giving on the garden were louvred like the shutters, made of sestuaga wood, very light and delicate andfastenedwithabronzechain. Shewasabout, to knock when she saw, standing on a little, round table beside the door, a copper hand-bell. It was made in the form of four naked girls facing outwards and arching their bodies, hands raised above their heads to meet round the handle- an erect zard carved in some dark, smooth wood. Wouldn't Nennaunir just about fancy one of those? she thought; and forthwith picked it up and rang it. Like a sheep-bell it was not resonant, but gave off a hollow, cloppering sound, which somehow went with the hot afternoon. She held it up and looked inside, expecting the tongue to be another zard: however, it turned out to be a boy and girl clasped in each other's arms. She had just replaced it on the table when the chain was drawn and the doors opened by an enormous man-the biggest she had ever seen in her life, exceptfor King Karnat. The chucker-out, she thought: these places always employed a strong fellow.

He certainly was an intimidating sight, bare-armed, barefooted and muscled like an ogre. She only just restrained herself from raising her palm to her forehead.

"I've come to see the saiyett Almynis," she said.

"She's expocting you?" He spoke like Lalloc-like a Deelguy.

" Agirl called Mesca told Almynis I was coming."

"You com in." He stood aside.

She stepped into a big, cool room. There were couches covered with bright rugs and cushions, a long dining-table with benches on either side and a central pool with a fountain; but the fountain was still. All the windows were shuttered against the sun, except for one, a dazzling rectangle on

the far side of a couple of steps leading up into a little colonnade at the other end of the room.

"You waitinghere. Itollher."

She began wandering about the room, admiring the fittings and furniture, most of which looked new. One wall was decorated with a series of licentious pictures, another with a charming painting of swans alighting on a lake.

All of a sudden Maia stopped short. On a small, lacquered table against the wall stood a little cluster of ornaments and pretty artifacts-a pair of candle-snuffers made like a silver dragon, the corn-sheaves of Sarkid carved in Ortelgan zil-tate, a golden filigree sweet-box and so on. Arhong these was a little carving, in greenstone, of two goats mating. One exactly like it, she remembered, had had its place on the edge of the fountain in Sencho's dining-hall. She had once asked where it came from and been told from some foreign land beyond Yelda.

She would never have imagined there could be two such. She stepped forward and was j ust going to pick it up when she realized that the huge bodyguard had returned and was standing at her elbow. Without speaking he gestured towards the unshuttered window behind her;

She looked across the room. The dark shape of a woman, looking out of the window, was outlined against the light. She must have entered without a sound from somewhere along the colonnade. Maia crossed the room, went up the steps and raised her palm to her forehead.

"Saiyett Almynis, thank you very much for letting me-"

The woman turned. "Hallo, Maia."

For a moment Maia stared; then, with a cry, she recoiled, clutching with one hand at the painted column behind her.

"Terebinthia!"

99: A HARD BARGAIN