Maia

Lalloc considered. From what Domris had told him this black girl, apart from her unusual and striking looks, was sharp and able-a girl out of the ordinary. She was likely to go far-indeed, in the present state of Bekla, no one could say how far. A rich voluptuary's pet concubine; a baron's favorite shearna-there was no telling. One of the built-in features of the bed-girl trade (and he had known others come unstuck through it) was that while there were big profits to be made out of such girls while they were young and starting out, it might later prove important- you could never tell-not to have antagonized them. Conversely, if they retained not-too-unpleasant memories of the way you had treated them, they could in time become influential friends and valuable sources of information. Indeed, he recalled that Hosein, a former dealer at the time of the Leopard rising six or seven years ago, had been able to cut and run just in time, following a word from a girl who owed him a^good turn.

"Well," he said at length, "we try it, Occula. But it's expocting something, I toll you. This is roch man all right, oh, yes, but I don't think he spond that moch-and if he don't, thot's it and nobody making trobble, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Maybe I give you your monny now, then no one olse see. You got where you can put it?"

"Yes, sir."

"We going opper city this morning. You-well, you don't need hairdresser; only the other girl. You need clothes?"

"I have some clothes with me, sir, which suit me very well, I think. You'll judge for yourself. But my friend will need some."

"You botter go now, talk to her. She got to look nice: no good we gotting there she's making a foss, look like she been crying."

"She woan', sir. Leave it to me."

An hour later Maia, dressed in a close-fitting, low-cut, green-and-white robe, her golden hair combed smooth and falling over her bare shoulders, was being carried with Occula in a curtained litter up the Street of the Armorers

to the Peacock Gate, the only entrance from the lower to the upper city. Here Lalloc, the girls, litter-bearers and all were conducted to the enclosed chamber known as the Moon Room, searched and their identities noted; for even a dealer of Lalloc's standing was not immune from the strict and vigilant surveillance imposed by the Leopard regime. Finally the litter itself was also searched. Thereupon the porter operated the counterpoise that opened the postern and Lalloc, followed by his wares, proceeded towards the group of wealthy houses east of the Barb, one of which was that of Sencho-be-L'vandor, High Counselor of the Beklan Empire.

PART II THE SLAVE-GIRL

18: SENCHO

His Worthiness Sencho-be-L'vandor, High Counselor of Bekla, was, in this seventh year of the reign of Durakkon, forty-five years of age, a leading member of the Leopard faction and one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the empire.

He had been born in the lower city of Bekla, the bastard of a common prostitute. By the age of ten he had already b«en trained both to tout and to steal and, being a very personable child when clean, had also learned a good deal on his own account about turning to profit the sexual propensities of grown men and women. At this time his mother, having taken up with a gang of thieves and realizing that her life was in danger through knowing too much about a murder, fled across the Vrako and ended in Zeray, leaving Sencho to fend for himself. A certain steward who pandered to his master's proclivities, catching sight one day of the handsome child begging at the back door, gave him a place in the kitchen; and a week or two later, having satisfied himself that his judgment had been correct and that the lad would do, brought him before his master, the prosperous iron-merchant Fravak.

Fravak, sitting in his courtyard after dinner on an afternoon of early summer, thrust a hand tipsily under the boy's tunic and, fondling and pinching, questioned him about his past experience, concluding by requiring him to demonstrate one or two of his claims. Some time later, before settling himself comfortably to sleep, he instructed the steward to take Sencho away and prepare him for his future role in the household.

For the next ten or twelve weeks the boy was confined to a luxuriously-furnished room on the upper floor of Fra-vak's mansion. Here he had a private balcony and bathroom and his own personal slave, a girl from Gelt who said little but carried out conscientiously her duties of attending to his health, of oiling and massaging his body and above all, of compelling him to eat.

He was required to eat almost from morning to night- quantites of rich, delicious food, gradually increased as the weeks went by. Whenever he would not or could not eat more he was beaten with a pliant cane, until he lay screaming on the thickly-carpeted floor. When he succeeded in