jewelry; and along with these, plain sight-seers and folk up for a frolic; people who had come to see the Tamarrik Gate and people who already knew it well. Many of these, unable to obtain lodgings, would sleep on the streets.
At length Bodrin, palm to forehead, took his leave, descended from the rostrum and continued on his way. Durakkon, still aloft above the crowd, felt suddenly old and tired, a prisoner cut off from all the energy and vibrant life below. Wearier than the poor lass with the pedlar, he thought, for he had been tramping for seven years to stay in the same place. Once he had been full of confidence and determination to be a just ruler, to put down oppression and champion ordinary folk against those who cheated and exploited them. He had even had some idea of an end to slavery. But his vision, like the charitable bequest of some stupid, kindly old lady, had never reached its intended recipients. Somewhere along the way it had been intercepted, pilfered, nullified; by Kembri, by Sencho, by Fornis, by men like Lalloc. Was there, he wondered, one single peasant-man, woman or child-whose life was any the easier for his rule?
He thought of his wife, the daughter of a baron of Sar-kid, whom he had married twenty-eight years ago, loyally fulfilling her role as High Baron's consort in a society where many now regarded the very concept of marriage as obsolete foolishness; of his sons, one on the Valderra, the other an officer in the new fortress at Dari-Paltesh. He called to mind, too, the pretty, golden-haired girl, with her soft Tonildan burr, whom he had watched Kembri question and browbeat the other night; a child enslaved, snatched from her home, eager to make her fortune by whoring, spying and delation. Whatever good she might contrive to dredge up for herself from the mud into which she had been pitched, he had conferred none on her.
He wondered how much longer he would have to go on living. At his age he could not realistically seek service- and death-in the field. Already he was showing signs of infirmity and it would look merely foolish. The prospect of something like another twenty years of increasing inability to hold his own against Kembri and Sencho seemed to him like slow death in a dungeon. Yet at all costs he must try to keep his dignity for the remainder of his life- whatever that might be.
From somewhere away to his right he heard shouted
commands and men marching. The soldiers were coming through the gate to escort him back to the upper city, opening a lane through the crowds, pushing people back with the shafts of their spears. Their officer, reaching the foot of the rostrum, looked up and saluted, right forearm across his chest.
"If you'll allow me to say so, my lord, I wouldn't delay. My men can't hold back a crowd like this for long."
"Thank you," replied Durakkon. "I'm coming."
In the High Counselor's house also, preparations for the spring festival were proceeding. Sencho, irritated by the prospect of the three-quarter-mile journey down through the lower city to the Temple of Cran, the long, tedious rites and the unavoidable foregoing of dinner and other customary pleasures, lay morosely in the bath while Ter-ebintbia laid out his robes and regalia.
Slave-girls, of course-even the High Counselor's-could not be present at the temple ceremony, but since Sencho was virtually helpless without attendants, Occula and Maia were to walk beside his utter as far as the temple precinct, wait until the ceremony was concluded and then accompany him back.
For the Sacred Queen's spring festival the aristocracy of Bekla, as well as the numerous provincial barons who made the journey to attend, were usually dressed, in accordance with ancient custom, as though for a wedding, while those of rank wore or carried their privileged insignia. By the same token propriety required that slaves, insofar as their presence might be unavoidable, should be dressed plainly and inconspicuously: or rather, this was what would once have been expected, in the days of Senda-na-Say and his predecessors. Of late years, however, fewer and fewer inhabitants of the upper city had continued to regard the ceremony with the fervor felt by their forefathers. The rites were not, indeed, cut short or treatedlightly, but they were observed rather than celebrated-a tradition of empire rather than an invocation of the god from the hearts of his worshippers. The dignitaries attending did so because it was expected of them, and because to have been absent would have given rise to criticism.
Accordingly, in the matter of dress, no one was particularly concerned to find fault with departures from the
sober ways of the past, those who might privately feel troubled preferring not to risk being thought hide-bound or puritanically out of date. Least of all was anyone likely to suggest that so powerful and vindictive a public figure as the High Counselor might be acting tastelessly or irreverently by attiring his slave-girls in travesties of traditional styles. Occula was dressed in a plain white frock of fine wool, its long sleeves slashed and the weave, from shoulders to knees, so open as to reveal her body beneath. Maia's dress, which in cut followed exactly the homely garment of a household servant of a hundred years before, was made of very thin blue silk which clung so closely that the effect was, and was meant to be, immodestly provocative.
"Great hoppin' Shakkarn, banzi!" muttered Occula, as on Terebinthia's instructions they went together to fetch hot towels from the steam-room, "you hang around the Tamarrik Gate like that for a bit and half the jig-a-jigs in town'll be rubbin' themselves up against you."
"Reckon you'll be safe, then, do you?" answered Maia, trying the heat of a towel on her bare forearm, clapping the steam out of it and dropping it into the basket.
"Oh, they'll all have come off jus' lookin' at you before they get anywhere near me," replied the black girl. "Anyway," she went on, with a certain change of tone, "Kantza-Merada's protectin' me today. And you'll remember I said that, woan' you?" she added, turning to look directly into Maia's eyes. "Do you love me, banzi? Really?"
"You ought to know."
"Then remember this. Tonight, at the Barb, whatever I tell you to do, do it, and doan' ask any questions. No" (holding up a pale palm), "that's enough! But remember we were lovers, banzi, and that I was always straight with you."
Before Maia could reply she had taken the basket and was leading the way back up the passage.
When the girls had finished dressing the High Counselor and helped him into the small dining-hall to await the arrival of his litter, Terebinthia, kneeling, begged him, in the customary terms, graciously to hear the petition of his faithful and devoted slave Dyphna, who had completed five years in his service. This was the signal for Dyphna to come forward, prostrate herself, offer the payment for her freedom and formally request Sencho to grant it to
her. Usually, in Bekla, the freeing of a girl who had earned her price and given her master pleasure and satisfaction was the occasion for mutual compliments and some little informal ceremony. The girl would be asked to rise and drink with her master and would receive his thanks, good wishes for her future and so on, before receiving a present and taking formal leave of the household; sometimes being escorted by an admirer (invited beforehand) to begin her new life as a shearna or sometimes even as a wife.
Such wearisome niceties, however, were not for Sencho. Having told Terebinthia to count the money, he lay silently, with closed eyes, from time to time scratching himself under the oppressive robes; and as soon as the saiyett had assured him that the sum was correct, waved the girl away, at the same time calling for Milvushina to hold a pot for him to pass water before setting out for the lower city.