"Sednil, listen; I want to help you-"

"O Cran!" he said. "Don't you start, too-"

"I mean it-"

"-Like Nan and all the rest. Why can't you let me alone?" Yet he made no further move to go.

As she hesitated he said, "I can't stop about here. You'll get me into-"

"Sednil, I must know; where's Occula? Tell me, quickly. Is she still here or not?"

"What's it to you?"

"Oh, Sednil! You want money? Aren't I your friend-"

He gave a quick, bitter laugh and seemed about to reply, but she cut him short.

"At least tell me if you know she's dead. Please!"

"I don't know she's dead."

"Then do you know she's alive?"

As though finally maddened by her insistence-f or she had him by the arm, and under the weight of the basket he could

not break free-he burst out, "She was taken away by the queen's woman-the Palteshi woman. Now will you-"

"When? The same day as I was brought here?"

"No, the day after: the chief priest didn't want-"

At this moment a burly, scowling man in a sacking apron came hurrying out of the doorway near which they were standing, caught sight of Sednil and immediately dealt him a swinging buffet on the side of the head.

"What the hell d'you think you're doing? You know damned well you're not supposed to carry that stuff across this court, don't you? You lot go round the back, where you can't be seen. Just because that's heavy-next time I'll have you whipped-"

Maia, who had never been in a position of authority in her life, had in the first instant felt more cowed and caught in the wrong than Sednil, who looked about as startled as an ox by the all-too-familiar blows of its peasant master. Now, however, like someone suddenly remembering that she has unaccustomed money in her purse and therefore need no longer stand hungry outside the cookshop, she sprang into action. Looking the overseer-or whatever he was-straight in the eye,shesaidfirmly,"Itwasmeascalledtheman:Iwantedto speak to him."

The overseer looked at her in surprise. The intervention of a priest or a noble being within his comprehension, he would have known his proper response, but girls who looked like demi-goddesses, clad in authority and diamonds, had not come his way before. After a few seconds he opened his mouth to reply, but had got no further than "Saiyett-" when Maia stayed him with an uplifted hand. "Please don't trouble yourself further; I shan't keep him a moment. You may leave us now."

She turned back to Sednil. "Then you think she's still with the queen?"

"Yes. Without she's dead she is."

There was a cough at her elbow: she turned to see the priest who had accompanied her down the staircase.

"Er-saiyett-I wonder whether I may perhaps-"

"Well," said Maia to Sednil, "that's what Nennaunir asked me to tell you! And to give you this, with her love."

Thereupon, very deliberately and taking her time, she took out a hundred-meld piece, pressed it into Sednil's hand, put her arms round his neck, kissed both his dirty cheeks and then walked slowly out of the temple.

"Oh, it makes me that wildl" she exclaimed to her soldier, Brero: but when he asked her what, she merely replied "Don't matter," and said no more.

It was during this return journey from the temple that she encountered Selperron and received his gift of flowers. When he first stopped her jekzha she thought, for a split second, that he was an assassin. She recovered herself instantly, but did not altogether forget the moment.

56: A SECRET VISIT

Lying awake before the birds began to sing, listening to the tiny sounds of darkness and feeling the now-familiar throbbing along her half-healed thigh, Maia considered her next step. Obviously, the chief priest must by now have learned that she had spoken with Sednil and what about. No doubt they had had the hundred meld off him too: that would not surprise her in the least.

The unnatural complexity and imponderable danger of her situation enraged as much as it frightened her. Why should she be frustrated in a matter which was entirely innocent and natural? Surely to Cran it ought to be understandable-acceptable at face value-that she should want to know the whereabouts of her greatest friend? Yet evidently it was not; and she had now given the suspicious priests something to fasten on and wonder about. Why exactly might the Tonildan girl be so anxious to get in touch with Sencho's black concubine? Simply because she had been fond of her-well, that might perhaps be all there was to it, and then again it might not. Maia, they knew, had herself spent a night with the queen-after which the queen had immediately sent for Occula. She had no idea of the relations between Fornis and the chief priest. To what extent did they confide in each other? Were they united in distrust of Kembri, or did they fear each other? Did the chief priest know anything about Fornis's private pleasures? Would he tell Fornis that she had been inquiring about Occula? If so, what would Fornis do? These inconclusive reflections, in the half-darkness and solitude before dawn, were enough to frighten any girl.

But if she gave up searching for Occula, what self-respect could she have left? It was not only that she herself needed

Occula and could not bear the thought of continuing her life without at least finding out what had happened to her. Occula, if she was still alive, might quite possibly stand in need of her help. At the very least she had a duty to the gods and to all the sacred obligations of friendship to discover whether Occula was still alive. But how?

Suddenly there came into her head the recollection of Zuno, bowing at the doorway of the queen's supper-room and finding himself confronted by the girl whom he had compelled to trudge seven miles from Naksh in the heat of the day. Zuno owed his present position to Occula, and if anyone in all Bekla had reason to know that the two of them were bosom friends, it was surely he. "You never know when he might not be able to do us a bit of good," Occula had said. It was like one of old Drigga's tales, she thought. All those weeks ago, in Sencho's house, Occula had, in effect, given her a key to keep and told her that one day she would come upon the door it would open. But Occula-why, yes, just like a tale!-had had no idea that it would turn out to be a door behind which she herself was imprisoned.

Maia, like virtually everyone in the Beklan Empire, thought naturally and unconsciously of the world as a kind of divine machine (rather like the Tamarrik Gate) working in conformity with fixed, recurring accordances, correlations and principles. Some of these were, of course, self-evident-as that unusually large flocks of crows presaged ill-fortune, or that conception was more likely when love was made under the full moon. Others, however, were riddling and enigmatic, their homeopathic connections hard to discern; in some cases impossible without personal revelation through the favor of a god. In the old tales-and they, of course, were plainly the revealed truth of the gods, or why else could they have held good age after age?-no deed or occurrence, however apparently casual or improbable of consequence, was without its unforeseen fruition, good or bad. These, old Drigga had explained, were often ironic jokes on the part of the gods at the expense of mortals who had not the common sense or humility to keep their eyes and ears open to divine tidings. Here, obviously, was a clear instance. The real reason why Occula had been prompted to get Zuno his place was that the gods had known that one day the deed would yield advantage. It followed that Occula must still be alive and

that she, Maia, was fated to find her. Greatly comforted by her intelligent arrival at this perception, Maia fell asleep again; and later that morning, after breakfast and a bath, sent Jarvil down to the lower city with a message to the slave-dealer Lalloc that she wished to see him on business as soon as possible. Whether or not Lalloc was in the city she had no idea. For all she knew, he might be anywhere from Herl to Kabin, buying stock or engaging fresh agents. Logically, however-that was, in accordance with the supernatural design perceived by her-he was bound to be on hand; and so it proved. The slave-dealer, dressed and be-jewelled in the florid style she remembered but now, many eventful months later, saw plainly (as she had not before) to be so tawdry and garish as to proclaim him the cheapest of imitation Leopards, presented himself in her parlor early that evening.