"Yes, I remember. But I-I let you go. The slave-traders; I never even tried-"

"Never mind, dear. No need to talk about that now. You just stand up and try to look as manly and strong as you can, because I'm going to call him in and tell him what we need. You cheer up, now. Everything's going to be all right."

She had about three hundred meld with her. It was not a very great deal, but it would do for a start and she could

promise more. She went to the door, rapped firmly on it and called "U-Pokada!"

60: PILLAR TO POST

It was not easy, even for the Serrelinda, to get hold of the Lord General at so busy and troublous a time. He was not at his house the following morning, though she arrived there so early that the steward-as she could perceive- was embarrassed, his slaves being still at work in the reception rooms and the place not yet ready to receive callers and petitioners. Both the Lord General, he told her, and the young Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion were already gone to the Barons' Palace; he understood that later in the morning they meant to go down to the lower city to review the troops leaving for Thettit tomorrow. The lady Milvushina, however, was upstairs in Lord Elvair-ka-Virrion's rooms. Should he tell her the saiyett had come?

It had not previously crossed Maia's mind to tell Milvushina of her trouble. Thinking quickly-the man in his scarlet uniform standing deferentially before her-she realized that she had no great wish to do so. No great wish? She hesitated. What did she mean in thus replying to herself?

Milvushina had gone out of her way to show herself a friend; to speak of herself and her situation without reserve; to make common cause with Maia, warn her, talk of her own anxieties and expectations. If Maia were to tell her now of Tharrin she would-oh, yes, certainly she would-show every sympathy and probably even promise to put in a word. She would be all benevolence. Yet in her mind would arise, unexpressed, a picture of the grubby little peasant girl tumbled on the shore by her mother's fancy man. In a word, it wasn't what Milvushina would say, but what she wouldn't say, which made Maia reluctant to tell her her trouble or ask for her advice. Often, although we may not be ashamed in our own hearts-may even be proud or glad-of something we have done, because by our own standards it was genuinely good-good, if you like, to ourselves and to the gods, who understand everything-yet nevertheless we still feel troubled by the idea of it becoming known to someone else whom we feel

to be inflexibly different in outlook from ourselves. "Oh- she just wouldn't understand." "So you're ashamed?" asks an inward voice. No, no, inward voice; don't be so simplistic. Do you think there is only one color in the spectrum; or that some animal is universally "unclean" because one out of the world's countless religions has always maintained so? It is, rather, just that her values are not ours; that's all.

Maia, somewhat to her own surprise, heard herself asking to see Sessendris. The man raised his eyebrows slightly, bowed and requested her to be so good as to accompany him.

Sessendris was dressed in a long white apron, making bread, her beautiful arms covered with flour to the elbow.

"Maia!" she said, looking up with a smile and tossing back her hair. "How nice! You must wonder what in Cran's name the Lord General's saiyett thinks she's doing in the bakery. The truth is I enjoy it, and no one else in this whole house can make bread as well as I do. So you've caught me out, my dear. Now don't you go telling the whole upper city that the Lord General's saiyett's a baker, or you'll probably have me hanging upside-down!"

This unintentionally grisly pleasantry brought the tears to poor Maia's eyes. Apart from her initial collapse in the jekzha the previous afternoon, she had until now stood up pretty well to the shock and strain of the past fifteen hours; perhaps the better because the squalor, vulgarity and sordid ugliness, which to someone like Milvushina would have been almost the worst of it, were things she had grown up with. Now, however, she wept, standing unreplying in front of Sessendris with the tears running down her cheeks. Sessendris, nodding to the kitchen-maid to leave them, sat down beside her on the flour-sprinkled table.

"It's nasty," said the saiyett, when she had heard it all. "The truth is, the world's nasty, Maia Serrelinda. Haven't you learned that yet? You ought to, I should have thought, after a few months with Sencho."

"I'm-I'm getting to know, I reckon."

"And you want to try to alter it, do you?"

"But Sessendris, surely they'll pardon him, won't they? I mean, if I ask them? They're always saying as I saved the city, and if-"

"Why d'you want him pardoned?" interrupted Sessendris. "Do you still love him?"

"No," replied Maia, so instantly and emphatically that the saiyett, nodding, was drawn to say, "I see: you love someone else, do you? Well, never mind about that for now. But in that case why do you want him pardoned? From what you've told me, he's as guilty as he can be, and he never lifted a finger to try to help you when you'd been sold as a slave: and he could have, couldn't he?"

"How could he?" asked Maia.

"Why, at the very least he could have gone to one of his heldro masters and asked him to follow you up. That's what happened with Missy upstairs, as I dare say you know; but by that time she didn't want it. Anyway, suppose you were to get him handed over to you, what would you do with him?"

"I haven't thought yet. Send him home, I suppose."

"To get into more trouble? He's been in and out of scrapes all his life, by what you've told me. He'll never change. You must know that, Maia, if you're honest. I just can't understand-well, what your idea is."

"To save him from suffering," said Maia.

"You're such a sweet, kind girl," said Sessendris. "D'you know, I used to be like you, believe it or not? You haven't grasped as much as I thought you had. Now you listen to me. You've gone up in the world. I've gone up in the world too: not like you-you've had a shower of stars poured into your lap-but still, I'm a long way above where I started. And when that sort of thing happens to you, you simply can't afford to be the person you once were. You can't be two people. You've become a new person and you've got to be her. To the upper city you're as good as a princess. Suppose you start begging for the life of this five-meld wastrel, the Leopards aren't going to think any the better of you, are they? They'll just think you can't tell shit from pudding."

"I'll go down into the lower city! I'll appeal to the people-" Maia was angry now as well as tearful.

"My dear, the people-they'd like it even less. Surely you can see that? The very last thing they want to think is that you're one of themselves. You're the magic Ser-relinda, the girl who fooled King Karnat and swam the river. No one's good enough for you! And there you'd be, pleading for a-well, never mind. But you're living in the real world, Maia-the only one there is-and the world's been good to you. You've got to learn to accept it as it

is." Sessendris stood up and once more began tossing the flour. "I'm sorry my advice is nasty medicine. But drink it! It'll do you good. The other won't, believe you me."

At the Barons' Palace she was obliged to wait for some time. Officers-some of whom she knew, others she had never seen before-were coming and going and there was an atmosphere of males intent upon male matters, in which she felt unhappily intrusive and out of place. She was touched when the Tonildan captain-the very one who had come to thank her in Rallur-catching sight of her alone and obviously ill-at-ease, excused himself to three or four companions with‹ whom he was about to leave and kept her in countenance by sitting down and conversing with her-as best he could, for he was none too ready of tongue-until a smooth and courtly Beklan equerry not much older than herself came up and begged her to accompany him to the Lord General.