But at this moment she felt her arm taken yet again: Elvair-ka-Virrion was beside them.

"Lord Randronoth, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm afraid I must take Maia away from you-for a little while, at any rate. My Ortelgan officers are Very anxious to meet her, and-well, you know a commander's responsibilities-such a bore-but this is a barrarz and I have to consider my combatants first, as I'm sure you'll understand."

It was said jokingly, yet Maia could nevertheless sense a slight taunt in his tone of voice, even as she saw the look, quickly quenched, of disappointment and chagrin on Randronoth's face. Next moment she was walking beside Elvair-ka-Virrion across the terrace, among the general concourse now going in to supper.

The barrarz was evidently not to be held in the panelled hall on the second story, where the Rains banquet had taken place. The guests were being conducted to a less ornate, stone-floored room on the ground floor. It occurred to Maia, in the light of what Nennaunir had told her about the boisterousness to be expected on these occasions, that the Lord General had probably had in mind the risk of damage to his property. There was, for instance, no statuary in this hall and no display of such ornamentation as vases or carved lamp-stands. The chairs, tables and benches were strong and plain and the unfringed cush-

ions of the couches were all made of the same stout, green growth. Nonetheless, there was ao cause for anyone to feel that Elvair-ka-Virrion was stinting his hospitality. Great quantities of cold meat, together with bread, fruit, nuts, cheeses, peeled eggs, cucumbers, gherkins and the like were already spread across the tables, and as the slaves hurried in and out, smells of roasting drifted into the hall from the adjacent kitchens. Maia had never seen such a display of wine-jars. Also-and this, as always, delighted her-there were flowers everywhere, sprays, garlands and bouquets, filling the place with color and perfume. As a background to the guests' entry, Fordil and his men, already established on a low platform to one side, had struck up a repetitive, plaintive strain which, after a few moments, she recognized through the babble and hum of talk as an old Tonildan air, "The Island of Kisses". She had forgotten it-hadn't heard it for many a long day-not since leaving home, in fact. To encounter it unexpectedly here-found, as it were, in an old drawer of the heart- filled her with pleasure and a sense of propitious luck.

"Did you really mean it about the Ortelgans?" she asked Elvair-ka-Virrion, looking back at him as she reached across the table for some sprays of jasmine to take the place of the scent she had forgotten. "I didn't know they was soldiers at all: didn't know there was an Ortelgan regiment, even."

"Well, you're quite right; they're not regulars," he answered, helping her to trim the jasmine and fasten it in her hair. "But you see, their High Baron, Bel-ka-Trazet, wants to feel he can count on our help against the Deelguy if ever they should need it, so he's sent me five hundred Ortelgans under a young man called Ta-Kominion-a baron's son. I gather he had a bit of a job persuading some of his barons to go along with the idea-not all of them love us, you know-but Ta-Kominion himself seems a good lad. He's very young, it's true, but he's a good leader and a regular fire-eater; he can't wait to get to Chalcon."

He took her arm again as they threaded their way among the benches and couches, where stewards were seating the guests, towards the upper part of the hall.

"The Ortelgans'll feel enormously flattered to have the Serrelinda seated with them for supper, and that'll be all to the good from my point of view. But Iwas thinking of you, too, Maia-" he smiled, and gave her a quick kiss

on the shoulder-"I really was. Ta-Kominion's a very impulsive, susceptible sort of lad, and I know his father's rich enough. There's one of their barons here, too, though he's not part of the Chalcon contingent; a man called Ged-la-Dan, who's made a fortune out of eshcarz and ziltate from the Telthearna. His men dive for it, you know. It just crossed my mind that the Ortelgans'll probably be able to bid quite a lot if they want to."

"It's very good of you, Elvair, to be at all this trouble on my account."

He laughed. "Feeling nervous?"

She shook her head. "Never. Oh, no, there's nothing as I-"

Suddenly she stopped, staring in front of her and as quickly turning her head away in revulsion. Some thirty feet off, beyond a group of young Beklan officers and their girls, was sitting the same hideously disfigured man whom she had last seen in the gardens of the Barb on the night of the High Counselor's murder. This, she now recalled Occula telling her, was Bel-ka-Trazet, the High Baron of Ortelga. She forced herself to look at him again. In this clearer light his face appeared even more ghastly, the left eye askew and pulled horribly down the cheek, half-lost beneath a great, seamed ridge of flesh running from nose to throat. As he spoke to the two men beside him his lips twisted crookedly, and she saw him pause for a moment and collect himself, grimacing as though the very act of utterance were a trial.

"Oh, Elvair," she said, "that Bel-ka-Trazet-oh, I don't mean to-only it's enough to make anyone take on bad. You surely don't mean that he-that you want me to-"

"No, don't worry, Maia," answered Elvair-ka-Virrion. "You can take it from me that Bel-ka-Trazet won't be putting himself forward as far as you're concerned. He's very proud, you know-severe and harsh even with him-self. They say he never makes advances to women, because he'd rather not think they might be pitying him. Would it upset you to help a cow to calve?"

"No, 'course not."

"Well, it would a lot of girls. But then you're used to it, you see. This is much the same. It won't bother you to be in his company after a little while. I like the man, myself. Grim he may be, but he's always been honest with us; and

incidentally he's one of the best hunters in the whole empire."

He led her across to the Ortelgans, and as he began speaking to Bel-ka-Trazet she glanced aside to see the other two men staring at her in the way to which she had become accustomed. The High Baron bowed, taking her hands in his own, and she forced herself to look directly at him and smile as naturally as she could.

"I'm honored to meet you, saiyett," he said, speaking with a peculiar, grating ring in his voice, so that she guessed that his throat, too, must have been injured. "There's no one in Ortelga who hasn't heard of what you did for the empire in Suba. Perhaps, a little later, if you haven't grown tired of telling the story, my friends and I might be privileged to hear it."

There were murmurs of agreement from his two companions. The older man, Ged-la-Dan, struck her unfavorably; a typical Ortelgan, unsmiling, dark and thick-set, looking less like a nobleman, she thought, than a butcher or a drover; however, there was nothing servile about his manner and he was dressed as richly as anyone in the room, with an elaborately-pleated, purple veltron and four or five strings of polished ziltate and penapa encircling his bull neck. By contrast, Ta-Kominion seemed a mere boy- barely eighteen, she guessed-fair-haired and very tall, with an eager, restless look, a ready smile and something compelling and persuasive in his manner which conveyed the impression that he placed unbounded confidence both in himself and in whomever he was speaking to. It was as though his eyes were saying, "I know I can rely on you: I know you're my friend, and I'm heartily glad of it." She felt a kind of generous warmth in him which made the prospect of supper with the Ortelgans more agreeable than it had seemed a few minutes before. Within her, the invisible Zen-Kurel instantly approved, assuring her that had things been different he and this man might have become good friends and comrades-in-arms. I can see why they've sent him to go with Elvair, she thought. Reckon I'd follow him all right if I was a soldier. #