after that's up to you, but often the yard can make all the difference."

"Good people," she cried, "I've come to tell you that Lespa's spoken to me in a dream! Just as she spoke to me in Suba and brought me back safe, so now she's sent me here tonight."

She stopped. Her mouth felt dry. She could not see their faces so clearly as she would have liked, but at least no one had interrupted. Yet she could find no more words.

"Her message, saiyett?" called a voice.

That was better; she could at least answer a question. "The star!" she said, pointing. "It means good and not harm to the city! There's no reason to be afraid! That's Lespa's message!"

"Tell us your dream, then, little saiyett," shouted someone else; and there were murmurs of agreement.

"That I mustn't do," she replied, spreading her hands and shaking her head. "If you don't want to believe me, I can't help it. But I've come because Lespa sent me, to say she means us good and not harm. The star's sent for a blessing! That's why I'm not afraid, and nor should you be."

At this there was some cheering, yet somehow it lacked conviction. So distrustful and canny is the human heart that, faced with the unknown, the strange and imponderable, it is always less ready to impute good than ill, and often, even when misgivings have been disproved on clear evidence, will obstinately cling to them, as though reluctant to be deprived of the opportunity to feel hapless and accursed.

"She's right!" shouted Baltis. "Hasn't she been right all along?"

"Right for old Sencho, you mean," called out someone, with a sneering laugh. "You been listening to them big blue eyes and deldas, mate, that's your trouble."

"I been listening to her as swum the river, damn you!" answered Baltis angrily. "Are you telling me-"

Maia began to realize that if the matter were to come to contention, she had already exhausted whatever powers of persuasion she had ever possessed. Circumstances had not allowed her to go about the business as she had originally intended. Still, she had done her best and said what she had to say: it would go round the city. The thing to

do now-if only she could manage it-was to make her departure with dignity.

Standing on the plinth above the bickering roughs-their oaths in her ears, their sweat in her nostrils-she now became aware of some new entry taking place on her left, from Storks Hill on the far side of the market-place. The torchlight was too patchy and intermittent to enable her to make out exactly what was happening, but she could see two files of soldiers-oh, Cran, yes! there must be twenty at least just gone across the lighted front of that stall-and hear authoritative cries of "Back, there; back! Make way!" i

What could it be? Something important from Chalcon? Could they have taken Santil-ke-Erketlis prisoner, or perhaps one of his captains? Suddenly the horrible thought came to her that Fornis might have returned. She thought of the cat on the wall. Fornis couldn't miss her, stuck up here on the plinth. Well, yes, but Fornis could hardly shoot her here, in the full public gaze. (Oh, couldn't she just? whispered an inner voice: that's all you know.)

Whoever it was, they were coming straight towards her, the soldiers in their two files carrying spears and torches alternately. People were scattering left and right. No, it could hardly be anything from Chalcon, for there were no sounds of cheering or acclaim. Nor could it be the Sacred Queen, or there would have been attendant women. Suddenly she recognized the chief priest, dressed in full regalia and carrying his staff of office. No sooner had he crossed the patch of light in which she had glimpsed him than he was immediately followed by the hulking figure of Kembri.

The soldiers-presumably in response to an order, though she had heard none-halted about forty yards from the Scales. She could see them clearly enough now. Her armourers and their disputants had fallen silent and were no longer looking at her.

The Lord General walked slowly and deliberately forward until he was a yard or two below her. There he stood still and looked up without speaking.

Kembri, though lacking the warmth and sociability ever to have become, like his son, a popular figure with the mob, was nevertheless held in respect as a strong, resolute man, a firm ruler and an able general. To most he represented security and his imposing presence, stern and tenebrous, never failed in its public effect. Yet now, as

they stood face to face, the strikingly beautiful girl looking down upon the grim, black-bearded soldier, it seemed as though each possessed-and of this the watchers undoubtedly had an intuitive sense-a counter-balancing, complementary authority; bestowed, as it were, by different (and perhaps emulous) deities. If the Lord General was someone to be reckoned with, then so too, in her way, was the Serrelinda.

Kembri himself must have felt something of this; or perhaps, more prosaically, he merely apprehended, surrounding Maia like a kind of invisible nimbus, the devotion of the people; for though his bearing suggested anything but amity, he still said nothing, his intention being perhaps to agitate Maia into speaking first. She too, however, remained silent, standing outlined against the light of the comet behind her shoulder.

At length the Lord General, speaking so quietly that he was heard by no more than those immediately about them, said, "What are you doing here, Maia?"

"Speaking to the people, my lord."

"About what?"

"About the star."

"Why?"

"My lord, there was that many as seemed frightened and didn't know what to make of it, and I reckoned I might be able to reassure them, like."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not afraid of it, my lord: I know it's for good and not for harm."

"And do you think it's your business to interpret the stars; or the priests'?"

Maia hesitated. "Well, I'm sure I never meant no harm, my lord, not to the priests nor to anyone else. I was just speaking as I felt, like, and I didn't see as it could do any damage."

By now all in the market-place-and to Maia there seemed to be more every minute-had come crowding about the Scales and were listening to as much of the talk as they could catch.

For perhaps a quarter of a minute the Lord General stood silent with as much composure as if he had not been surrounded by an uncertain-minded crowd of a thousand or more. Then he strode across to the end of the ramp and began to climb it, no one saying a word as he did so.

Maia was conscious only that Kembri, while stopping short (probably in his own best interests) of actually having her thrown down or otherwise publicly disgraced, had plainly indicated that she had overstepped the mark. Faced with this situation, all her peasant stubbornness was aroused. She feared the Lord General as the peasant fears the landlord-because he had power. But although she now realized that she might have appeared to be anticipating the professional astrology of the priests, she also felt that in voicing her personal feelings about the comet she had uttered no more than anyone else up and down the city. She'd done no wrong and she didn't see why she should shift. Anyway there was nowhere to shift to, stuck up here.

Arrived on the plinth, however, Kembri simply ignored her, turning to the people below. Having a deep, resonant voice-always a great advantage in a commander-he hardly needed to raise it, so that he gave no least impression of self-consciousness or of straining to convince the crowd by rhetoric.

"I have been at the temple of Gran, conferring with the chief priest and his experienced astrologers about the meaning of this star. The chief priest is with me now, and we are returning together to the upper city to consult with the Council. Tomorrow the heralds will announce the results of our deliberations." He paused. "To arrive at the truth, reliably and responsibly, is like making a good sword or choosing a good wife. It takes time. That is what your priests and rulers are doing for you now, and I shall leave you in order to go and get on with it."