From the baking hillside above, where the stones, flickering in the sun, were too hot to touch, the place looked a veritable sanctuary of verdurous ease. Maia could see two men trudging back and forth from the river, each carrying two buckets on a yoke. Clearly, their j ob must be to water the garden almost continuously throughout the day. Nothing less could possibly keep it looking like that. It shone and guttered, vibrant in contrast to the still, dried-up scrubland. As she stood gazing, a faint scent of lilies came drifting upward.

"Anight, saiyett?" asked the boy. She nodded rather abstractedly. In the light of her twenty-four hours' experience of Nybril she had not been expecting anything quite like this. To say the least, she thought, Mesca had not been guilty of exaggeration. This Almynis obviously had money and knew how to make good use of it, too. Occula ought to come and have a look at this; it might cool her off a bit about the Lily Pool.

Dismissing the boy, she walked on down the hill. Since she could see no gate in the garden wall facing her, she rounded the right angle and followed it down its length to the shore. Still there was no gate, but the wall came to an end some yards short of the water's edge, and she walked round it onto the lawn. Not far off was one of the water-carriers, white-bearded, stooping and gnarled, with a wide, flat straw hat on his head.

"I've come to see the saiyett Almynis. Will it be all right to go up to the house?"

He squinnied up at her, old eyes peering out of a crumbling dwelling-as it were from far away-at youth and beauty which once, perhaps, he might have hoped to attain. Not any more. Not now.

"Whynot?"

She gave him five meld, at which the poor old fellow uttered an exclamation, touched it to his forehead and called down a blessing on her. She went on between the trees and shrubs with their smell of moist greenery. Glittering gnats were darting among them and butterflies fanned their wings on the stones. The double doors giving on the garden were louvred like the shutters, made of sestuaga wood, very light and delicate andfastenedwithabronzechain. Shewasabout, to knock when she saw, standing on a little, round table beside the door, a copper hand-bell. It was made in the form of four naked girls facing outwards and arching their bodies, hands raised above their heads to meet round the handle- an erect zard carved in some dark, smooth wood. Wouldn't Nennaunir just about fancy one of those? she thought; and forthwith picked it up and rang it. Like a sheep-bell it was not resonant, but gave off a hollow, cloppering sound, which somehow went with the hot afternoon. She held it up and looked inside, expecting the tongue to be another zard: however, it turned out to be a boy and girl clasped in each other's arms. She had just replaced it on the table when the chain was drawn and the doors opened by an enormous man-the biggest she had ever seen in her life, exceptfor King Karnat. The chucker-out, she thought: these places always employed a strong fellow.

He certainly was an intimidating sight, bare-armed, barefooted and muscled like an ogre. She only just restrained herself from raising her palm to her forehead.

"I've come to see the saiyett Almynis," she said.

"She's expocting you?" He spoke like Lalloc-like a Deelguy.

" Agirl called Mesca told Almynis I was coming."

"You com in." He stood aside.

She stepped into a big, cool room. There were couches covered with bright rugs and cushions, a long dining-table with benches on either side and a central pool with a fountain; but the fountain was still. All the windows were shuttered against the sun, except for one, a dazzling rectangle on

the far side of a couple of steps leading up into a little colonnade at the other end of the room.

"You waitinghere. Itollher."

She began wandering about the room, admiring the fittings and furniture, most of which looked new. One wall was decorated with a series of licentious pictures, another with a charming painting of swans alighting on a lake.

All of a sudden Maia stopped short. On a small, lacquered table against the wall stood a little cluster of ornaments and pretty artifacts-a pair of candle-snuffers made like a silver dragon, the corn-sheaves of Sarkid carved in Ortelgan zil-tate, a golden filigree sweet-box and so on. Arhong these was a little carving, in greenstone, of two goats mating. One exactly like it, she remembered, had had its place on the edge of the fountain in Sencho's dining-hall. She had once asked where it came from and been told from some foreign land beyond Yelda.

She would never have imagined there could be two such. She stepped forward and was j ust going to pick it up when she realized that the huge bodyguard had returned and was standing at her elbow. Without speaking he gestured towards the unshuttered window behind her;

She looked across the room. The dark shape of a woman, looking out of the window, was outlined against the light. She must have entered without a sound from somewhere along the colonnade. Maia crossed the room, went up the steps and raised her palm to her forehead.

"Saiyett Almynis, thank you very much for letting me-"

The woman turned. "Hallo, Maia."

For a moment Maia stared; then, with a cry, she recoiled, clutching with one hand at the painted column behind her.

"Terebinthia!"

99: A HARD BARGAIN

Maia's fear upon recognizing Terebinthia was, of course, instantaneous and irrational. During her months in Sencho's house it had been second nature to all the girls to regard Terebinthia, even in her moods of relative amiability, as the very embodiment of ruthless cunning, a woman out for her own interests and nothing else. What happened

to girls who did not suit those interests had been exemplified by Meris. Occula, maturing her secret, desperate design day after day, had feared Terebinthia as she had never feared Sencho. Terebinthia's lack of all kindness, warmth or humor, her self-contained vigilance, her minacious domination over the household, the impossibility of ever hearing her coming or of guessing how much she really knew-all these had created an atmosphere which would certainly not have obtained if the saiyett had been someone like Sessendris. Maia had not, of course, seen Terebinthia since the evening when she and Occula had set out with Sencho for the party by the Barb. Small wonder, then, that in the first moment that she recognized her, it did not immediately occur to her that a great deal had happened since they had last been together. The most frightening thing about Terebinthia had always been that you never knew where she would be next; and of that there could scarcely have been a more startling instance than now.

As Maia stood breathing hard, one hand against the column at her back, Terebinthia, all serenity, took two steps forward and, smiling, embraced her. Then she gestured towards a curtained opening a little way up the corridor-the one through which she must have entered.

"We'll go to my room. I hope this is as pleasant a surprise for you, Maia, as it is for me. Somehow, when Mesca told me, I had an idea it might be you."

If Maia could have fled from the house she would: have done so; but somehow it was still not in her power to resist the smooth domination which Terebinthia had always exercised. Having recovered a little from her initial shock, she was doing her best to tell herself that she no longer had any reason to be afraid of Terebinthia. On the contrary, she had cause-yes, of course she had cause-to be glad that the woman she had come to see had turned out to be an old acquaintance with every reason to feel well-disposed towards her. Lespa's stars! Enough of the money she'd made had found its way into Terebinthia's pocket: and she'd always been obedient and cooperative and never done Terebinthia any harm.