Maia, still staring at the sparkling water and remembering the flocks of white ibis wading in the lake shallows on a summer morning, was recalled to her surroundings as the trumpeter sounded yet again. Indeed he made her jump, for he was only a few yards away. Sencho, however, did not even stir. Not knowing what might be to follow, she hurried back to her stool. Half a dozen musicians had entered the hall-three hinnari players, a drummer, a flautist and a man with a kind of wooden xylophone called a derlanzel-and taken up their places in the open space round the pool. Meanwhile slaves, using hooked poles, lowered and extinguished several of the clusters of lamps. The outer parts of the hall grew dimmer, so that the center appeared brighter by contrast. The musicians, after tuning for a few moments, began to play a minor-harmonized refrain-no more than four bars-varied only by the changing rhythms of the drummer and the derlanzist. After they had repeated this several times, twenty young women in gauzy, transparent robes of gray, brown, green and white came running gracefully into the hall, took up their positions round the pool and then, at a signal from their leader, began to dance.

Maia had always taken a natural delight in dancing, and back in Tonilda had been reckoned a good hand at clapping, stamping and twirling in the ring. But she had never

seen anything like this, the goddess Airtha's sacred Thlela; an age-old institution of Bekla, famous throughout the empire. All the girls, trained from childhood, were dedicated to the service of the goddess. They were neither free women nor slaves, but imperial property (like state jewels or a household guard), their function being to enhance and beautify the public occasions of the city, both religious and secular. Like soldiers, they lived together, were subject to the rule of their order and enjoyed the public respect and status proper to their vocation (though ordinary citizens perhaps honored rather than envied their restricted, exacting lives). Some, as they grew older, might, with the Sacred Queen's approval, leave the Thlela and marry, but others, having the dance and its way of life in their blood, spent their latter days as teachers, wardrobe-mistresses or such-like hangers-on of one kind and another. The entire business of the Thlela-recruiting, training, costuming and so on-was state-financed and it was universally regarded as one of the great glories of the city. Sencho himself, attempting a few years before to remove from it a girl he fancied-for such was his way when so inclined-had been met with an incredulous, outraged hauteur which had made even him think better of the idea.

Their dance now-as Maia, after a minute or two, grasped with growing delight and elation-represented the turbulence, flow and changes of a great river throughout the weathers and seasons of the year. This dance, the "Tel-thearna," had become a favorite at the Rains banquet, and many of those present, familiar with every sequence and movement, watched with discriminating eyes and appraising connoisseurship. What Maia felt, however, was the even greater, unrepeatable pleasure of a completely new experience, to which she responded with nothing apart from her own natural ardor and native wit. The look and behavior of wide expanses of water was something she knew everything about at first hand. She almost wept to recognize-and to realize that she recognized-the gray waves lapping at morning under a light wind, the sandbars bared by summer drought and then a storm coming down upon the turbid, brown floods of the rain season. Luckily for her, the High Counselor's sleep remained unbroken, for the dance had reft her out of herself so completely that she would certainly have bungled any duties that might have been required of her. Indeed, the memory

of that Telthearna, danced in Kembri-B'sai's great hall, remained with Maia all her life.

It came to an end at last in a gradual drifting away of the waters into distance and starlight, with a remote thrumming and vibration of the muted hinnaris, the girls sinking down to lie prone and at last motionless upon the floor. The Thlela never sought or received applause, which would have been regarded as impious and profane. A deep silence of admiration, however, lasted for a full minute; after which conversation gradually resumed.

At this point Durakkon, together with a small group of nobles from the older aristocratic families, left the banquet. Others began strolling out-some to gamble in the private rooms; others with their slave-girls or shearnas, waving to their friends and promising to return later.

More lamps were quenched and the hall became dimmer still, save for the central window embrasure in the longer wall. This, the sill of which stood about five feet from the floor, was so wide and deep as to resemble a small, open-fronted room, the shuttered window forming a wall at the back. Here the lamplight remained bright, so that the recess looked not unlike a stage.

First the dancing-girls of the Thlela and then the serving-slaves left the hall (among them Maia's salt-boy, who grinned at her as he passed). The last to go drew a mesh of thin, gold-tin ted curtains between the columns of the colonnade. The musicians, however, remained in their places, playing a quiet improvisation of chords which did no more, as it were, than lightly to color the air with sound.

For a while the murmur of talk and laughter continued, but Maia could sense behind it an expectancy and tension, as though some fresh excitement were now awaited. Suddenly the tall young man from Paltesh, who had offered his goblet to Meris, appeared in the lamplight at the foot of the window embrasure. In one hand he was holding a cushion and this, waving it over his head, he tossed up into the embrasure with a cry of "Otavis!"

At this there was some cheering and several other men echoed "Otavis! Otavis!" But at once another young man strode up to the embrasure, threw in a second cushion and cried "Melthrea!" at which there were further cries of support and approval.

Other men followed, one by one adding cushions to the growing pile now beginning to form a bed in the embra-

sure. Each, as he threw his cushion upward, called out a name-Otavis, Melthrea, Nyctenthis, Pensika and so on- while one of Kembri's girls, a slim Lapanese with dark hair falling to her waist and ruby bracelets on her bare arms, made marks with chalk on one of the tables., Watching, Maia became aware that Meris was breathing hard and uttering low cries of excitement. "Eighteen!" she exclaimed at length, as Elvair-ka-Virrion himself, tossing up his cushion, called "Otavis!" and paused to refill his goblet from one of the caldrons before returning to his place.

"I don't think she'll be beaten now!" she added, glancing round at Maia, "Fat lot of chance we'll ever have! That bitch Terebinthia hardly ever allows us out."

"But what's it all about?" asked Maia.

"Why, they're voting to elect the Kura Queen, of course," answered Meris. "First they decide how many cushions are going to be thrown altogether, and then the men draw lots for who's to throw them. It's always fifty at the Rains banquet, and the girl who gets most cushions is the Kura Queen."

"A shearna?"

"Oh, Maia, don't be damn' silly; shearnas don't perform the kura! The Kura Queen's always a slave-girl, but the thing is she gets a prize of a thousand meld, and very often she's freed afterwards. It's the one bit of luck every girl hopes for: I might have got it if only I'd stayed with Han-Glat. He always lends his girls very freely, you know, so they have plenty of chances to make friends and become popular. But you're making me lose count. How many's that, Ravana?" she called to a girl near-by, who was watching as closely and excitedly as herself.

"Twenty-one for Otavis now!" answered the girl. "Good luck to her! She lent me forty meld last year and never asked for it back."