28: A LITTLE AMUSEMENT

Maia, making up the charcoal brazier at the further end of the small dining-hall, returned to the High Counselor's couch, helped herself to a bowl of egg-yolks frothed in lemon, wine and sugar, and lay down among the cushions at his feet.

Sencho had spent the greater part of the morning in questioning and giving instructions to a succession of outlandish, raffish persons, most of whom were obviously poor and one or two, actual vagrants (or might they, Maia wondered, be merely disguised as vagrants?). The girls had not, of course, been in attendance. Terebinthia had brought the men one by one into the High Counselor's presence, and as each was dismissed paid him whatever meager sum Sencho ordered. None, however, had been allowed to leave until all had been heard; after which six or seven had been kept back for further questioning until Sencho had resolved to his satisfaction certain inconsistencies in what they had told him. Three, who arrived masked, had been kept in separate rooms until summoned.

Whatever the result of the morning's work, it was evidently pleasing to Sencho. As noon approached he seemed in excellent spirits, instructing Terebinthia to see that the small hall was prepared and that Maia and Occula were ready to add to his enjoyment of a well-earned dinner.

It was soon clear that his satisfaction with the reports of the spies had stimulated his greed to an even greater degree than usual. When at length, after more than an hour, the time came for an enforced rest, he showed no inclination to drowse, requiring instead that the girls should entertain him until he felt capable of eating again.

One of the High Counselor's amusements at such times was to misuse or spoil food in one way or another; for it pleased him to feel that he, who had starved and stolen

as a child, was now able not only to consume excessive quantities purely for his pleasure, but also to waste them if he wished. Sometimes he would have some emaciated beggar brought in off the streets and, having deliberately fouled a dish of veal or a game pie before his eyes, would graciously permit him to eat it before being sent away: or, ordering two or three girls to be brought up from one of the pleasure-houses of the lower city, he would promise a large sum of money to the one who could eat most in half an hour, watching intently as they gobbled, crammed and choked over the rich food to which their stomachs were quite unaccustomed.

Today he caused Terebinthia to fill a great, silver basin with clotted cream until it was almost brimming. Then, himself undressing Occula, he told her to sit down in it. The black girl did so, lending herself to the game by lolling and wriggling from side to side until the cream had covered her smooth, brown body from belly to thighs. Then, getting up, she stood obediently as the High Counselor proceeded to decorate her loins with an intricate pattern of cherries, almonds, fragments of angelica, sugared violets and the like.

Maia, excited by the extravagance and waste and by the bizarre sight of her pretty friend literally clothed in food, was as usual unable to confine herself to her proper role as a slave-girl, but must needs be joining in the sport, hanging pairs of cherries from Occula's ears and nipples and then, laughing at her own ingenuity, peeling the skin from the long finger of an itarg-fruit and thrusting it between her legs. Her fellow-feeling for the game pleased Sencho, who at length resumed his dinner by causing Occula to remain beside the couch so that he could lick the creamy confection from her body; while Maia, crouching, made use of the frothed egg-yolks to indulge him in a somewhat similar manner.

The game having concluded, predictably, in an access of contentment for the High Counselor, Maia (who before the end had become somewhat disarranged) was putting herself to rights, while Terebinthia wiped Occula down with a towel wrung out in warm water, when the ringing of a small bell was heard outside the door. This indicated that a servant wished to speak to Terebinthia; it being a strict rule that no one but the saiyett herself was ever to enter the hall when Sencho was with his girls. She went

out and returned to inform the High Counselor that an aristocratic visitor had called-none other than the young lord Elvair-ka-Virrion-accompanied by a lady, and begged to be graciously permitted to speak with him for a few minutes.

In the normal way Sencho would not have dreamed of allowing such an intrusion upon his dinner, but his satisfaction in the morning's work and the exalted social position of his visitor, as well as the pleasure which Maia had just so skillfully afforded, disposed him to stretch a point; the more especially as he rather hoped that some opportunity might present itself to affront or disgust the unknown lady.

Elvair-ka-Virrion's companion, when he entered the hall behind Terebinthia, proved to be Nennaunir, the shearna whom Occula had met some days before at the conclusion of her visit to the Lord General.

Elvair-ka-Virrion, who was as usual magnificently and flamboyantly dressed and was carrying over one arm a heavy cloak of leopard-skins, greeted the High Counselor with as much ease and self-possession as though he had not been lying half-drunk among naked girls. Having accepted wine for himself and his companion, and respectfully complimented the High Counselor on its excellent quality, he went on to say that he had come in person to ask him a favor. He was giving a party the following night, and wished to spare no pains to ensure that plenty of attractive girls should be present.

"You have here, my lord," he said, spreading his hands and smiling, "well-what one would expect of an establishment such as yours-the most striking girls in the city. Occula here is unique: I'm sure she sweeps downstream like a Telthearna flood. As for this Tonildan girl, one has only to look at her to suppose that Lespa has returned from among the stars. In short, my lord, if you'll lend them to me tomorrow I'm in no doubt they'll do you the greatest credit."

While he was speaking Maia, who had begun by taking in every detail of his fine figure and beautiful clothes, gradually became more fully aware of the young woman standing a little apart as she sipped her wine. Nennaunir, she thought, must be about twenty-one. She had dark-brown hair which curled naturally over her shoulders, very fine skin and exquisitely beautiful, delicate hands, on one of

which she was wearing a gold ring set with some tawny, translucent stone carved in the form of a crouching leopard. Her close-fitting robe, very slightly transparent above the waist to reveal-or not quite to reveal-her firm breasts, was of a dull-toned, rather dark red, plain except for an inch-deep gold border which matched her sandals. Its surface was without luster and slightly rough; Maia guessed that it must be made of raw silk. She looked, in fact, not only wealthy but as respectable as any daughter of a baron or wife of an officer.

Apart from her dress and appearance, however, there was about Nennaunir a certain quality which engaged Maia's interest so strongly that after a time she ceased to pay attention to Elvair-ka-Virrion, watching instead the young shearna and trying to enter into her thoughts and feelings as she stood leaning against a column, looking demurely down and idly examining the decoration of the silver goblet in her hand. A man, Maia realized after a little, would see in Nennaunir whatever she intended him to see. To a woman she was inscrutable, for no sooner did one fancy that one had perceived her frame of mind, than one's thoughts stopped short, checked-baffled, even-by an intimation of what seemed the exact opposite. Her eye wandered knowledgeably and appreciatively over the fountain nymph among her jade reeds, the mosaic floor and other luxurious appointments of the hall. Yet at the same time she evinced- or rather, did not quite evince-a faint air of distaste for the High Counselor. The next moment-and it seemed as though she herself had not changed but rather that Maia's viewpoint had, as it were, altered slightly, as might that of someone looking at the varying colors reflected from the bevelled edge of a glass-she appeared amused, with a hint of excitement, as though it would not take much to make her undress and join the girls on the couch. From this she was restrained only-so she appeared to suggest- by devotion to Elvair-ka-Virrion. At least, this devotion was implied in her eyes, which were frequently turned towards him with a look of admiration. But then again her glance would catch Terebinthia's with the complicit air of one professional to another. Towards Maia and Occula her manner was slightly distant, not unfriendly but a little aloof, as befitting one who had risen above their level. "You may come to be like me, in time," her brief smile