Maia, facing the full moon, her toes flexed on the rough, fissured bark, was on the very point of diving when suddenly she saw through the foliage a woman gazing directly up at her. The glimpse, between the faintly-moving, silvery leaves, was like a face seen in a dream-indistinct yet disturbing; arrestingly beautiful, yet in some way menacing too. The wide, commanding eyes, framed in an aureole of hair gleaming in the moonlight, were staring-with approbation, certainly-but also with a kind of intent rapacity which frightened her even as she sensed it.
Startled and thrown off balance, she swayed and for an instant tried to stop short. But this was no longer possible. Thereupon the naturally-acquired skill of years came to her rescue. Her body knew instinctively that it must dive.
To the watchers below there seemed no trace of hesitation. One moment she was standing in the moonlight, high among the zoan boughs. The next she had dived outward, straight and taut, hair streaming and the leafy branch thrashing behind her, to plunge through the surface of the lake with a single, quickly-gone splash and a symmetry of outward-flowing ripples.
In the instant of diving Maia had recognized the watcher below her. It was the Sacred Queen.
These Beklans were no swimmers: that she had known all along. To them, a girl who made nothing of plunging twelve feet into deep water seemed almost miraculous. All round her, from both banks, arose cries of wonder and acclamation. Waving, she turned on her back, arching her breasts clear of the surface and then, with hands gently fanning beneath her, eased herself smoothly towards the center of the pool.
The water was warmer than she had expected. It really was a lovely night for a swim. Should she, after all, simply swim away down the length of the Barb? Ah, but the High Counselor? And then again, she'd better not lose touch with Elvair-ka-Virrion, who'd promised to keep her out of trouble. Still, all these rich people-she might as well show them a thing or two now she'd started. One thing might lead to another, as Occula was always saying.
Swimming towards the shore, she stopped some yards out and lowered her feet, but found no bottom. A small crowd had gathered on the bank, as near to her as they could get. One young man knelt, miming anguished longing and holding out his hands in mock entreaty, while another took off his gold chain and held it up, offering to give it to her if only she would come ashore and let him put it round her neck for himself.
Exhilarated, she began to tantalize them, jumping herself up and down in the water and opening her arms in invitation.
"Who's going to join me?" she cried, laughing up at them. "Isn't there a single one of you man enough to come in and catch me?"
"It's too deep, Maia," called Shend-Lador. "Come a bit further in, where we can wade!"
He pointed along the curve of the shore. After one quick look to make sure of her direction and the distance, she dived under, swam a dozen strokes and came up to find herself just in her depth and about twenty yards out from the bank.
"You're afraid, aren't you?" she called to Shend-Lador. "You're afraid to come in and catch me!"
For answer he began taking off his clothes, tossing them here and there and then sitting down while two of the girls, shouting with laughter, pulled off his shoes and breeches. Four or five other young men followed his example.
"What's the reward, Maia?" shouted a young gallant with a wreath of scarlet trepsis round his shoulders.
Before she could speak, Elvair-ka-Virrion's voice answered.
"Anyone who catches her can have her-that's the reward!"
Already Shend-Lador and three more had leapt into the water and were wading out towards her. One of these, an aider man, tried to clutch Shend-Lador and pull him back,
but himself overbalanced and fell his length amid roars of delight from the spectators. Maia, waiting until the last possible moment, swam a few lazy strokes further out. Shend-Lador plunged after her up to his neck, whereupon she turned and slipped shorewards past him, stroking his cheek with her fingers and gliding away as he made a clumsy grab which missed her by a foot.
