"What are you doing in Bekla, Maia? Have you come up for the festival?"
"No, saiyett. I'm in the household of the High Counselor."
"In the household of the High Counselor.
"Yes, saiyett."
"You call me 'esta-saiyett.' You're a slave, you mean? Abed-slave?"
Maia nodded.
"How old are you?"
"Sixteen, esta-saiyett."
The queen unexpectedly stretched out one hand, rubbed her fingers along Maia's bleeding arm and licked them.
"Then why aren't you with the High Counselor now?"
"I ought to be, esta-saiyett. I was just going to-"
She stopped, confused, for the queen, without the slightest alteration of manner, had begun to stroke and pinch her wet, naked buttocks.
"Plump, aren't you? You eat well, I suppose?"
Before Maia could answer, a sudden, bellowing ciy- unmistakably the cry of a man in mortal agony-carried across the entire length of the gardens, instantly silencing every vestige of talk and murmur between. Hard upon it came the screaming of a girl and terrified calls for help. The voice came from among the trees more than four
hundred yards away, but Maia would have known it at any distance, for it was Occula's.
Sencho, gulping the last of a bowl of thrilsa mixed with mulled wine and honey, lay back in the cushions and signed to the black girl to rub his belly. He was enjoying a happy sense of full satisfaction. The petty deception attempted by the Urtan dowager, who had returned in alarm and self-abasement, had been exposed, and her mortification had been most enjoyable. Although he knew that several other provincial dignitaries were hoping to speak to him, he did not intend to talk to anyone else tonight. Replete with the excellent and copious dinner, he now felt disposed towards pleasures less mentally strenuous than those of withholding sought favors or playing off one petitioner against another. Besides, his cunning mind knew very well when it had exerted itself sufficiently for the time being. Though by no means incapable, he nevertheless knew that he would now do better to desist from further business.
He felt inclined for the Tonildan girl, but she had not as yet returned from her errand to fetch the dowager. Still, there was no immediate hurry. He would rest for a time and allow his dinner to settle, for the girl, being young and enthusiastic, often tended to be somewhat over-energetic as well. Half-dozing, he began to indulge one of his favorite fantasies-that of devouring the world and everything in it. In his imagination he gorged like an ogre on great flocks of cattle, acres of crops and teeming cities; gulped down pools, lakes and rivers; stuffed himself with basketsful of fat babies and barrow-loads of succulent, chubby little boys and girls. Then, when nothing remained of his feast, he would sleep it off while the gods, at his command, created a fresh world, ready to be consumed when he awoke.
Soon his meditation turned to imaginings of delicious cruelty. He thought, one by one, of the personal enemies whose ruin he had contrived, and of all those by whose deaths he had profited. He had watched them die, some of them, and been present, too, when they were condemned. Some had begged for mercy, offered all their wealth in exchange for their lives-wealth which the Leopards had acquired anyway, through the forfeiture of their estates. Half of Enka-Mordet's estate would come to him
shortly. Ah, but the singular, subtle pleasure of enslaving his daughter-he had had to take special, discreet steps to make sure of that! It had been expensive, of course-the secret instruction and bribery of the soldiers-but it had been worth it.
The infliction of humiliation and anguish on a well-bred girl was a pleasure for which, unfortunately, opportunity all too seldom arose. The sort of women who fell into his power rarely had enough pride or social standing to make their humiliation really amusing. Indeed, many of the coarser kind of young women often seemed positively to enjoy being ill-treated by a man as exalted as himself. It had certainly been pleasant to debase and nauseate that expensive shearna who had come to his house with Kembri's son a few weeks ago. She had thought herself become too exalted for such pastimes: she had found out that she was wrong. Nevertheless, where popular, well-connected shearnas were concerned, one had to be careful about giving way to impulses of that kind. Yet where was the pleasure in degrading slave-girls who had no dignity of which to be deprived?
