Maia полностью

"This is just dried okra leaves, really. There's some tessik mixed in, but only a touch." He smiled. "You'll wake up in the morning, I promise."

She drank it down. It was bitter and sabulous, leaving grains on her tongue.

"Did you like being at the High Counselor's?" he asked.

Maia realized that if Bayub-Otal or Lenkrit had asked this question, she would unthinkingly have replied "I was a slave-girl." But for some reason that was not good enough for this man. He deserved a better answer-chiefly because he had not asked the question contemptuously, as they would have done. He knew very well, she thought, that there were some things about the High Counselor's which she had enjoyed; and he wasn't blaming her for it, either.

"I didn't like being shut up indoors so much." He waited. "Oh, but the clothes, U-Nasada, and the food! A girl like me, see, couldn't ever have expected to live like that. The upper city-you've no idea-oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

He was not in the least offended. "And did you enjoy giving him pleasure?"

"Well, I did after Occula'd taught me the right way to look at it. It was work, see? I didn't get much real, bodily pleasure myself-well, you couldn't, could you?-but I did enjoy feeling he was rich and powerful and could have anything he liked, and that what he liked was me. He was. a brute, really-a filthy beast, everyone knew that. If I hadn't suited him, he'd just have got rid of me. But he didn't; that's the truth of it, U-Nasada. I mean, that was what I liked."

"Did you always live by Lake Serrelind-before Bekla, I mean?"

"Yes, all my life."

"You're quite sure?"

She frowned, puzzled. "Yes, of course. Why?" Then she laughed. "Dare say that's why I took to Bekla, d'you reckon? Country girl never been anywhere before?"

"And your father-he died when you were still quite a little girl?"

"No, I was nine when he died: I remember him well. I liked Dad: he was always good to me. It was only after he died, really, that Mother got so bad-tempered and sour."

"I suppose there's never been any doubt that he was your father? Has anyone ever told you anything else?"

If she had not taken such a liking to him-and if she hadn't been beginning to feel so drowsy-she would have resented this.

"Never." She giggled. " 'Course, I wasn't just exactly there at the time, was I?"

He laughed too; then shrugged, evidently dismissing the subject. "Feeling sleepy?"

"M'm, very. Thank you, U-Nasada. I don't feel half so bad about everything now. You'll see I don't get ill, won't you?"

"Well, that's what I promised Anda-Nokomis. If only you do what I tell you, there's no reason at all why a healthy girl like you should get ill here. Suba's not half as bad as it's painted, you know, to people who understand it. Shall I tell Luma to bring her bed in? You won't wake, but you may as well have her here. Looking after you's what she's been told to do."

"Yes, ask her." But before the Suban girl had dragged her mattress and blankets up the ladder, Maia was sleeping so soundly that she did not stir even when Luma stumbled over her sandals in the dark.

It was an hour after noon, still and humid among the overhanging trees and beds of reeds. There was not the least breeze. The only sound near at hand was the hollow slop-slop under the rectangular, flat-bottomed boat as it made its way over tangles of weed, muddy shallows and deeper places. One could more or less tell the depth of the water, thought Maia, by the sound it made under the planking. It was like one of Fordil's zhuas, rim and center-above deep water the boat made a more cavernous sound. One might make a dance out of it. She and Fordil might devise a dance about the swamps and their miles of shady, watery waste. What would the story be? What stories did these people tell among themselves? Anyway, when would she ever see Fordil again?

She was sweating all over, and although she was trying to cool her face with a cloth dipped in the water, the water

itself was lukewarm. She felt dirty and untidy. What on earth would they say in Bekla to see her now, the High Counselor's fifteen-thousand-meld bed-girl, with black finger-nails, her golden hair full of dust of ashes, a torn smock and hairy armpits? O Cran! she thought, and what are they going to think when we arrive at this Melvda place and maybe that king's going to be there an' all? Likely they'll put me on scrubbing floors-that's if there are any to scrub.