"What is it?" he panted to an old woman whom he found beside him. "What's all the fuss about, grandmother?"
Beaming, she turned her wrinkled face towards him and toothlessly mumbled something that sounded like "Share flinders." Selperron, mystified, elbowed his way on, finally coming out into the sanded space of the market. He looked about, but could still see very little over the heads of those around him. Suddenly he realized that he was standing beside the plinth of the brazen scales of Fleitil-one of the wonders of the city, which could weigh an ox, a cart and its contents without unloading-and all in a moment had scrambled up it as nimbly as any street lad. A green-uniformed market official shouted angrily to him to come down, but Selperron ignored him, clambering round the plinth to gaze in the direction of the excitement-whatever it might be.
Across the sanded expanse of the market was approaching a jekzha, drawn by two soldiers of the Beklan regiment, resplendent in their undress uniform of scarlet surcoats with silver lacing and Leopard cognizances, but such a jekzha! Its workmanship was so delicate and fine as to create the illusion of a kind of celestial car, lighter than air, floating on the ground as a bubble on a stream. The doors, as well as the foot-rail and screen, all made of gold filigree, put Selperron in mind of the sparkle of gossamer on a clear autumn morning. The slender spokes of the wheels were painted alternately red and blue, so that in turning they merged to form a flickering, vivid purple. From the top of the canopy rose long, bronze-colored plumes-whether of eagle, heart-bird or kynat he could not tell. Nor, for the matter of that, did he spend much time glancing at them, for his eyes were drawn elsewhere as a needle to the north.
Seated in the jekzha was a girl so beautiful that, gazing at her, he was overcome by a sort of stupefaction, as though
he had not hitherto known (as indeed he had not) that any such being could exist. In this moment he was not unlike a small child seeing for the first time a crimson humming-bird, colored lamps at a festival or moonlight upon a lake. This was the stilled amazement of revelation. Yet though startled beyond reflection, he was instinctively in no doubt that this could only be the Tonildan, the savior of Bekla.
Like a flame the sight of her leapt upon him, consuming in an instant all the outworn trivialities about girls littering his memory. He found that he was trembling, and steadied himself with a groping hand upon some random projection of the scales. As the girl drew nearer, it appeared to Sel-perron as though she shed about her a kind of radiance, airy and fertile, like a sunlit drift of pollen from catkins. All gold she seemed-hair, shoulders, arms; and golden sandals enclosing the feet which rested side by side on the rail in front of her; feet made for dancing, surely. They were like golden butterflies: if they happened at this moment to be still, poised fan-like in the sunshine, nevertheless that very stillness implied a kind of tension, the suggestion that it was their nature at any moment to be up and off about their happy mystery of swift play. But that, indeed, was no more than might be said of the girl herself. Her posture, leaning a little forward, one perfect, bare arm resting on the rail beside her, was instinct with a light, quick energy, as though from sheer vitality she might leap suddenly forward, land weightless as a dragonfly and pirouette on the sand.
Most of all he was astonished by her graceful elegance. In talking to N'Kasit, he had formed in his mind a picture of a big, strong girl, hefty, a sort of warrior lass, a hardy survivor in rough places. Sturdy and well-built she was certainly, but with a kind of softness and the air of a merry child, mischievous and innocently sensual as an urchin with a stolen pie. She was smiling on those around her and gazing down from huge, blue eyes; yet a little disconcerted, too, she seemed, as though by no means sure how to maintain her self-possession in the face of such a welcome; and as she turned her head Selperron was deeply moved to see in those eyes a glint of unshed tears.
And well she might, he thought, be moved to the verge of weeping. Round the jekzha, as it was wafted on across the market-place, people were hastening together from
every direction-porters, baggage slaves, hawkers, beggars, guttersnipes, street-traders, nondescript idlers, passers-by like himself and others whose dress-Ortelgan, Belishban or Yeldashhay-denoted them as from the provinces. From all sides came cries of greetings and praise. "May all the gods bless thee, my little swimmer!" called out a brawny market-woman, flinging up her rough, red hands as the jekzha came abreast of her stall. The lovely girl responded with a wave of her hand before turning to her other side to touch the hilt of the sword which a Beklan tryzatt was holding up to her in an improvised gesture of allegiance and devotion.
