Nicely set up with all our lygols, thought Maia, letting Ogma run on for a while. And she's one person who probably
"Something amuse you, miss?" asked Ogma, with an air of resentment against she could not tell what. Like most people of her sort, the notion that others might be
laughing at her was never very far from poor Ogma's mind.
"Oh, I was only just thinking of old Terebinthia," replied Maia. "That time when the High Counselor told her to-" and hurriedly invented the rest of the episode, to the delight of Ogma, who naturally, had hated the saiyett- a domestic tyrant if ever there was one.
"Well, Ogma, dear, when you're out shopping, just ask around the market and so on, as if you were gossiping about the murder, but don't let on to anyone as it was me was wanted you to, d'you see? I know you were nearly as fond of Occula as what I was, and you must want to find out what's happened to her as much as I do. But just make it look like natural curiosity-don't go trying to get hold of anyone in the queen's house or anything o' that. Only we could both land up in trouble then."
Perhaps these last words of hers had frightened poor Ogma a little too effectively, thought Maia now, listening to the total blank which was all she had to report after three days among the shops and stalls. She might not have been trying particularly hard. Yet the more sinister explanation would not leave Maia's mind: that Occula might have died weeks ago, her body disposed of in some way no doubt well-established between Fornis and Ashaktis, her name no longer spoken, any mark she had made on Bekla obliterated-another item from the High Counselor's liquidated household.
"I haven't been able to find out anything at all." And there was something about the way Ogma spoke which seemed to Maia to carry the meaning "And don't ask me to try any more." Yes, for sure she'd frightened her too much with her talk of the queen; but no more than she'd frightened herself. Fair's fair, she thought; I can't blame her.
But I'll be damned if I'll give it up myself. My Occula! My darling Occula, who saved me from that bastard Genshed and gave me back something to live for, and taught me all I've learned and even took care to send me out of the way before Sencho was killed, although she was half-crazy with fear on her own account! Occula, the only one who ever really loved me; except for-oh, how I wish I could tell her about Zenka! If she's alive, does she know-has she heard-about me? She can't not have. Then why hasn't she tried to send me some message? And thus once again the all-too-likely explanation returned upon poor Maia.
"Ogma, will you tell Jarvil, please, to ask for my soldiers to come this afternoon, as soon as it begins to get cool? I'm going to the temple to see the chief priest, tell them."
Maia took this committal decision as unreflectingly as she had plunged into the Valderra. It was like mucking out the cows: the thing had got to be done and that was all there was to it. The thought that she could still desist, and the implication of what she was going to do-these notions crossed her mind only momentarily, to be brushed aside. How closely Fornis might be in the chief priest's confidence was something that it hardly occurred to her to consider, just as on the river bank she had given herself no time to think.
