They reached the foot of the stairs-Maia once more wrapped in the hooded cloak-to find Lalloc chatting with a gray-haired, elderly woman in the stone-floored storeroom.
"You may take this-ah-young woman back with you, U-Lalloc," said Zuno. "I've talked with her, and I'm afraid she wouldn't do for the Sacred Queen."
"Some people don't know when they're lucky," said the old woman drily. She stood up, selected a key from her belt and unlocked the door into the courtyard.
In her delight and relief at being with Occula once more, the change in her friend had not at once struck Maia. It did so later, however-and forcefully-as she lay awake in her great, soft bed, hearing the scarcely-audible lapping of the Barb and the intermittent calling of plovers from the slopes of Crandor beyond. It was now, in darkness and solitude, that she realized that, more than the warnings of Sessendris and Nennaunir, more than the urbane dis-
simulation of the chief priest, Occula's air of strain and urgency, of having little time to spare in a taut conflict against odds, had stirred in herself a true sense of impending danger. If Occula was afraid, then indeed there must be something to be afraid of. Maia found herself recalling the mysterious, hypnotic ascendancy which the black girl had exercised over Sencho during the last weeks of his life, at one and the same time inducing apathy and soothing petulance, bringing him step by step to a state of dependency on herself in which he had all but connived at his own death. She recalled, too, with an understanding denied to her then, what it had cost Occula spiritually to exert this influence, to exploit Sencho's cunning, vicious temperament so subtly that he had indulged himself in her ministrations without once coming to suspect what awaited him. She remembered the night when, for all the world like some highly-strung hinnarist driven to desperation by an intricate passage, Occula had given way to hysteria in the belief that she had lost her power to prevail upon the High Counselor and incline him to her will.
How much more discerning and deadly an antagonist must be the Sacred Queen! And if Occula was up to the hilt in nothing less than the planned overthrow of the Leopard regime by the heldril, then she, Maia, must even now be standing on the lip of the same abyss. She had supposed-the kindly Sendekar had assured her-that she was returning to fame and fortune, the darling of the city, of all girls in the empire the most to be envied. To the recent warnings of her friends her reply had been, in effect, that she would take good care to sing small and keep out of harm's way. Yet now, at Occula's behest, she had promised to take a step-if only a small one-which, if ever it were to come to light, would condemn her outright as an agent of Santil-ke-Erketlis.
It was all very well for Occula to stress the vital importance of warning the old woman at once. Occula had never seen for herself the sort of thing that happened when Maia went into the lower city. And if, following her visit, the old woman and her son immediately fled, was not some conclusion sure to be drawn? She fell asleep at last resolved upon only one thing. Having given her word to Occula, she would not fail her.
Next morning, as is often the way, the simplest and most practical course entered her head at once. She would go
down to the lower city incognito. She need not take her own jekzha; she could travel veiled-many older women did, especially in the dusty streets of summer-while to the guards at the Peacock Gate it would, surely, seem quite natural if she were to explain that she had grown weary of the crowds pressing about her and wished for once to be able to visit a friend in peace and quiet.
After breakfast she was already beginning her preparations-for the thing' would be best over and done as quickly as possible-when she heard the unknown voice of some servant talking to Jarvil at the door. A minute later Ogma came hobbling up the stairs at her best speed, beginning to speak even before she was in the room.
"Oh, Miss Maia, whatever do you think? It's Miss Mil-vushina-oh, she's down below this minute, miss, and looking so beautiful, oh, you'd never think it was the same girl as was always crying her eyes out at the High Counselor's, such a change for the better, oh, do you remember, Miss Maia-"
"Quiet, Ogma!" said Maia sharply. "She'll hear you. Is she alone?"
"Yes, miss. Only just her maid came with her. And you'd never believe-"
"Then take her in some wine and nuts and tell her I'll be down directly. Then please come back and help me finish dressing. Show the maid into the kitchen."
