"Yes, nasty business, saiyett, ain't it?" he remarked paternally over his shoulder. "I don't go a lot on it meself. But you've no need to take on that way, y'know. They're all villains, the 'ole lot of 'em, else they wouldn't be there."
"Where-where are they going?" she faltered, digging her nails into her palm and forcing herself to speak with something approaching self-control.
"Oh, it'll be the Old Jail," he answered. "The one down in the Shilth."
"Where's that?"
"The Shilth? That's the butchers' quarter, saiyett, about half-way between here and the Sel-Dolad Tower. Rough-ish kind of neighb'r'ood, that is, 'specially at night."
"Take me there, please."
"What's that, saiyett? Did you say take you there?"
"Yes, please."
He stopped, looking back at her puzzled.
"Now, you mean?"
"Yes, please."
He hesitated. "Saiyett, it's none of my business, but-"
"Please do as I ask: or if you prefer, get me someone else. I realize I've kept you rather a long time already."
She passed him down ten meld, at which he nodded, shrugged and turned back into the Sheldad.
During the next twenty minutes the facade which presented to the city the buoyant, resourceful and heroic Ser-relinda crumbled, exposing a shocked and panic-stricken girl of sixteen, as devoid of worldly-wisdom as of dissimulation. Yet though she sat trembling and weeping in the jekzha, never for a moment did it occur to Maia to go home and concern herself no further with the condemned wreck who had once been her lover. On the contrary, by the time they had turned off the Sheldad and begun picking their way uphill through the fetid, fly-buzzing lanes of the Shilth, Maia had in effect been stripped of every coherent thought save her determination first to see Tharrin and then to do everything in her power to save him.
Outside the walls of the jail-a dirty, ill-repaired but nonetheless very solid group of buildings, once a shambles, enlarged and converted some years before to meet the Leopards' need for another prison-she paid off the jek-zha-man and told the gatekeeper that she wished to see the governor. The gatekeeper, an aging man with conjunctive, mucous eyes, did not trouble himself to look directly at her while telling her that it was out of the question. She repeated her request peremptorily.
"Come on, now, lovey, run away," he said, scratching himself and breathing garlic over her. "It's no good, you know-you'd never be able to pin it on him, anyway. Do you know how many girls have come here trying, eh?"
Maia lowered her veil and threw back the hood of her cloak.
"I've no time to waste, and I'll be damned if I'm going to bribe you a meld! I'm Maia Serrelinda, from the upper city, and if you don't take me to the governor at once, I'll see to it that the Lord General himself learns that you refused to do as I asked."
He stared at her, a stupid man taken aback, resentful but slow to react.
"You say you're the Serrelinda-her as swum the river?"
"Yes, I am. And don't have the impertinence to ask me why I'm here: that's no business of yours. Are you going to do as I say, or not?"
"Well," he muttered. "Well. Just that it's awkward, that's all." He seemed to be trying to weigh up which would be worse for him-to refuse her or to risk the governor's displeasure. At all events this was what his next question suggested.
"You can't-well-tell me what it's about, saiyett?"
"Certainly. I wish to see a prisoner."
His face cleared. "Oh, you didn't say. If it's n'more'n that-" She waited. "Only he's busy with the prisoners himself, saiyett, y'see. Don't know what he'll say. Still, I'll take you-"He turned away and she, following, stepped through the postern door to one side of the barred gate, which was promptly closed behind her.
He was striding ahead across the yard, swinging a stick in one hand, but she-to some extent brought to herself by her annoyance-retained enough self-possession not to hurry after him, so that after a little he was obliged to wait until she came up with him at her own pace.
The governor was a big, fleshy man with silver earrings and a beard dyed chestnut. He, too, evidently supposed at first that her errand must lie at his own door, for he began "Well, my dear, but you shouldn't have come here, you know." He drew up a rickety bench for her beside the table in a little, bare room looking out on an equally bare and dismal courtyard. It was twilight now and turning slightly chilly. Seeing him grope and fumble once or twice to close the window, she realized that his sight must be poor. Yet really so poor, she wondered, that he could not tell whether or not he had ever seen her before?
"We have never met," she said coldly. "I am Maia Serrelinda, a personal friend of the Lord General Kembri B'sai."
Instantly he had taken his cue, bowing and leering.
"Friend of the Lord General? Oh, friend of the city, saiyett, friend of the empire! And let me assure you, you have a friend in me, too, if I'm not presuming. To what- er-to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"
