Maia полностью

Maia, not unnaturally, could tell a lecher when she saw one, and realized with a touch of relief that this part of her task at least was going to be relatively easy.

"Sir, I want to see-"

"Ob-Pokada, saiyett, Pokada's my name; that's if you care to use it, of course."

"U-Pokada, I need to talk to one of the prisoners who were brought in from Tonilda a little while ago."

His face fell. "Oh. I see. Well, naturally, saiyett, I'd always prefer to oblige a beautiful lady like yourself if I could. If only it had been someone who's here for theft or frauds-that sort of thing, you know. But political prisoners: no one's ever allowed to see political prisoners. That's a strict rule."

She got up and stood beside him, pretending to be weighing her words, letting her body's scent steal over him and slowly drawing through her fingers the sijk kerchief she carried at her wrist. After a little she murmured, "Well, I suppose-I suppose no one need know, U-Pokada. I mean, only you and me; I shan't tell anyone."

He hesitated. "Well, saiyett-"

In, a few minutes he had talked himself into promising that he would see what he could do tomorrow.

"No, it must be now, U-Pokada: I want to see him now, and then I'll go away and no one else will know at all."

It was getting dark in the room. He went to the door and called for lamps, continuing to look down the passage until they were brought by a disheveled old woman whose head jerked with a continual tic. When she had gone he came back and laid a hand on Maia's wrist, slightly clenching his fingers as he did so.

"Saiyett, it's risky. I oughtn't to do this; but you know- well, 'Beauty's a key to unlock every door'. " He hummed a moment, delighted with himself for having hit on so apt a phrase. The line came from a popular tavern song of the day.

"Is it a man?" She nodded. "His name?"

"Tharrin. From near Meerzat, in Tonilda."

"Your friend? A lucky-oh, well" (he laughed) "he would be a lucky man if only he wasn't here, eh? But you've made me a lucky man, saiyett. Oh, yes, indeed!"

At the door he stopped. "I have to ask: you haven't brought him poison?"

She looked up in amazement, wondering whether she had heard aright. "Poison?"

He nodded.

"Brought him poison? Why ever should you think that?"

"Well, sometimes, you know, saiyett, prisoners-especially political prisoners-want to die quickly, and their friends want to help them. I have to see that doesn't happen."

She had heard tell of such things, but to find herself dealing with them in all earnest made her feel still more strange and bemused. She tried to collect her thoughts. The man needed convincing: the most convincing thing, it seemed to her, would be the truth.

"U-Pokada, I mean to get this man released. I have influence. That won't harm you, will it?"

"Harm me? Oh-no, saiyett, not in the least." He paused, apparently searching for something more emphatic. "No, no, I should be gladl Whatever would please you would please me. Wait here, I beg you, and be patient. I don't know the man, you understand, but I'll find him."

Alone, she waited in the empty room for what seemed a long time. It grew quite dark outside. She thought of Luma, sitting lethargic for hour after hour on the kilyett as it drifted down the Nordesh. She herself could not sit still, now pacing up and down, now opening the window and leaning out to pick fragments off the grimy creeper below the sill. Surely by now the man had had long enough to find anyone in the prison? Could he have betrayed her- sent a messenger, perhaps, to the chief priest? Should she go now, quickly? Yet if he had in fact betrayed her, to run away would avail her nothing.

The door opened behind her and she turned, but could not see clearly across the bright patch of light from the two lamps standing on the table between. As she came back to the bench the door closed and then she heard the lock click. Tharrin was standing before her, shivering in the stuffy room, not raising his eyes from the floor.

She had forethought that he was bound to look bad at close quarters; but not that he would smell worse than any animal (animals groom themselves), that the rims of his eyes would be crusted, his beard matted with old crumbs and dried spittle and that he would mutter and shake ceaselessly, cringing and wringing his hands like an old beggar.

"Tharrin," she said timidly-for it seemed almost as though she were interrupting some horrible dialogue between unseen beings-"Tharrin, it's Maia."

He made no answer and she put a hand on his wrist. "It's Maia, Tharrin."

Now he looked up, peering with half-closed eyes, as though through some kind of haze or distance between them.

"Maia? Oil-I remember." He seemed about to say more, but then suddenly began to cry, or rather to whimper, dry-eyed and cowering, shaking his head and hunching his shoulders as though standing out in heavy rain.