She would wear the cherry-colored robe with the bodice of crystals-one of four or five which they had given her on her return to the city (for the authorities, having taken over Sencho's great mass of possessions and effects, had been weeks in disposing of them, and she had returned in time to be offered her pick of the wardrobe). The cherry dress had been lucky on the night of the senguela: it would be lucky now. For the rest, her diamonds and a spray of planella in her hair (which she would comb out loose over her shoulders) would do very well. Sixteen-year-old Maia had no need to wonder what Fornis might keep in her cabinet of unguents.
Coming downstairs in the rose-and-saffron half-light reflected from the Barb, over which the bats were already flittering, she found her two soldiers-summoned by Ogma-waiting to take her to the Lord General's house. She gave them ten meld apiece and told them to go and drink it. "Half a mile up the Trepsis Avenue, on an evening like this? I'm walking!" At this their eyes opened wide, for in the upper city the only women who walked in public were slaves. But the Serrelinda-well, for the matter of that she might have been going to swim it (oh, yes, they'd heard that story all right) and no one would have had a word to say.
"But when shall we come to the Lord General's to bring you home, then, saiyett?" asked Brero. "You needn't," she said. "I'll send you a message tomorrow morning." At which he clapped his hand over his mouth to suppress an appreciative guffaw. She didn't mess about, did she, the little saiyett? Someone or other wasn't half going to be lucky.
The avenue seemed as full of scents as a flowerbed of summer bees, stirring and mingling, here and gone. Roses, lake water and planella, wood-smoke and dew, clipped grass and a sharp, resinous smell from where someone was sawing logs. She, the Serrelinda, was floating to her destination on the fragrance of the world, like the butterfly princess on her magic quest. She was on her way to save poor old Tharrin from the Sacred Queen. Ah, and after that she'd have to start thinking about Bayub-Otal and all. Shakkarn alive! He, the rightful Ban of Suba, was not only her liege lord but her own kith and kin! And anyway, even
setting all that aside, she'd begun to think rather differently of him since Suba and since Nasada. Funny, she thought, how you get to altering your ideas about people as you.find out a bit more about them. Like Milvushina.
Am I beautiful, Zenka? Zenka, am I the girl you can feel proud of? You never had the chance to show me off, Zenka, did you; to feel proud of your sweetheart in public, among other Katrians? "You're the most beautiful girl in the world," he answered. "I'm always with you, all the time: I'll
From behind her sounded the soft flit-flat, flit-flat of a jekzha-man's feet in the dust and then a girl's voice, "Maia! What in the
It was Nennaunir, wrapped in a gossamer-thin, azure cloak, a crystal-and-gold ring on one finger of the hand that held the rail as she leant towards Maia, her high-piled hair set now not with one but apparently about five garnet combs.
Maia laughed. "Walking to Elvair's party."
"Walking? You're out of your mind! Where are your soldiers, for Cran's sake?"
"I sent them off to get drunk."
"Whatever for?"
" 'Cos I wanted to walk."
Nennaunir shook her head and looked serious. "It won't do you any good, Maia-not in the long run it won't- doing eccentric things like going about on foot in the upper city. I mean that as a friend. You've got a position to keep up, my lass. You can't just take it into your head to go strolling up the Trepsis Avenue in the twilight, loaded with diamonds. People may even start thinking you're a human being. Get in here with me, come on."
Meekly Maia obeyed, settling herself comfortably beside Nennaunir as the man went on. The shearna seemed drenched in kepris-in the confined space of the jekzha it was quite overpowering-and this reminded Maia that she herself had forgotten to put on any scent. Never mind, she
thought. There's sure to be some flowers; I can always pick up a jasmine wreath or something.
