"Well, I s'pose no one's going to hear us here," she remarked at length, "without it's an owl."
"Saiyett," he said, still speaking very quietly, "Lord Randronoth says that you will recall that at the end of this year the present Sacred Queen's reign comes to an end."
Instantly she felt afraid. All that Milvushina had said came flooding back into her mind. Yet now she realized that she had taken Milvushina's warning only partly seriously. That is, she had believed her, but had not envisaged the dangerous thing actually happening or how she was going to meet it if and when it did happen. She had certainly not expected it to come from this quarter.
"Well, what of it?" she answered sharply.
"Her successor will be chosen by acclamation of the people."
"But I suppose-" she turned aside for a moment, stooped and pulled off a dead head from a clump of flowering pinks-"that What'll really happen is that the Council will decide."
"The Council may be divided, saiyett, but the people are not: that is what Lord Randronoth asked me to stress to you."
Her knees were trembling and her bowels felt loose. There was a marble seat near-by, half-enclosed by trailing boughs, and here she sat down, laying one arm along the cool arm-rest. After a moment he also sat down, turning his head so that he was almost whispering in her ear.
"Fornis may make some desperate attempt to remain Sacred Queen, but this is bound to fail, because the people will not accept her. Already she has tried the patience of the gods too long."
Seekron paused, but Maia said nothing, only staring ahead across the darkening Barb.
"One might have expected the Lord General to choose as Sacred Queen some lady commanding universal fame
and approval. He has said nothing publicly, but it is known that in fact he favors the lady Milvushina, the daughter of the murdered Chalcon lord, Enka-Mordet; she who is now the consort of his son. He thinks that her election would do much to reconcile Chalcon to Bekla and diminish heldro opposition to the Leopards; and that when Elvair-ka-Vir-rion returns victorious from Chalcon, his popularity with the city will be so great that they will be ready to acclaim Milvushina as Sacred Queen."
"She is with child," said Maia shortly.
She meant no more than that Milvushina should be spared the stress, but Seekron evidently misunderstood her. "Exactly, saiyett: most inappropriate. But even setting that aside, the lady Milvushina, while she is liked well enough by the people, is not the lady whom they love and honor most. It was not she who swam the Valderra and saved the empire."
"Count Seekron," said Maia with a quick gasp, "I don't want to hear n' more of this. You just go home now and tell Lord Randronoth as I won't have anything to do-"
"Saiyett," he interrupted quickly, "have you reflected? They say-that is, I know that you have more than once said-that you swam the Valderra not to advance yourself, but to prevent bloodshed and save lives."
"Well, what of it?" she said. "What's that got to do with this?"
"Saiyett, there is only one lady in all the empire so famous, so beautiful and so much loved and honored by the people that they would be unanimous in acclaiming her as Sacred Queen. If you refuse, inevitably there will be civil strife and butchery. Before all's done, there will be six Sacred Queens and a thousand corpses for each. But if you accept, there will be unanimity and concord. Everyone believes that you, more than any woman in Bekla, possess the luck and favor of the gods."
Here was a new slant on the business and no mistake! Maia sat silent, trying to take it in. Her immediate feeling was of being assailed. The quiet evening garden, with the moths flitting over the planella; her own, pretty little house, from whose windows Ogma's lamps were beginning to shine-something menacing, ghostly, a tall, vaporous figure, seemed stalking near-by, half-glimpsed among the dusky trees. So vivid was this fancy that she gave a quick, cut-short whimper, drawing her cloak closer about her and
peering this way and that. Again Seekron misunderstood her. Plainly nervous, he stood up and also looked about them.
"Did you see someone, saiyett? Where?"
"No," she said. "You needn't worry. There's no one here 'ceptin' us." Then, "I don't want to be Sacred Queen. I want to stay 's I am."
"But the gods want it, saiyett! You must recall that in the past there have been many whom the gods have called to perform their work on earth, who at first could not credit the vocation, because they felt themselves to be nothing but the most ordinary people; because in their humility they knew themselves to be but flesh-and-blood. Remember Deparioth, an orphan and a slave, who-"
"Oh, give over!" she cried. "Let me be!" She sprang up and began pacing rapidly back and forth across the grass. "U-Seekron, leave me! Go back to the house and wait! I need to think: I'll join you in a few minutes."
