Maia полностью

presence, this gentle brilliance in the sky, with its streaming, golden hair, was the equivalent of herself in Bekla. It followed clearly that as long as it lasted, she would remain immune, the protected of the goddess. But when it departed she, too, if she had not by then found what she was seeking, would be fated to depart, either to death or to that dreary, marital refuge-death in life, as it appeared to her young heart-of which Occula had spoken. So much time, then, she had: so much time and opportunity the goddess was vouchsafing her.

She had the message. She longed, now for some relief from her tension and anxiety; for some respite, however brief and illusory, from the strain of dwelling on love and danger. It's strange, she thought: all your life you hear the tales of the great deeds, the dangers and sufferings of the heroes and the gods and goddesses, but you never understand what they must really have felt until it's brought home to you through your own experience and your own heart.

She turned, came back from the window, put her arms round Occula and kissed her as they had been used to kiss in their first days of slavery, the days of her innocence and her wretchedness.

"I've taken in all you say," she said, smiling. "Don't worry, dearest, I'll survive. We all shall-all four of us; I know it."

"Then you know a damn' sight more than I do, banzi."

"Never mind for now. Occula, tell us one of your stories-like you used to. Like you did at Lalloc's that night- remember?"

"I remember: that was about Lespa, wasn't it?"

"Yes, tell us another about Lespa! The one about Shak-karn and how Lespa became a goddess: the story of the senguela."

Occula looked round at the others. Milvushina smiled and nodded. Zuno refilled the goblets. Occula took another long pull, settled herself in the cushions and began.

"After young Baltis the smith had first made love to Lespa in the temple of Shakkarn-that day before the autumn

festival, you remember, when she was supposed to be mending the altar cloth-they became lovers as dear to each other as good deeds are to the gods. They thought of nothin' else. Each of them used to lie awake at night, wishin' to be in another bed. For things were still no easier for them, you see, just because they'd succeeded for once in gettin' what they both wanted. Lespa's father still reckoned the family was a good cut above young Baltis, a mere smith's apprentice with nothin' beyond his pay and perks. And worse than that, realizin' he had such a pretty daughter-for Lespa was the talk of the place for miles around, so that people on journeys used to make a point of stoppin' by on some excuse or other, jus' to see her goin' to the well in the evenin' along o' the other girls- he'd begun gettin' grand ideas of marryin' her to some wealthy lord or maybe even a baron. I dare say there might have been three or four of that sort who passed that way not so very seldom, what with boats and so on goin' by on the Zhairgen or the Valderra. For as you know, I've always held out for it that sweet Lespa came from lower Suba. But I dare say you two want to have it that she came from somewhere in Chalcon or Tonilda, doan' you?"

"Suba!" said Maia instantly. " 'Course it was Suba!"

"Oh, was it, now?" replied Occula, looking at her quizzically over the rim of her goblet. "Travel broadens the mind, eh? Well, I expect Suba's a wonderful place for- er-"

"Frogs?" asked Maia, smiling. She had already slipped off her sandals: now she stretched out her legs, parted her toes and wriggled them, looking down at them and shaking her head.

"Webbed feet? Neither had Lespa," said Occula. "Her feet were so pretty the boys used to kiss the grass where she'd walked by. But I'll get on. Sometimes she and Baltis were able to steal a meetin'-it might be in the woods when she was gatherin' sticks, or p'raps it might be that young Baltis would be comin' back from some job he'd been sent out to do on a bull's stall or some bolts for a door, and he'd stop by at the back of the wood-pile and whistle like a blue-finch, and then Lespa would suddenly remember she had to go down the garden for parsley or some such little thing. But you know how it is, makin' love in a hurry-for a girl, anyway, and even for a few men, though not half enough of them-a bit of this and that and

not long enough, as the stag-hound bitch said when the lapdog tried to mount her.

"Well, but sweet Lespa was a fine, spirited girl with a heart and mind of her own, and one way and another she managed to see to it that she and Baltis did sometimes meet together at night and no one else the wiser in the mornin'. And besides that, she managed to contrive that her father's ideas didn' get much further than his own head. If you're unlucky enough to be a girl-"

"I'm not unlucky," interrupted Mirvushina, smiling.