"You mean, your plan that Milvushina should be acclaimed?"
Kembri nodded. "That's vital-more than ever, now. Don't you see, if a Chalcon baron's daughter's reigning as Sacred Queen-with our blessing-that'll make it virtually impossible for Erketlis to attack Bekla? She could denounce it in the name of Airtha and his whole position would become extremely difficult, to say the very least."
"So Maia-you'll kill her?"
Kembri hesitated. "Well, she'll have to die, certainly; and soon, too-before the acclamation of the new Sacred Queen. The difficulty is that the least suspicion of murder would make for more trouble than we could handle. Frankly, I've got no time to think, it out at the moment: it
"But Fornis will be in Bekla before long, won't she?" said Eud-Ecachlon. "Why not leave it to Fornis to kill her? I should think we can rely on that, wouldn't you?"
The Lord General paused, almost as though reluctant to reply. Then he said, "Well-perhaps that may prove to be the answer. Let's wait and see."
Nasada sat facing Maia in the soft lamplight. She could smell the light, honey-like bouquet of the Yeldashay in the goblet at his elbow. She had given him a supper fit for the High Baron and he had obviously enjoyed it. She would have given him her jewels, her house, herself if he had
wanted them. Whatever Ogma's limitations in other directions, thought Maia, thank Cran she could at least cook when she put her mind to it.
She had threaded her hair with more than fifty gold beads and coiled it in plaits round her head (it had taken over an hour), and was wearing her diamonds and a plain, quite unrevealing robe of white and pale-pink silk with a pleated skirt, and white leather suppers with a gold leopard on each toe. Against all reason and probability she felt elated and full of confidence. There was that in the mere presence of Nasada which banished anxiety. Looking at him-gnarled and gray-headed, yet robust and infinitely reassuring-she was reminded of some huge-branched old tree of magic properties; such as had been revered time out of mind by Tonildan villagers, on which womenJiung dolls for fertility and bunches of herbs and flowers for the recovery of the sick. You could hang your troubles on him all right: he wouldn't break.
She had refused Eud-Ecachlon: she was probably going to die. (Often, the young face this prospect with more courage and acceptance than the old, for they have more vigor to do it with, little empty time to reflect and less of the past to lose.) Well, let it come. Meanwhile, for the present it fairly warmed her heart to be able at last to show her gratitude to old Nasada and let him see her, just for this once at least, as the Serrelinda, the idol of Bekla and the heroine of the empire. But then again, looking at him, she found her mood changing to one of illogical conviction that of course her troubles would come right, somehow or other. His very existence was like an assurance to this effect.
He broke the silence. "It's nice, isn't it, to see something made by men which is as beautiful, as something made by the gods, and with no more harm in it than a flower or a bird?"
He was holding Randronoth's cabinet of the fishes between his hands, turning it this way and that in the lamplight, admiring it by touch as well as by sight. That was what she used to do herself-she delighted in the feel of it, its smoothness and squared, panelled symmetry-and he had needed no suggestion from her to discover the same pleasure.
"I've often wondered, U-Nasada," she said, "why they
chose to carve it with fish particularly. I mean, you know, the one who made it and them as it was made for."
"Perhaps because it's made of fish."
"Made of fish? You're teasing me!"
"I'm not: I meant the bones of a fish."
"You've picked on the wrong girl, U-Nasada. I'm from Serrelind, remember? I know about fish and fish-bones. A fish would have to be the size of this room before you could cut panels like that."
"Oh, yes, at least; possibly bigger. I've never seen them myself, but I know they exist; a thousand miles from here, in waters far bigger than Serrelind. Some of these carved fish are strange to us, too, you see. But obviously they must exist."
Anyone else she would have told to go and jump in the Barb. Being Nasada, she felt that what he said, or something like it, must be true. Anyway, she didn't care: it was enough to be in his company. He evidently believed it and she knew he wasn't making fun of her, even though she'd started by saying he was.
He put the cabinet back in its place. "Beautiful things seem even better when they come from far away, don't you think? They're like the stars, then: we don't know how they began, but we do know they're beautiful and do no harm."
"But isn't Bekla beautiful, too?"
