"I can't, my lord: I'm attending on the High Counselor."
Elvair-ka-Virrion gave the sleeping Sencho a brief glance of contempt and turned back to her. "That pig? He won't stir. Maia, do you know what it is that's made it impossible for me to forget you? You're real --you're unspoiled-- you're like some marvelous lily out on the plain that no one knows about, no one's picked; that no one had even seen until I found it. You're natural, you're honest." He waved his hand towards the hall. "You feel disgusted by all this, don't you? I don't like it, either. Let me take you to my own rooms. I only want to be good to you! You've stolen my heart, Maia!" Then, as she made no reply, "It's true! Don't you believe me?"
Maia's eyes filled with tears. "I'm a slave-girl, my lord! My master--"
"Oh, I'll make it all right with him," said Elvair-ka-Virrion. Yet this was spoken with less conviction than anything he had yet said: even Maia could perceive that it was bravado. The High Counselor, as Occula had already pointed out to her, had all the touchy, humorless pride of a parvenu. A young gallant like Elvair-ka-Virrion would no more be able to placate his vindictive anger, if it were aroused, than a child could hold a bull. In her mind's eye she seemed to see Occula silently shaking her head.
"I can't, my lord: not without my master's consent. Another time, p'raps--"
"No, now!" cried Elvair-ka-Virrion, dashing his fist into his palm and laughing at his own frustration.
Maia's self-possession collapsed. "Oh, my lord, please don't make it so hard for me! If you really want to be good to me, as you say you do, then go!"
For a long moment Elvair-ka-Virrion gazed at her; at her trembling lips and the tears in her eyes. Then he answered shortly, "Very well," turned on his heel and strode quickly down from the dais and away into the shadows.
Left to herself once more, Maia sat down. The encounter had upset her: she felt afraid. She had grown up in a simple world, where the worst troubles were empty bellies and toothache--bad enough in all conscience, but at least one knew what was what. Here, all was strange; it was like walking in the dark.
She had duly done as Occula had said. But was that really the best--the safest--thing she could have done? Suppose Elvair-ka-Virrion were now to make himself her enemy? "Lespa!" she whispered.
"Goddess Lespa!" But the stars outside were hidden behind clouds and rain: Lespa seemed far away.
Her head was beginning to ache. She wished they could go home to bed.
She had altogether forgotten her master, lying inert on his couch like some bloated alligator on a mudbank. But now, licking his thick lips and fluttering his eyelids, he began to stir and, struggling to turn on his side, reached out one arm towards a cloth lying at the head of the couch. Maia, jumping up, wrung out a fresh towel and wiped his face and body as she had seen Meris do. Then, supporting his head, she offered him wine and held crushed herbs to his nostrils.
Sencho, having rinsed his mouth with the wine, spat it back into the goblet, which Maia put down on the floor. As she once more bent over him, he put a groping arm round her neck and sucked one of her breasts, and at the same time drawing her hand down to his loins. Clearly he was still not fully woken from his stupor, for after a few moments his lips released her nipple and his head sank back upon the cushions. Yet what he wanted was plain enough: if it had been Tharrin, she would have known very well what to do. She paused, uncertain. At this moment the High Counselor, without opening his eyes, belched and then panted urgently, "Meris! Meris!" As Maia, now at a complete loss, remained unmoving beside the couch, he repeated, more forcefully and with a kind of snarling impatience, "Meris!"
In panic Maia turned and plunged down into the crowded hall, calling "Meris! Meris!" She tripped in a heap of yellow lilies and almost fell as her sandaled feet crushed the stems into a slippery pulp. Racing on towards the pool, she measured her length over a girl's buttocks and, picking herself up, heard behind her an oath and a male cry of anger. "Meris!" she called. "Meris!"
Suddenly, in the flickering half-light, there was Meris, lying in a scatter of cushions on the floor. It was as though Maia herself had conjured her up from some subterranean obscurity. Her shadow-dappled body was half-covered by a man's, round which her raised legs were locked, clutching and pressing. Her mouth was open, her eyes half-closed, her breath coming hard as though she were climbing a hill.
"Meris!" cried Maia, bending over her. "Meris!"
"What the hell?" murmured the Belishban girl dazedly. "Oh, Cran, Maia, it's you! Let us alone, damn you!"
Maia, reaching across the man's heaving shoulders, shook her roughly.
"Meris! He's awake! He's calling for you! For you, Meris! D'you hear me?"
"Sod off!" hissed Meris, baring her teeth like a cat. "Baste the High Counselor! Baste everything!"
Seizing the lobe of her partner's ear between her teeth, she bit it so that he cried out. "Oh, you're marvelous!" she babbled, her biting turning to frantic kisses. "Go on! Go on! I'll kill you if you stop!"
For a moment Maia stood irresolute in the throbbing gloom around her, alone in the tumult as though under the waterfall of Lake Serrelind. Then she turned and ran back towards the dais.
During the past few days Sencho's thoughts had reverted several times to the young Tonildan--whose name he had forgotten, if he had ever known it. Buying her from Lalloc had been an impulsive extravagance about which he was now rather in two minds. The sight of the lovely girl, naked and frightened before his couch, had reminded him of his young manhood, reviving that delicious, brutal rapacity which in those days he had now and then had a chance to gratify. She had, in fact, put him in mind of a certain lass, more than twenty years before, in Kabin, whither he had gone on business for Fravak. He had never known her name, either. A servant in the inn where he was staying, she was, he had suddenly realized at the time, entirely innocent and inexperienced, having left her parents' home only a few days before. That evening he had settled up with the landlord, overpaying him a little, and then unobtrusively carried his baggage-roll to one of the out-houses. Twenty minutes later, calling the girl out on some pretext, he had thrown her down, raped her and then simply walked away and put up elsewhere, trusting--successfully, as it turned out--to the unlikelihood of the landlord going to undue trouble over a simple and very young woman's unsubstantiated word against an open-handed customer who was now nowhere to be found. He could still hear, and relish in memory, the girl's shuddering sobs as he spent himself in her.
Similarly to have ravished this Tonildan child would have been delightful; but unfortunately he was no longer capable of forcing himself upon any girl. Perhaps, after all, he had better ask Lalloc to take her back and refund the money, for an innocent like her would take far too much training; and nowadays the hesitancy and clumsiness of an inept, nervous girl, however pretty, was more than he could endure.
He had consulted the sleek, self-possessed Terebinthia as she fanned him, lying in the vine-shaded verandah one afternoon of still, thundery heat before the rains. Her advice was to keep the girl, at all events for the time being.
In the first place, she felt, they needed to maintain a degree Of continuity in the women's quarters.
Yunsaymis and Tuisto had just gone and it seemed likely that Dyphna--who in any case lacked the salacity so much valued by the High Counselor--would soon be putting up the money to buy her freedom. Her departure would be perfectly acceptable: she had always behaved well and done everything required of her. About Meris, naturally licentious though she was, Terebinthia had always had grave reservations, for the girl was difficult and intractable, with a criminal record of violence. This young Tonildan, on the other hand, might turn out very well in time. In the first place she was physically splendid--exactly what the High Counselor liked. But also, she had shown certain promising signs. She had a sexual relationship with the black girl (Terebinthia missed very little), to whom she seemed devoted, and through this was learning fast. Given the chance, the black girl would no doubt teach her a lot. She had sh
own herself compliant, ready to learn and anxious to please. Being so young, she could probably be taught to do what the High Counselor liked without feeling the sort of resentment all too regrettably shown by Meris and other girls accustomed to straightforward basting. Sencho, well-fed and somnolent in the heat, had agreed to keep her for the moment and see how she developed.
It was in fact her beauty, together with her biddable docility, which had made him decide upon her as one of the two girls he would take to the Rains banquet, where he always liked to appear with something new and conspicuous. He would, of course, need an experienced girl as well. For an unconstrained occasion like this Meris would be better than the rather fastidious Dyphna. Nothing whatever disgusted Meris. She, like himself, was a born guttersnipe, and besides, would be better than Dyphna at ordering the Tonildan child about and teaching her how to attend to his needs. Of course it was possible that the Tonildan would be overcome with timidity, but on balance this might be rather enjoyable. Other people's distress was always pleasant.
In the event his judgment had proved correct. The two girls had attracted notice and favorable comment and several people, including Kembri, had complimented him on them. They had also attended him smoothly and on the whole competently, with the result that he had been able to enjoy the excellent dinner to the full. In the normal way he would have remained awake afterwards, watched the kura and then gratified himself, but so pleasantly excessive had been the meal that he had been quite unable to desist from sleeping for a time.
Waking slowly and while still half-stupefied, he felt himself consumed by an overwhelming ruttishness.
Dimly he was aware of a girl's soft, perfumed flesh and felt her supporting his head and wiping his body.
Clutching and mouthing, he found her breasts and, in a perfect madness of lust, pulled her hand down to his loins. Yet this, since she did nothing, only added to his frustration. Remembering now where he was and that Meris was in attendance upon him, he called for her, unable to understand why she was not instantly there. Then, to his outraged amazement, he suddenly found himself alone.
Helpless, and afflicted with his lust to the exclusion of all else, like a dog kept from a bitch in heat, he groaned, wallowing in the cushions. His torment became unbearable, for at such times he was quite unused to the least frustration or delay. Now fully conscious, he could see and hear all around him a frenzy of licentious enjoyment. He tried to raise himself on the couch and for a few moments actually succeeded. A slim, dark-haired girl was running towards him, laughing over her shoulder at someone out of sight behind her. Stretching out one hand, he contrived to clutch her thigh before, with a little shriek of amusement, she freed herself and fell across a near-by couch, where--as though on purpose to add to Sencho's torture-- she was instantly mounted by the young man who had been pursuing her. Choking with rage, the High Counselor fell back, slavering down his chin and snorting like a tethered boar.
All in a moment his agony vanished, extinguished like a candle-flame, to be instantly succeeded by an exquisite sensation of moist, lubricious luxury. Within moments he was beside himself with pleasure, rendered all the more intense by reason of his sudden deliverance from the horrible thwarting he had undergone. Gasping, neither knowing nor caring what had happened, aware of nothing except that he was doing what he wanted, he gave himself wholly up to his gratification, concluding what needed to be little more than the briefest of effort with a roaring, bellowing flux such as he had not experienced for years.
Dazed, and dripping sweat from every pore, Sencho came slowly to himself and opened his eyes. The Tonildan girl, kneeling beside the couch, was rinsing her mouth from Meris's goblet and groping on the floor for the spray of keranda bloom which had fallen out of her hair. Looking up, she caught his eye for a moment and smiled shyly. The High Counselor, drowsy now but filled with a supreme sense of his own shrewdness in having recognized such an excellent thing when he saw it, fondled her shoulders for a moment, grunted with satisfaction and once more fell asleep.
23: MERIS WHIPPED
"Couldn' be better," said Occula, filling a pink palm with oil and bending over Maia's shoulders. "Couldn' be better! Banzi, I never thought you had it in you!"
"I didn't," said Maia.
"Oh, and witty too! The girl's all talent! Can you sing as well?"
"I want to learn to dance, Occula. What was that dance you said?"
"The senguela. All in good time, my lass, all in good time. Just keep still while I finish rubbin' you down. You do me credit, banzi, that you do."
Even Terebinthia was smiling. On the day following the banquet, after leaving the High Counselor to sleep until the afternoon, she had woken him to a light meal, during which he had first told her of Meris's iniquitous dereliction of duty and then warmly congratulated her upon her advice about the Tonildan girl.
No praise, it seemed, was too high for the way in which Maia had acquitted herself. Finally, Sencho, his lust renewed by his own account to Terebinthia, ordered her to fetch the girl then and there, in order that she might personally witness her remarkable talent. Alone with the High Counselor and Terebinthia, Maia at first felt nervous, but then, with peasant shrewdness, realized that, short of smashing a plate over his head, there was virtually nothing she could do which her master, in his present mood, would not find entirely pleasing. Having once more gratified him--while Terebinthia held a mirror to add to his enjoyment--she and the saiyett had left the High Counselor to sleep and returned to the women's quarters.
The weather, after two days of rain, had turned colder. The stove had been lit and the murmur and movement of the flames, together with the steady, gentle sibilance of the rain outside, made a pleasant background for conversation.
Maia turned over on her back. "Oh, 'twas just lucky, honest," she answered. "Tell you the truth, I was frightened half silly. But I mean, someone had to do something."
"Or you could have been where Meris is now." Terebinthia, seated near-by, was looking over the clothes and jewels which the girls had worn the night before. "She's the one to blame, the little fool: an experienced girl and simply couldn't control herself. Let that be a warning to you."
"But, banzi," said Occula, "you say Elvair-ka-Virrion came and pressed you, and you sent him away?"
"Oh, I do just about hope that was right an' all!" replied Maia. "Only strikes me as he may go an' take against me now, see?"
"Not he!" said Occula. "Not he! You couldn't have done better! He can' possibly hold it against you; and I shouldn't think any girl's ever treated him like that before in his whole life. He'll be even crazier about you now--you jus' wait and see! He'll think you're the most marvelous thing since Lespa flew away with the goat. He'll probably come round here and ask for you, I expect."
"But--" Maia spoke hesitantly, frowning and stabbing slowly at the floor with a splinter of firewood--"Meris was saying at the banquet that we're never allowed out, and nobody ever gets to see us."
"Ah; but that's just as I may decide, you see," said Terebinthia, holding up Maia's Yeldashay skirt to the light and examining it one side and then the other. "What it comes to is that I certainly don't allow any girl to go out by herself if I feel I can't trust her to do me and the High Counselor credit. It's most unwise to forfeit my confidence." She patted Maia's shoulder. "You've made a very good start, Maia. Mind you take care not to get conceited. What is it, Ogma? Has the High Counselor finished talking to those messengers from Tonilda now? Then I'd better go and ask him whether he wants to see Meris whipped before supper or after."
"Don't like Meris, do she?" said Maia when Terebinthia had gone. She got up from the couch. "Meris must have rubbed her up the wrong way good and proper."
"Absolutely fatal," replied Occula. "Anyone could see all along that she had it in for her. Even without last night she'd have got Meris sooner or later. It only goes to show, banzi: one thing you must avoid in this game is makin' enemies, and particularly of people who have power over you."
Maia was rummaging in the alcove for her comb. "I say, Occula, what's happened to your Cat Colonna as the pedlar gave you? I thought you left it up here on the shelf?"
"Oh--er--I dropped it," replied Occula after a moment. "It was only thin pottery, so that was that. No great loss, really, was it? Come on now, bahzi, come and gild my eyelids, will you? And then you can do my nipples as well. We've got to get all polished up to attend that wretched girl's whippin'. And we know what Piggy's goin' to want after that, doan' we?"
"Blackberries I reckon those are, not strawberries," giggled Maia, searching along the shelf for the little jar of cosmetic gilt. "You got a knife or a coin or something? Only this lid's jammed on that tight."
The punishment referred to by Terebinthia and Occula as "whipping" was in actuality seldom or never inflicted with a whip, for the bodies of slave-girls of the quality owned by the High Counselor were far too valuable to be scarred or lacerated. Terebinthia's normal practice--of which he, as a connoisseur', approved, finding it fully as enjoyable as whipping--was to administer a sound smacking on the rump with a broad strip of leather about twenty inches long and perhaps an eighth of an inch thick. As an amusing adjunct to this spectacle Sencho, whose natural pruriency delighted above all in seeing women indecently degraded, had himself designed and had made a special block for the culprit. This consisted of a life-sized figure, carved in black wood, of a naked, grinning savage reclining on its back, the two hands cupped in front of the face to form a kind of perch or saddle. The girl to be punished, having been stripped, was compelled to crouch astride this figure, facing its feet, her buttocks elevated and her groin supported on its hands. In this position, and effectively gagged--for the figure was realistically complete in its semblance of carnal arousal--she presented a charming and elegant spectacle of humiliation which never failed to afford Sencho the keenest enjoyment.
During the smacking of Meris, which Terebinthia, herself stripped to the waist for greater freedom, carried out with brisk and pleasing vigor, the High Counselor, his couch placed close beside the girl, lay watching in blissful silence. From time to time, signing to Terebinthia to pause, he would stretch out a fat arm to caress Metis's thighs, himself trembling with frissons of delicate, cultured pleasure. Indeed, so intense was his delight that he could scarcely bring himself to tell Terebinthia to desist, consenting at length only when the saiyett had respectfully pointed out that the girl was, after all, very valuable. For some time after Meris had been carried out he lay, with closed eyes, in a kind of transport, emitting sighs of satisfaction or sudden, quick groans of reminiscent delight. At length, coming to himself and growing once more aware of the four women waiting to learn his further wishes, he instructed Terebinthia first to undress Maia, whom he wished to remain with him, and then herself retire with Occula and Dyphna.