Maia (95 page)

"Bana, bana, bana!
Hi-po
lana,
hi-po
lana!"

"Bah,
way
mal"

They sniffed at the air like hounds, baring their teeth and tossing their heads as they stamped and turned, grimacing fiercely, clapping their hands and brandishing imaginary spears.

Gradually the ferocity and pace of the dance increased. Their wide-stretched eyes glittered, they stooped their shoulders and bent their heads towards the floor, growling and snarling as they uttered the responses. They turned about with upstretched arms, then paired off and made believe to stab and savage one another. At times the leader's utterances would cease and then, after a moment's silence, they would burst all together into a kind of de-

monic chorus, as inarticulate yet plain in meaning as the baying of wolves.

The unhesitating unanimity with which they pounded the floor, clapped, suddenly paused to thrust out their tongues or slap their buttocks before resuming their ritual clamor, was hypnotic and infectious, stirring the onlookers until the hall was filled with battle-cries, yells of approbation and the hammering of knives and goblets on the tables. The Belishbans, leaving the center of the room, began to prance and stamp their way in a line among the tables, making believe to stab the men and drag the girls away as they maintained their chanting. At length, nearing the door that led out onto the terrace, the leader, suddenly introducing a quicker, pattering chant-"Willa-wa, willa-
wa,
willa-wa"-snatched the beautiful Otavis-who happened to be the girl nearest to hand-almost out of the arms of Shend-Lador and tossed her bodily to his followers. As two of them caught and held her, the others closed about her in a group, whereupon the whole crowd, setting up a kind of quivering motion with their shoulders, formed a rotating circle about her as she was carried out of the room in their midst.

Maia, who had watched the whole extraordinary act with the breathless absorption always aroused in her by any dance-she would have liked to join in, or at least to have had the chance to learn it-turned to her companions to see Ta-Kominion grinning with excitement and obviously as much affected as herself.

"Oh, that was just about something! I've never seen the like of that before," she said. "Have you?"

"Only once, and that was at Herl, when I was no more than about nine."

"Can
you
do it?"

He shook his head. "Oh, no; it's not half as easy as it looks. You have to be a Belishban to be able to do it properly. It's the desert blood in them, they say. They used to do it out in the Harridan desert, where the sound carries for miles, to let the enemy know they were coming."

"What enemy?"

"Oh, any old enemy," answered Ta-Kominion, fondling her shoulders. "I'm glad we're going to have them with us: I don't think Erketlis is going to care for them at all,

do you? What do you think of them, my lord?" he asked, turning to Bel-ka-Trazet. "Fierce enough for you?"

The High Baron paused, laying aside his unfinished apricots in sweet wine with an air of having made a sufficient concession to the practice of eating such rubbish.

"Why don't you tell that young Elvair to take along a herd of bulls to drive at the enemy?"

"Oh, you do them an injustice, my lord, I'm sure. There's a lot more to them than that."

"I'd be glad to think so," replied Bel-ka-Trazet. Ta-Kominion waited respectfully, and after a few moments the High Baron went on, "What happened at Clenderzard, Ta-Kominion; do you remember?"

"The Deelguy thought they'd beaten us, my lord, but we made fools of them."

"Do you remember me forbidding your father to attack them?"

Ta-Kominion roared with delighted laughter and at once turned to Maia as though she were the perfect companion with whom to share the joke.

"My father had us all lined up in a wood, Maia, and we were just going to dash out to meet the Deelguy when the High Baron here came up through the trees. 'You'll do no such thing-no such thing!' My father said, 'Why, my lord, we'll all be taken for cowards.' 'No such thing! No such thing!' "

Even Ged-la-Dan was grinning. It had evidently become a legend on Ortelga. "So what happened then?" asked Maia politely, since it seemed to be expected of her.

"Why, so then the Deelguy came rushing in among the trees, but they couldn't get to grips with us. They couldn't see properly after the bright light outside, you see. Besides, they're plains people; they're not used to woodland at all and they got confused. We broke them up into groups and made a horrible mess of them. Oh, but I'll never forget my father's face, my lord! 'No such thing! No such thing!' " Still laughing, he reached across the table and refilled Maia's goblet.

"When you get to Chalcon you'll do well to remember my advice to your father."

Bel-ka-Trazet's low, hoarse voice rasped like a hoof on dry stones. "I asked you, didn't I, whether you wanted to lead this expedition, and I gave you a fair and honorable chance to refuse?"

"You did, my lord; but I didn't refuse, did I?"

"We have to keep in with Bekla," said Bel-ka-Trazet, "so we've agreed to send five hundred men against Er-ketlis. Either you'll gain experience, Ta-Kominion, or you'll be no great loss to Ortelga."

"Thank you, my lord," replied Ta-Kominion happily. He seemed, Maia thought, quite used to this sort of thing from the High Baron.

Bel-ka-Trazet leant forward and gripped his wrist so hard that he winced. "You're a reasonably good leader, Ta-Kominion-the men trust you-but you're very young. See your men come back alive, that's all: not everything's to be achieved by rushing head-down at the enemy. Remember the wood at Clenderzard. And if you
should
have to get them out on your own-"

"Get them
out,
my lord?"

"If you
have
to get them out on your own, which wouldn't surprise me at all," said Bel-ka-Trazet, "get out through Lapan. It's further, but you'll be safer than if you try to get out through Tonilda. In Tonilda they hate the Leopards."

Ta-Kominion was about to reply when there was a further distraction. The Belishbans had come back into the hall, carrying Otavis shoulder-high in their midst. It was plain that she had made a hit among them while they had been out on the terrace. Excited and full of self-assertion among strangers, they felt that they had won a prize and meant to show it.

"Give her back!" yelled Shend-Lador, playing up to them, clenching his fists and squaring up in mock rage.

"Not on your life!" answered the tattooed leader. "She's a soldier now, this girl! She's too good for you! She's joining up with us!"

"We'll have to initiate her," cried another of them, "if she's to be a Belishban officer. Isn't that right, boys?"

There was a general outburst of agreement, above which the leader shouted, "What's it to be?"

"Toss her in a blanket!" bellowed a voice.

"Yes! Yes!" they cried. "Get a blanket! Send her up to Lespa!"

Shend-Lador and two or three of his friends began protesting and were obviously ready to quarrel in earnest; but Otavis, sitting on high among the Belishbans, only shook her head, laughing. "No, let me alone, Shenda! Don't be

a spoilsport! You don't think I'm afraid, do you? What's the bounty?" she called down to one of the Belishbans.

"What bounty, sweetheart?"

"When you join up as a Belishban officer, of course! How much d'you get?"

"Oh, I see. Five hundred meld we get when we join."

"Right!" said the beauty, taking off her earrings and necklace and passing them down to him. "Just look after those for me, then. Five hundred meld, and don't forget it, any of you!"

After a few more unavailing protests from the young Leopards, two slaves were sent out and returned with a woven coverlet taken from some bedroom near-by. The Belishbans spread it on the floor and Otavis, as lightly and readily as though she were going to make love, lay down on her back, folding her arms under her breasts.

As eight of the Belishbans, four on each side, stooped to grasp the edges of the coverlet, hiding Otavis from view, Maia turned to Ta-Kominion.

"It's crazy! She'll be hurt for certain! Can't you go and ask Elvair to stop it?"

He shook his head. "If she'd said she didn't want to do it, I would; but she's a clever girl. She's after her five hundred meld, isn't she? And a bit more than that, if I know anything about it."

Before Maia could answer there broke out among the Belishbans a quick, chantey-like chanting. As it culminated, Otavis suddenly appeared flying upward, her gauzy Deelguy breeches billowing, one of her plaits come adrift to expose the breast beneath. She seemed entirely in command of herself and showed no least sign of fear as she went up about ten feet and then, her body tilting a little to one side, fell back into the taut coverlet among yells of delight.

"Higher this time!" shouted one of the Belishbans. "Come on, get some zip into it, boys!"

Again Otavis shot up, this time with so much force that she actually half-vanished for a moment into the vaulted dimness above the lamplight. As, flushed and dishevelled, she fell back into the coverlet without having uttered a sound, cheers and applause broke out all over the hall, and Elvair-ka-Virrion called "That'll do!"

"No, no!" shouted the big Belishban leader, holding up his hand as though exercising the authority of the frissoor

(which he never asked forethought Maia). "Three times! Three times it's got to be, before she's an officer! Let her go, boys!"

"The beam! Mind the beam, you fools!" yelled Elvair-ka-Virrion suddenly. But Otavis had already been heaved out of the coverlet, this time in a kind of half-crouching posture which suggested that she had not been entirely ready.

The vault of the hall was spanned, at a height of about fifteen feet, by tie-beams, and straight towards one of these the shearna (Cran, she must weigh next to nothing! thought Maia) was sailing up as lightly as a squirrel. At Elvair-ka-Virrion's cry she turned her head, instantly saw her danger and flung out her hands. Then, as deftly as if she had intended it from the outset, she caught the beam, let her body swing down until she was hanging vertically, paused a second and then dropped back into the outspread coverlet. A moment later she had climbed out and was standing among the Belishbans, smiling as she deliberately wiped her grimy hands on the leader's cheeks.

A perfect tumult of acclaim broke out, lasting for almost,.a minute. Elvair-ka-Virrion, striding forward, embraced Otavis and kissed her.

"Right, that's it! Now-where's her lygol?" he shouted, turning to the surrounding Belishbans. "This is going to cost you all forty meld apiece, and I never saw it better earned in my life!"

"Ay, it damned well was, too!" answered one of them, slamming down four ten-meld pieces on the table. Drawing his knife, he offered it hilt-first to Otavis and knelt at her feet. "Give me a ringlet, saiyett! Gut me off a curl to take to Chalcon and I'll wear it every day till I come back!"

"Why, at that rate she'll have none left!" cried the leader, also falling on his knees. But Otavis, smilingly raising them to their feet and returning the knife, merely strolled across to the table, called to a slave to bring some warm water and stood rinsing her hands while the Belishbans, one after another, put down their money.

"You've lost her, Shend-Lador," said Elvair-ka-Virrion. "They'll never let her go now!" The shearna, however, shook her head and, having beckoned to Shend-Lador to come and pick up the money for her, kissed her hand to the Belishbans and led him out of the hall at a run.

"Good lass! She knows what she wants after that little lark!" said Ta-Kominion approvingly.

Ged-la-Dan grunted and drained his goblet. "So do I." Reaching out a hand, he grasped Maia's ankle where she sat curled up on the couch. "Listen, my girl, I don't know how mudi-"

Before he could say more, however, Elvair-ka-Virrion was beside them, cooling his flushed face with a painted fan and bowing to Bel-ka-Trazet.

"I've come to borrow Maia, my lord. It won't be a real barrarz, you know, unless she dances for us."

Maia, glad of the opportunity to be elsewhere, got up readily enough, excused herself to the Ortelgans and went across to where Fordil and his men were sitting cross-legged among their outspread battery of leks, zhuas and plangent strings. As the master-musician rose to meet her, smiling with obviously sincere pleasure, she found herself thinking that she could have lived happily enough as a professional dancer, devoted from dawn till dusk to the service of the gods, falling asleep each night tired out with the worship of holy movement; wind and stream, fire and cloud; Lespa's contented slave. Might her aunt Nokomis even now, perhaps, be pausing a moment, in some celestial dance among the stars, to look down on her niece and bless her?

"Not the senguela tonight, U-Fordil," she said, stooping to kiss his brown, wrinkled hands and gray-stubbled cheeks. "It's got to be something simpler and shorter, that they can afi follow. I'm sure most of them know precious little about dancing."

"But they know about beautiful girls, don't they, sai-yett?" he answered. "What was that old Tonildan tale you danced for me in your house, the day I came up to play to you? I could follow that easily enough, even though I'd never seen it before. Didn't you tell me you made it up yourself?"

"Oh, Tiva'? Yes, I made that up, U-Fordil. That's to say, I heard the story when I was little from an old woman at home, and I just made up the dance for fun."

"Well, anyone could enjoy that, saiyett, the way you did it for me. And if we just keep one of those Tonildan dance-rhythms going on the drums and I follow you with the hinnari, this lot aren't going to find fault, are they?-

not in this mood and not with someone like you to look at."

She had first begun to devise the dance in Sencho's house during Melekril last year, at the time when Occula had been encouraging and teaching her. It had been rudimentary enough then, but the idea had stayed with her and grown in her imagination, so that since returning from Suba she had rounded it out and turned it into something at least approaching a finished dance. It was old Drigga's tale of Tiva, the fisher-girl of Serrelind; how, at his desperate plea, she had spared the life of a great fish she had caught one day in her nets; and of what had ensued. Certainly, she thought, anyone ought to be able to follow it, and it should go down well enough. Smiling and nodding to Fordil, she walked back to the middle of the hall, where at Elvair-ka-Virrion's order the slaves were already beginning to move the tables for her. She waved them away. She had already decided how she was going to present this, and it wouldn't need all that much space.