Richard Adams - Maia

More lamps were quenched and the hall became dimmer still, save for the central window embrasure in the longer wall. This, the sill of which stood about five feet from the floor, was so wide and deep as to resemble a small, open-fronted room, the shuttered window forming a wall at the back. Here the lamplight remained bright, so that the recess looked not unlike a stage.

First the dancing-girls of the Thlela and then the serving-slaves left the hall (among them Maia's salt-boy, who grinned at her as he passed). The last to go drew a mesh of thin, gold-tin ted curtains between the columns of the colonnade. The musicians, however, remained in their places, playing a quiet improvisation of chords which did no more, as it were, than lightly to color the air with sound.

For a while the murmur of talk and laughter continued, but Maia could sense behind it an expectancy and tension, as though some fresh excitement were now awaited. Suddenly the tall young man from Paltesh, who had offered his goblet to Meris, appeared in the lamplight at the foot of the window embrasure. In one hand he was holding a cushion and this, waving it over his head, he tossed up into the embrasure with a cry of "Otavis!"

At this there was some cheering and several other men echoed "Otavis! Otavis!" But at once another young man strode up to the embrasure, threw in a second cushion and cried "Melthrea!" at which there were further cries of support and approval.

Other men followed, one by one adding cushions to the growing pile now beginning to form a bed in the embra-

sure. Each, as he threw his cushion upward, called out a name-Otavis, Melthrea, Nyctenthis, Pensika and so on- while one of Kembri's girls, a slim Lapanese with dark hair falling to her waist and ruby bracelets on her bare arms, made marks with chalk on one of the tables., Watching, Maia became aware that Meris was breathing hard and uttering low cries of excitement. "Eighteen!" she exclaimed at length, as Elvair-ka-Virrion himself, tossing up his cushion, called "Otavis!" and paused to refill his goblet from one of the caldrons before returning to his place.

"I don't think she'll be beaten now!" she added, glancing round at Maia, "Fat lot of chance we'll ever have! That bitch Terebinthia hardly ever allows us out."

"But what's it all about?" asked Maia.

"Why, they're voting to elect the Kura Queen, of course," answered Meris. "First they decide how many cushions are going to be thrown altogether, and then the men draw lots for who's to throw them. It's always fifty at the Rains banquet, and the girl who gets most cushions is the Kura Queen."

"A shearna?"

"Oh, Maia, don't be damn' silly; shearnas don't perform the kura! The Kura Queen's always a slave-girl, but the thing is she gets a prize of a thousand meld, and very often she's freed afterwards. It's the one bit of luck every girl hopes for: I might have got it if only I'd stayed with Han-Glat. He always lends his girls very freely, you know, so they have plenty of chances to make friends and become popular. But you're making me lose count. How many's that, Ravana?" she called to a girl near-by, who was watching as closely and excitedly as herself.

"Twenty-one for Otavis now!" answered the girl. "Good luck to her! She lent me forty meld last year and never asked for it back."

A few moments later a cheer went up as it became clear that Otavis's total number of cushions could not now be beaten. The few remaining to make up the fifty were flung into the embrasure and two girls, climbing up, spread them evenly over the sill. As they slid down again a brief silence fell. Then into the pool of lamplight stepped the strikingly beautiful girl in the pale-gray robe embroidered with corn-sheaves, whom Maia had noticed on the staircase. She was smiling, but Maia could see tears glistening in her eyes and

it was plain that she was half-overcome with excitement and delight. Amidst cries of acclamation and a hammering of goblets she raised her arms to the company, placed both hands on the window-sill and vaulted up into it as lightly as a leaf, turning, as she did so, to sit facing the hall. In this position, whUe the music became louder and its rhythm more marked and insistent, she slowly and deliberately loosened her robe at the throat and, drawing up her shoulders in a kind of smooth, graceful shrug, caused it to subside like gray foam about her, until she was sitting naked to the thighs. Then, as she held out one slim foot, a broad-shouldered young man, clad only in a pair of leather breeches, came forward, drew off her sandals and laid them side by side on the floor.

"Spelta-Narthe!" whispered Meris. "I wondered who she'd have lined up."

"Who's he?" asked Maia.

"Well, he is a slave-strictly speaking-but a very privileged and senior one. He's Elvair-ka-Virrion's huntsman. He's well-known to be able to do it anywhere. He's been invited into quite a few Leopard ladies' beds, so they say."

Otavis, now completely naked and so beautiful that the sight drew fresh murmurs of admiration from every man in the hall, rose slowly to her feet, stepping out of the tumble of gauze about her ankles and letting it fall to the floor. Then, laughing as she bent down and gave him her hand, she helped her partner up into the embrasure and, kneeling before him in the posture with which a kura customarily began, swiftly and deftly made him as naked as herself.

Ever since Occula had told her what a kura was, Maia had had at the back of her mind a feeling of distaste and aversion. She had, she now realized, unconsciously been imagining other people watching herself and Tharrin forced against their will to exhibit that which they would have wished to keep private between themselves. What she saw now, however, was altogether different in mood. The beauty and her partner, who knew very well what they were doing and were obviously proud of it, went about their business with a light-hearted, jocund gaiety and entire lack of shame which, she realized after a minute or two, had already brought to her own lips a smile of complicit enjoyment. This outrageous behavior, pursued with a kind of sportive warmth which involved and was meant to involve the

watchers, was marked by the one quality essential to prevent it from being sordid or disgusting: it was frivolously playful. The tone of the love-making was very light, the emphasis all on provocation, amusement and ingenuity rather than on any pretended depth of passion which, by being plainly insincere, would have struck a false note. "This is not passion," the participants seemed to be saying. "This is sport-bird-song to awaken you in the garden of pleasure." Maia's response was unforced and spontaneous. Indeed, at one point, when Otavis, facing the company and leaning back in her partner's arms as she sat astride his lap, looked down for a moment, feigning shocked astonishment, and then once more opened her arms to the onlookers with a dazzling smile, as though delighted to find herself thus flagrantly displayed, Maia felt so deeply excited that she could only stand gazing silently amid the general laughter and acclamation.

After some six or seven minutes it became clear that most of the watchers no longer needed any further stimulation or example, even of so expert and charming a nature. In the dim light, men lay in the arms of their girls, who openly caressed them in front of others similarly engaged and too much preoccupied to pay heed. From all sides came cries of tension and excitement, with here and there a quick squeal of protest or half-hearted remonstra-tion. Otavis and her huntsman, their task complete, slipped down unnoticed from the window embrasure, picked up their clothes and stole away together.

As the sport intensified, Meris sprang suddenly to her feet.

"Baste it!" she cried, turning to Maia and speaking with such fury that Maia jumped, supposing for a moment that she must have done something wrong. "What are we sodding well supposed to be made of-cream cheese?"