Then she had won a standing ovation, awards, fame.
Now she could only win a cube.
The music caught her as she accepted it, yielding to it, letting her body become an extension of the beat, the rhythm. The ripple of muscle, the turn, the gesture, the sway of the hips all minor at first, all gentle, all helping to build the atmosphere and yet all hypnotic in their fascination.
Watching her Dumarest narrowed his eyes. Her face was different from that of Ursula and he glanced from one to the other, comparing, noting. The eyes half closed, the same but one held dreaming intent while the other had a detached glaze. And, too, Ursula's movements held a trace of deliberation as if she were listening to an instructor. A slight hesitation totally absent from Sardia's undulating grace.
Both interpretations of the music were basically the same-the rhythm left little choice. The beat was primeval and the dance was the same. Crudely done it would have been nothing more than a stylized depiction of sexual invitation; done as it was being done now it held connotations and subtleties which added layers of extra dimension to the elemental theme.
And Sardia was going to win.
There could be no doubt of it. Dumarest could see it, feel it, hear it as others shouted their approbation. It rose above the music now strident, dominating, driving the dancers as if it were whips. Thongs which lashed and sent yielding flesh into gliding postures, femininity exposed, displayed, flashes of curved limbs, hips which held the attention, gyrating, demanding, heating in wanton promise.
Ursula was accomplished but Sardia was transformed. A woman who had become a flame, dominating, destroying. One suddenly hurtful and cruel.
She had won, the yells had told her that, but still she continued to dance and each step, each movement, diminished Ursula's pretensions to ability. And still she continued, demeaning the other, belittling her, making her, by contrast, seem clumsy and totally inadequate.
"Enough!" Dumarest rose to his feet. "Captain, kill that music!"
The cube fell silent beneath Tuvey's hand as Dumarest strode through the wreathing vapor. Ursula ran past him, her face like ice, hard, cold, ugly, the tears in her eyes like glimmering pearls. Sardia turned toward him as he gripped her arm,
"Earl!"
"You bitch!"
"Why? because I did my best?"
"Because you didn't do enough." He stared at her, meeting her eyes, seeing in them a familiar expression. One mirrored on her face and which he had seen often when, after reaching th? climax of love, she had relaxed in his arms. "With your training you were certain to win-you knew that. So why the hell didn't you use a little charity?"
"Charity?" She almost spat the word. "That is for monks and fools! I can't afford to be charitable. Can you?"
"I try."
"You try?" Her laughter was shrill. "Were you trying when you cut Yhma's throat? Was that your charity? No, Earl, when I fight I fight like you. I fight to win."
And, winning, looked lovelier than ever before. He felt her attraction, his response to the sensual warmth of her flesh, the invitation of her body. She was his if he wanted her, he knew that. His for now and forever.
But Ursula knew of Earth.
She had run like a hurt and wounded animal and as such would have sought darkness and a place in which to hide. Dumarest passed through the door she had taken, saw a wide passage pierced with windows, a door which opened on darkness. It led to a small garden now brilliant with starlight, leaves catching the light from the windows which added a ghostly luminescence to the pale silver from the sky. Dropping to a knee he studied the grass and saw faint traces crossing the sward to where a clump of bushes cast a deeper gloom. Thin branches pressed against him and his nostrils were filled with the sickly odor of nocturnal blooms as he stepped into the clump. Three steps and he turned; dressed as she had been, Ursula would not have taken the path he was following. Back on the sward he dropped again, frowning at the traces he now spotted.
The marks of footsteps but more than one. Some light and another much heavier. A trampled place and then a wider swath leading toward the edge of the terrace. He moved forward, fingers questing, searching for torn grass and ripped loam but finding only smoothness. No struggle, then, just a meeting and a departure. Rising he saw a scrap of something hanging from a twig.
It was fabric, fine, blue, a part of the gown Ursula had worn and probably torn free when she thrust her way past the bush. Dumarest followed and found himself on a narrow, winding path. Pale, silver starlight made an elaborate chiaroscuro as if filtered through leaved branches. Something moved in the shadows and his hand dipped to rise loaded with the weight of his knife.
"Ursula?"
Nothing and Dumarest moved silently to one side. If an enemy were lurking in the darkness he had given him advantage enough. Now he edged forward, sliding from patch to patch of shadow, left hand extended, the knife in his right poised to strike.
Something moved before him, a blur which became solid as he lunged forward, a shape which held substance and which struggled against the grip of his left hand. It took form as he dragged it into the starlight, silver gleams reflecting from the edged and pointed steel he aimed at the face.
"No! Please, no!"
A woman and one he had seen before. In the starlight he examined the square-cut face.
"Your name?" The knife moved closer as she made no answer.
"Pellia," she said quickly. "Please! The knife!" Dumarest lowered it from where it had rested against her cheek, a spot of blood mute testimony to the sharpness of the point. A wound which would heal without trace but the threat of marring her beauty had been enough.
"I've seen you before. When the ship landed you were watching from beneath some trees. During the time of bidding. Why? What did you hope to see?"
"The bidding!" Her tone held contempt. "Why must you indulge their whims?"
"The Choud?" Dumarest eased his grip on the cropped hair. It was silken beneath his fingers, as soft as her voice, as the body he had touched beneath the blouse. A woman's softness overlaying firm muscle and well-constructed bone. As a child this one had never starved. "Why do you serve them? You do serve them, don't you?"
"I am one of the Ohrm, yes."
"And you serve?"
This time she made no answer but he needed no words. A servant, one who had learned to move quietly in the shadows and to watch and listen and learn-how little those who ruled realized how much they betrayed. And yet between her and those others he had seen in the house lay the difference between a pygmy and a giant. Were there others of as great a difference elsewhere?
She remained silent when he asked then shuddered as he lifted the knife.
"You would cut me? A woman!"
"I want answers. I'm looking for the mistress of the house. Ursula. Have you seen her?"
"No."
"People gathered on the lawn-yours?"
"A few. They come to watch but they did no harm. That I swear."
The truth or partly so, certainly they had done no harm to the sward and, had Ursula been attacked, she would have screamed or left traces he would have found. As it was he had only the fragment of cloth. Had she turned and gone the other way?
"Why are you watching?"
Again the silence, maintained even when he rested the knife against her cheek. For a long moment she stood rigid as the steel touched her flesh then, as it lowered, she released her breath in a gusting sigh.
"You didn't cut me."
"No, why should I?" Dumarest slid the blade back into his boot. "I'm just a visitor here and what lies between you and the Choud is your business. But take some advice, girl. When someone who threatens you asks a question give him an answer. It needn't be a true one as long as it satisfies." Then, without change of tone, he added, "Just why were you standing on the path?"
"Belain told me to. He-" She broke off, one hand lifting to her mouth. "You tricked me!"