Maia (novel)

Maia is a fantasy novel by Richard Adams, published in 1984. Although not marketed as a romance novel, it also fits into that genre.

Plot introduction

Maia is set in the Beklan Empire, the same fantasy world as Adams's 1974 novel Shardik. Although published ten years after Shardik, Maia is a loose prequel whose events take place about a dozen years earlier. A few characters appear in both books.

Maia is a beautiful teenage peasant girl who is sold into slavery. Amidst colorful, boldly drawn characters, she is drawn (sometimes unwillingly or even unknowingly) into many adventures and machinations: ritual dances, flooding rivers, espionage, politics, and war. Some scenes, particularly during Maia's enslavement, include moderately explicit sexual and sado-masochistic elements. Nevertheless, she survives the decadence and danger with an impulsive, innocent sense of courage and action. Maia ends with the sort of quotidian, pastoral, familial scene (in Maia's memory and expectation of returning home) which commonly rewards the positive characters in Adams's works.

The morality of slavery is discussed among the characters throughout the book, and a civil war is fought in part to restrict the actions of slavers and limit the number of slaves in the Beklan Empire. Similar to the invention and use of the Lapine language among the rabbits of Watership Down, Adams employs some "Beklan" vocabulary to create a localized sense of honorifics and natural objects, as well as to avoid sexual vulgarity in English.

Plot summary

Part 1: The Peasant

Maia, at 15, lives in the province of Tonilda with her mother Morca, her three younger sisters, and her stepfather Tharrin. Their small, poor farm is on the edge of Lake Serrelind and Maia tends to shirk her chores by going swimming all day. Although Morca is already pregnant with Tharrin's child, he secretly seduces Maia as well.

When Morca discovers the affair, she is doubly embittered and sells Maia to agents of the slave-dealer Lalloc. Maia is almost raped by Genshed, one of Lalloc's employees (and a villain in Shardik, where Lalloc also briefly appears) but is saved just in time by Occula, a black slave girl. Maia and Occula become very good friends and even lovers. To avoid debasement by being bundled in with a larger detachment of more ordinary slaves, Occula enlists Maia in frightening their captors with apparent supernatural powers. The two girls are sent ahead to Bekla with Zuno, a cool-headed dandy also in Lalloc's employ.

Occula relates her own past: in her childhood, she came from a far land beyond the desert in the company of her father, a jewel-merchant specializing in emeralds. When they reached the city of Bekla, they were unaware of the imminent political coup and were received by Fornis, a noblewoman whom the coup would elevate to the priestess-like status of "Sacred Queen", the earthly avatar of the goddess Airtha. Occula's father was betrayed and murdered, and his emeralds were incorporated into the Sacred Queen's crown. Occula should have been killed as well, but the household steward saw a chance to profit by selling the girl as a slave; since then, she had been employed in prostitution at an exclusive Tonildan brothel.

Adams outlines Bekla's past and present political situation in several chapters of direct narration to the reader, bypassing Maia. The ruling faction led by Queen Fornis, the Lord General Kembri, and the High Counsellor Sencho had come to power by ceding Suba, an eastern province, over to the neighboring kingdom of Terekenalt. The capital's finances are now heavily based on the taxation of the legalized slave industry, including purpose-bred slave farms as well as the individual enslavements of freeborn people like Maia and Occula. The Beklan army's central authority has largely withdrawn from the provinces unless expressly paid to come enforce the law. Rebellion and chaos have sprung up around the empire.

Part 2: The Slave-Girl

High Counsellor Sencho is the spymaster of the Beklan Empire, at the center of a vast web of agents and informants. He buys Maia and Occula as his "bed-slaves". The two girls are trained and supervised by Terebinthia, the woman in charge of Sencho's household, who occasionally allows them to be loaned to other rich and powerful men in exchange for courtesy payments. Lord General Kembri secretly enlists her and Occula as counteragents on his own behalf, and specifically charges Maia with gaining the trust of Bayub-Otal, the dispossessed heir to Suba and a potential ally of the rebels. Bayub-Otal is also known by the matronymic "Anda-Nokomis"; his mother had been a legendary dancer whose own nickname, "Nokomis", had meant "dragonfly". His father, however, had been the married baron of a neighboring province, and his wife had arranged Nokomis' death when Bayub-Otal was still a boy.

Beautiful, young, and fun-loving, Maia shows promise of going far, and even finds some professional satisfaction in serving Sencho's decadent pleasures. But when Sencho becomes drastically ill, Occula's intense caretaking causes him to depend almost solely on the black girl. During a garden party, Occula lures him into a boat which she rows away from the festivities; meanwhile, Maia goes swimming in the nude and meets the cruel but beautiful Queen Fornis, who takes an interest in her beauty and reputation. Out of sight from everyone else, Occula signals her rebel confederates to stab Sencho to death. As they flee, she also stabs herself to avert suspicion once the guards arrive.

Maia and Occula are imprisoned in the Great Temple, under suspicion of colluding at Sencho's murder. Kembri plans to take custody of Maia to resume her service as his agent, but for no apparent reason, Queen Fornis herself takes Maia from the temple priests. However, Maia then fails Fornis' expectations of sufficient depravity learned from Sencho. Having no further use for the girl, Fornis gives her back to Kembri, but Maia seizes on this chance to interest the queen in Occula and thus save her friend's life.

Kembri sends Maia to Bayub-Otal with a cover story of having escaped from the temple. Believing her, Bayub-Otal takes her with him as he flees from Bekla and goes into hiding, gradually making his way back to Suba. As they travel, Maia learns that one reason for Bayub-Otal's extraordinary yet standoffish respect for her is that she looks (and dances) very much like his dead mother, Nokomis, who is still remembered and revered throughout the province. Bayub-Otal also hopes to use the resemblance to rally Suban patriotism on behalf of an alliance with Terekenalt, which has offered him the rulership of an independent Suba in exchange for aiding the invasion of Bekla.

Maia meets and falls passionately in love with a young officer named Zen-Kurel, who is a trusted officer of the king of Terekenalt. Zen-Kurel accepts her invitation to come to bed with her, but has to leave quickly because a surprise attack has been unexpectedly scheduled for that very night. The River Valderra, the boundary between the two countries, is thought to be uncrossable because of its swift currents and rocky rapids, but the Terekenalters have a plan to ford it with heavy ropes and strong men, ambushing and destroying the detachment of Tonildan soldiers guarding the other side.

In hopes of saving her fellow Tonildans' lives as well as her lover's, Maia performs the nigh-impossible feat of swimming the treacherous River Valderra by herself, gravely wounding herself to warn the Beklan commander and thwart the Terekenalter/Suban invasion.

Part 3: The Serrelinda

Maia returns to Bekla, freed and celebrated the luck of the city, a great heroine so loved that the soldiers vote her a house, money and property. She gains an informal title as the "Serrelinda" after Lake Serrelind whose shores she'd been born on, and lives by herself without taking lovers, hoping to be reunited with Zen-Kurel.

Her popularity and single status bring her under threat from Fornis, who is resisting pressure to retire as Sacred Queen; since the position is filled by popular acclaim, Maia is an obvious rival despite not wanting the crown herself.

At the height of her popularity, Maia sees her stepfather, Tharrin, dragged into Bekla for being an informant for a rebel faction. He is condemned to be sacrificed by the Queen herself at the temple. Maia does her best to free him, but Fornis foils her plan and causes his death. However, during Tharrin's last conversation with Maia, he reveals to her that Morca had not been her real mother. A strange girl had fled to Morca's cottage, heavily pregnant and in fear of soldiers whom a baroness had sent to kill her husband and family; in short, Maia's mother was Nokomis' younger sister.

In bitter grief, Maia makes a desperate attempt to kill Fornis in revenge, but is thwarted by Occula, who had indeed been inducted into the queen's household. Occula intends to take her own revenge on Fornis when the time is right; meanwhile she is performing the sort of sado-masochistic services of which Maia had been incapable and which show dangerous and deranged Fornis can be.

As civil war breaks out in the city itself, Maia learns that Anda-Nokomis and Zen-Kurel have also been brought to Bekla as prisoners. In flight from Fornis' murderous fury, Maia frees the two men and flees with them away from Bekla, never to see it again.

Part 4: The Suban

The three plan to return to Suba or Terekenalt-- despite the former prisoners' anger at Maia for betraying them at the Valderra, which she had idealistically considered an attempt to save them.

Maia and her companions travel for a time with rebel freebooters (led by Elleroth, a major character in Shardik). After an arduous boat escape from the Beklan Empire to Zenka's country, Anda-Nokomis is killed and Maia receives a marriage proposal from the man whom she loves most.

Two years later, Maia (with her little son) visits the capital of her new country and by chance meets Occula. Occula reveals that she has killed Fornis and that everyone believes that the Serrelinda, the luck of the city, is also dead.

The story ends with Maia refusing Occula's plea to come back to Bekla.

Characters in "Maia"

Those marked with an asterisk also appear in Shardik.Anda-Nokomis ('The Dragonfly's Son): See Bayub-Otal Ashaktis: A Palteshi woman, attendant upon FornisBayub-Otal (otherwise known as 'Anda-Nokomis'): The dispossessed Ban of Suba; natural son of Nokomis by the High Baron of Urtah; Eud-Ecachlon's half-brother; Maia's cousin (though initially neither knows it)Elleroth*: Son and heir of the Ban of Sarkid; commander of a force of irregulars fighting for Santil-ké-Erketlis Elvair-va-Virrion: Son of Kembri-B'sai, Lord General of Bekla Enka-Mordet: A baron in Chalcon; father of Milvushina Eud-Ecachlon: Son and heir of the High Baron of Urtah; half-brother to Bayub-Otal Fornis: Daughter of Kephialtar-ka-Voro, High Baron of Paltesh; Sacred Queen of Airtha in Bekla; kills Zai and Tharrin; is determined to remain Sacred Queen for as long as possible Genshed*: A slave-trader employed by Lalloc; tries to rape Maia.Karnat: King of Terekenalt Kembri-B'sai: Lord General of Bekla: father of Elvair-va-VirrionLalloc*: A Deelguy slave-dealer in Bekla; sells Maia and Occula to Sencho; fires GenshedMaia: A Tonildan girl; later becomes known as 'Serrelinda'; is really half-SubanMelathys*: A child rescued from the Orthid slave farms (minor character, noted because of her appearance in Shardik)Meris: A Belishban, concubine of Sencho; assassinates Sencho; later killed accidentally Milvushina: A Chalcon girl, daughter of Enka-Mordet; a girl of noble blood enslaved by Sencho; dies in childbirth Morca: Tharrin's wife; Maia's foster mother; hates Maia Nasada: A Suban doctor; befriends Maia and helps her through her first pregnancy Nennaunir: A Beklan courtesan or 'shearna' Nokomis ('The Dragonfly'; originally named Astara): A Suban dancing-girl, mother of Bayub-Otal by the High Baron of Urtah; dead before the story starts; Maia's aunt (unbeknownst to Maia) Occula: A black girl from a distant country; befriends Maia and becomes her lover for a time; helps kill Sencho and eventually Fornis (who had killed Occula's father)Randronoth: Governor of Lapan; infatuated with Maia; killed by Fornis Sednil: A young Palteshi; a convict during part of the book; lover of Nennaunir; locates Bayub-Otal and Zen-Kurel for MaiaSencho-bé-L'vandor: High Counsellor of Bekla; the Leopards' Chief of IntelligenceTa-Kominion*: A young Ortelgan nobleman and Beklan army officer; changes to Elleroth's sideTerebinthia: Housekeeper (or 'säiyett') to SenchoTharrin: Maia's stepfather; is in love and sleeps with Maia; is later imprisoned and killed by Fornis 'Zai' (Occula's name for her father, actually named Baru): A jewel-merchant; was killed by Fornis Zen-Kurel: A Katrian staff officer of King Karnat; Maia falls in love with him; they later marry and have children Zuno: A young man in Lalloc's, later in Fornis' employ

The Gods

Many of Beklan gods are associated with different provinces of the empire. The pantheon includes Lespa of the Stars, Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable (Bekla City), Shardik the Bear (Ortelga), Shakkarn the Goat, Canathron the Winged Serpent (Lapan), Cran (a fertility/harvest god), and Airtha of the Diadem (a sky-goddess and Cran's consort). Kantza-Merada is a goddess of Occula's homeland, Silver Tedzhek.

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