Shardik (14 page)

Bel-ka-Trazet paused as though deliberating with himself. Then, with the air of one resolved, he looked up and said, ‘Saiyett, let us understand one another, you and I. You
are
the Tuginda and I am the High Baron of Ortelga — until someone kills me. The people consent to obey us because they believe that each of us, by one means or another, can keep
them
safe. Old tale
s, old dreams - people can be ruled and led by these, as long as they believe in them and in those who draw from them power and mystery. Your women walk on fire, take away men’s names out of their minds, plunge knives into their arms and take no hurt. That is good, for the people fear and obey.

But of what help to us is this business of the bear, and what use do you mean to make of! it?’

‘I don’t know,’ answered the Tuginda, ‘and this is no time to be discussing such things. At all costs we have to act quickly.’

‘Neveth
eless, hear me, saiyett, for you will need my help and I have learned from long experience what is most likely to follow from this deed and that. We have found a large bear - possibly the largest bear that has ever lived. Certainly I would not have believed
that
there
could be such a bear - that I grant you. But if you heal it, what will follow? If you remain near it, it will kill you and your women and then become a terror to the whole of Ortelga, until men
are
forced to hunt and destroy it at the risk of
their
lives. Even supposing that it does not kill you, at the best it will leave the island and then you, having tried to make use of it and failed, will lose influence over the people. Believe me, saiyett, you have nothing to gain. As a memory and a legend, Shardik has power and that power is ours, but to try to make the people believe that he has returned can end in nothing but harm. Be advised by me and go back, now, to your island.’

The Tuginda waited in silence until he had finished speaking. Then, beckoning to the priestess, she said,

‘Melathys, go at once to the camp and tell the girls to bring here everything we are going to need. It will be best if they paddle the canoes round the shore and land down there.’ She pointed across the pit to the distant, northern shore at the foot of the long slope.

The priestess hurried away without a word and the Tuginda turned back to the hunter.

‘Now,
Kelderek
,’ she said, ‘you must tell me. Is Lord Shardik too sick to cat?’

‘I am sure of that, sa
iyett. But he will drink, and he might perhaps drink blood, or even take food which has been chewed small, as they sometimes do for babies.’

‘If he will, so much the better. There is a medicine which he needs, but it is a herb and must not be weakened by being mixed with water.’

‘I will go at once, saiyett, and kill some game: I only wish I had my own bow.’ ‘Was it taken from yo
u at the Upper Temple?’ ‘No, sa
iyett.’ He explained.

‘We can see to that,’ she said. ‘I shall need to send to Ortelga on several matters. But go now and do the best you can.’

He turned away, half-expecting Bel-ka-Trazet to call him back. But the Baron remained silent and Kelderek, walking round the pit,
made his way to
the
brook and at last drank his fill before setting out.

His hunting lasted several hours,
partly
because, remembering the leopard, he moved through-the woods very cautiously, but mainly because the game was shy and he himself nervous and disturbed. He had trouble with the bow and more
than
once missed an easy mark. It was late in the afternoon before he returned with two brace of duck and a paca - a poor bag by his usual standards, but one for which he had worked hard.

The girls had lit a fire down-wind of the pit. Three or four were bringing in wood, while others were making shelters from branches bound
with
creeper.
Melathys
, seated by the fire with a pes
tl
e and mortar, was pounding some aromatic h
erb. He gave the duck to Neelith
, who was baking on a hot stone, and laid
the
paca aside to draw and skin himself. But first he went across to
the
pit.

The bear was still lying among the scarlet trepsis, but already it looked less foul and wretched. Its great wounds had been dressed with some kind of yellow ointment. One girl was keeping the
flies
from its eyes and ears with a
fan of fern-fronds, while anoth
er, with a jar of the ointment, was working along its back and as much as she could reach of the flank on which it was lying. Two others had brought sand to cover patches of soiled ground which they had already cleaned and hoed with pointed sticks. The Tuginda was holding a soaked cloth to the bear’s mouth, as he himself had done, but was dipping it not in the pool but in a water-jar at her feet. The unhurried bearing of the girls contrasted strangely
with
the gashed and monstrous body of the terrible creature
they
were tending. Kelderek watched them pause in their work, waiting as the bear stirred restlessly. Its
mouth
gaped open and one hind leg kicked weakly before coming to rest once more among the trepsis. Recalling what
the
Baron had said, Kelderek thought for the first time, ‘If we do succeed in healing it, what, indeed, will happen then?’

11
Bel-ka-Traze
t’s Story

Waking suddenly, Kelderek was aware first of the expanse of stars and then of a black, shaggy shape against the sky. A man was standing over him. He raised himself quickly on one arm.

‘At last!’
said Bel-ka-Trazet, thrusti
ng his foot once more into his ribs. ‘Well, before long you will be sleeping sounder, I dare say.’

Kelderek clambered to his feet. ‘My lord?’ He now caught sight of one of the girls standing, bow in hand, a
little
behind
the
Baron.

‘You took the first watch, Kelderek,’ said Bel-ka-
Trazet
. ‘Who took
the
second ?’

‘The priestess
Melathys
, my lord. I woke her, as I was told.’

‘How did she strike you? What did she say?’

‘Nothing, my lord; that is, nothing that I remember. She seemed - as she seemed yesterday; I think she may be afraid.’

Bel
-ka-
Trazet
nodded. ‘It is past the thi
rd watch.’

Again
Kelderek
l
ooked up at the stars. ‘So I see
, my lord.’

‘This girl here woke of her own accord and went to take her watch, but found no one else awake except the two girls with the bear. The girl who was supposed to have the watch before her had not been woken and the priestess is nowhere to be found.’

Kelderek scratched an insect-bite on his arm and said nothing.

‘Well?’ snarled the Baron. ‘Am I to stand here and watch you scratch yourself like a mangy ape?’

‘Perhaps we should go down to the river, my lord?’

‘I had thought as much myself,’ replied the Baron. He turned to the girl. ‘Where did you leave
the
canoes yesterday afternoon?’

‘When we had unloaded them, my lord, we pulled them out of the water and laid them up among some trees near by.’

‘You need not wake your mistress,” said
Bel
-ka-Trazet. ‘Take your watch now and be ready for us to return.’

‘Should we not be armed, my lord?’ asked Kelderek. ‘Shall I get a bow?’

‘This will do,’ replied the Baron, plucking
the
girl’s knife from her belt and striding away into the starlight.

It was easy going to the river, following the course of the brook over the dry, open grass. Bel-ka-Trazet walked with the help of a long thumb-stick which Kelderek remembered to have seen him trimming the evening before. Soon they could hear
the
night-breeze hissing faintl
y in the reeds. The Baron paused, gazing about him. Near the water
the
grass grew long and the girls, in dragging
the
canoes, had trampled a path through it. This
Bel
-ka-
Trazet
and Kelderek followed from the shore to the trees. They found only three canoes, each stowed carefully and covered by the low branches. Near
them
, a single furrow ran back towards the river.
Kelderek
crouched down over it. The torn earth and crushed grass smelt fresh and some of the weeds were still slowly moving as they re-erected their flattened leaves.

Bel-ka-
Trazet
, leaning on his stick like a goat-herd, stood looking out over the river. There was a smell of ashes on the breeze but nothing to be seen.

‘That girl had some sense,’ he said at length. ‘No bear for her.’

Kelderek
, who had been hoping against hope that he might be proved wrong, felt a dreary disappointment; an anguish like that of a man who, having been robbed, reflects how easily all might have been prevented; and a sense of personal betrayal by one whom he had admired and honoured, which he knew better than to try to express to the Baron. Why could Melathys not have asked him to help her? She had turned out, he thought sorrowfully, like some beautiful, ceremonial weapon, all fine inlay and jewels, which proved to have neither balance nor cut.

‘But where has she gone, my lord? Back to Quiso?’

‘No, nor to Ortelga, for she knows
they
would kill her. We’ll never see her again. She’ll end in Zeray. A pity, for she could have done more than I to persuade the girls to go home. As it is, we’ve simply lost a canoe; and one or two
other
things as well, I dare say.’

They began to make their way back beside the brook. The Baron walked slowly, jabbing with his stick at the turf, like one turning something over in his mind. After a time he said, ‘Kelderek, you were watching me when I first looked down into
the
pit yesterday. No doubt you saw that I was afraid.’

Kelderek thought, ‘Does he mean to kill me?’ ‘When
I
first saw the bear, my lord,’ he answered, ‘I threw myself on the ground for fear. I -‘

Bel-ka-Trazet raised a hand to silence him.

‘I
was
afraid, and I am afraid now. Yes, afraid for myself - to be dead may be nothing, yet who relishes
the
business of dying? -but afraid for the people also, for there will be many fools like you; and women, too, perhaps, as foolish as those up
there
,’ and he swung the point of his stick towards the camp.

After a
little
, ‘Do you know how I came by my pretty looks?’ he asked suddenly. And then, as Kelderek said nothing, ‘Well, do you know or not?’

‘Your disfigurement, my lord? No - h
ow should I know?’ ‘How should I
know what tales are told in the pot-houses of Ortelga?*

‘I’m something of a stranger to those, my lord, as you know, and if there is a tale, I never heard it.’

‘You shall hear it now. Long ago, while I was still
little
more
than
a lad, I used to go out with the Ortelgan hunters - now with one and now with another, for my father w
as powerful and could require
it of them. He wanted me to learn both what hunting teaches lads and what hunters can teach them; and I was ready enough to learn on my own account. I travelled far from Ortelga. I have crossed the mountains of Gelt and hunted the long-horned buck on
the
plains south-west of Kabin. And I have crossed to Deelguy and stood two hours up to my neck in the lake of Klamsid to net the golden cranes at dawn.’

T
hey had reached the lower end of
a pool into which the brook came down in a little fall something higher than a man. On either side extended a steep bank, and beside the pool a
melik
on
stretched its trim, crisp-leaved branches over the water. This is the tree that
the
peasants call ‘False Lasses’. The bright, pretty berries
that
follow the flowers are unfit to eat and of no use, but towards summer’s end
their
colour turns to a glinting, powdery gold and they fall of their own accord in the stillest of air.
Bel
-ka-
Trazet
stooped, drank from his hands and then sat down with his back against the bank and the long stick upright between his raised knees. Kelderek sat uneasily beside him. Afterwards, he remembered the harsh voice,
the
slow turning of
the
stars,
the
sound of the water and now and again
the
light plop as a berry fell into the pool.