Shardik (17 page)

For a few moments Sheldra did not answer and he thought, ‘She is going to ignore me.’ Then she replied, ‘Of those who came with
the
Tuginda, Melathys was the only priestess. The rest o£ us
are
novices or servants.’

‘But
Melathys
must have been at
most as young as any,’ said
Kelderek
.

‘
Melathys
was not an Orte
lgan. She was rescued from a slave-camp during the Beklan civil wars - the wars of the Heldril - and brought to the Ledges when she was a child. She learned many of
the
mysteries very early.’

‘Well?’ demanded
Kelderek
, as
the
girl said no more.

‘When
the
Tuginda knew that Lord Shardik had indeed returned and
that
we must remain here to tend and cure him, she sent for
the
priestesses Anth
red and Rantzay, together with the girls whom they are instructing. When Shardik recovers they will be needed for the Singing.’

She fell silent again, but then broke out suddenly, ‘Those who served Lord Shardik long ago had need of all their courage and resolution.’

‘I believe you,’ answered
Kelderek
, looking down to where
the
bear, like a crag beside the pool, still lay in drugged sleep. Yet in the same moment there rose in his heart an abandoned elation and the conviction that to none but
the
Tuginda herself had it been given to feel so intensely as he
the
fierce and mysterious divinity of Shardik. Shardik was more than life to him, a fire in which he was ready -nay, eager - to be consumed. And for that very reason Shardik would transform but not destroy him - this he knew. As though with foreboding, he trembled for an instant in
the
sultry air, turned, and made his way back to the camp.

That night the Tuginda talked with him again, walking slowly back and forth along the bank above the fall, where stood burning
that
same flat, gree
n-rush-shaded lantern that he had followed across
the
leaping tree-trunk in the dark. Rantzay, a head taller than himself, kept pace with them on
the
Tuginda’s other side, and as he saw her checking her long stride out of deference to
the
Tuginda and himself, he remembered with a certain wry amusement how he had groped and clambered after her
through
the
steep woods. They spoke of Shardik, and
the
gaunt, silent priestess listened attentively.

‘His wounds are clean,’ said
the
Tuginda. ‘The poison has almost left them. The drugs and medicines always work strongly on any creature, whether human or animal,
that
has never known them before. We can be almost certain now
that
he will recover. If you had found him only a few hours later, Kelderek, he would have been past our help.’

Kelderek
felt that now at last was the time to ask her
the
question
that had been flickering in his mind for the past three days, vanishing and reappearing like a firefly in a dark room.

^‘
What are we going to do, saiyett, when he recovers?’

‘I do not know any more than you. We must wait until we are shown.’

He blundered on. ‘But do you mean to take him to Quiso - to the Ledges?’

‘I
mean?’ For a moment she looked at him coldly, as she had looked at Bel-ka-Trazet; but then answered in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone, ‘You must understand, Kelderek, that it is not for us to make schemes and put them into practice upon Lord Shardik. It is true, as I told you, that sometimes, long ago, it was
the
Tuginda’s task to bring Shardik home to the Ledges. But those were days when we ruled in
Bekla
and all was ordered and sure. Now, at this moment, we know nothing, except that Lord Shardik has returned to his people. His message and his purpose we cannot yet discern. Our work is simply to wait, to be ready to perceive and to carry out God’s will, whatever it may be.’

They turned and began to walk back towards
the
fall.

‘But that does not mean that we
are
not to think shrewdly and act prud
ently
,’ she went on. ‘By the day after tomorrow the bear will no longer be drugged and will begin to recover its strength. You are a hunter. What do you think it will do then?’

Kelderek felt perplexed. His question had been returned to him without an answer. In spite of what he had heard her say to Bel-ka-
Trazet
, it had never occurred to him
that
the
Tuginda had not in her mind some plan for bringing Shardik to the Ledges. What had been puzzling him was how it was to be done, for even if the bear were to remain drugged the difficulties seemed formidable. Now he realized, with a shock, that she intended simply to stand by while this enormous wild animal regained its natural strength. If this was indeed - as she evid
ently
believed - the course of humility and faith in God, it was of a kind beyond his experience or understanding. For the first time his trust in her began to waver.

She read his thoughts. ‘We are not buying rope in the market,
Kelderek
. or selling skins to the factor. Nor are we labouring for the High Baron by digging a pit in the forest; or even choosing a wife. We are offering our lives to God and Lord Shardik and pledging ourselves humbly to accept whatever He may vouchsafe to give in return. I asked you - what is the bear likely to do?’

‘It i
s in a strange place that it doe
s not know, saiyett, and will be hungry after its illness. It will look for food and may well be savage.’

‘Will it wander?’

‘I have been thinking that so
on we shall all be forced to wander. We have little food left and I cannot hunt alone for so many.’

‘Since
we
can be sure that
the
High Baron would refuse to send us food from
Ortelga
, we must do
the
best we can. There
are
fish in
the
river and duck in the reeds, and
we
have nets and bows. Choose six of
the
girls and take them out to hunt with you. There may be
little
enough to share at first, but there will be more as they learn their business.’

‘It can be done for a time, saiyett -‘

‘
Kelderek
, are you impatient? Whom have you left in Ortelga?’ ‘No one, saiyett. My parents
are
dead and I am not married.’ ‘A girl?’

He shook his head, but she conti
nued to gaze at him gravely.

‘There are girls here. Commit no sacrilege, now of all times, for the least ill to follow would be our death.’

He broke out indign
antl
y, ‘Saiyett, how can you think -‘

She only looked steadily at him, holding his eyes as they paced on and turned about once more under the stars. And before his inward sight rose the figure of Melathys on the terrace;
Melathys
, dark-haired, white-robed,
with
the golden collar covering her neck and shoulders; Melathys laughing as she played with the arrow and the sword; trembling and sweating with fear on the edge of
the
pit. Where was she now? What had become of her? His protest faltered and ceased.

Next day began a life which he was often to recall in after years; a life as clear, as simple and immediate as rain. If he had ever doubted the Tuginda or wondered what was to come of her humility and faith, he had no time to remember it. At first
the
girls were so awkward and stupid that he was in despair and more
than
once on the point of telling the Tuginda that the task was beyond him. On the first day, while they were driving a ke
dana towards open ground, Zilthe
, a mere child and the youngest of his huntresses, whom he had picked for her quickness and energy, mistook his movement in a thicket for that of the quarry and loosed an arrow that passed between his arm and body. They killed so
little
all day
that
he felt compelled to spend
the
night fishing. In the starlit shallows they netted a great
bramba,
spine-finne
d and luminous as an opal. He was about to spear it when the ill-fixed anchor-stake carried away and the fish, plunging heavily, took half the net down
with
it into
the
deep water. Nito bit her lip and said nothing.

By the second evening
the
whole camp was hungry and
the
thin, ragged bear was kept half-drugged and fed with scraps of fish and ill-spared flour-cakes baked in the ashes.

But necessity brings out a desperate skill in the clumsiest. Several of the girls were at least passable shots and on the third day they were lucky enough to kill five or six geese. They feasted that night by the fire, telling old stories of Bekla long ago, of the
hero Deparioth, liberator of Ye
lda and founder of Sarkid, a
nd of Fleit
il, immortal craftsman of
the
T
amarrik Gate; and singing togeth
er in strange harmonies unknown to Kelderek, who listened
with
a kind of tremulous uncase as
their voices followed each othe
r round and down, like the fall of
the
Ledges themselves between the woods of Quiso.

Soon,
indeed, he had forgotten everyth
ing but
the
life of the moment -
the
wet grass of early morning, when he stood to pray with hands raised towards the distant river;
the
smell of the trepsis as they searched beneath its leaves for the little gourds that had ripened since
the
day before;
the
green light and heat of the forest and the tense glances between
the
girls as they waited in ambush with arrows on the string;
the
scent of jasmine at evening and the
chun
k
chunk
,
regular as a mill-wheel, of the paddles as they made
their
way upstream to net some likely pool. After the first few days
the
girls learned quickly and he was able to send them out by twos and threes, some to fish, some to follow a trail in the forest or hide in the reeds for wildfowl. He was kept busy making arrows - for
they
lost far too many - until he had taught Muni to make them better than he could himself. Ortelga he put from his mind, and his fear of Bel-ka-Trazet’s revenge. At first he dreamed vividly of the Baron, who rose out of the ground with a face of broken stones and beckoned him to follow into
the
forest, where the bear was waiting; or walked upon the shore and threw back his cowl to reveal a face of flickering heat, half-consumed, red and grey as the glowing surface of a log flaking in
the
fire. But soon his dreams changed, turning to vaporous, elusive impressions of stars and flowers reflected in dark water, or of clouds drifting over ruined walls far off upon an empty plain; or he would seem to hear the Tuginda speaking sorrowfully, accusing him, in words that he could never recall, of some ill deed as yet unperformed. It was not
that
he had ceased either to fear for his life or to believe that the future held danger. He had simply put these things aside, living, like
the
other creatures of forest and river, from hour to hour, his senses full of sounds and smells, his mind concerned only with his craft. Often he snatched sleep as a beast snatches it, by night or day wherever he found himself: and would be roused by a grave, breathless girl, with news of a flight of duck off-shore or a band of monkeys approaching through the trees a mile away. All quarry brought in was accepted without question; and often, when

Ne
elith gave him his share out of the iron pot hanging over the fire, he could not imagine what meat it might be, only feeling glad that some of the girls had evid
ently
been successful without his help.