Shardik (48 page)

‘Shardik!’ he cried, and tried to stand, but stumbled back on the bed. ‘Is he alive? Will he live?’

‘Like master, like man,’ replied
Zelda
with a smile. ‘Shardik is alive, but it’s a deep wound and he needs rest and care.’

‘How long have I been asleep?’

‘This is the second day since you were hurt.’

‘We gave you a drug, my lord,’ said
Sheldra
. ‘The knife-blade broke off short in your thigh, but that we were able to take out.’

‘Zilthe? What of Zilthe
’

‘She is alive, but her brain is damaged. She tries to speak, but can find no words. It will be long, or never, before she can serve Lord Shardik again.’

Kelderek put his head in his hands, thinking with anguish of
the
quicksilver lass who had once mistaken him for the quarry and shot an arrow between his arm and body; she who, standing alone in the waning moonlight, had seen Lord Shardik strike down the treacherous messenger on the road to Gelt.

‘Kelderek,’ said Zelda, interrupting his thoughts, ‘no doubt you need to rest; but nevertheless you must listen to me, for time is very short and I have to be gone. There are things to be done, but the ordering of them I must leave in your care. That should do well enough, for the whole city desires only to serve and obey you. They know that it was you alone who saved Lord Shardik’s life from those villains.’

Kelderek raised his head and looked at him in silence.

‘Yesterday, at dawn,’ went on Zelda, ‘a messenger reached Bekla from the army in Lapan. His news was that Santil-ke-
Erketlis
, after sending a force to distract our attention with a pretended attack west of Ikat, had himself passed us on the east flank and was marching north through Tonilda.’

‘What does he intend?’

‘That we don’t know - he may not have any preconceived aim, apart from seeking support in the eastern provinces. But he will probably form an aim in the light of whatever support he gets. We’ve got to follow and try to contain him, that’s certain. A general Like
Erketlis
wouldn’t begin a march unless he felt sure he could make something of it. Ged-la-Dan left yesterday morning. I’ve stayed to see to the raising of three more companies and some extra supplies - the city governor will tell you the details. I’m off now, with every man I’ve been able to impress: they’re waiting for me in the Caravan Market; and a cheap lot they are, I’m afraid.’

‘Where are you making for?’

‘Thettit-Tonilda. Our army’s coming north after
Erketlis
, so somewhere between here and Thettit I’m bound to strike their line of march. The trouble is that Erk
e
tlis achieved so much surprise -he must be nearly two days ahead of them.’

‘I wish I could come with you.’

‘I wish it too. Would to God Lord Shardik could join us for a new
battle
!
I can see it all — darkness falling and
Erketlis
struck down with one blow
of h
is paw. Heal him, Kelderek; restore him, for all our sakes! I’ll see you get news — every day, if possible.’ -

‘But one thing more I must learn
at once. What happened two
nights ago? It was Mollo of Kabin, wasn’t it, who wounded Lord Shardik? But who fired the roof of the hall; and why?’

‘I’ll tell you,’ answered Zelda, ‘and fools we were not to foresee it. It was Elleroth, Ban of Sarkid; he who passed us when we were walking that day above the Barb. If you’d not acted as you did in leaping from the pool, Lord Shardik would have died at the hands of that precious pair. The roof would have fallen in on him and on Zilthe, and both the traitors would have escaped.’

‘But Elleroth - is he dead too?’

‘No. He was taken alive as he came down from the roof.
It will be your task to see
him executed.’ ‘To see him executed? I?’

‘Who else? You are the king, and the priest of Shardik.’

‘I have
little
relish for it, even when I think what he tried to do. To kill in battle is one thing; an execution is another.’

‘Come,
Kelderek
Play-with-the-Children, we can’t afford to have you turn squeamish. The man’s murdered an
Ortelga
n sentry and attempted a sacrilegious crime, wicked beyond belief. Obviously he must be executed before you and in the presence of every baron and provincial delegate in Bekla. Indeed, you will have to require the attendance of all Ortelgans of any rank or standing whatever -there
are
so few left in the city and the
Ortelga
ns ought to outnumber the provincial delegates by at least three to one.’

Kelderek
was silent, looking down and picking at the blanket. At length, ashamed of
his weakness, he asked hesitantl
y, ‘Must - must he be tortured? Burned?*

Zelda turned towards the window overlooking the Barb and stood gazing out across
the
water. After a little he said, ‘This is not a question either of indulging mercy or of gratifying revenge, but simply of achieving an effect for political reasons. People have got to see the man
di
e
and to be convinced, by what is done, that we are right and he is wrong. Now if a man — a bandit, say — is to be executed to impress the poor and ignorant and deter them from law-breaking, it is best if he dies a cruel death, for such people have no imagination and lead hard, rough lives themselves. A quick death seems
little
hardship to them. It is necessary that the man should be humiliated and deprived of his dignity before their mean minds can take in the lesson. But with men of the better sort, it’s another mat
ter. If we torture a man like Elle
roth of Sarkid, his courage is likely to excite admiration and pity and many of the delegates, who
are
men of rank, may even end by feeling contempt for us. We would do better to aim at arousing respect for our mercy. Although it is only just that he should
the
, it is with regret that
we
kill such a man - that is what
we
must give out. It is your affair,
Kelderek
,
but
since you ask me, I would advise you to have him beheaded with a sword. It will be enough, with a man of Elleroth’s standing, that we put him to death at all.’

‘Very well. He shall be executed in the hall, in the presence of Lord Shardik.’

‘I should have told you. The fire did much harm before we could quench it.
Baltis
says the roof is in a bad state and will take some time to repair.’

‘Is he the best judge? Has no one else been up to see it?’

‘I cannot tell,
Kelderek
. You forget the news I told you of
the
war. All is at sixes and sevens, and you must see to this yourself. Lord Shardik is your mystery, and one which you have shown that you understand. Of
the
roof, I can tell you only what the man told me. Order the matter as you think best, so long as
Elleroth
is executed before all
the
delegates. And now, good-bye. Only keep the city as well as you have kept Lord Shardik, and all may yet be well. Pray for the defeat of
Erketlis
, and wait for news.’

He was gone and
Kelderek
, full of pain and tired to exhaustion, could remain awake hardly long enough for his wounds to be dressed before lying down to sleep again.

The next day, however, already troubled by the delay in commencing his task and anxious to have it done and finished, he sent for the city governor and the garrison commander and set about the arrangements. He was determined that the execution should take place in the hall and in the presence of Shardik, since he felt it to be just and right that
Elleroth
should
the
upon the scene of his crime. Also, he thought, there, more than anywhere else, he himself would be seen as the agent of Shardik, invested with
the
implacable and divine authority proper to one putting to death an aristocrat and
the
hereditary lord of a province twice as large as Ortelga.

The roof of the hall, he was informed, though in a precarious state and unable to be repaired until some heavy lengths of timber could be brought in to replace the two central tie-beams, was nevertheless safe enough for an assembly.

‘The way we s
ee it, my lord,’ said Baltis, h
alf-turning for corroboration to the
Bekla
n master-builder standing at his elbow, ‘it’s sound enough unless there was to be any real violence — rioting or fighting or anything the like of that. The roof’s supported by the walls, d’ye see, but the tie-beams - that’s to say, the cross-beams — they’ve been that much burned that there’s some might not stand
up
to a heavy shaking.’

‘Would shouting be dangerous?’ asked Kelderek, ‘or a man struggling, perhaps?’

‘ Oh no, my lord, it’d need a lot more than that to make it go - like
the
old woman’s ox. Even if the beams wasn’t to be repaired, they’d still stand up for months very like, although the rain’d be in through the holes, of course.’

‘Very well,’ replied Kelderek. ‘You have leave to go.’ Then, turning to the governor, he said, ‘The execution will take place tomorrow morning, in the hall o
f the King’s House. You will see
to it that not less than a hundred and fifty Ortelgan and Beklan lords and citizens are present - more if possible. No one is to carry arms, and
the
provincial delegates are to be separated and dispersed about the hall - no more than two delegates to be seated together. The rest I leave in your hands. The lady Sheldra, however, will be caring for Lord Shardik and you are to meet her early tomorrow and take account of her wishes. When all is ready to your satisfaction, she will come here to summon me.’

31
The
L
ive
Coal

The night turned cold, near to frost, and soon after midnight a white fog began to fill all the lower city, creeping slowly higher to cover at last the still waters of the Barb and thicken about the Palace and the upper city until there was no seeing from one building to
the
next. It muffled the coughing of the sentries and the stamping of their feet for warmth - or was it, thought Kelderek, standing cloaked in the bitter draught at the window of his room, that they slapped themselves and stamped rather to break the close, lonely silence? The fog drifted into the room and thickened his breathing; his sleeves, his beard felt chill and damp to the touch. Once he heard swans’ wings overhead, flying above
the
fog, the rhythmic, unhindered sound recalling to him the far-off Telthearna. It faded into
the
distance, poignant as the whistl
ing of a drover’s boy to the cars of a man in a prison cell. He thought of Elleroth,
without
doubt awake like himself, and wondered whether he too had heard the swans. Who were his guards? Had they allowed him to sen
d any message to Sarkid, to settl
e his affairs, to appoint any friend to act for him? Ought he not himself to have enquired about these things - to have spoken with Elleroth? He went to the door and called

‘
Sheldra!’ There was no reply and he went into the corridor and called again.

‘My lord!’ answered the girl drowsily, and after a
little
came towards him carrying a light, her sleep-bleared face peering from the hood of her cloak.

‘Listen!’ he said, ‘I am going to see Elleroth. You are to —’

He saw her startled look as the sleep was jolted from her brain. She fell back a step, raising the lamp higher. In her face he saw the impossibility of what he had said, the head-shakings behind his back, the soldiers’ speculations, the later questions of Zelda and Ged-la-Dan; the icy indifference of Elleroth himself to
the
ill-timed solicitude of
the
Ortelga
n medicine-man; and the growth and spread among the common people of some misconceived tale.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s no matter. I spoke what I did not intend — it was some remnant of a dream. I came to ask whether you have seen Lord Shardik since sunset.’

‘Not I, my lord, but two of the girls are with him. Shall I go down?’

‘No,’ he said again. ‘No, go back to bed. It’s nothing. Only the fog troubles me — I have been imagining some harm to Lord Shardik.’