Shardik (49 page)

Still she paused, her heavy face expressing her bewilderment. He turned, left her and went back to his room. The flame of the lamp shed a cheerless nimbus on the fog hanging in the air. He lay prone upon the bed and rested his head on his bent forearm.

He thought of all the blood that had been shed - of the
battle
of the Foothills and crying of the wounded as the victorious Ortelgans mustered in the falling darkness; of the smashing of the Tamarrik Gate and the cacophonous, smoking hours that followed; of the gallows on Mount Crandor and the skulls in the hall below.
Elleroth
, a nobleman of unquestioned courage and honour, bending all his endeavours to the task, had almost succeeded in burning to death the wounded Shardik. And soon, when he was laid across a bench like a pig and the blood came spurting from his neck, few of those about him would feel the horror and sorrow natural to the heart of any peasant’s child.

He was unaccountably seized with misgiving, by a premonition so vague and undefined that he could make nothing of it. No, he thought, this could be no divination on his part. The plain truth was that, despite his horror of Elleroth’s deed, he had little stomach for this cold-blooded business. ‘They should have killed him as he came down from the roof,’ he said aloud; shivered in the cold, and huddled himself under the rugs.

He drowsed fitfully, woke, drowsed and woke again. Thought dissolved into fantasy and, not dreaming yet not awake, he imagined himself stepping through his embrasured window as from the fissured opening of a cave; and emerging, saw again under starlight
the
Ledges descending between the trees of Quiso. He was about to bound away down their steep pitch but, pausing at a sound from behind him, turned and found himself face to face with
the
old, muttering hag of Gelt, who stooped and laid at his feet —

He cried out and started up. The fog sail filled the room, but it was murky daylight and in the corridor he could hear the voices of
the
servants. His bound wounds throbbed and ached. He called for water and then, robing himself without help and laying his crown and staff ready on the bed, sat down to wait for
Sheldra
.

Soon there came from the terrace below sounds of footsteps and low voices. Those who were to attend the execution must be converging on the hall. He did not look out, but remained on the edge of the bed, staring before him, the dark robe covering him from his shoulders to the ground. Elleroth, he thought, must also be waiting; he did not know where; perhaps not far away — perhaps near enough to hear the footsteps and voices diminish and silence return - a waiting, expectant silence.

When he heard Sheldra’s step in the corridor, he rose at once and went to
the
door before she could reach it. He realized
that
he wished to prevent the need for him to hear her voice, that voice which would sound no different had she come to tell him
that
Lord Shardik had raised the dead to life and established peace from Ikat to the Telthearna. As he stepped across the threshold she was waiting and looked at him impassively, her face expressing neither dread nor excitement. He nodded gravely and she, unspeaking, turned about to precede him. Beyond her the other women were waiting, their stiff robes filling the narrow corridor from wall to wall. He raised his hand to silence their whispering and asked,

‘Lord Shardik - what is his mood? Is he disturbed by the crowd?’

‘He is restl
ess, my lord, and looks fiercely about him,’ answered one of the girls.

‘He is impatient to sec his enemy brought before him,’ said another. She gave a quick laugh and at once fell silent, biting her lip as Kelderek turned his head and stared coldly at her.

At his word th
ey began to file slowly along the corridor, preceded by the beat of
the
gong.
Looking down as he reached the head of the stairway, he saw the fog trailing through the open doorway and
the
young soldier at the entrance shifting his feet and gazing up at them. One of the girls stumbled, recovering herself with a hand that slapped against the wall. An officer appeared, looked up at
Sheldra
, nodded and went out through the door. She turned her head and whispered, ‘He has gone to fetch the prisoner, my lord.’

Now they were entering the hall. He would scarcely have recognized it, so much closer and smaller did it seem to have grown. This was no longer the echoing space of flame-shot dusk where he had kept watch so many nights in solitude and where he had leapt empty-handed upon the Kabin envoy at his evil task. Except
along the line of a narrow path
extending before him between two ropes, men stood pressed together from wall to wall. There was a confusion of heads, robes, cloaks, armour
, and of faces turned towards h
im, swaying and bobbing as each sought to catch a glimpse of him over and round his neighbour. Above them, the fog hung like the smoke of bonfires in the cold air. The charred, irregular gaps in the roof showed only as lighter
patches of fog. Though the cloth
es of the spectators were of every hue — some gaudy and barbaric as nomads’ or brigands’ garb — yet in this dank gloom their brightness and variety seemed soaked away, like the colours of sodden leaves in autumn.

The floor had been covered with a mixture of sand and sawdust, so that no sound came from his footsteps or from those of
the
women pacing before him. At the centre of
the
hall an open space had been left in front of the bars and here, in an attempt to clear and warm the air, a brazier of charcoal had been set. The light smoke and fume drifted one way and another. Men coughed, and patches of the heaped fuel glowed as the draught blew them brighter. Close to the brazier stood a heavy bench, on which the three soldiers who were to carry out the execution had laid their gear - a long sword with a two-handed hilt, a sack of br
an to soak up the blood and three cloaks, neatl
y folded, with which to cover
the
head and body as soon as the blow had been struck.

In the centre of the space a bronze disc had been placed on the floor, and upon this
Kelderek
, with the women flanking him on either side, took up his position, facing the bench and the waiting soldiers. For an instant his teeth chattered. He clenched them, raised his head; and found himself looking into the eyes of Shardik.

Insubstantial the bear appeared, monstrous, shadowy in the smoky, foggy gloom, like some djinn emergent from the fire and brooding darkly above it in the half-light. He had come close to the bars and, rising on his hind legs, stood peering down, his fore-paws resting on one of the iron tics. Seen
through
the heat a
nd fume from the brazier his outl
ine wavered, spectral and indistinct. Looking up at him,
Kelderek
was momentarily bemused, overcome by that dream-like state, experienced sometimes in fever, in which the mind is deceived as to the size and distance of objects, so that the shape against the light of a fly on a window-sill is supposed that of a house on the skyline, or the falling of a distant
torrent is mistaken for the rustl
e of wall-hangings or curtains. Across a great distance
Shardik, both
bear and mountain-summit, inclined his divine head to perceive his priest, minute upon the plain below. In those far-off, gigantic eyes Kelderek — and he alone, it seemed, for none else moved or spoke - could discern unease, danger, impending disaster grim and foreboding as the rumbling of a long-silent volcano. Pity, too, he saw, for himself, as though it were he and not Elleroth who was the victim condemned to kneel at the bench, and Shardik his grave judge and executioner.

‘Accept my life, Lord Shardik,’ he said aloud, and as he uttered the familiar words awoke from the trance. The heads of the women on
either
side turned towards him, the illusion dissolved, the distance diminished to a few yards and the bear, more than twice his own height, dropped on all fours and resumed its uneasy rambling up and down the length of
the
bars. He saw
the
oozing scab of the half-healed spear-wound in its back and heard its feet stumbling through the thick, dry straw.

‘He is not well,’ he thought and, oblivious of all else, would have stepped forward even then, had not Sheldra laid a hand on his arm, motioning with her eyes towards the opening from the ambulatory on his right

To the low, steady beat of a drum, two files of
Ortelga
n soldiers were entering the hall, their feet on the sand as soundless as his own had been. Between them walked Elleroth, Ban of Sarkid. He was very pale, his forehead sweating in the cold, his face drawn and streaked
with
sleeplessness: but his step was firm; and as he turned his eyes here and
there
he contrived to appear to be observing the scene in the hall with a detached and condescending air. Beyond him, Shard
ik had begun to prowl more violentl
y,
with
a restl
ess, dominating ferocity of which none in the hall could remain unaware; but Elleroth ignored him, affecting interest only in the packed mass of spectators to his left Kelderek thought, ‘He has already considered how best to keep his dignity and determined upon
this
part to act’ He remembered how once he himself, sure of immediate death, had lain waiting for the leopard to spring from the bank above; and thought, ‘He is so much afraid that his sight and hearing are misted over. But he knew it would be so, and he has rehearsed these moments.’ He called to mind the plot of which Elleroth was guilty and tried to recover the anger and hatred which had filled him on the night of the fire festival: but could feel only a mounting sense of dread and apprehension, as though some precarious tower of wrong piled upon wrong were about to topple and fall. He closed his eyes, but at once felt himself swaying, and opened them again as the drum ceased, the soldiers drew apart and Elleroth stepped forward from among them.

He was dressed plainly but finely, in the traditional style of a nobleman of Sarkid - much as he might have dressed, Kelderek supposed, to feast his tenants at home or to entertain friends at a dinner party. His
veltron,
pleated saffron and white, was of new cloth, embroidered with silk, and the slashed gores of his breeches were cross-stitched with an intricate, diapered pattern in silver filigree, a month’s work for two women. The long pin at his shoulder was also silver, quite plain, such as might have belonged to any man of means. Kelderek wondered whether it might be a keepsake from some comrade of the slave wars - from Mollo himself, perhaps? He wore no jewels, no neck-chain, bracelet or ring; but now, as he stepped out from among the soldiers, he drew from his sleeve a gold pendant and chain, slipped it over his head and adjusted it at his neck. As it was recognized, murmurs arose among the spectators. It represented a couchant stag, the personal emblem of Santil-ke-
Erketlis
and his entourage.

Elleroth came to the bench and paused, looking down at what was on it. Those nearest saw him brace himself against a quick tremor. Then, stooping, he felt
the
edge of the blade
with
one finger. As he straightened,
his eyes met those of the executi
oner with a tense, forced smile and he spoke for the first
time
.

‘No doubt you know how to use that thing or you wouldn’t be here. I shall give you
little
trouble and I hope you’ll do as much for me.’

The fellow nodded awkwardly,
evidentl
y at a loss to know whether he should reply. But as
Elleroth
handed him a small leather bag, murmuring, ‘That’s among yourselves,’ he drew the strings, looked into it and, wide-eyed, began to stammer out his thanks in words so banal and out of place as to seem both shameful and macabre. Elleroth checked him with a gesture, stepped forward to face Kelderek and inclined his head with the coldest suggestion of a formal greeting.

Kelderek
had already instructed the governor
that
a herald was to describe the crime committed by Elleroth and Mollo and conclude by announcing the sentence of death. There was no interruption as this was now done, the only sounds to be heard besides the herald’s voice being the intermittent growling of the bear and its rough, spasmodic movements among the dry straw. ‘He is still feverish,’ thought
Kelderek
. ‘This disturbance and the crowd have un
settl
ed him and will delay his recovery.’ Each time he looked up, it was to meet the cold, contemptuous gaze of the condemned man, one side of his face cast into shadow by the light from the brazier. Whether assumed or real, he could not out-stare that indifference; and finally bent his head, pretending abstraction as the herald described the burning roof, the wounding of Shardik and his own frenzied onslaught upon Mollo in the hall. Whisperings of foreboding seemed all about him, intermittent and impalpable as the bitter draught from
the
ambulatory and the thin streams of fog trailing like cobwebs down the walls.