Shardik (53 page)

Suddenly one of the boys, catching sight of him, screamed aloud, pointed, burst into tears and began jabbering in a voice distraught with fear. The others, following his gaze, stared wide-eyed, two or three backing away, knuckles pressed to open mouths. The
cattle
, left to themselves, continued to enter the pens of their own accord.
Kelderek
smiled and walked forward, holding out both hands.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said to the neare
st child, ‘I’m a traveller, and
-‘

The boy turned and ran from him; and thereupon the whole
little
crowd took to their heels, dashing away among the sheds until not one was to be seen. Kelderek, bewildered, walked on until he found himself fairly among the dusty houses. There was still nobody to be seen. He stopped and called out, ‘I’m a traveller from Bekla. I need to see the elder. Where is his house?’ No one answered and, walking to the nearest door, he beat on the timbers with the flat of his hand. It was opened by a scowling man carrying a heavy club.

‘I am an Ortelgan and a captain of
Bekla
,’ said
Kelderek
quickly. ‘Hurt me and this village shall burn to the ground.’

Somewhere within a woman began to weep. The man answered, ‘The quota’s been taken. What do you want?’

‘Where is the elder?’

The man pointed sil
ently
towards a larger house a
little
way off, nodded and shut the door.

The elder was grey, shrewd and dignified, a taker of his time, a user of convention and propriety to size up his man and gain opportunity to think. With impenetrable courtesy he greeted the stranger, gave orders to his women and, while they brought first water and a drin towel, and then food and drink (which Kelderek would not have refused if they had tasted twice as sour), talked carefully of the prospects for the summer grazing, the price of
cattle
, the wisdom and invincible strength of the present rulers of Bekla and the prosperity which they had undoubtedly brought upon the land. As he did so, his eyes missed nothing of the stranger’s
Ortelga
n looks, his dress, his hunger and the bound wounds on his leg and forearm. At last, when he evid
ently
felt that he had found out as muc
h as he could and that no furthe
r advantage was to be gained from avoiding the point (whatever it might be), he paused, looked down at his folded hands and waited in silence.

‘Could you spare a couple of lads for a trip to Bekla?’ asked
Kelderek
. ‘I’ll pay you well.’

The elder continued silent for a little, weighing his words. At last he replied, ‘I have the tally-stick, sir, given to me by the provincial governor when we provided our quota last autumn. I will show you.’

‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’

‘This is not a large village. The quota is two girls and four boys every three years. Of course, we give the governor a present of
cattle
, to show our gratitude to him for not fixing it higher. We are not due again for two and a half years. Have you a warrant?’

‘Warrant? There’s some mistake -‘

The elder looked up quickly, smelling a rat and not slow to be after it.

‘May I ask if you are a licensed dealer? If so, surely it is your business to know what arrangements are in force for this village?’ ‘I’m not a dealer at all. I -‘

‘Forgive me, sir,’ said the elder crisply, his manner becoming somewhat less deferential, ‘I cannot help finding that a trifle hard to believe. You are young, yet you assume an air of authority. You are wearing the ill-fi
tting and therefore probably - e
r - acquired clothes of a soldier. You have clearly walked far, probably by some lonely way, for you were very hungry: you have been rec
ently
wounded in several places - the wounds suggest to me a scuffle rather than
battle
- and if I am not wrong, you are an
Ortelga
n. You asked me for two boys for what you called a trip to Bekla and said you would pay me well. Perhaps, when you say that, there are some elders who reply “How much?” For my part, I hope to retain my people’s respect and to die in my bed, but setting that aside, I don’t care for your kind of business. We are all poor men here, but nevertheless these people are my people. The
Ortelga
ns’ law we are forced to obey, but as I told you, we
are
quit for two autumns to come. You cannot compel me to deal with you.’

Kelderek sprang to his feet.

‘I tell you I’m no slave-trader! You’ve completely misunderstood me! If I’m an unlicensed slave-trader, where’s my gang?’

‘That is what I would very much like to know - where and how many. But I warn you that my men are alert and we will resist you to the death.’

Kelderek sat down again.

‘Sir, you must believe me - I am no slave-trader - I am a lord of Bekla. If we-‘

The deep twilight outside was suddenly filled with clamour - men shouting, trampling hooves and the bellowing of terrified
cattle
. Women began to scream, doors banged and feet ran past on the track. The elder stood up as a man burst into
the
room.

‘A beast, my lord! Like nothing ever seen - a gigantic beast that stands erect - three times the height of a man - smashed the bars of the big cattle-pen like sticks - the cattle have gone mad - they’ve stampeded into the plain! Oh, my lord, the devil - the devil’s upon us!’

Without a word and without hesitation the elder walked past him and out through the door.
Kelderek
could hear him calling his men by name, his voice growing fainter as he made his way towards the cattle-pens on the edge of the village.

34
The Streets of Uriah

From the darkness of the plain beyond the village,
Kelderek
watched the turmoil as a man in a tree might look down upon a fight below. The example set by the elder had had little effect upon his peasants and no concerted action had been organized against Shardik. Some had barred their doors and plainly did not mean to stir out of them. Others had set out - or at least had shouted in loud voices that they were setting out - in an attempt to recover, by moonlight, as many of the cattle as they could find. A crowd of men with torches were jabbering round the well in the centre of the village, but showed no sign of moving away from it. A few had accompanied the elder to
the
pens and were doing what they could to repair
the
bars and prevent the remaining cattle from breaking down the walls. Once or twice, momentarily,
Kelderek
had seen the enormous outl
ine of Shardik moving against the flickering torchlight as he wandered
on the village outskirts. Evidentl
y he had little fear of these flames, so similar to those to which he must have become accustomed during his long captivity. There seemed no likelihood whatever of the villagers attacking him.

When at last the half-moon emerged from behind clouds, not so much enabling him to sec for any distance as restoring his awareness of the great expanse of the misty plain, Kelderek realized that Shardik was gone. Drawing Kavass’s short-sword and limping forward to an empty, broken pen, he came first upon the body of the beast which
the
bear had been devouring and then upon a trembling, abandoned calf, trapped by the hoof in a split post. During the past hour this helpless little creature had been closer to Shardik than any living being, human or animal. Kelderek freed the hoof, carried the calf bodily as far as the next pen and set it down near a man who, with his back turned, was leaning over the rails. No one took any notice of him and he stood for a few moments with one arm round the calf, which licked his hand as he steadied it on its feet. Then it ran from him and he turned away.

A confused shouti
ng broke out in the distance and he made towards it. Where there was fear and clamour, the likelihood was that Shardik would not be far away. Soon three or four men passed him, running back towards the village. One was whimpering in panic and none stopped or spoke to him. They were hardly gone before he made out, in the moonlight, the shaggy blackness of Shardik. Possibly he had been pursuing them - perhaps they had come upon him unexpectedly - but Kelderek, sensing his mood and temper with the familiarity of long years, knew by nothing he could have named that the bear had been disturbed rather than roused to rage by these hinds. Despite the danger, his pride revolted against joining their flight. Was he not lord of
Bekla
, the Eye of God, the prie
st-king of Shardik? As the bear loomed closer in the moon-dim solitude he lay down prone, eyes closed, head buried in his arms, and waited.

Shardik came down upon him like a cart and oxen upon a dog asleep in the road. One paw touched him; he felt the claws and heard them rattle. The bear’s breath was moist upon his neck and shoulders. Once more he felt the old elation and terror, a giddy transport as of one balanced above a huge drop on a mountain summit. This was the priest-king’s mystery. Not Zelda, not Ged-la-Dan nor Elleroth Ban of Sarkid, could have lain thus and put their lives in the power of Lord Shardik. But now
there
was none to see and none t
o know. This was an act of devoti
on more truly between himself and Shardik than any which he had performed either on Ortelga or in the King’s House at Bekla. ‘Accept my life, Lord Shardik,’ he prayed sil
ently
. ‘Accept my life, for it is yours.’ Then, suddenly, the thought occurred to him, ‘What if it were to come now, the great disclosure which I sought so
long in Bekla, Lord Shardik’s revelati
on of the truth?’ Might it not well be now, when he and Shardik were alone as never since that day when he had lain helpless before the leopard ?

But how was he to recognize the secret and what was he to expect? How would it be imparted - as an inspiration to his inward mind, or by some outward sign? And would he then die, or be spared to make it known to mankind? If the price were his life, he thought, then so be it
.

The huge head was bent low, sniffing at his side, the breeze was shut off, the air was
still
as under the leeward wall of a house. ‘Let me die if it must be so,’ he prayed. ‘Let me die - the pain will be nothing -
I
shall step out into all knowledge, all truth.’

Then Shardik was moving away. Desperately, he prayed once more. ‘A sign, Lord Shardik - O my lord, at the least vouchsafe some sign, some clue to the nature of your sacred truth!’ The sound of the bear’s low, growling breath became inaudible before its tread ceased to shake the ground beneath him. Then, as he still lay half-rapt in his trance of worship and supplication, there came to his ear the weeping of a child.

He got to his feet. A boy, perhaps seven or eight years old, was standing a short distance off, evid
ently
lost and beside himself with fear. Perhaps he had been with the men until they ran from Shardik, leaving him alone to save himself as best he could.
Kelderek
, trembling and confused now with the passing of the ecstatic fit, stumbled across the ground towards him. Bending down, he put an arm round the boy’s shoulder and pointed to the distant flames of the torches round the
cattle
-pens. The boy could hardly speak for his tears, but at last Kelderek made out the words, ‘The devil-creature!’

‘It’s gone - gone,’ said
Kelderek
. ‘Go on, don’t be frightened, you’ll be safe enough! Run home as quick as you can! That’s the way, over there!’

Then, like one picking up once more a heavy burden, he set out to follow Shardik by night across the plain.

Still north
ward
the
bear went - north and something to the west, as he could see by the stars. They moved across the sky all night, but nothing else moved or changed in that loneliness. There was only the light, steady wind, the
thrip, thrip
of the dry stalks round his ankles, and here and there a famdy-shining pool, at which he would kneel to drink. By first light, which crept into the sky as gradually and surely as illness steals upon the body, he was tired to exhaustion. When he crossed a slow-moving brook and then found his feet resting upon smooth, level stones, the meaning did not at first pierce his cloud of fatigue. He stopped and looked about him. The flat stones stretched away to right and left He had just waded the conduit that ran from the Kabin reservoir to Bekla, and was now standing on the paved road to the Gelt foothills.

Early as it was, he looked into the distance in the faint hope of seeing some traveller - a merchant, perhaps, bound for the Caravan Market and the scales of Fleitil; an army contractor from a province, or an
Ortelga
n messenger returning from the country beyond Gelt -anyone who could carry w
ord to Bekla. But in each directi
on there was no one to be seen; nor could he make out even a hut or the distant smoke of a wayfarers’ encampment. For much of its length, as he knew, the road ran through frequented country; might
he,
perhaps, be near one of the camping-stations for drovers and caravans