Shardik (58 page)

At once he jumped to his feet and ran towards
them
, raising one hand in greeting and calling ‘Wait! Wait!’ They stopped, staring in surprise at the confidence of this tattered vagrant, and turning uncertainly towards their
tryzatt,
a fath
erly veteran with a stupid, good-natured face, who looked as though, having risen as high as he was likely to get in the service, he was all for an easy life.

‘What’s this, then, tryze?’ asked one, as Kelderek stopped before them and stood
with
folded arms, looking them up and down.

The tryzatt pushed back his leadier helmet and rubbed his forehead with one hand.

‘Dunno,’ he replied at length. ‘Some beggar’s trick, I suppose. Come on, now,’ he said, laying one hand on
Kelderek
‘s shoulder, ‘you’ll get nothing here, so just muck off, there’s a good lad.’

Kelderek put the hand aside and faced him squarely.

‘Soldiers,’ he said firmly. ‘A message -
Bekla
-‘ He paused, frowning as they gathered about him, and then spoke again.

‘Soldiers —
Senandril,
Lord Shardik — Belda, message —’ He stopped again.

‘Havin’ us on, ain’t her’ said another of
the
men.

‘Don’t seem that way, not just,’ said the tryzatt. “Seems to know what he wants all right. ‘More like he knows we don’t know his language.’

‘What language is it, then?’ asked the man.

‘That’s
Ortelga
n,’ said the first soldier, spitting in the dust, ‘Something about his life and a message.’

‘ ‘Could be important,
then
,’ said
the
tryzatt. ‘ ‘Could be, if he’s
Ortelga
n, and come to us
with
a message from Bekla. Can you tell us who you
are
?’ he asked
Kelderek
, who met his eye but answered
nothing
.

‘I reckon he’s come fro
m Bekla, but something’s put th
ings out of his mind, like - shock and that,’ said
the
first soldier.

‘That’ll be it,’ said the tryzatt. ‘He’s an Ortelgan - been working secretly for Lord
Elleroth
One-Hand maybe: and e
ither
those
swine in Bekla tortured him - look what they did to the Ban, burned his bloody hand off, the bastards - or else his wits are turned with wandering all this way north to find us.’

‘Poor devil, he looks all in,’ said a dark man with
a
broad belt of Sarkid leatherwork bearing the Corn-Sheave
s emblem. ‘He must have walked t
ill he dropped. After all, we couldn’t be much further north if we tried, could we?’

‘Well,’ said the tryzatt, ‘whatever it is, we’d better take him along. I’ve got to make
a
report by sunset, so the captain can sort him out then. Listen,’ he said, raising his voice and speaking very slowly, in order to make sure that the foreigner standing two feet away from him could understand
a
language he did not know, ‘you - come -with us. You - give - message - Captain, see?’

‘Message,’ replied Kelderek at once, repeating the Yeldashay. ‘Message - Shardik.’ He stopped and broke into a fit of coughing, leaning over his staff.

‘All right, now don’t you worry,’ said the tryzatt reassuringly, buckling his belt, which he had slackened for the purpose of talking. ‘We’ - he pointed, miming with his hands - ‘take - you - town -Captain - right? You’d better lend him a hand,’ he added to the two men nearest him. ‘We’ll be ‘alf the mucking night else.’

Kelderek
, his arms drawn over the soldiers’ shoulders for support, went with them down the hill. He was glad of their help, which was given respectfully enough - for they were uncertain what rank of man he might be. He for his part understood hardly a word of their talk and was in any case preoccupied in trying to remember what message it was that he had to send, now that he had at last found the soldiers who had vanished so mysteriously in the dawn. Perhaps, he thought, they might have some food to spare.

The main part of the army was encamped in the meadows outside the walls of Kabin, for the town and its inhabitants were being treated with clemency and in such dwellings as had been commandeered there was room for no more than the senior officers, their aides and servants and the specialist troops, such as scouts and pioneers, who were under the direct control of the commander-in-chief. The tryzatt and his men, who belonged to these, entered the town gates just as they were about to be shut for
the
night and, ignoring questions from comrades and bystanders, conducted
Kelderek
to
a
house under the south wall. Here a young officer wearing the stars of Ikat questioned him, first in Yeldashay and then, seeing that he understood very little, in Beklan. To this Kelderek replied that he had a message. Pressed, he repeated ‘
Bekla
‘ but could say no more; and the young officer, unwilling to browbeat him and pitying his starved and filthy condition, gave orders to let him wash, eat and sleep.

Next morning, as one of the cooks, a kindly fellow, was again washing his gashed arm, a second, older officer came into the room, accompanied by two soldiers, and greeted him with straightforward civility.

‘My name is Tan-Rion,’ he said in Beklan. ‘You must excuse our haste and curiosity, but to an army in the field time is always precious. We need to know who you
are
. The tryzatt who found you says that you came to him of your own accord and told him that you had a message from Bekla. If you have a message, perhaps you can tell me what it is.’

Two full meals, a long and comfortable night’s sleep and the attentions of the cook had calmed and to some extent restored Kelderek.

‘The message - should have gone to
Bekla
,’ he answered haltingly, ‘but the best chance - is lost now.’

The officer looked puzzled. To Bekla? You are not bringing a message to us,
then
?’

‘I - have to send a message.’

‘Is your message to do with the fighting in Bekla ?’

‘Fighting?’ asked Kelderek.

‘You know that there has been a rising in Bekla? It began about nine days ago. As far as we know, fighting is still going on. Have you come from Deelguy, or whence?’

Confusion descended again upon Kelderek’s mind. He was silent and the officer shrugged his shoulders.

‘I am sorry — I can see that you
are
not yourself - but time may well be very short. We shall have to search you — that for a start’

Kelderek, who had become no stranger to humiliation, stood unresisting as the soldiers, not ung
ently
and with a kind of rough courtesy, set about their task. They placed their findings on the window ledge - a stale crust, a strip of cobbler’s leather, a reaper’s whetstone which he had found lying in a ditch two days before, a handful of dried, aromatic herbs which the gate-keeper’s wife had given him against lice and infection, and a talisman of red-veined stone which must once have belonged to Kavass.

‘All right, mate,’ said one of the soldiers, handing him back his jerkin. ‘Steady, now. Nearly done, don’t worry.’

Suddenly
the
other soldier whistl
ed, swore under his breath and then, without another word, held out to the officer on the palm of his hand a small, bright object which glittered in the sunlight. It was the stag e
mblem of Santil-ke-Erketl
is.

37
Lord
One-Hand

The officer, startled, took the emblem and examined it, drawing the chain through the ring and fastening the clasp carefully, as though to allow himself time to think. At length, with an uncertainty that he had not shown before, he said, ‘Will you be good enough to - to tell me - I am sure you will understand why I have to know -whether this is your own?’

Kelderek
held out his hand in silence but the officer, after a moment’s hesitadon, shook his head.

‘Have you come here in search of the Commander-in-Chief himself? Perhaps you
are
a member of his household? If you can tell me it will make my task easier.’

Kelderek
, to whom the memory was now beginning to return of much that had befallen him since leaving Bekla, sat down upon the bed and put his head in his hands. The officer waited pati
ently
for him to speak. At last Kelderek said, ‘Where is General Zelda? If he is here, I must sec him immediately.’

‘General Zelda?’ replied the officer in bewilderment.

One of the soldiers spoke to him in a low voice and together they went to the further end of the room.

‘This man’s an
Ortelga
n, sir,’ said the soldier, ‘or else I’m one myself.’

‘I know that,’ replied Tan-Rion. ‘What of it? He’s some agent of Lord Elleroth who’s lost his wits.’

‘I doubt he is, sir. If he’s an
Ortelga
n, then clearly he’s not a household officer of the Commander-in-Chief. You heard him ask for General Zelda. I agree it’s plain that some shock’s confused his mind, but my guess is that he’s made his way into the middle of the wrong army without realizing it. If you come to think of it, he’d hardly be expecting to find us here in Kabin.’

Tan-Rion considered.

‘He could
still
have come by that emblem honestly. In his case it might be no more than a token to prove who he was working for. Nobody knows what strange people may have been reporting direct to General
Erketlis
or carrying his messages these last few months. Suppose, for instance, that Lord
Elleroth
made use of this man while he was in Bekla? When is General Erketlis expected to return, have you heard?’

‘Not until the day after tomorrow, sir. He got wind of a big slave-column on the move west of Thettit-Tonilda and heading for Bekla; to reach it in time meant some very hard going, so the General took a hundred men from the Falaron regiment and said he’d do the job himself.’

‘Very like him. I’m only afraid he may try that sort of thing once too often. Well, at that rate I suppose we’ll have to keep this man until he gets back.’

‘I suggest we might ask Lord One-Hand - Lord
Elleroth
- to see him, sir. If he recognizes him, as I gather you yourself think may be possible, then at least
we
shall know where we are, even if the man doesn’t come round enough to tell us anything.’

After a
few more fruitl
ess questions to Kelderek, Tan-Rion, together with his two soldiers, conducted him out of the house and up on the town walls. Here, walking in the spring sunshine, they looked down upon the town on one side and on the other upon
the
huts and bivouacs of the camp in the fields outside. The smoke of fires was drifting on the breeze and in th
e market place a crowd was gathe
ring in response to the long-drawn, stylized summons of a red-cloaked crier.

“Must have made his fortune since we came here, eh?’ said a sentry on
the
wall to one of Tan-Rion’s soldiers, jerking his thumb to where
the
crier below was already climbing on his rostrum.

‘I dare say,’ answered the soldier. ‘I know
I’ve
done well enough out of
him.
He hangs about our place and offers to pay for anything we can tell him.’

‘Well, just be careful how much you do tell him,’ snapped Tan-Rion, turning his head. ‘You bet, sir. We all want to stay alive.’

They descended from the wall by a flight of steps near
the
gate at which
Kelderek
had entered the town the night before and, passing through a square, came to a large, stone house where a sentry stood before
the
door.
Kelderek
and his escort were taken to a room which had formerly been that of the household steward, while Tan-Rion, after a few words with the captain of the guard, accompanied that officer through the house and into the garden.

The garden, green and formal, was shady with ornamental trees and shrubs -
lexis,
purple
cresset
and sharp-scented
planella
already opening its tiny, mauve-speckled flowers to the early sun. Through the midst, murmuring along its gravel bed, ran a brook channelled down from the reservoir.
Along the verge, Elleroth was w
alking in conversation with a Yeldashay officer, a Deelguy baron and
the
governor of the town. He was gaunt and pale, his face haggard with pain and recent privation. His left hand, carried in
a
sling, was encased to the wrist in
a
great, padded glove of birch bark that covered and protected the dressings beneath. His sky-blue robe, a gift from the wardrobe of Santil-ke-
Erketlis
(for he had reached the army in rags), had been embroidered across the breast with the corn-sheaves of Sarkid, while the silver clasp of his belt was fashioned in the stag emblem. He walked leaning on a staff and those beside him carefully suited their pace to his. He nodded courteously to Tan-Rion and the guard commander, who stood deferentially aside, waiting until he should be ready to hear them.