Shardik (60 page)

In the steward’s room, one of the soldiers threw back his head and spat in
Kelderek
‘s face.

‘You dirty bastard,’ he said, ‘burned his mucking hand off, did you?’

‘And now he says we’re to let you go,’ said the other soldier. ‘You damned, rotten
Ortelga
n slave-trader!
Where’s his son, eh?
You
saw to that, did you? You’re the one that told Genshed what he had to do?’

‘Where’s his son?’ repeated the first soldier, as
Kelderek
made no reply but stood with bent head, looking down at the floor.

‘Didn’t you hear me?’ Taking Kelderek’s chin in his hand, he forced it up and stared contemptuously into his eyes.

‘I heard you,’ mouthed Kelderek, his words distorted by the soldier’s grip,’ I don’t know what you mean.’

Both the soldiers gave short, derisive laughs.

‘Oh, no,’ said the second soldier. ‘You’re not the man who brought back slave-trading to Bekla, I suppose?’ Kelderek nodded mutely.

‘Oh, you admit that much? And of course you don’t know that Lord
Elleroth
‘s eldest son disappeared more than a month ago, and that our patrols have been searching for him from Lapan to Kabin? No, you don’t know anything, do you?’

He raised his open hand, jeering as
Kelderek
flinched away.

‘I know nothing of that,’ replied
Kelderek
. ‘But why do you blame the boy’s disappearance on a slave-trader? A river, a wild beast -‘

The soldier stared at him for a moment and
then
, appar
ently
convinced
that
he really knew no more than he had said, answered ‘We know who’s
got the lad. It’s Genshed of Tere
kenalt.’

‘I never heard of him. There’s no man of that name licensed to trade in
Bekla
n provinces.’

‘You’d make the stars angry,’ replied the soldier. ‘Everyone’s heard of him,
the
dirty swine. No, like enough he’s not licensed in Bekla - even you wouldn’t license him, I dare say. But he works for those that
are
licensed - if you call that work.’

‘And you say this man has taken the Ban of Sarkid’s heir?’

‘Half a month ago, down in eastern Lapan, we captured a trader called Nigon, together with three overseers and forty slaves. I suppose you’ll tell us you didn’t know Nigon either?’

‘ No, I remember Nigon.’

‘He told General
Erketlis
that Genshe
d had got the boy and was making north through Tonilda. Since then patrols have searched up through Tonilda as far as Thettit. If Genshed was ever there he’s not there now.’

‘But how could you expect me to know this?’ cried Kelderek. ‘If what you say is true, I don’t know why Elleroth spared my life any more than you do.’

‘He
spared you, maybe,’ said the first soldier.
‘He’s
a fine
gentle
man, isn’t he? But we’re not, you slave-trading bastard. I reckon if anyone knows where Genshed is, it’s you. What were you doing in these parts, and how else could he have got clean away?’

He picked up a heavy tally-stick lying on the steward’s table and laughed as
Kelderek
flung up his arm.

‘Stop that!’ rapped the guard commander, appearing in the doorway. ‘You heard what One-Hand said. You’re to let him alone!’

‘If th
ey
will
let him alone, sir,’ answered the soldier. ‘Listen to them!’ He pulled a stool to the high window, stood on it and looked out. The noise of the crowd had if anything increased, though no words were distinguishable. ‘If they
will
let him alone, One-Hand’s the only man they’d do it for.’

Sitting down apart, Kelderek shut his eyes and tried to collect his thoughts. A man may by chance overhear words which he knows to have been spoken with no malice towards himself - perhaps not even with reference to his own affairs - but which nevertheless, if they are true, import his personal misfortune or misery - words, perhaps, of a commercial venture foundered, of an army’s defeat, of another man’s fall or a woman’s loss of honour. Having heard, he stands bewildered, striving by any means to set aside, to find grounds for disbelieving the news, or at least for rejecting the conclusion he has drawn, like an unlucky card, for his own personal fortune. But the very fact t
hat the words did not refer dire
ctly
to himself serves more than anything else to corroborate what he fears. Despite the desperate antics of his brain, he knows how more than likely it is that they are true. Yet still there is a faint possibility that they may not be. And so he remains, like a chess player who cannot bear to lose, still searching the position for the least chance of escape. So
Kelderek
sat, turning and turning in his mind the words which Elleroth had spoken. If Shardik were dying - but Shardik could not be dying. If Shardik were dying - if Shardik were dying, what business had he himself left in the world? Why did the sun still shine? What was now the intent of God? Sitting so rapt and still that at length his guards’ attention wandered and they ceased to watch him, he contemplated the blank wall as though seeing there

the likeness of a greater, incomprehensible void, stretching from pole to pole.

Elleroth’s son - his heir - had fallen into the hands of an unlicensed slave-dealer? He himself knew - who better? - how possible it was. He had heard of diese men - had received many complaints of their activities in the remoter parts of the Beklan provinces. He knew that within the Ortelgan domains slaves were captured illegally who never reached the market at Bekla, being driven north through Tonilda and Kabin or west through Paltesh, to be sold in Katria or Terekenalt. Although the prescribed penalties were heavy, as long as the war lasted the probability of an unlicensed dealer’s capture was
remote. But that this man Genshe
d, whoever he might be, should have taken the so
n and heir of the Ban of Sarkid.
No doubt he meant to demand a ransom if ever he got him safe to Terekenalt. But for what conceivable reason, with such a grief in his heart and such a wrong to lay to
the
charge of the hated priest-king of Bekla, had Elleroth insisted on sparing his life? For a while he pondered this riddle but could imagine no answer. His thoughts returned to Shardik, but at last he almost ceased to think at all, drowsing where he sat and hearing, sharper than the noise of the crowd, the plangent drip of water into a butt outside the window.

The guard commander returned and with him a burly, black-bearded officer, armed and helmeted, who stared at
Kelderek
, slapping his scabbard against his leg with nervous impatience.

‘Is this the man?’

The guard commander nodded.

‘Come on, then, you, for God’s sake, while we’ve still got them under some sort of control. I want to live, if you don’t. Take this pack - shoes and two days’ food - that’s the Ban’s orders. You can put the shoes on later.’

Kelderek followed him down the passage and through the courtyard to the gate-keeper’s lodge. Under the arch behind the shut gate some twenty soldiers were drawn up in two files. The officer led
Kelderek
to a central place between them and
then
, taking up his own position immediately behind him, gripped him by the shoulder and spoke in his ear.

‘Now you do as I say, do you see, or you’ll never even have
the
chance to wish you had. You’re going to walk a
cross this blasted town to the e
ast gate, because if you don’t, I don’t, and that’s why you’re going to. They’re quiet now because they’ve been told it’s the Ban’s personal wish, but if anything provokes them, we’re as good as dead. They don’t like slave-traders and child butchers, you see. Don’t say a word, dou’t wave your bloody arms, don’t do any
damned thing; and above all, keep moving, do you understand? Right!’ he shouted to the tryzatt in front. ‘Get on with it, and God help us!’

The gate opened, the soldiers marched forward and
Kelderek
stepped at once into dazzling sunlight shining directly into his eyes. B
linded, he stumbled, and instantl
y the captain’s hand was in his armpit, supporting and thrusting him on.

‘You stop and I’ll run you through.’

Coloured veils floated before his eyes, slowly dissolving and vanishing to disclose the road at his feet. He realized that he was bowed, neck thrust forward, peering down like a beggar on a stick. He straightened his shoulders, threw back his head and looked about him.

The unexpected shock was so great that he stopped dead, raising one hand before his face as though to ward off a blow. ‘Keep moving, damn you!’

The square was packed with people - men, women and children, standing on either side of the road, crowded at the windows, clinging to the roofs. Not
a
voice spoke, not a murmur was to be heard. All were staring at himself in silence, each pair of eyes following only him as the soldiers marched on across the square. Some of the men scowled and shook their fists, but none uttered a word. A young girl, dressed as a widow, stood
with
folded hands and tears unwiped upon her cheeks, while beside her an old woman shook continually as she craned her neck, her fallen-in mouth working in a palsied twitching. His eyes met for a second the round, solemn stare of
a
little
boy. The people swayed like grass, unaware of
their
swaying as
they
moved their heads to keep him in their gaze. The silence was so complete
that
for
a
moment he had the illusion that these people were far away, too far to be heard from
the
lonely place where he walked between the soldiers, the only sound in his ears their regular tread
that
crunched upon the sand.

They left the square and entered
a
narrow, stone-paved street, where their footsteps echoed between the walls. Trying with all his will to look nowhere but ahead, he still felt
the
silence and the gaze of the people like a weapon raised above him. He
met the eyes of a woman who thre
w up her arm, making
the
sign against evil; and dropped his head once more, like a cowering slave who expects a blow. He realized
that
he was breathing hard, that his steps had become more rapid than the soldiers’,
that
he was almost running to keep his place among
them
. He saw himself as he must appear to the crowd - haggard, shrinking, contemptible, hastening before the captain like a beast driven up
a
lane.

The street led into the market-place and here, too, were the innumerable faces and the terrible silence. Not a woman was haggling, not a trader crying his wares; as they approached the fountain-basin - Kabin was full of fountains - the jet faltered and died away. He wondered who it was that had timed it so surely, and whether he had had orders to do so or had acted of his own accord; then tried to guess how far it might now be to the east gate, what it would look like when they reached it and what orders the captain would give. The cheek of the soldier beside him bore a long, white scar and he thought, ‘If my right foot is the next to dislodge a stone, he got it in battle. If my left, then he got it in a fight when he was drunk.’

Not that these thoughts could come for an instant between his horror of the silence and of the eyes which he dared not meet. If it were not some sick fancy of his own fear and anguish, there was in this crowd a mounting tension, like
that
befor
e the breaking of the rains. ‘We
must g
et there,’ he muttered. ‘At all
costs, Lord Shardik,
we
must get there before the rains break.’

A cloud of
flies
flew up before his face, disturbed from a piece of offal lying in the road. He thought of the gylon fly, with its transparent body, hovering among the reeds along the Telthearna.’ I have become a gylon fly - their eyes pass through me
- through and through me - meeti
ng those of others that pass through me from the other side. My bones are turning to water. I shall fall.

He came, he came by night, Silence lay all about us.

A sword passed through me,

I am changed for ever.

Senandril na kora, senandril na ro.’