Shardik (84 page)

‘I was in Kabin, Gensh, when the Ikats come north. ‘Thought
I
had plonty of time to gotting back to
Bekla
, but left it too late -you ever know soldiers go so fost, Gensh, you ever know? Cot off, couldn’t gotting to Bekla’ (one hand chopped downwards in a gesture of severance), ‘no governor in Kabin - new governor, man called Mollo, been killed in
Bekla
, they were saying -
the
king kill him with his own honds - no one would take money to protect me. So I cross the Vrako. I think, “I’ll stay here till it’s over, me and my nice lotde boys what I bought.” So we stay in some torrible village. I have to pay and pay, just not to be murdered. One day I hear the Ikat soldiers come over the Vrako, honting everywhere for the slave-dealers. I go north - ow, what ‘orrible journey - rockon buy my way through Linsho. But I don’t go through the forest, I come straight up the trock, walk right in among the soldiers. ‘Ow I’m to know the Ikats gotting there first? Dirty thieves - take my lottle boys, all what I pay for. I drop everything, run into the fores
t. Then arrow cotch me in the th
igh, ow my God
the
pain! They honting for me, not long. No, no, they don’t need hont, clever bastards.’ He spat. ‘They know there’s no food here, no shelter, no way to go onnywherc.

O
my God, Gensh, what we do now, ch ? You go out through
those
trees they’ll have you - they’re waiting for oss - someone tell me Nigon they kill, Mindulla they kill -‘

‘Nigon’s dead,’ said
Genshed
.

‘Yoss, yoss. You help me away, Gensh? We gotting across the
Telthearna
, gotting to Deelguy? You remomber how many lotde boys and girls I buy off you, Gensh, always buying off you, and
I
don’t tell where-‘

Suddenly Shouter whistl
ed and plucked
Genshed
by the sleeve.

‘Look at
the
bastards!’ he said, jerking his thumb.

Half a mile away, across the sunlight slope where the guard-house stood, twenty or thirty soldiers were coming towards the forest, trailing their long spears behind them over the grass. At a signal from their officer they extended their line, opening out to right and left as they approached the outskirts.

Not to one child, and to neither Radu nor
Kelderek
, did it occur mat they might, even now, call out or try to reach the soldiers. Had not Genshed just permitted them to prove to themselves that they could not?

His domination - that evil force of which Radu had spoken - lay all about them like a frost, unassailable, visible only in its effects, permeating their spirits with its silent power to numb and subdue. It lay within them - in their starved bodies, in
their
hearts, in their frozen minds. Not God Himself could melt this cold or undo
the
least part of Genshed’s will. Kelderek, waiting until Bled was looking elsewhere and would not see his slow, fumbling struggle, lifted Shara once more in his arms, took the unresisting Radu by
the
hand and followed the slave-dealer back into the forest

Along the higher ground they went along the crest of the low ridge they had ascended earlier that afternoon, Lalloc hobbling beside Genshed and continually entreating not to be left behind. While he babbled, albeit in whispers and in phrases disjointed by shortness of breath, Genshed made no reply. Yet though he might seem inattentive, both to the children and to the fat purveyor of nice
little
boys, it appeared to Kelderek that nevertheless he remained most alert within himself; like a great fish that skulks below a ledge, at one and the same time watching for the least chance to dash between the legs of the wading netsmen and waiting motionless in the hope that its stillness may deceive them into believing it already gone.

52
The
Ruined
Village

And now began among the children that final disintegration which only the fear of Genshed had delayed so long. Despite the fog of ignorance and dread that covered them, one thing was clear to them all. Genshed’s plans had failed. Both he and his overseers were afraid and did not know what to do next Bled walked by himself, hunched and muttering, his eyes on the ground. Shouter gnawed continually at his hand, while ever and again his head, with open mouth and closed eyes, dropped forward like that of an ox unable to pull its load. From all three, despair emanated as bats come fluttering from a cave, thicker as the light fails. The children began to straggle.

Several, having fallen or Iain down on the ground, remained where they were, for
Genshed
and his whippers-in, now sharing the same evil trance as their victims, had neither purpose nor spirit to beat them to their feet.

It was plain that Genshed no longer cared whether the children lived or died. He paid them no heed, but pressed on at his own pace, concerned only to out-distance the soldiers: and when some of those who had fallen, seeing him disappearing ahead of them, struggled to their feet and somehow contrived to catch up with him again, still he spared them not
a
glance. Only of
Kelderek
and Radu did he remain steadily watchful, ordering them, knife in hand, to walk in front of him and stop for nothing.

As, when two animals have fought, the one that is beaten seems actually to grow smaller as it slinks away, so, since turning back from the edge of the forest, Radu had regressed from a youth to a child. The pride of bearing with which he had carried his rags and sores, as though they were honourable insignia of the House of Sarkid, had given place to an exhausted misery like that of
a
survivor from some disaster. He moved uncertainly here and there, as though unable to pick his way for himself, and once, with hands covering his face, gave way to a fit of sobbing which ceased only when breath failed him. As he lifted his head his eyes met Kelderek’s with
a
look of panic-stricken despair, like that of an animal staring from a trap.

‘I’m afraid to die,’ he whispered.

Kelderek
could find no answer.

‘I don’t want to die,’ repeated Radu desperately.

‘Get on,’ said Genshed sharply, from behind.

‘T
hose were my father’s soldiers!
’

‘I know,’ answered Kelderek dully. ‘They may find us yet.*

‘They won’t. Genshed will kill us first. O God, he frightens me so much! I can’t hide it any more.’

‘If the soldiers find us, they’ll certainly kill
me
,’ said
Kelderek
. ‘I was your father’s enemy, you see. It seems strange now.’

Startled, Radu looked quickly at him; but at the same moment Shara, awake at last, began to struggle on
Kelderek
‘s shoulders and to set up a thin wail of misery and hunger.

‘Keep
her quiet,’ said Genshed instantl
y.

Radu, with some difficulty, took her from
Kelderek
, but as he did so slipped, so that the little girl gave a sharp cry of fear. Genshed covered the ground between them in four strides, gripped Radu by the shoulder with one hand and silenced the child with the other over her mouth.

‘Once more and I’ll kill her,’ he said.

Radu cringed from him, whispering to Shara urg
ently
. She became silent, and again they limped on among the trees.

‘I won’t die,’ said Radu pres
ently
, with more composure. ‘Not as long as she needs me. Her father’s one of our tenants, you know.’

‘You told me.’

It was almost dark and there had been no sounds of pursuit. Of how many children now remained with them
Kelderek
had no idea. He tried to look about him, but first could not focus his sight and then could not remember for what it was that he was supposed to be looking. The faintness of hunger seemed to have destroyed both sight and sound. His brain swam and a feverish pain stabbed through his head. When first he glimpsed stone walls about him, he could not tell whether they might be real or figments of his splintered mind.

Shouter
was shaking him by the arm.

‘Stop! Stop, damn you I You gone mucking deaf or something? He says stop! Here,’ sa
id the boy, with something faintl
y resembling human sympathy, ‘you’d better sit down, mate, you need a rest, you do. Sit down here.’

He found himself sitti
ng on a ledge of stone. Round him was what had once been a clearing, stumps of trees overgrown with creeper and weeds. There were walls of piled boulders and stones without mortar, some tumbled, some
still
standing: steadings and pens, all doorless, the roofs fallen in, holes exposing the smoke-blackened flues of chimneys. Near by rose a low cliff of rock, once, no doubt, quarried to build
these
same dwellings; and at its foot a spring trickled into a shallow pool, from which the water, flowing through an outfall in
the
enclosing stones, ran away
downhill towards the distant Telthe
arna. On the opposite side of the pool, the stone surround was half-cover
ed by the long tendrils of a tre
psis vine, on which a few scarlet flowers were already blooming.

‘Where
are
we?’ asked
Kelderek
. ‘
Shouter
, where are we?*

‘How the hell d’you expect me to know?’ answered Shouter. ‘Deserted village or something, in’t it? No one been here for mucking years. What’s it matter?’ went on the boy, with choking violence, ‘We’re all good as dead now. Good as any other place to die, isn’t it?’

‘For me,’ said
Kelderek
. ‘It is for me. It’s like another place
I
once knew -
there
was a pool, and tre
psis -‘

‘He’s gone,’ said Radu. ‘Yes, go and have a drink, Shara dear. I’ll come over in a moment.’

‘Are
we
going home soon?’ asked the
little
girl. “Said we’d go home, didn’t you? I’m hungry, Radu. I’m hungry.’

‘Going
home
soon,
dear,’
said
Radu.
‘Not
tonight,
but
quite
soon. Don’t
cry.
Look,
the
big
boys
aren’t
crying.
I’ll
look
after
you.’

Shara
put
her
two
hands
on
his
forearm
and
looked
up
at
him, her
wan,
dirty
face
grave
amongst
her
matted
hair.

‘It’s
dark,’
she
said.
‘Dad
used
to
light
a
lamp.
I
think
he
did. “When
it
got
dark
he
used
to
light
a
lamp.’

‘I
remember
the
lamps,’
said
Radu
‘I’m
hungry
too.
It’ll
be
all right
in
the
end,
I
promise
you.’

‘Genshed’s
bad,
isn’t
he?
He
hurts
us.
Will
he
go
to
Leg-by-Lee
?’

Radu
nodded,
his
finger
to
his
lips.
‘The
soldiers
are
coming,’
he whispered.
‘The
soldiers
from
Sarkid.
They’ll
take
us
home.
But that’s
a
secret
between
you
and
me.’

‘I
feel
bad,’
she
said.
‘Feel
ill.
Want
a
drink.’
She
kissed
his
arm with
dry
lips
and
stumbled
across
to
the
pool.

‘I’ve
got
to
look
after
her,’
said
Radu.
He
passed
his
hand
across his
forehead
and
closed
his
eyes.
‘Her
father’s
one
of
our
tenants, you
know.
Oh,
I
told
you.
I
feel
ill
too.
Is
it
a
pestilence,
do
you think?*