Shardik (88 page)

Shara’s body fell upon the surface of
the
pool with a sharp, slapping sound. She sank but then, lifting her head clear, raised herself and knelt in the shallow water. Kelderek saw her throw up her clenched hands and, like a baby, draw breath to scream. As she did so Genshed, wading across the pool, pulled her backwards and trampled her under the surface. Planting one foot on her neck, he stood looking about him and scratching his shoulders as the commotion, first of waves and then of ripples, subsided. Before the water had settled Shara, pressed down among the gravel and coloured pebbles on the bottom, had ceased to struggle.

Genshed stepped out of the pool and the body, face-upwards, rose to the surface, the hair, darkened by the water, floating about the head. Genshed walked quickly across to where Radu still lay on the ground, jerked him to his feet, picked up the knife and then, snapping his fingers to Shouter, pointed downhill towards the river.
Kelderek
heard the boy panting as he hurried to the head of the line.

‘Come on, come on,’ muttered Shouter, ‘before he kills
the
mucking lot of us. Move, that’s all, move.’

Of themselves, the children could not have walked a hundred paces, could not have sat upright on a bench or stripped themselves of their verminous rags. Lame, sick, famished, barely conscious of their surroundings, they yet knew well enough that they were in the hands of Genshed. He it was who had the power to make the lame walk, the sick rise up and the hungry to overcome their faintness. They had not chosen h
im, but he had chosen them. With
out him they could do
nothing
, but now he abode in them and they in him. He had overcome the world, so that life became a simple matter, without distraction, of moving, by his will, to the end which he had appointed. The will of Genshed, animating to the extent necessary to its purpose, excluded hope and fear of anything but itself, together with all import from other sights and sounds - from recollections of the previous day, from the evident terror of Shouter, the curious absence of Bled and the body of the little girl floating among the trepsis at the edge of the pool. The children were hardly more aware of these things
than
were the flies already clustering upon the blood of Lalloc soaking the ground. It was not for them to know the times or the seasons which Genshed had put in his own power. It was enough for them to do his will.

Kelderek
, shuffling downhill among the trees, could feel no more than the rest. ‘The child is dead,’ he thought. ‘Genshed killed her. Well, such things have become commonplace among us; and by that I can be certain that my own wickedness has completed its work in me. If I had any heart left, would I not cry out at this? But I want nothing, except to avoid more pain.’

The body of Bled was lying half-concealed in the undergrowth. It was surrounded by signs of violence - trampled earth and broken branches. The eyes were open, but in death the manic glare had left them, just as the limbs no longer retained
their
feral, crouching posture. It was these which had increased Bled’s apparent size, as a live spider is magnified, in the eyes of those who fear it, by its vigilant tension and the possibility that it will run, suddenly and very fast, on its arched legs. Now, Bled looked like a spider dead - small, ugly and harmless; yes, and messy too, for one side of his head had been smashed in and his body was limp and crumpled, as though crushed in the grip of a giant. Along the left side his jerkin was torn open and the exposed flesh was lacerated by five great, parallel scratches, wide apart and deep.

Had he been even more feverish and weak,
Kelderek
, of all men, could not have failed to recognize the tracks about the corpse. Faint
they were, for the ground was covered with moss and creeper, but had they been fainter still he would have known them. The boy’s death, he realized, must have been recent, not more than two hours ago, and in this knowledge he motioned the children to silence and himself stood listening int
ently
.

There was, however, no silencing
Shouter
as he flung himself to the ground in superstitious terror. Genshed, coming up with Radu chained to his belt, could hardly drag him to his feet.

‘Mucking hell,’ wept the boy, struggling. ‘I told you, didn’t I? It’s the devil, Genshed; come for the lot of us I I saw it, I tell you, I saw it in
the
dark-‘

Genshed slapped him across the face and he fell against Radu, who stoo
d still as a post, staring sightl
essly before him as Shouter blubbered and clutched at his hands. Kelderek, who felt it more than likely that Shardik was within hearing, watched Genshed to see whether he would pay any attention to the tracks or recognize them for what they were. He expected that he would not, and
Genshed
‘s first words proved him right.

‘Looks like some animal got him,’ said Genshed. ‘Serves him right, eh, hiding and then trying to bugger off before daylight? Here, pull yourself together, Shouter; I’m giving you a chance. I’m being good to you, Shouter. There’s no devil, you’re just a silly
little
bastard, it’s Ikats you’ve got to look out for. We got to be quick now, see? You get out there to the left, far as you can go, that’s where they’ll be coming from. If you spot any coming, get back to
that
rock down there on the bank -
the
one with the crack in it, see? - I’ll be there. If you feel like giving yourself up to the Ikats, don’t try it. They’ll hang you off a tree before you can squeal. Understand?’

Shouter nodded and at another push from
Genshed
slipped away to the left, taking a line parallel to
the
bank of the
Telthearna
, which was now in sight below them, the inshore water green with reflections of the overhanging trees.

Downhill, each throb of the pulse a stab of pain behind the eyeballs, hand pressed over one eye, links of chain cutting into the wrist, vision blurred, so hard the effort to focus sight. Stumbling downhill; a sound of weeping, like a girl’s; that must be an illusion. Don’t weep, Melathys; dear love, don’t weep for my death. Where will you go now, what will become of you? And did the soldiers ever reach
Zeray
? A message - but he’ll never leave me to the soldiers, he’ll kill me himself. Lord Shardik - after all, I shall
the
before Lord Shardik - I shall never’know the great purpose for which God required his death. I betrayed him -
1
meant to kill him. Melathys on Quiso, Melathys playing with the Baron’s sword. We couldn’t expect mercy, a common man and a girl thrust into things too high for them. If only I’d listened to the Tuginda on the road to Gelt Saiyett, forgive me now; I shall be dead within the hour. If the little girl could
di
e
, then so can I. This cruel man, it was I that made his work possible, it was I that brought Lalloc and his like to Bekla.

Downhill, don’t slip, don’t drag on the chain. The sun must have risen, dazzling down t
here on the inshore water, glinti
ng under the trees. How the pain runs up my hand from the wounded finger. I misled hundreds to misery and death; and the Tuginda could have saved them all. I was afraid of Ta-Kominion; but it’s too late now. It’s Radu, it’s Radu weeping, Genshed’s broken him in the end. He’ll live to murder other children, he’ll be across the river when the soldiers find the
little
girl in the pool. Did you see it, God? Do you see what children suffer? They used to call me
Kelderek
Play-with-the-Children. Why did You manifest Lord Shardik to a man like me, who only betrayed him and defeated Your purpose?

The undergrowth grew thicker near the river. As
Kelderek
stopped, hesitating, Genshed overtook him, his bow held in one hand while with the other he gripped Radu by the shoulder. He had gagged the boy with a piece of rope. Radu’s head had fallen forward on his chest and his arms were hanging at his sides. Genshed began moving through the undergrowth towards the river bank, gesturing to Kelderek and the children to follow him in silence.

Kelderek stepped out upon the bank. The sun glittered in his eyes across the water. He found himself immediately above a little bay, a half-circular inlet surrounded by a steep bank perhaps twice as high as a man. All round the verge, to a breadth of two or three paces, the undergrowth had been cut back to make a path which, on either side of the bay, led down to the water’s edge. A few yards to their right, squarely across this path and half-blocking it, stood the tall, cloven rock which
Genshed
had observed from the forest above. On their left, moored to the bank at the upstream corner of the inlet, lay a canoe, with nets, spears and other tackle strewn aboard. There was not a soul to be seen, but some distance beyond the canoe could be glimpsed,
through
the trees, a cluster of huts, from some of which smoke was already rising.

‘Mucking hell!
‘ whispered
Genshed
, casting a quick glance round among the trees, ‘Easy as that!’

From the forest there sounded suddenly a loud, fluting call, almost human in its consonantal clarity. A moment afterwards a swift flash of purple and gold darted through the trees. It was a bird, so vivid in the sunlight that even the famished, feverish children stared in wonder.

‘Kynat!’ called the bird, ‘Kynat chrrr
r-ak! Kynat, Kynat will tell!’

Glowing like an alchemist’s fire, the saffron undersides of its wings alternately revealed and hidden as it flew, it circled the little bay, hovered a moment, spreading the flanged
g
old of its tail, and then alighted on the stern of the moored canoe.

‘Kynat will tell!’ it called, looking, alert and bright-eyed, towards the emaciated wretches on the bank
as
though it had indeed come with intent to carry its message to them and to none else.

Kelderek
, hearing the call, looked about for the bird, but could make out nothing but swirling greys and greens, stabbed thiough with the golden shafts of the sunlight. Then, as it called again, he saw the courtyard in
Zeray
, and
Melathys
leaning out between the shutters. Even as he watched,
she faded, and he seemed to see himself shuffling away thr
ough the dark woods, while his tears, falling as though from cliff to cliff, disappeared at last into an extreme darkness older
than
the world.

‘Kynat will tell!’ called the bird, and
Kelderek
, coming to himself, saw it perched close above the water and Genshed standing with bow bent and arrow drawn to the head. Sudden and clumsy as a charred log falling in the fire, he lunged forward:
the
chain tautened and he fell against Genshed in the act of loosing. The deflected arrow slammed into the stern of the canoe, causing it to rock and turn at its mooring, so that ripples followed one
another
across the pool. The bird, opening its amazing wings, rose into the air and flew away down the river.

‘
Four hundred meld they fetch!’
cried Genshed. Then, rubbing his left wrist where the loosed bow-string had whipped it, he said very
quietly
. ‘Oh, Mister Crendrik, I must keep a little time for you, mustn’t I ? I must do that.’

There wa
s now about him a confident elati
on more terrible even than his cruelty - the elation of the thief who realizes that there is none in the house but a helpless woman, whom he can therefore rape as well as rob: of the murderer watching as his over-trusting companion is led away to face
the
charge which, thanks to his supposed friend’s cunning, he cannot now disprove. He had indeed the devil’s own luck but, as he well knew, luck comes to the sharp man - to
the
man of ability and style. The craft lay ready to his hand, the morning was windless, the water smooth. Lalloc’s money was secure in his belt and chained to his wrist was a hostage worth more than the proceeds of ten slaving expeditions. At his feet, helpless but happily not senseless, lay the man who had once refused him a Beklan trading licence.

With the speed and dexterity of long use, Genshed loosed both
Kelderek
and Radu and, extending their chains with another which he passed
through
their
pierced ears, secured them to a tree. Kelderek crouched, staring at the water and giving no sign that he knew what was being done. Then the slave-dealer, snapping his fingers for the last time, led the children along the path to his left and down to the upstream extremity of the inlet.

The canoe lay against the bank, moored to a heavy stone with a hole through it -
the
kind often used by fishermen as an anchor. Genshed, stooping down, put aboard first his pack and after that two paddles lying close by on the shore. Finally, he passed a chain
through
the anchor-stone and back to the wrist of the nearest child. His preparations now complete, he left the children and returned quickly up the slope.