Shardik (91 page)

‘Yes, so he told me, but that came later. He was cold and unfriendly at first, until he learned that our sick lady was none other than the Tuginda of Quiso. After that he put everything he had at our disposal - goats and milk, fowls and eggs. The Yeldashay seem to do themselves very well in the field, but of course they’d only come from Kabin, which they seem to have milked dry, as far as I can make out.

‘The first thing Tan-Rion told me was
that
an armistice had been agreed with Bekla and that Santil-ke-
Erketlis
was negotiating with Zelda and Ged-la-Dan at some place not far from Thettit. He’s still there, as far as I know.’

‘Then - then why send Yeldashay troops over the Vrako? Why?’ He was still afraid.

‘Stop exciting yourself, my darling. Be quiet and I’ll explain. There
are
only two hundred Yeldashay all told this side of the Vrako, and Tan-Rion told me that
Erketlis
knew nothing about it until after they’d left Kabin. It wasn’t he who gave the order, you see.’

She paused, but Kelderek, obedient, said not a word.

‘Elleroth gave the order on his own initiative. He told
Erketlis
he’d done it for two reasons: first, to round up fugitive slave-traders, particularly Lalloc and Genshed - the worst of the lot, he said, and he was determined to get them - and secondly to ensure that someone should meet the Deelguy if they succeeded in crossing the river. He knew they’d started work on the ferry.’

Again she paused and again Kelderek remained silent.

‘Elstrit
did
reach Ikat, you see. I might have known he would. He gave
Erketlis
the Baron’s message, and it seems that
the
idea of the ferry appealed so much to the commander of the Deelguy with
Erketlis
that
he immediately sent to the king of Deelguy suggesting that pioneers should be sent down the cast bank to begin work opposite Zeray and try to get the ferry started. I suppose be had the notion that any reinforcements sent from Deelguy to join
the
army after it had marched north might be able to avoid crossing the Gelt mountains. Anyway, those were the men you and I saw
that
afternoon, when we were on
the
roof. They’re still there, but when I left no one had crossed
the
strait. Actually, I don’t yet see how they’re going to.

‘But Elleroth had a th
ird and more important reason, as Tan-Rion told me - more important to himself, anyway. He was going to find his poor son; or if he couldn’t, it wasn’t going to be for want of trying. There were eight officers altogether with the Sarkid company that entered Zeray, and every o
ne of them had sworn to Elleroth,
before they left Kabin, that they’d find his son if they had to search every foot of ground in the province. As soon as they’d been in Zeray twenty-four hours and found out all there was to learn - that is,
that
Genshed wasn’t there and that no one had seen him or heard of him - they set out upstream. They’d already sent a detachment north on
the
way in, to close the Linsho Gap. That must have been closed two days after you left Zeray.’

‘It was only just in time,
then
,’ said
Kelderek
.

‘I went north with the Yeldashay, and I went on the Tuginda’s express order. She regained consciousness towards evening of
the
day you set out. She was very weak, and of course at
that
time we were still afraid
that
the
house would be attacked by
those
ruffians who’d injured her. But as soon as
the
Yeldashay came and the fear of being murdered was off our minds, she began making her plans again. She’s very strong, you know.’

‘I do know - who better?’

“The night before the soldiers left Zeray she told me what I had to do. She said that with Ankray and two officers staying behind she felt perfe
ctly
safe; and I was to go north. I reminded her
that
there
was no other woman in the house.

‘ “Then perhaps you or Tan-Rion will get me a decent girl from Lak,” she said, “but north you must certainly go, my dear. The
Yeldashay
are
not looking for Lord Shardik; they’re looking for Elleroth’s boy. Yet you and I know that both Shardik and Kelderek are wandering somewhere between here and Linsho. What holy and sacred death Lord Shardik is doomed to die none can tell, but come it must. As for
Kelderek
, he is in great danger; and I know what is between you and him as surely as though you had told me. The Yeldashay believe both him and Shardik to be their enemies. You
are
needed both as friend and as priestess, and if you ask me what you are to do, I reply that God will show you.”

^‘
“Priestess? ” I said. “You’re calling
me
a priestess?”

‘ “You
are
a priestess,” she answered. “I
say you are a priestess and you have my authority to act as such. It is as my priestess that you are to go north with the soldiers and do what you find to do.” ‘

Melathys paused for some moments to regain command of herself. At length she went on,

‘So I - so I set out, as a priestess of Quiso. We went to Lak and there I learned first of Shardik and next that you had been there and gone. Nothing more was known of you. The day after, the
Yeldashay
began moving north towards Linsho, searching the forest as they went. Tan-Rion had promised the Tuginda to look after me and it was he who gave me this Yeldashay
met
lan.
He’d got the cloth with him - he bought it in Kabin, I believe - I wonder who for? -and a woman in Lak made it up t
o his orders. “You’ll be perfectl
y all right with the men as long as you look like a
Yeldashay
girl,” he said. “They know who you are, but it’ll give them the idea
that
they ought to respect you and look after you.” He gave me this emblem too.’

She paused, smiling, and picked it up. ‘Popular girl. Would you like me to throw it in the river?’

He shook his head. ‘There’s no need. Besides, it might excite me, mightn’t it? Go on.’

She put it back on the blanket.

‘The second day after we’d left Lak, in the morning, we found the body of a child - a boy of about ten - cast up on the shore. He was dreadfully thin. He’d been stabbed to death. He had a pierced ear and chain-marks on his ankles. The soldiers were wild with rage. That was when I began to wonder whether you might have been murdered by the slave-traders. I was frantic with worry and God help me, I thought more of that than of Lord Shardik.

‘About the middle of that afternoon I was walking up the shore with Tan-Rion and his tryzatt when two canoes came downstream, manned by a
Yeldashay
officer, two soldiers and two villagers from Tissarn. That was how we learned that Radu had been found and

Genshed and Lalloc were dead. The officer told us how Lord Shardik had given his life to save Radu and the children, and of how he split the rock. It was like a miracle, he said, like an old tale beyond belief.

‘The
Yeldashay
, of course, could think of nothing but Radu, but I questioned the officer until I found out
that
you had been with Genshed and
that
Shardik had saved you too. “Wounded, feverish and half out of his mind,” the officer said, but they didn’t think you would die.

‘One of the canoes went on to Zeray, but I made Tan-Rion give me a place in the other that was going back. We travelled upstream all night, inshore against
the
current, and reached Tissarn soon after dawn. I went first to Lord Shardik, as I was in honour and duty bound. No one had touched him; and just as the Tuginda had said, I knew
then
what I had to do. Tan-Rion has already set about
the
preparations. He made no difficulty when I asked him. The Yeldashay feel very differ
ently
now about Lord Shardik, you sec.

‘But I’ve talked too long, my darling. I mustn’t tire you any more tonight.’

‘One question,’ said
Kelderek
. ‘One only. What of Radu and the children?’

‘They’re still here. I’ve met Radu. He spoke of you as his friend and comrade. He’s weak and very much distressed.’ She paused. ‘There was a
little
girl ?’

Kelderek drew in his breath sharply, and nodded.

‘Elleroth has been sent for,’ she said. ‘The
other
children - I’ve not seen them. Some are recovering, but I’m told that several are in a very bad way, poor
little
things. At least they’re all in good hands. Now you must sleep again.’

‘And you too, my dearest Travel-All-Night. We must both sleep.*

‘Goodnight, Kelderek Play-with-the-Children. Look,
the
daylight’s quite gone. I’ll ask old Dirion, bless her, to bring her lamp and sit with you until she’s sure you’re asleep.’

5 6
The
Passing
of
Shardik

Although it was now quite dark he could hear, some distance away, the sounds o
f men working - concerted, rhyth
mic shouts, as though heavy objects were being lugged into place; hammering, splintering and the knock of axes. A faint glow of torchlight was discernible from somewhere near the river. Once, when a deep splash was followed by a particularly loud shouting, Dirion, sitting by her lamp, clicked her tongue reprovingly. She said nothing in explanation, however, and after a little he ceased to wonder what urgent demand of war could have come upon the soldiers in this remote place where, so far as he knew, no enemy threatened. He fell asleep, waking to see moonlit ripples reflected in the roof and
Melathys
sitting by the lamp. Somewhere outside, a Yeldashay sentry called, ‘All’s well,’ in the expressionless, stylized tone of one who observes routine.

‘You should sleep,’ he whispered. She started, came over to the bed, bent and kissed him li
ghtly
and then nodded, smiling, towards the neighbour room, as though to say she would sleep there: and at that moment Dirion returned. Yet much later in the night, when he woke, crying and struggling, from a dream of Genshed, it was still
Melathys
who was with him. He had somehow struck his wounded finger-nail. The pain was sickening and she comforted him as infants or animals are comforted, repeating the same phrases in a quiet, assured voice, ‘There, there; the pain will go soon, it will go soon; wait now, wait now,’ until he felt
that
it was indeed she who was making
the
pain subside. As the darkness began to melt into first light he lay awake, acquiescent, listening to
the
river and the growing sounds of morning - the birds, the clang of a pot and the snapping of sticks which someone was breaking across his knee.

He realized
that
for
the
first time since leaving
Ortelga
he was taking pleasure in diese sounds and that they were filling him, as once long ago, with expectancy of
the
coming day. To eat a meal, to complete a day’s work, to come home tired to a fire, to greet a girl, talk and listen - a man free to do these things, he thought, should wear his blessings like a garland.

Yet when he had eaten and Melathys had changed his dressings he fell asleep again, waking only
a
little before noon, when
a
random sunbeam touched his eyes. He felt stronger, in pain certainly but no longer its helpless victim. After a time he put his foot to the floor, stood up dizzily, holding on to the bed, and looked about him.

His room and another comprised the upper storey of a fairly large hut: plank floor and walls, with an Ortelgan-style roof of reed thatch over
zeilapa
poles. The eastern side, behind the head of his bed, was a gallery, half-walled and open to
the
river almost immediately below.

He hobbled to the gallery wall and leaned upon it, looking out across t
he Telthearna to the distant Dee
lguy shore. Far off, men were fishing, their net stretched between two canoes. The midstream current glittered and close by,
a
little
to his left, a few gaunt oxen stood drinking in the shallows. It was so quiet that after a time his ear caught the sound of breathing. He turned and, looking into
the
next room, saw Melathys lying asleep on a low, rough bed like his own. She was no less beautiful in sleep, lips closed, forehead smooth, her long eyelids curved, he thought, like waves lapping on her cheeks in dark ripples of lashes. This was the girl who for his sake had slept very
little
last night and not at all the night before. He had been restored to her by Shardik, whom he had once cursed and planned to destroy.