Shardik (95 page)

‘Lie down, my love,’ said Melathys. ‘I’ll go. Since no one tells me about him, I must see this
Shouter
for myself - or hear him.’

5 7
El
l
e
roth’s
Dinner
Party

When he woke, his Yeldashay soldier was sitting near by mending
a
piece of leather in the fading light. Seeing Kelderek awake, he grinned and nodded, but said nothing.
Kelderek
slept again and was next wakened by
Melathys
lying down beside him.

‘If I don’t lie down I’ll
fall
down. I’ll be off to bed soon, but it means so much to be alone with you again for
a
little
. How are you?’

‘Empty - desolate. Lord Shardik - I can’t take it in.’ He broke off, but then said, ‘You did well today. The Tuginda herself could have done no better.’

‘Yes, she could: and she would have. But what happened was ordained.’

‘Ordained?’

‘So I believe. I haven’t told you something else the Tuginda said to me before I left Zeray. I asked her whether, if I found you, I should give you any message from her; and she said, “He’s troubled because of
what he did years ago, at moonse
t on
the
road to Gelt. He hasn’t be
en able to ask forgiveness, alth
ough he wants it. Tell him I forgive him freely.” And then she said, “I’m guilty too -guilty of pride and stupidity.” I asked, “How, saiyett? How could you be?” “Why,” she said, “you know, as I do, what we have been taught and what we have taught to others. We were taught that God would reveal the truth of Shardik through two chosen vessels,
a
man and a woman: and that He would break those vessels to fragments and Himself fashion them again to His purpose. I had supposed, in my stupid pride, that the woman was myself, and often I have thought that I was indeed suffering that breaking. I was wrong. It was not I, my dear girl,” she said to me. “It was not I, but
another woman, that He chose to be broken and whom He has now fashioned again.’”

Melathys was crying and he put his arm round her, unable to speak for the shock of surprise that filled him. Yet he was in no doubt and, as perception began to come upon him of all that her words imported, he felt like one looking out towards an unknown country half-hidden in the twilight and mist of early morning. Prcs
ently
she said,

‘We have to return to the Tuginda. She will need a message sent to Quiso and help with preparing for her journey. And Ankray -s
ometh
ing must be done for him. But that wretched boy out there —’

‘He’s a murderer.’

‘I know. Do you want to kill him?’

‘No.’

‘It’s easier for me to pity him -
I
wasn’t there
. But he was a slave like the rest of them, wasn’t he? I suppose he has no one at all?’

‘I think we may find there are several like that. It’s the unloved and deserted who get sold as slaves, you know.’

‘I should know.’

‘So should I. God forgive me!
O God, forgive me!’

She checked him with a finger held to his lips. ‘Fashioned again to His purpose. I believe I’m at last beginning to see.’

They could hear Dirion climbing the ladder. Melathys got up, bent over him and kissed his lips. Still holding her hand, he said,

‘Then what are we to do?’

‘Oh, Kelderek! My darling Kelderek, how many more times? It will be shown us, shown us,
shown
us what we are to do!
’

Next day his wounds were once more cnflamed and painful. He was feverish and kept his bed, but the following morning felt well enough to sit looking out over the river in the sunlight while he soaked his arm in warm water with herbs. The herbal smell mingled with wood-smoke from Dirion’s fire, and some children below played and scuffled over their task of spreading nets to dry on the shore. Melathys had just finished binding his arm and tying a sling for it when suddenly they heard cheering break out some distance away on the edge of the village. There are as many kinds of cheering as of children’s weeping; the sound tells plainly enough whether the cause be deep or shallow, great or small. These were not ironical cheers of derision, nor yet of sport nor of acclamation for a comrade or hero, but deep, sustained cries of joy, expressive of some long-held hope attained and relief conferred. They looked at each other; and Melathys went to the head of the ladder and called down to Dirion.

The cheering was spreading through the village and they could hear fee
t running and men’s voices shouti
ng excitedly in
Yeldashay
. Melathys went down and he heard her calling to someone further off. Noise and excitement were blazing round the house like a fire and he had almost determined to try to go down himself when she returned, climbing
the
ladder as lightly as a squirrel. She took his good hand and, kneeling on
the
floor beside him, looked up into his face.

‘Elleroth’s here,’ she said, ‘and the news is that the war’s over: but I don’t know what that means any more than you.’

He kissed her and they waited in silence.
Melathys
laid her head on his knee and he stroked her hair, wondering to find himself so indifferent to his fate. He
thought
of Genshed, of the slave-children, of Shara and her coloured stones, of the death of Shardik and the burning raft. It seemed to matter
little
what might follow upon diese, except
that
come what might he would not leave Melathys. At length he said, ‘Have you seen Shouter this morning?’

‘Yes. At least he’s no worse. Yesterday I paid a woman to look after him. She seems honest.’

Some time later they heard men entering below, and then Tan-Rion speaking quickly in words they could not catch. A few moments afterwards he appeared at the head of the ladder, f
ollowed by Radu. Both stood waiti
ng, looking down at someone who was following them. There was a pause and
then
Elleroth climbed awkwardly into the room, stretching out his ungloved right hand for help before stepping off the rungs.

Kelderek
and
Melathys
rose and stood side by side as the Ban of Sarkid and his companions came forward to meet them.
Elleroth
, who was as clean and impeccably dressed as when
Kelderek
had last seen him in Kabin, offered his h
and and after a moment’s hesitati
on Kelderek took it, though returning the other’s look uncertainly.

‘We meet as friends today, Cre
ndrik,’ said
Elleroth
. ‘That is, if you are willing, as I am.’

‘Your son is my friend,’ replied
Kelderek
. ‘I can truly say that. We suffered much together and believed we had lost our lives.’

‘So he tells me. I have heard little about it as yet, but I know that you were wounded defending him and that you probably saved his life.’

‘What happened,’ replied
Kelderek
hesitantly, ‘was - was confused. But it was Lord Shardik who laid down his life - it was he who saved us all.’

‘That t
oo Radu has told me. Well, I see
that I have much
still
to hear; and perhaps something to learn as well.’ He smiled at Melathys.

‘Lord Kelderek has been gravely ill,’ she said, ‘and is still weak. I think we should sit down. I am only sorry that these are such rough quarters.’

‘Mine have been worse these two nights past,’ answered
Elleroth
cheerfully, ‘and it seemed no hardship in the world, I can assure you. You are a priestess of Quiso, I take it?’

Melathys looked confused and it was
Kelderek
who replied.

‘This is the priestess Melathys, whom the Tuginda of Quiso sent as her deputy to conduct the last rites of Lord Shardik. The Tuginda was injured in Zeray and is still lying sick there.’

‘I am sorry to hear it,’ said
Elleroth
, ‘for she is honoured as a healer from Ikat to Ortelga. But even she was taking too much danger on herself when she crossed the Vrako. Had I known, when she came to see me in Kabin, that she meant to go to Zeray, I would have prevented it. I hope she will soon be recovered.’

‘Pray God she will,’ replied Melathys. ‘I left her out of danger and better than she had been.’

They sat together on the rough benches, in the gallery overlooking the Telthearna, while one of Tan-Rion’s soldiers brought nuts, black bread and wine. Elleroth, who looked tired almost to the point of collapse, expressed concern for
Kelderek
‘s wounds and went on to enquire about the last rites of Shardik.

‘Your soldiers did everything they could to help us,’ answered Kelderek. ‘They and the village people.’ Then, wishing to avoid being questioned about the details of the ceremony, he said, ‘You’ve marched from Kabin? You must have made great speed. Surely this is only the fourth day since Lord Shardik died?’

‘The news was brought down the river to Zeray that evening,’ replied Elleroth, ‘and reached me in Kabin before noon of the next day. To march sixty miles in two and a half days is slow for a man whose son and heir was dead and is alive again, but then it’s rough country and heavy going, as you’ll know yourself.’

‘But you have hardly been in Tissarn an hour,’ said Melathys. ‘You should have eaten a meal and rested before troubling yourself to come here.’

‘On the contrary,’ rejoined Elleroth, ‘I would have come here sooner, but such is my vanity that I’m afraid I stopped to wash and change my clothes, though I confess I did not know that I was going to meet one of the beautiful priestesses of Quiso.’

Melathys laughed like a girl accustomed to be teased and to tease in return.

“Then why the haste? Are
Yeldashay
nobles always so punctilious?’

‘Yeldashay,
saiyett
? I am from Sarkid of the Sheaves.’ Then, gravely, he said, ‘Well, I had a reason. I felt that you, Crendrik, deserved to receive my thanks and to hear my news as quickly as I could bring both to you.’

He paused, but Kelderek said nothing and after a few moments
Elleroth
went on, ‘If you still feel any anxiety on your own account, I hope you will set it aside. When I told you in Kabin that we should kill you if we came upon you again, we were not to know that you would share the misery of slavery with the heir of Sarkid and play a part in saving his life.’

Kelderek rose abrupdy, walked a few steps away and stood with his back turned, looking out at the river. Tan-Rion raised his eyebrows and half-rose, but
Elleroth
shook his head and waited, taking Radu’s hand and speaking
quietly
to him, aside, until
Kelderek
should have recovered his composure.

Turning at length,
Kelderek
said roughly, ‘And do you bear in mind also that it is I who brought about your son’s sufferings and the
little
girl’s death?’

‘My father has heard nothing yet of Shara,’ said Radu.

‘Crendrik,’ said Elleroth, ‘if you feel contrition, I can only be glad for it. I know that you have suffered - probably more than you can ever recount, for true suffering is of the mind and regret is the worst of it. I, too, have suffered grief and fear - for long weeks I suffered the loss of my son and believed him lost to me. Now we are all three released - he, you and I - and whether or not it was indeed a miracle, I am not so mean-spirited as to withhold gratitude from the poor bear, who came alive from the Streel, like the Lord Deparioth’s own mother; or to retain any grudge against a man who has befriended my son. I say all debts are cleared by Shardik’s death - his sacred death, for this we must believe it to have been. But I have another reason also for friendship between us - a political reason, if you like. There is now peace between Ikat and Bekla and even while we speak all prisoners and hostages are returning home.’ He smiled. ‘So it really wouldn’t be at all appropriate, would it, for me to feel vindictive towards you.’

Kelderek sat down on the bench. From the shore outside came the cries of three or four young fishermen who were launching their canoes.

‘At the time when you were in Kabin,’ went on Elleroth, trying rather unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn of sheer exhaustion, ‘General Santil-ke-
Erketlis
was personally leading some of our troops to overtake and release a slave-colu
mn travelling westwards from The
ttit. He succeeded, but it brought him very close to the Beklan army, which, as I dare say you know, had followed us north from the Yeldashay frontier. It was while General
Erketlis
was returning
with
the slaves he had freed that he came upon a party of
Bekla
n officers, who were also making for Kabin - to negotiate with us. They were headed by General Zelda and their purpose was to propose an immediate truce and the discussion of terms of peace.