"Shardik" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Richard)

THE KING'S HOUSE

on whom to avenge it. Kelderek, watching near by, prayed continually in the same words that he had used more than five years ago in the forest darkness, 'Peace, Lord Shardik. Sleep, Lord Shardik. Your power is of God. Nothing can harm you.'

In the foetid twilight he, the Priest-King, was watching over the bear and waiting for news that Ged-la-Dan had reached the city. The Council would not begin without Ged-la-Dan, for the provincial delegates had been assembled first for the purpose of satisfying the Ortelgan generals about contributions of troops, money and other supplies required for the summer campaign, and secondly to be told as much as was considered good for them about Ortelgan plans for the enemy's defeat. Of these plans Kelderek himself as yet knew nothing, although they had already, no doubt, been formulated by Zelda and Ged-la-Dan with the help of some of the subordinate commanders. Before the commencement of the Council, however, and certainly before any step was taken to put the plans into effect, the generals would seek his agreement in the name of Lord Shardik; and anything which, in his prayer and pondering, he might dislike or doubt, he could if he wished require them to alter in Shardik's name.

Since that day when Shardik had struck down the Beklan commanders and disappeared into the rainy nightfall of the foothills, Kelderek's authority and influence had become greater than Ta-Kominion's could ever have been. In the eyes of the army it was plainly he who had brought about the miracle of the victory, he who had first divined the will of Shardik and then acted in obedience to it. Baltis and his men had told everywhere the tale of his apparent folly in insisting upon the construction of the cage and of the single-mindedness with which he had conducted the desperate march over the hills, completed by less than half of those who had begun it. The breach broken through the Tamarrik Gate could hardly have been carried against a leader like Santil-ke-Erketlis, had it not been for the fanatical belief of every Ortelgan that Shardik, in mystic communion with Kelderek, was invisibly present, leading the assault and striking unseen at the hearts and arms of Bekla. Kelderek himself had known beyond doubt that he and none other was the elect of Shardik, whom he was ordained to bring to the city of his people. On his own authority he had ordered Sheldra and the other girls to set out with him, as soon as spring should come, to seek Shardik until he was found. The Ortelgan barons, while they did not dispute this authority, had vehemently opposed the idea of his magical presence leaving the city as long as Santil-ke-Erkcdis remained undefeated in the citadel on Crandor; and Kelderek, impatient of delay as the warm days returned, had suppressed his personal revulsion at the methods by which Zelda and Ged-la-Dan had compelled the Beklan general to vacate his stronghold. Such revulsion, he considered, while it might be natural enough to the common man that he had once been, was altogether unworthy of a king, whose contempt and lack of pity for the enemy was a necessity for his own people, or how could wars be won? In any case the matter was below the sphere of his authority, for he was a magical and religious king, concerned with the perception and interpretation of the divine will and certainly no religious question was involved in Ged-la-Dan's decision to erect a gallows within view of the citadel and to hang two Beklan children every day until Santil-ke-Erketlis should agree to leave it Only when Ged-la-Dan had told Kelderek that he ought to attend each hanging in the name of Shardik had he exercised his own will in the matter, replying curtly that it was he and not Ged-la-Dan who had been appointed by God to discern where and on what occasions there might be a need for his presence and for the manifestation of the power conferred on him by Shardik. Gcd-Ia-Dan, secredy fearing that power, had said no more and Kelderek, for his part, had profited by what been done without having to witness it. After some days the Beklan general had agreed to march south, leaving Kelderek free to seek Shardik in the hills west of Gelt

From that long and arduous search neither the bear nor the king had returned unchanged. Shardik, snarling and struggling in his chains till he lay exhausted and half-strangled, had been drawn into the city by night and under an enforced curfew, lest the people should see what might appear to them as the humiliation of the Power of God. The chains had inflicted wounds on one side of his neck and beneath the joint of the left fore-leg; and these healed slowly, leaving him with something of a limp and with an awkward, unnatural carriage of his great head which, in walking, he now moved slowly up and down, as though still feeling the pressure of the chain that was no longer there. Often, during the first months, he was violent, battering at the bars and walls with enormous blows that thudded through the building like a smith's hammer. Once, the new brickwork closing one of the bays split and collapsed under his anger and for a time he wandered in the ambulatory beyond, beating, until he was weary, at the outer walls. Kelderek had divined from this a portent of success for an attack towards Ikat; and in fact the Ortelgans, following his divination, had forced Santil-ke-Erketlis to retreat southward through Lapan, only to be compelled once more to halt their advance on the borders of Yelda.

In less than a year, however, Shardik had grown sullen and lethargic, afflicted with worms and plagued by a canker which caused him to scratch dolefully at one ear until it was ragged and misshapen. Lacking both Rantzay and the Tuginda, and hampered by the confined space and the continual gloomy savagery of the bear, Kelderek abandoned the hope he had once entertained of recommencing the singing worship. Indeed all the girls, though assiduous in feeding Shardik, ministering to his needs and cleaning and tending the building that had become his dwelling, now feared him so greatly that little by little it became accepted that to come near him, unless protected by the bars, no longer formed any part of their services. Only Kelderek, of all their company, still knew in his heart that he must stand before him, offering his life for no reward and uttering again and again his prayer of self-dedication, 'Senandril, Lord Shardik. Accept my life. I am yours and ask nothing of you in return.' Yet even as he prayed he answered himself, 'Nothing -except your freedom and my power.'

During the long months of searching, in the course of which two girls had died, he had contracted a malarial fever, and this returned from time to time, so that he lay shivering and sweating, unable to eat and – particularly when the rains were beating on the wooden roof above – seeming to himself, in confused dreams, to be once more following Shardik out of the trees to destroy the appalled and stricken hosts of Bekla: or again, he would be seeking Melathys, plunging down the Ledges in the starlight towards a fire which receded before him, while from among the trees the voice of the Tuginda called, 'Commit no sacrilege, now of all times.'

He came to know the days when he could be sure that Shardik would make no move – the days when he could stand beside him as he lay brooding and speak to him of the city, of the dangers that beset it and its need of divine protection. At times, unpredictably, there would return upon him the inward sense of being elevated to some high plane beyond that of human life. But now, instead of attaining to that pinnacle of calm, shining silence from which he had once looked down upon the outskirts of the Ortelgan forest, it seemed that he joined Lord Shardik upon the summit of some terrible, cloud-swirling mountain, a place of no-life, solitary and distant as the moon. Through the darkness and icy vapour, from the pit of stars flaring in the black sky, there would sound rolling thunder, the screaming of birds, half-heard voices – unintelligible cries of warning or fierce triumph. These were borne to him crouching on the edge of a visionary and dreadful precipice, enduring this world of suffering without refuge. From pole to pole there was none left in the world to suffer but he; and always, in this trance, he was powerless to move – perhaps no longer human, but changed to a rock buried under snow or split by lightning, an anvil hammered by a cold power in regions unendurable to human life. Usually, his sense of this awful sphere was mercifully dulled – superimposed, as it were, upon a continuing recollection of fragments of his lucid self, like reflections upon the visible bed of a river: as that he was king of Bekla, that sharp blades of straw were pricking the flesh of his legs, that the open gate to the Rock Pit was forming a square of bright light at the far end of the dark hall. Once or twice, however, he had become enclosed and locked altogether, like a fish in ice, among the gulfs of time where the mountains lived out their lives and crumbled and the stars, in millennia, consumed away to darkness: and, falling to the ground, had Iain oblivious beside the shaggy body of Shardik; until at last, hours later, waking with a profound sense of grief and desolation, he had limped his way out of the hall to stand in the sun with the exhausted, undemanding relief of one cast up from shipwreck.

Unable to comprehend whatever truth might lie hidden in this terrible place to which, as by a compass-needle, he was guided by his unaltered devotion to Shardik, he would nevertheless seek, clumsily and conscientiously, to derive from what he suffered some meaning, some divine message applicable to the fortunes of the people and the city. Sometimes he knew in himself that these soothsayings were contrived, all but mendacious, the very stuff of a mountebank. Yet often, those which he knew most surely to have been cobbled out of incomprehension, self-reproach and a mere sense of duty would appear later to have been fulfilled, to have borne actual fruit; or at all events were received by his followers as evident truth; while the nebulous searchings of his integrity to compass in words what lay, like a half-remembered dream, beyond his power to recall or express, would evoke only shaken heads and shrugged shoulders. Worst of all, in its effect on others, was the honest silence of humility.

Shardik absorbed him night and day. The spoils of Bekla – to the barons, the soldiers and even to Sheldra and her companions so precious and gratifying an end in themselves – were no lure to him. The honour and state devised for the king he accepted, and the role which gave heart and assurance to barons and people he fulfilled with a profound sense both of their need and his own fitness through election by God. And yet, musing in the gaunt, echoing hall, watching the bear in its fits of rage and of torpor, he was filled with the conviction that after all, what he had accomplished – all that seemed miraculous and near-divine in human terms – was of no importance in contrast to what remained to be revealed. Once, in the days when he had been concerned with no more than to get his hunter's living, he had thought only of what was necessary to that narrow purpose, like a peasant leaving unconsidered the whole world beyond his own strip of land. Then the power of Shardik had touched him and in the eyes of himself and others he had entered upon the world as an emissary of God, seeing plainly and certainly, through the knowledge divinely imparted to him, both the nature of his task and what was needed for its performance. As the instrument of Shardik he had been accorded a unique perception, self-sufficient and free from all ignorance and uncertainty. In the light of that perception everything had been found by others to have the value which he himself attached to it: and everything had fallen into the place to which he had appointed it. The High Baron of Ortelga had proved to be of small moment; yet all-important his own apparently suicidal determination to carry to Quiso the news of Shardik's corning. But now, though Shardik was lord in Bekla, this perception no longer seemed, to himself, sufficient. Continually, he was haunted by an intuitive sense that all that had happened as yet had scarcely touched the fringe of the truth of God, that he himself was still blind and that some great disclosure remained to be sought and found, to be prayed for and granted – a revelation of the world in the light of which his own state and monarchy would signify as little to himself as to the huddled creature in the cage, with its staring pelt and evil-smelling dung. Once, in a dream, he found himself robed and crowned for the festival of victory held every year upon the onset of the rains, but paddling his hunter's raft along the southern shore of Ortelga. 'Who is Shardik?' called the beautiful Melathys, walking among the trees. 'I cannot tell,' he called back. 'I am only an ignorant, simple man.' At this she laughed, took off her great golden collar and tossed it easily to him across the reeds; but he, in the act of catching it, knew it to be worthless and let it fall into the water. Waking to see Shardik rambling back and forth beyond the bars, he rose and, as the dawn lightened, stood a long while in prayer. 'Take back all else, Lord Shardik; my power and kingdom if you will. But give me fresh eyes to perceive your truth – that truth to which I cannot yet attain. Senandril, Lord Shardik. Accept my life if you will, but grant, at whatever cost, that I may find what I still seek.'

It was this all-demanding austerity of preoccupation which, more than his readiness to confront the bear, more than prophecy or any other attribute, maintained his power and authority over the city and established the awe felt for him not only by the people but also by those very barons who could not forget that he had once been nothing but an Ortelgan hunter. There was none to whom it was not plain that he was in truth the prisoner of his own all-consuming integrity, that he took no pleasure in the jewels and wine, the girls and flowers and feasting of Bekla. 'Ah, he speaks with Lord Shardik ' they said, watching as he paced through the streets and squares to the soft beat of the gong. 'We live in the sun, for he takes the darkness of the city on himself.' "Gives me the cold shivers, he does,' said the courtesan Hydraste to her pretty friend, as they leaned from her window in the hot afternoon. 'You couldn't do even that much, to him,' replied the friend, flicking a ripe cherry down upon a young man passing below, and leaning a little further over the sill.

To himself, his integrity was unforced, rooted in the compulsion to seek, to discover a truth which he felt to lie far beyond the fortune he had made for Ortelga, far beyond his own role of priest-king. In his prophecies and interpretations he was less betraying this integrity than compounding with necessity in the face of his need for more time if he was to attain to what he sought; just as a doctor, feeling himself on the brink of discovering at last the true cause of a disease, may nevertheless continue to treat it by accepted methods, not from any intention to deceive or exploit, but because until he succeeds in his great aim there is nothing better. Kelderek, who might have drugged Shardik to be sure of standing safely before him on appointed days in the presence of the people; who might have introduced human sacrifice or elaborate forms of compulsory worship, so great was the veneration in which he was held, endured instead the danger of death and the twilit solitude of the hall where he prayed and meditated continually on an uncomprehended mystery. Something there was to be discovered, something attainable only at great cost, the one thing worth attaining, beside which all older religious notions would appear pathetic fragments of superstition, an esotericism as shallow as the whispered secrets of children. This it was that would constitute Shardik's supreme gift to men. And thus he himself knew that his priesthood, which seemed to others incapable of further magnification and therefore essentially procedural and unchanging in its nature, a matter of service and rites performed in due season, was in reality an all-demanding search, during which time was always passing and his steps never covered the same ground twice. This it was which by its tremendous nature would transcend – even justify – all wrong done in the past, all violence to the truth, even – even – and here the trend of his thoughts would fail, giving place to the picture of the road to Gelt at moonset and himself standing silent while Ta-Kominion led his prisoner away down the valley. Then he would groan and fall to striding up and down outside the bars, beating fist on palm as he strove to break his train of thought, and tossing his head as though in imitation of the afflicted Shardik.

For the memory of the Tuginda gave him no peace, even though the event had made it plain that Ta-Kominion must have been right and that she would have thwarted the miraculous gift of victory and frustrated the conquest of Bekla. After Shardik had been brought to the city and all but the southerly provinces round Ikat had recognized the rule of the conquerors, the barons had decided, with Kelderek's full agreement, that it would be both magnanimous and prudent to send messengers to assure the Tuginda that her error of judgment had been forgotten and that the time was now ripe for her to take her place beside them; for notwithstanding all that Kelderek had come to signify, no Ortelgan could lose that numinous awe for Quiso with which he had been instilled from birth, and not a few were uneasy that in their new prosperity their leaders should evidently have set aside the Tuginda. It was known that two priestesses had been killed between the corning of Shardik and the battle of the Foothills, and as long as the conquest of Bekla remained to be consolidated by subduing the provinces, the barons had been able to tell their followers that they had begged the Tuginda to remain in Quiso for her own safety. Many had expected that Shardik, once recovered, would be taken to Quiso, as in days long ago. Kelderek, however, from the time when he had set out from Bekla to find the bear, had never intended this; for if he were to go with Shardik to the Tuginda's island he must forfeit his supremacy as priest-king, while without the actual presence of Shardik he could not expect to reign in Bekla. With Shardik in Bekla and the northerly provinces subdued, there could no longer be any plausible reason for the Tuginda's absence except her own refusal to come, and the messengers – of whom Neelith had been one – had been instructed to stress to her the harm that might well be done to the people's confidence and to the fighting power of the army were she to continue to grudge Kelderek his superior power of divining the will of Shardik, and to show petty spite by sulking in Quiso and thereby depriving the people of all she meant to them.

'And this we can now put to her strongly,' said Ged-la-Dan to the other members of the baronial council, 'for make no mistake, she is no longer the figure we once feared in the days of Bel-ka-Trazet. She was wrong about the will of Lord Shardik, while Ta-Kominion and Kelderek were not. Her honour is as great and no greater than we are ready to accord to her, and will be commensurate with the extent of her use to us. But since many of the people still accord her honour, it will be prudent to add to our own security by bringing her here. In fact, if she will not come I will bring her myself.'

Kelderek had said nothing in dissent from this harsh assessment, since he felt sure that the Tuginda would be glad to accept her offered reinstatement, and that once she was in Bekla he would be able to help her to restore her former standing in the eyes of the barons.

The messengers had returned without Neelith. It seemed that on Quiso she had broken off her prepared speech to kneel at the Tuginda's feet in tears, begging her forgiveness and crying passionately that she would never leave her again as long as she lived. After hearing what the rest had to say, the Tuginda had merely reminded them that she had been sent back to Quiso as a prisoner. She had, she said, no more liberty than that now accorded to Shardik to determine for herself whether or not she would go to one place or another.

'But,' she added, 'you may tell them in Bekla that when Lord Shardik takes that liberty once again, I will take mine too. And you may also tell Kelderek that whatever he may think to the contrary, I am bound as he, and he is bound as I. And that he will one day discover.' With this reply they had been obliged to return.

'The bitch!' said Ged-la-Dan. 'Docs she think she is in any position to disguise her sulky mood with impudent speeches – she in the wrong of it and we in the right? I will be as good as my word; and I shall not be long about it either.'

Ged-la-Dan was absent for a month, which cost the army a serious tactical reverse in Lapan. He returned without the Tuginda and remained silent about the reason, until the tale told by his servants, under questioning from the other barons, began to make him a laughing-stock behind his back. It turned out that he had made two separate and unsuccessful attempts to land on Quiso. On each occasion a stupor had fallen upon himself and those with him and his canoe had drifted below the island. On the second occasion it had struck a rock and sunk, and he and his companions had barely escaped with their lives. Ged-la-Dan lacked neither pride nor courage, but for his second attempt he had been forced to make use of fresh servants, the original paddlers having utterly refused to go a second time. Kelderek, shuddering at his own memories of the night journey to Quiso, could only marvel at the baron's stubbornness. It was plain that it had cost him dear indeed. For many months afterwards, even in the field, he contrived to avoid sleeping alone and would never again travel by water.

Was it, then, to expiate the memory of the Tuginda that Kelderek cared little what he ate and drank, remained chaste and left to others the spending of the wealth considered proper to the king's grandeur? Often he felt that this was indeed the reason, even while he wondered for the thousandth time what he could have done to help her. To have intervened on her behalf would have been to declare himself against Ta-Kominion. But despite his reverence for the Tuginda, he had passionately supported Ta-Kominion and been ready to follow him into any hazard. The Tuginda's conception of Shardik's power he had never understood, while Ta-Kominion's was plain. And yet he knew that at bottom, it had been to vindicate his own courage in Ta-Kominion's eyes that he had thrown in his lot with what must surely have been the most desperate campaign that had ever proved successful. Now he was priest-king of Bekla, and he and not the Tuginda was the interpreter of Shardik. Yet how much understanding did he truly possess, and how much of the Ortelgan conquest was really due to him as Shardik's elect?

The thought of the Tuginda was never far from his mind. As, after a few years of marriage, a childless woman cannot be free from her disappointment, reflecting, 'What a beautiful morning – but I am childless,' or 'Tomorrow we go to the wine festival – but I am childless,' so Kelderek's thoughts were troubled continually by the recollection of himself standing silent while the Tuginda was bound and led away. She had known her own mind as he had not known his: and he had deceived himself in believing that she would ever consent to become a party to Shardik's captivity in Bekla. Sometimes he felt ready to renounce his crown and return to Quiso to entreat, like Neelith, her forgiveness. Yet this would be to give up both his power and his search for the great revelation, of the imminence of which he was sometimes almost sure. Besides, he suspected that if he attempted the journey the barons would not suffer one so disloyal to themselves to live.

From this dilemma his one retreat was to Shardik. Here was no undeserved reward of luxury, flattery or complaint, whispering pleasure by night, no riches or adulation – only solitude, ignorance and danger. While he served Lord Shardik in fear and suffering of mind and body, at least he could not accuse himself of having betrayed the Tuginda for his own gain. Often, during the years that had passed, he had half-hoped that Shardik would put an end to his perplexity by taking the life which was so continually offered to him. But once only had Shardik attacked him, striking suddenly as he stepped through the gate in the bars and breaking his left arm like a dry stick. He had fainted with the pain, but Sheldra and Nito, who had been at his back, had saved his life, dragging him away on the instant. The arm had set crooked, though he still had the use of it Yet although, setting aside the pleadings of the girls and the warnings of the barons, he had continued, as soon as he was able, to stand from time to time before Shardik, the bear had never again shown him violence. Indeed, he seemed indifferent to Kelderek's approach and often, having raised his head as though to assure himself that it was he and none other, would continue merely to mope in the straw. At these times Kelderek would stand beside him, deriving comfort, as he prayed, from the knowledge that in spite of all that had passed, he and only he remained the human companion and mediator of Shardik. And thus, out of his unaccountable safety, were born his terrible visions of desolation, his conviction that he was still far wide of the mark and his belief that Shardik had some great secret to reveal.

Yet despite his hours of solitude and austerity he was no mere recluse, brooding always upon the ineffable. During the four years since his return to Bekla with Shardik, he had played a full part in the counsels of the Ortelgans, and maintained not only a number of intelligence agents but also his own body of advisers with special knowledge of the various provinces, their features and resources. Much of the information that reached him was of military importance. A year before, he had received warning of a daring plan to damage the iron workings at Gelt, so that Ged-la-Dan had been able to arrest the Yeldashay agents on their way north through Thettit, disguised as traders from Lapan. More recently, not three months ago, there had come from Dari Paltesh the disturbing news that a force of more than two thousand Deelguy irregulars, whose leaders had evidently realized the impossibility of crossing the mountains by the strongly-guarded Gelt pass, had made their way along the north bank of the Telthearna, crossed into Terekenalt (whose king, no doubt being well paid, had done nothing to stop them), and then, by a swift march through Katria and Paltesh, succeeded in reaching the rebel province of Belishba, there being no provincial force strong enough to dispute their passage before they were gone. At this setback the Ortelgan leaders had shaken their heads, seeing at work the long and resourceful arm of Santil-ke-Erketlis and speculating on the use to which he would put this cleverly-won reinforcement

In matters relating to trade, customs and taxation, however, Kelderek had quickly came to feel that his own insight, though faulty and inexperienced, was essentially surer than the barons'. It was, perhaps, precisely because he had never been either a baron or a mercenary living on tenants' dues and the plunder of war, but had made his rough living as a hunter and had known what it was to be dependent on iron, leather, wood and yarn for the artifacts of his craft, that he perceived more plainly than they the vital importance to the empire of trade. For months he had argued, against the indifference of Zelda and Ged-la-Dan, that neither the life of the city nor the war against the southern provinces could be maintained solely by spoil and that it was essential to keep open the recognized trade routes and not impress into military service every able-bodied young craftsman, merchant and caravaneer within the empire's boundaries. He had proved to them that in a year, two prosperous cattle-breedcrs and their men, thirty tanners or twenty shoe-makers could not only earn their own living but pay a tax large enough to keep in the field twice their own number of mercenaries.

And yet trade had declined. Santil-ke-Erketlis, an adversary more shrewd and experienced than any of the Ortelgan leaders, had taken steps to see that it did. Bridges were broken and caravans attacked by paid bandits. Warehouses and their contents were mysteriously destroyed by fire. The finest craftsmen – builders, masons, jewellers, armourers, even vintners – were secretly approached and persuaded, sometimes at a cost equal to that of a year's pay for ten spearmen, that it would be in their best interests to travel south. The king's son of Deelguy was invited to Ikat, treated as befitted a prince and, perhaps not altogether fortuitously, found himself in love with a noble lady of that city, whom he married. The resources of the rebel provinces were less than those of Bekla, but Santil-ke-Erketlis possessed a flair for perceiving where a little extraordinary expenditure would prove effective. As time went on, merchants and traders became less and less ready to hazard their wealth in a realm so subject to the uncertainties and fluctuations of war. Taxes became increasingly difficult to collect from a people feeling the pinch and Kelderek was hard put to it to pay the contractors and craftsmen who supplied the army.

It was in this difficulty that he had had recourse to a wide extension of the slave-trade. A slave-trade of sorts had always existed in the Beklan empire, but for about ten years before the Ortelgan conquest it had been restricted, having been allowed to get out of control to the point of provoking reaction throughout the provinces. It was traditionally accepted that prisoners taken in war, unless they could pay a ransom, might be sold as slaves. Sometimes these men would succeed in gaining their liberty, either returning home or else making a new life in the country to which they had been brought. Despite the harshness and suffering involved, this practice was regarded, in a hard world, as fair between peoples at war. During the latter days of Bekla's high prosperity, however, the number of large estates, households and businesses had increased and conscquently the demand for slaves had grown until it became worthwhile for men to turn professional dealers and cater for it. Kidnapping and even breeding had become widespread, until several of the provincial governors had felt themselves driven to protest in the name of towns and villages living in fear – not only from raiding dealers but also from escaped slaves turned brigand – and of respectable citizens outraged. The slavers, however, had not been without their supporters, for the trade could not only afford to pay heavy taxes but also provided work for such craftsmen as clothiers and blacksmiths, while buyers visiting Bekla brought money to the inn-keepers. The issue had come to the boil in the civil conflict known as the Slave Wars, when half-a-dozen independent campaigns had been fought in as many provinces, with and without the help of allies and mercenaries. From this confusion Santil-ke-Erketlis, formerly a Yeldashay estate-owner of ancient family but no great wealth, had emerged as the most able leader on either side. Having defeated the slave-trade supporters in Yelda and Lapan, he had sent help to other provinces and finally succeeded in settling matters in Bekla itself to the entire satisfaction of the Heldril ('old-fashioned people'), as his party was called. The cost to the state of extraditing the dealers and freeing all slaves who could prove themselves native to the empire had been met partly by fresh encouragement of the builders', masons' and carvers' trades for which Bekla had always been famous and partly by measures (of which the construction of the great Kabin reservoir had been one) to increase the prosperity of the peasants and small farmers.

Nevertheless there remained, not only in Bekla itself but also in several of the towns in the western provinces, influential men who regretted the Heldril victory. It was these that Kelderek had sought out and put into local power, the bargain being that they should support the war in return for a revival of the unrestricted slave trade. This policy he defended to his own barons – some of whom could remember slave raids on the mainland country near Ortelga fifteen and twenty years before – partly as one of 'needs must' and partly by emphasizing that the country was not being laid open to a totally uncontrolled trade. A fixed number of dealers were granted licences each year to 'take up* not more than their permitted quotas of women and children in particular provincial districts. Where a quota of able-bodied men was granted to any particular dealer, a fifth had to be surrendered to the army. There were, of course, no troops to spare to see that these consents, were not abused and enforcement had to be left to the provincial governors. To all who complained of what he had done, Kelderek had one answer – 'We will restrict the slave-trade again when the war is over, so help us to win it.'

'Many of those who get taken up as slaves are local ne'er-do-wells and criminals that the dealers buy out of the jails,' he had assured the barons, 'and even of the children, many would otherwise have been neglected and ill-treated by mothers who never wanted them. A slave, on the other hand, always has a chance to prosper, with luck and ability.' Han-Glat, an ex-slave from God-knew-where who was now in charge of the army's pioneering and construction troops, gave powerful support to Kelderek, letting it be known that any slave under his command had as good a chance of promotion as a free man.

The profit from the trade was high, especially as it became known that Bekla once more had a state-protected slave-market with a wide range of goods, and agents from other countries found it worth their while to travel there, pay the market dues and spend their money. Despite his arguments in defence of what he had done – the best argument being the public accounts – Kelderek found himself keeping away not only from the market but also from the streets by which the slave-consignments commonly came and went. For this he despised himself; yet setting aside the involuntary pity which he knew to be a weakness in a ruler, he had also the uneasy feeling that there might be in his policy some flaw which he was not seeking over-hard to detect. 'The kind of disrupting, short-sighted expedient that one might expect to occur to a common man and a barbarian,' the former Heldril governor of Paltesh had written, in a letter resigning his appointment before deserting to Yelda. 'Does he think I don't know as well as he that it's an expedient?' Kelderek commented to Zelda. 'We can't afford to be benevolent and generous until we've captured Ikat and defeated Erketlis.' Zelda had agreed, but then added, 'And equally, of course, we can't afford to alienate too many of our own people, even if they're not Ortelgans. Be careful it doesn't get out of hand.' Kelderek felt himself like a man in dire need who takes care not to probe too closely the specious assurances of an affable money-lender. Though inexperienced as a ruler, he had never lacked common sense, and had learned early in life to distrust fair appearances and any prize that came too easily. 'But when we have taken Ikat,' he told himself, 'then we'll be able to cease these shifts and hand-to-mouth methods. O Lord Shardik, bring us one more victory! Then we will put an end to the slave-trade and I will be free to seek nothing but your truth.' Sometimes, at the thought of this great day, the tears would spring to his eyes as readily as to those of any enslaved child at the memory of home. 27 Zelda's Advice Kelderek looked about him at the shadowy, cavernous hall – as grim and barbaric a temple of blood as had ever housed the trophies of a tyranny. Because of the dimness of the light from above, torches, fixed in iron brackets, burned continually, and these had discoloured the brickwork and the stone columns with irregular, cone-shaped streaks of black. In the still air the thick, yellow flames lolled hither and yon, sluggish as lob-worms disturbed in winter-dug earth. Now and then a spurt of resin flared sideways or a knot exploded with a crack. The smoke, eddying in the roof and mingling its pine-scent with the smell of the bear, seemed like the rustling sound of the straw made visible. Between the torch-brackets, panoplies were fixed to the walls – short-swords and car-flapped helmets of Belishba, the round, leather shields of Deelguy mercenaries and the spike-and-ball spears which Santil-ke-Erketlis had first brought north from Yelda. Here, too, was the ripped and bloody banner of the Chalice of Deparioth, which Ged-la-Dan himself had taken two years before at the battle of Sarkid, cutting his way through the enemy's hurdle-palisades at the head of twelve followers, not one of whom had remained unwounded at the fight's end. The Canadiron of Lapan, with its serpent's head and condor's wings arching to stoop, stood wreathed with vine-shoots and red blossom, for it had been brought to Bekla as an enforced (though dubious) surety for the loyalty of Lapan, by hostage-priests who were permitted to continue its rites in attenuated form. Along the further wall, domed and yellow in the torchlight, were ranged the skulls of enemies of Shardik. Little they differed one from another, save in the patterns formed by the grinning teeth; though two or three were cracked like old plaster and one was faceless, mere splinters surrounding a jagged hole from forehead to jawbone. The shadows of their eye-sockets moved in the torchlight, but Kelderek had long ceased to pay any attention to these unburied remains. To him, indeed, the display was tedious – nothing more than a sop to the vanity of subordinate commanders in the field, one or another of whom would from time to time claim that he had killed enemies of rank and hence deserved the distinction of presenting the skulls to Shardik. The girls kept them in trim, oiling and wiring, as once they had busied themselves with their hoes on the Ledges of Quiso. Yet for all the accumulated mementoes of this victory and that (thought Kelderek, pacing slowly down the hall and turning at the sound of a sudden, plunging movement behind the bars), the place was still what it had always been – disordered, impermanent, a repository rather than a shrine: perhaps because the life of the city itself had become that of a base behind an army, a society with few young men and too many lonely women. Had not Shardik been better served among the scarlet flowers of the trepsis beside the pool, and in the dry, twilit forest whence he himself had first stepped forward to offer him his life?

'When a fish is caught and lies in the net,' he thought, 'one sees the lustre dying slowly out of its scales. And yet – how else to eat the fish?'

He turned once more, this time at the sound of approaching footsteps in the corridor. The gong of the clock near the Peacock Gate had not long struck the tenth hour and he had not expected Gcd-la-Dan's arrival so soon. Zilthe, older now, but still trim, quick and light-stepping, came into the hall, raising her palm to her forehead with the smile of a friend. Of all the girls who had come from Quiso or had since entered the service of Shardik, Zilthe alone possessed both grace and a light heart, and Kelderek's sombre mood softened as he returned her smile. 'Has Lord Ged-la-Dan come so soon?'

'No, my lord,' replied the girl. 'It is General Zelda who wishes to see you. He says that he hopes the time is convenient, for he needs to speak with you soon. He did not say so, my lord, but I believe that he wants to see you before General Ged-la-Dan arrives.'

'I will go out to him, said Kelderek. 'Watch by Lord Shardik – you or another. He must not be left alone.' 'I will feed him, my lord – it is time.'

'Then put the food in the Rock Pit If he will go out there for a while, so much the better.'

Zelda was waiting on the sun-terrace that ran along the south side of the hall, his dark-red cloak drawn close against the chilly breeze. Kelderek joined him and together they walked across the gardens and on into the fields lying between the Barb and the Leopard HilL 'You have been watching with Lord Shardik?' asked Zelda.

'For several hours. He is disturbed and fretful.' 'You speak as though he were a sick child.'

'At these times we treat him as such. It may be nothing – but I would be happier if I were sure that he is not sick.'

'Perhaps – could it be-' Zelda paused, but then said only, 'Much sickness is ended by the coming of summer. He will soon be better.'

They rounded the western shore of the Barb and began to cross the pasture slope beyond. Before them, about three quarters of a mile away, lay that part of the city walls that ran uphill to encircle Crandor's eastern spur.

'Who's that fellow coming down towards us?' asked Zelda, pointing.

Kelderek looked. 'Some nobleman – a stranger. It must be one of the provincial delegates.'

'A southerner by the look of him – too dandified for any northern or western province. Why is he walking here alone, I wonder?'

'He's free to do so if he wishes, I suppose. Many who visit the city like to be able to say that they've walked entirely round the city Walls.' The stranger came on, bowed graciously, with a rather affected sweep of his fur cloak, and passed by. 'Do you know him?' asked Zelda.

'Elleroth, Ban of Sarkid – a man about whom I've found out a good deal.' 'Why? Isn't he safe?'

'Possibly – possibly not. It's strange that he should have come himself as delegate. He was with Erketlis in the Slave Wars – in fact he's been a noted Heldro in his time. There's no particular reason why he should have changed his ideas, but all the same I was advised that it would be safer to leave him alone than to try to get rid of him. He has a lot of influence and standing with his own people, and as far as I can learn he's never done us any actual harm.' 'But has he helped us?'

'Lapan's been fought over so much that it's hard to say. If a local ruler takes care to keep in with both sides, who's to blame him? There's nothing known against him except his record before we came.' 'Well, we'll see what he has to offer us at the Council.'

Still Zelda seemed hesitant to talk of whatever had led him to seek out Kelderek, and after a little Kelderek spoke again.

'Since we're talking of the delegates, I ought to mention another to you – the man you recently appointed as governor of Kabin.'

'Mollo? What about him? By the way, that man is staring after us -1 wonder why?'

'Strangers not uncommonly stare after me,' replied Kelderek with a faint smile. 'I've become accustomed to it'

'That's it, no doubt. Well, what about Mollo? S'marr Torruin of the Foothills recommended him – 'says he's known him for years. He seems an excellent man.'

'I've learned that until a short time ago he was a provincial governor in Deelguy.' 'In Deelguy? Why did he leave?'

'Exactly. To take up his patrimony of a small estate in Kabin? I'm inclined to doubt it. Our present relations with Deelguy are strained and difficult – we don't know what they may be intending. I wonder whether we ought to risk this appointment of yours – we might be walking into a trap. A knife in the back from Kabin would be bad just at the moment.'

'I think you're right, Kelderek. I knew nothing of this. I'll speak to Mollo myself tomorrow. We can't afford any risk in Kabin. I'll tell him we've decided that after all we ought to have a man with special knowledge of the reservoir.'

He fell silent again. Kelderek veered a little downhill to the left, thinking that by thus seeming to commence their return he might loosen the baron's tongue. 'What do you think of the war now?' asked Zelda suddenly.

'Ask the kites and crows, they're the ones that knows,' replied Kelderek, quoting a soldiers' proverb. 'Seriously, Kelderek – and entirely between ourselves?'

Kelderek shrugged his shoulders. 'You mean its prospects? You know more of those than I.' 'You say Lord Shardik seems ill-at-ease?' persisted Zelda.

'Not every mood or ailment of Lord Shardik is a portent of the war. If that were so, a child could read the omens.'

'Believe me, Kelderek, I don't question your insight as priest of Shardik – nor you my generalship, I hope.' 'Why do you say that?'

Zelda stopped and looked round at the open, rough pasture about them. Then he sat down on the ground. After a few moments' hesitation Kelderek joined him.

'To sit here may not become our dignity,' said Zelda, 'but I prefer to speak where none can overhear. And I warn you, Kelderek, that if need be I shall deny that I ever spoke at all.' Kelderek made no reply.

'More than five years ago we took this city; and there's not a man who fought in that campaign but knows that we did so by the will of Shardik. But what's his will now? I wonder whether I'm the first to feel perplexed on that score.' 'I dare say you're not'

'You know what my men were singing after we took Bekla? "Now Lord Shardik's battle's won, We'll squeeze the girls and lie in the sun." They don't sing that any more. Four years up and down the marches of the southern provinces have knocked all that out of them.'

Three quarters of a mile away on the Serpent Tower – the south-eastern tower of the Barons' Palace – Kelderek could see a soldier leaning over the balustrade. No doubt he had been ordered to watch for the approach of Ged-la-Dan, but it was plain from his attitude that he had seen nothing as yet.

'What was Shardik's will in restoring us to Bekla? Was it what the men supposed – to make us strong and prosperous for the rest of our lives? If so, why is Erketlis still in the field against us? What have we done to displease Lord Shardik?' 'Nothing that I know.'

'Shardik killed Gel-Ethlin – he struck the blow himself – and after we had taken Bekla, you and I and everyone supposed that by his will we should soon defeat Erketlis and capture Ikat. Then there would be peace. But that hasn't happened.' 'It will happen.'

'Kelderek, if you were anyone other than the king of Bekla and the priest of Shardik – if you were a provincial governor or a subordinate commander promising me something – I should answer "Then it had better happen damned quickly." I'll be plain. For several years my men have been fighting and dying. They're just preparing to do so for another summer, and in no very good frame of mind. The truth is that, leaving aside the will of Shardik and speaking purely as a general, I can see no military reason why we should ever win this war.'

Someone below seemed to be calling to the man on the tower. He leaned out over the parapet, looked down for a few moments, and then resumed his watch.

'It was Lord Shardik who gave us the victory over Gel-Ethlin,' went on Zelda. 'If it hadn't been for what he did, we could never have defeated a Beklan army – an irregular force like ours.'

'No one ever said odierwise. Ta-Kominion himself knew it before the battle. Yet we did win, and we took Bekla.'

'Now we're doing well merely to contain Erketlis. We can't defeat him – certainly not conclusively. There are several reasons why. I suppose when you were a boy you wresded, ran races and so on. Can you remember times when you knew for certain that the other lad was better than you were? As a general, Erketlis is quite out of the ordinary, and most of his men were in the former southern army of patrol. Many of them feel that they're fighting for their homes and families, and that makes them ready to put up with very hard conditions. They're not like us, invaders disappointed in hopes of quick profits. Our men have felt for a long time now that something's slipped through their net. Food of some sort or other is easy to come by down in the south. We can't deprive Erketlis' army of food, and they don't look for much more than that. But their very existence makes difficulties for us. As long as they remain undefeated, they're a focus for disaffection and trouble anywhere in the empire from Gelt to Lapan – old Fleldril sympathizers and so on. Erketlis has only got to maintain himself in the field, but we've got to do more than that; we've got to defeat him before we can restore to Beklan people the peace and prosperity of which we've deprived them. And the plain truth is, Kelderek, that I have no grounds – no military grounds – for thinking that we can do it,'

The man on the Serpent Tower suddenly began waving his arms and pointing south-eastward. Then he cupped his hands, shouted something downwards and disappeared from the balcony.

'Ged-la-Dan will be here in less than an hour,' said Kelderek. 'Have you said any of this to him?'

'No, but I've no reason to suppose that he's any happier with our military prospects than I am.'

'What about the help we're expecting from the Council delegates tomorrow?'

'Whatever it is, it won't be enough. It never has been in the past. You must understand that at present we're holding on in Lapan as best we can. It's not we but Erketlis that means to attack.' 'Can he?'

'As you know, he has recently received a force from Dcclguy, led by a baron of whose actions their king pretends to be ignorant. There's a rumour that Erketlis now believes himself strong enough both to cover Ikat and to attack us as well, and that he's planning to march further north than ever before.' 'On Bekla?'

'That would depend on his success once he'd started, I dare say. But my own belief is that he may go wide of Bekla and try to show his power in the country north-east of it. Suppose, for example, that he simply told the Deelguy that he'd lead them north on their march home, doing all the damage he could on the way? Suppose they set themselves to destroy the Kabin reservoir?' 'Could you not stop them?'

'I don't know. But what I'm proposing, Kelderek – and what I have never proposed at all if. you receive it ill – is one of two courses. The first is that we should negotiate a peace with Erketlis at once. Our terms would be that we retain Bekla, with the northern provinces and as much land to the south as we can get That would mean ceding certainly Yelda, Belishba and probably Lapan, with Sarkid, of course. But we should have peace.' 'And the second?'

For the first time Zelda turned and looked full at Kelderek, his dark eyes and beard framed in the red cloak-collar. Gently he drew out his knife, held it suspended a moment between finger and thumb and then let it fall, hilt-upwards, to stick quivering in the ground. Wrinkling his nose and sniffing, as though at the smell of burning, he drew out the knife and returned it to its sheath. The allusion was not lost upon Kelderek.

'I knew from the beginning – yes, that very night – that in some way you were carrying the destiny of Ortelga. Even before you and Bel-ka-Trazet set out for Quiso, I was sure that you had been sent to bring us luck and power. Later, when the first rumours reached Ortelga, I believed in Shardik's return, because I had seen you withstand Bel-ka-Trazet's anger and realized that only the truth could have enabled you to do so. It was I who advised Ta-Kominion to risk his life by crossing the Dead Belt by night to seek you out; and I was the first baron to join him the next morning, when he came ashore behind Lord Shardik. At the battle of the Foothills, before ever Ta-Kominion reached the field, I led the first attack on Gel-Ethlin's army. I have never doubted Lord Shardik – nor do I doubt him now.' 'What then?'

'Loose Lord Shardik! Loose him, and await what may befall. Perhaps it is not his will that we should continue the war. He may have another, perhaps an altogether different purpose. We should be ready to trust him, even to admit that we may have mistaken his will. If we loose him, he may reveal some unknown thing. Are you sure, Kelderek, that we may not be, after all, denying his purpose by keeping him here in Bekla? I have come to believe that that purpose cannot be the continuation of the war, for if it were, we should by now be at least within sight of the end. Somewhere, we have lost the thread of our destiny. Loose him, and pray that in this darkness where we are wandering, he will put it back into our hand.' 'Loose Lord Shardik?' said Kelderek. He could imagine nothing less favourable cither to the continuance of his reign or to the divine secret still to be discovered by himself. At all costs he must steer Zelda away from this rash, superstitious idea, the consequences of which were quite unpredictable. 'Loose Lord Shardik?'

'And then follow him, simply trusting in what will befall. For if indeed we have failed him, then since it cannot be in courage or resolution in the field, it can be only in not trusting him enough.'

It was on the tip of Kelderek's tongue to reply that the Tuginda had once spoken in this way and that Ta-Kominion had known how to deal with it. As he paused, pondering how best to begin the delicate task of dissuasion, they both saw in the distance a servant running towards them across the pasture. They stood up and awaited him. 'Tomorrow night is the spring fire festival,' said Kelderek. 'I had not forgotten.'

'I will say nothing of this to anyone, and we will speak of it again after the festival. I need time to think.'

The servant reached them, raised his palm to his bent brow and waited, trying to control his panting breath. 'Speak,' said Kelderek.

'My lord, Lord Ged-la-Dan is almost here. He has been sighted on the road and will reach the Blue Gate within this half-hour.'

In the city below, the gongs sounded once more for the hour, the further following immediately upon the nearer like an echo. Kelderek perceived that to retain the servant would put an end to then-talk for the time being.

'Accompany us,' he said; and then to Zelda, as the man took up his place behind them, 'I and the priestess Sheldra will go out to meet Gcd-la-Dan on the road. Will you not come with us?' 28 Elleroth Shows His Hand

'- And to have left all I had in Deelguy -' 'Compose yourself, Mollo.'

'I'll not live inside their damned boundaries – not within ten days' journey of them – that blasted bear-priest – whatever he calls himself – Kildrik, that's it -'

'Be reasonable, Mollo. Calm yourself. You didn't leave Deelguy with the least idea of becoming governor of Kabin, let alone with any promise from Bekla. You left because you wanted to succeed to the family estate, or so you told me. No one's deprived you of that and you're no worse off than you were on the night when you dined with your bull-breeding friend.*

'Don't be ridiculous. Everyone in Kabin knows that General Zelda appointed me on S'marr's recommendation. I had a long meeting with the elders, before I set out, about Kabin's contribution to the summer campaign. It was little enough they meant to give, too – we're not a rich province – 'never have been. "Don't worry," I said, "I'll convince them in Bekla – I'll see you're not ruined to pay for the war." What do you think they're going to say now? They'll say I've been kicked out because I couldn't screw enough out of the province -' 'Perhaps you have.'

'But damn it, no one here's even asked me yet what we were going to contribute, so how can it be that? But whatever it is, the Kabin landowners will be convinced that I let them down somehow or other – played my cards wrong, that's it – and now I'm to be replaced by someone who isn't even a local man, someone who'll have no scruples about fleecing them for more. Who's going to believe me when I say I haven't the least idea why the appointment wasn't confirmed? I'll be lucky if no one seeks my life one way or another. It's not that I care about, though. Do you know a better way to make a man really angry than to promise him something and then to take it away?'

'Off-hand, no. But my dear Mollo, what did you expect when you took up with this bunch of bruin boys? I'm surprised the possibility didn't occur to you at the outset.' 'Well, didn't you take up with them?'

'By no means – rather the reverse, actually. At the time when they burst upon an astonished world I was already Ban of Sarkid and it was they, when they arrived, who took a good, long look at me and decided on balance to leave it at that; though whether they were wise to do so remains to be seen. But to go to them, cap-in-hand, as you did, and actually ask for a nice, lucrative appointment; to offer, in effect, to help with the defeat of Santil and tie furtherance of the slave trade – And besides, they're so frightfully boring. Do you know, last night, down in the city, I was enquiring about the drama. "Oh no," says the old fellow I asked, "that's all been stopped for as long as the war lasts. They tell us it's because there's no money to spare, but we're sure it's because the Ortelgans don't understand the drama, and because it used to be part of the worship of Cran." I really felt most frightfully bored when he told me that.' 'The fact remains, Elleroth, that your position as Ban of Sarkid has been confirmed in the name of Shardik. You can't deny it* 'I don't deny it, my dear fellow.'

'Is the slave trade any better under Shardik, then, than it was ten years ago, when you and I were fighting alongside Santil?'

'If that's a serious question, it certainly doesn't deserve a serious answer. But you see, I'm not a humanitarian – just an estate-owner trying to live a reasonably peaceful life and make enough to live on. It's awfully difficult to get people to settle down and work properly when they think that they or their children may be required to form part of a slave-quota. It seems to bother them, oddly enough. The real trouble with slavery is that it's such a terribly short-sighted policy – it's bad business. But one can hardly go the length of leaving one's ancestral homestead just because a dubious bear has taken up residence round the corner.' 'But why are you actually here, in person, on the bear's business?'

'Like you, perhaps, to make the best deal I can on behalf of my province.'

'Kabin's in the north; it's got to stay in with Bekla. But Lapan's a southern province – a disputed province. You could declare openly for Erketlis – secede, and take half Lapan with you.'

'Dear me, yes, so I could. Now I wonder why I never thought of that?'

'Well, you make fun of the business, but I don't find it so damned amusing, I'll tell you. It's not the loss of the governorship I mind. What I can't stand is that they've made me look a fool with everyone I've known since I was a lad. Can't you imagine it? "Here he comes, look; 'thought he was going to be governor and tell us all what to do. Come home with his tail between his legs, that's it. Oh, good morning, Mr Mollo, sir, lovely weather, isn't it?" How can I go back to my estate now? I tell you, I'd do anything to harm these blasted Ortelgans. And whatever I did, they'd deserve it, if they can't run an empire better than that. I'm like you – it's bad business methods I object to.' 'Do you mean what you say, Mollo?' 'Yes, I damned well do. I'd risk anydiing to harm them.' 'In that case – er, let us just step outside for a stroll in some nice, lonely place with no propinquitous walls or bushes – what a pleasant morning! You know, every time I see the Barons' Palace it seems to express something fresh, original and delightfully un-Ortelgan – where was I? – ah yes; in that case, I may perhaps be able to lead you step by step to the highest pitch of quivering excitement – or somewhere like that, anyway.' 'What do you mean?'

'Well, you sec, I am not, alas, the good, simple fellow that you suppose. Beneath this well-washed exterior there beats a heart as black as a cockroach and fully half as brave.'

'Well, you've evidently got something you mean to say. Tell me plainly – I'll be as secret as you like.'

'Perhaps I will. Well then, you must know that at one time, about five years ago, when Santil came through Sarkid on his march from Bekla to Ikat, I was seized with a foolish desire to take some of my fellows and join him.'

'I wonder you didn't. I suppose you jibbed at the idea of losing the estate and everything else?'

'Oh, I jibbed practically without stopping – I was jibbering, in fact. However, I had managed to get myself more or less to the point of departure when Santil himself came to see me. Yes – at the outset of a desperate campaign, with everything to be organized and Ikat to be turned into a military supply base, that remarkable man found time to come twenty miles to talk to me and then return by night. I dare say he knew I wouldn't have obeyed anyone else.' 'You obeyed him? What did he come to say?'

'He wanted me to stay where I was and put on a convincing act of benevolent neutrality to Bekla. He thought that if it were skilfully done, it would be more useful to him than leaving Sarkid to be controlled by some nominee of the enemy. He was quite right, of course. I've always hated people thinking I'd decided not to go and fight, but the advantages to Santil have been greater than anything he could expect from my shouting "Yah!" at an Ortelgan spearman. He gets to hear a great deal about the movements of Master Ged-la-Dan, and the other man, Zelda; and they find themselves in all sorts of difficulties whenever they're operating in the neighbourhood of Sarkid. You know – couriers disappear, funny accidents happen, commandeered rations seem to disagree with people and so on. Any little larks we can think of. In fact, I honestly believe that if it weren't for Sarkid, Santil's western flank would have been turned long ago and he might never have been able to hold Ikat at all. But it needs very delicate handling indeed. Ged-la-Dan's a tough, ugly customer and I've had to go to great lengths to convince him that I prefer his side to the other. For years I've kept him thinking that on balance, and because of my local influence and knowledge, it would be better to keep me than to replace me. Little does he know that my love of boyish mischief leads me to grease his stairs from time to time.' 'I see; and I suppose I might have guessed.'

'Now this next bit is the sensation of a lifetime. Your pulse will tingle with a thousand thrills – well, say five hundred. About a month ago Santil paid me another nocturnal visit, disguised as a wine-merchant, incidentally. And what he told me was that this spring, for the first time, he is strong enough both to cover Ikat and to attack northwards in force. In fact, he may at this moment have begun a march that will take him north of Bekla before he's done.' 'Not to Bekla?'

'That'll depend on the support he gets. Initially, he probably won't try to attack Bekla, but simply march into the north and see whether any of the provinces will rise for him. Of course, he may come upon a good opportunity to defeat an Ortelgan army, and if so, he's not the man to waste it.' 'And where do you come in? For obviously you do.*

'Well, as a matter of fact, I am that despicable creature, a secret agent.' 'Getaway!*

'I trust I may in due course. Does it occur to you that if something really nasty were to happen in Bekla just as Santil begins his attack, these superstitious fellows would be most upset? Anyway, it did to Santil. So I came as a delegate to the Council.' 'But what do you mean to try to do? And when?'

'Something reckless, I fancy, will be appropriate. I had considered the possibility of causing the king or one of the generals to cease to function, but I don't think it can be done. I missed rather a good chance yesterday afternoon, due to being unarmed, and I doubt whether another will present itself. But I have been considering. The destruction of the King's House and the death of the bear itself – that would have a calamitous effect. It might well tip the scale, in fact, when the news reached the army.' 'But it can't be done, Elleroth. We could never succeed in that.'

'With your help I believe we might. What I intend to do is to set fire to the roof of the Kind's House.' 'But the place is built of stone!'

'Roofs, my dear Mollo? Roofs are made of wood. You couldn't span a hall that size with stone. There will be beams and rafters supporting tiles. Look for yourself – there is even some thatch at the far end – you can sec it from here. A fire should do well if only it can get a little time to itself.'

'It'll be seen at once – and anyway the place will be guarded. How can you possibly climb up to the roof carrying a torch or whatever you're going to need? You wouldn't get near the place before you were stopped.'

'Ah, but this is where you will be so invaluable. Listen. Tonight happens to be the spring fire festival. Have you never seen it? At nightfall they extinguish every flame in the city, until there is total darkness. Then the new fire is kindled and every householder comes to light a torch from it. After that the whole place goes mad. There will be a brazier or at least a torch burning on every accessible roof in the city. They have a procession of boats on the Barb, full of lights and made to look like fiery dragons – the water reflects them, you know. Very pretty. There'll be a torchlight procession – any amount of smoke in people's nostrils and their eyes dazzled. Tonight, if ever, a fire on the roof of the King's House won't be noticed until it's too late.' 'But they don't leave the bear unguarded.'

'Of course not But this we can deal with, if you are as angry and revengeful as you say. I've already marked a place where I think I can climb to the roof; and to make sure, I've risked buying a rope and grapnel. After dark, you and I light torches and set out for the festival – armed under our cloaks, of course, and rather late. We make for the King's House and there we silently deal with any sentries we may find. Then I'll climb to the roof and start the fire. There'll almost certainly be a priestess left in the hall to attend upon the bear – perhaps more than one. If they're not silenced they'll spot the fire from below. So you'll have to go in and tackle whomever you find in the hall.' 'Why not just go in and kill the bear?'

'Have you ever seen the bear? It's stupendously large – unbelievable. Nothing but several heavy arrows could do it. We haven't got a bow and we can't risk attracting attention by trying to get one.*

'When the fire gets a grip, won't the bear simply go out into the Rock Pit?'

'If it's already in by nightfall, they drop the gate between the hall and the pit. It's in at the moment*

'I don't fancy the idea of using a sword on a woman – even an Ortelgan priestess.'

'Neither do I; but my dear Mollo, this is war. You need not necessarily kill her, but at the least you'll have to do enough to stop her raising the alarm.'

'Well, suppose I do. The roof's burning and about to fall in on the bear and you've climbed down and joined me. What do we do then?' 'Vanish like ghosts at cock-crow.*

'But where? The only access to the lower city is through the Peacock Gate. We'il never get away.'

'There's quite a fair chance, actually. Santil advised me to look into it and I did, yesterday afternoon. As you know, the city walls run south and completely encircle Crandor; but high up, near the south-east corner, there's a disused postern in the wall. Santil told me it was made by some king long ago, no doubt for some unspeakable purpose of his own. Yesterday afternoon I walked up there, as Santil suggested, and had a look at it. It was all overgrown with brambles and weeds, but bolted only on the inside. I shouldn't think anyone's touched it for years. I oiled the bolts and made sure it can be opened. If anyone's gone there since and seen what I've done, that's too bad, but I doubt they will have. I had a nasty moment coming back, when I met the so-called king and General Zelda walking in that direction, but they turned back soon after I'd passed them. Anyway, that's our best chance and we can't do better than take it. If we can get as far as the upper slopes beyond the Barb without being caught, we may very well get through that gate and reach Santil's army in two or three days. No pursuit will go faster than I shall, I promise you.'

'I call it a thin chance. The whole thing's more than risky. And if we're caught -'

'Well, if you now feel that you'd prefer not to take part, my dear Mollo, by all means say so. But you said you'd risk anything to harm them. As far as I'm concerned, I haven't kept my skin whole these five years just to come here and risk nothing. Santil wants a resounding crash -1 must try to provide one.'

'Suppose, after all, I did kill the woman, couldn't we simply dive into the crowd and pretend complete ignorance? No one would be be able to identify us, and the fire might have been an accident -blown sparks on the wind.'

'You can certainly try that if you prefer, but they are bound to find out that the fire was no accident – I shall have to rip up the roof to get it to take properly. Suspicion will certainly fall on me – do you think it won't on you, after the motive you've been given today? Can you trust yourself to resist suspicion and enquiry convincingly for days on end? Besides, if the bear dies, the Ortelgans will be beside themselves. They are quite capable of torturing every delegate in the city to get a confession. No, on balance, I think I prefer my postern.'

'Perhaps you're right. Well, if we succeed and then manage to reach Erkcdis -'

'You will certainly not find him ungrateful, as no doubt you realize. You will do very, very much better for yourself than you would as governor of Kabin.'

'I believe that, certainly. Well, if I don't turn coward or think of any other stumbling-block before nightfall, I'm your man. But thank God there isn't long to wait.* 29 The Fire Festival As dusk fell along the terraces of the Leopard Hill, with a green, yellow-streaked sky in the west and flutterings of bats against the last light, the new moon, visible all afternoon, began to gleam more brightly, seeming, as it moved towards its early setting, so frail and slender as almost to be insubstantial, no more than a ripple of the surrounding air catching the light like water undulating over a submerged rock. Small and lonely it looked, despite the nearby stars; fragile and fine as a greenfinch in spring, assailable as the innocence of a child wandering alone in a field of summer daisies. All below lay in silence and star-lit darkness, the city quieter than midnight, every fire extinguished, every voice silent, not a light that gleamed, not a girl that sang, not a flame that burned, not a beggar that whined for alms. This was the hour of the Quenching. The streets were deserted, the sandy squares, raked smooth at close of day, stood empty, ribbed and void as wind-frozen pools. Once the distant howl of a dog broke off short, as though quickly silenced. So still at last grew the moon-faint night that the sound of a boy's weeping, in a barracoon of the slave-market, carried as far as the Peacock Gate, where a single guard stood in the shadows, his arms folded, his spear leaning against the wall at his back. Above this expectant quiet, still as the spring fields outside the city, the wan crescent of light moved slowly on, like one compelled to travel towards a dark destination, of which he knows only that it will end his youth and change his life beyond foreseeing.

High on the Serpent tower Sheldra, cloaked against the night air, stood gazing westward, waiting for the lower horn of the declining moon to align itself with the pinnacle of the Bramba tower at the opposite corner. When at last it did so, the mile-wide silence was broken by her long, ululant cry of 'Shardik! Lord Shardik's fire!' A moment after, a streaking, dusky tongue of flame leapt up the thirty feet of the pitch-coated pine-trunk erected on the palace roof, appearing from the city below as a column of fire in the southern sky. From along the walls dividing the upper from the lower city, the priestess's wailing call was answered and repeated, as five similar but lesser flames rose, one after another, from the roofs of the equidistant guard-turrets, like serpents from their baskets as the reedy note of the snake-charmer. Then, from the lower city, there followed in appointed order the flames of the various gates and towers – the Blue Gate, the Gate of Lilies, the towers of the great clocks, the tower of Sel-Dolad, the tower of the Orphans and the tower of Leaves. Each flame soared into the night with the speed of a gymnast climbing a rope, and the poles burned in long, blazing waves, the fire rippling like water along their sides. So for a little they stood alone, indicating the length and breadth of the city where it lay upon the plain like a great raft moored under the steep of Crandor. And as they burned, their crackling alone breaking the silence that returned upon the ceasing of the cries from the towers, the streets began to fill with growing numbers of people emerging from their doors; some merely standing, like the sentry, in the dark, others groping slowly but purposefully towards the Caravan Market. Soon many were assembled there, all unspeaking, all standing patiently in a moonset, flame-flecked owl-light almost too dim for any to recognize his neighbour.

Then, far off against the Leopard Hill, appeared the flame of a single torch. Quickly it moved, bobbing, descending, racing down through the terraces towards the Barb, through the gardens and on towards the Peacock Gate, which stood ready open for the runner to enter the street of the Armourers and so come down to the Market and the reverent, waiting crowd. How many were gathered there? Hundreds, thousands. Very many men and some women also, each one the head of a household; justices and civic officers, foreign merchants, tally-keepers, builders and carpenters, the respectable widow side by side with Auntie from the jolly girls' house, hard-handed cobblers, harness-makers and weavers, the keepers of the itinerant labourers' hostels, the landlord of The Green Grove, the guardian of the provincial couriers' hospice and more, many more, stood shoulder to shoulder in silence, their only light the distant glinting of the tall flames which had summoned them from their homes, each carrying an unlit torch, to seek, as the gift of God, the blessing of the renewal of fire. The runner, a young officer of Ged-la-Dan's household, honoured with this task in recognition of courageous service in Lapan, carried his torch, lit from the new fire on the Palace roof, to the plinth of the Great Scales and there at last halted, silent and smiling, waiting a few moments to collect himself and to be sure of his effect before holding out the flame to the nearest suppliant, an old man wrapped in a patched, green cloak and leaning on a staff.

'Blest be the fire!' called the officer in a voice that carried across the square.

'Blest be Lord Shardik!' replied the old man quaveringly, and as he spoke lit his torch from the other's.

Now a handsome, middle-aged woman stepped forward, carrying in one hand her torch and in the other a yellow-painted wand, in token that she was deputizing for a husband absent at the war. There were many such in the crowd.

'Blest be the fire!' cried the young officer again, and 'Blest be Lord Shardik!' she answered, looking him in the eye with a smile that said, 'And blest be you too, my fine fellow.' Holding her lit torch aloft, she turned and set out for home, while a rough, heavily-built man, dressed like a drover, took her place before the plinth.

There was no jostling or haste, but a measured and joyous solemnity as torch after torch was lit. None might speak until the gift of fire had been bestowed upon him. Not all waited to receive fire from the actual torch carried from the Palace. Many, eager, took it as it was offered by those who were moving away across the square, until on all sides resounded the happy shouts of 'Blest be the fire!' and 'Blest be Lord Shardik!' Gradually the square became full of more and more points of light, like sparks spreading across the back of a hearth or the surface of a smouldering log. Soon the tossing, dancing flames were flowing out in every direction along the streets, while loosened tongues chattered like birds at first light and the rekindled lamps began to shine in one window after another. Then, on the roofs of the houses up and down the city, smaller fires began to burn. Some were poles, in imitation of those already lit on the gates and towers, others braziers full of wood or clearer fires of scented gums and incense-sprinkled charcoal. Feasting began and music, drinking in the taverns, dancing in the squares. Everywhere, the gift of light and warmth by night manifested the power over cold and darkness bestowed by God on Man and Man alone.

Beside the Barb, in the upper city above the Peacock Gate, another, graver messenger had arrived with his torch – none other than General Zelda, his full armour dully reflecting the smoky light as he strode towards the ripples lapping on the shore. Here, too, suppliants were waiting, but fewer and less fervent, their emotions modified by that detachment and self-conscious restraint which characterizes the aristocratic, wealthy or powerful participating in popular customs. Zelda's invocatory 'Blest be the fire' was spoken indeed with raised voice but in a formal, level tone, while the responding, 'Blest be Lord Shardik', though uttered sincerely, lacked the hearty ring of flower-girls or market porters in the lower city, breaking two hours' darkness and silence with the words appointed to commence one of the great frolics of the year.

Kelderek, robed in saffron and scarlet and attended by the priestesses of Shardik, stood waiting on the highest terrace of the Leopard Hill, surveying the city below; the torches spreading through the streets like water flowing from a sluice along dry irrigation channels; the multitudinous shapes of doors and windows emerging in light out of the darkness, as though called into existence by the new fires kindled within them; and nearer, the lines of flames lengthening, extending further along the shore of the Barb. So sometimes may news actually be seen to spread through a crowd, wind across a dusty plain, or sunrise down the western slope of a valley. About him burned the salts and gums and oils prepared for the fire festival, mysterious and splendid in combustion – kingfisher blue, cinnabar, violet, lemon and frost-green beryl – each transparent, gauzy fire, in its bronze bowl, carried upon rods between the shoulders of two women. The gong-like bells of the palace towers were ringing, their shuddering harmonies vibrating over the city, fading and returning like waves upon a shore. As he watched, the slip of the new moon sank at last below the western horizon and upon the lake appeared the gliding shape of a great dragon, a grinning monster all of fire, green-eyed and clawed, its jaws spouting a plume of white smoke that trailed behind it as it gathered way. Shouts of admiration and excitement broke out, young men's battle-cries and the stylized calls of the chase. Then, as the dragon reached the centre of the Barb, there sprang into being upon the further shore another fiery shape, erect upon its hind legs, thirty feet tall, round-eared, long-muzzled, snarling, one clawed fore-paw raised aloft As the cries of 'Shardik! Lord Shardik's fire!' rose higher and echoed from the walls about the garden, the figure of a naked man, bearing a torch in each hand, appeared in the bear's jaws. One moment he paused on that high, bright platform; then leapt out above the water. Secured to his shoulders and unrolling behind him was a long strip of tarred canvas which, burning, made it appear as though the bear were salivating fire. The leaper, plunging into the water below, slipped out of his harness and swam to the shore. Another followed, and now it was the shape of a fiery arrow which fell from the bear's mouth to the water. Quicker and quicker came the leapers, so that the flaming shapes of swords, spears and axes poured from between the bear's teeth to hurtle down over the lake. At length, as the dragon, belching smoke, glided beneath the towering effigy of Shardik, a burning noose dropped to encircle the prow forming its throat. The lights of its hot eyes went out and amid shouts of triumph its smoky breath died away as it floated captive at the glowing, ember-shaggy feet

Meanwhile, Kelderek and his train had already begun to descend the terraces in slow procession. The chanting of the priestesses rose about him with a sound that wrung his heart, for it was that same andphony that he had first heard in the forests of western Ortelga. Then, the voices of Rantzay and the Tuginda had formed part of a wall of sound encircling a summit of the spirit, sublime above the mortal world of fear and ignorance. Yet of this memory his grave, lean face showed no outward sign. His clasped hands were untrembling and his body, beneath the heavy robes, moved firmly on towards the appointed destination. The plant-scents of the night, thin and evanescent in the early spring air, mingled with the resinous odours of the coloured fires and the drift of torch-smoke on the breeze; and bemused, perhaps, by these and by his fast since sunrise, by his memories and the sound of the singing, he imagined first one and then another companion to be walking beside him towards the torch-lit garden and the dragon-reflecting lake: a dark girl wearing a broad, golden collar, who laughed and plunged the point of an arrow into her white arm before turning to him a face wan with fear: a tall, gaunt woman, limping exhausted on a staff, her sweating hands clutching a box where bladders lay packed in moss: and an old, red-eyed hag, who tottered at his elbow in filthy rags, bearing in her arms a dead child and imploring his help in mumbled words beyond his understanding. So real did they seem that dread and foreboding came upon him, pacing on. 'Shardik,' he prayed, 'senandril, Lord Shardik. Accept my life. Redeem the world, and begin with me.'

And now he is come to the garden, where the lords and ladies fall back before him and the barons raise their swords in salutation of the power entrusted by God to the priest-king. The priestesses' singing dies away, the copper bells are silent, the fiery bear and the dragon have done their strife and burn low with none to regard. The people about the shore cease their shouts and cheering, so that the distant sound of the lower city's riot rises up from below the walls. The priest-king walks forward alone, before the eyes of armed barons and of the envoys of his vassal provinces, towards the brink of a deep, inshore pool – the Pool of Light, Here, unhelped by man or woman, he must divest himself of his heavy robes and crown and stand naked, in the sharp night air, to thrust his feet into sandals of lead placed ready for him on the verge. Below him, deep in the pool, there burns amidst the darkness and water a single light – a light enclosed in a hollow, crystal sphere secured to a rock, fanned with air and emitting its heat and smoke through hidden vents. This is the fire of Fleitil, devised long ago for the worship of Cran, but now made a part of the fire-festival of Shardik. Down the flight of underwater steps the king will go, his feet weighted to carry him to the floor of the pool, and thence release himself and rise through the water, bearing that miraculous globe of light. Already he has moved forward, feeling for each stone step with ponderous feet and slowly descending in a silence broken only by the water lapping about his knees, his loins, his neck.

But hark! What dreadful sound is that, breaking the reverent hush of Ortelgan warriors and Beklan lords, slicing like a sword across the crowded garden and the empty lake? Heads turn, voices break out. A moment's silence and it is repeated – the roar of a great animal in rage, in fear and pain; so loud, so fierce and savage that women clutch the arms of their men, as at the sound of thunder or of fighting, and young boys feign unconcern, ill-concealing their involuntary fear. The lady Sheldra, waiting close to the king at the water-steps, turns about and stands tense, raising one hand to shield her eyes from the torchlight as she tries to see across the garden to the dark oudine of the King's House beyond. The roaring ceases and is followed by heavy, vibrating thuds, as though some soft but massive object were striking against the wall of that cavernous, echoing place.

Kelderek, who had already drawn breath to submerge and drop from the lowest step'to the bed of the pool, gave an inarticulate cry and struggled to release himself from the weighted sandals. A moment more and he drew the pins, pulled himself out of the water and stood dripping on the paved verge. The murmurs about him grew louder, unfriendly and fearful. 'What has happened?' 'What is he about?' 'To break off – unlucky!' 'An unlucky act – no good will come of itl' 'Sacrilege!' In the crowd near by, a woman began to weep with quick, nervous whimperings of fear.

Kelderek, paying them no heed, bent down, as though to dress himself again in the stiff, heavy vestments lying at his feet. In his haste his hands fumbled with the fastenings, the robe fell sideways and, flinging it down, he began to push his way, naked as he was, through the group of priestesses about him. Sheldra put her hand on his arm. 'My lord -'

'Get out of the way!' answered Kelderek, roughly flinging her off.

'What's the matter, Kelderek?' said Zelda, coming forward and speaking low and quickly at his shoulder. 'Don't be foolish, man! What are you about?'

'Shardik! Shardik!' shouted Kelderek. 'Follow me, for God's sake!'

He ran, twigs and stones piercing his bare feet Bleeding, his naked body shoved and forced its way between men in armour and shrieking, scandalized women, whose brooches and belt-buckles scratched his flesh. A man tried to bar his path and he felled him with a blow of his fist, yelling again, ' Shardik 1 Get out of the way!'

'Stop! Come back!' called Zelda, pursuing and trying to clutch him. 'The bear's only frightened of the fire, Kelderek! It's the noise and smell of the smoke's upset it! Stop this blasphemy! Stop him!' he shouted to a group of officers a little way ahead.

They stared irresolutely and Kelderek broke through them, tripped and fell, got up and again dashed forward, his wet body smeared from head to foot with dirt, blood and the leafy fragments of the garden. Grotesque in appearance, as dirty and lost to dignity as some wretched butt of the barrack-room stripped, pelted and chased by his loutish comrades for their mean sport, he ran on, heedless of everything but the noise from the hall now close in front of him. As he reached that same terrace on which he had joined Zelda the day before, he stopped and turned to those following him. 'The roof! The roof's on fire! Get up there and put it out!'

'He's out of his mind!' cried Zelda. 'Kelderek, you fool, don't you realize there's a fire burning on every roof in Bekla tonight? For God's sake -'

'Not up there! Do you think I don't know? Where are the sentries? Get them up there – send men to search round the far side!'

Alone, he rushed through the south door, along the ambulatory and into the hall. The place was dim, lit by no more than five or six torches fixed along the smoke-streaked walls. By the cage-bars in the centre of the hall Zilthe was sprawled face-down, her head lying in a puddle of blood that oozed over the stones. From the roof above came sounds of crackling and burning, and something heavy shifted and slipped with a rending noise. A sudden spurt of flame came and went and sparks floated down, dying as they fell.

Shardik, swaying from side to side like a fir-tree when woodmen rock it at the base to loosen the roots, was standing erect at the further end of the hall, beating with his huge paws on the closed gate and roaring with rage and fear as the fire burned more strongly above him. In his back was a jagged gash as long as a man's forearm and near him lay a bloody spear which, evidently torn from one of the panoplies on the wall, must have fallen out of the wound as he rose on his hind legs.

Before the bars, with his back to Kelderek, stood a man armed with a bow. This also he must have snatched from the wall, for from either end still dangled the broken leather thongs by which it had been fastened. A heavy-headed arrow lay on the string and the man, no doubt unaccustomed to the weapon, was fumbling as he drew it. Kelderek, naked and unarmed as he was, rushed forward. The man, turning, dodged quickly, drew his dagger and stabbed him in the left shoulder. The next moment Kelderek had flung himself upon him, biting, kicking and clawing, and borne him to the ground. He did not feel whatever wounds he received, nor the pain in his thumbs as he pressed them, almost to breaking, into the man's throat and beat the back of his head against the floor. He sank his teeth in him like a beast, released his hold an instant to batter him, then clutched him once more and tore him, as a savage guard-hound tears a robber whom he has caught in his master's house.

When Zelda and those with him entered the hall, bearing the dead body of a sentry and holding under guard Elleroth, Ban of Sarkid and envoy of Lapan, whom they had overpowered in the act of climbing down from the roof, they found the king, covered from head to foot in blood and dirt, bleeding from five or six stab-wounds and weeping as he bent over the young priestess on the floor. The lacerated body beside him was that of Mollo, envoy of Kabin, who had been actually torn and battered to death at the king's bare hands. 30 'Elleroth Condemned With a flow of relief like that felt by a child when light is brought into the dark room where he is lying afraid, Kelderek realized that he had been dreaming. The child desists from frightening himself with the fancy that the oak chest might be a crouching animal, and accepts that the grotesque face peering down upon him is nothing but a pattern of lines in the rafters; and at once other, true proportions, not actually revealed by, but nevertheless consequent upon the bringing of the light, are plain. The distant sound outside the window, though unaltered from a few moments before, is now, clearly, not faint, evil laughter but the croaking of frogs: while, by a subtle shift of emphasis, the smell of new-sawn wood, of penned cattle or of drying skins, which just now seemed so menacing, the very smell of fear, alters in its effect as it becomes linked with familiar people and bright, diurnal things. But with those things return almost at once the shadows which they cast Will he be scolded because he cried out in his fear? Or has someone perhaps discovered that yesterday he did what he should not? He has only exchanged one kind of anxiety for another.

In Kelderek's wakening mind, the misty topography of thought seemed to turn as though upon a pivot; dream and reality took up their proper places and he recognized the true aspect and features of his situation. He had not, he realized, been summoned to the presence of Bel-ka-Trazet – that was a dream – and therefore, thank God, he need no longer try to devise how best to defend himself. The aching pain in his body was certainly real, but was due not to blows received from the High Baron's men, but to his fight with the intruder in the hall. He was not, after all, in danger of death, yet instead there now returned to him the recollection of all that he had forgotten in sleep – the wounding of Shardik, the burning hall, Zilthe lying on the stones and his own injuries. How long had he been asleep? Suddenly, as a wall crumbles at the point where it is most vulnerable, the drowsy, undiscriminating progress of his awakening was broken by the realization that he did not know what had become of Shardik. At once he cried out 'Shardik!', opened his eyes and tried to start up.

It was daylight and he was lying in his own bed. Through the southern window, with its view over the Barb, a pale sun was shining. It seemed an hour or two after dawn. His left hand was bound up – his shoulder too, he could feel, and the opposite thigh. Biting his lip with pain, he sat up and put his feet to the floor. As he did so Sheldra came into the room. 'My lord -' 'Shardik! What has become of Lord Shardik?'

'My lord, General Zelda has come to speak with you. He is in haste. He says it is important.'

She hurried out, while he shouted feebly after her, 'Shardik! Shardik!' She returned with Zelda, who was cloaked and booted as though for a journey.

'Shardik!' he cried, and tried to stand, but stumbled back on the bed. 'Is he alive? Will he live?'

'Like master, like man,' replied Zelda with a smile. 'Shardik is alive, but it's a deep wound and he needs rest and care.' 'How long have I been asleep?' 'This is the second day since you were hurt.'

'We gave you a drug, my lord,' said Sheldra. 'The knife-blade broke off short in your thigh, but that we were able to take out.' 'Zilthe? What of Zilthe'

'She is alive, but her brain is damaged. She tries to speak, but can find no words. It will be long, or never, before she can serve Lord Shardik again.'

Kelderek put his head in his hands, thinking with anguish of the quicksilver lass who had once mistaken him for the quarry and shot an arrow between his arm and body; she who, standing alone in the waning moonlight, had seen Lord Shardik strike down the treacherous messenger on the road to Gelt.

'Kelderek,' said Zelda, interrupting his thoughts, 'no doubt you need to rest; but nevertheless you must listen to me, for time is very short and I have to be gone. There are things to be done, but the ordering of them I must leave in your care. That should do well enough, for the whole city desires only to serve and obey you. They know that it was you alone who saved Lord Shardik's life from those villains.' Kelderek raised his head and looked at him in silence.

'Yesterday, at dawn,' went on Zelda, 'a messenger reached Bekla from the army in Lapan. His news was that Santil-ke-Erketlis, after sending a force to distract our attention with a pretended attack west of Ikat, had himself passed us on the east flank and was marching north through Tonilda.' 'What does he intend?'

'That we don't know – he may not have any preconceived aim, apart from seeking support in the eastern provinces. But he will probably form an aim in the light of whatever support he gets. We've got to follow and try to contain him, that's certain. A general Like Erketlis wouldn't begin a march unless he felt sure he could make something of it. Ged-la-Dan left yesterday morning. I've stayed to see to the raising of three more companies and some extra supplies – the city governor will tell you the details. I'm off now, with every man I've been able to impress: they're waiting for me in the Caravan Market; and a cheap lot they are, I'm afraid.' 'Where are you making for?'

'Thettit-Tonilda. Our army's coming north after Erketlis, so somewhere between here and Thettit I'm bound to strike their line of march. The trouble is that Erketlis achieved so much surprise -he must be nearly two days ahead of them.' 'I wish I could come with you.'

'I wish it too. Would to God Lord Shardik could join us for a new battle! I can see it all – darkness falling and Erketlis struck down with one blow of his paw. Heal him, Kelderek; restore him, for all our sakes! I'll see you get news – every day, if possible.' -

'But one thing more I must learn at once. What happened two nights ago? It was Mollo of Kabin, wasn't it, who wounded Lord Shardik? But who fired the roof of the hall; and why?'

'I'll tell you,' answered Zelda, 'and fools we were not to foresee it. It was Elleroth, Ban of Sarkid; he who passed us when we were walking that day above the Barb. If you'd not acted as you did in leaping from the pool, Lord Shardik would have died at the hands of that precious pair. The roof would have fallen in on him and on Zilthe, and both the traitors would have escaped.' 'But Elleroth – is he dead too?' 'No. He was taken alive as he came down from the roof. It will be your task to see him executed.' 'To see him executed? I?' 'Who else? You are the king, and the priest of Shardik.'

'I have little relish for it, even when I think what he tried to do. To kill in battle is one thing; an execution is another.'

'Come, Kelderek Play-with-the-Children, we can't afford to have you turn squeamish. The man's murdered an Ortelgan sentry and attempted a sacrilegious crime, wicked beyond belief. Obviously he must be executed before you and in the presence of every baron and provincial delegate in Bekla. Indeed, you will have to require the attendance of all Ortelgans of any rank or standing whatever -there are so few left in the city and the Ortelgans ought to outnumber the provincial delegates by at least three to one.'

Kelderek was silent, looking down and picking at the blanket. At length, ashamed of his weakness, he asked hesitantly, 'Must – must he be tortured? Burned?*

Zelda turned towards the window overlooking the Barb and stood gazing out across the water. After a little he said, 'This is not a question either of indulging mercy or of gratifying revenge, but simply of achieving an effect for political reasons. People have got to see the man die and to be convinced, by what is done, that we are right and he is wrong. Now if a man – a bandit, say – is to be executed to impress the poor and ignorant and deter them from law-breaking, it is best if he dies a cruel death, for such people have no imagination and lead hard, rough lives themselves. A quick death seems little hardship to them. It is necessary that the man should be humiliated and deprived of his dignity before their mean minds can take in the lesson. But with men of the better sort, it's another matter. If we torture a man like Elleroth of Sarkid, his courage is likely to excite admiration and pity and many of the delegates, who are men of rank, may even end by feeling contempt for us. We would do better to aim at arousing respect for our mercy. Although it is only just that he should the, it is with regret that we kill such a man – that is what we must give out. It is your affair, Kelderek, but since you ask me, I would advise you to have him beheaded with a sword. It will be enough, with a man of Elleroth's standing, that we put him to death at all.'

'Very well. He shall be executed in the hall, in the presence of Lord Shardik.'

'I should have told you. The fire did much harm before we could quench it. Baltis says the roof is in a bad state and will take some time to repair.' 'Is he the best judge? Has no one else been up to see it?'

'I cannot tell, Kelderek. You forget the news I told you of the war. All is at sixes and sevens, and you must see to this yourself. Lord Shardik is your mystery, and one which you have shown that you understand. Of the roof, I can tell you only what the man told me. Order the matter as you think best, so long as Elleroth is executed before all the delegates. And now, good-bye. Only keep the city as well as you have kept Lord Shardik, and all may yet be well. Pray for the defeat of Erketlis, and wait for news.'

He was gone and Kelderek, full of pain and tired to exhaustion, could remain awake hardly long enough for his wounds to be dressed before lying down to sleep again.

The next day, however, already troubled by the delay in commencing his task and anxious to have it done and finished, he sent for the city governor and the garrison commander and set about the arrangements. He was determined that the execution should take place in the hall and in the presence of Shardik, since he felt it to be just and right that Elleroth should the upon the scene of his crime. Also, he thought, there, more than anywhere else, he himself would be seen as the agent of Shardik, invested with the implacable and divine authority proper to one putting to death an aristocrat and the hereditary lord of a province twice as large as Ortelga.

The roof of the hall, he was informed, though in a precarious state and unable to be repaired until some heavy lengths of timber could be brought in to replace the two central tie-beams, was nevertheless safe enough for an assembly.

'The way we see it, my lord,' said Baltis, half-turning for corroboration to the Beklan master-builder standing at his elbow, 'it's sound enough unless there was to be any real violence – rioting or fighting or anything the like of that. The roof's supported by the walls, d'ye see, but the tie-beams – that's to say, the cross-beams – they've been that much burned that there's some might not stand up to a heavy shaking.'

'Would shouting be dangerous?' asked Kelderek, 'or a man struggling, perhaps?'

' Oh no, my lord, it'd need a lot more than that to make it go – like the old woman's ox. Even if the beams wasn't to be repaired, they'd still stand up for months very like, although the rain'd be in through the holes, of course.'

'Very well,' replied Kelderek. 'You have leave to go.' Then, turning to the governor, he said, 'The execution will take place tomorrow morning, in the hall of the King's House. You will see to it that not less than a hundred and fifty Ortelgan and Beklan lords and citizens are present – more if possible. No one is to carry arms, and the provincial delegates are to be separated and dispersed about the hall – no more than two delegates to be seated together. The rest I leave in your hands. The lady Sheldra, however, will be caring for Lord Shardik and you are to meet her early tomorrow and take account of her wishes. When all is ready to your satisfaction, she will come here to summon me.' 31 The Live Coal The night turned cold, near to frost, and soon after midnight a white fog began to fill all the lower city, creeping slowly higher to cover at last the still waters of the Barb and thicken about the Palace and the upper city until there was no seeing from one building to the next. It muffled the coughing of the sentries and the stamping of their feet for warmth – or was it, thought Kelderek, standing cloaked in the bitter draught at the window of his room, that they slapped themselves and stamped rather to break the close, lonely silence? The fog drifted into the room and thickened his breathing; his sleeves, his beard felt chill and damp to the touch. Once he heard swans' wings overhead, flying above the fog, the rhythmic, unhindered sound recalling to him the far-off Telthearna. It faded into the distance, poignant as the whistling of a drover's boy to the cars of a man in a prison cell. He thought of Elleroth, without doubt awake like himself, and wondered whether he too had heard the swans. Who were his guards? Had they allowed him to send any message to Sarkid, to settle his affairs, to appoint any friend to act for him? Ought he not himself to have enquired about these things – to have spoken with Elleroth? He went to the door and called 'Sheldra!' There was no reply and he went into the corridor and called again.

'My lord!' answered the girl drowsily, and after a little came towards him carrying a light, her sleep-bleared face peering from the hood of her cloak. 'Listen!' he said, 'I am going to see Elleroth. You are to -'

He saw her startled look as the sleep was jolted from her brain. She fell back a step, raising the lamp higher. In her face he saw the impossibility of what he had said, the head-shakings behind his back, the soldiers' speculations, the later questions of Zelda and Ged-la-Dan; the icy indifference of Elleroth himself to the ill-timed solicitude of the Ortelgan medicine-man; and the growth and spread among the common people of some misconceived tale.

'No,' he said. 'It's no matter. I spoke what I did not intend – it was some remnant of a dream. I came to ask whether you have seen Lord Shardik since sunset.'

'Not I, my lord, but two of the girls are with him. Shall I go down?'

'No,' he said again. 'No, go back to bed. It's nothing. Only the fog troubles me – I have been imagining some harm to Lord Shardik.'

Still she paused, her heavy face expressing her bewilderment. He turned, left her and went back to his room. The flame of the lamp shed a cheerless nimbus on the fog hanging in the air. He lay prone upon the bed and rested his head on his bent forearm.

He thought of all the blood that had been shed – of the battle of the Foothills and crying of the wounded as the victorious Ortelgans mustered in the falling darkness; of the smashing of the Tamarrik Gate and the cacophonous, smoking hours that followed; of the gallows on Mount Crandor and the skulls in the hall below. Elleroth, a nobleman of unquestioned courage and honour, bending all his endeavours to the task, had almost succeeded in burning to death the wounded Shardik. And soon, when he was laid across a bench like a pig and the blood came spurting from his neck, few of those about him would feel the horror and sorrow natural to the heart of any peasant's child.

He was unaccountably seized with misgiving, by a premonition so vague and undefined that he could make nothing of it. No, he thought, this could be no divination on his part. The plain truth was that, despite his horror of Elleroth's deed, he had little stomach for this cold-blooded business. 'They should have killed him as he came down from the roof,' he said aloud; shivered in the cold, and huddled himself under the rugs.

He drowsed fitfully, woke, drowsed and woke again. Thought dissolved into fantasy and, not dreaming yet not awake, he imagined himself stepping through his embrasured window as from the fissured opening of a cave; and emerging, saw again under starlight the Ledges descending between the trees of Quiso. He was about to bound away down their steep pitch but, pausing at a sound from behind him, turned and found himself face to face with the old, muttering hag of Gelt, who stooped and laid at his feet -

He cried out and started up. The fog sail filled the room, but it was murky daylight and in the corridor he could hear the voices of the servants. His bound wounds throbbed and ached. He called for water and then, robing himself without help and laying his crown and staff ready on the bed, sat down to wait for Sheldra.

Soon there came from the terrace below sounds of footsteps and low voices. Those who were to attend the execution must be converging on the hall. He did not look out, but remained on the edge of the bed, staring before him, the dark robe covering him from his shoulders to the ground. Elleroth, he thought, must also be waiting; he did not know where; perhaps not far away – perhaps near enough to hear the footsteps and voices diminish and silence return – a waiting, expectant silence.

When he heard Sheldra's step in the corridor, he rose at once and went to the door before she could reach it. He realized that he wished to prevent the need for him to hear her voice, that voice which would sound no different had she come to tell him that Lord Shardik had raised the dead to life and established peace from Ikat to the Telthearna. As he stepped across the threshold she was waiting and looked at him impassively, her face expressing neither dread nor excitement. He nodded gravely and she, unspeaking, turned about to precede him. Beyond her the other women were waiting, their stiff robes filling the narrow corridor from wall to wall. He raised his hand to silence their whispering and asked, 'Lord Shardik – what is his mood? Is he disturbed by the crowd?'

'He is restless, my lord, and looks fiercely about him,' answered one of the girls.

'He is impatient to sec his enemy brought before him,' said another. She gave a quick laugh and at once fell silent, biting her lip as Kelderek turned his head and stared coldly at her.

At his word they began to file slowly along the corridor, preceded by the beat of the gong. Looking down as he reached the head of the stairway, he saw the fog trailing through the open doorway and the young soldier at the entrance shifting his feet and gazing up at them. One of the girls stumbled, recovering herself with a hand that slapped against the wall. An officer appeared, looked up at Sheldra, nodded and went out through the door. She turned her head and whispered, 'He has gone to fetch the prisoner, my lord.'

Now they were entering the hall. He would scarcely have recognized it, so much closer and smaller did it seem to have grown. This was no longer the echoing space of flame-shot dusk where he had kept watch so many nights in solitude and where he had leapt empty-handed upon the Kabin envoy at his evil task. Except along the line of a narrow path extending before him between two ropes, men stood pressed together from wall to wall. There was a confusion of heads, robes, cloaks, armour, and of faces turned towards him, swaying and bobbing as each sought to catch a glimpse of him over and round his neighbour. Above them, the fog hung like the smoke of bonfires in the cold air. The charred, irregular gaps in the roof showed only as lighter patches of fog. Though the clothes of the spectators were of every hue – some gaudy and barbaric as nomads' or brigands' garb – yet in this dank gloom their brightness and variety seemed soaked away, like the colours of sodden leaves in autumn.

The floor had been covered with a mixture of sand and sawdust, so that no sound came from his footsteps or from those of the women pacing before him. At the centre of the hall an open space had been left in front of the bars and here, in an attempt to clear and warm the air, a brazier of charcoal had been set. The light smoke and fume drifted one way and another. Men coughed, and patches of the heaped fuel glowed as the draught blew them brighter. Close to the brazier stood a heavy bench, on which the three soldiers who were to carry out the execution had laid their gear – a long sword with a two-handed hilt, a sack of bran to soak up the blood and three cloaks, neatly folded, with which to cover the head and body as soon as the blow had been struck.

In the centre of the space a bronze disc had been placed on the floor, and upon this Kelderek, with the women flanking him on either side, took up his position, facing the bench and the waiting soldiers. For an instant his teeth chattered. He clenched them, raised his head; and found himself looking into the eyes of Shardik.

Insubstantial the bear appeared, monstrous, shadowy in the smoky, foggy gloom, like some djinn emergent from the fire and brooding darkly above it in the half-light. He had come close to the bars and, rising on his hind legs, stood peering down, his fore-paws resting on one of the iron tics. Seen through the heat and fume from the brazier his outline wavered, spectral and indistinct. Looking up at him, Kelderek was momentarily bemused, overcome by that dream-like state, experienced sometimes in fever, in which the mind is deceived as to the size and distance of objects, so that the shape against the light of a fly on a window-sill is supposed that of a house on the skyline, or the falling of a distant torrent is mistaken for the rustle of wall-hangings or curtains. Across a great distance Shardik, both bear and mountain-summit, inclined his divine head to perceive his priest, minute upon the plain below. In those far-off, gigantic eyes Kelderek – and he alone, it seemed, for none else moved or spoke – could discern unease, danger, impending disaster grim and foreboding as the rumbling of a long-silent volcano. Pity, too, he saw, for himself, as though it were he and not Elleroth who was the victim condemned to kneel at the bench, and Shardik his grave judge and executioner.

'Accept my life, Lord Shardik,' he said aloud, and as he uttered the familiar words awoke from the trance. The heads of the women on either side turned towards him, the illusion dissolved, the distance diminished to a few yards and the bear, more than twice his own height, dropped on all fours and resumed its uneasy rambling up and down the length of the bars. He saw the oozing scab of the half-healed spear-wound in its back and heard its feet stumbling through the thick, dry straw.

'He is not well,' he thought and, oblivious of all else, would have stepped forward even then, had not Sheldra laid a hand on his arm, motioning with her eyes towards the opening from the ambulatory on his right

To the low, steady beat of a drum, two files of Ortelgan soldiers were entering the hall, their feet on the sand as soundless as his own had been. Between them walked Elleroth, Ban of Sarkid. He was very pale, his forehead sweating in the cold, his face drawn and streaked with sleeplessness: but his step was firm; and as he turned his eyes here and there he contrived to appear to be observing the scene in the hall with a detached and condescending air. Beyond him, Shardik had begun to prowl more violently, with a restless, dominating ferocity of which none in the hall could remain unaware; but Elleroth ignored him, affecting interest only in the packed mass of spectators to his left Kelderek thought, 'He has already considered how best to keep his dignity and determined upon this part to act' He remembered how once he himself, sure of immediate death, had lain waiting for the leopard to spring from the bank above; and thought, 'He is so much afraid that his sight and hearing are misted over. But he knew it would be so, and he has rehearsed these moments.' He called to mind the plot of which Elleroth was guilty and tried to recover the anger and hatred which had filled him on the night of the fire festival: but could feel only a mounting sense of dread and apprehension, as though some precarious tower of wrong piled upon wrong were about to topple and fall. He closed his eyes, but at once felt himself swaying, and opened them again as the drum ceased, the soldiers drew apart and Elleroth stepped forward from among them.

He was dressed plainly but finely, in the traditional style of a nobleman of Sarkid – much as he might have dressed, Kelderek supposed, to feast his tenants at home or to entertain friends at a dinner party. His veltron, pleated saffron and white, was of new cloth, embroidered with silk, and the slashed gores of his breeches were cross-stitched with an intricate, diapered pattern in silver filigree, a month's work for two women. The long pin at his shoulder was also silver, quite plain, such as might have belonged to any man of means. Kelderek wondered whether it might be a keepsake from some comrade of the slave wars – from Mollo himself, perhaps? He wore no jewels, no neck-chain, bracelet or ring; but now, as he stepped out from among the soldiers, he drew from his sleeve a gold pendant and chain, slipped it over his head and adjusted it at his neck. As it was recognized, murmurs arose among the spectators. It represented a couchant stag, the personal emblem of Santil-ke-Erketlis and his entourage.

Elleroth came to the bench and paused, looking down at what was on it. Those nearest saw him brace himself against a quick tremor. Then, stooping, he felt the edge of the blade with one finger. As he straightened, his eyes met those of the executioner with a tense, forced smile and he spoke for the first time.

'No doubt you know how to use that thing or you wouldn't be here. I shall give you little trouble and I hope you'll do as much for me.'

The fellow nodded awkwardly, evidently at a loss to know whether he should reply. But as Elleroth handed him a small leather bag, murmuring, 'That's among yourselves,' he drew the strings, looked into it and, wide-eyed, began to stammer out his thanks in words so banal and out of place as to seem both shameful and macabre. Elleroth checked him with a gesture, stepped forward to face Kelderek and inclined his head with the coldest suggestion of a formal greeting.

Kelderek had already instructed the governor that a herald was to describe the crime committed by Elleroth and Mollo and conclude by announcing the sentence of death. There was no interruption as this was now done, the only sounds to be heard besides the herald's voice being the intermittent growling of the bear and its rough, spasmodic movements among the dry straw. 'He is still feverish,' thought Kelderek. 'This disturbance and the crowd have unsettled him and will delay his recovery.' Each time he looked up, it was to meet the cold, contemptuous gaze of the condemned man, one side of his face cast into shadow by the light from the brazier. Whether assumed or real, he could not out-stare that indifference; and finally bent his head, pretending abstraction as the herald described the burning roof, the wounding of Shardik and his own frenzied onslaught upon Mollo in the hall. Whisperings of foreboding seemed all about him, intermittent and impalpable as the bitter draught from the ambulatory and the thin streams of fog trailing like cobwebs down the walls.

The herald ceased at length and silence fell. Sheldra touched his hand and, recollecting himself, he began to utter to Elleroth, in imperfect Beklan, the words which he had prepared.

'Elleroth, formerly Ban of Sarkid, you have heard the recital of your crime and the sentence passed upon you. That sentence, which must now be carried out, is a merciful one, as becomes the power of Bekla and the divine majesty of Lord Shardik. But in further token of that mercy and of the might of Lord Shardik, who has no need to. fear his enemies, I now grant you consent to speak if you so desire: after which we wish you a courageous, dignified and painless death, calling upon all to witness that cruelty is no part of our justice.'

Elleroth remained silent so long that at length Kelderek looked up, only to encounter once more his stare and realize that the condemned man must have been waiting for him to do this. Yet still he could feel no anger, even while he once more dropped his eyes and Elleroth began to speak in Beklan.

His first words came high and thin, with little gasping pauses, but he quickly checked himself, resuming in a strained but firmer tone, which gathered strength as he continued.

'Beklans, delegates of the provinces, and Ortelgans. To all of you assembled here today, in this northern cold and fog, to see me the, I am grateful for hearing me speak. Yet when a dead man speaks you must look to hear nothing but plain words.'

At this moment Shardik came once more to the bars, rising on his hind legs directly behind Elleroth and looking intently out across the hall. The glow from the brazier threw an amber light up the length of his shaggy pelt, so that Elleroth appeared to be standing before some high, firclit doorway fashioned, larger than life, in the shape of a bear. Two or three of the soldiers looked over their shoulders, flinching, and were checked by a low word from their officer; but Elleroth neither turned his head nor paid them attention.

'I know that there are those here who would not hesitate to acknowledge their friendship with me if they did not know that to do so would avail me nothing; but I fear that some of you are secretly disappointed and perhaps – a few – even ashamed to sec me, the Ban of Sarkid, led here to the as a criminal and conspirator. To you I say that what may seem a shameful death is not felt as such by me. Neither Mollo, who is dead, nor I, who am about to die, broke any oath given to our enemies. We told no lies and used no treachery. The man I killed was a soldier, armed and on duty. The worst that can be said of us is that a poor girl, watching in this hall, was struck down and badly injured, and for this, though I did not strike the blow, I am most sincerely sorry. But I must tell you, and tell you all plainly, that what Mollo and I undertook was an act of war against rebels and robbers: and against a superstitious, cruel and barbarous cult, in the name of which evil deeds have been committed.'

'Silence!' cried Kelderek, above the murmurs and muttering from behind him. 'Speak no more of this, Lord Elleroth, or I shall be forced to bring your speech to an end.'

'It will end soon enough,' replied Elleroth. 'If you doubt it, bear-magician, ask the inhabitants of Gelt; or those who can remember that decent, honest fellow Gel-Ethlin and his men – ask them. Or you can seek nearer home, and ask those who built gallows for children on the slopes of Crandor. They will tell you how soon your Ortelgans can stop the breath that a man – or a child – needs for speaking. Nevertheless, I will say no more of this, for I have said what I intended, my words have been heard and there is another matter of which I must speak before I end. This is a thing which concerns only my own home and family and that house of Sarkid of which I am about to cease to be-the head. For that reason I will speak in my own tongue – though not for long. From those who will not understand me, I beg for patience. From those who understand, I beg their help after my death. For even though it may seem the least likely of possibilities, it may be that somewhere, somehow, the chance will be granted to one of you to help me when I am dead, and to mend as bitter a sorrow as ever darkened the heart of a father and brought grief to an old and honourable house. Many of you will have heard the lament called the Tears of Sarkid. Listen, then, and judge whether they may not fall for me, as for the Lord Deparioth long ago.'

As Elleroth began speaking in Yeldashay, Kelderek wondered how many of those in the hall understood his words. It had been an error to allow him to address them. Yet in Bekla this privilege had always been accorded to any nobleman condemned to die, and to have withheld it would have undone much of the effect of granting him a merciful death. However he had gone about the business, he reflected bitterly, nevertheless a man like Elleroth, with his self-possession and aristocratic assurance, would have been bound to make his mark, and to contrive to show the Ortelgans as harsh and uncivilized.

Suddenly his attention was caught by an alteration in the tone of the voice. Looking up, he was astonished at the change that had come over the proud, haggard figure before him. Elleroth, with a look of the most earnest supplication, was leaning forward, speaking in a tone of passionate intensity and gazing from one to another about the hall. As Kelderek looked at him in amazement, he saw tears in his eyes. The Ban of Sarkid was weeping: yet clearly not for his own misfortune, for here and there, at his back, Kelderek could hear answering murmurs of sympathy and encouragement. He frowned, mustering his smattering of Yeldashay in an effort to understand what Elleroth was saying. misery no different from that suffered by many common men,' he made out; but lost the thread and could not distinguish the next words. Then 'cruelty to the innocent and helpless' – 'long searching to no avail -' After an interval he discerned '- the heir of a great house -' and then, spoken with a sob, '- the vile, shameful Ortelgan slave-trade.'

To his right Kelderek saw Maltrit, the captain of the guard, lay his hand on the hilt of his sword, looking quickly round as the murmuring grew throughout the hall. He nodded to him and gestured quickly with his hand twice, palm upward. Maltrit picked up a spear, hammered the butt on the floor and shouted 'Silence! Silence!' Once more Kelderek forced himself to look Elleroth in the eye. 'You must needs have done now, my lord,' he said. 'We have been generous to you. I ask you now to repay us with restraint and courage'

Elleroth paused, as though collecting himself after his passionate words, and Kelderek saw return to his grey face the look of one striving to master fear. Then, in a tone in which controlled hysteria mingled oddly with stinging contempt, he said in Beklan, 'Restraint and courage? My dear riparian witch-doctor, I fear I am short on both – almost as short as you. But at least I have one advantage – I haven't got to go any further. You see, it's going to be such a terribly long way for you. You can't realize how far. Do you remember how you came up from the Telthearna, all slippity-slop for a spree? You came to Gelt – they remember it well, I'm told – and then you went on. You went to the foothills and laid about you in the twilight and the rain. And then your meaty boys smashed the Tamarrik Gate -do you remember that, or did you perhaps fail to notice what it looked like? And then, of course, you got mixed up in a war with people who quite unaccountably felt that they didn't like you. What a long, long way it's been! Thank goodness I shall be having a rest now. Cut you won't, my dear waterside wizard. No, no – the sky will grow dark, cold rain will fall and all trace of the right way will be blotted out. You will be all alone. And still you will have to go on. There will be ghosts in the dark and voices in the air, disgusting prophecies coming true I wouldn't wonder and absent faces present on every side, as the man said. And still you will have to go on. The last bridge will fall behind you and the last lights will go out, followed by the sun, the moon and the stars; and still you will have to go on. You will come to regions more desolate and wretched than you ever dreamed could exist, places of sorrow created entirely by that mean superstition which you yourself have put about for so long. But still you will have to go on.'

Kelderek stared back at him, frozen by the intensity and conviction of his words. His own premonition had returned upon him, closer now, its outline more distinct – a sense of loneliness, danger and approaching calamity.

'The thought makes me feel quite cold,' said Elleroth, controlling his trembling with an effort. 'Perhaps I should warm myself for a short spell before the man with the chopper interrupts these joyous, carefree moments.'

He turned quickly. Two paces took him to the side of the brazier. Maltrit stepped forward, uncertain of his intention yet ready to forestall any irregular or desperate act; but Elleroth merely smiled at him, shaking his head as easily and graciously as though declining the advances of Hydraste herself. Then, as Maltrit stood back, responding instinctively to his smooth and authoritative manner, Elleroth, with a selective air, deliberately plunged his left hand into the brazier and drew out a burning coal. Holding it up in his fingers, as though displaying for the admiration of friends some fine jewel or crystal artifact, he looked once more at Kelderek. The appalling pain had twisted his face into a sickening travesty of relaxed good humour and his words, when they came, were distorted – grotesque mouthings, an approximation to speech which was nevertheless clear enough to be understood. The sweat ran from his forehead and he shook with agony, yet still he held up the live coal in his hand and aped horribly the manner of one at case among his comrades.

'You see – bear king – you holding live coal -' (Kelderek could smell burning flesh, could see his fingers blackening and supposed that he must be burned to the bone: yet still, transfixed by the white eyes writhing in his face, remained where he stood.) 'How long you a'le go on? Burn you up, hobble pain, carrying burning fire.* 'Stop him!' cried Kelderek to Maltrit, Elleroth bowed.

'No need – 'blige you all. Come now, little pain' – he staggered a moment, but recovered himself – 'little pain – nothing some 'flicted by 'telgans, 'sure you. Let's make haste.'

With assumed carelessness and without looking behind him, he tossed the coal high over his shoulder, waved his hand to the crowd in the hall, strode quickly to the bench and knelt down beside it. The coal, fanned brighter by its course through the air, flew steeply over the bars and fell into the straw close to where Shardik had paused a moment in his restless prowling. In seconds a little nest of fire had appeared, the small, clear flames between the blades of straw seeming, at first, as still as those trailing mosses that grow among the branches of trees in a swamp. Then they began to climb, fresh smoke joined that already in the foggy air and a crackling sound was heard as the fire spread across the floor.

With an unnatural, high-pitched cry of fear, Shardik sprang backwards, arching the huge ridge of his back like a cat facing an enemy. Then, in panic, he fled across the breadth of the hall. Blindly, he ran full tilt against one of the columns on the opposite side, and as he recoiled, half-stunned, the wall shook as though from the blow of a ram.

The bear got up, rocking dizzily, looked about it and then once more ran headlong from the now fast-spreading fire. It struck the bars with its full weight and remained struggling as though among the strands of a net. As it rose once more on its hind legs, one of the ties running from the bars to the wall was pressed against its chest and in frenzy it beat at it again and again. The bolted end of the tie pulled out of the wall, dragging with it the two countersunk stones into which it was morticed.

At this moment Kelderek heard overhead a heavy, grinding movement and, looking up, saw a patch of light in the roof slowly narrowing before his eyes. Staring at it, he suddenly realized that the great beam above him was moving, tipping, slowly turning like a key in a lock. A moment more and one end, no longer supported by the wall, began to scrape and splinter its way down the stonework like a giant's finger.

As the beam fell, Kelderek flung himself across the floor, away from the bars. It dropped obliquely across the line of the ironwork, smashing down a quarter of its length to a depth of three or four feet. Then it settled, one end suspended in that iron tangle and the other canted against the opposite wall, and the bars bent and drooped beneath it like blades of grass. Slowly, the whole mass of wreckage continued to subside downwards. Behind it, the fire still spread through the straw and the air grew thicker with smoke.

Shouting and tumult filled the hall. Many were looking round for the nearest way out, others trying to keep order or to call their friends together. At the doors the soldiers stood uncertainly, waiting for orders from their officers, who could not make themselves heard above the din.

Only Shardik – Shardik and one other – moved with unhesitating certainty. Out of the burning straw, over the broken bars came the bear, clawing at the iron with a noise like the storming of a breach.

As, when a dam gives way in some high valley of the hills, the water falls in a thunderous mass through the gap and pours on in obedience not to any will of its own but simply to inanimate, natural law: overwhelming or sweeping aside all that hinders it, changed in an instant from a controlled source of gain and power to a destructive force, killing as it runs to waste and devastating as it escapes from the restraint of those who supposed that they had made it safely their own – so Shardik, in the savagery of his fear, made his way, smashing and clambering, over the broken bars.

As those below the dam, dwelling or working in the very path of the water, perceive with terror that a disaster which none envisaged is even now upon them, indeflexible and leaving no recourse but immediate, headlong flight – so those in the hall realized that Shardik had broken loose and was among them.

And as those further away from the dam, hearing, wherever they may be, the rumble of the collapsing wall, the roaring of water and the unexpected tumult, stand still, looking at one another wide-eyed; recognizing the sounds of disaster, but as yet ignorant that what they have heard imports nothing less than the work of years ruined, the destruction of their prosperity and the discredit of their name -so those in the upper city, outside the hall: the peering sentinels on the wall, the gardeners and cattle-men coughing and shivering at their work along the shores of the Barb, the delegates' servants loitering at their masters' doors, the youths abandoning archery practice for the morning, the court ladies, muffled against the cold, looking southwards from the roof of the Barons' Palace for the sun to clear the shoulder of Crandor and disperse the fog – all heard the fall of the beam, the clang of the bars and the uproar that followed. Each in his own manner realized that some calamity must have befallen and, fearful but not yet suspecting the truth, began to move towards the House of the King, questioning those whom he met on the way.

As Shardik came clambering over the pile of wreckage, fragments of iron and wood were scattered and it shifted and sank beneath his weight. He mounted on the tie-beam and for a moment crouched there, looking down into the hall, dire as a cat in a loft to the mice who run squeaking. Then, as the beam began to tilt under him, he leapt clumsily down, landing on the stones between the brazier and the execution bench. All about him men were clamouring and pushing, striking and tearing at one another in their effort to escape. Yet at first he went no further, but remained ramping from side to side – a movement frighteningly expressive of fury and violence about to break forth. Then he rose on his hind legs, looking, above the heads of the fugitives, for a way out.

It was at this terrible moment, before more than a few had succeeded in forcing their way through the doors and while Shardik still stood towering above the crowd like some atrid ogre, that Elleroth leapt to his feet. Snatching up the executioner's sword from the bench before him, he ran across the empty, deserted space round the bear, passing within a foot of it. A dozen men, pressed and jostling together, were blocking the northern entrance to the ambulatory and through these he cut his way, slashing and thrusting. Kelderek, still lying where he had flung himself to avoid the falling beam, saw his sword arm striking and the shrivelled left hand hanging at his side. Then he was gone through the arch, and the crowd closed behind him.

Kelderek rose to his knees and was instantly knocked to the floor. His head struck the stone and he rolled over, dazed by the blow. When he looked up it was to see Shardik clawing and cuffing his way towards that same door by which he himself, with the women, had entered the hall half an hour before. Already three or four bodies lay in the bear's wake, while on either side men clamoured hysterically and trampled one another, some actually beating with their hands against the columns, or trying to climb the sheer brickwork that closed the arcades.

Shardik came to the doorway and peered round it, resembling grotesquely some hesitant wayfarer about to set out on a stormy night. At the same moment the figure of Elleroth appeared for an instant beyond him, running from left to right past the opening. Then Shardik's bulk closed the entire aperture, and as he passed through it there came from beyond a single, terrified scream.

When Kelderek readied the door, the first object that met his eyes was the body of the young soldier who had stared up at him as he descended the staircase that morning. It was lying face down, and from the almost-severed neck a stream of blood was pouring across the floor. Through this the bear had trodden, and its bloody tracks led out to the terrace and across the grass. Following them into the gardens, Kelderek came almost face to face with Shardik as he emerged from the thick mist along the shore. The bear, running in a lumbering canter round the western end of the Barb, passed him and disappeared up the pasture slope beyond. Book IV Uriah: and Kabin 32 The Postern They tell – ah! they tell many things of Shardik's passing from Bekla, and of the manner of his setting out upon his dark journey to that unforeseeable desdnadon appointed by God. Many things? For how long, then, was he at large within the walls of Bekla, under Crandor's summit? For as long, perhaps, as a cloud may take, in the eyes of a watcher, to pass across the sky? A cloud passes across the sky and one sees a dragon, another a lion, another a towered citadel or blue promontory with trees upon it. Some tell what they saw and then others tell what they were told – many things. They say that the sun was darkened as Lord Shardik departed, that the walls of Bekla opened of their own accord to let him pass, that the trepsis, once white, has bloomed red since that day when the prints of his feet bloodied its flowers in passing. They say that he wept tears, that a warrior raised from the dead went before him with a drawn sword, that he was made invisible to all but the king. They tell many, shining things. And of what value is the grain of sand at the heart of a pearl?

Shardik, shouldering through the fog and scattering the terrified cattle as a seaward-running bramba disturbs lesser fish in crossing a pool, left the southern shore of the Barb and began to ascend the slope of the rough pasture beyond. Kelderek followed, hearing behind him the hubbub and clamour spreading across the city. To his right the Barons' Palace loomed indistinct and irregular, like an island of tall rocks at nightfall; and as he paused, uncertain of the direcdon taken by Shardik, a single bell began ringing, light and quick, from one of the towers. Coming upon the bear's tracks in a patch of soft ground, he was puzzled to sec fresh blood beside them, though the prints themselves were no longer bloody. A few moments later, through a chance rift in the fog, he caught sight of Shardik again, almost a bow-shot ahead on the slope, and glimpsed between his shoulders the red gash of the reopened wound.

This was a piece of ill-fortune that would make his task more difficult, and he considered it as he went cautiously on. Shardik's recapture could be only a matter of time, for the Peacock Gate and the Red Gate of the citadel were the only ways out of the upper city. Elleroth, too, wherever he might be, was unlikely to be able to climb the walls, lacking the use of one hand. It would be best now if he were found and killed without recapture. His guilt had appeared as manifesdy as could well be. Had he not himself spoken of a deliberate act of war? As a fugitive within the walls he could not remain at. large for long. No doubt Maltrit, that competent and reliable officer, was already searching for him. Kelderek looked around to see whether there was anyone within hail. The first person he fell in with could be sent to Maltrit with a message that Elleroth, when found, was to be killed at once. But what if those who were hunting for him were to encounter Shardik in the fog? In his frightened and confused state, and enraged by the pain of the wound Mollo had inflicted, the bear would be deadly dangerous – far too dangerous for any immediate attempt at recapture. The only possible way would be to remove all cattle from the upper city, together with anything else which might provide food, and then, leaving the Rock Pit open and baited, wait for hunger to compel Shardik to return. Yet the Power of God could not be left to wander alone, unwatched and unattended, while all his people took refuge from him. The priest-king must be seen to have the matter in hand. Besides, Shardik's condition might well grow worse before he came back to the pit. In tins unaccustomed cold, wounded and unfed, he might even die on the lonely, eastern heights of Crandor, for which he appeared to be making. He would have to be watched – by night as well as by day – a task with which scarcely anyone now remaining in the city could be reliably entrusted. If it were to be performed at all, the king would have to set an example. And his very knowledge of Shardik, of his cunning and ferocity and the ebb and flow of his savage anger, brought home to him the danger involved.

Higher on the slope, where the pasture-land merged into rough, rocky hillside, the air became somewhat clearer and Kelderek, looking back, could see the thicker mist white and level below him, blotting out the city, save for the towers that rose through it here and there. Beneath it, with never a soul to be seen, the noises of alarm were spreading far and wide, and as he listened to them he realized that it was from this frightening tumult that the bear was climbing to escape.

Almost a thousand feet above Bekla, a shoulder ran eastwards from the summit of Crandor. The line of the city wall, exploiting the crags and steep places along the mountain's flank, surmounted the eastern declivity of this ridge before turning westwards towards the Red Gate of the citadel. It was a wild, overgrown place, revealing little to the eye of one approaching from below. Kelderek, sweating in the cold air and flinging back the heavy robe that encumbered him, halted below the ridge, listening and watching the thicket where he had seen Shardik disappear among the trees. A little way to his left ran the wall, twenty feet high, the cloudy sky showing white here and there through the narrow loop-holes that overlooked the slope outside. On his right, a stream pattered down a rocky gully out of the thicket. It was the last place into which any man in his senses would follow a wounded bear.

He could hear nothing beyond the natural sounds of the mountainside. A buzzard, sailing sideways above him, gave its harsh, mewing cry and disappeared. A breeze rustled through the trees and died away. The unceasing water close by became at last the sound of the silence – that, and the noise still audible from the city below. Where was Shardik? He could not be far off, bounded as he was by the curve of the wall. Either he was already on the other side of the ridge and moving westwards towards the Red Gate, or else, which seemed more likely, he had taken refuge among the trees. If he were there now, he could hardly move away without being heard. There was nothing to be done but wait. Sooner or later one of the soldiers, searching, would come within earshot and could be sent back with a message.

Suddenly, from among the trees above, came sounds of splintering wood and the grinding and knocking of falling stones. Kelderek started. As he listened, there followed the same cry that he had heard across the cypress gardens by night – a loud growling of pain, utterable by none but Shardik. At this, trembling with fear and moving as in a trance, he stumbled his way up the track which the bear had already broken through the bushes and creepers, and peered into the half-light among the trees.

The grove was empty. At its eastern end, where the trees and bushes grew closely up to the sheer wall, was a ragged, irregular opening, bright with daylight. Approaching cautiously, he saw with astonishment that it was a broken doorway. Several lining-stones on both sides had been forced out of the jambs and lay tumbled about. The heavy wooden door, which opened outwards, must have been left open by one who had passed through, for there seemed to be no latch and the bolts were drawn. The upper hinge had been dragged from its setting in the jamb and the splintered door sagged, its lower corner embedded in the ground outside. The stone arch, though damaged, was still in place, but the downward-pointing, central cusp was covered with blood, like a weapon withdrawn from a wound. On the inner side of the doorway, just where a man might have stood to draw the bolts, Kelderek caught sight of something bright half-trodden into the ground. He stooped and picked it up. It was the golden stag emblem of Santil-ke-Erketlis, the pendant still threaded on the fine, snapped chain.

He stepped through the doorway. Below him, the mist was lifting from the great expanse of the Beklan plain – a shaggy, half-wild country, from which rose here and there the smoke of villages -stretching southward towards Lapan, east to Tonilda, northward to Kabin and the mountains of Gelt. A mile away, at the foot of the slope, plainly visible through the clearing air, ran the caravan road from Bekla to Ikat. Shardik, his back and shoulders covered with blood from the wound gored yet again by the cusp of the door, was descending the mountainside some two hundred feet below.

As he followed once more, picking his way and steadying himself with his hands against the crags, Kelderek began to realize how unfit he was for any long or arduous undertaking. Mollo, before he died, had stabbed or gashed him in half a dozen places and these half-healed wounds, which had been bearable enough as long as he kept his room, were now beginning to throb and to send sharp twinges of pain through his muscles. Once or twice he stumbled and almost lost his balance. Yet even when his uncertain feet sent dislodged stones rattling down the slope Shardik, below him, never once looked back or paid him any attention, but having reached the eastern foot of Crandor continued in the same direction. For fear of robbers, the scrub on either side of the caravan road had been roughly cut back to the length of almost a bowshot. This open place the bear crossed without hesitation and so entered upon the wilderness of the plain itself.

Kelderek, approaching the road, stopped and looked back at the eastern face he had descended. It puzzled him that, although so many travelled this road, he had never heard tell of the postern on the east ridge. The wall, he now perceived, ran by no means straight in its course and in the view from below was masked here and there by crags. The postern must lie – and had no doubt been deliberately sited – in some oblique angle of the wall, for he could not see it even now, when he knew whereabouts to look. As he turned to go on, wondering for what devious purpose it had been made and cursing the ill turn of fortune of which it had been the means, he caught sight of a man approaching up the road from the south. He waited: the man drew nearer and Kelderek saw that he was armed and carrying the red staff of an army courier. Here at last was the opportunity to send his news back to the city.

He now recognized the man as an Ortelgan a good deal older than himself, a certain master-fletcher formerly in the service of Ta-Kominion's family. That he should be on active service at his age was somewhat surprising, though in all probability it was at his own wish. In the old days on Ortelga the boys had altered his name, Kavass, to 'Old Kiss-me-arse', on account of the marked deference and respect with which he always treated his superiors. An excellent craftsman and an irritatingly child-like, simple and honest man, he had appeared to take a positive delight in asserting that those above him (whatever their origins) must know better than he and that faith and loyalty were a man's first duties. Now, recognizing the king, dishevelled and alone by the roadside, he at once raised his palm to his forehead and fell on one knee without the least show of surprise. He would no doubt have done so if he had come upon him festooned with trepsis and standing on his head.

Kelderek took his hand and raised him to his feet. 'You're old for a courier, Kavass,' he said. 'Wasn't there a younger man they could send?'

'Oh, I volunteered, my lord,' replied Kavass. 'These young fellows nowadays aren't so reliable as an older man, and when I set out there was no telling whether a courier would be able to get through to Bekla at all.' 'Where have you come from, then?'

'From Lapan, my lord. Our lot were detached on the right of General Ged-la-Dan's army, but it seems he had to march in a hurry and didn't stop to tell us where. So the captain, he says to me, "Well, Kavass," he says, "since we've lost touch with General Ged-la-Dan, and seem to have an open flank on the left as far as I can tell, you'd better go and get us some orders from Bekla. Ask whether we're to stay here, or fall back, or what." '

'Tell him from me to start marching towards Thettit-Tonilda. He should send another courier there at once to learn where General Ged-la-Dan is and get fresh orders. General Ged-la-Dan may have great need of him.' 'To Thettit-Tonilda? Very good, my lord.'

'Now listen, Kavass.' As simply as he could, Kelderek explained that both Shardik and an escaped enemy of Bekla were at large on the plain, and that searchers must be summoned at once, both to look for the fugitive and to take over from himself the task of following the bear.

'Very good, my lord,' said Kavass again. 'Where are they to come?' 'I shall follow Lord Shardik as best I can until they find me. I don't think he'll go either fast or far. No doubt I shall be able to send another message from some village.' 'Very good, my lord.'

'One other thing, Kavass. I'm afraid I must borrow your sword and whatever money you have. I may very well need them. I shall have to exchange clothes with you, too, like an old tale, and put on that jerkin and those breeches of yours. These robes are no good for hunting.'

'I'll take them back to the city, my lord. My goodness, they're going to wonder what I've been up to until I tell 'em I But don't you worry – you'll follow Lord Shardik all right. If only there were more that would simply trust him, my lord, as you and I do, and ask no questions, then the world would go right enough.'

'Yes, of course. Well – tell them to make haste,' said Kelderek, and at once set off into the plain. Already, he thought, he had delayed too long and might not easily recover sight of Shardik. Yet, thinking unconsciously in terms of the forest where he had learned his craft, he had forgotten that this was different country. Almost immediately he caught sight of the bear, a good half-mile to the north-east, moving as steadily as a traveller on a road. Except for the huts of a distant village, away to the right, the plain stretched empty as far as the eye could see.

Kelderek was in no doubt that he must continue to follow. In Shardik lay the whole power of Ortelga. If he were left to wander alone and unattended, it would be plain to the eyes of peasants -many no doubt still secretly hostile to their Ortelgan rulers – that something was wrong. News of his whereabouts might be falsified or concealed. Someone might wound him again or even, perhaps, succeed in killing him as he slept. It had been hard enough to trace him five years before, after the fall of Bekla and the retreat of Santil-ke-Erketlis. Despite his own pain and fatigue and the danger involved, it would in the long run be easier not to lose track of him now. Besides, Kavass was reliable and the searchers could hardly fail to find them both before nightfall. Weak though he was, he should be equal to that much.