"Glabron was singing a foul song--or thought he was singing it--and I plucked at his sleeve and interrupted him. He looked round for a moment and then hit me across the face with the back of his hand. He was just going on when the muffled stranger walked across to the table. His cloak was still held across his face and only one of his eyes showed over the top. He kicked the table and rocked it, so that they all looked up at him.
"'I don't like your song,' he said to Glabron, in Beklan. 'I don't like the way you treat this girl; and I don't like you either.'
"As soon as he spoke I knew who he was. I thought, 'I can't bear it.' I wanted to warn him, but I couldn't utter a word. Glabron answered nothing for a few moments, not because he was particularly taken aback, but because it was always his way to go slowly and calmly about killing a man. He liked to make an effect--that was part of the fear he inspired--to let people see that he killed deliberately and not in a fit of rage.
"'Oh, don't you, I say,' he said at length, when he was sure the whole room was listening. 'I wonder whom I have the honor of addressing, don't you know?'
"'I'm the devil,' says the other man, 'come for your soul, and not a moment too soon either.' And with that, he dropped his arm. They'd never seen him before, of course, and in that dim light the face which he disclosed was not the face of a human being. They were all superstitious men--ignorant, with evil consciences, no religion and a great fear of the unknown. They leapt away from him, cursing and falling over each other. The Baron already had his sword out under his cloak, and in that moment he ran Glabron through the throat, grabbed me by the arm, cut down another man who was in his way and was out in the dark with me and Ankray before anyone had had time even to draw a knife.
"I won't tell you all the rest of the story--or not tonight. Later there'll be time. But I suppose you can well believe that nothing like Bel-ka-Trazet had ever been seen here before. For three months he and I and Ankray never slept at one and the same time. In six months he was lord of Zeray, with men at his back whom he could trust to do his bidding.
"He and I lived in this house, and people used to call me his queen--half in jest and half in earnest. No one dared to show me anything but respect. I don't think they would have believed the truth--that Bel-ka-Trazet never touched me. 'I doubt whether you've learned a very good opinion of men,' he said to me once, 'and as for me, it's little enough I've got left in the way of self-respect. At least while I'm alive I can still honor a priestess of Quiso, and that will be better for us both.' Only Ankray knows that secret. The rest of Zeray must believe that we were fated to be childless, or else that his injuries--
"But though I was never in love with him, and was grateful for his self-restraint, yet still I honored and admired him, and I would have consented to be his consort if he had wished. Much of the time he was dour and brooding. Pleasures here are meager enough, but always he had little zest for any--as though he were punishing himself for the loss of Ortelga. He had a sharp, mordant tongue and no illusions."
"I remember."
"'Don't ask me to come out drinking with you,' he said once to his men. 'I might get chased downstream by a bear.' They knew what he meant, for although he'd never told them the story, news had reached Zeray of the battle in the foothills and the fall of Bekla to the Ortelgans. When anything went wrong he used to say, 'You'd better get yourselves a bear--you'll do better then.' But though they feared him, they always trusted and respected him and they followed him without hesitation. As I said, there was no one here who was the least match for him. He was too good for Zeray. I suppose any other baron, forced to fly as he was, would have crossed to Deelguy or made for Ikat or even Terekenalt. But he--he hated pity as a cat hates water. It was his pride, and the bitter streak in him, that sent him to Zeray like a murderer on the run. He actually enjoyed pitting himself against the misery and danger of the place. 'There's a lot one could do here,' he said to me one evening, while we were fishing inshore. 'There's some passable land on that bit of plain around Zeray, and plenty of timber in the forests. It could never be a rich province, but it could be reasonably well off, if only the peasants weren't frightened to death and there were roads to Kabin and Linsho. Law and order and some trade--that's all that's needed. If I'm not mistaken, it's here that the Telthearna runs closest to Bekla. Before we're done we'll have two good, stout ropes stretched across these straits and a raft ferry running along them. I'm not an Ortelgan for nothing--I know what can be done with rope, and how to make it, too. Easier than contriving the Dead Belt, I assure you. Think of opening a trade route to the east--Bekla would pay any money for the use of that.'
"'They'd come and annex the province,' I said.
"'They could try,' he answered, 'but it's more secure than Ortelga ever was. Forty miles from the Vrako to Zeray, and twenty miles of it thick forest and hills, difficult going unless someone builds a road--which we could destroy whenever we liked. I tell you, my girl, we'll have the last laugh on the bear yet.'
"Now the truth was that not even Bel-ka-Trazet could bring prosperity to a place like Zeray, because he had no barons or men of any quality, and could not be everywhere himself. What could be done, he did. He punished murder and robbery and stopped raiding inland, and he persuaded or bribed a few peasants to bring in wood and wool and do their best to teach carpentry and pottery, so that the town could start bartering what it made. We bartered dried fish too, and rushes for thatching and matting--anything we could. But compared even with Ortelga it was very thin-flowing, rickety business, simply because of the sort of men who come here--criminals can't work, you know--and the lack of even one road. Bel-ka-Trazet realized this, and it was less than a year ago now that he resolved on a new scheme.
"We knew what had been happening in Ikat and Bekla--there were fugitives here from both cities. Bel-ka-Trazet had been impressed by what he had heard of Santil-ke-Erketlis and finally he decided to try to drive a bargain with him. The difficulty was that we had so terribly little to offer. As the Baron said, we were like a man trying to sell a lame ox or a lopsided pot. Who would trouble to come and take Zeray? Even to a general not facing an enemy army in the field, it would hardly be worth the march from Kabin. We discussed it between ourselves again and again and at last Bel-ka-Trazet devised an offer which he thought might appeal both to Santil and to our own followers. His idea was to tell Santil that if ever he were to march north, whether or not he succeeded in taking Bekla he was welcome to annex Zeray. We would help him in any way he wished. In particular, we would help him to close the gap of Linsho in the north and then to round up all slave traders who might have fled east of the Vrako to escape him. We would also tell him that we believed that with skilled rope-makers and carpenters, and the labor of his own pioneers working to their orders, it would be possible to construct a raft-ferry across the Telthearna narrows. Then, if all went well, he could build a road from Kabin to Zeray, and these enterprises too, if they appealed to him, we would assist in every way we could. Finally, if he were not afraid to enlist men from Zeray, we would send him as many as possible, provided that he would grant them pardons.
"The five or six men whom the Baron called his councilors agreed that this offer was our best hope of remaining alive, either in Zeray or out of it, if only the Yeldashay would agree to come. But to get a message to Santil would be difficult. There are only two ways out of this country east of the Vrako. One is northward through the gap of Linsho; the other is west across the Vrako in the neighborhood of Kabin. Below Kabin the Vrako is impassable, all along the Tonilda border to its confluence with the Telthearna. Desperate men find their way to Zeray, but even more desperate men cannot contrive a way out.
"It might well prove impossible, we thought, for anyone to reach Ikat Yeldashay, but at least we had a man who was ready to try. His name was Elstrit, a lad of about seventeen who, rather than abandon his father, had joined him in his flight from Terekenalt. What his father had done I don't know, for he died before I came to Zeray and Elstrit had been livin
g on his wits ever since, until he had the sense to throw in his lot with Bel-ka-Trazet. He was not only strong and clever, but he had the advantage of not being a known criminal or a wanted man. Clever or not, he still had to attempt the Vrako crossing at Kabin. It was the Baron who hit on the idea of forging him a Beklan slave-dealer's warrant. In Kabin he was to say that he was working for Lalloc, a known dealer in children, and had the protection of the Ortelgans in Bekla; that on Lalloc's instructions he had entered Zeray province by way of Linsho Gap and traveled through it to see whether the country offered any prospects for a slave raid. He was now returning to report to Lalloc in Bekla. Then, later, as soon as he approached the province of Yelda, he could destroy the forged warrant. It was a thin enough story, but the seal on the warrant was a very good imitation of the bear seal of Bekla (it was made for us by a notorious forger) and we could only hope for good luck. Elstrit crossed the Vrako about three months ago, soon after the rains, and what became of him after that we don't know--not even so much as whether he ever reached Ikat.
"It was a month after that that the Baron fell sick. Many fall sick in Zeray. It's no wonder--the filthiness of the place, rats, lice, infection, continual strain and fear, the burden of guilt and the loss of hope. The Baron had had a hard life and in spite of himself he was failing. You can guess how we nursed him, Ankray and I. We were like men in a wilderness of wild beasts, who tend a fire in the night and pray for dawn. But the fire went out--it went out."
The tears stood brimming in her eyes. She brushed them sharply away, hid her face in her hands a moment and then, with a deep sigh, went on.
"Once he spoke of you. 'That fellow Kelderek,' he said, 'I'd have killed him if the Tuginda hadn't sent for us that night. I don't wish him ill any longer, but for Ortelga's sake I only hope he can finish what he's started.' It was a few days later that he spoke to our men as best he could--for by that time he was very weak. He advised them to spare no pains to get news of Santil's intentions and if there seemed the least hope, at all costs to keep order in Zeray until he came. 'Otherwise you'll all be dead in less than a year,' he said, 'and the place will be worse than ever it was before we started.' After that, only Ankray and I were with him until he died. He went very hard. You'd expect that, wouldn't you? The last thing he said was, 'The bear--tell them the bear--' I bent over him and asked, 'What of the bear, my lord?' but he never spoke again. I watched his face--that terrible face--guttering down like the wax of a spent candle. When he was gone, we did what we had to do. I covered his eyes with a pad of wet cloth, and I remember how, as we were laying the arms straight, the cloth slipped, so that the dead eyes opened and I saw them staring into mine.
"You have seen his grave. There were heavy hearts--and frightened hearts--at the time when that was made. It was over a month ago, and every day since then Zeray has slipped a little further between our hands. We have not lost it yet, but I will tell you what it is like. I remember that once, when I was a little girl, I stood watching a miller driving his ox round and round to grind corn. Two men who thought he had cheated them began quarreling with him, and at last they dragged him away and beat him. The ox went on plodding round, first at the same speed, then slower, until at last--and anxiously, as my clear child's eye could see--it dared to try what would happen if it stopped. Nothing happened, and it lay down. Half the men in Zeray are wondering whether they dare to defy us. Any day now some will try. I know our men--the Baron's men. Without him they will never hold together. It's only a matter of time.
"Every evening I have gone to his tomb and prayed for help and deliverance. Sometimes Ankray comes with me, or perhaps another, but often I go alone. There's no modesty in Zeray, and I'm past being afraid. As long as none dares insult me, I take it as a sign that we still have some grip on the place; and it does no harm to behave as though I believed we had. Sometimes I have prayed that Santil's army may come, but more often I use no words, simply offering to God my hope and longing, and my presence at the grave of the man who honored and respected me.
"On Quiso, the Tuginda used to teach us that real and actual trust in God was the whole life of a priestess. 'God can afford to wait,' she used to say. 'Whether to convert the unbelieving, to reward the just or to punish the wicked--God can afford to wait. With Him, everything comes home in the end. Our work is not only to believe that, but to show that we believe it by everything that we say and do.'"
Melathys wept quietly and continuously as she went on. "I had put out of my mind how I came to Zeray and the reason why. My treachery, my cowardice, my sacrilege--perhaps I thought that my sufferings had blotted them out, had dug a ditch between me and that priestess who broke her vows, betrayed Lord Shardik and failed the Tuginda. Tonight, when I turned and saw who was standing behind me, do you know what I thought? I thought, 'She has come to Zeray to find me, either to renounce or forgive me, either to condemn me or take me back to Quiso'--as though I were not defiled forty times over. I fell at her feet to implore her forgiveness, to tell her I was not worth what I believed she had done, to beg her only to forgive me and then let me die. Now I know it's true what she said. God--" and, letting her head fall forward on her arms across the table, she sobbed bitterly--"God can afford to wait. God can afford to wait."
Kelderek put his hand on her shoulder. "Come," he said, "we'll talk no more tonight. Let's put these thoughts aside and simply do the immediate tasks before us. Very often, in perplexity, that's best, and a great comfort in trouble. Go and look after the Tuginda. Sleep beside her, and we'll meet again tomorrow."
As soon as Ankray had made up his bed, Kelderek lay down and slept as he had not slept since leaving Bekla.
44 The Heart's Disclosure
SPECK BY SPECK, THE NOONDAY SUNLIGHT moved along the wall and from somewhere distant sounded the slow chunk, chunk of an axe in wood. The Tuginda, her eyes closed, frowned like one tormented by clamor and tossed from side to side, unable, as it seemed, to be an instant free from discomfort. Again Kelderek wiped the sweat from her forehead with a cloth dipped in the pitcher by the bed. Since early morning she had lain between sleep and waking, recognizing neither Melathys nor himself, from time to time uttering a few random words and once sipping a little wine and water from a cup held to her lips. An hour before noon Melathys, with Ankray in attendance, had set out to confer with the former followers of the Baron and acquaint them with her news, leaving Kelderek to bar the door and watch alone against her return.
The sound of the axe ceased and he sat on in the silence, sometimes taking the Tuginda's hand in his own and speaking to her in the hope that, waking, she might become calmer. Under his fingers her pulse beat fast; and her arm, he now saw, was swollen and inflamed with weeping scratches which he recognized as those inflicted by the trazada thorn. She had said nothing of these, nor of the deep cut in her foot, which Melathys had found and dressed the night before.
Slow as the sunlight, his mind moved over all that had befallen. The days that had passed since his leaving Bekla were themselves, he thought, like some Streel of time into which he had descended step by step and whence he had now emerged for a short time before death. There was no need for him, after all, to expiate his blasphemy by seeking that death, for however events might turn out it seemed certain. If Erketlis were victorious but nevertheless sent no troops east of the Vrako, either because he had never received Bel-ka-Trazet's message or because it had found no favor with him, then sooner or later he himself would die from violence or sickness, either in Zeray or in the attempt to escape from it. But if Erketlis's troops, crossing the Vrako, were to come upon him in Zeray or elsewhere--and it was likely enough that they would be keeping their eyes open for him--he had Elleroth's word for it that they would put him to death. If Erketlis were defeated, it was possible that Zelda and Ged-la-Dan, coming to Kabin, might send soldiers across the Vrako to seek Shardik. But once Shardik was known to be dead, they would not trouble themselves about his former priest-king. And if the discredited priest-king were to attempt to re
turn from Zeray, whether to Bekla or to Ortelga, he would not be suffered to live.
Never again would he posture and ape the part of Shardik's mediator to the people. Nor ever again could he become the single-hearted visionary who, fearless in his divinely imparted elation, had walked and slept beside Shardik in the woods of Ortelga. Why, then, despite his resolve four days ago in Ruvit's hovel, despite his unlessened shame and remorse, did he now find in himself the will to live? Mere cowardice, he supposed. Or perhaps it was that some remaining streak of pride, which had encouraged him to entertain the thought of a deliberate death of atonement, resented the prospect of dying on an Ikat sword or a Zeray criminal's knife. Whatever the reason, he found himself considering whether he might not attempt--however desperate the odds against him--first to bring the Tuginda back to Quiso, and then perhaps to escape to some country beyond the Telthearna. Yet mere survival, he realized as he pondered, was not the whole of the motive which had changed his earlier resolve to die.
Into his mind returned the picture of the beautiful, white-robed girl who had paced by night across the flame-lit terrace above the Ledges of Quiso, the girl whose craven fear in the woods of Ortelga had aroused in himself nothing but pity and the wish to protect and comfort her. She, like him, had found unexpectedly the self-deceit and cowardice in her own heart and, having once, no doubt, believed of herself that Shardik had no more loyal and trustworthy servant, had learned with bitter shame that the truth was otherwise. Since then she had suffered still more. Abandoning Shardik and throwing herself upon the world, she had found the world's misery but never the world's pleasure. Guilt, cruelty and fear must almost have destroyed in her the natural power to love any man or to look for any security or joy from a man's love. But--and here, releasing the Tuginda's hand, he sprang up and began striding back and forth across the room--perhaps that power was not beyond saving, not drowned beyond hope of recovery by one ready to show that he valued it above all else?