"What do you mean--trouble elsewhere?" asked Durakkon. "Why should there be any trouble elsewhere?"
"I'm not entirely happy about Urtah," said Kembri. "You'd have thought this last attempt of Karaat's would have taught him a lesson, wouldn't you--made them realize who their friends are? But according to the reports I'm getting, half of them are sorry Karnat didn't succeed. I don't know how Sendekar sees it, but I certainly wouldn't want to make an attack into Suba with the Urtans behind me in their present state of mind."
"But the old High Baron--he's reliable enough, surely? He always has been."
"Yes, sir. He wouldn't want rebellion and of course he's out to stop Urtah provoking us too far. But all the same, he signed the letter they've just sent us about Bayub-Otal. He and Eud-Ecachlon; both of them signed it."
"What does it say?" asked Durakkon. (It should, he felt inwardly, have been sent to him personally.)
"It asks for the release of Bayub-Otal on their guarantee that he'll give no further trouble; or failing that, that we should spare his life while they come and talk to us about it."
"It's quite understandable that the old High Baron should send a letter like that," said Durakkon.
"Bayub-Otal's his son by the only woman he ever loved."
"Oh, I know that," replied Kembri, impatience and disrespect once more creeping into his tone, as it always did after a short time with Durakkon. "But to ask that of us he must be going senile. Bayub-Otal's as guilty as he can be of deliberate, premeditated treason against Bekla. If we don't execute him we can never execute anyone again."
"Then why haven't you executed him already?" asked Durakkon.
"Because I've stood the thing on its head to turn it to our advantage," answered Kembri. "I've had a reply prepared for you to sign, sir, which says that we'll spare his life for the moment--keeping him in Dari-Paltesh, of course--just as long as we can feel sure of the loyalty of Urtah. So there he'll stay until further notice--unless, in-deed, we decide to bring him up to Bekla. He's our best hostage as long as the old man's alive. Whether Eud-Ecachlon'll feel the same when he succeeds his father is another matter."
They had drawn almost level with the Tower of Sel-Dolad, and Durakkon stopped for a moment, looking down towards a low, extensive, flat-roofed building lying just south of the tower and abutting the ramparts themselves.
"What's that place?" he asked. "Do you know?"
"It's a depot for hides and leather, sir," replied Elvair-ka-Virrion. "I was there myself with my quartermaster yesterday, picking up a bit more stuff for our trip to Chalcon. A man called N'Kasit rents it from the temple."
"There's access to the ramparts from there, at a pinch, isn't there?" said Durakkon. "Anyone who climbed up would only have to go a short way along these walls to get into the upper city."
"I know," replied Kembri. "It's the only place like that in the whole of Bekla, though. I've sometimes thought of having it pulled down, but it's uncommonly solid, and it makes an excellent depot; we wouldn't find another half so good. I've talked it over, actually, with the castellan, and we agreed that the best thing would be to keep a sentry here all the time and leave it at that. Anyway," he resumed, turning away to continue their walk, "so much for Urtah and Bayub-Otal. At least if they're no help I doubt they'll be any hindrance to us for the time being."
To be told that something had already been considered and a decision reached was usually enough for Durakkon, who when it came to detail was as mentally lazy as many other idealistic people with high principles. He asserted himself by standing still, waiting for Kembri and Elvair-ka-Virrion to come back to him, and then raising a fresh subject.
"Chalcon," he said to Elvair-ka-Virrion. "You mean to lead the expeditionary force there yourself, in person?"
"Yes, sir," replied Elvair-ka-Virrion. "In fact, I'm as good as ready to leave."
"It won't be an easy task," said Durakkon, "not in that kind of country; and of course Erketlis and his people know it inside out."
"Oh, I've already thought of that, sir," said Elvair-ka-Virrion. "I've drafted half-a-dozen reliable men from Chalcon into the force. They know the country every bit as well as Erketlis himself."
"You're confident, then?" asked Durakkon, with a smiling, rather avuncular manner. He did not altogether dislike Elvair-ka-Virrion, partly on account of his good looks and style, and partly on account of the confident energy and youthful exuberance he brought to whatever he took in hand, from giving a banquet to raising a regiment. "Dear me, I wish I could still run upstairs like that!" he had said to him one day, after Elvair-ka-Virrion, returning from a hunting expedition, had dashed two steps at a time up the main staircase of the Barons' Palace to greet him.
"I've got the finest body of men in the empire, sir," replied Elvair-ka-Virrion. "I'd lead them into the Streels of Urtah!"
"Quiet!" said Kembri quickly. "Don't talk like that, Elvair: I don't care to hear that sort of thing."
Durakkon, with pursed lips, looked away as though nothing had been said; and after a few moments Elvair-ka-Virrion, abashed at his unfortunate lapse but recovering himself, continued, "I'm quite sure, sir, that with the quality of men I've got, we'll be able to drive right through Chalcon and make it impossible for Erketlis to maintain any sort of armed force there: and he won't be able to get away to Ikat or Sarkid. Somewhere or other we'll be bound to encounter him and destroy him. I don't know whether he'll be looking for a battle, but I certainly shall."
Durakkon smiled indulgently but encouragingly. "Well, it all sounds excellent, young man. You don't think perhaps he ought to have someone a little more experienced with him?" he said, turning to Kembri.
"I think he'll do very well on his own, sir," answered Kembri.
For the Lord General's purposes it was important that his son should return to Bekla a successful leader in his own right--if possible a public hero. His plans for the future required not only followers whom he could control and trust absolutely, but also that they should command popular support. Elvair-ka-Virrion was well-liked in Bekla, but in the eyes of the people he was still no more than a young hopeful who had yet to make a name for himself. The time and opportunity were now at hand.
"When do you leave?" asked Durakkon at length. "Is that decided?"
"The day after tomorrow, sir," said Elvair-ka-Virrion. "We ought to reach Thettit in three-and-a-half days quite comfortably. A day's rest, and then straight into Chalcon. Back in two months," he added, looking round at the High Baron with a light-hearted grin.
"That will be," said Kembri pausingly, "that will be a little time before--or should I say in good time for?--the acclamation of the new Sacred Queen." As Durakkon said nothing he went on, "That's going to be--well, an important business, isn't it? I'm sure you're as anxious as I am, sir--as we all are--to see it turn out--er--in the right way."
The sun had dropped behind the hills and dusk was rapidly falling. Already lamps were beginning to shine out in the city below. Durakkon turned about and they began pacing back along the wall, now seeing before them the majestic front of the Barons' Palace crowning the Leopard Hill with its ranks of slender spires.
Durakkon walked on in silence, as though awaiting something more. At length, however, as the Lord General did not continue, he said, "I think you'd better tell me straight out, Kembri, what it is you have in mind."
"I, sir?" answered the Lord General. "I've nothing whatever in mind but what's right and traditional: the choosing of a new Sacred Queen by popular acclaim. I merely said I hoped it would turn out well."
"Don't try to make a fool of me!" retorted Durakkon angrily. "I want to know whether you mean to try to have Fornis acclaimed for a third reign and if not, whether you've got any other woman in mind."
"Well, do you think Fornis is likely to be acclaimed for a third reign, sir?" asked Kembri.
"No, I don't," replied Durakkon. "A woman well over thirty. Even a second reign's something that's never been known before: to try to bring about a third reign wou
ld be disastrous--utter folly. The people have some genuine religious faith left, if you haven't, and they'd see k as virtually provoking the gods to lay waste the city."
"I agree, sir," said Kembri. "So who'd be best? Not to mince words, we need a Sacred Queen we can rely on."
"One you can control, you mean, Kembri?"
"I didn't say that, sir. I said one we can rely on, in these difficult times, not to start going her own way or getting up to anything behind our backs. The girl must be beautiful, of course--the people regard that as no more than what's due to the god--and ideally she ought to be someone who already commands wide popularity in the lower city as well as the upper."
"I suppose you're thinking of the Tonildan child, are you? The one they call the Serrelinda?"
"Well, she'd certainly be one possible choice," replied Kembri noncommittally.
"I liked her when I met her," said Durakkon. "She's-- well, she struck me as typical of the sort of ordinary, decent people I wanted to help when I became High Baron."
Kembri was silent.
"But frankly, I'd be almost sorry to see her pushed up into a position like that," went on Durakkon.
"Because it'll be dangerous, Kembri; you know it will. Fornis isn't going to--"
"There is another possibility, of course," said Kembri, interrupting him. "And I'd certainly like to meet your wishes, sir, if we can: about not supporting the Tonildan, I mean."
It was almost too dark, now, for him to see Durakkon's face, but nevertheless he turned and looked at him, halting a moment on the rough, uneven stones of the rampart-walk.
"I'm thinking of another girl. Sencho wasn't popular, of course: in fact he was hated. And what he got for himself out of the killing of Enka-Mordet--well, of course it didn't come out for some time, but when it did, a lot of people were so angry that I sometimes wonder whether he could have continued to get away with it if he'd lived. He'd have had to let the girl go."
"But what's this got to do with--" began Durakkon.
"So naturally there's been a great deal of public sympathy for his wretched victim," went on Kembri.
"Especially when my son told the temple authorities that she'd never legally been a slave at all, and that he was ready to defy both them and Fornis on her account. A very beautiful girl, Milvushina; and, of course, one whose acclamation as Sacred Queen would have an excellent effect in pacifying Chalcon and bringing a lot of the heldril there round to our side."
"But her association with your son?" said Durakkon.
"Well, precisely, sir: I think that would be likely to go down very well with the people. The victorious young commander and his beautiful Sacred Queen: it would be just the sort of thing they'd like. But anyway, there you are; two excellent candidates from the Leopard point of view. Either would suit us, though on balance I think Milvushina would be the better choice."
"I--well, I suppose so," replied Durakkon rather uncertainly. : There was renewed silence as they walked on, reaching at length the steps leading down from the ramparts about three hundred yards west of the palace. Here Kembri halted, looked round to make sure the sentinel was not in hearing, and murmued, "So you'll--er--speak to--"
"Speak?" answered Durakkon. "What do you mean?"
"Well, sir, someone's going to have to tell Fornis that a third reign as Sacred Queen is out of the question. And there's no one who can perform that task with authority except the High Baron of Bekla."
There was a long pause. At length, "She has no legal power, sir," ventured Elvair-ka-Virrion, in a tone which was meant to be encouraging yet sounded anything but.
"No; she has her own power, though," answered Durakkon dolefully. Then, recovering his dignity as though with an effort, he said, "Well, Lord General, I'll think it over, and let you know how and when I mean to go about it. You may both leave me now."
The Lord General and his son bowed and descended the steps. Durakkon, turning away from them, remained alone, gazing out from the walls at Lespa's stars now twinkling more brightly above the darkening plain.
59: THE PRISONERS
Two hours before this, Maia had set about her task of taking Occula's message to the old woman in the sweet-shop.
In the event it proved easier than she had dared to hope. Nonetheless, she took a little while to find the shop; and the jekzha-man (who did not know who she was) had to be placated with extra money for all his stumbling up and down. Finally she made him go as far as Eud-Ecachlon's old lodgings, near the Tower of the Orphans--she could remember that all right, recalling the afternoon when she had acquitted herself so well--and then retrace his steps as though returning to the upper city.
Ah yes! and there, sure enough, was the sweet-shop, on the opposite side of the street, just before it came out into the Sheldad. Today, in fine summer weather, it had a different look, as revisited places often do; yet there was no doubt about it. Maia stopped the jekzha, crossed the street and went in.
The old woman was sitting behind her scales, and her lad could be heard clumping about somewhere in the back. A big, portly man, who looked like an upper servant, was making a great to-do over buying all manner of sweetmeats--no doubt for some supper-party of his master's-- and it was plain that the old woman meant to take her time over obliging so good a customer. Maia waited. After a minute or two the lad appeared and came up to her, but she only shook her head, pointing and murmuring something about "your mother."
At last the self-important butler was done and strutted out, pocketing his list and giving an address in the upper city to which the stuff was to be delivered that day without fail. Maia went up to the old woman while she was still bowing and smiling behind him in the doorway.
"Good evening, mother," she said in a low voice, "and may Colonna and Bakris bless you. Last time we met, you told me I shouldn't never have come, so I'll be a bit quicker today. Occula--the black girl who was arrested when the High Counselor was killed--she's still alive and sends you greetings. She says you're to get out now, at once, without stopping for anything."
"I've been expecting it," replied the old woman. "Did she say where?"
Maia, shaking her head, produced a ten-meld piece. "How about Urtah? Now sell me some sweets--anything you like--for the jekzha-man to see when I come out, and I'll be gone."
Two minutes later she was back in her jekzha, out in the Sheldad and turning left towards the Caravan Market. After a few moments, however, she realized that they were not making any progress. Something ahead had halted the traffic and everybody seemed to be being pressed back against the shop-fronts on either side of the street. Her jekzha-man, jostled by four or five cursing porters, staggered a moment against another, righted himself, slewed round on the axis of one wheel and halted, wiping his face with his sleeve.
"Can't you go on?" she said impatiently. "I want to get home."
"Got to wait a bit, saiyett, I'm afraid. Here's the soldiers coming now, see 'em?"
She looked up the highway. Two files of soldiers were approaching, one on either side of the road; but very oddly, for they were side-stepping, facing outwards and pressing the people back against the walls with their spears held sideways. From further up, in the direction of the Caravan Market, there could now be heard a raucous clamor--ugly and malign, it sounded--coming gradually nearer, until one could distinguish individual, strident voices, like nails sticking out of the head of a cudgel.
"Oh, whatever is it?" she asked, frightened. The man did not answer and she rapped sharply on the rail.
"What is it? Tell me!"
"Won't be more'n a minute or two, I dare say, saiyett," he answered. "I reckon they're bringing in the prisoners from Tonilda--them heldro spies. I heard tell as they'd be here today."
Even as he spoke she saw, across the heads in front of her, a tryzatt appear from the left, walking slowly yet somehow tensely and impatiently up the center of the paved thoroughfare. Behind him came perhaps a dozen soldiers, spaced out on either side and carrying not spears, but leather whips coiled
in their hands. They looked harassed and stretched to the limit, as men might look after hours spent in policing a plague-stricken town or struggling to bring home a leaking boat in bad weather. Their dust-grimed faces were streaked with sweat. They glanced continually this way and that and from moment to moment one or another would fling out his arm, pointing quickly, or call a hasty warning to a companion.
Yet it was not at the tryzatt nor yet the soldiers that Maia stared aghast, but at those walking between them-- if walking it could be called. Singly--in twos and threes-- in huddling, flinching groups like driven animals-little by little there came into view a dreadful procession. No wounded of a defeated army, stumbling from the battlefield, could have presented so terrible a sight. All were ragged, gray-faced, hollow-cheeked, staring about them either in deadly fear or else in a glazed, unseeing stupor of despair worse than any fear. Among them were a few women, one or two of whom might once have been attractive; and these, with their filthy faces, matted hair and look of exhausted misery, filled Maia with unspeakable anguish, so that she began to tremble and her head swam; so much worse they seemed than the rest, so much more a distorted travesty of what they must once have been. One man, tall and bony in his tatters, seemed to be attempting bravado, swaggering along alone and apparently trying to sing. As he came closer, however, it became plain that he was mad and virtually oblivious of his surroundings. Two more, as they limped forward, were supporting a woman between them and staggering from side to side. A fourth, with wrists chained together, was holding his hands in front of him and elbows to his sides, swaying in a kind of grotesque rhythm like a cripple trying to dance. Among them all--how many? Forty, fifty?--there was not one whom children would not have been terrified to see coming up a village street.