"Where are we?" asked Kelderek. "Shouter, where are we?"
"How the hell d'you expect me to know?" answered Shouter. "Deserted village or something, i'n't it? No one been here for mucking years. What's it matter?" went on the boy, with choking violence. "We're all good as dead now. Good as any other place to die, isn't it?"
"For me," said Kelderek. "It is for me. It's like another place I once knew--there was a pool, and trepsis--"
"He's gone," said Radu. "Yes, go and have a drink, Shara dear. I'll come over in a moment."
"Are we going home soon?" asked the little girl. "Said we'd go home, didn't you? I'm hungry, Radu. I'm hungry."
"Going home soon, dear," said Radu. "Not tonight, but quite soon. Don't cry. Look, the big boys aren't crying. I'll look after you."
Shara put her two hands on his forearm and looked up at him, her wan, dirty face grave amid her matted hair.
"It's dark," she said. "Dad used to light a lamp. I think he did. When it got dark he used to light a lamp."
"I remember the lamps," said Radu. "I'm hungry too. It'll be all right in the end, I promise you."
"Genshed's bad, isn't he? He hurts us. Will he go to Leg-By-Lee?"
Radu nodded, his finger to his lips. "The soldiers are coming," he whispered. "The soldiers from Sarkid. They'll take us home. But that's a secret between you and me."
"I feel bad," she said. "Feel ill. Want a drink." She kissed his arm with dry lips and stumbled across to the pool.
"I've got to look after her," said Radu. He passed his hand across his forehead and closed his eyes. "Her father's one of our tenants, you know. Oh, I told you. I feel ill too. Is it a pestilence, do you think?"
"Radu," said Kelderek, "I'm going to die. I'm sure of that. The pool and the trepsis--they're sent as a sign to me. Even if the soldiers come I shall still die, because they'll kill me."
"Genshed," said Radu, "Genshed means to make sure of killing us. Or the devil that's using his body now--he means to kill us."
"You're lightheaded, Radu. Listen to me. There's something I need to ask you."
"No, it's true about the devil. It's because I'm lightheaded that I can see it. If a man loves hell and does hell's work, then the devils take over his body before he dies. That's what our old gatekeeper told me once in Sarkid. I didn't know what he meant then, but I do now. Genshed's become a devil. He frightens me almost to death--the mere sight of him--I believe he could kill me with fear if he set about it."
Kelderek groped for his arm like a blind man.
"Radu, listen to me. I want to ask your forgiveness, and your father's, too, before I die."
"My father's? But you don't know my father. You're as lightheaded as I am."
"It's for you to forgive me in your father's name, and in Sarkid's name. I've been your father's greatest enemy. You never asked my name. My name is Kelderek of Ortelga, but you knew of me once as Crendrik."
"Crendrik, the priest-king of Bekla?"
"Yes, I was once the king of Bekla. Never mind how I come to be here. It's God's justice, for it was I that brought the slave trade back to Bekla and licensed the slave dealers in return for money to pay for the war against Santil-ke-Erketlis. If it's true that death settles all debts and wrongs, then I beg you to forgive me. I'm no longer the man who committed those deeds."
"Are we really to die, are you sure? There's no help for it?" It was a frightened, staring child who looked up at Kelderek in the last light.
"My time has come to die--I know that now. The Ikat soldiers would have killed me in Kabin, but your father stopped them. When he sent me across the Vrako, he told me that if ever they found me again they'd kill me. So I shall die, either at the soldiers' hands or at Genshed's."
"If my father could forgive you then, Crendrik, I can forgive you now. Oh, what does it matter? That little girl's going to die! Genshed will kill her--I know it," cried the boy, weeping.
Before Kelderek could answer, Genshed was standing over them, silent in the darkness. He snapped his fingers and they both climbed slowly to their feet, trembling and shrinking like beasts from a cruel master. He was about to speak when Lalloc approached and he turned toward him, leaving them where they stood.
"You wouldn't have gotting moch for them, Gensh," said Lalloc. "So don't worry, no, no. Even I couldn't be guvving you moch for those. You'll lose vorry little, vorry little indeed."
"I'm keeping these two by me, all the same," answered Genshed.
"No good keep onny of 'em, Gensh, not now. You nover gotting 'em out and if we got caught with 'em, thot's it, eh? Hard enough we gotting out at all, but we got nothing to eat, Gensh, we got to try gotting out. We try to go across to Deelguy, other side, thot's all we gotting the chonce now."
Genshed sat down on the broken wall, staring listlessly before him. Lalloc's rings clicked as he rubbed his hands nervously together.
"Gensh, we can't try tonight. Morning we try it; soon what it's light. You come inside over there, that one got a bit of roof on. We make a fire--won't show outside. Losten, Gensh, I got some drink--good, strong drink. We stay there, by and by it's morning, then we gotting across the river, eh?"
Genshed rose slowly to his feet and stood pressing the point of his knife against the ball of one finger and then another. At length he jerked his head toward Radu and said, "I'm keeping him by me."
"Well, jost what you say, Gensh, yoss, yoss, but he's no good to you now, none of them's any good to you now. Jost leave them, eh, we don't want them ony more, they don't got away anywhere in the dark, they're all worn out, fonish. Morning we gotting away."
"I'm keeping him by me," repeated Genshed.
Shara came slowly up to Radu, one arm held across her face. As she put her hand in the boy's, Genshed stared down at her, his eyes, like those of a snake, full of a cold, universal malevolence. Radu stooped to pick her up but, too weak to lift her, dropped on one knee and in doing so encountered Genshed's stare. He half-rose, apparently about to run, but as Genshed seized him by the pierced ear he gasped, "No! No! I won't--"
"See, you're just a silly little boy, aren't you, Radu?" said Genshed, twisting slowly, so that Radu sank to his knees. "Just a silly little boy, aren't you?"
"Yes."
Genshed drew the point of his knife along Radu's eyelid but then, as though suddenly weary of what had begun, thrust it back into the sheath, dragged him to his feet and led him away toward the ruined cottage where Lalloc was already kneeling and blowing his smoldering fire pot into a flame. Shara tottered beside them, the sound of her weeping becoming inaudible as they entered the doorway. Left alone in the darkness, Kelderek sank down on the open ground; but later--how long afterward he could not tell--crept on his hands and knees into the nearest hut, and there he fell asleep.
53 Night Talk
HE HAD BEEN GIVEN a bundle of child slaves to take to the Barons' Palace, but they were so heavy that he could not carry them and had to drag them behind him step by step. The way lay up a mountain and he was following Lord Shardik, up through the steep, dreary forests where the ghosts of the dead soldiers flickered and cackled among the branches. At last the way became so steep and the weight so heavy that he had to crawl on his hands and knees, and in this manner he came at last to the top. The Barons' Palace stood on the extreme summit, but drawing nearer he realized that it was nothing but flat, painted wood upon a frame, and as he stood looking at it, it broke to pieces and fell away down the back of the mountain.
Waking, he crawled into the open air and tried to get a sight of the stars. Either leaves or clouds were obscuring them. As best he could, he considered. If it were now very late--the middle of the night or later--both Genshed and Lalloc might be asleep: if they were, he might just possibly be able to release Radu and Shara--might even, perhaps, be able to kill Genshed with his own knife.
The night was pitch black, but from one direction he could make out a distant glow of firelight, partly obscured, or so it seemed, by some kind of curtain. He took a few steps
toward it and perceived that he had misjudged the distance, for it was close--close by. A cloak had been fastened across the doorless gap through which Genshed had led Radu at nightfall. He reached it, knelt and put his eye to one of the slits through which the glow was showing.
Dry stone walls and a floor of cobbles--nothing else--and a low fire burning in the fireplace opposite. Who had collected the wood, he wondered. The slave dealers must have got it for themselves while he lay asleep. In the farther corner Radu and Shara were sleeping on the bare stones. Radu was lying motionless, but Shara whimpered continually, fretful and evidently ill. Beside her, on the wall, her shadow jumped and leapt, exaggerating each movement of the sick child as echoes in a ravine magnify and hurl back the cry of a man standing upon its brink.
Genshed, a long stick in one hand, was sitting on his pack, gazing into the flames and scraping moodily at a cluster of insects that had run to the top of a burning log. The fancy returned to Kelderek that he never slept, or that, like an insect, he became dormant only at certain seasons. Opposite, Lalloc was perched awkwardly on a log, with his wounded leg supported on another. A leather wineskin was propped against Genshed's pack, and after a few moments the slave dealer picked it up, drank and passed it across to Lalloc. Kelderek, seeing that any idea of rescue was hopeless, was about to creep away when Lalloc spoke. Curious, despite his lightheaded, insect-devoured misery, he listened.
"You wasn't ollways in this line of business, was you?" asked Lalloc, bending forward to rub his leg. "How long I know you, Gensh--three years?"
"Not always," answered Genshed.
"What you done--soldier maybe?"
Genshed leaned forward and dislodged a beetle into the flames. "I was executioner's mate in Terekenalt."
"Thot's a good job? Good money?"
"It was a living," said Genshed.
There was a pause.
"Bit of sport, was it, eh?"
"Kids' stuff," answered Genshed. "Got tired of it. You learn it all quick enough and you're only allowed to do what you're told."
"Thot's not moch, eh?"
"Well, it's all right--watch their faces when they bring them out--you know, when they see it all laid out for their personal benefit--the clinders and the frags and that."
"Frags first, ain't it?"
"Can be either," answered Genshed, "long as the fingers are broken. But you can't let yourself go, only now and then."
"What's now and then?"
Genshed drank again, and considered.
"If a man's condemned, all you can do is carry out the sentence. That's all right, but it's no better than boys or animals, is it? That's what I came to see, anyway."
"Why, what more you can do, then?"
"Screaming and crying, you get tired of that," said Genshed. "There's a bit more to it when they want information. The real style's breaking a man's mind, so that he turns what you want and stays that way even when you've finished with him."
"You got you can do thot?"
"Needs brains," said Genshed. "Of course I could have done it, I got the brains, but the bastards wouldn't give me the chance. Job like that's sold to the one who can buy it, isn't it? They don't want quality. I knew what I was worth. I wasn't going to stay hot-iron man all my life, just for the bare living. I started taking what I could get from prisoners--you know, to let 'em off light--or just take the money and not let 'em off--what could they do? That was what lost me the job. After that I was in a bad way for a time. Most people don't want to employ you when you've been in that line of trade--more fools them."
Lalloc threw another branch on the fire and squinted into the neck of the wineskin. In the corner Shara twisted on the floor, babbled a few words and licked her dry lips without waking.
"Ortolgans give you chonce, eh, like me?"
"They wouldn't give me a license, the bastards. You know that."
"Why they don't?"
"Too many children injured, they said. More like I hadn't got the money to buy the license."
Lalloc chuckled, but broke off as Genshed looked sharply across at him.
"Well, I don't laugh, no, no, but you need style, Gensh, to be slave dealer, you know. Why you don't gotting proper overseers? Then don't lot your children die, don't hurt them where it shows. Make them look nice, you know, teach them act up a little for the costomers."
Genshed crashed his fist into his palm.
"All right for you, eh? I got to work on the cheap. You don't need overseers for kids. Pick out a couple of the kids themselves--get rid of them soon as they know more than you want them to know. You--you only buy from other dealers, don't you, got capital to work with? I got to go out and get 'em on the cheap, all the trouble, all the danger, no license, then you buy them off me and sell 'em for more, don't you?"
"Well, but you ollways spoil so monny, Gensh, ain't it?"
"You got to expect to spoil some--got to expect to lose some as well. You got to break their minds--make them so they can't even think of running away. Beat one or two to death if you have to--frighten the rest half silly. I don't have to do so much as I did once--not now I've got the trick. I've driven kids mad without even touching them--that's style, if you like."
"Bot you can't soll them if they're gone mad, Gensh."
"Not for so much," admitted Genshed. "But you can count on getting some sort of price for almost anything, and you've had a bit of sport for the difference. Loony ones, ugly ones, all the ones rich dealers like you don't take--I can still sell them to the beggar-masters. You know, chop their hands off, chop their feet off, something of that, send them out to beg. Man in Bekla used to live off eighteen or twenty, most of them he got from me. Used to send them out begging in the Caravan Market."
"Well, thot might be your style, Gensh, but it's not big money. You got to make them look pretty, jost ontil the costomer's bought them, you know. Then you got to stoddy what the rich costomer want, you got to talk to the children, tell them it's all for their good they tickle the costomer, you know, eh?"
His voice held a barely concealed note of condescension. Genshed slashed at the fire in silence.
"What you keeping the little girl for?" asked Lalloc. "You gotting rod all the girls in Tonilda, you told me. Why you not solling her?"
"Ah--to keep him in order, that's it," said Genshed, jerking his thumb at Radu.
"'Ow's thot?"
"He's a funny one," said Genshed. "Smartest thing I ever did, biggest risk I ever took; if it comes off I'll make a fortune, and it still could. That's a young aristocrat, this is--ransom job, once I get him back to Terekenalt. Long as I keep him I can lose all the rest. I can't break him--not altogether--you never can tell with that sort, even when they think they've broken themselves. The baby--she's better than anything for keeping the likes of him in order. Long as he's set himself to look after her, he won't be trying anything on, will he? The joke was he came to me of himself at Thettit and said we had to keep her--got her across the Vrako, too. That was a risk--he could have drowned--but it was worth it to have no trouble from him. That sort can make a lot of trouble. Pride--oh yes, he's too good for the likes of you and me. But I'll break him before I'm done, the fine young gentleman--I'll have him flogging boys to earn his supper and never have to raise a finger to force him--you see if I don't."
"Who is he?" asked Lalloc.
"Ah! Who is he?" Genshed paused for effect. "That's the Ban of Sarkid's heir, that is."
Lalloc whistled. "Oh, Gensh, woll, no wonder the place full of Ikats, eh? You done it right, now we know why they don't stop looking, eh? We got a lot to thonk you for, Gensh."
"Two hundred thousand meld," said Genshed. "Isn't that worth a risk? And you said we'd get over the river in the morning, didn't you?"
"Who's the other one, Gensh--the man? Thought you dodn't only go for boys and girls?"
"Don't you know?" replied Genshed. "You ought to, you oily, creeping, bribing bastard."
Lalloc paused in drinking, looking over the top of the wi
neskin with raised eyebrows and reflective eyes. Then the wine slopped in its hollow caverns as he shook his head and the skin together.
"That's King Crendrik, that is," said Genshed. "Him that used to be the priest-king of Bekla. Him with the bear."
Lalloc nearly dropped the wineskin, caught it just in time and lowered it in slow amazement.
"Found him lying senseless in a swamp thirty miles south of here," said Genshed. "Don't know how he came there, but I recognized him all right. Seen him in Bekla, same as you have. Well, he won't run. He knows the Ikats are out to kill him."
Lalloc stared questioningly.
"It's like this, you see," said Genshed, stabbing at the fire. "I'm sharp. I keep him and the boy--leave the rest, but keep those two at all costs. Well now, we know the Ban of Sarkid's fighting for the Ikats. If ever the Ortelgans was to catch me--I got no license, remember--I can tell them I've got the Ban's son, hand him over to them, very likely they'll be so pleased they'll let me go. But if the Ikats catch us, I can give them Crendrik. Same thing--they'd be glad to get him, might let us go. Crendrik's got no other value, of course, but the boy's got plenty if only we can get away. The way the luck's turned out, we look more like being caught by the Ikats than the Ortelgans, so I'm hanging on to Crendrik."
"But if the Ikats cotch you with the boy, Gensh?"
"They won't," said Genshed, "I'll see to that. They won't catch me with a single child--or find the bodies, either."
He stood up brusquely, broke two or three branches across his knee and fed the fire. Kelderek could hear the back of Shara's head thud against the cobbles as she tossed and cried in her sleep.
"What's the scheme, then?" asked Genshed presently. "How d'you reckon to cross the Telthearna?"
"Well, it's a big rosk, Gensh, but it's only chonce we got. We got to try it, olse we're for the Ikats all right. Down below here there's a vullage--Tissarn they call it--fishing vullage--by the ruvver, you know."
"I know--I came inland yesterday to avoid it."
"Woll, vorry soon as day we leave ovvrything--go straight down there, we find some man, I pay him all I got, he govv us canoe, boat, something, before the Ikats come. We go across, gotting to Deelguy. Current's strong, we go down long way, all the same we gotting across. Onnyway we got to try it."
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