Shardik

by Richard Adams

  Kelderek dragged himself to the rock and knelt beside it, weeping and beating upon the stone. One enormous forepaw, thick as a roof beam, hung down beside his face. He took it between his hands, crying, "O Shardik! Shardik, my lord, forgive me! I would have entered the Streel for you! Would to God I had died for you! O Lord Shardik, do not die, do not die!"

  Looking up, he saw the teeth like stakes, the snarling mouth fixed open and unmoving, flies walking already on the protruding tongue, the blackened pelt burned to the skin, the arrow protruding from the face. The pointed muzzle jutted in a wedge against the sky. Kelderek beat his hands on the rock, sobbing with loss and despair.

  He was roused by a hand that gripped his shoulder, shaking him roughly. Slowly lifting his head, he recognized the man standing beside him as an officer of the Yeldashay army, the corn sheaves of Sarkid blazoned upon one shoulder. Behind him stood his young, hard-bitten tryzatt, sword at the ready in case of trouble, in his wary eye a look of bewilderment and disdain as he stared uncomprehendingly at the huge carcass slumped over the rock and the three filthy vagabonds groveling round its base.

  "Who are you?" said the officer. "Come on, answer me, man! What are you doing here and why are those children chained to that stone? What were you going to do?"

  Following his gaze, Kelderek saw soldiers standing beside the children on the bank, while a little farther off, among the trees, a group of villagers stood staring and muttering.

  The officer smelled like a clean butcher's shop--the smell of the meat-eater to him who eats none. The soldiers stood up as effortlessly as trees in spring. Their straps were oiled, their harness glittered, their eyes traveled quickly here and there, their controlled voices linked them like gods in smooth communication. Kelderek faced the officer.

  "My name is Kelderek Play-with-the-Children," he said haltingly, "and my life--my life is forfeit to the Yeldashay. I am willing to die, and ask only to be allowed to send a last message to Zeray."

  "What do you mean?" said the officer. "Why do you say your life is forfeit? Are you the slave trader who has committed these unspeakable crimes? Children we have found in the forest--sick--famished--dying, for all I know. Is this your doing?

  "No," said Kelderek. "No, I'm not your slave trader. He's dead--by the Power of God."

  "What are you, then?"

  "I? I'm--I'm the governor-man from Bekla."

  "Crendrik, king of Bekla? The priest of the bear?"

  Kelderek nodded and laid one hand on the massive, shaggy pelt that rose like a wall above him.

  "The same. But the bear--the bear will trouble you no more. Indeed, it was never he that troubled you, but misguided, sinful men, and I the worst of them. Tell your soldiers not to mock him dead. He was the Power of God, that came to men and was abused by men; and to God he has now returned."

  The officer, contemptuous and bewildered, felt it best to avoid further talk with this bleeding, stinking scarecrow, with his talk of God and his expressed readiness to die. He turned to his tryzatt, but as he did so another figure plucked at his arm--a boy, his hair matted, his body emaciated, his blackened nails broken and a chain about his ankles. The boy looked at him with authority and said in native Yeldashay, "You are not to hurt that man, captain. Wherever my father may be, please send someone at once to tell him you have found us. We--"

  He broke off and would have fallen had not the officer, his perplexity now complete, caught him with one arm about his shoulders.

  "Steady, my boy, steady. What's all this, now? Who is your father--and who are you, if it comes to that?"

  "I--am Radu, son of Elleroth, Ban of Sarkid."

  The officer started and as he did so the boy slid from his grasp and fell to the ground, pressing his hands against the broken rock and sobbing, "Shara! Shara!"

  BOOK VII

  The Power of God

  55 Tissarn

  A DRY MOUTH. Glitter of water reflected from beneath a roof of reeds and poles. An evening light, red and slow. Some kind of woven covering rough against the body. A small, urgent, scratching sound--a mouse close by, a man farther off? Pain, many pains, not sharp, but deep and persistent, the body infused in pain, finger, ear, arm, head, stomach, the breath coming short with pain. Weary, a weariness to be conscious and to feel the pain. Drained away; void with hunger; mouth dry with thirst. And yet a sense of relief, of being in the hands of people who intended no harm. Where he was he did not know, except that he was no longer with Genshed. Genshed was dead. Shardik had destroyed him and Shardik was dead.

  Those about him, those--whoever they were--who had been to the trouble of putting him into this bed, would no doubt be content to leave him there for the time being. He could think no further, could not think of the future. Wherever he was, he must be in the hands of the Yeldashay. Radu had spoken to the officer. Perhaps they would not kill him, not only because--and this was very vague, a kind of child's intuition of what was and was not possible--not only because Radu had spoken to the officer, but also because of his destitution and his sufferings. He felt himself invested with his sufferings as though with a kind of immunity. What they would do with him he could not tell, but he was almost sure that they would not put him to death. His mind drifted away--he lacked all strength to pursue thought further--a clamor of ducks on the river--he must be very near the waterside--a smell of wood smoke--the throbbing pain in the finger nail was the worst--his forearm had been bound up, but too tightly. All that was left of him was passive, fragments swept together and cast into a corner, Shardik dead, sounds, smells, vague memories, the coverlet rough at his neck, head rolling from side to side with pain, Shardik dead, the reflected evening light fading among the poles of the roof above.

  Eyes closed, he moaned, licking his dry lips, tormented by his pain as though by flies. When he opened his eyes again--not from any deliberate wish to see, but for the momentary relief that the change would bring before the pain overtook it and once more crawled over his body--he saw an old woman standing beside the bed, holding a clay bowl in her two hands. Feebly he pointed to it and then to his mouth. She nodded, smiling, put one hand under his head and held the bowl to his lips. It was water. He drank it and gasped, "More," at which she nodded, went away and came back with the bowl full. The water was fresh and cold: she must have brought it straight from the river.

  "Do you feel very bad, poor boy?" she asked. "You must rest."

  He nodded and whispered, "But I'm hungry." Then he realized that she had spoken in a dialect like Ortelgan and that he had unthinkingly replied to her in that tongue. He smiled and said, "I'm from Ortelga." She answered, "River people, like us," and pointed, as he supposed, upstream. He tried to speak again but she shook her head, laying a soft, wrinkled hand on his forehead for a few moments before going away. He fell half-asleep--Genshed--Shardik dead--how long ago?--and after a time she came back with a bowl of broth made of fish and some vegetable he did not know. He ate feebly, as best he could, and she skewered the bits of fish on a pointed stick and fed him, holding his hand and clicking her tongue over his wounded finger. Again he asked for more, but she said, "Later--later--not too much at first--sleep again now."

  "Will you stay here?" he asked, like a child, and she nodded. Then he pointed to the door and said, "Soldiers?"

  She nodded once more and it was then that he remembered the children. But when he tried to ask her about them, she only repeated, "Sleep now," and indeed, with his thirst quenched and the hot food in his belly he found it easy to obey her, sliding away into the depths as a glimpsed trout slips from the fisherman's sight.

  Once he woke in the dark and saw her sitting by a little, smoky lamp, its flame shining green through a lattice of thin rushes. Again she helped him to drink and then to relieve himself, brushing aside his hesitation and shame. "Why don't you sleep now?" he whispered. She answered, smiling, "Ay--happen you won't have the baby just yet," from which he guessed that she must be the village midwife. Her jest put him in mind once more of the children. "The
children?" he begged her. "The slave children?" But she only pressed her old, soft hand once more upon his forehead. "You know, they used to call me Kelderek Play-with-the-Children," he said. Then his head swam--had she drugged him?--and he fell asleep again.

  When he woke he could tell that it was afternoon. The sun was still out of sight, somewhere beyond his feet, but higher and farther to his left than when he had first woken the day before. His head was clearer and he felt lighter, cleaner and somewhat less in pain. He was about to call to the old woman when he realized that in fact someone was already sitting beside the bed. He turned his head. It was Melathys.

  He stared at her incredulously and she smiled back at him with the look of one who has brought a costly and unexpected present to a lover or a dear friend. She laid a finger on her lips but a moment after, perceiving that this would be insufficient to restrain him, she slipped forward on her knees beside the bed and laid her hand upon his.

  "I'm real," she whispered, "but you're not to excite yourself. You're ill--wounds and exhaustion. Can you remember how bad you've been?"

  He made no reply, only holding her hand to his lips. After a little she said, "Do you remember how you came here?"

  He tried to shake his head but desisted, closing his eyes in pain. Then he asked her, "Where am I?"

  "It's called Tissarn--a fishing village, quite small--smaller than Lak."

  "Near--near where--?"

  She nodded. "You walked here--the soldiers brought you. You can't remember?"

  "Nothing."

  "You've slept over thirty hours altogether. Do you want to sleep again?"

  "No, not yet."

  "Is there anything you need?"

  He smiled faintly. "You'd better send the old woman."

  She rose. "If you like." But then, smiling back at him over her shoulder, she said, "When I arrived you were filthy--as if anyone in Tissarn would notice a thing like that. I stripped you and washed you from head to foot. All the same, I will send her if you prefer."

  "I never woke?"

  "She told me she'd drugged you. I bound your arm again, too. They'd done it much too tight."

  Later, as the evening fell and the ducks began their splashing and scuttering in the roof reflections--the hut, he now realized, must almost overhang the water--she came again to feed him and then to sit beside the bed. She was dressed like a Yeldashay girl, in a long blue metlan, gathered below the bosom and falling to her ankles. The shoulder was fastened with a fine emblematic brooch--the sheaves of Sarkid, worked in silver. Following his gaze she laughed, unpinned it and laid it on the bed.

  "No, I haven't changed my love. It's only another part of the story. How do you feel now?"

  "Weak, but less in pain. Tell me the story. You know that Lord Shardik is dead?"

  She nodded. "They took me to see his body on the rock. What can I say? I wept for him. We mustn't speak of that now--it's everything for you to rest and not distress yourself."

  "The Yeldashay don't intend my death, then?"

  She shook her head. "You can be sure of that."

  "And the Tuginda?"

  "Lie quiet and I'll tell you everything. The Yeldashay entered Zeray the morning after you left. If they'd found you there they'd undoubtedly have killed you. They searched the town for you. It was the mercy of God that you went when you did."

  "And I--I cursed Him for that mercy. Did Farrass bring them, then?"

  "No, Farrass and Thrild--they got what they deserved. They met the Yeldashay halfway to Kabin and were brought back under suspicion of being slave traders on the run. I had to go and speak for them before the Yeldashay would release them."

  "I see. And yourself?"

  "The Baron's house was commandeered by an officer from Elleroth's staff--a man called Tan-Rion."

  "I had to do with him in Kabin."

  "Yes, so he told me, but that came later. He was cold and unfriendly at first, until he learned that our sick lady was none other than the Tuginda of Quiso. After that he put everything he had at our disposal--goats and milk, fowls and eggs. The Yeldashay seem to do themselves very well in the field, but of course they'd only come from Kabin, which they seem to have milked dry, as far as I can make out.

  "The first thing Tan-Rion told me was that an armistice had been agreed with Bekla and that Santil-ke-Erketlis was negotiating with Zelda and Ged-la-Dan at some place not far from Thettit. He's still there, as far as I know."

  "Then--then why send Yeldashay troops over the Vrako? Why?" He was still afraid.

  "Stop exciting yourself, my darling. Be quiet and I'll explain. There are only two hundred Yeldashay all told this side of the Vrako, and Tan-Rion told me that Erketlis knew nothing about it until after they'd left Kabin. It wasn't he who gave the order, you see."

  She paused, but Kelderek, obedient, said not a word.

  "Elleroth gave the order on his own initiative. He told Erketlis he'd done it for two reasons: first, to round up fugitive slave traders, particularly Lalloc and Genshed--the worst of the lot, he said, and he was determined to get them--and secondly to ensure that someone should meet the Deelguy if they succeeded in crossing the river. He knew they'd started work on the ferry."

  Again she paused and again Kelderek remained silent.

  "Elstrit did reach Ikat, you see. I might have known he would. He gave Erketlis the Baron's message, and it seems that the idea of the ferry appealed so much to the commander of the Deelguy with Erketlis that he immediately sent to the king of Deelguy suggesting that pioneers should be sent down the east bank to begin work opposite Zeray and try to get the ferry started. I suppose he had the notion that any reinforcements sent from Deelguy to join the army after it had marched north might be able to avoid crossing the Gelt mountains. Anyway, those were the men you and I saw that afternoon, when we were on the roof. They're still there, but when I left no one had crossed the strait. Actually, I don't yet see how they're going to.

  "But Elleroth had a third and more important reason, as Tan-Rion told me--more important to himself, anyway. He was going to find his poor son; or if he couldn't, it wasn't going to be for want of trying. There were eight officers altogether with the Sarkid company that entered Zeray, and every one of them had sworn to Elleroth, before they left Kabin, that they'd find his son if they had to search every foot of grounds in the province. As soon as they'd been in Zeray twenty-four hours and found out all there was to learn--that is, that Genshed wasn't there and that no one had seen him or heard of him--they set out upstream. They'd already sent a detachment north on the way in, to close the Linsho Gap. That must have been closed two days after you left Zeray."

  "It was only just in time, then," said Kelderek.

  "I went north with the Yeldashay, and I went on the Tuginda's express order. She regained consciousness toward evening of the day you set out. She was very weak, and of course at that time we were still afraid that the house would be attacked by those ruffians who'd injured her. But as soon as the Yeldashay came and the fear of being murdered was off our minds, she began making her plans again. She's very strong, you know."

  "I do know--who better?"

  "The night before the soldiers left Zeray she told me what I had to do. She said that with Ankray and two officers staying behind she felt perfectly safe, and I was to go north. I reminded her that there was no other woman in the house.

  "'Then perhaps you or Tan-Rion will get me a decent girl from Lak,' she said, 'but north you must certainly go, my dear. The Yeldashay are not looking for Lord Shardik, they're looking for Elleroth's boy. Yet you and I know that both Shardik and Kelderek are wandering somewhere between here and Linsho. What holy and sacred death Lord Shardik is doomed to die none can tell, but come it must. As for Kelderek, he is in great danger; and I know what is between you and him as surely as though you had told me. The Yeldashay believe both him and Shardik to be their enemies. You are needed both as friend and as priestess, and if you ask me what you are to do, I reply that God will show you.'

/>   "'Priestess?' I said. 'You're calling me a priestess?'

  "'You are a priestess,' she answered. 'I say you are a priestess and you have my authority to act as such. It is as my priestess that you are to go north with the soldiers and do what you find to do.'"

  Melathys paused for some moments to regain command of herself. At length she went on,

  "So I--so I set out, as a priestess of Quiso. We went to Lak and there I learned first of Shardik and next that you had been there and gone. Nothing more was known of you. The day after, the Yeldashay began moving north toward Linsho, searching the forest as they went. Tan-Rion had promised the Tuginda to look after me and it was he who gave me this Yeldashay metlan. He had the cloth with him--he bought it in Kabin, I believe--I wonder who for?--and a woman in Lak made it up to his orders. 'You'll be perfectly all right with the men as long as you look like a Yeldashay girl,' he said. 'They know who you are, but it'll give them the idea that they ought to respect you and look after you.' He gave me this emblem too."

  She paused, smiling, and picked it up. "Popular girl. Would you like me to throw it in the river?"

  He shook his head. "There's no need. Besides, it might excite me, mightn't it? Go on."