Shardik

by Richard Adams

  Thyval plucked at his sleeve. "Excuse me, sir, do they reckon they're going to take us over on that there thing?"

  Siristrou looked him in the eye and nodded slowly and gloomily two or three times.

  "Well, the horses won't stand for it, sir, and anyway there ain't the room for them."

  "Not just one horse, do you think, Thyval? These people know nothing whatever of horses and I'd like to arrive with one, if we can."

  "Well, sir, I'd chance it alone, but trouble is, if it's rough--and I reckon it looks real nasty out there--we're all crowded together and there's no rail nor nothing--"

  "Yes, yes, of course," said Siristrou hurriedly, finding the picture too much for his already wambling stomach. "The best thing will be if you come with me, Thyval, and Baraglat here--you're not afraid, are you, Baraglat? No, of course not, excellent fellow--and the rest will have to stay here with the horses until tomorrow. I'll come back--heaven knows how, against that current, but I will--and see to everything. Now about the baggage--how can we best divide it?--and some of Tan-Rion's men must be told to stay with ours--we can't leave our people alone with those bandit fellows--and they'll have to be given a hut for stabling--we won't stand for any nonsense--Tan Rion, one moment, please--"

  Metaphysician or no metaphysician, Siristrou was not lacking in decision and practical ability, and his men trusted him. There is much difference between being incapable of doing something and merely disliking having to do it, and King Luin had always been a good though somewhat unorthodox picker. In half an hour the baggage had been divided; Tan-Rion had acceded to demand and detailed three reliable Yeldashay, one of whom spoke Deelguy, to remain with Siristrou's men and the horses; the Deelguy officers had been told what they were to provide in the way of quarters; and those who were to cross had embarked.

  In addition to the travelers there was a crew of six Deelguy laborers, whose task was to stand shoulder to shoulder and haul on the rope. This they set about, chanting rhythmically behind their shanty leader, and the raft, sidling out almost directly downstream, came little by little into the central race.

  For Siristrou the crossing was a most nerve-racking experience. Apart from the rope and its ring-crowned stanchions, beside which there was room for only the crew to stand, there was nothing whatever to hold on to as the heavy raft, with the current almost full astern, danced like the lid of a boiling pot. He crouched on the baggage, holding his knees and trying to set a reassuring example to his men, who were plainly terrified. Tan-Rion stood beside him, legs astride, balancing himself as the deck tilted and swung. The water poured across the planking as though from overturned buckets. What with the chanting, which was maintained steadily, and the ceaseless knocking and blitter-blatter of the river under the timbers, talk was possible only intermittently and by shouting. As they got well out, a cold wind began to throw up spray. Siristrou, soaked, slapped himself with his arms to keep from shivering, in case anyone should think he was afraid--which he was. Even after it had become plain that they were going to complete the crossing safely and suffer nothing worse than discomfort, he could not keep himself from biting his lip and tensing at every lurch as he watched the shores moving up and down on either side, so horribly far away. One of the Zakalon party, a lad of sixteen, was sick but, with a boy's ashamed indignation, threw off Siristrou's comforting arm, muttering, "I'm all right, sir," between his chattering teeth.

  "What is it they're singing?" Siristrou shouted to Tan-Rion.

  "Oh, the shantyman just makes it up--anything that keeps them going. Actually I have heard this one before, I believe."

  "Shardik a moldra konvay gow!" chanted the leader, as his crew bent forward and took a fresh grip.

  "Shardik! Shardik!" responded the crew, giving two heaves.

  "Shardik a lomda, Shardik a pronta!"

  "Shardik! Shardik!"

  "What does it mean?" asked Siristrou, listening carefully to the reiterated syllables.

  "Well, let's see; it means 'Shardik gave his life for the children, Shardik found them, Shardik saved them'--you know, anything that suits their rhythm."

  "Shardik--who's he?"

  Another terrific lurch. Tan-Rion grinned, raised either hand in a gesture of helplessness and shrugged his shoulders. A few moments later he shouted, "Nearly there!"

  Gradually they came into slack water. Over the last hundred yards the men stopped chanting and pulled the raft in more easily. A coiled rope was thrown from the landing stage and a few moments later they had touched. Siristrou gripped an offered hand and for the first time in his life stepped ashore on the right bank of the Varin.

  The raft had been drawn into a kind of dock made of stout stakes driven into the shallows. It was the sight of this from the opposite bank which had perplexed him earlier that morning. As the Deelguy laborers clambered to shore, six or seven boys, the eldest no more than about thirteen years old, jumped aboard, unloaded the baggage and then, having opened the hinged rings, released the rope and began poling the raft down the dock toward a similar rope at the farther end. Siristrou, turning away, saw Tan-Rion pointing back at himself and his party. He was standing a little way off, talking to a black-haired youth who seemed to have some kind of authority on the landing stage, for he suddenly interrupted Tan Rion to call out an order to the children aboard the raft. A crowd was gathering. Those working on the half-finished, warehouselike sheds nearby had apparently downed tools to come and stare. Siristrou stared back with a certain perplexity, for most of them were mere boys. However, he had no further opportunity to speculate, for Tan-Rion came up to him, together with the black-haired youth, who bowed rather formally and offered his hand. He was ugly, even forbidding, with a cast in one eye and a birthmark across his face; but his manner, as he uttered a few words of greeting, was courteous and welcoming enough. He was wearing some kind of badge or emblem--a bear's head between two corn sheaves--and Siristrou, unable to understand his Beklan (which did not sound native), smiled, nodded and touched it with his forefinger by way of a friendly gesture.

  "This young fellow's in charge of the harbor lads," said Tan-Rion. "His name's Kominion, but most of us just call him Shouter. I've sent a man to tell the governor of your arrival and ask for a house to be put at your disposal. As soon as we know where it is, Shouter will get your baggage up there--you can leave it quite safely with him. It'll take a little while, of course, and I'm afraid you may find your quarters rather rough: this is a frontier town, you see. But at least I can make sure that you get a meal and a fire while you have to wait. There's quite a decent tavern up here, where you can be comfortable and private--a place called The Green Grove. Now come on, stand back, you lads," he shouted. "Leave the foreigners alone and get back to work!"

  Glad at least of firm ground after the floodrace in the strait, Siristrou, walking beside his guide, led his men across the waterfront and up toward the town, which looked as busy and ramshackle as a rookery.

  *

  "--obliged to leave the horses on the eastern bank, and upon my recrossing intend to dispatch this letter by two or three horsemen--though I shall miss them, for all those with me have done well under hard conditions, and I commend them to Your Majesty's favor.

  "For the Varin ferry crossing that these people have developed, it is ingenious and gives me hope that we may profit by commerce with so resourceful a people. The Varin here is relatively narrow, the strait being perhaps four and a half hundred yards directly across, from this town of Zeray to the opposite shore. The current, accordingly, flows very fast, too fast for navigation, while below lies the dangerous gorge known as Bereel, of which I have already written and which they greatly fear. Yet this current they have turned to account, for from Zeray they have contrived to stretch two ropes across the river, one to a point on the opposite bank some thousand yards upstream, while the other is secured a similar distance downstream. This, I am told, was effected with great difficulty in the first place by conveying one end of each rope across the river several miles
upstream, in safer water, and then manhandling either end downstream along the banks, little by little, to their present anchoring points. Each rope is about twelve hundred yards long and took several months to make.

  "There are three ferry rafts, each perhaps five or six paces square, which make a circuit of three journeys. First, the crossing-rope having been secured through iron rings, it is drawn from Zeray across the river, the opposite point being so far downstream that it goes almost with the current. Upon its arrival they release the raft from the rope and then, once unloaded, it is drawn upstream by oxen in the slack water under the shore. The distance must be about a mile and a quarter and over this whole length they have dredged and cleared the inshore water, straightened the shore and paved it for the beasts' hooves. At the upstream point, a thousand yards above Zeray, the raft is secured to the second rope and thus makes the return crossing, once more having the current behind it.

  "The ropes, I am told, will need to be renewed once a year, and this means that a principal labor of upkeep is the making, each year, of well over a mile of stout rope. The rafts--the first they have made--are as yet clumsy and precarious, but serve their purpose. The main impediment, I learned, is from floating branches and the like which, drifting down river, foul the ropes and have to be disengaged or cut loose; but these can be avoided to some extent by leaving the ropes slack when not in use.

  "We are now installed in a house here, poor enough, for the whole town is but a rough place, but at least sound and clean. Later this afternoon I am to meet the governor and shall, of course, present Your Majesty's message of goodwill. Soon after, I believe, we are to travel westward some thirty or forty miles to a town called Kabin, where, if I have understood correctly, there is a reservoir supplying the city of Bekla. It is here, and in another city which they call Igat or Ikat, that we hope to speak with the rulers about trade with Zakalon.

  "There is one feature of this town which Your Majesty, I am sure, would find as puzzling as I, and that is the great number of children who seem to work, sometimes without any grown man in charge, and to carry out on their own account much of the business of the place. Where a task requires skilled direction as, for example, the building of the new warehouses on the waterfront, they work under the bidding of the masons; but in other, simple tasks they seem often to have their own foremen, older children who direct them without other supervision. Their work, though serviceable, is from what little I have seen, rough, but for this place it does well enough, and certainly the children seem for the most part in good spirits. In this house we are looked after by three grave lasses of no more than eleven or twelve years of age, who take their task very seriously and clearly feel it an honor to have been chosen to tend the foreign strangers. My men stare, but the girls are not to be put out of countenance. They speak an argot and I can understand little of what they say, but it is no matter."

  There was a light knock at the door. Siristrou looked up and, not calling to mind the Beklan for "Come in," made a noise which he hoped was expressive of encouragement and assent. One of the serving-children opened the door, raised her palm to her forehead and stood aside to admit the biggest man Siristrou had ever seen. His leather jerkin, which bore the emblem of the bear and corn sheaves, seemed ready to split across his massive chest, and his skin breeches--apparently made for a man of more normal size--reached about halfway down his calves. Over one shoulder he was carrying easily a large and extremely full-looking sack. He grinned cheerfully at Siristrou, raised his palm to his forehead and said, "Crendro."

  This word was unknown to Siristrou, but as it was evidently a greeting he replied, "Crendro," and waited expectantly. His visitor's next utterance, however, beat him altogether and he could only conclude that he must be speaking in some strange tongue or dialect.

  "Can you speak Beklan?" he asked haltingly. "I understand--a little Beklan."

  "Why, me too, my lord," answered the giant, dropping into mangled but comprehensible Beklan with another amiable smile. "Living here, you can't help picking it up after a fashion. Ah, it's a strange town, this is, and that's the truth. So you're the foreign prince, eh, that's come over on the ferry? Going to make all our fortunes, I dare say--or so they tell us. Best respects, my lord, sir."

  By this time Siristrou had perceived that his visitor was evidently some kind of servant--from his manner, a privileged one, but one also who would need keeping in check if he were not to become garrulous to the point of presumption. Without a smile, therefore, and in a businesslike manner, he said, "You have a message for me?"

  "Why, that's so, my lord," replied the man. "My name's Ankray--I look after the governor and his lady. Governor got back from Lak an hour or two after noon and heard you were here; so he says to me, 'Ankray,' he says, 'if you're going down to the waterfront you can just bring me back a sackful of those thick blocks they're using down there--the ones that came in from Tonilda the other day--and on your way home you can step in, like, to that there foreign prince gentleman and tell him I'll be happy to see him whenever it suits him to come.' So if it's quite convenient to you, my lord, you might just be stepping along with me now, as you don't know the way, and I'll take you up there."

  "It sounds as though it's convenient to you, at all events," said Siristrou, smiling in spite of himself.

  "My lord?"

  "Never mind," answered Siristrou, who had now, with kindly shrewdness, grasped that his man was something of a simpleton. "I will be ready to come with you directly."

  It was not the kind of summons to the governor that he had been expecting; but no matter, he thought; this was a small town; there was nothing of importance to be heard or done here; the real diplomacy would come later, in the cities to the west. Nevertheless, one must be courteous to this governor, who might even be the man responsible for designing and constructing the ferry. As he thought of the probable number of such interviews ahead of him--to say nothing of all the uncomfortable traveling--he sighed. King Luin, in his way, had paid philosophers a compliment in sending one to find out about trade. Yet for all the king's notions, it was not trade, but ideas, that truly advanced civilization: and of those, in this country, there were likely to be about as many as stars in a pond. He sighed again, folded and pocketed his unfinished letter to the king, and called to Thyval to bring him his good cloak and make ready to attend him to the governor's house.

  The giant led the way, conversing easily in his atrocious Beklan without apparently worrying in the least whether Siristrou understood him or not, and carrying his bulging sack as lightly as if it had been a fisherman's keep-net.

  "Ah, now, this town's changed a great deal, my lord, you see. Now, the Baron, he always used to say, 'Ankray,' he used to say, 'that ferry, once we get it put across the river, that ferry'll bring in a deal of foreigners, coming over for what they can find--' begging your pardon, my lord. 'They'll bring all manner of things with them and one will be our prosperity, you mark my words.' Of course, the Baron, very likely he'd be surprised out of his life to see all the children here now; though myself, I like them, and there's no denying they can often do very well with anything, once they understand what's to be done. I'd never have thought it possible, but it's see, of the governor's. Now only the other day, down at the waterfront--"

  At this moment they became aware of a band of eight or nine quite young children, who were running after them and calling out to attract their attention. Two were carrying thick, heavy wreaths of flowers. Siristrou stopped, puzzled, and the children came up, panting.

  "U-Ankray," said one, a dark-haired girl of about twelve, putting her hand into the giant's, "is this the foreign stranger--the prince who's come over the river?"

  "Why, yes, that's so," answered Ankray, "and what of it? He's on his way to see the governor, so just don't you be hindering of him, now, my dear."

  The little girl turned to Siristrou, raised her palm to her forehead and addressed him in Beklan with a kind of confident joy, which both arrested and startled him.r />
  "My lord," she said, "when we heard you were here we made wreaths, to welcome you and your servants to Zeray. We brought them to your house, but Lirrit told us you had just set out to see the governor. 'But you run,' she said, 'and you'll catch him,' so we came after you to give you the wreaths, and to say, 'Welcome, my lord, to Zeray.'"

  "What are they saying, sir?" asked Thyval, who had been staring at the children in some bewilderment. "Are they trying to sell us these flowers?"

  "No, they're a gift, or so it seems," answered Siristrou. Fond of children as he was, the situation was outside his experience and he found himself at something of a loss. He turned back to the dark-haired girl.

  "Thank you," he said. "You're all very kind." It occurred to him that he had probably better try to discover a little more. Some further acknowledgment of this rather charming courtesy might well be expected of him later by whoever was behind it. "Tell me, who told you to bring the wreaths? Was it the governor?"

  "Oh, no, my lord, we picked the flowers ourselves. No one sent us. You see, we were gardening not far from the waterfront and then we heard--" and she ran off into a chattering, happy explanation which he could not follow, while two of her companions stood on tiptoe to hang the wreaths round his neck and Thyval's. Most of the flowers were of one kind, small and lavender-colored, with a light, sharp scent.