'All the way, underground,' said a boy standing near; but Shara only nodded and fell to making patterns with her stones.
Soon they began to move off, following Genshed towards the river bank. Once there the slave-trader turned upstream, making his way along the open, pebbly shore.
Now that they were no longer among the close trees and he could see the whole column, Kelderek understood, as he had not on the previous day, why their progress was so much interrupted and so slow. What he saw was an exhausted rabble, which surely could not be far from complete disintegration. Continually, one child or another would stop, leaning face forwards against a rock or bank and, when Bled or Shouter came up to threaten him, only staring back as though too much stupefied even to feel fear. From time to time a boy would fall and Genshed, Shouter or Bled would pull him to his feet and slap him or dash water in his face. The slave-dealer himself seemed well aware of the perishable condition of his stock. He was sparing with blows and called frequent halts, allowing the children to drink and bathe their feet. Once, when Bled, in a frenzy of rage, set about a boy who was fumbling and hesitating at the foot of a pile of rocks, he cuffed him away with a curse, asking where he thought he could sell a dead slave.
Later, as he and Radu lay gazing out across the glittering, noonday river, Kelderek, carefully keeping his voice low, said, 'Shouter must know that he's got all he ever can out of Genshed. Surely he must fear returning to Terckenalt? The best thing he could do would be to cut and run, and take us with him. I know how to survive in this sort of country. I could save his life and ours if only I could persuade him to trust me. Do you think Genshed's made him some promise?'
For a time Radu answered nothing, looking sideways into the shallows and stroking Shara's hands. At length he said, 'Genshed means more to him than you think. He's converted him, you see.' 'Converted him?'
'That's why I'm afraid of Genshed. I know we all fear his cruelty, but I fear more than that.'
'You mustn't let him break your spirit,' said Kelderek. 'He's nothing but a contemptible brute – a sneak thief – mean and stupid.'
'He was once,' answered Radu, 'but that was before he got the power he prayed for.' 'What do you mean? What power?' 'Where he's concerned, it's no longer a matter of thieves and honest men,' said Radu. 'He's gone beyond that. Once he was nothing but a cruel, nasty slum-creeper. But evil's made him strong. He's paid its price, and in return he's been given its power. You don't feel it yet, but you will. He's been granted the power to make others evil – to make them believe in the strength of evil, to inspire them to become as evil as himself. What he offers is the joy of evil, not just money, or safety, or anything that you and I could understand. He can make some people want to devote their lives to evil. That's what he did to Bled, only Bled wasn't up to it and it drove him mad. Shouter – he was just a poor, deserted boy, sold away from his home. It's not a question of how long he'll last with Genshed or what he'll get. He admires him – he wants to give him everything he's got – he isn't thinking about rewards. He wants to spend his life beating and hurting and terrifying. He knows he's not much good at it yet, but he hopes to improve.'
Their hunger was like a mist in the air between them. Kelderek, looking about him for Shara, caught sight of her kneeling beside a pool a little way off and pulling out long strips of bright-yellow and dark-red weed, which she laid side by side on the stones.
'All this is only your fancy, you know,' he said. 'You're lightheaded with hunger and hardship.'
'I'm light-headed, that's true enough,' answered Radu. 'But I can see more clearly for that. If you don't think it's true, you wait and see.'
He nodded towards Shara. 'It's for her sake that I've not given in,' he said. 'Genshed wanted me to become an overseer in place of Bled. Bled's become a nuisance to him – he can't be relied on not to cripple boys or kill them. He's killed three boys since Lapan, you know.'
'If you became an overseer, mightn't it give you a chance to escape?' 'Perhaps – from anyone but Genshed.'
'But did he only try to talk you into becoming an overseer? Didn't he threaten you? You told me he once used the fly-trap on you.'
'That was because I hit Shouter to stop him interfering with Shara. Genshed would never threaten a boy to make him become an overseer. A boy who's going to become an overseer has got to want to do it. He's got to admire Genshed of his own accord and want to live up to him. Of course Genshed wants the ransom money for me, but if he could persuade me to become an overseer, that would mean even more to him, I believe. He wants to feel he's had a hand in making a nobleman's son as evil as himself.'
'But as long as he doesn't threaten you, surely there's no question of your giving in to him?'
Radu paused, as though hesitating before confiding in Kelderek. Then he said deliberately, 'God's given in. Either that or He's got no power over Genshed. I'll tell you something that I shall never forget. Before Thettit there was a boy with us – a big, shambling lad called Bellin. He could never have crossed the Vrako; he was clumsy and a bit simple. Genshed put him up for sale along with the girls. The man who bought him told Genshed he wanted to make him a professional beggar. He kept several, he said, and lived off what they brought in. He wanted Bellin mutilatcd, to excite pity when he was begging. Genshed hacked off Bellin's hands and held his wrists in boiling pitch to stop the bleeding. He charged the man forty-three meld. He said that was his rate for that particular job.'
Turning aside, he tore a handful of leaves from a bush and began to cat them. After a moment Kelderek copied him. The leaves were sour and fibrous and he chewed them voraciously.
'Come on! Come on!' bawled Shouter, slapping at the surface of the shallows with his stick. 'Get on your mucking feet! Linsho -that's where the grub is, not here!' Radu stood up, swayed a moment and stumbled against Kelderek.
'It's the hunger,' he said. 'It'll pass off in a moment.' He called to Shara, who came running, with a long strip of coloured weed wound like a torque round one thin arm. 'If there's one thing I've learnt, it's that hunger's a form of torture. If there's more food for overseers than slaves when we get to Linsho, I might become an overseer yet. Cruelty and evil – they're not very far down in anyone. It's only a matter of digging them up, you know.'
51 The Gap of Linsho
Later, in the afternoon, they came to a wide bend in the river and Genshed once more struck inland to cut across the peninsula. The humid heat of the forest became a torment. The children, some of whom lacked energy even to brush the flies from their faces, were ordered to come close together and to grasp each his neighbour's shoulder, so that they inched onward like some ghastly pack of purblind cripples, many keeping closed their insect-blackened eyes. The boy in front of Kelderek kept up a low, rhythmic sobbing -'Ah-hoo! Ah-hoo!' – until at length Bled flew at him, uttering a stream of curses and jabbing at his legs with the point of his sdek. The boy fell, bleeding, and Genshed was forced to call a halt while he staunched his wounds. This done, he sat down with his back against a tree, whistling through his teeth and rummaging in the depths of his pack. On an impulse Kelderek went up to him.
'Can you tell me why you've taken me prisoner and how much you hope to get out of it? I can promise you a large sum to release me – more than you'd get for selling me as a slave.'
Genshed did not look up and made no reply. Kelderek bent down, stooping over the slave-trader's sandy hair and speaking more urgently.