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 towards 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 he had begun, thrust it back into the sheath, dragged him to his feet and led him away towards the ruined cottage where Lalloc was already kneeling and blowing his smouldering 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 afterwards he could not tell – crept on his hands and knees into the nearest hut; and here 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. Ii 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 towards it and perceived that he had misjudged the distance, for it was close – close by. A cloak had been fastened across the doorlcss 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 fire-place opposite. Who had collected the wood, he wondered. The slave-dealers must have got it for themselves while he lay asleep. In the further 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 wine-skin 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 light-headed, 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 year?' 'Not always,' answered Genshed. 'What you done – soldier maybe?' Genshed leant 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 sec it all laid out for their personal benefit -the clindcrs 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 wine-skin. 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 licence, 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 licence.'
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 the, 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 licence, then you buy them off me and sell 'cm for more, don't you?' 'Well, but you ollways spoil so monny, Gensh, ain't it?'