'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 half-way 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 cast bank to begin work opposite Zeray and try to get the ferry started. I suppose be 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 ground 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 towards 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 towards 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'd got 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.' She put it back on the blanket.
'The second day after we'd left Lak, in the morning, we found the body of a child – a boy of about ten – cast up on the shore. He was dreadfully thin. He'd been stabbed to death. He had a pierced ear and chain-marks on his ankles. The soldiers were wild with rage. That was when I began to wonder whether you might have been murdered by the slave-traders. I was frantic with worry and God help me, I thought more of that than of Lord Shardik.
'About the middle of that afternoon I was walking up the shore with Tan-Rion and his tryzatt when two canoes came downstream, manned by a Yeldashay officer, two soldiers and two villagers from Tissarn. That was how we learned that Radu had been found and Genshed and Lalloc were dead. The officer told us how Lord Shardik had given his life to save Radu and the children, and of how he split the rock. It was like a miracle, he said, like an old tale beyond belief.
'The Yeldashay, of course, could think of nothing but Radu, but I questioned the officer until I found out that you had been with Genshed and that Shardik had saved you too. "Wounded, feverish and half out of his mind," the officer said, but they didn't think you would die.
'One of the canoes went on to Zeray, but I made Tan-Rion give me a place in the other that was going back. We travelled upstream all night, inshore against the current, and reached Tissarn soon after dawn. I went first to Lord Shardik, as I was in honour and duty bound. No one had touched him; and just as the Tuginda had said, I knew then what I had to do. Tan-Rion has already set about the preparations. He made no difficulty when I asked him. The Yeldashay feel very differently now about Lord Shardik, you sec.