'But I've talked too long, my darling. I mustn't tire you any more tonight.'
'One question,' said Kelderek. 'One only. What of Radu and the children?'
'They're still here. I've met Radu. He spoke of you as his friend and comrade. He's weak and very much distressed.' She paused. 'There was a little girl?' Kelderek drew in his breath sharply, and nodded.
'Elleroth has been sent for,' she said. 'The other children – I've not seen them. Some are recovering, but I'm told that several are in a very bad way, poor little things. At least they're all in good hands. Now you must sleep again.' 'And you too, my dearest Travel-All-Night. We must both sleep.
'Goodnight, Kelderek Play-with-the-Children. Look, the daylight's quite gone. I'll ask old Dirion, bless her, to bring her lamp and sit with you until she's sure you're asleep.'
56 The Passing of Shardik
Although it was now quite dark he could hear, some distance away, the sounds of men working – concerted, rhythmic shouts, as though heavy objects were being lugged into place; hammering, splintering and the knock of axes. A faint glow of torchlight was discernible from somewhere near the river. Once, when a deep splash was followed by a particularly loud shouting, Dirion, sitting by her lamp, clicked her tongue reprovingly. She said nothing in explanation, however, and after a little he ceased to wonder what urgent demand of war could have come upon the soldiers in this remote place where, so far as he knew, no enemy threatened. He fell asleep, waking to see moonlit ripples reflected in the roof and Melathys sitting by the lamp. Somewhere outside, a Yeldashay sentry called, 'All's well,' in the expressionless, stylized tone of one who observes routine.
'You should sleep,' he whispered. She started, came over to the bed, bent and kissed him lightly and then nodded, smiling, towards the neighbour room, as though to say she would sleep there: and at that moment Dirion returned. Yet much later in the night, when he woke, crying and struggling, from a dream of Genshed, it was still Melathys who was with him. He had somehow struck his wounded finger-nail. The pain was sickening and she comforted him as infants or animals are comforted, repeating the same phrases in a quiet, assured voice, 'There, there; the pain will go soon, it will go soon; wait now, wait now,' until he felt that it was indeed she who was making the pain subside. As the darkness began to melt into first light he lay awake, acquiescent, listening to the river and the growing sounds of morning – the birds, the clang of a pot and the snapping of sticks which someone was breaking across his knee.
He realized that for the first time since leaving Ortelga he was taking pleasure in diese sounds and that they were filling him, as once long ago, with expectancy of the coming day. To eat a meal, to complete a day's work, to come home tired to a fire, to greet a girl, talk and listen – a man free to do these things, he thought, should wear his blessings like a garland.
Yet when he had eaten and Melathys had changed his dressings he fell asleep again, waking only a little before noon, when a random sunbeam touched his eyes. He felt stronger, in pain certainly but no longer its helpless victim. After a time he put his foot to the floor, stood up dizzily, holding on to the bed, and looked about him.
His room and another comprised the upper storey of a fairly large hut: plank floor and walls, with an Ortelgan-style roof of reed thatch over zeilapa poles. The eastern side, behind the head of his bed, was a gallery, half-walled and open to the river almost immediately below.
He hobbled to the gallery wall and leaned upon it, looking out across the Telthearna to the distant Deelguy shore. Far off, men were fishing, their net stretched between two canoes. The midstream current glittered and close by, a little to his left, a few gaunt oxen stood drinking in the shallows. It was so quiet that after a time his ear caught the sound of breathing. He turned and, looking into the next room, saw Melathys lying asleep on a low, rough bed like his own. She was no less beautiful in sleep, lips closed, forehead smooth, her long eyelids curved, he thought, like waves lapping on her cheeks in dark ripples of lashes. This was the girl who for his sake had slept very little last night and not at all the night before. He had been restored to her by Shardik, whom he had once cursed and planned to destroy.
He turned back towards the river and for a long time remained leaning on the half-wall, watching the slow clouds and their mirrored images. The water was so smooth that when two duck flew across a white cloud, wheeled in the sky and disappeared upstream, their reflections were plain as themselves. This he saw with a sense of having seen the like before, yet could not remember where.
He stood up to pray, but could not raise his wounded arm and after a short time, his weakness overcoming him, was forced once more to support himself against the half-wall. For a long time his thoughts formed no words, dwelling only upon his own past ignorance and self-will. Yet strangely, these thoughts were kind to him, bringing with them no shame or distress, and turning finally to a flood of humility and gratitude. The mysterious gift of Shardik's death, he now knew, transcended all personal shame and guilt and must be accepted without dwelling on his own unworthiness, just as a prince mourning his father's death must contain his grief and be strong to assume, as a sacred trust, the responsibilities and cares of state which have fallen upon him. In spite of mankind and of all folly, Shardik had completed his work and returned to God. For his one-time priest to be absorbed in his own sorrow and penitence would be only to fail him yet again, the nature of the sacred truth immanent in that work being a mystery still to be grasped through prayer and meditation. And then? he thought. What then?
Below him the stones lay clean on the empty shore. The world, he reflected, was very old. 'Do with me what You intend,' he whispered aloud. 'I am waiting, at last.'
The fishermen had left the river. There appeared to be no one below in the village. So much quiet seemed strange in the early afternoon. When he heard the soldiers approaching he did not at first recognize the sound. Then, as they drew nearer, what had been one sound resolved into many – the tramping of feet, the clink of accoutrements, voices, a cough, a shouted order, a tryzatt's sharp admonition. There must be many soldiers – more than a hundred, he guessed; and by the sounds, armed and equipped. Melathys still slept as they passed by, unseen by him, on the landward side of the hut
As their tramping died away he suddenly heard Yeldashay voices talking below. Then there was a knock: Dirion opened the door and spoke a few words, but too quietly for him to make out what she had said. Supposing that the soldiers must be leaving the village and wondering whether Melathys knew of it, he waited and after a little Dirion came clambering up the ladder into the further end of the gallery. When she was half-way across the room she suddenly saw him, started and began scolding him back to bed. Smiling, he asked, 'What is it? What's happening?'
'Why, the young officer, to be sure,' she answered. 'He's here for the saiyett – to take her down to the shore. They're ready for the burning, and I must wake her. Now you go back to bed, my dear.'
At this moment Melathys woke as silently and swiftly as the moon emerges from behind clouds, her eyes opening and looking towards them with no remaining trace of sleep. To his surprise she ignored him, saying quickly to Dirion, 'Is it afternoon? Has the officer come?' Dirion nodded and went across to her. Kelderek followed more slowly, came up to the bed and took her hand. 'What's happening?' he repeated. 'What do they want?' She gazed gravely up into his eyes.