Shardik

'It is Lord Shardik,' she answered. 'I have to do – what is appointed.' Understanding, he drew in his breath. 'The body?'

She nodded. 'The appointed way is very old – as old as Quiso. The Tuginda herself could not recall all the ceremony, but what has to be done is plain enough, and God will not refuse to accept the best that we are able to offer. At least Lord Shardik will have a fitting and honourable passing.' 'How does he pass?' 'The Tuginda never told you? ' 'No,' replied Kelderek sadly. 'No; that, too, I neglected to learn.'

'He drifts down the river on a burning raft ' Then, standing up, she took both his hands in her own and said, 'Kelderek, my dear love, I should have told you of this, but it could not have been delayed later than today, and even this morning you still seemed too tired and weak.'

'I'm well enough,' he answered firmly. 'I am coming with you. Don't say otherwise.' She seemed about to reply, but he added, 'At all costs I shall come.'

He turned to Dirion. 'If the Yeldashay officer is still below, greet him from me and ask him to come and help me down the ladder.' She shook her head, but went without argument, and he said to Melathys, 'I won't delay you, but somehow or other I must be dressed decently. What clothes do you mean to wear?'

She nodded towards a rough-hewn, unpolished chest standing on the other side of the bare room, and he saw lying across it a plain, clean robe, loose-sleeved and high-necked, dyed, somewhat unevenly, a dark red – a peasant girl's' one good dress'.

'They're kind people,' she said. 'The elder's wife gave me the cloth – her own – and her women made it yesterday.' She smiled. 'That's two new dresses I've been given in five days.' 'People like you.'

'It can be useful. But come, my dearest, since I'm not going to try to cross you in your resolve, we have to be busy. What will you do for clothes?'

'The Yeldashay will help me.' He limped to the head of the ladder as Dirion came struggling up it for the second time, lugging with her a wooden pail of cold water. Melathys said in Beklan, 'The washing's like the clothes. But she's the soul of kindness. Tell the officer I shan't be long.'

The Yeldashay officer had followed Dirion half-way up the ladder and now, looking down, Kelderek recognized Tan-Rion.

'Please give me your hand,' he said. 'I'm recovered sufficiently to come with you and the priestess today.'

'I didn't know of this,' replied Tan-Rion, evidently taken aback. 'I was told you would not be equal to it.'

'With your help I shall be,' said Kelderek. 'I beg you not to refuse. To me this duty is more sacred than birth and death.'

For answer Tan-Rion stretched out his hand. As Kelderek came gropingly down the ladder, he said, 'You followed your bear on foot from Bekla to this place?' Kelderek hesitated. 'In some sort – yes, I suppose so.' 'And the bear saved Lord Elleroth's son.'

Kelderek, in pain, gave way to a touch of impatience. 'I was there.' Feeling faint, he leaned against the wall of the dark, lower room into which he had climbed down. 'Can you – could your men, perhaps – find me some clothes? Anything clean and decent will do.'

Tan-Rion turned to the two soldiers waiting by the door and spoke in his own tongue. One answered him, frowning and evidently in some perplexity. He spoke again, more sharply, and they hurried away.

Kelderek fumbled his way out of the hut to the fore-shore, pulled off the rough, sack-like shift he had been wearing in the bed and knelt down to wash, one-handed, in the shallows. The cold water pulled him together and he sat, clear-headed enough, on a bench, while Tan-Rion dried him with the shift for want of anything better. The soldiers returned, one carrying a bundle wrapped in a cloak. Kelderek tried to make out what they said.

– 'whole village empty, sir,' he heard – 'decent people – can't just help ourselves – done the best we can -'

Tan-Rion nodded and turned back to him. 'They've brought some clothes of their own. They suggest you put them on and wear a sentry's night-cloak over the top. I think that's the best we can do at this short notice. It will look well enough.'

'I'm grateful,' said Kelderek. 'Could they – could someone – support me, do you think? I'm afraid I'm weaker than I thought.'

One of the soldiers, perceiving his clumsiness and evident fear of hurting his heavily-bound left arm, had already, with natural kindliness, stepped forward to help him into the unfamiliar clothes. They were the regulation garments of a Yeldashay infantryman. The man fastened the cloak at his neck and then drew his sound arm over his own shoulders. At this moment Melathys came down the ladder, bowed gravely to Tan-Rion, touched Kelderek's hand for an instant and then led the way out into the village street.

She was wearing the plaited wooden rings of a priestess of Quiso. Were they her own, he wondered, hidden and kept safe throughout her wanderings, or had the Tuginda given them to her pardoned priestess when she left Zeray? Her long, black hair was gathered round her head and fastened with two heavy wooden pins – no doubt the very best that Dirion could borrow. The dark-red robe, which would otherwise have fallen straight from the shoulder like a shift, was gathered at the waist by a belt of soft, grey leather with a crisscross pattern of bronze studs, and from below this the skirt flared slightly, falling to her ankles. Even at this moment Kelderek found himself wondering how she had come by the belt. Had she brought it with her from Zeray, or was it the gift of Tan-Rion or some other Yeldashay officer?

Outside, between the huts, a double file of Sarkid soldiers, in full panoply, stood waiting. Each wore the corn-sheaves on his left shoulder. They were spearmen, and at the approach of the priestess of Quiso, followed by their own officer and the limping, pallid Ortelgan priest-king who had suffered in comradeship with the Ban's son, they saluted by beating the bronze-shod butts of their spears in succession with a dull, rolling sound on the hard-trodden earth. Melathys bowed to the tryzatt and took up her place at the head of and between the two files. Kelderek, still leaning on the soldier's shoulder, stationed himself a few paces behind her. After a moment she turned and came back to him. 'You are still of the same mind, my love?' she whispered. 'If we go slowly -I can manage it.'

Giving his soldier a nod and smile of thanks, she returned to her place, looked quickly about her and then, leaving it to the tryzatt and his men to follow her lead, set off with the same solemn, gliding step. Kelderek came limping, breathing hard and leaning heavily on the soldier's shoulder. The Telthearna lay on their left and he realized that they were going southward out of the village, towards the place where Shardik had died. They passed patches of cultivated ground, a shed for oxen with a great pile of manure outside it, a frame on which nets hung drying and an up-ended canoe, patched and repaired, its new caulking shining black in the sun. Hobbling between the files of soldiers, he recalled how he had once paced the streets of Bekla with his scarlet-cloaked priestesses, the train of his panelled robe carried behind him. He could feel again the weight of the curved, silver claws hanging from the fingers of his gauntlets, hear the stroke of the gong and see about him the finery of his attendants. He felt no regret. That great city he would never, he knew, see again; and gone, too, was the false illusion which had carried him thither in bloodshed and drawn him thence, alone and friendless, to suffering and self-knowledge. But the secret – the great secret of life on earth – the secret that Shardik might perhaps have been able to impart to a humble, selfless, listening heart – must that, too, be lost for ever? 'Ah, Lord Shardik,' he prayed silently, 'the empire was pride and folly. I am sorry for my blindness, and sorry, too, for all that you suffered at my hands. Yet for others' sake, not mine, I entreat you not to leave us for ever without the truth that you came to reveal. Not for our deserving, but of your own grace and pity for Man's helplessness.'