There was a pause.
"He refused us, my lord," persisted Taphro. "We said to him--"
"Be silent."
Bel-ka-Trazet paused, frowning abstractedly and pressing two fingers against the ridge beneath his eye. At length he looked up.
"You are a clumsy liar, Kelderek, it seems. Why trouble to speak of a leopard? Why not say you fell out of a tree?"
"I told the truth, my lord. There was a leopard."
"And this injury," went on Bel-ka-Trazet, reaching out his hand to grasp Kelderek's left wrist and gently moving his arm in a way that suggested that he might pull it a good deal harder if he chose, "this trifling injury. You had it, perhaps, from someone who was disappointed that you had not brought him better news? Perhaps you told him, 'The shendrons are alert, surprise would be difficult,' and he was displeased?"
"No, my lord."
"Well, we shall see. There was a leopard, then, and you fell. What happened then?"
Kelderek said nothing.
"Is this man a half-wit?" asked Bel-ka-Trazet, turning to Zelda.
"Why, my lord," replied Zelda, "I know little of him, but I believe he is known for something of a simple fellow. They laugh at him--he plays with the children--"
"He does what?"
"He plays with children, my lord, on the shore."
"What else?"
"Otherwise he is solitary, as hunters often are. He lives alone and harms no one, as far as I know. His father had hunter's rights to come and go and he has been allowed to inherit them. If you wish, we can send to find out more."
"Do so," said Bel-ka-Trazet, and then to Taphro, "You may go."
Taphro snatched his palm to his forehead and was gone like a candle flame in the wind. Zelda followed him with more dignity.
"Now, Kelderek," said the twisted mouth, slowly, "you are an honest man, you say, and we are alone, so there is nothing to hinder you from telling your story."
Sweat broke out on Kelderek's face. He tried to speak, but no words came.
"Why did you tell the shendron a few words and then refuse to tell more?" said the High Baron. "What foolishness was that? A rogue should know how to cover his tracks. If there was something you wished to conceal, why did you not invent some tale that would satisfy the shendron?"
"Because--because the truth--" The hunter hesitated. "Because I was afraid and I am still afraid." He stopped, but then burst out suddenly, "Who can lie to God--?"
Bel-ka-Trazet watched him as a lizard watches a fly.
"Zelda!" he called suddenly. The baron returned.
"Take this man out, put his arm in a sling and let him eat. Bring him back in half an hour--and then, by this knife, Kelderek--" and he drove the point of his dagger into the golden snake painted on the lid of the chest beside him "--you shall tell me what you know."
The unpredictable nature of dealings with Bel-ka-Trazet was the subject of many a tale. With Zelda's hand under his shoulder, Kelderek stumbled out into the Sindrad and sat huddled on a bench while the boys brought him food and a leather sling.
When next he faced Bel-ka-Trazet night had fallen. The Sindrad outside was quiet, for all but two of the barons had gone to their own quarters. Zelda sat in the firelight, looking over some arrows which the fletcher had brought. Fassel-Hasta was hunched on another bench at a table, slowly writing with an inked brush on bark, by the light of a smoky earthenware lamp. A lamp was burning also on the lid of Bel-ka-Trazet's chest. In the shadows beyond, two fireflies went winking about the room. A curtain of wooden beads had been let fall over the doorway and from time to time these clicked quietly in the night breeze.
The distortion of Bel-ka-Trazet's face seemed like a trick of the lamplight, the features monstrous as a devil mask in a play, the nose appearing to extend to the neck in a single, unbroken line, the shadows under the jaw pulsing slightly and rhythmically, like the throat of a toad. And indeed it was a play they were now to act, thought Kelderek, for it accorded with nothing in life as he had known it. A plain man, seeking only his living and neither wealth nor power, had been mysteriously singled out and made an instrument to cross the will of Bel-ka-Trazet.
"Well, Kelderek," said the High Baron, pronouncing his name with a slight emphasis that somehow conveyed contempt, "while you have been filling your belly, I have learned as much as there is to be known about a man like you--all, that is, but what you are going to tell me now, Kelderek Zenzuata. Do you know they call you that?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Kelderek Play-with-the-Children. A solitary young man, with no taste for taverns, it seems, and an unnatural indifference toward girls, but known nevertheless for a skillful hunter who often brings in game and rarities for the factors trading with Gelt and Bekla."
"If you have heard so much, my lord--"
"So that he is allowed to come and go alone, much as he pleases, with no questions asked. Sometimes he is gone for several days at a time, is he not?"
"It is necessary, my lord, if the game--"
"Why do you play with the children? A young man unmarried--what sort of nonsense is that?"
Kelderek considered.
"Children often need friends," he said. "Some of the children I play with are unhappy. Some have been left with no parents--their parents have deserted them--"
He broke off in confusion, meeting the gaze of Bel-ka-Trazet's distorted eye over the ridge. After some minutes he muttered uncertainly, "The flames of God--"
"What? What did you say?"
"The flames of God, my lord. Children--their eyes and ears are still open--they speak the truth--"
"And so shall you, Kelderek, before you are done. You'd be thought a simple fellow, then, soft in the head perhaps, a stranger to drink and wenches, playing with children and given to talk of God--for no one would suspect such a man, would he, of spying, of treachery, of carrying messages or treating with enemies on his lonely hunting expeditions--"
"My lord--"
"Until one day he returns injured and almost empty-handed from a place believed to be full of game, too much confused to have been able to invent a tale--"
"My lord!" The hunter fell on his knees.
"Did you displease the man, Kelderek, was that it? Some brigand from Deelguy, perhaps, or slimy slave trader from Terekenalt out to make a little extra money by carrying messages during his dirty travels? Your information was displeasing, perhaps, or the pay was not enough?"