"Flottery, you mean."
"Well, flottery, then. I can't imitate their damned talk. 'I've come from spending the rainy season at Kabin,' he says, 'and there's news for you. Your elder brother's dead and the property's yours, but no one knew where to find you. You've three months in law to claim it.' 'What's that to me?' I thought to myself; but later I got to thinking about it and I knew I wanted to go home. So I appointed my deputy as governor on my own authority, sent the king a message to say what I'd done--and left."
"The inhabitants were heartbroken? The pigs wept real tears in the bedrooms?"
"They may have--I didn't notice. You can't tell them from the inhabitants, anyway. It was a bad journey at that time of year. I nearly drowned, crossing the Telthearna by night."
"It had to be by night?"
"Well, I was in a hurry, you see."
"Not to be observed?"
"Not to be observed. I went over the hills by way of Gelt--I wanted to see where Shrain died--say a few prayers for him and make an offering, you know. My God, that's an awful place! I don't want to talk about it--the ghosts must be thicker than frogs in a marsh. I wouldn't be there at night for all the gold in Bekla. Shrain's at peace, anyway--I did all that's proper. Well, when I came down the pass to the plain--and I had to pay toll at the southern end, that was new--it was late afternoon already and I thought, 'I shan't get to Kabin tonight--I'll go to old S'marr Torruin, him that used to breed the prize bulls when my father was alive, that's it.' When I got there--only myself and a couple of fellows--why, you never saw a place so much changed: servants by the bushel, everything made of silver, all the women in silk and jewels. S'marr was just the same, though, and he remembered me all right. When we were drinking together after dinner I said, 'Bulls seem to be paying well.' 'Oh,' says he, 'haven't you heard? They made me governor of the Foothills and warden of the Gelt pass.' How on earth did that come about?' I asked. 'Well,' says he, 'you've got to watch out to jump the right way in a time of trouble--it's a case of win all or lose all. After I'd heard what happened at the battle of the Foothills, I knew these Ortelgans were bound to take Bekla: it stood to reason--they were meant to win. I could see it plain, but no one else seemed able to. I went straight to their generals myself--caught 'em up as they were marching south across the plain to Bekla--and promised them all the help I could give. You see, the night before the battle the best half of Gel-Ethlin's army had been sent to Kabin to repair the dam--and if that wasn't the finger of God, what was? The rains had just begun, but all the same, those Beklans at Kabin were in the Ortelgans' rear as they marched south. It's not the sort of risk any general can feel happy about. I made it impossible for them to move--took my fellows out and destroyed three bridges, sent false information to Kabin, intercepted their messengers--' 'Lord,' says I to S'marr, 'what a gamble to take on the Ortelgans!' 'Not at all,' says S'marr. 'I can tell when lightning's going to strike, and I don't need to know exactly where. I tell you, the Ortelgans were meant to win. That half-army of poor old Gel-Ethlin's simply broke up--never fought again. They marched out of Kabin in the rain, turned back again, went on half-rations--then there was mutiny, wholesale desertion. By the time a messenger got through from Santil-ke-Erketlis, a mutineers' faction was in command and they nearly hanged the poor fellow. A lot of that was my doing, and didn't I let this King Crendrik fellow know it, too? That was how the Ortelgans came to make me governor of the Foothills and warden of the Gelt pass, my boy, and very lucrative it is.' All of a sudden S'marr looks up at me. 'Have you come home to claim the family property?' he asks. 'That's it,' I said. 'Well,' says he, 'I never liked your brother--griping, hard-fisted curmudgeon--but you're all right. They're short of a governor in Kabin. There was a foreigner there until recently--name of Orcad, formerly in the Beklan service. He understood the reservoir, you see, and that's more than the Ortelgans do--but he's just been murdered. Now you're a local lad, so you won't get murdered, and the Ortelgans like local men as long as they feel they can trust them. After what's happened they trust me, naturally, and if I put in a word with General Zelda you'll probably be appointed.' Well, the long and short of it was, I agreed to make it worth S'marr's while to speak for me, and that's how I come to be governor of Kabin."
"I see. And you commune with the reservoir from the profound depths of your aquatic knowledge, do you?"
"I've no idea how to look after a reservoir, but while I'm here I mean to find someone who has and take him back with me, that's it."
"And is he up here now for the Council, your charming old bull-breeding chum?"
"S'marr? Not he--he's sent his deputy. He's no fool."
"How long have you been governor of Kabin?"
"About three days. I tell you, all this happened very recently. General Zelda was recruiting in those parts, as it happened, and S'marr saw him the next day. I'd not been back home more than one night when he sent an officer to tell me I was appointed governor and order me to come to Bekla in person. So here I am, Elleroth, you see, and the first person I run into is you!"
"Elleroth Ban--bow three times before addressing me."
"Well, we have become an exalted pair, that's it. Ban of Sarkid? How long have you been Elleroth Ban?"
"Oh, a few years now. My poor father died a while back. But tell me, how much do you know about the new, modern Bekla and its humane and enlightened rulers?"
At this moment two of the other delegates overtook them, talking earnestly in Katrian Chistol, the dialect of eastern Terekenalt. One, as he passed, turned his head and continued to stare unsmilingly over his shoulder for some moments before resuming his conversation.
"You ought to be more careful," said Mollo. "Remarks like that shouldn't be made at all in a place like this, let alone overheard."
"My dear fellow, how much Yeldashay do you suppose those cultivated pumpkins understand? Their bodies scarcely cover their minds with propriety. Their oafishness is indecently exposed."
"You never know. Discretion--that's one thing I've learned and I'm alive to prove it."
"Very well, we will indulge your desire for privacy, chilly though it may be to do so. Yonder is a fellow with a boat, yo ho, and no doubt he has his price, like everyone in this world."
Addressing the boatman, as he had Sheldra, in excellent Beklan, with scarcely a trace of Yeldashay accent, Elleroth gave him a ten-meld piece, fastened his fox-fur cloak at the throat, turned up the deep collar round the back of his head and stepped into the boat, followed by Mollo.
As the man rowed them out toward the center of the lake and the choppy wavelets began to set up a regular, hollow slapping under the bow, Elleroth remained silent, staring intently across at the grazing land that extended from the southern side of the king's house, around the western shore of the lake and on to the northern slopes of Crandor in t
he distance.
"Lonely, isn't it?" he said at last, still speaking in Yeldashay.
"Lonely?" replied Mollo. "Hardly that."
"Well, let us say relatively unfrequented--and that ground's nice and smooth--no obstacles. Good." He paused, smiling at Mollo's frowning incomprehension.
"But to resume where we were so poignantly interrupted. How much do you know about Bekla and these bear-bemused river boys from the Telthearna?"
"I tell you--next to nothing. I've had hardly any time to find out."
"Did you know, for example, that after the battle in the Foothills, five and a half years ago, they didn't bury the dead--neither their own nor Gel-Ethlin's? They left them for the wolves and the kites."
"I'm not surprised to hear it. I've been on that field, as I told you, and I've never been so glad to leave anywhere. My two fellows were almost crazy with fear--and that was in daylight. I did what had to be done for Shrain's sake and came away quick."
"Did you see anything?"
"No, it was just what we all felt. Oh, you mean the remains of the dead? No--we didn't stray off the road, you see, and that was cleared soon after the battle by men who came down from Gelt to do it, so I heard."
"Yes. The Ortelgans, of course, didn't bother. But it wasn't really to be expected that they would, was it?"
"By the time the battle was won the rains had set in and night was falling, wasn't that it? They were desperate to get on to Bekla."