"It's no matter what I thought."
Elleroth searched for a moment among a bundle of scrolls and letters lying beside him on the bench.
"Is that your seal?" he asked, holding out a paper.
Kelderek looked at it. "Yes."
"What is this paper?"
Kelderek made no reply.
"I will tell you what it is," said Elleroth. "It is a license issued by yourself in Bekla to a man called Nigon, authorizing him to enter Lapan and take up a quota of children as slaves. I have several similar papers here."
The hatred and contempt of the men standing nearby was like the oppression of snow unfallen from a winter sky. Kelderek, hunched upon the stool, was shaking as though with bitter cold. The scent of the planella came and went, evanescent as the squeaking of bats at twilight.
"Well," said Elleroth briskly, getting up from the bench, "I have recovered this trinket, Crendrik, and you have nothing to tell us, it seems; so I can resume my work and you had better return to your business of seeking the bear."
Tan-Rion drew in his breath sharply. The young Yeldashay officer started forward.
"My lord--"
Again Elleroth raised his hand.
"I have my reasons, Dethrin. Surely if anyone has the right to spare this man, it is I?"
"But, my lord," protested Tan-Rion, "this evil man--the priest-king of Shardik himself--Providence has delivered him into our hands--the people--"
"You may take my word for it that neither he nor the bear can harm us now. And if it is merely a matter of retribution that is troubling you, perhaps you will persuade the people to forgo it, as a favor to me. I have certain information which leads me to conclude that we should spare this man's life."
His mild words were spoken with a firm directness which plainly admitted of no further argument. His officers were silent.
"You will go eastward, Crendrik," said Elleroth. "That will suit us both, since not only is it the opposite direction from Bekla, but it also happens to be the direction your bear has taken."
From the square outside could now be heard a growing hubbub--murmuring broken by angry shouts, raucous, inarticulate cries and the sharper voices of soldiers trying to control a crowd.
"We will give you food and fresh shoes," said Elleroth, "and that is as much as I can do for you. I can see well enough that you are in poor shape, but if you stay here you will be torn to pieces. You will not have forgotten that Mollo came from Kabin. Now understand this plainly. If ever again you allow yourself to fall into the hands of this army, you will be put to death. I repeat, you will be put to death. I should not be able to save you again." He turned to the guard commander. "See that he has an escort as far as the ford of the Vrako, and tell the crier to give out that it is my personal wish that no one should touch him."
He nodded to the soldiers, who once more grasped Kelderek by the arms. They had already begun to lead him away when suddenly he wrenched himself about.
"Where is Lord Shardik?" he cried. "What did you mean--he cannot harm you now?"
One of the soldiers jerked back his head by the hair, but Elleroth, motioning them to let him go, faced him once more.
"We have not hurt your bear, Crendrik," he said. "We had no need."
Kelderek stared at him, trembling. Elleroth paused a moment. The noise of the crowd now filled the garden and the two soldiers, waiting, looked at one another sidelong.
"Your bear is dying, Crendrik," said Elleroth deliberately. "One of our patrols came upon it in the hills three days ago and followed it eastward until it waded the upper Vrako. They were in no doubt. Other news has reached me also--never mind how--that you and the bear came alive from the Streels of Urtah. Of what befell you at the Streels you know more than I, but that is why your life is spared. I have no part in blood required of God. Now go."
In the steward's room, one of the soldiers threw back his head and spat in Kelderek's face.
"You dirty bastard," he said, "burned his mucking hand off, did you?"
"And now he says we're to let you go," said the other soldier. "You damned, rotten Ortelgan slave trader! Where's his son, eh? You saw to that, did you? 'You're the one that told Genshed what he had to do?"
"Where's his son?" repeated the first soldier, as Kelderek made no reply but stood with bent head, looking down at the floor.
"Didn't you hear me?" Taking Kelderek's chin in his hand, he forced it up and stared contemptuously into his eyes.
"I heard you," mouthed Kelderek, his words distorted by the soldier's grip, "I don't know what you mean."
Both the soldiers gave short, derisive laughs.
"Oh, no," said the second soldier. "You're not the man who brought back slave trading to Bekla, I suppose?"
Kelderek nodded mutely.
"Oh, you admit that much? And of course you don't know that Lord Elleroth's eldest son disappeared more than a month ago, and that our patrols have been searching for him from Lapan to Kabin? No, you don't know anything, do you?"
He raised his open hand, jeering as Kelderek flinched away.
"I know nothing of that," replied Kelderek. "But why do you blame the boy's disappearance on a slave trader? A river, a wild beast--"
The soldier stared at him for a moment and then, apparently convinced that he really knew no more than he had said, answered, "We know who's got the lad. It's Genshed of Terekenalt."
"I
never heard of him. There's no man of that name licensed to trade in Beklan provinces."
"You'd make the stars angry," replied the soldier. "Everyone's heard of him, the dirty swine. No, like enough he's not licensed in Bekla--even you wouldn't license him. I dare say. But he works for those that are licensed--if you call that work."
"And you say this man has taken the Ban of Sarkid's heir?"
"Half a month ago, down in eastern Lapan, we captured a trader called Nigon, together with three overseers and forty slaves. I suppose you'll tell us you didn't know Nigon either?"
"No, I remember Nigon."
"He told General Erketlis that Genshed had got the boy and was making north through Tonilda. Since then patrols have searched up through Tonilda as far as Thettit. If Genshed was ever there, he's not there now."
"But how could you expect me to know this?" cried Kelderek. "If what you say is true, I don't know why Elleroth spared my life any more than you do."
"He spared you, maybe," said the first soldier. "He's a fine gentleman, isn't he? But we're not, you slave-trading bastard. I reckon if anyone knows where Genshed is, it's you. What were you doing in these parts, and how else could he have got clean away?"
He picked up a heavy tally-stick lying on the steward's table and laughed as Kelderek flung up his arm.
"Stop that!" rapped the guard commander, appearing in the doorway. "You heard what One-Hand said. You're to let him alone!"
"If they will let him alone, sir," answered the soldier. "Listen to them!" He pulled a stool to the high window, stood on it and looked out. The noise of the crowd had if anything increased, though no words were distinguishable. "If they will let him alone, One-Hand's the only man they'd do it for."
Sitting down apart, Kelderek shut his eyes and tried to collect his thoughts. A man may by chance overhear words which he knows to have been spoken with no malice toward himself, perhaps not even with reference to his own affairs, but which nevertheless, if they are true, import his personal misfortune or misery--words, perhaps, of a commercial venture foundered, of an army's defeat, of another man's fall or a woman's loss of honor. Having heard, he stands bewildered, striving by any means to set aside, to find grounds for disbelieving the news, or at least for rejecting the conclusion he has drawn, like an unlucky card, for his own personal fortune. But the very fact that the words did not refer directly to him serves more than anything else to corroborate what he fears. Despite the desperate antics of his brain, he knows how more than likely it is that they are true. Yet still there is a faint possibility that they may not be. And so he remains, like a chess player who cannot bear to lose, still searching the position for the least chance of escape. So Kelderek sat, turning and turning in his mind the words which Elleroth had spoken. If Shardik were dying--but Shardik could not be dying. If Shardik were dying--if Shardik were dying, what business had he himself left in the world? Why did the sun still shine? What was now the intent of God? Sitting so rapt and still that at length his guards' attention wandered and they ceased to watch him, he contemplated the blank wall as though seeing there the likeness of a greater, incomprehensible void, stretching from pole to pole.