Kelderek shrugged his shoulders, keeping his face expressionless.
"I suppose she can choose for herself when she's ready?"
"Not in Zeray. But anyway that problem's solved now. We must set off for Kabin and she'll come with us, no doubt. Your Ortelgan priestess too, if she wants to live."
"How soon? She's in a high fever."
"Then we can't wait for her," said Thrild.
"I'll take her north when she recovers," said Kelderek. "I've told you why it's impossible for me to go to Kabin, either now or later."
"If you went north you'd wander until you were killed. You'd never get through the gap at Linsho."
"You said I'd brought you good news. Isn't there anything you can do to help me?"
"Not by staying here. If the Ikats will listen to us, we'll try to persuade them to send for your Ortelgan priestess, and you can try your luck with them when they come. What more do you expect? This is Zeray."
45 In Zeray
"THE DAMNED COWARDS," said Melathys, "and the Baron not forty days in his grave! If I were General Santil I'd send them back to Zeray and hang them on the shore. They could perfectly well hold this place for six days. That would be more than enough time for someone to get through to Kabin and come back with a hundred soldiers. But no, they'd rather run."
Kelderek stood with his back to her, staring out into the little courtyard. He said carefully, "As things are, you ought to go with them."
She did not answer and after some moments he turned around. She was standing smiling, waiting to meet his eyes. "Not I. It's seldom indeed that a second chance is offered to someone as undeserving as I. I don't intend to desert the Tuginda a second time, believe me."
"If you reach Kabin with Farrass and Thrild you'll be safe. Once they're gone you won't be safe here. You must think of that very seriously."
"I don't want safety on those terms. Did you think that what I said at the Baron's tomb was hysterical?"
He was about to speak again when she went to the door and called for Ankray.
"Ankray, the Baron's men are leaving Zeray for Kabin tonight or tomorrow. They're hoping to reach the army of General Santil-ke-Erketlis. I think you should go with them, for your own safety."
"You're going, then, saiyett?"
"No, Lord Kelderek and I will be staying with the Tuginda."
Ankray looked from one to another and scratched his head.
"Safety, saiyett? The Baron always said that General Erketlis would be coming here one day, didn't he? That's why he sent that young fellow Elstrit--"
"General Erketlis may still come here, if we're lucky. But Farrass and the rest prefer to go now and seek him wherever he is. You're free to go with them and it will probably be the safest thing to do."
"If you'll excuse my saying so, saiyett, I doubt it, among those men. I'd rather stay here, among Ortelgan people, if you understand me. The Baron, he always used to say that General Santil would come, so I reckon he will."
"It's as you like, Ankray," said Kelderek. "But if he doesn't, then Zeray's going to become even more dangerous for all of us."
"Why, sir, the way I see it, if that happens, we'll just have to set out for Kabin on our own account. But the Baron, he wouldn't want me to be leaving Ortelgan priestesses to shift for themselves, like, even with you to help them."
"You're not afraid to stay, then?"
"No, sir," answered Ankray. "The Baron and me, we was never afraid of anyone in Zeray. The Baron, he always used to say, 'Ankray, you just remember you've got a good conscience and they haven't.' He usually--"
"Good," said Kelderek, "I'm glad that's what you want. But do you think," he asked, turning to Melathys, "that they may try to force you to join them?"
She stared at him solemnly, wide-eyed, so that he saw again the girl who had drawn Bel-ka-Trazet's sword and asked him what it was.
"They can try to persuade me if they like, but I doubt they will. You see, I've caught the Tuginda's fever, haven't I, which shows that it must be very infectious? That's what they'll be told, if they come here."
"Pray God you won't catch it in all earnest," said Kelderek. He realized with a blaze of passionate admiration that, despite all she knew of Zeray, her decision to remain, taken with delight rather than determination, was affording her not fear, but an elated joy in the recovery of her self-respect. To her, the appearance of the Tuginda in the graveyard had seemed first a miracle, then an act of incredible love and generosity; and though she now knew the true story of the Tuginda's journey, nevertheless she still attributed it to God. Like a disgraced soldier whose commander has suddenly called him out of the lockup, given him back his arms and told him to go and retrieve his good name on the battlefield, she was soaring upon the realization that enemies, danger and even death were of small account compared with the misery of guilt which, against all expectation, had been removed from her. Despite what Kelderek had seen at the Baron's tomb, he had not until now believed that all she had suffered in Zeray had caused her less grief than the memory of her flight from Ortelga.
The Tuginda seemed no better, being still tormented by a continual restlessness. As evening fell Ankray remained with her, while Melathys and Kelderek used the last of the daylight to make sure of the locks and shutter bars and to check food and weapons. The Baron, Melathys explained, had had certain sources of supply which he had kept secret even from his followers, either he or Ankray going now and then by night to bring back a goat or half a sheep from a village up river. The house was still fairly well supplied with meat. There was also a good deal of salt and a certain amount of the rough wine.
"Did he pay?" asked Kelderek, looking with satisfaction at the haunches in the brine tubs and reflecting that he had never expected to feel gratitude toward Bel-ka-Trazet.
"Chiefly by guaranteeing that the villagers would not be molested from Zeray. But he was always very ingenious in finding or making things we could trade. We made arrows, for instance, and needles out of bone. I have certain skills, too. Every postulant on Quiso has to carve her own rings, but I can carve wood still better now, believe me. Do you remember this? I've taken to using it."
It was Bel-ka-Trazet's knife. Kelderek recognized it instantly, drew it from the sheath and held the point close before his eyes. She watched, puzzled, and he laughed.
"I've reason to remember it almost bet
ter than any man on Ortelga, I dare say. I saw both it and Lord Shardik for the first time on one and the same day--that day when I first saw you. I'll tell you the story at supper. Had he a sword?"
"Here it is. And a bow. I still have my bow too. I hid it soon after I reached Zeray, but I recovered it when I joined the Baron. My priestess's knife was stolen, of course, but the Baron gave me another--a dead man's, I dare say, though he never told. It's rough workmanship, but the blade's good. Now over here, let me show you--"
She was like a girl looking over her trousseau. He remembered how once, years before, having built a cage trap for birds, he had found a hawk in it. There was no market for hawks--the factor from Bekla had wanted bright feathers and cageable birds--and, having no use for it himself, he had released it, watching as it flashed up and out of sight, full of joy at the recovery of its hard, dangerous life. Having walked through Zeray that afternoon, he now believed all that he had been told of sudden, unpredictable danger, of lust and murder moving below the surface of half-starved torpor like alligators through the water of some fetid creek. Yet Melathys, who had better reason than any to know of these things, plainly felt herself in a state of grace so immune that they had for the moment, at all events, no power to make her afraid. It must be for him to see that she took no foolish risks.
The Tuginda still lay in her arid sleep; a sleep comfortless as a choked and smoking fire, of which she seemed less the beneficiary than the victim. Her face was passive and sunken as Kelderek had never seen it, the flesh of her arms and throat slack and wasted. Ankray boiled a salt meat soup and cooled it, but they could do no more than moisten her lips, for she did not swallow. When Kelderek suggested that he should go out and find some milk, Ankray only shook his head without raising his eyes from the ground.