"Were you happy?"

"Oh, yes. To have a home and wise, good people to love you and look after you, after being part of the stock of a slave farm--you can't imagine what that meant. It's not incurable, you know--the harm done to an ill-treated child. Everyone was kind --I was spoiled. I got on well--I was clever, you see--and I grew up to believe that I was God's gift to Quiso. That was why, when the time came, I wasn't fit for any real self-sacrifice, as poor Rantzay was." She was silent for a little and then said, "But I've learned since then."

"Are you sorry that you'll never go back to Quiso?"

"Not now. I told you, it's been made plain to me--"

He interrupted her. "Not too late?"

"Oh, yes," she answered, "it's always too late." She got up and, passing close to him on her way to the Tuginda's room, bent down so that her lips just brushed his ear. "No, it's never too late." A few moments afterward she called to him to come and help the Tuginda to a seat by the fire, while she made the bed and swept the room.

During the latter part of the afternoon the sun became cooler and the courtyard shady. They sat outside, near the fig tree by the wall, Melathys on a bench under the Tuginda's open window, Kelderek on the coping of the well. After a time, disturbed in memory by the low chuckling and whispering sounds deep in the shaft, he rose and began to gather up the clothes she had spread during the morning.

"Some of these haven't dried, Melathys."

She stretched lazily, arching her back and lifting her face to the sky.

"They will."

"Not by tonight."

"M'mm. Fuss, fuss."

"I'll spread them on the roof for you, if you like. It's still sunny there."

"No way up."

"In Bekla every house had steps up to the roof."

"In Bekla town the pigs all fly, and the wine in the river goes gurgling by--"

Looking up the fifteen or sixteen feet of the wall, he picked a way, scrambled up the rough stonework, got both hands on the parapet and pulled himself over. Inside there was a drop of about a foot to the flat, stone roof. He tried it cautiously, but it was solid enough and he stepped down. The stones were warm in the sun.

"Throw the clothes up and I'll spread them."

"It must be dirty."

"A broom, then. Can you--"

He broke off, looking toward the river.

"What is it?" called Melathys, with a touch of anxiety.

Kelderek did not answer and she asked again, more urgently.

"Men on the opposite side of the river."

"What?" She stared up at him incredulously. "That's a desert shore, no village for forty miles, or so I've always been told. I've never seen a man there since I've been here."

"Well, you can now."

"What are they doing?"

"I can't make out. They look like soldiers. People this side seem just as much surprised as you."

"Help me up, Kelderek."

After a little difficulty she climbed high enough for him to grasp her wrists and pull her up. Stepping on the roof, she immediately knelt down behind the parapet and motioned him to copy her.

"A month ago we might have stood openly on a roof in Zeray. I don't think I would now."

Together they looked eastward. Along the Zeray waterfront the rabble of loiterers had gathered in groups, talking together and pointing across the river. On the far shore, about half a mile from where they were kneeling on the roof, a band of perhaps fifty men could be seen, intent on some business of their own among the rocks.

"That man on the left--he's giving orders, do you see?"

"But what is it they're carrying?"

"Stakes. Look at that nearer one--it must be as long as the center-pole of an Ortelgan hut. I suppose they're going to build a hut--but whatever for?"

"Heaven knows--but one thing's certain, it can't be anything to do with Zeray. No one's ever yet crossed that strait. The current's far too strong."

"They're soldiers, aren't they?"

"I think so--or else a hunting expedition."

"In a desert? Look, they've started digging. And those are two great mauls they've got there. So when they've sunk those stakes deep enough to be able to get at the heads, they must be going to drive them in further."

"For a hut?"

"Well, let's wait and see. They'll probably--"

He stopped as she laid a hand on his arm and drew him back from the parapet.

"What is it?"

She lowered her voice. "Possibly nothing. But there was a man watching us from below--one of your friends of last night, I dare say. It might be better to go down now, in case he has ideas of breaking in. Anyway, the less attention we attract the better, and out of sight out of mind's a good maxim in this place."

After he had helped her down, he closed and secured the shutters of the few windows on the outer wall, brought Ankray's heavy spear into the courtyard and remained listening for some time. All was quiet, however, and at length he returned indoors. The Tuginda was awake and he sat down near the foot of the bed, content to listen while she and Melathys talked of old days on Quiso. Once the Tuginda spoke of Ged-la-Dan, but though Melathys evidently understood well enough the terms she used in describing his fruitless attempts to reach the island, Kelderek could make nothing of them.

Nor, he thought, was there any reason why he should. Melathys had said that she would never return there and certainly he would not. Magic, mysticism, the fulfillment of prophecies and the search for meanings beyond those of hearth and home--it was little enough he had gained from them, unless indeed he could count his hard-won experience. But though he himself was disillusioned, it seemed from what she had said that Melathys was not. It was clear enough, too, that the Tuginda thought of her as healed or redeemed--if those terms had any meaning--in some sense that did not apply to himself. No doubt, he thought, this was because Melathys had begged her forgiveness. Why had he been unable to do so?

Soon it would be dusk. Still deep in his thoughts, he left the women together and went out into the courtyard to wait for Ankray.

Tags: Richard Adams Beklan Empire Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net