Shardik

approximately right, thought Siristrou, except that this was no play. They stood looking him up and down, hands on hips. Then one spat on the ground. Siristrou returned their stare, considered smiling and offering his hand, decided against both and bowed coldly. At this, the one who had not spat also bowed, then laid an enormous, dirty hand on his shoulder and said, in what he recognized as excruciating Beklan,

'Ho, yoss, yoss! Nover mind! Nover mind!' And then, with great emphasis, shaking a forefinger, 'You – most – pay!'

Tan-Rion broke in, expostulating in an indignation too fast to be followed. 'Envoys,' Siristrou heard. 'Trade mission – important foreigners – not to be insulted.' And finally, more slowly and emphatically, so that he followed it fully, 'Lord Kelderek will pay you, if you insist. You can cross with us and see him.'

At this the two bandits shrugged their shoulders and conferred. Then one nodded and pointed, remarking, 'Furry roddy,' and both began to lead the way upstream, the native crowd trailing behind as before. They left the shanty town and found themselves once more walking in the empty sand, but now along the waterline beside the river. Siristrou noticed how unnaturally straight and regular this waterline was, and saw also that the edge of the shore had been levelled and paved almost like a road – in some places with stones and elsewhere with thick, round, wooden billets, laid and trodden in side by side. There were numerous prints of ox-hooves. Pointing to these, he shook his head and smiled to Tan-Rion to convey his bewilderment, but the latter only nodded and smiled in reply.

They had not been going very long before they reached their destination. In slack water against the bank lay a flat raft of heavy logs topped with plank decking, some twelve or fourteen feet square and having a pointed bow or cut-water on the side facing out into the stream. There was no rail or parapet of any kind, but down the centre three thick, upright posts were fastened into the logs with wooden struts and crude iron brackets. Bolted to the top of each post was a hinged iron ring and through all three of these a stout rope ran the length of the raft. From the stern it continued to the shore, where it was secured to an iron bar driven into the ground. Before reaching this, however, it passed through a kind of pen or shuttering containing several free-ended stakes, round some of which it was hitched. A panel of this shuttering was open, and three men were straining as they twisted the stake inside to increase tension on the rope. Siristrou, watching as the dripping cable rose little by little out of the water beyond the raft and inched its way back through the rings, realized with something of a shock that it evidently stretched across and downstream to Zeray on the other side – not much less than three-quarters of a mile, as near as he could estimate. It was on this cable that their lives were about to depend. The raft was going to be warped across, with the force of the current at a highly acute angle behind it.

Thyval plucked at his sleeve. 'Excuse me, sir, do they reckon they're going to take us over on that there thing?'

Siristrou looked him in the eye and nodded slowly and gloomily, two or three times.

'Well, the horses won't stand for it, sir, and anyway there ain't the room for them.'

'Not just one horse, do you think, Thyval? These people know nothing whatever of horses and I'd like to arrive with one, if we can.'

'Well, sir, I'd chance it alone, but trouble is, if it's rough – and I reckon it looks real nasty out there – we're all crowded together and there's no rail nor nothing -'

'Yes, yes, of course,' said Siristrou hurriedly, finding the picture too much for his already wambling stomach. 'The best thing will be if you come with me, Thyval, and Baraglat here – you're not afraid, are you, Baraglat? – no, of course not, excellent fellow – and the rest will have to stay here with the horses until tomorrow. I'll come back – heaven knows how, against that current, but I will -and see to everything. Now about the baggage – how can we best divide it? – and some of Tan-Rion's men must be told to stay with ours – we can't leave our people alone with those bandit fellows -and they'll have to be given a hut for stabling – we won't stand for any nonsense – Tan-Rion, one moment, please -'

Metaphysician or no metaphysician, Siristrou was not lacking in decision and practical ability, and his men trusted him. There is much difference between being incapable of doing something and merely disliking having to do it, and King Luin had always been a good, though somewhat unorthodox, picker. In half an hour the baggage had been divided, Tan-Rion had acceded to demand and detailed three reliable Yeldashay, one of whom spoke Declguy, to remain with Siristrou's men and the horses; the Deelguy officers had been told what they were to provide in the way of quarters, and those who were to cross had embarked.

In addition to the travellers there was a crew of six Deelguy labourers, whose task was to stand shoulder to shoulder and haul on the rope. This they set about, chanting rhythmically behind their shanty leader, and the raft, sidling out almost directly downstream, came little by little into the central race.

For Siristrou the crossing was a most nerve-racking experience. Apart from the rope and its ring-crowned stanchions, beside which there was room for only the crew to stand, there was nothing whatever to hold on to as the heavy raft, with the current almost full astern, danced like the lid of a boiling pot. He crouched on the baggage, holding his knees and trying to set a reassuring example to his men, who were plainly terrified. Tan-Rion stood beside him, legs astride, balancing himself as the deck tilted and swung. The water poured across the planking as though from overturned buckets. What with the chanting, which was maintained steadily, and the ceaseless knocking and blitter-blatter of the river under the timbers, talk was possible only intermittently and by shouting. As they got well out, a cold wind began to throw up spray. Siristrou, soaked, slapped himself with his arms to keep from shivering, in case anyone should think he was afraid – which he was. Even after it had become plain that they were going to complete the crossing safely and suffer nothing worse than discomfort, he could not keep himself from biting his lip and tensing at every lurch as he watched the shores moving up and down on cither side, so horribly far away. One of the Zakalon party, a lad of sixteen, was sick but, with a boy's ashamed indignation, threw off Siristrou's comforting arm, muttering, 'I'm all right, sir,' between his chattering teeth. 'What is it they're singing?' Siristrou shouted to Tan-Rion.

'Oh, the shanty-man just makes it up – anything that keeps them going. Actually I have heard this one before, I believe.'

'Shardik a moldra konvay gow! chanted the leader, as his crew bent forward and took a fresh grip. 'Shar-dik! Shar-dikl' responded the crew, giving two heaves. 'Shardik a lomda, Shardik a pronto!' 'Shar-dik! Shar-dik!'

'What docs it mean?' asked Siristrou, listening carefully to the reiterated syllables.

'Well, let's see; it means 'Shardik gave his life for the children, Shardik found them, Shardik saved them' – you know, anything that suits their rhythm.' 'Shardik – who's he?'

Another terrific lurch. Tan-Rion grinned, raised either hand in a gesture of helplessness and shrugged his shoulders. A few moments later he shouted, 'Nearly there!'

Gradually they came into slack water. Over the last hundred yards the men stopped chanting and pulled the raft in more easily. A coiled rope was thrown from the landing stage and a few moments later they had touched. Siristrou gripped an offered hand and for the first time in his life stepped ashore on the right bank of the Varin.

The raft had been drawn into a kind of dock made of stout stakes driven into the shallows. It was the sight of this from the opposite bank which had perplexed him earlier that morning. As the Deelguy labourers clambered to shore six or seven boys, the eldest no more than about thirteen years old, jumped aboard, unloaded the baggage and then, having opened the hinged rings, released the rope and began poling the raft down the dock towards a similar rope at the further end. Siristrou, turning away, saw Tan-Rion pointing back at himself and his party. He was standing a little way off, talking to a black-haired youth who seemed to have some kind of authority on the landing- stage, for he suddenly interrupted Tan-Rion to call out an order to the children aboard the raft. A crowd was gathering. Those working on the half-finished, warehouse-like sheds near by had apparently downed tools to come and stare. Siristrou stared back with a certain perplexity, for most of them were mere boys. However, he had no further opportunity to speculate, for Tan-Rion came up to him, together with the black-haired youth, who bowed rather formally and offered his hand. He was ugly, even forbidding, with a cast in one eye and a birthmark across his face; but his manner, as he uttered a few words of greeting, was courteous and welcoming enough. He was wearing some kind of badge or emblem – a bear's head between two corn-sheaves – and Siristrou, unable to understand his Beklan (which did not sound native), smiled, nodded and touched it with his forefinger by way of a friendly gesture.

'This young fellow's in charge of the harbour lads,' said Tan-Rion. 'His name's Kominion, but most of us just call him Shouter. I've sent a man to tell the governor of your arrival and ask for a house to be put at your disposal. As soon as we know where it is, Shouter will get your baggage up there – you can leave it quite safely with him. It'll take a little while, of course, and I'm afraid you may find your quarters rather rough: this is a frontier town, you see.