Shardik

or sold from Ortelga to Ikat. He's mad about trade – he believes in it passionately – he calls it the blood that circulates in the body of the world; and many other terms he has for it – especially when he's drinking this Yeldashay wine. Have some more.' And again she picked up the flagon. 'What is the name of your country?'

'Zakalon. It's very beautiful – the cities are full of flower-gardens. I hope one day you'll visit it, if only you can overcome your reluctance to crossing the strait.'

'Perhaps. It's little enough travelling I've ever done. Why, I've never even been to Bekla, let alone to Ikat- Yeldashay.'

'All the more reason to become the first woman to go to Zakalon. Come and make our ladies jealous. If you like ceremony, you must come for the great – er – midsummer festival, if those are the right words.' 'Yes, they are. Well done! Well, perhaps – perhaps. Tell me, sir-' 'Siristrou – saiyett.' He smiled. He had just remembered 'saiyett'.

'Tell me, U-Siristrou, do you intend to remain here for a few days, or are you going to press straight on to Kabin?'

'Why, that's really for the governor to say. But in the first place, obviously, I shall have to sec to bringing my men and – and beasts over from – from – er – Belda-Brazet -' 'Bel-ka-Trazet.'

'- from Bel-ka-Trazet. And then I myself am not altogether in the best of health after the journey. It will be a few days, I think, before we're ready to start for Kabin. The wilderness and desert were very trying and the men need rest and perhaps a little -I don't know the word – you know, play, drink -' 'Recreation.' 'That's it, recreation. Excuse me, I'll write it down.' Smiling, she watched him write, shaking her head. 'Then if you are here five days from now,' she said, 'you and your men will be able to see our spring festival. It's a very happy occasion – there'll be any amount of – recreation', and a most beautiful ceremony on the shore – at least, it means a lot to us, especially to the children. Shara's Day – that's the time to see the flames of God burning bright as stars.' 'The flames of God?'

'It's a kind of joke of my husband's. He calls the children 'the flames of God'. But I was speaking of the ceremony. They decorate a great wooden raft with flowers and green branches, and then it floats away down the river, burning. Sometimes there may be three or four rafts together. And the children make clay bears and stick them all full of flowers – trepsis and melikon, you know – and then at the end of the day they put them on flat pieces of wood and float them away downstream.' 'Is it some kind of commemoration?'

'Why, yes – it commemorates Lord Shardik and Shara. This year an old and dear friend of ours is making the journey to be here – if all goes well, she'll be arriving in two or three days' time. She taught me, long ago, when I was a child -' 'Not very long ago.'

'Thank you. I like compliments, particularly now I have two children of my own. If you've not been well, I'd certainly advise you to stay, for then you can ask her help. She's the greatest healer in all this country. Indeed, that's partly why she's coming – not only for the festival, but to see our sick children – we always have a number by the end of winter.'

Siristrou was about to ask her more when the governor returned to the room. He had changed his rough clothes for a plain, black robe, embroidered across the breast alone with the bear and corn-sheaves in silver; and this, so severe by contrast with the brilliance of his wife's garment, emphasized his grave, lined features and almost mystic air of composure. Siristrou studied his face as he looked down to pour his wine. This, too, he realized suddenly, was a metaphysician by temperament, even though he might have no fluent speech, no articulate ideas. Curiously, there came into his mind those lines of the Zakalonian poet Mitran which are spoken by the hero Serat to his consort in the time after making love -'I desire nothing, I lack for nothing, I am at the centre of the world, where sorrow is joy.' In a moment, however, the governor looked up, the cups clattered and rang on the tray and the charm was snapped.

Siristrou made a complimentary remark about the wine. The lady excused herself and left them and the governor, inviting him to sit, began at once to speak of trade prospects as a betrothed might speak of his approaching marriage. If Siristrou had expected little or nothing from the hickory constable of a frontier town, he now found himself compelled to think again. The governor's questions fell like arrows. How far away was Zakalon? How many permanent camps or staging-forts would be needed to service a regular trade-route? How could Siristrou be sure that there were no hostile inhabitants of the wilderness? Given that the Telthearna might be used for downstream transport, what about upstream? The language problem – he could, if desired, send forty older children to Zakalon to be educated as guides and interpreters. Children learned more quickly than men; some of his would jump at such a chance. What goods could Zakalon offer? Horses – what exactly were they? He looked puzzled as Siristrou began to explain, and they both became confused over language and ended by laughing as Siristrou tried to draw a horse with his finger in spilt wine. Then he promised the governor that the very next day, on one side of the river or the other, he should see a man ride a horse more than twice as fast as he could run. If that were true, replied the governor, then Zakalon need look no further for wares to offer for some years to come. But what did Siristrou think, quite non-committally, might be the trade value of these horses – making a fair allowance, of course, for the cost and effort of transporting them from Zakalon? They began trying to estimate the equivalent values of consignments of wine, of iron and of products of fine craftsmanship such as that of the robe which he had just adrnircd.

The governor called for more wine and the deranged girl served them, sensing their excitement and smiling like an old friend to see the governor busy and happy. Siristrou drank to Zeray. The governor drank to Zakalon. They congratulated one another on their propitious meeting and went on to envisage fancifully a future in which men would travel as freely as the birds of the air and goods would pass through Zeray from the ends of the earth. The governor obliged Siristrou with a verse of the song which the children had sung, explaining that the tongue was actually his own – Ortelgan – and that the lines were part of a singing game about a cat that caught a fish.

'But as to your journey to Bekla,' said the governor, coming back to reality with something of a bump, 'the road between here and Kabin's not finished yet, you know. Twenty miles of it's sound enough, but the other twenty's still only a muddy track.'

'We shall manage it, don't worry. But I'd like to stay for your festival first – Shara's Day, I believe you call it? Your wife was speaking of it. She told me about the burning raft – for Lord Shardik, isn't it? Also, I think I should benefit by meeting your friend, the wise woman – I've not been well during the journey, and your wife says she's a great healer.' 'The Tuginda?' 'I don't think I heard her – her name. Or is it a title?' 'It's both, in her case.' 'Will she come by the half-finished road you were speaking of?'

'No, by water. We're lucky in this-town to have the river as a highway from the north. Much of the province is still half-wild, though not as wild as it was. We're making new settlements here and there, although we never risk children in the remoter parts. But there's a child village on the road to Kabin: you'll pass through it on your way to Bekla. It's not very big yet – ten old soldiers and their wives are looking after about a hundred children – but we mean to make it bigger as soon as the land's in any state to support more. It's in a safe place, you see.'

'I'm puzzled by the children,' said Siristrou, 'what little I've seen of them. Your town seems full of children – I saw them working at the landing-stage and on your new warehouses. Two-thirds of the inhabitants seem to be children.' 'Two-thirds – that's about right.' 'They're not all the children of people here, then?'

'Oh, no one's told you about the children?' said the governor. 'No, of course, there's hardly been time. They come from many different places – Bekla, Ikat, Thettit, Dari, Ortelga – there are even a few from Terekenalt. They're all children who've lost parents or families for one reason or another. A lot of them have simply been deserted, I'm afraid. They're not compelled to come here, although for many it's better than destitution, I suppose. It's still a hard life, but at least they can feel that we need them and value them. That in itself helps them a great deal.* 'Who sends them?'

'Well, I'm in touch with all manner of people – people who worked for me and used to send me news and so on, in the days when I – er – lived in Bekla: and the Ban of Sarkid has helped us a great deal.'

Siristrou could not help feeling a certain distaste. Apparently this young governor, in his enthusiasm for trade, was developing his province and building up Zeray as a port through the labour of destitute children. 'How long are they compelled to remain?' he asked.

'They're not compelled. They're free to go if they want to, but most of them have nowhere to go.' 'Then you wouldn't say they were slaves?'

'They're slaves when they come here – slaves of neglect, of desertion, sometimes of actual cruelty. We try to free them, but often it's anything but easy.'

Siristrou began to sec a connection between this and certain things which the young woman had said to him