Shardik

blood-smeared hunter himself.

'So. Kelderek Play-with-the-Children. You have little to show and less than usual. Where are you hurt?' 'The shoulder, shendron: and the arm is stiff and painful.' 'You look like a man in a stupor. Are you feverish?' The hunter made no reply. 'I asked, 'Are you feverish?' ' He shook his head. 'What caused the wound?'

Kelderek hesitated, then shook his head once more and remained silent,

'You simpleton, do you suppose I am asking you for the sake of gossip? I have to learn everything – you know that. Was it a man or an animal that gave you that wound?' 'I fell and injured myself.' The shendron waited. 'A leopard pursued me,' added Kelderek.

The shendron burst out impatiently. 'Do you think you are telling tales now to children on the shore? Am I to keep asking 'And what came next?' Tell me what happened. Or would you prefer to be sent to the High Baron, to say that you refused to tell?'

Kelderek sat on the edge of the wooden pier, looking down and stirring a stick in the dark-green water below. At last the shendron said, 'Kelderek, I know you are considered a simple fellow, with your 'Cat Catch a Fish' and all the rest of it. Whether you are indeed so simple I cannot tell. But whether or not, you know well enough that every hunter who goes out has to tell all he knows upon return. Those are Bel-ka-Trazet's orders. Has the fire driven a leopard to Ortelga? Did you meet with strangers? What is the state of the western end of the island? These are the things I have to learn.' Kelderek trembled where he sat but still said nothing.

'Why,' said the net-mender, speaking for the first time, 'you know he's a simpleton – Kelderek Zenzuata – Kelderek Play-with-the-Children. He went hunting – he hurt himself – he's returned with littl to show. Can't we leave it at that? Who wants the bother of taking him up to the High Baron?'

The shendron, an older man, frowned. 'I am not here to be trifled with. The island may be full of all manner of savage beasts; of men, too, perhaps. Why not? And this man you believe to be a simpleton – he may be deceiving us. With whom has he spoken today? And did they pay him to keep silent?'

'But if he were deceiving us,' said the net-mender, 'would he not come with a tale prepared? Depend upon it, he -' The hunter stood up, looking tensely from one to the other.

'I am deceiving no one: but I cannot tell you what I have seen today.'

The shendron and his companion exchanged glances. In the evening quiet, a light breeze set the water clop-clopping under the platform and from somewhere inland sounded a faint call, 'Yasta! The firewood!'

'What is this?' said the shendron. 'You are making difficulties for me, Kelderek, but worse – far worse – for yourself.'

'I cannot tell you what I have seen,' repeated the hunter, with a kind of desperation.

The shendron shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, Taphro, since it seems there's no curing this foolishness, you'd better take him up to the Sindrad. But you are a great fool. Kelderek. The High Baron's anger is a storm that many men have failed to survive before now.' 'This I know. God's will must be done.'

The shendron shook his head. Kelderek, as though in an attempt to be reconciled to him, laid a hand on his shoulder; but the other shook it off impatiently and returned in silence to his watch over the river. Taphro, scowling now, motioned the hunter to follow him up the bank.

The town that covered the narrow, eastern end of the island was fortified on the landward side by an intricate defensive system, part natural and part artificial, that ran from shore to shore. West of the zoan tree, on the further side from the town, four lines of pointed stakes extended from the water-side into the woods. Inland, the patches of diicker jungle formed obstacles capable of little improvement, though even here the living creepers had been pruned and trained into almost impenetrable screens, one behind another. In the more open parts thorn- bushes had been planted – trazada, curlspike and the terrible ancottlia, whose poison burns and irritates until men tear their own flesh with their nails. Steep places had been made steeper and at one point the outfall of a marsh had been damned to form a shallow lake – shrunk at this time of year – in which small alligators, caught on the mainland, had been set free to grow and become dangerous. Along the outer edge of the line lay the so-called 'Dead Belt', about eighty yards broad, which was never entered except by those whose task it was to maintain it. Here were hidden trip-ropes fastened to props holding up great logs; concealed pits filled with pointed stakes – one contained snakes; spikes in the grass; and one or two open, smooth-looking paths leading to enclosed places, into which arrows and other missiles-could be poured from platforms constructed among the trees above. The Belt was divided by rough palisades, so that advancing enemies would find lateral movement difficult and discover themselves committed to emerge at points where they could be awaited. The entire line and its features blended so naturally with the surrounding jungle that a stranger, though he might, here and there, perceive that men had been at work, could form little idea of its full extent. This remarkable closure of an open flank, devised and carried out during several years by the High Baron, Bel-ka-Trazet, had never yet been put to the proof. But, as Bel-ka-Trazet himself had perhaps foreseen, the labour of making it and the knowledge that it was there had created among the Ortelgans a sense of confidence and security that was probably worth as much as the works themselves. The line not only protected the town but made it a great deal harder for anyone to leave it without the High Baron's knowledge.

Kelderek and Taphro, turning their backs on the Belt, made their way towards the town along a narrow path between the hemp fields. Here and there women were carrying up water from among the reeds, or manuring ground already harvested and gleaned. At this hour there were few workers, however, for it was nearly supper time. Not far away, beyond the trees, threads of smoke were curling into the evening sky and with them, from somewhere on the edge of the huts, rose the song of a woman: 'He came, he came by night. I wore red flowers in my hair. I have left my lamp alight, my lamp is burning. Senandril na kora, senandril na ro.'

There was an undisguised warmth and satisfaction in the voice. Kelderek glanced at Taphro, jerked his head in the direction of the song, and smiled. 'Aren't you afraid?' asked Taphro in a surly tone. The grave, preoccupied look returned to Kelderek's eyes.

'To go before the High Baron and say that you persisted in refusing to tell the shendron what you know? You must be mad I Why be such a fool?'

'Because this is no matter for concealment or lying. God -' he broke off.

Taphro made no reply, but merely held out his hand for Kelderek's weapons – knife and bow. The hunter handed them to him without a word.

They came to the first huts, with their cooking, smoke and refuse smells. Men were returning from the day's work and women, standing at their doors, were calling to children or gossiping with neighbours. Though one or two looked curiously at Kelderek trudging acquiescently beside the shendron's messenger, none spoke to him or called out to ask where they were going. Suddenly a child, a boy perhaps seven or eight years old, ran up and took his hand. The hunter stopped. 'Kelderek,' asked the child, 'are you coming to play this evening?'

Kelderek hesitated. 'Why – I can't say. No, Sarin, I don't think I shall be able to come this evening.'

'Why not?' said the child, plainly disappointed. 'You've hurt your shoulder – is that it?'

'There's something I've got to go and tell the High Baron,' replied Kelderek simply. Another, older boy, who had joined them, burst out laughing. 'And I have to see the Lord of Belda before dawn – a matter of life and death. Kelderek, don't tease us. Don't you want to play tonight?'

'Come on, can't you?' said Taphro impatiently, shuffling his feet in the dust.

'No, it's the truth,' said Kelderek, ignoring him. 'I'm on my way to see the High Baron. But I'll be back: either tonight or – well, another night, I suppose.' He turned away, but the boys trotted beside him as he walked on.

'We were playing this afternoon,' said the little boy. 'We were playing 'Cat Catch a Fish'. I got the fish home twice.' 'Well done' said the hunter, smiling down at him.

'Be off with you!' cried Taphro, making as though to strike at them. 'Come on – get out!' You great dunder- headed fool,' he added to Kelderek, as the boys ran off. 'Playing games with children at your age!'

'Good night!' called Kelderek after them. 'The good night you pray for – who knows?'

They waved to him and were gone among the smoky huts. A man passing by spoke to Kelderek but he made no reply, only walking on abstractedly, his eyes on the ground.

At length, after crossing a wide area of rope-walks, the two approached a group of larger huts standing in a rough semi-circle not far from the eastern point and its broken causeway. Between these, trees had been planted, and the sound of the river mingled with the evening breeze and the movement of the leaves to give a sense of refreshing coolness after the hot, dry day. Here, not only women were at work. A number of men, who seemed by their appearance and occupations to be both servants and craftsmen, were trimming arrows, sharpening stakes and repairing bows, spears and axes. A burly smith, who had just finished for the day, was climbing out of his forge in a