Shardik

'The enemy in Ikat – General Erketlis – General Ged-la-Dan wished to leave everything secure before he set out for Bekla. And now, my Lords, I must leave you – until tomorrow -'

Almost forcing her way past them, she left the garden with clumsy and less-than-becoming haste.

The man with the corn-sheaves tunic strolled on towards the shrubbery by the lake, looking across at the feeding cranes and toying with a silver pomander secured to his belt by a fine gold chain. He shivered in the wind and drew his cloak closer about him, lifting the hem above the damp grass with a kind o? stylized grace almost like that of a girl on a dancing-floor. He had stopped to admire the mauve-stippled, frosty sparkle on the petals of an early-flowering saldis, when someone plucked his sleeve from behind. He looked over his shoulder. The man who had attracted his attention stood looking back at him with a grin. He had a rugged, somewhat battered appearance and the sceptical air of a man who has experienced much, gained advancement and prosperity in a hard school and come to regard both with a certain detachment.

'Mollo!' cried the tall man, opening his arms in a gesture of welcome. 'My dear fellow, what a pleasant surprise! I thought you were in Terekenalt – across the Vrako – in the clouds – anywhere but here. If I weren't half-frozen in this pestilential city I'd be able to show all the pleasure I feel, instead of only half of it.'

Thereupon he embraced Mollo, who appeared a trifle embarrassed but took it in good part; and then, holding him by the hand at arm's length, as though they were dancing some courtly measure, looked him up and down, shaking his head slowly, and continuing to speak as he had commenced, in Yeldashay, the tongue of Ikat and the south.

'Wasting away, wasting away! Obviously full of tribesmen's snapped-off arrow-heads and rot-gut booze from the barracks of beyond. One wonders why the holes made by the former wouldn't drain off some of the latter. But come, tell me how you happen to be here – and how's Kabin and all the jolly water-boys?'

'I'm the governor of Kabin now,' replied Mollo with a grin, 'so the place has come down in the world.'

'My dear fellow, I congratulate you! So the water-rats have engaged the services of a wolf? Very prudent, very prudent.' He half-sang a couple of lines. A jolly old cattle-thief said to his wife, (San, tan, tennerferee) 'I mean to live easy the rest of my life -' 'That's it,' said Mollo with a grin. 'After that little business of the Slave Wars we got mixed up in -' ' When you saved my life -'

'When I saved your life (God help me, I must have been out of my mind), I couldn't stay in Kabin. What was there for me? My father sand-blind in the chimney corner and my elder brother taking damned good care that neither Shrain nor I got anything out of the estate. Shrain raised forty men and joined the Beklan army, but I didn't fancy that and I decided to go further. Arrow-heads and rot-gut – well, you're right, that's about it.' 'Boot, brute and loot, as it were?'

'If you can't steal it, you've got to fight for it, that's it I made myself useful. I finished up as a provincial governor to the king of Deelguy – honest work for a change -' 'In Deelguy, Mollo? Oh, come now -'

'Well, fairly honest, anyway. Plenty of headaches and worries -too much responsibility -'

'I can vividly imagine your feelings on discovering yourself north of the Telthearna, in sole command of Fort Horrible -'

'It was Klamsid province, actually. Well, it's one way of feathering your nest, if you can survive. That was where I was when I heard of Shrain's death – he was killed by the Ortelgans, five years ago now, at the battle of the Foothills, when Gel-Ethlin lost his army. Poor lad! Anyway, about six months back a Deelguy merchant comes up before me for a travel permit – a nasty, slimy brute by the name of Lalloc. When we're alone, 'Are you Lord Mollo,' says he, 'from Kabin of the Waters?' 'I'm Mollo the Governor,' says I, 'and apt to come down heavy on oily flatterers.' 'Why, my lord,' says he, 'there's no flattery.'' 'Flottery, you mean.'

'Well, flottery, then. I can't imitate their damned talk. 'I've come from spending the rainy season at Kabin,' he says, 'and there's news for you. Your elder brother's dead and the property's yours, but no one knew where to find you. You've three months in law to claim it' 'What's that to me?' I thought to myself: but later I got to thinking about it and I knew I wanted to go home. So I appointed my deputy as governor on my own authority, sent the king a message to say what I'd done – and left'

'The inhabitants were heart-broken? The pigs wept real tears in the bedrooms?'

'They may have – I didn't notice. You can't tell them from the inhabitants, anyway. It was a bad journey at that time of year. I nearly drowned, crossing the Telthearna by night.' 'It had to be by night?' 'Well, I was in a hurry, you see.' 'Not to be observed?'

'Not to be observed. I went over the hills by way of Gelt – I wanted to see where Shrain died – say a few prayers for him and make an offering, you know. My God, that's an awful place! Idon't want to talk about it – the ghosts must be thicker than frogs in a marsh. I wouldn't be there at night for all the gold in Bekla. Shrain's at peace, anyway – I did all that's proper. Well, when I came down the pass to the plain – and I had to pay toll at the southern end, that was new – it was late afternoon already and I duiught, 'I shan't get to Kabin tonight – I'll go to old S'marr Torruin, him that used to breed the prize bulls when my father was alive, that's it.' When I got there – onlv myself and a couple of fellows – why, you never saw a place so much changed – servants by the bushel, everything made of silver, all the women in silk and jewels. S'marr was just the same, though, and he remembered me all right. When we were drinking together after dinner I said, 'Bulls seem to be paying well.' 'Oh,' says he, 'haven't you heard? They made me governor of the Foothills and warden of the Gelt pass.' 'How on earth did that come about?' I asked. 'Well,' says he, 'you've got to watch out to jump the right way in a time of trouble – it's a case of win all or lose all. After I'd heard what happened at the battle of the Foothills, I knew these Ortelgans were bound to take Bekla: it stood to reason – they were meant to win. I could see it plain, but no one else seemed able to. I went straight to their generals myself – caught 'em up as they were marching south across the plain to Bekla – and promised them all the help I could give. You sec, the night before the battle the best half of Gel-Ethlin's army had been sent to Kabin to repair the dam – and if that wasn't the finger of God, what was? The rains had just begun, but all the same, those Beklans at Kabin were in the Ortelgans' rear as they marched south. It's not the sort of risk any general can feel happy about. I made it impossible for them to move – took my fellows out and destroyed three bridges, sent false information to Kabin, intercepted their messengers-' 'Lord,' says I to S'marr, 'what a gamble to take on the OrtelgansI' 'Not at all,' says S'marr. 'I can tell when lightning's going to strike, and I don't need to know exactly where. I tell you, the Ortelgans were meant to win. That half-army of poor old Gel-Ethlin's simply broke up – never fought again. They marched out of Kabin in the rain, turned back again, went on half- rations – then there was mutiny, wholesale desertion. By the time a messenger got through from Santil-ke-Erketlis, a mutineers' faction was in command and thev nearly hanged the poor fellow. A lot of that was my doing, and didn't I let this King Crendik fellow know it, too? That was how the Ortelgans came to make me governor of the Foothills and warden of the Gelt pass, my boy, and very lucrative it is.' All of a sudden S'marr looks up at me. 'Have you come home to claim the family property?' he asks. 'That's it,' I said. 'Well,' says he, 'I never liked your brother – griping, hard-fisted curmudgeon – but you're all right. They're short of a governor in Kabin. There was a foreigner there until recently – name of Orcad, formerly in the Beklan service. He understood the reservoir, you see, and that's more than the Ortelgans do – but he's just been murdered. Now you're a local lad, so you won't get murdered, and the Ortelgans like local men as long as they feel they can trust them. After what's happened they trust me, naturally, and if I put in a word with General Zelda, you'll probably be appointed.' Well, the long and short of it was, I agreed to make it worth S'marr's while to speak for me, and that's how I come to be governor of Kabin.'

'I see. And you commune with the reservoir from the profound depths of your aquatic knowledge, do you?'

'I've no idea how to look after a reservoir, but while I'm here I mean to find someone who has and take him back with me, that's it.'

'And is he up here now for the Council, your charming old bull-breeding chum?' 'S'marr? Not he – he's sent his deputy. He's no fool.' 'How long have you been governor of Kabin?'

'About three days. I tell you, all this happened very recently. General Zelda was recruiting in those parts, as it happened, and S'marr saw him the next day. I'd not been back home more than one night when he sent an officer to tell me I was appointed governor and order me to come to Bekla in person. So here I am, Elleroth, you see, and the first person I run into is you!' 'Elleroth Ban – bow three times before addressing me.'

'Well, we have become an exalted pair, that's it. Ban of Sarkid? How long have you been Elleroth Ban?'

'Oh, a few years now. My poor father died a while back. But tell me, how much do you know about the new, modern Bekla and its humane and enlightened rulers?'

At this moment two of the other delegates overtook them, talking earnestly in Katrian Chistol, the dialect of