the whole country from Kabin to Terekenalt and from Gelt to the Telthearna. He used to be a hunter, I believe. Well, whether he was or not, he found the bear at last, in some very inaccessible part of the hills: and he fired the whole hillside, including two wretched villages, to force it down to the plain. Then he made it insensible with some kind of drug, hobbled it with chains
'Hobbled it?' interrupted Mollo. 'How on earth do you hobble a bear?'
'They'd learned that no cage could hold it, so I was told, so while it was drugged they fastened its legs to a choke-chain round its neck, so that the more it kicked the more it throttled itself. Then it was dragged to Bekla on an open, wheeled platform in less than two days – something like sixty miles. They had relays of men to take over from one another and never stopped at all. Even so it nearly died -didn't terribly care for the chains, you see. But it only goes to show, my dear Mollo, how much importance the Ortelgans attach to the bear and to what lengths they're prepared to go in anything that concerns it. Telthearna diving-boys they may be, but they're evidently inspired to great heights by that animal.' 'They call it the Power of God,' said Mollo. 'Are you sure it isn't?'
'My dear Mollo, what can you mean? (Let me fill up that leather thing you have there. I wonder whether they have any more of this?'
'Well, I can't account for all that's happened in any other way. Old S'marr feels the same – he said they were meant to win. First the Beklans fail to get any sort of news of what's happened, then they go and split their army in two, then the rains break, then the bear kills Gel-Ethlin just when he's got them beaten and no one in Bekla has the least warning until the Ortelgans are down on them -are you really saying that all that's mere coincidence?'
'Yes, I am,' replied Elleroth, dropping his whimsical manner and leaning over to look straight into Mollo's face. 'An over-civilized people grow complacent and careless and leave the door open for a tribe of fanatical savages, through a mixture of luck, treachery and the foulest inhumanity, to usurp their place for a few years.' 'A few years? It's five years already.'
'Five years are a few years. Are they secure? You know they're not. They're opposed by a brilliant general, with a base as near as Ikat. The Beklan empire is reduced to half of what it was. The southern provinces have seceded – Yelda, Belishba, arguably Lapan. Paltesh would like to secede and daren't. Deelguy and Terekenalt are both enemies, so far as they can spare time from their own troubles. The Ortelgans could be overthrown this summer. That Crendrik – he'll end in Zeray, you mark my words.'
'They're reasonably prosperous – there's plenty of trade still in Bekla.'
'Trade? Yes, what sort of trade, I wonder? And you've only to look round you to see how badly even a place like this is affected. What used to bring more prosperity to Bekla than anything else? Building, masonry, carving – all that sort of craftsmanship. That trade is ruined. There's no labour, the big craftsmen have quietly gone elsewhere and these barbarians know nothing of such work. As for the outer provinces and the neighbouring kingdoms, it's only a very occasional patron who sends to Bekla now. Plenty of trade? What sort of trade, Mollo?' 'Well, the iron comes in from Gelt, and the cattle -' 'What sort of trade, Mollo?*
'The slave trade, is that what you're getting at? Well, but there's slave-trading everywhere. People who lose wars get taken prisoner -'
'You and I fought together once to keep it at that. These men are desperate for trade to pay for their war and feed the subject people they're holding down – desperate for any sort of trade. So it's no longer kept at that. What sort of trade, Mollo?'
'The children, is that what you're getting at? Well, if you want my opinion -'
'Excuse me, gentlemen. I don't know whether you're interested, but I'm told the king is approaching. He'll be crossing the market in a few moments. I thought as you gentlemen seem to be visitors to the city -'
The landlord was standing beside them, smiling obsequiously and pointing out through the entrance.
'Thank you,' replied Elleroth. 'That's very good of you. Perhaps -' he slid another gold piece into the landlord's hand – 'if you could contrive to find some more of this excellent stuff – charming girl, your daughter – oh, your niece? Delightful – we'll return in a few minutes.'
They went out into the colonnade. The square had become hotter and more crowded and the market servants, carrying pitchers and long aspergils of bound twigs, were walking hither and thither, laying the glittering, sandy dust. At a distance, above, the north front of the Barons' Palace stood in shadow, the sun, behind it, glinting here and there upon the marble balustrades of the towers and the trees on the terraces below. As Mollo stood gazing in renewed wonder, the gongs of the city clocks sounded the hour. A few moments afterwards he heard, approaching by the street down which he and Elleroth had come that morning, the ringing of another gong, softer and of a deeper, more vibrant pitch. People were drawing aside, some leaving the square altogether or slipping into the various doorways round the colonnade. Others, however, waited expcctantly as the gong drew nearer. Mollo edged his way between those nearest to him and craned his neck, peering over the beam of the Great Scales.
Two files of soldiers were coming down the hill, pacing slowly on cither side of the street. Although they were armed in the Beklan style, with helmet, shield and short-sword, their dark eyes, black hair and rough, unkempt appearance showed them to be Ortelgans. Their swords were drawn and they were looking vigilantly about them among the crowd. The man bearing the gong, who walked at the head of and between the two files, was dressed in a grey cloak edged with gold and a blue robe embroidered in red with the mask of the Bear. The heavy gong hung at the full extent of his left arm, while his right hand, holding the stick, struck the soft, regular blows which both announced the king's approach and gave their step to the soldiers. Yet the beat was not that of marching men, but rather of solemn procession, or of a sentinel pacing on some terrace or battlement alone.
Behind the man with the gong came six priestesses of the Bear, scarlet-cloaked and adorned with heavy, barbaric jewellery – necklaces of ziltate and penapa, belts of inlaid bronze and clusters of carved, wooden rings so thick that the fingers of their folded hands were pressed apart Their grave faces were those of peasant girls, ignorant of gentle ways and accustomed to a narrow life of daily toil, yet they carried themselves with a dark dignity, withdrawn and indifferent to the staring crowd on either side. At their centre walked the solitary figure of the priest-king.
It had not occurred to Mollo that the king would not be carried -either in a litter or on a chair – or drawn in a cart, perhaps, by caparisoned and gilt-horned oxen. He was taken unwares by this curious lack of state, by this king who walked through the dust of the market-place, who stepped aside to avoid a coil of rope lying in his path and a moment after tossed his head, dazzled by a flash of light reflected from a pail of water. In his curiosity he climbed precariously on the plinth of the nearest column and gazed over the heads of the passing soldiers.
The train of the king's long cloak of blue and green was raised and held behind him by two of the priestesses. Each blue panel bore in gold the mask of the Bear and each green panel the emblem of the sun as a lidded and radiant eye – the Eye of God. His long staff, of polished zoan wood, was bound about with golden filigree; and from the fingers of his gauntlets hung curving, silver claws. His bearing, that neither of a ruler nor a warrior, possessed nevertheless a mysterious and cryptic authority, stark and ascetic, the power of the desert- dweller, and the anchorite. The dark face, haggard and withdrawn, was that of a man who works in solitude, the face of a hunter, a poet or a contemplative. He was young, yet older than his years, going grey before his time, with a stiffness in the movement of one arm which suggested an old injury ill-healed. His eyes seemed fixed on some inward scene which brought him little peace, so that even as he looked about him, raising his hand from time to time in sombre greeting to the crowd, he appeared preoccupied and almost disturbed, as though his thoughts were struggling in disquiet with some lonely anxiety beyond the common preoccupations of his subjects – beyond riches and poverty, sickness and health, appetite, desire and satisfaction. Walking like other men through the dusty market-place in the light of morning, he was separated from them by more than the flanking soldiers and the silent girls; by arcane vocation to an ineffable task. As Mollo watched, there came into his mind the words of an old song: What cried the stone to the chisel? 'Strike, for I am afraid I' What said the earth to the ploughman? 'Ah, the bright blade 1*
The last soldiers were receding at the far end of the square; and as the sound of the gong died away the business of the market resumed. Mollo rejoined Elleroth and together they returned to The Green Grove and their place on the settle. It was now less than an hour to noon and the tavern had become more crowded but, as is often the way, this added to their seclusion rather than otherwise. 'Well, what did you think of the kingly boy?' enquired Elleroth.
'Not what I expected,' answered Mollo. 'He didn't strike me as the ruler of a country at war, that's the size of it'
'My dear fellow, that's merely because you don't understand the dynamic ideas prevalent down on the river where the reeds all shiver. Matters there are determined by resort to hocus-pocus, mumbo-jumbo and even, for all I
