some bread and cheese?' said Elleroth in Yeldashay. The landlord gave no sign that he understood.
'We have to go now, landlord,' said Elleroth, in Beklan. 'Do we owe you anything further?'
'Nothing at all, good sirs, nothing at all,' said the landlord, beaming and presenting each of them with a small model, in iron, of the Great Scales. 'Allow me – a little souvenir of your visit to 'The Green Grove'. A neighbour makes them – we keep them for our special customers – gready honoured – hope we shall have the pleasure on another occasion – my poor house – always glad
'Tell Tarys to buy herself something pretty,' said Elleroth, putting ten meld on the table.
'Ah, sir, too kind, most generous – she'll be delighted – a charming girl, isn't she? No doubt if you wished -' 'Good morning,' said Elleroth. They stepped out into the colonnadc. 'Do you think he may perhaps make a point of hiding his linguistic abilities from the common light of day?' he asked, as they strolled once more across the market.
'I'd like to know,' answered Mollo. 'I can't help wondering why he trims lamps at noon. Or why he trims lamps at all, if it comes to that, seeing its women's work and he has that girl to help him.' Elleroth was turning the ugly little model over in his hands.
'I feared it – I feared it He must take us for utter fools. Does he think we can't recognize the Gelt iron-mark when we see it? So much for his neighbour who makes them – weighed in the Great Scales and found non- existent.'
He placed the model on a window-sill overlooking the street and then, as an afterthought, bought some grapes from a nearby stall. Having put a grape carefully into each scale, he handed half the remainder to Mollo and they walked on, eating grapes and spitting out the pips.
'But does it really matter whether the fellow understood you or not?' asked Mollo. 'I know I warned you when I saw him standing there, but that's become second nature after all these years. I can hardly believe you could be accused on his evidence, let alone convicted of anything serious. It'd be bis word against mine, anyway, and of course I can't remember hearing you say anything whatever against the Ortelgans.'
'No, I'm not afraid of being arrested for that sort of thing,' answered Elleroth, 'but all the same, I've got my reasons for not wanting these people to know my true feelings.' 'Then you'd better be more careful.' 'Indeed, yes. But I'm rash, you know – such an impetuous boy!' 'I know that,' replied Mollo, grinning. ''Haven't changed, have you?'
'Hardly at all. Ah, now I recall where we are. This brook is the outfall of the Barb, which runs down to what was once the Tamarrik Gate. If we follow it upstream along this rather pleasant path, it will bring us back close to the Peacock Gate, where that surly fellow let us out this morning. Later on, I want to stroll out beyond the Barb as far as the walls on the east side of Crandor.' 'What on earth for?'
'I'll tell you later. Let's talk of old times for the moment Ammar-Tiltheh will be delighted to hear that you and I have met again. You know, if ever you had to leave Kabin, you'd always be welcome in Sarkid for as long as you liked to stay.'
'Leave Kabin? I'm not likely to be able to do that for at least a year or two, though you're very kind.'
'You never know, you never know. It's all a question of what you can – er – bear, as it were. How straight the smoke is going up; and the swifts are high, too. Perhaps the weather is going to be kinder during our stay than I dared to hope.'
26 The King of Bekla
The bare hall, built as a mess for common soldiers, was gloomy and ill-ventilated, for the only windows were at clerestory level, the place having been intended for use principally at evening and after nightfall. It was rectangular and formed the centre of the barracks building, its four arcades being surrounded by an ambulatory, off which lay the store-rooms and armouries, the lock-up, lavatories, hospital, barrack-rooms and so on. Almost all the bays of the arcades had been bricked up by the Ortelgans nearly four years ago and the raw, un-rendered brick- work between the stone columns not only added to the ugliness of the hall but imparted also that atmosphere of incongruity, if not of abuse, which pervades a building clumsily adapted for some originally-unintended purpose. Across the centre of the hall, alternate flag-stones of one course of the floor had been prised up and replaced by mortar, into which had been set a row of heavy iron bars with a gate at one end. The bars were tall – twice as high as a man – and curved at the top to end in downward-pointing spikes. The tie-bars, of which there were three courses, overlapped one another and were secured by chains to ring-bolts set here and there in the walls and floor. No one knew the full strength of Shardik, but with time and the full resources of Gelt at his disposal, Baltis had been thorough.
At one end of the hall the central bay of the arcade had been left open and from each side of it a wall had been built at right angles, intersecting the ambulatory behind. These walls formed a short passage between the hall and an iron gate set in the outer wall. From the gate a ramp led down into the Rock Pit.
Between the gate and the bars the floor of the hall was deep in straw and a stable-smell of animal's manure and urine filled the air. For some days past Shardik had remained indoors, listless and eating little, yet starting suddenly up from time to time and rambling here and there, as though goaded by pain and seeking some enemy
THE KING'S HOUSE
on whom to avenge it. Kelderek, watching near by, prayed continually in the same words that he had used more than five years ago in the forest darkness, 'Peace, Lord Shardik. Sleep, Lord Shardik. Your power is of God. Nothing can harm you.'
In the foetid twilight he, the Priest-King, was watching over the bear and waiting for news that Ged-la-Dan had reached the city. The Council would not begin without Ged-la-Dan, for the provincial delegates had been assembled first for the purpose of satisfying the Ortelgan generals about contributions of troops, money and other supplies required for the summer campaign, and secondly to be told as much as was considered good for them about Ortelgan plans for the enemy's defeat. Of these plans Kelderek himself as yet knew nothing, although they had already, no doubt, been formulated by Zelda and Ged-la-Dan with the help of some of the subordinate commanders. Before the commencement of the Council, however, and certainly before any step was taken to put the plans into effect, the generals would seek his agreement in the name of Lord Shardik; and anything which, in his prayer and pondering, he might dislike or doubt, he could if he wished require them to alter in Shardik's name.
Since that day when Shardik had struck down the Beklan commanders and disappeared into the rainy nightfall of the foothills, Kelderek's authority and influence had become greater than Ta-Kominion's could ever have been. In the eyes of the army it was plainly he who had brought about the miracle of the victory, he who had first divined the will of Shardik and then acted in obedience to it. Baltis and his men had told everywhere the tale of his apparent folly in insisting upon the construction of the cage and of the single-mindedness with which he had conducted the desperate march over the hills, completed by less than half of those who had begun it. The breach broken through the Tamarrik Gate could hardly have been carried against a leader like Santil-ke-Erketlis, had it not been for the fanatical belief of every Ortelgan that Shardik, in mystic communion with Kelderek, was invisibly present, leading the assault and striking unseen at the hearts and arms of Bekla. Kelderek himself had known beyond doubt that he and none other was the elect of Shardik, whom he was ordained to bring to the city of his people. On his own authority he had ordered Sheldra and the other girls to set out with him, as soon as spring should come, to seek Shardik until he was found. The Ortelgan barons, while they did not dispute this authority, had vehemently opposed the idea of his magical presence leaving the city as long as Santil-ke-Erkcdis remained undefeated in the citadel on Crandor; and Kelderek, impatient of delay as the warm days returned, had suppressed his personal revulsion at the methods by which Zelda and Ged-la-Dan had compelled the Beklan general to vacate his stronghold. Such revulsion, he considered, while it might be natural enough to the common man that he had once been, was altogether unworthy of a king, whose contempt and lack of pity for the enemy was a necessity for his own people, or how could wars be won? In any case the matter was below the sphere of his authority, for he
