Shardik

Kominion had known how to deal with it. As he paused, pondering how best to begin the delicate task of dissuasion, they both saw in the distance a servant running towards them across the pasture. They stood up and awaited him. 'Tomorrow night is the spring fire festival,' said Kelderek. 'I had not forgotten.'

'I will say nothing of this to anyone, and we will speak of it again after the festival. I need time to think.'

The servant reached them, raised his palm to his bent brow and waited, trying to control his panting breath. 'Speak,' said Kelderek.

'My lord, Lord Ged-la-Dan is almost here. He has been sighted on the road and will reach the Blue Gate within this half-hour.'

In the city below, the gongs sounded once more for the hour, the further following immediately upon the nearer like an echo. Kelderek perceived that to retain the servant would put an end to then-talk for the time being.

'Accompany us,' he said; and then to Zelda, as the man took up his place behind them, 'I and the priestess Sheldra will go out to meet Gcd-la-Dan on the road. Will you not come with us?'

28 Elleroth Shows His Hand

'- And to have left all I had in Deelguy -' 'Compose yourself, Mollo.'

'I'll not live inside their damned boundaries – not within ten days' journey of them – that blasted bear-priest – whatever he calls himself – Kildrik, that's it -'

'Be reasonable, Mollo. Calm yourself. You didn't leave Deelguy with the least idea of becoming governor of Kabin, let alone with any promise from Bekla. You left because you wanted to succeed to the family estate, or so you told me. No one's deprived you of that and you're no worse off than you were on the night when you dined with your bull-breeding friend.*

'Don't be ridiculous. Everyone in Kabin knows that General Zelda appointed me on S'marr's recommendation. I had a long meeting with the elders, before I set out, about Kabin's contribution to the summer campaign. It was little enough they meant to give, too – we're not a rich province – 'never have been. 'Don't worry,' I said, 'I'll convince them in Bekla – I'll see you're not ruined to pay for the war.' What do you think they're going to say now? They'll say I've been kicked out because I couldn't screw enough out of the province -' 'Perhaps you have.'

'But damn it, no one here's even asked me yet what we were going to contribute, so how can it be that? But whatever it is, the Kabin landowners will be convinced that I let them down somehow or other – played my cards wrong, that's it – and now I'm to be replaced by someone who isn't even a local man, someone who'll have no scruples about fleecing them for more. Who's going to believe me when I say I haven't the least idea why the appointment wasn't confirmed? I'll be lucky if no one seeks my life one way or another. It's not that I care about, though. Do you know a better way to make a man really angry than to promise him something and then to take it away?'

'Off-hand, no. But my dear Mollo, what did you expect when you took up with this bunch of bruin boys? I'm surprised the possibility didn't occur to you at the outset.' 'Well, didn't you take up with them?'

'By no means – rather the reverse, actually. At the time when they burst upon an astonished world I was already Ban of Sarkid and it was they, when they arrived, who took a good, long look at me and decided on balance to leave it at that; though whether they were wise to do so remains to be seen. But to go to them, cap-in-hand, as you did, and actually ask for a nice, lucrative appointment; to offer, in effect, to help with the defeat of Santil and tie furtherance of the slave trade – And besides, they're so frightfully boring. Do you know, last night, down in the city, I was enquiring about the drama. 'Oh no,' says the old fellow I asked, 'that's all been stopped for as long as the war lasts. They tell us it's because there's no money to spare, but we're sure it's because the Ortelgans don't understand the drama, and because it used to be part of the worship of Cran.' I really felt most frightfully bored when he told me that.' 'The fact remains, Elleroth, that your position as Ban of Sarkid has been confirmed in the name of Shardik. You can't deny it* 'I don't deny it, my dear fellow.'

'Is the slave trade any better under Shardik, then, than it was ten years ago, when you and I were fighting alongside Santil?'

'If that's a serious question, it certainly doesn't deserve a serious answer. But you see, I'm not a humanitarian – just an estate-owner trying to live a reasonably peaceful life and make enough to live on. It's awfully difficult to get people to settle down and work properly when they think that they or their children may be required to form part of a slave-quota. It seems to bother them, oddly enough. The real trouble with slavery is that it's such a terribly short-sighted policy – it's bad business. But one can hardly go the length of leaving one's ancestral homestead just because a dubious bear has taken up residence round the corner.' 'But why are you actually here, in person, on the bear's business?'

'Like you, perhaps, to make the best deal I can on behalf of my province.'

'Kabin's in the north; it's got to stay in with Bekla. But Lapan's a southern province – a disputed province. You could declare openly for Erketlis – secede, and take half Lapan with you.'

'Dear me, yes, so I could. Now I wonder why I never thought of that?'

'Well, you make fun of the business, but I don't find it so damned amusing, I'll tell you. It's not the loss of the governorship I mind. What I can't stand is that they've made me look a fool with everyone I've known since I was a lad. Can't you imagine it? 'Here he comes, look; 'thought he was going to be governor and tell us all what to do. Come home with his tail between his legs, that's it. Oh, good morning, Mr Mollo, sir, lovely weather, isn't it?' How can I go back to my estate now? I tell you, I'd do anything to harm these blasted Ortelgans. And whatever I did, they'd deserve it, if they can't run an empire better than that. I'm like you – it's bad business methods I object to.' 'Do you mean what you say, Mollo?' 'Yes, I damned well do. I'd risk anydiing to harm them.' 'In that case – er, let us just step outside for a stroll in some nice, lonely place with no propinquitous walls or bushes – what a pleasant morning! You know, every time I see the Barons' Palace it seems to express something fresh, original and delightfully un-Ortelgan – where was I? – ah yes; in that case, I may perhaps be able to lead you step by step to the highest pitch of quivering excitement – or somewhere like that, anyway.' 'What do you mean?'

'Well, you sec, I am not, alas, the good, simple fellow that you suppose. Beneath this well-washed exterior there beats a heart as black as a cockroach and fully half as brave.'

'Well, you've evidently got something you mean to say. Tell me plainly – I'll be as secret as you like.'

'Perhaps I will. Well then, you must know that at one time, about five years ago, when Santil came through Sarkid on his march from Bekla to Ikat, I was seized with a foolish desire to take some of my fellows and join him.'

'I wonder you didn't. I suppose you jibbed at the idea of losing the estate and everything else?'

'Oh, I jibbed practically without stopping – I was jibbering, in fact. However, I had managed to get myself more or less to the point of departure when Santil himself came to see me. Yes – at the outset of a desperate campaign, with everything to be organized and Ikat to be turned into a military supply base, that remarkable man found time to come twenty miles to talk to me and then return by night. I dare say he knew I wouldn't have obeyed anyone else.' 'You obeyed him? What did he come to say?'

'He wanted me to stay where I was and put on a convincing act of benevolent neutrality to Bekla. He thought that if it were skilfully done, it would be more useful to him than leaving Sarkid to be controlled by some nominee of the enemy. He was quite right, of course. I've always hated people thinking I'd decided not to go and fight, but the advantages to Santil have been greater than anything he could expect from my shouting 'Yah!' at an Ortelgan spearman. He gets to hear a great deal about the movements of Master Ged-la-Dan, and the other man, Zelda; and they find themselves in all sorts of difficulties whenever they're operating in the neighbourhood of Sarkid. You know – couriers disappear, funny accidents happen, commandeered rations seem to disagree with people and so on. Any little larks we can think of. In fact, I honestly believe that if it weren't for Sarkid, Santil's western flank would have been turned long ago and he might never have been able to hold Ikat at all. But it needs very delicate handling indeed. Ged-la-Dan's a tough, ugly customer and I've had to go to great lengths to convince him that I prefer his side to the other. For years I've kept him thinking that on balance, and because of my local influence and knowledge, it would be better to keep me than to replace me. Little does he know that my love of boyish mischief leads me to grease his stairs from time to time.' 'I see; and I suppose I might have guessed.'