and few care to feel that denial on their part may hasten a man to his death. One or two, indeed, of those who suffered him to sleep in sheds or out-houses – like the gate-keeper's wife at the stronghold of S'marr Torruin, warden of the Foothills – tried to persuade him to rest longer and then perhaps find work; for the war had taken many. But though he smiled, or played a while with the children in the dust, he seemed to understand but little, and his well-wishers would shake their heads as at length he took his staff and went haltingly on his way. Eastward he went, as before, but each day only a few miles, for he sat much in the sun in lonely places and for the most part kept to less-frequented country along the edge of the hills; feeling that here, if at all, he might happen once more upon that mighty, half-remembered creature which, as it seemed to him, he had lost and with whose life his own was in some shadowy but all-important respect bound up. Of the sound of distant voices he was greatly afraid and seldom approached a village, though once he allowed a tipsy herdsman to lead him home, feed him and take from him, either in robbery or payment, his sword.
Perhaps he wandered for five days, or six. Longer it can hardly have been when one evening, coming slowly over a shoulder of the lower hills, he saw below him the roofs of Kabin – Kabin of the Waters – that pleasant, walled town with its fruit groves on the south-west and, nearer at hand on the north, the sinuous length of the reservoir running between two green spurs; the surface, wrinkling and sliding under the wind, suggesting some lithe animal caged behind the outfall dam with its complex of gates and sluices. The place was busy – he could see a deal of movement both within and outside the walls; and as he sat on the hillside, gazing down at a cluster of huts and smoke that filled the meadows outside the town, he became aware of a party of soldiers – some eight or nine -approaching through the trees.
At once he jumped to his feet and ran towards them, raising one hand in greeting and calling 'Wait! Wait!' They stopped, staring in surprise at the confidence of this tattered vagrant, and turning uncertainly towards their tryzatt, a fatherly veteran with a stupid, good-natured face, who looked as though, having risen as high as he was likely to get in the service, he was all for an easy life.
'What's this, then, tryze?' asked one, as Kelderek stopped before them and stood with folded arms, looking them up and down.
The tryzatt pushed back his leadier helmet and rubbed his forehead with one hand.
'Dunno,' he replied at length. 'Some beggar's trick, I suppose. Come on, now,' he said, laying one hand on Kelderek's shoulder, 'you'll get nothing here, so just muck off, there's a good lad.' Kelderek put the hand aside and faced him squarely.
'Soldiers,' he said firmly. 'A message – Bekla -' He paused, frowning as they gathered about him, and then spoke again.
'Soldiers – Senandril, Lord Shardik – Belda, message -' He stopped again. 'Havin' us on, ain't her' said another of the men.
'Don't seem that way, not just,' said the tryzatt. 'Seems to know what he wants all right. 'More like he knows we don't know his language.' 'What language is it, then?' asked the man.
'That's Ortelgan,' said the first soldier, spitting in the dust, 'Something about his life and a message.'
' 'Could be important, then,' said the tryzatt. ' 'Could be, if he's Ortelgan, and come to us with a message from Bekla. Can you tell us who you are?' he asked Kelderek, who met his eye but answered nothing.
'I reckon he's come from Bekla, but something's put things out of his mind, like – shock and that,' said the first soldier.
'That'll be it,' said the tryzatt. 'He's an Ortelgan – been working secretly for Lord Elleroth One-Hand maybe: and either those swine in Bekla tortured him – look what they did to the Ban, burned his bloody hand off, the bastards – or else his wits are turned with wandering all this way north to find us.'
'Poor devil, he looks all in,' said a dark man with a broad belt of Sarkid leatherwork bearing the Corn-Sheaves emblem. 'He must have walked till he dropped. After all, we couldn't be much further north if we tried, could we?'
'Well,' said the tryzatt, 'whatever it is, we'd better take him along. I've got to make a report by sunset, so the captain can sort him out then. Listen,' he said, raising his voice and speaking very slowly, in order to make sure that the foreigner standing two feet away from him could understand a language he did not know, 'you – come - with us. You – give – message – Captain, see?'
'Message,' replied Kelderek at once, repeating the Yeldashay. 'Message – Shardik.' He stopped and broke into a fit of coughing, leaning over his staff.
'All right, now don't you worry,' said the tryzatt reassuringly, buckling his belt, which he had slackened for the purpose of talking. 'We' – he pointed, miming with his hands – 'take – you – town -Captain – right? You'd better lend him a hand,' he added to the two men nearest him. 'We'll be 'alf the mucking night else.'
Kelderek, his arms drawn over the soldiers' shoulders for support, went with them down the hill. He was glad of their help, which was given respectfully enough – for they were uncertain what rank of man he might be. He for his part understood hardly a word of their talk and was in any case preoccupied in trying to remember what message it was that he had to send, now that he had at last found the soldiers who had vanished so mysteriously in the dawn. Perhaps, he thought, they might have some food to spare.
The main part of the army was encamped in the meadows outside the walls of Kabin, for the town and its inhabitants were being treated with clemency and in such dwellings as had been commandeered there was room for no more than the senior officers, their aides and servants and the specialist troops, such as scouts and pioneers, who were under the direct control of the commander-in-chief. The tryzatt and his men, who belonged to these, entered the town gates just as they were about to be shut for the night and, ignoring questions from comrades and bystanders, conducted Kelderek to a house under the south wall. Here a young officer wearing the stars of Ikat questioned him, first in Yeldashay and then, seeing that he understood very little, in Beklan. To this Kelderek replied that he had a message. Pressed, he repeated ' Bekla' but could say no more; and the young officer, unwilling to browbeat him and pitying his starved and filthy condition, gave orders to let him wash, eat and sleep. Next morning, as one of the cooks, a kindly fellow, was again washing his gashed arm, a second, older officer came into the room, accompanied by two soldiers, and greeted him with straightforward civility.
'My name is Tan-Rion,' he said in Beklan. 'You must excuse our haste and curiosity, but to an army in the field time is always precious. We need to know who you are. The tryzatt who found you says that you came to him of your own accord and told him that you had a message from Bekla. If you have a message, perhaps you can tell me what it is.'
Two full meals, a long and comfortable night's sleep and the attentions of the cook had calmed and to some extent restored Kelderek.
'The message – should have gone to Bekla,' he answered haltingly, 'but the best chance – is lost now.'
The officer looked puzzled. To Bekla? You are not bringing a message to us, then?' 'I – have to send a message.' 'Is your message to do with the fighting in Bekla?' 'Fighting?' asked Kelderek.
'You know that there has been a rising in Bekla? It began about nine days ago. As far as we know, fighting is still going on. Have you come from Deelguy, or whence?'
Confusion descended again upon Kelderek's mind. He was silent and the officer shrugged his shoulders.
'I am sorry – I can see that you are not yourself – but time may well be very short. We shall have to search you – that for a start'
Kelderek, who had become no stranger to humiliation, stood unresisting as the soldiers, not ungently and with a kind of rough courtesy, set about their task. They placed their findings on the window ledge – a stale crust, a strip of cobbler's leather, a reaper's whetstone which he had found lying in a ditch two days before, a handful of dried, aromatic herbs which the gate-keeper's wife had given him against lice and infection, and a talisman of red- veined stone which must once have belonged to Kavass.
'All right, mate,' said one of the soldiers, handing him back his jerkin. 'Steady, now. Nearly done, don't worry.'
Suddenly the other soldier whistled, swore under his breath and then, without another word, held out to the officer on the palm of his hand a small, bright object which glittered in the sunlight. It was the stag emblem of Santil-ke-Erketlis.
37 Lord One-Hand
