trying to stab me. Like all those who leave, he went not because he wished to reach somewhere else, but because he was afraid to remain.
'I am not boasting, Kelderek, believe me. These were not matters to boast of. My life was a nightmare. There was no refuge at all – nowhere to hide. There were not forty women in Zeray all told – hags, drabs, girls living in terror because they knew too much about some vile crime. And I came to it a virgin priestess of Quiso, not twenty-one years old.' She paused a moment and then said, 'In the old days on Quiso, when we fished for bramba we used live bait. God forgive me, I could never do that again. Once I tried to burn my face in the fire, but for that I found no more courage than I had had to encounter Lord Shardik.
'One night I was with a man named Glabron, a Tonildan who was feared even in Zeray. If a man could only make himself feared enough, a band would form round him to kill and rob, to put food in their stomachs and stay alive a little longer. They would frighten others away from the fishing-places, keep watch for newcomers to waylay and so on. Sometimes they would set out to raid villages beyond Zeray, though usually it was little enough they got for their trouble. It's very small pickings here, you see. Men fought and robbed for the bare living. A man who could neither fight nor steal could expect to live perhaps three months. Three years is a good life for the hardest of men in Zeray.
'There's a tavern of sorts, down near the shore at this end of the town. They call it 'The Green Grove' – after some place in Ikat, I believe; or is it Bekla?' 'Bekla.'
'Ikat or Bekla, I never heard that the drink there could turn men blind, nor yet that the landlord sold rats and lizards for food. Glabron exacted some wretched pittance in return for not destroying the place and for protecting it from others like himself. He was vain – yes, in Zeray he was vain – and must needs have the pleasure of others' envy: that they should watch him eat when they were hungry and hear him insulting those whom they feared; oh yes, and he must be tormenting their lust with the sight of what he kept for himself. 'You'll take me there once too often,' I said. 'For God's sake, isn't it enough that I'm your property, and Keriol's body's floating down the Telthearna? Where's the sport in waving a bone at starving dogs?' Glabron never argued with anyone, least of all with me. I wasn't there for talk, and he himself was about as ready with words as a pig.
'They'd had a success that evening. Some days before, a body had been washed ashore with a little money on it, and two of Glabron's men had gone inland and come back with a sheep. Most of it they ate themselves, but a part they exchanged for drink. Glabron grew so drunk that I became more afraid than ever. In Zeray a man's life is never so much in danger as when he's drunk. I knew his enemies and I was expecting to sec one or more of them come in at any moment. It was dim enough in the room – lamplight's a scarce luxury here – but suddenly I noticed two strangers who'd entered. One had his face almost buried in the top of a great, fur cloak and the other, a huge man, was looking at me and whispering to him. They were only two to Glabron's six or seven, but I knew what could happen in that place and I was frantic to get away.
'Glabron was singing a foul song – or thought he was singing it -and I plucked at his sleeve and interrupted him. He looked round for a moment and then hit me across the face with the back of his hand. He was just going on when the muffled stranger walked across to the table. His cloak was still held across his face and only one of his eyes showed over the top. He kicked the table and rocked it, so that they all looked up at him.
4 'I don't like your song,' he said to Glabron, in Beklan. 'I don't like the way you treat this girl; and I don't like you either.'
'As soon as he spoke I knew who he was. I thought, 'I can't bear it.' I wanted to warn him, but I couldn't utter a word. Glabron answered nothing for a few moments, not because he was particularly taken aback, but because it was always his way to go slowly and calmly about killing a man. He liked to make an effect – that was part of the fear he inspired – to let people see that he killed deliberately and not in a fit of rage.
' 'Oh, don't you, I say,' he said at length, when he was sure the whole room was listening. 'I wonder whom I have the honour of addressing, don't you know?'
' 'I'm the devil,' says the other man, 'come for your soul, and not a moment too soon either.' And with that he dropped his arm. They'd never seen him before, of course, and in that dim light the face which he disclosed was not the face of a human being. They were all superstitious men – ignorant, with evil consciences, no religion and a great fear of the unknown. They leapt away from him, cursing and falling over each other. The Baron already had his sword out under his cloak, and in that moment he ran Glabron through the throat, grabbed me by the arm, cut down another man who was in his way and was out in the dark with me and Ankray before anyone had had time even to draw a knife.
'I won't tell you all the rest of the story – or not tonight. Later there'll be time. But I suppose you can well believe that nothing like Bel-ka-Trazet had ever been seen here before. For three months he and I and Ankray never slept at one and the same time. In six months he was lord of Zeray, with men at his back whom he could trust to do his bidding.
'He and I lived in this house, and people used to call me his queen – half in jest and half in earnest No one dared to show me anything but respect. I don't think they would have believed the truth – that Bel-ka-Trazet never touched me. 'I doubt whether you've learned a very good opinion of men,' he said to me once, 'and as for me, it's little enough I've got left in the way of self-respect. At least while I'm alive I can still honour a priestess of Quiso, and that will be better for us both.' Only Ankray knows that secret. The rest of Zeray must believe that we were fated to be childless, or else that his injuries -
'But though I was never in love with him, and was grateful for his self-restraint, yet still I honoured and admired him, and I would have consented to be his consort if he had wished. Much of the time he was dour and brooding. Pleasures here are meagre enough, but always he had little zest for any – as though he were punishing himself for the loss of Ortelga. He had a sharp, mordant tongue and no illusions.' 'I remember.' 'Don't ask me to come out drinking with you,' he said once to his men. 'I might get chased downstream by a bear.' They knew what he meant, for although he'd never told them the story, news had reached Zeray of the battle in the foothills and the fall of Bekla to the Ortelgans. When anything went wrong he used to say, 'You'd better get yourselves a bear – you'll do better then.' But though they feared him, they always trusted and respected him and they followed him without hesitation. As I said, there was no one here who was the least match for him. He was too good for Zeray. I suppose any other baron, forced to fly as he was, would have crossed to Deelguy or made for Ikat or even Terekenalt. But he – he hated pity as a cat hates water. It was his pride, and the bitter streak in him, that sent him to Zeray like a murderer on the run. He actually enjoyed pitting himself against the misery and danger of the place. 'There's a lot one could do here,' he said to me one evening, while we were fishing inshore. 'There's some passable land on that bit of plain round Zeray, and plenty of timber in the forests. It could never be a rich province, but it could be reasonably well off, if only the peasants weren't frightened to death and there were roads to Kabin and Linsho. Law and order and some trade – that's all that's needed. If I'm not mistaken, it's here that the Telthearna runs closest to Bekla. Before we're done we'll have two good, stout ropes stretched across these straits and a raft ferry running along them. I'm not an Ortelgan for nothing – I know what can be done with rope; and how to make it, too. Easier than contriving the Dead Belt, I assure you. Think of opening a trade route to the east – Bekla would pay any money for the use of that.'' ' 'They'd come and annex the province,' I said.
''They could try,' he answered, 'but it's more secure than Ortelga ever was. Forty miles from the Vrako to Zeray, and twenty miles of it thick forest and hills, difficult going unless someone builds a road; which we could destroy whenever we liked. I tell you, my girl, we'll have the last laugh on the bear yet.'
'Now the truth was that not even Bel-ka-Trazet could bring prosperity to a place like Zeray, because he had no barons or men of any quality, and could not be everywhere himself. What could be done, he did. He punished murder and robbery and stopped raiding inland, and he persuaded or bribed a few peasants to bring in wood and wool and do their best to teach carpentry and pottery, so that the town could start bartering what it made. We bartered dried fish too, and rushes for thatching and matting – anything we could. But compared even with Ortelga it was very thin-flowing, rickety business, simply because of the sort of men who come here – criminals can't work, you know – and the lack of even one road. Bel-ka-Trazet realized this, and it was less than a year ago now that he resolved on a new scheme.
'We knew what had been happening in Ikat and Bekla – there were fugitives here from both cities. Bel-ka- Trazet had been impressed by what he had heard of Santil-ke-Erketlis and finally he decided to try to drive a bargain with him. The difficulty was that we had so terribly little to offer. As the Baron said, we were like a man trying to sell a lame ox or a lopsided pot. Who would trouble to come and take Zeray? Even to a general not facing an enemy army in the field, it would hardly be worth the march from Kabin. We discussed it between ourselves again and again and at last Bel-ka-Trazet devised an offer which he thought might appeal both to Santil and to our own
