join, thinking their life better than his own in Lagwich! Where was their pride? What had happened to their smart organisation? What in truth must Esberg be like, if its soldiers could turn in a few short hours into ignoble banditry?
For a long moment he turned his eyes downward to the bright blade of the sword, thinking:
He choked off the thought. No: that seemed a cowardly solution. And it would leave far too many personal debts unpaid.
The last of the loot-laden soldiers passed out of sight in the direction of the town. A new idea struck him. It wasn’t a particularly honourable idea-but what did these men know of honour, if they were ready to besiege and rob Lagwich, where the townsfolk had welcomed them? The point was, they could not by any means have stripped this enormous camp in the short time they had been at work there; they must have left behind many valuable and useful things because they simply couldn’t carry them. Things which might enable Conrad, his other courses of action blocked, to make his way to some other town and there set up a little business.
It didn’t have the glamour of service with the Esberg army. But it didn’t have the continuing misery of return to Lagwich, either.
His mind was made up in an instant. The sword he had retrieved was complete with belt and frog. He rose and buckled it around him as he had seen soldiers do in the town when they got up to leave a drinking-shop. Setting his shoulders back, not caring any more whether anybody saw him, he strode down the hillside to the reeking remains of the camp.
Fires were still spreading, but sluggishly, for there was virtually no wind now. A hot puff of air made his eyes sting as he stared through the open gate and down the avenue-like axis of the camp. Why, there in plain sight was a vast bronze cauldron which made him jealous on sight; it was big enough to outdo two of his pottery vats.
By the same token, of course, it was no good to him-he might have attempted to get it away if he’d had a waggon, but what had become of the army’s vehicles he had no idea. And he was unskilled in the management of draft animals, anyway.
He took a deep breath and walked into the camp.
For the next ten or fifteen minutes, his confidence growing, he picked and chose among the abandoned miscellanea. Scattered baubles which someone might buy in another town. A first-rate steel knife. A helmet in exactly his own size. A pike which would have solved most of his problems if he’d had it handy to spit the
He was shrugging the knapsack on when he heard the noise.
Dropping everything he carried, he snatched at the sword and whirled. He was approximately in the centre of the camp now; there was a large open space, at one side of which a pile of wood-ash smouldered sluggishly, and on the other three sides of which tents had been torn down. The sound had apparently come from one of the largest tents.
Cautiously Conrad approached it, and saw, protruding from under a flap of charred canvas, the leg of a man, stirring slightly.
In that condition he wasn’t much of a menace, he reasoned. He pulled the coarse fabric aside and found himself looking at Jervis Yanderman.
There was a large livid bruise on Yanderman’s temple, and a sword-cut-not more than a scratch-ran across his right upper arm. Gasping, Conrad bent down to examine him more closely, The deep-set eyes opened briefly, screwed up again, opened a second time and stayed open.
“It’s-it’s the soap-maker,” Yanderman said faintly. “Help me up, boy.”
Conrad dropped his sword and hastened to obey.
“I think I can stand by myself,” Yanderman said when he was upright. “Thank you. Oh, by the fame of Esberg, but this is the sorriest mess-!”
Breathing hard, he gazed over the ruins of the camp.
“Where’ve they gone?” he added.
Conrad gulped. “I think to lay siege to Lagwich,” he said after a pause.
“I thought they would. I thought they’d all go, being afraid of the green plague. And then some came back, and …” Yanderman wiped his forehead. “This was the Dukes tent, you see, and that his funeral pyre. When we saw them swarming back to loot, we stood our ground here as well as we could, but there were only three of us, the others-damnable cowards! — caring more for their own possessions than the Duke’s. After this, I
There was a red and black banner crumpled on the ground near him. With sarcastic deliberation he carried out his promise literally. Then he caught himself.
“Three!” he snapped, and bent to drag aside the fallen canvas of the Duke’s tent. “Stadham! Kesford!”
Conrad made to help him, and between them they rolled the fabric back to expose his companions: ascetic- faced Kesford, a surprised look on his face and a second mouth opened in his pale throat, and grim Stadham, his chest blood-blurred from two bullet-wounds.
Yanderman knelt to them long enough to determine that they were dead. Then he shrugged and drew back, pausing only to detach from Kesford’s hand something which glittered; a small crystal ball on a silver chain, which he put around his own neck. Then, without a word to Conrad, he walked to the dying pyre and drew from it a hot brand, which he plunged into the ruins of the Duke’s tent. In a moment flames licked up. Conrad stood by in silence until Yanderman ceased his contemplation of the ensuing fire.
“And you, soap-maker?” Yanderman said at last. “What are you doing here?”
Boldly, Conrad met his gaze. “I had meant to try and join your army,” he said. “After what I’ve seen today, I think I’d have been a fool.”
Yanderman laughed. It was an ugly sound. He said, “That’s so. But what drove you from Lagwich? By all accounts, you’re its best soap-maker, and that’s a worthwhile position for you. You’re young yet!”
His eyes strayed back to the burning tent, and he absently began to swing the crystal ball on the end of its chain.
Conrad, wondering what made that worth retrieving from Kesford’s body rather than anything else, answered Yanderman’s question at some length, explaining just why he had finally decided to break with Lagwich.
“I see,” Yanderman said finally. “Well, you may thank the older man who burns here before you for your misery. He is well rewarded, isn’t he?”
“I–I don’t understand,” Conrad countered, glancing down at the smoking form of Stadham. His clothing was alight now.
“He took away the carcass of the
A cry of anger rose to Conrad’s lips. He bit it off. What use was there railing against a dead man? That was over and done with, and he hoped never to think of it again. While he was debating what next to say, Yanderman went on, raising his head and continuing to swing the crystal ball.
“So we are two of a kind, boy! After what I’ve seen today, I care not whether I hear the name of Esberg spoken for the rest of my days. And you are finished with Lagwich. Where shall we go? To the barrenland? Why not to the barrenland? I was charged by my dead Duke to lead his army there, but the army is gone. I remain-I remain!”
He closed his hand fiercely on the crystal ball as though he would crush it. It seemed to remind him of something, and he let his eyes rove anew.
“What became of Granny Jassy, I wonder?” he said under his breath.
“Of-? I didn’t hear-”
Yanderman grimaced. “What does it matter?” he shrugged. “Should I lead-instead of an army-a stupid old woman with a headful of visions? We’d have been better off without her charms and her crazy tales of a time when this barrenland was a rich region full of people powerful as magicians …”
Conrad could hardly believe his ears. Unable to stop himself, he caught at Yanderman’s arm. “Visions?” he demanded. “What sort of visions? You mean there are other people who can-
He broke off. Yanderman was staring at him wide-eyed.
After an eternal moment in which there was no sound but the gnawing noise of flames on dry wood as tent-
