'It will not be attempted. It is plain that you know nothing either of Lord Shardik or the true nature of his power. He is not some weapon or tool to be used for men's worldly greed. No -' she held up her hand as Ta-Kominion was about to speak '- nor even for the material gain of Ortelga. What God is pleased to impart to us through Shardik, that we should be holding ourselves ready to receive with humility and thanks. If the people believe in Shardik, that is their blessing. But you and I - we neither determine nor confer that blessing. I drugged Lord Shardik to save his life. He will not be drugged in order that he may be taken in a cage to Bekla.'

Ta-Kominion remained silent for a little, the fingers of his injured arm, in its sling, tapping gently against his left side. At length he said, 'And long ago, saiyett, when Shardik was brought to the Ledges, how, may I ask, was he brought, if not drugged and restrained?'

'Means used for an end appointed by God, that his servants might serve him. You You are intending to make him a weapon of bloodshed for your own power.' are intending to make him a weapon of bloodshed for your own power.'

'Time is short, saiyett. I have no time for argument.'

'There is nothing over which to argue.'

'Nothing,' replied Ta-Kominion in a low, hard voice.

Stepping forward, he grasped the Tuginda strongly by the wrist. 'Kelderek, you shall have your craftsmen within two hours, though the iron and some of the heavy materials may take longer. Remember, everything depends on resolution. We'll We'll not fail the people, you and I.' not fail the people, you and I.'

For an instant he looked at Kelderek and his look said, 'Are you a man, as you maintain, or an overgrown child under the thumb of a woman?' Then, still gripping the Tuginda's wrist, he called to the servants, who approached hesitantly from the scrub on the other side of the track.

'Numiss,' said Ta-Kominion, 'the saiyett is returning with us to meet Lord Zelda and the army on the road.' He slipped his arm out of the leather strap. 'Take this and tie her wrists behind her back.' 'My - my lord,' stammered Numiss, 'I am afraid -' Without another word Ta-Kominion, setting his teeth against the 130 pain in his arm, himself drew the Tuginda's hands behind her back and bound them tightly with the strap. Then he put the free end into Numiss's hand. He held his knife in his teeth the while and was clearly ready to use it, but she made no resistance, standing silent with closed eyes and only compressing her lips as the strap cut into her wrists.

'Now we will go,' said Ta-Kominion. 'Believe me, saiyett, I regret this affront to your dignity. I do not wish to be obliged to gag you, so no cries for help, I beg you.'

In the near-darkness of moonset the Tuginda turned and looked at Kelderek. For a moment his eyes met hers; then they fell to the ground, and he did not look up as he heard her footsteps begin to stumble away along the track. When at length he did so, both she and Ta-Kominion were already some distance off. He ran after them and Ta-Kominion turned quickly, knife in hand.

'Ta-Kominion!' He was panting. 'Don't harm her! She must not be hurt or ill-treated! She is not to come to -my harm! Promise me.'

'I promise you, High Priest of Lord Shardik in Bekla.'

Kelderek stood hesitant, half-hoping that she might speak even now. But she said nothing and soon they were gone, sight and sound, into the dawn-mist and gloom of the valley. Once he heard Ta-Kominion's voice. Then he was alone in the solitude.

He turned and walked slowly back, past the dead man shrouded in his bloody cloak, past the rock where Shardik had lain in wait On his left, above the dreary forest, the first light was gathering in the sky. Not a blow had yet been struck in the war, and yet he was filled with a sense of loneliness and danger, of being already committed past recall on a desperate enterprise which, if it did not succeed, could end only in ruin and death. He looked about the empty, twilit valley with a kind of puzzled surprise, such as a malicious child might feel, on holding a burning torch to a rick or thatch, to find that it caught slowly and did not on the instant blaze up to match the idea he had formed in his mind. Was desperation, then, so slow a business?

From the hillside he heard his name called and, turning, saw the tall shape of Rantzay striding down, with six or seven of the girls. At once his apprehension left him and he went to meet them, clear in mind and purposeful.

'Zilthe* has told us, my lord, how Lord Shardik struck down the traitor from Ortelga. Is all well? Where are the Tuginda and the young baron?'

'They - they have returned together down the valley. The army has already set out and they have gone to join it. It is Lord Shardik's will to join the march on Bekla. We have to carry out that will, you and I, and there is no time to be lost.' 'What are we to do, my lord?'

'Have you still got the sleeping-drug in the camp - the drug which was used to heal Lord Shardik?'

'We have that and other drugs, my lord, but none in great quantity.'

'There may well be enough. You are to seek out Lord Shardik and drug him insensible. How can it best be done?'

'He may take it in food, my lord. If not, we shall have to wait until he sleeps and then pierce him. That would be very dangerous, though it could be attempted.'

'You have until sunset. If by some means or other he can be brought near this place, so much the better. Indeed, he must not fall asleep in thick forest, or all may fail.'

Rantzay frowned and shook her head at the difficulty of the task. She was about to speak again, but Kelderek forestalled her.

'It must must be attempted, Rantzay. If it is God's will - and I know that it is - you will succeed. At all costs, Lord Shardik must be drugged insensible by sunset.' be attempted, Rantzay. If it is God's will - and I know that it is - you will succeed. At all costs, Lord Shardik must be drugged insensible by sunset.'

At that moment they became aware of a confused noise, far off and still so faint as to be audible only between the gusts of the dawn breeze. As they listened it grew louder, until they could discern metallic sounds and human voices, a shouted order, a snatch of song. At length in the growing light they saw, far below them, a slowly-moving, dusty line, creeping on like a thread of spilt water across a paved floor. The vanguard of Ta-Kominion's army was coming up the valley.

Kelderek spoke quickly. 'Only put aside doubt, Rantzay, and act out of a true belief that this can be achieved, and all will be well. I am going down to meet Lord Ta-Kominion. I shall return later and you will find me here. Sheldra and Neelith, come with me.'

As he strode downhill between the two silent girls, with the sound of the marching tumult coming up to meet him, he felt his inward prayers turned back upon himself. Whether or not he had been right could be revealed only by the outcome. Yet Ta-Kominion was certain that it was Shardik's divine purpose to lead the army to victory. 'We'll rule in Bekla, you and I.' 'And when that day comes,' he thought, 'no doubt the Tuginda will understand that all was for the best.'

18.

Rantzay

On the edge of the forest, Rantzay knelt over the tracks showing faintly in the hard ground. They led westward, into thick undergrowth, and where they disappeared the bark of a kalmet kalmet

tree had been slashed white, high up, by the bear's claws. She knew that it was not two hours since Shardik had deliberately lain in wait for and killed a man. In this mood he might well kill again - might lie in wait for those who tracked him or steal, elusive and silent, through the woods until he was behind them and the pursuers became the pursued.

The strain of the past month had told increasingly upon the priestess. She was the oldest of the women who had followed Shardik down Ortelga and across the Telthearna strait, and though her belief in his divine power was untouched by the least doubt, she had felt also - more and more as the days went by - the hardship of the life and the continual fear of death. The young risk their lives heedlessly - often actually for sport - but their ciders, even while they may grow in humility and selflessness, grow also in prudence and in regard for their own lives, those little portions of time in which they hope to create something fit to be offered at last to God. Rantzay, novice mistress and Warden of the Ledges, had not, like Melathys, been caught unawares by the sudden coming of Shardik like a thief in the night. From the moment when the Tuginda's message had reached Quiso, she had known what would be required of her. Since then, day after day, she had been driving her gaunt and ageing body over the rocky hillsides and through the thickets of the island, struggling with her own fear even while she calmed some near-hysterical girl and persuaded her to take part once more in the Singing: or herself took the girl's place and felt yet again the slow response of her muscles to the bear's lithe, unpredictable movements. On Quiso Anthred, the woman struck down and killed among the trees by the shore, had been first her servant, then her pupil and finally her closest friend. Once, in a dream, she had embraced her as her own child and together they had dug up and burned that day in the rains, long ago, when Rantzay's disappointed father, frightened at last by her waking fits, her swoons and the voices that spoke and babbled from her at these rimes, had gone to the High Baron to offer to the Ledges his ugly, unmarriageablc tent-pole of a daughter. She had recalled the dream as she performed the traditional rite of burning Anthred's quiver, bow and wooden rings upon her grave by the Telthearna strait By what means was Shardik to be brought into the open and drugged insensible: and if the means she chose were faulty, how many lives would be lost with nothing to show? She returned to the girls, who were standing together a little way off, looking down into the valley.

'When did he last eat?'

'No one has seen him eat, madam, since he left Ortelga yesterday morning.'

"Then he is likely to be looking for food now. The Tuginda and Lord Kelderek say that he is to be drugged.'

'Can we not follow him, madam,' said Nito, 'and put down meat or fish with tessik hidden in it?'

'Lord Kelderek says he must not fall asleep in the thick forest If it can be accomplished, he is to return here.'

'He will hardly return here, madam,' said Nito, nodding her head towards the road below.

At the foot of the slope fires were already burning and the sounds came up of many men at work; sudden cries of urgency or warning, the flat ringing of a hammer on iron, the gushing of flame fanned by a bellows, the rasp of a saw, the tap-tap-tap of a mallet and chisel. They could see Kelderek going from one group to another, conferring, pointing, nodding his head while he talked. As they watched, Sheldra left his side and came climbing quickly towards them. Impassive as usual, she showed no excitement or breathlessness as she stood before Rantzay and raised her palm to her forehead.

'Lord Kelderek asks whether Shardik has yet gone far and what is to be done?'

'He may well ask - and he a hunter. Does he think Shardik is likely to stay near that stinking smoke and tumult?'

'Lord Kelderek has ordered that some goats should be driven higher up the valley and tethered on the edge of the forest He hopes that if Lord Shardik can be prevented from hunting or feeding elsewhere, he may perhaps make his way towards them and that you may find means, madam, to drug him there.'

'Go back and tell Lord Kelderek that if it can be done we will find a way to do it, with God's help. Zilth, Nito; go back to the camp and bring up what meat you can find and all the tcssik that is there - the green leaves as well" as the dried powder. And you are to bring the other drug too - the theltocarna.'

'But theltocarna can be administered only in a wound, madam, and not in food: it must be mingled with the blood.'

'I know that as well as you,' snapped Rantzay, 'and I have already told you to bring it. There are six or seven gall-bladders packed with moss in a wooden box with a sealed lid. Handle it carefully - the bladders must not be broken. I will send back one of the other girls to meet you here and bring you on to join us, wherever we may be.'

The long and dangerous search for Shardik, westward through the forest, continued until after noon, and when at last Zilthe" came running between the trees to say that she had caught sight of the bear prowling along the bank of a stream not far away, Rantzay already felt herself on the point of collapse from strain and fatigue. She followed the girl slowly through a grove of myrtles and out into an expanse of tall, yellow grass buzzing with insects in the sun. Here Zilthe pointed to the bank of the stream.

Shardik gave no sign that he had seen them. He was fishing -splashing in and out of the water and every now and then scooping out a fish to flap and jump on the stony bank before he held it down and ate it in two or three bites. Watching him, Rantzay's heart sank. To approach him was more than she dared attempt. The girls, she knew, would not refuse to obey her if she ordered them to do it But what end would it serve? Suppose they could, somehow, succeed in startling him from the brook, what then? How were they to drive or entice him to return in the direction from which he had come?

She went back to the trees and lay prone, her chin propped on her hands. The girls, gathering about her, waited for her to speak, but she said nothing. The shadows moved over the ground before her eyes and the flies settled at the corners of her mouth. The heat was intense but she gave no sign of discomfort only now and then standing up to look at the bear and then lying down as before.

At length Shardik left the stream and stretched himself out in a patch of great hemlock plants not far from where the priestess was lying. She could hear the hollow sound of the stems as they snapped and sec the white umbels of bloom toppling and falling as the bear rolled among them. The silence returned, and with it the weight of her impossible task and the agony of her determination. In her perplexed exhaustion she thought with envy of her friend, free at last from every burden - from the laborious dedication of the Ledges and the continual fatigue and fear of the last weeks. If one had power to change the past - it was a favourite fantasy with her, though one which she had never shared, even with Anthred. If she had power to change the past at what point would she enter it, to do so? At that night on the beach o Quiso, a month ago? This time she would not guide them inland, but turn them back, the night-messengers, the heralds of Shardik.

It was dark. It was night. She and Anthred were standing once more on the stony beach with the flat, green lantern between them, splashing the shallow water with their staves.

'Go back!' she cried into the darkness. 'Go back, return whence you came! You should never have come here! I - yes, I myself - am the voice of God and that is the message I am sent to deliver to you!'

She felt Anthred clutch at her arm, but pushed her aside. The windless, moonless darkness was thick about them: only the sky retained a faint trace of light. Something was approaching, splashing slowly and heavily towards the shore. A huge, black shape loomed above her, its lowered head turning from side to side, the mouth open, the breath foetid and rank. She faced it imperiously. Once she and it had gone their several ways, then - ah! then she would return with Anthred to find her girlhood, to turn its course away from Quiso for ever. She raised her arm and was about to speak again, but the presence, with a soft, shaggy slapping of wet feet on the shore, passed by her and was gone into the wooded island.

There was a blinding light and a noise of scolding birds. Rantzay looked about her in bewilderment. She was standing knee-deep in the dry, tawny grass. The sun was thinly covered with a fleece of cloud and suddenly a long, distant roll of thunder ran round the edge of the sky. Some insect had stung her on the neck and her fingers, as she drew them across the place, came away smeared with blood. She was alone. Anthred was dead and she herself was standing in the dried-up, bitter forest south of the Telthearna. The tears flowed silently down her haggard, dusty face as she bent forward, supporting herself upon her staff.

After a few moments she bit hard upon her hand, drew herself up and gazed about her. Some distance away, Nito looked out from among the trees and then approached, staring at her incredulously.

'Madam - what - the bear - what have you done? Are you unharmed? Wait - lean on me. I - oh, I was afraid - I am so much afraid -'

'The bear?' said Rantzay. 'Where is the bear?'

As she spoke, she noticed for the first time a broad path flattened through the grass beside her and on it, here and there, the tracks of Shardik, broader than roof-tiles. She bent down. The smell of the bear was plain. It could have passed only since she had last seen it among the hemlocks. Dazed, she raised her hands to her face and was about to ask Nito what had happened, when she became conscious of yet one more bodily affliction. Her tears fell again - tears of shame and degradation.

'Nito, I - I I am going down to the stream. Go and tell the girls to follow Lord Shardik at once. Then wait for me here. You and I will overtake them.' am going down to the stream. Go and tell the girls to follow Lord Shardik at once. Then wait for me here. You and I will overtake them.'

In the water she stripped and washed her body and fouled clothes as well as she could. On Quiso it had been easier; often Anthred had been able to perceive when one of her fits was coming on and had contrived to help her to save her dignity and authority. Now there was not one of the girls whom she could think of as her friend. Looking back, she caught a glimpse of Nito loitering discreetly among the trees. She would know what had happened, of course, and tell others.

They must not be too long in catching up. Left to themselves the girls would not be steady, and if by some incredible stroke of fortune Shardik were indeed to return whence he had come, nevertheless without herself they could not be relied upon to do their utmost -to death if necessary - to carry out the Tuginda's instructions.

She and Nito had not gone far when she realized that the fit had left her dulled and stupefied. She longed to rest Perhaps, she thought Shardik would stop or turn aside before the evening, and Lord Kelderek would be forced to allow them another day. But each time they came up with one or other of the girls waiting to show them the direction, the news was that the bear was still wandering slowly south-eastward, as though making for the hill-country below Gelt Evening came on. Rantzay's pace had become a limping hobble from one tree-trunk to the next; yet still she exhorted Nito to keep her eyes open, to make sure of the right way forward and to call from time to time in hope of hearing a reply from ahead. Vaguely, she was aware of twilight, of the fall of darkness and later of moonlight among the trees; of intermittent thunder, far off, and of swift momentary gusts of wind. Once she saw Anthred standing among the trees and was about to speak to her when her friend smiled, laid a ringed finger to her lips and disappeared.

At last in clear moonlight at some mid hour of the night she looked about her and realized that she had caught up with the girls. They were standing close together, in a whispering group; but as she approached, leaning on Nito's arm, they all turned towards her and fell silent To her their silence seemed full of dislike and resentment. If she had hoped for comradeship or sympathy at the end of this bitter journey, she was clearly to be disappointed. Handing her staff to Nito she drew herself up, almost crying out as she put her full weight upon the broken-blistered soles of her feet 'Where is Lord Shardik? *

'Close at hand, madam - not a bowshot away. He has been sleeping since moonrise.'

'Who is that?' said Rantzay, peering. 'Sheldra? I thought you were with Lord Kelderek. How do you come to be here? Where are we?'

'We are a little higher up the valley that you left this morning, madam, and on the edge of the forest. Zilthe came down to the camp to tell Lord Kelderek that Shardik had returned, but she was exhausted, so he sent me back instead of her. He says that Lord Shardik must be drugged tonight.'

'Has any attempt been made to drug him?'

No one replied.

'Well?'

'We have done all we could, madam,' said another of the girls. 'We prepared two haunches of meat with tessik and placed them as close to him as we dared, but he would not touch them. There is no more tessik. We can only wait until he wakes.'

'Before I left Lord Kelderek, madam,' said Sheldra, 'a messenger arrived from Gelt, from Lord Ta-Kominion. He sent word that he expected to fight the day after tomorrow and that Shardik must come no matter what the cost. His words were, "The hours now are more precious than stars." '

From the hills to southward the lightning flickered between the trees. Rantzay limped the few yards to the edge of the forest and looked out across the valley. The sound of the brook below wavered on the air. Away to her left she could see the fires of the camp where the Tuginda and Kelderek must at this moment be waiting for news. She thought of the black shape that had passed her in the noon-day night, through the watery shallows of the grass; and of Anthred smiling among the trees, her hands adorned with the plaited rings that she herself had burned by the shore. These signs were clear enough. The situation was, in fact, a simple one. All that was required was a priestess who knew her duty and was capable of carrying it out with resolution.

She returned to the girls. They drew back from her, staring silently in the dimness.

'You say Lord Shardik is close at hand. Where?'

Someone pointed. 'Go and make sure that he is still sleeping,* said Rantzay. 'You should not have left him unwatched. You are all to blame.'

'Madam -'

'Be silent!' said Rantzay. 'Nito, bring me the box of theltocarna.'

She drew her knife and tested it. The sharp edge sliced lightly through a leaf held between her finger and thumb, while the point, with the least pressure upon it, almost pierced the skin of her wrist. Nito was standing before her with the wooden box. Rantzay stared coldly down at the girl's trembling fingers and then at the knife held motionless in her own steady hand.

'Come with me. You too, Sheldra.' She took the box.

She remembered the last time that she and Anthred had walked through fire, in the courtyard of the Upper Temple, on the night when they had led Kelderek to the Bridge of the Suppliants. There was an unreality about the memory, as though it were not hers but some other woman's. The night-sounds seemed magnified about her. The dry forest echoed through caves of dripping water and her body felt like a mass of hot sand. These were symptoms she recognized. She would need to be quick. Her fear was somewhere behind her, searching for her, overtaking her among the trees.

The bear was stretched on its side in a thicket of cenchulada cenchulada saplings, two of which he had pushed down and snapped in making a place to sleep. A few feet away lay one of the haunches of meat. Whoever had put it there had not lacked courage. The huge mass of the body was dappled with moonlight and leaf-shadows. The shaggy flank, rising and falling in sleep and overlaid with the speckled, moving light, appeared like a dark plain of grass. Before the half-open, breathing mouth the leaves on one of the broken branches sdrred and glistened. The claws of one extended fore-paw were curved upward. Rantzay stood a few moments, gazing as though at a deep, swift river into which she must now plunge and drown. Then, motioning the girls away, she stepped forward. saplings, two of which he had pushed down and snapped in making a place to sleep. A few feet away lay one of the haunches of meat. Whoever had put it there had not lacked courage. The huge mass of the body was dappled with moonlight and leaf-shadows. The shaggy flank, rising and falling in sleep and overlaid with the speckled, moving light, appeared like a dark plain of grass. Before the half-open, breathing mouth the leaves on one of the broken branches sdrred and glistened. The claws of one extended fore-paw were curved upward. Rantzay stood a few moments, gazing as though at a deep, swift river into which she must now plunge and drown. Then, motioning the girls away, she stepped forward.

She was standing against the ridge of Shardik's back, looking over his body, as though from behind an earthwork, at the restless, wind-moved forest. The thunder muttered in the hills and Shardik stirred, twitched one ear and then once more lay still.

Rantzay thrust her left hand deep into the pelt. She could not lay bare the skin and began cutting away the oily hair, matted and full of parasites as a sheep's fleece. Her own hands were trembling now and she worked faster, lifting each handful carefully, cutdng and then drawing it away from under the sharp knife.

Soon she had cut a wide, bristling patch across the shoulder, almost baring the grey, salt-flaked skin. Two or three veins ran across it, one thick enough to reveal the slow beating of the pulse.

Rantzay turned and stooped for the box beside her. Taking out two of the little, oiled bladders, she placed them between the fingertips of her left hand. Then she drove the point of the knife into the bear's shoulder and drew the blade back towards her, opening a gash half as long as her own forearm. Smoothly, without a pause, she pushed the bladders into it, drew the edges of the incision over them, pressed downwards and felt them crush inside.

With a snarl, Shardik threw back his head and rose upon his hind legs. Rantzay, flung to the ground, got up and stood facing him. For a moment it seemed that he would strike her down. Then, lurching forward, he crushed her against his body. A few steps he carried her, hanging grotesquely in his grip. Then, letting her drop, limp as an old garment fallen from a line, he staggered out to the open slope beyond the trees. He rolled on the ground and froth flew from his mouth as he bit and tore at the grass.

Sheldra was the first to reach the priestess. Her left hand had been gashed by her own knife, her tongue protruded and her head lay grotesquely upon her shoulder, like that of a hanged man. When Sheldra put one arm beneath her and tried to raise her a terrible, crackling sound came from the broken body. The girl laid her back and for a moment she opened her eyes.

'Tell the Tuginda - did what she said -'

Blood gushed from her mouth and when it ceased her gaunt, bony body vibrated very lightly, like the surface of a pool fluttered by the wings of a trapped fly. The movement ceased and Sheldra, perceiving that she was dead, drew off her wooden rings, picked up the box of theltocarna and the fallen knife and made her way out to the slope where Shardik lay insensible.

19 Night Messengers

The cage had taken all day to complete - if complete it were. On hearing his orders Baltis, the master smith, had shrugged his shoulders, making light of Kelderek, whom he had heard of as a simple young fellow with neither family, wealth nor craft - for in his eyes hunters were not craftsmen. He and his men, being armed with excellent weapons of their own making, had supposed that they were about to play their part in the sack of Bekla - or at any rate the sack of Gelt - and took it ill to be called out of the march and put back on their accustomed work. Kelderek, having tried in vain to bring home to the great, lumbering fellow the vital importance of what he had to do, went back to Ta-Kominion, catching him just as he was about to set out with the advance guard. Ta-Kominion, cursing with impatience, summoned Baltis to him under the tree which bore the body of Fassel-Hasta and promised him that if the cage were not complete by nightfall he should hang like the baron. This was talk that Baltis could understand clearly enough, and he immediately asked for double the number of men he expected to get Ta-Kominion, being in too much haste to argue, allowed him fifty, including two rope-makers, three wheelwrights and five carpenters. As the army wound away up the valley in the thickening, sultry morning, Kelderek and Baltis fell to their work.

Messengers were sent back to Ortelga and before midday all the stored fuel on the island, much of its stock of sawn timber and every piece of forged iron had been carried up to the camp by women and boys. The iron was of different lengths and thicknesses, much of it too short to be of use except as pieces for welding. Baltis set his men to make three axles and as many iron bars as possible, the latter to be of equal length and thickness, pointed and pierced at both ends. Meanwhile the carpenters and wheelwrights, using seasoned wood, some of which had until that morning formed part of the walls, roofs and tables of Ortelga, built a heavy platform of strutted planks, which they raised with levers and mounted upon six spokeless wheels, solid wood to the rims.