'Blest be the fire !' called the officer in a voice that carried across the square.

'Blest be Lord Shardik!' replied the old man quaveringly, and as he spoke lit his torch from the other's.

Now a handsome, middle-aged woman stepped forward, carrying in one hand her torch and in the other a yellow-painted wand, in token that she was deputizing for a husband absent at the war. There were many such in the crowd.

'Blest be the fire!' cried the young officer again, and 'Blest be Lord Shardik!' she answered, looking him in the eye with a smile that said, 'And blest be you too, my fine fellow.' Holding her lit torch aloft, she turned and set out for home, while a rough, heavily-built man, dressed like a drover, took her place before the plinth.

There was no jostling or haste, but a measured and joyous solemnity as torch after torch was lit. None might speak until the gift of fire had been bestowed upon him. Not all waited to receive fire from the actual torch carried from the Palace. Many, eager, took it as it was offered by those who were moving away across the square, until on all sides resounded the happy shouts of 'Blest be the fire!' and 'Blest be Lord Shardik!' Gradually the square became full of more and more points of light, like sparks spreading across the back of a hearth or the surface of a smouldering log. Soon the tossing, dancing flames were flowing out in every direction along the streets, while loosened tongues chattered like birds at first light and the rekindled lamps began to shine in one window after another. Then, on the roofs of the houses up and down the city, smaller fires began to burn. Some were poles, in imitation of those already lit on the gates and towers, others braziers full of wood or clearer fires of scented gums and incense-sprinkled charcoal. Feasting began and music, drinking in the taverns, dancing in the squares. Everywhere, the gift of light and warmth by night manifested the power over cold and darkness bestowed by God on Man and Man alone.

Beside the Barb, in the upper city above the Peacock Gate, another, graver messenger had arrived with his torch - none other than General Zelda, his full armour dully reflecting the smoky light as he strode towards the ripples lapping on the shore. Here, too, suppliants were waiting, but fewer and less fervent, their emotions modified by that detachment and self-conscious restraint which characterizes the aristocratic, wealthy or powerful participating in popular customs. Zelda's invocatory 'Blest be the fire' was spoken indeed with raised voice but in a formal, level tone, while the responding, 'Blest be Lord Shardik', though uttered sincerely, lacked the hearty ring of flower-girls or market porters in the lower city, breaking two hours' darkness and silence with the words appointed to commence one of the great frolics of the year.

Kelderek, robed in saffron and scarlet and attended by the priestesses of Shardik, stood waiting on the highest terrace of the Leopard Hill, surveying the city below; the torches spreading through the streets like water flowing from a sluice along dry irrigation channels; the multitudinous shapes of doors and windows emerging in light out of the darkness, as though called into existence by the new fires kindled within them; and nearer, the lines of flames lengthening, extending further along the shore of the Barb. So sometimes may news actually be seen to spread through a crowd, wind across a dusty plain, or sunrise down the western slope of a valley. About him burned the salts and gums and oils prepared for the fire festival, mysterious and splendid in combustion - kingfisher blue, cinnabar, violet, lemon and frost-green beryl - each transparent, gauzy fire, in its bronze bowl, carried upon rods between the shoulders of two women. The gong-like bells of the palace towers were ringing, their shuddering harmonies vibrating over the city, fading and returning like waves upon a shore. As he watched, the slip of the new moon sank at last below the western horizon and upon the lake appeared the gliding shape of a great dragon, a grinning monster all of fire, green-eyed and clawed, its jaws spouting a plume of white smoke that trailed behind it as it gathered way. Shouts of admiration and excitement broke out, young men's battle-cries and the stylized calls of the chase. Then, as the dragon reached the centre of the Barb, there sprang into being upon the further shore another fiery shape, erect upon its hind legs, thirty feet tall, round-eared, long-muzzled, snarling, one clawed fore-paw raised aloft As the cries of 'Shardik! Lord Shardik's fire!' rose higher and echoed from the walls about the garden, the figure of a naked man, bearing a torch in each hand, appeared in the bear's jaws. One moment he paused on that high, bright platform; then leapt out above the water. Secured to his shoulders and unrolling behind him was a long strip of tarred canvas which, burning, made it appear as though the bear were salivating fire. The leaper, plunging into the water below, slipped out of his harness and swam to the shore. Another followed, and now it was the shape of a fiery arrow which fell from the bear's mouth to the water. Quicker and quicker came the leapers, so that the flaming shapes of swords, spears and axes poured from between the bear's teeth to hurtle down over the lake. At length, as the dragon, belching smoke, glided beneath the towering effigy of Shardik, a burning noose dropped to encircle the prow forming its throat. The lights of its hot eyes went out and amid shouts of triumph its smoky breath died away as it floated captive at the glowing, ember-shaggy feet Meanwhile, Kelderek and his train had already begun to descend the terraces in slow procession. The chanting of the priestesses rose about him with a sound that wrung his heart, for it was that same andphony that he had first heard in the forests of western Ortelga. Then, the voices of Rantzay and the Tuginda had formed part of a wall of sound encircling a summit of the spirit, sublime above the mortal world of fear and ignorance. Yet of this memory his grave, lean face showed no outward sign. His clasped hands were untrembling and his body, beneath the heavy robes, moved firmly on towards the appointed destination. The plant-scents of the night, thin and evanescent in the early spring air, mingled with the resinous odours of the coloured fires and the drift of torch-smoke on the breeze; and bemused, perhaps, by these and by his fast since sunrise, by his memories and the sound of the singing, he imagined first one and then another companion to be walking beside him towards the torch-lit garden and the dragon-reflecting lake: a dark girl wearing a broad, golden collar, who laughed and plunged the point of an arrow into her white arm before turning to him a face wan with fear: a tall, gaunt woman, limping exhausted on a staff, her sweating hands clutching a box where bladders lay packed in moss: and an old, red-eyed hag, who tottered at his elbow in filthy rags, bearing in her arms a dead child and imploring his help in mumbled words beyond his understanding. So real did they seem that dread and foreboding came upon him, pacing on. 'Shardik,' he prayed, 'senandril, 'senandril, Lord Shardik. Accept my life. Redeem the world, and begin with me.' Lord Shardik. Accept my life. Redeem the world, and begin with me.'

And now he is come to the garden, where the lords and ladies fall back before him and the barons raise their swords in salutation of the power entrusted by God to the priest-king. The priestesses' singing dies away, the copper bells are silent, the fiery bear and the dragon have done their strife and burn low with none to regard. The people about the shore cease their shouts and cheering, so that the distant sound of the lower city's riot rises up from below the walls. The priest-king walks forward alone, before the eyes of armed barons and of the envoys of his vassal provinces, towards the brink of a deep, inshore pool - the Pool of Light, Here, unhelped by man or woman, he must divest himself of his heavy robes and crown and stand naked, in the sharp night air, to thrust his feet into sandals of lead placed ready for him on the verge. Below him, deep in the pool, there burns amidst the darkness and water a single light - a light enclosed in a hollow, crystal sphere secured to a rock, fanned with air and emitting its heat and smoke through hidden vents. This is the fire of Fleitil, devised long ago for the worship of Cran, but now made a part of the fire-festival of Shardik. Down the flight of underwater steps the king will go, his feet weighted to carry him to the floor of the pool, and thence release himself and rise through the water, bearing that miraculous globe of light. Already he has moved forward, feeling for each stone step with ponderous feet and slowly descending in a silence broken only by the water lapping about his knees, his loins, his neck.

But hark! What dreadful sound is that, breaking the reverent hush of Ortelgan warriors and Beklan lords, slicing like a sword across the crowded garden and the empty lake? Heads turn, voices break out. A moment's silence and it is repeated - the roar of a great animal in rage, in fear and pain; so loud, so fierce and savage that women clutch the arms of their men, as at the sound of thunder or of fighting, and young boys feign unconcern, ill-concealing their involuntary fear. The lady Sheldra, waiting close to the king at the water-steps, turns about and stands tense, raising one hand to shield her eyes from the torchlight as she tries to see across the garden to the dark oudine of the King's House beyond. The roaring ceases and is followed by heavy, vibrating thuds, as though some soft but massive object were striking against the wall of that cavernous, echoing place.

Kelderek, who had already drawn breath to submerge and drop from the lowest step'to the bed of the pool, gave an inarticulate cry and struggled to release himself from the weighted sandals. A moment more and he drew the pins, pulled himself out of the water and stood dripping on the paved verge. The murmurs about him grew louder, unfriendly and fearful. 'What has happened?' 'What is he about?' 'To break off - unlucky!' 'An unlucky act - no good will come of itl' 'Sacrilege!' In the crowd near by, a woman began to weep with quick, nervous whimperings of fear.

Kelderek, paying them no heed, bent down, as though to dress himself again in the stiff, heavy vestments lying at his feet. In his haste his hands fumbled with the fastenings, the robe fell sideways and, flinging it down, he began to push his way, naked as he was, through the group of priestesses about him. Sheldra put her hand on his arm.

'My lord -'

'Get out of the way!' answered Kelderek, roughly flinging her off.

'What's the matter, Kelderek?' said Zelda, coming forward and speaking low and quickly at his shoulder. 'Don't be foolish, man! What are you about?'

'Shardik! Shardik!' shouted Kelderek. 'Follow me, for God's sake!'

He ran, twigs and stones piercing his bare feet Bleeding, his naked body shoved and forced its way between men in armour and shrieking, scandalized women, whose brooches and belt-buckles scratched his flesh. A man tried to bar his path and he felled him with a blow of his fist, yelling again, ' Shardik 1 Get out of the way!'

'Stop! Come back!' called Zelda, pursuing and trying to clutch him. 'The bear's only frightened of the fire, Kelderek! It's the noise and smell of the smoke's upset it! Stop this blasphemy! Stop him!' he shouted to a group of officers a little way ahead.

They stared irresolutely and Kelderek broke through them, tripped and fell, got up and again dashed forward, his wet body smeared from head to foot with dirt, blood and the leafy fragments of the garden. Grotesque in appearance, as dirty and lost to dignity as some wretched butt of the barrack-room stripped, pelted and chased by his loutish comrades for their mean sport, he ran on, heedless of everything but the noise from the hall now close in front of him. As he reached that same terrace on which he had joined Zelda the day before, he stopped and turned to those following him.

'The roof! The roof's on fire! Get up there and put it out!'

'He's out of his mind!' cried Zelda. 'Kelderek, you fool, don't you realize there's a fire burning on every roof in Bekla tonight? For God's sake -'

'Not up there! Do you think I don't know? Where are the sentries? Get them up there - send men to search round the far side!'

Alone, he rushed through the south door, along the ambulatory and into the hall. The place was dim, lit by no more than five or six torches fixed along the smoke-streaked walls. By the cage-bars in the centre of the hall Zilthe was sprawled face-down, her head lying in a puddle of blood that oozed over the stones. From the roof above came sounds of crackling and burning, and something heavy shifted and slipped with a rending noise. A sudden spurt of flame came and went and sparks floated down, dying as they fell.

Shardik, swaying from side to side like a fir-tree when woodmen rock it at the base to loosen the roots, was standing erect at the further end of the hall, beating with his huge paws on the closed gate and roaring with rage and fear as the fire burned more strongly above him. In his back was a jagged gash as long as a man's forearm and near him lay a bloody spear which, evidently torn from one of the panoplies on the wall, must have fallen out of the wound as he rose on his hind legs.

Before the bars, with his back to Kelderek, stood a man armed with a bow. This also he must have snatched from the wall, for from either end still dangled the broken leather thongs by which it had been fastened. A heavy-headed arrow lay on the string and the man, no doubt unaccustomed to the weapon, was fumbling as he drew it. Kelderek, naked and unarmed as he was, rushed forward. The man, turning, dodged quickly, drew his dagger and stabbed him in the left shoulder. The next moment Kelderek had flung himself upon him, biting, kicking and clawing, and borne him to the ground. He did not feel whatever wounds he received, nor the pain in his thumbs as he pressed them, almost to breaking, into the man's throat and beat the back of his head against the floor. He sank his teeth in him like a beast, released his hold an instant to batter him, then clutched him once more and tore him, as a savage guard-hound tears a robber whom he has caught in his master's house.

When Zelda and those with him entered the hall, bearing the dead body of a sentry and holding under guard Elleroth, Ban of Sarkid and envoy of Lapan, whom they had overpowered in the act of climbing down from the roof, they found the king, covered from head to foot in blood and dirt, bleeding from five or six stab-wounds and weeping as he bent over the young priestess on the floor. The lacerated body beside him was that of Mollo, envoy of Kabin, who had been actually torn and battered to death at the king's bare hands.

30 'Elleroth Condemned

With a flow of relief like that felt by a child when light is brought into the dark room where he is lying afraid, Kelderek realized that he had been dreaming. The child desists from frightening himself with the fancy that the oak chest might be a crouching animal, and accepts that the grotesque face peering down upon him is nothing but a pattern of lines in the rafters; and at once other, true proportions, not actually revealed by, but nevertheless consequent upon the bringing of the light, are plain. The distant sound outside the window, though unaltered from a few moments before, is now, clearly, not faint, evil laughter but the croaking of frogs: while, by a subtle shift of emphasis, the smell of new-sawn wood, of penned cattle or of drying skins, which just now seemed so menacing, the very smell of fear, alters in its effect as it becomes linked with familiar people and bright, diurnal things. But with those things return almost at once the shadows which they cast Will he be scolded because he cried out in his fear? Or has someone perhaps discovered that yesterday he did what he should not? He has only exchanged one kind of anxiety for another.

In Kelderek's wakening mind, the misty topography of thought seemed to turn as though upon a pivot; dream and reality took up their proper places and he recognized the true aspect and features of his situation. He had not, he realized, been summoned to the presence of Bel-ka-Trazet - that was a dream - and therefore, thank God, he need no longer try to devise how best to defend himself. The aching pain in his body was certainly real, but was due not to blows received from the High Baron's men, but to his fight with the intruder in the hall. He was not, after all, in danger of death, yet instead there now returned to him the recollection of all that he had forgotten in sleep - the wounding of Shardik, the burning hall, Zilthe lying on the stones and his own injuries. How long had he been asleep? Suddenly, as a wall crumbles at the point where it is most vulnerable, the drowsy, undiscriminating progress of his awakening was broken by the realization that he did not know what had become of Shardik. At once he cried out 'Shardik!', opened his eyes and tried to start up.

It was daylight and he was lying in his own bed. Through the southern window, with its view over the Barb, a pale sun was shining. It seemed an hour or two after dawn. His left hand was bound up - his shoulder too, he could feel, and the opposite thigh. Biting his lip with pain, he sat up and put his feet to the floor. As he did so Sheldra came into the room.

'My lord -'

'Shardik! What has become of Lord Shardik?'

'My lord, General Zelda has come to speak with you. He is in haste. He says it is important.'

She hurried out, while he shouted feebly after her, 'Shardik! Shardik!' She returned with Zelda, who was cloaked and booted as though for a journey.

'Shardik!' he cried, and tried to stand, but stumbled back on the bed. 'Is he alive? Will he live?'

'Like master, like man,' replied Zelda with a smile. 'Shardik is alive, but it's a deep wound and he needs rest and care.'

'How long have I been asleep?'

'This is the second day since you were hurt.'

'We gave you a drug, my lord,' said Sheldra. 'The knife-blade broke off short in your thigh, but that we were able to take out.'

'Zilthe? What of Zilthe'

'She is alive, but her brain is damaged. She tries to speak, but can find no words. It will be long, or never, before she can serve Lord Shardik again.'

Kelderek put his head in his hands, thinking with anguish of the quicksilver lass who had once mistaken him for the quarry and shot an arrow between his arm and body; she who, standing alone in the waning moonlight, had seen Lord Shardik strike down the treacherous messenger on the road to Gelt.

'Kelderek,' said Zelda, interrupting his thoughts, 'no doubt you need to rest; but nevertheless you must listen to me, for time is very short and I have to be gone. There are things to be done, but the ordering of them I must leave in your care. That should do well enough, for the whole city desires only to serve and obey you. They know that it was you alone who saved Lord Shardik's life from those villains.'

Kelderek raised his head and looked at him in silence.

'Yesterday, at dawn,' went on Zelda, 'a messenger reached Bekla from the army in Lapan. His news was that Santil-ke-Erketlis, after sending a force to distract our attention with a pretended attack west of Ikat, had himself passed us on the east flank and was marching north through Tonilda.'

'What does he intend?'

'That we don't know - he may not have any preconceived aim, apart from seeking support in the eastern provinces. But he will probably form an aim in the light of whatever support he gets. We've got to follow and try to contain him, that's certain. A general Like Erketlis wouldn't begin a march unless he felt sure he could make something of it. Ged-la-Dan left yesterday morning. I've stayed to see to the raising of three more companies and some extra supplies - the city governor will tell you the details. I'm off now, with every man I've been able to impress: they're waiting for me in the Caravan Market; and a cheap lot they are, I'm afraid.'

'Where are you making for?'

'Thettit-Tonilda. Our army's coming north after Erketlis, so somewhere between here and Thettit I'm bound to strike their line of march. The trouble is that Erketlis achieved so much surprise -he must be nearly two days ahead of them.'

'I wish I could come with you.'

'I wish it too. Would to God Lord Shardik could join us for a new battle! I can see it all - darkness falling and Erketlis struck down with one blow of his paw. Heal him, Kelderek; restore him, for all our sakes! I'll see you get news - every day, if possible.' - 'But one thing more I must learn at once. What happened two nights ago? It was Mollo of Kabin, wasn't it, who wounded Lord Shardik? But who fired the roof of the hall; and why?'

'I'll tell you,' answered Zelda, 'and fools we were not to foresee it. It was Elleroth, Ban of Sarkid; he who passed us when we were walking that day above the Barb. If you'd not acted as you did in leaping from the pool, Lord Shardik would have died at the hands of that precious pair. The roof would have fallen in on him and on Zilthe, and both the traitors would have escaped.'

'But Elleroth - is he dead too?'

'No. He was taken alive as he came down from the roof. It will be your task to see him executed.' 'To see him executed? I?'

'Who else? You are the king, and the priest of Shardik.'

'I have little relish for it, even when I think what he tried to do. To kill in battle is one thing; an execution is another.'

'Come, Kelderek Play-with-the-Children, we can't afford to have you turn squeamish. The man's murdered an Ortelgan sentry and attempted a sacrilegious crime, wicked beyond belief. Obviously he must be executed before you and in the presence of every baron and provincial delegate in Bekla. Indeed, you will have to require the attendance of all Ortelgans of any rank or standing whatever -there are so few left in the city and the Ortelgans ought to outnumber the provincial delegates by at least three to one.'

Kelderek was silent, looking down and picking at the blanket. At length, ashamed of his weakness, he asked hesitantly, 'Must - must he be tortured? Burned?*

Zelda turned towards the window overlooking the Barb and stood gazing out across the water. After a little he said, 'This is not a question either of indulging mercy or of gratifying revenge, but simply of achieving an effect for political reasons. People have got to see the man die and to be convinced, by what is done, that we are right and he is wrong. Now if a man - a bandit, say - is to be executed to impress the poor and ignorant and deter them from law-breaking, it is best if he dies a cruel death, for such people have no imagination and lead hard, rough lives themselves. A quick death seems little hardship to them. It is necessary that the man should be humiliated and deprived of his dignity before their mean minds can take in the lesson. But with men of the better sort, it's another matter. If we torture a man like Elleroth of Sarkid, his courage is likely to excite admiration and pity and many of the delegates, who are men of rank, may even end by feeling contempt for us. We would do better to aim at arousing respect for our mercy. Although it is only just that he should the, it is with regret that we kill such a man - that is what we must give out. It is your affair, Kelderek, but since you ask me, I would advise you to have him beheaded with a sword. It will be enough, with a man of Elleroth's standing, that we put him to death at all.'

'Very well. He shall be executed in the hall, in the presence of Lord Shardik.'

'I should have told you. The fire did much harm before we could quench it. Baltis says the roof is in a bad state and will take some time to repair.'

'Is he the best judge? Has no one else been up to see it?'

'I cannot tell, Kelderek. You forget the news I told you of the war. All is at sixes and sevens, and you must see to this yourself. Lord Shardik is your mystery, and one which you have shown that you understand. Of the roof, I can tell you only what the man told me. Order the matter as you think best, so long as Elleroth is executed before all the delegates. And now, good-bye. Only keep the city as well as you have kept Lord Shardik, and all may yet be well. Pray for the defeat of Erketlis, and wait for news.'

He was gone and Kelderek, full of pain and tired to exhaustion, could remain awake hardly long enough for his wounds to be dressed before lying down to sleep again.

The next day, however, already troubled by the delay in commencing his task and anxious to have it done and finished, he sent for the city governor and the garrison commander and set about the arrangements. He was determined that the execution should take place in the hall and in the presence of Shardik, since he felt it to be just and right that Elleroth should the upon the scene of his crime. Also, he thought, there, more than anywhere else, he himself would be seen as the agent of Shardik, invested with the implacable and divine authority proper to one putting to death an aristocrat and the hereditary lord of a province twice as large as Ortelga.

The roof of the hall, he was informed, though in a precarious state and unable to be repaired until some heavy lengths of timber could be brought in to replace the two central tie-beams, was nevertheless safe enough for an assembly.

'The way we see it, my lord,' said Baltis, half-turning for corroboration to the Beklan master-builder standing at his elbow, 'it's sound enough unless there was to be any real violence - rioting or fighting or anything the like of that. The roof's supported by the walls, d'ye see, but the tie-beams - that's to say, the cross-beams - they've been that much burned that there's some might not stand up to a heavy shaking.'

'Would shouting be dangerous?' asked Kelderek, 'or a man struggling, perhaps?'

' Oh no, my lord, it'd need a lot more than that to make it go - like the old woman's ox. Even if the beams wasn't to be repaired, they'd still stand up for months very like, although the rain'd be in through the holes, of course.'

'Very well,' replied Kelderek. 'You have leave to go.' Then, turning to the governor, he said, 'The execution will take place tomorrow morning, in the hall of the King's House. You will see to it that not less than a hundred and fifty Ortelgan and Beklan lords and citizens are present - more if possible. No one is to carry arms, and the provincial delegates are to be separated and dispersed about the hall - no more than two delegates to be seated together. The rest I leave in your hands. The lady Sheldra, however, will be caring for Lord Shardik and you are to meet her early tomorrow and take account of her wishes. When all is ready to your satisfaction, she will come here to summon me.'

31 The Live Coal

The night turned cold, near to frost, and soon after midnight a white fog began to fill all the lower city, creeping slowly higher to cover at last the still waters of the Barb and thicken about the Palace and the upper city until there was no seeing from one building to the next. It muffled the coughing of the sentries and the stamping of their feet for warmth - or was it, thought Kelderek, standing cloaked in the bitter draught at the window of his room, that they slapped themselves and stamped rather to break the close, lonely silence? The fog drifted into the room and thickened his breathing; his sleeves, his beard felt chill and damp to the touch. Once he heard swans' wings overhead, flying above the fog, the rhythmic, unhindered sound recalling to him the far-off Telthearna. It faded into the distance, poignant as the whistling of a drover's boy to the cars of a man in a prison cell. He thought of Elleroth, without doubt awake like himself, and wondered whether he too had heard the swans. Who were his guards? Had they allowed him to send any message to Sarkid, to settle his affairs, to appoint any friend to act for him? Ought he not himself to have enquired about these things - to have spoken with Elleroth? He went to the door and called 'Sheldra!' There was no reply and he went into the corridor and called again.

'My lord!' answered the girl drowsily, and after a little came towards him carrying a light, her sleep-bleared face peering from the hood of her cloak.

'Listen!' he said, 'I am going to see Elleroth. You are to -'

He saw her startled look as the sleep was jolted from her brain. She fell back a step, raising the lamp higher. In her face he saw the impossibility of what he had said, the head-shakings behind his back, the soldiers' speculations, the later questions of Zelda and Ged-la-Dan; the icy indifference of Elleroth himself to the ill-timed solicitude of the Ortelgan medicine-man; and the growth and spread among the common people of some misconceived tale.

'No,' he said. 'It's no matter. I spoke what I did not intend - it was some remnant of a dream. I came to ask whether you have seen Lord Shardik since sunset.'

'Not I, my lord, but two of the girls are with him. Shall I go down?'

'No,' he said again. 'No, go back to bed. It's nothing. Only the fog troubles me - I have been imagining some harm to Lord Shardik.'

Still she paused, her heavy face expressing her bewilderment. He turned, left her and went back to his room. The flame of the lamp shed a cheerless nimbus on the fog hanging in the air. He lay prone upon the bed and rested his head on his bent forearm.

He thought of all the blood that had been shed - of the battle of the Foothills and crying of the wounded as the victorious Ortelgans mustered in the falling darkness; of the smashing of the Tamarrik Gate and the cacophonous, smoking hours that followed; of the gallows on Mount Crandor and the skulls in the hall below. Elleroth, a nobleman of unquestioned courage and honour, bending all his endeavours to the task, had almost succeeded in burning to death the wounded Shardik. And soon, when he was laid across a bench like a pig and the blood came spurting from his neck, few of those about him would feel the horror and sorrow natural to the heart of any peasant's child.

He was unaccountably seized with misgiving, by a premonition so vague and undefined that he could make nothing of it. No, he thought, this could be no divination on his part. The plain truth was that, despite his horror of Elleroth's deed, he had little stomach for this cold-blooded business. 'They should have killed him as he came down from the roof,' he said aloud; shivered in the cold, and huddled himself under the rugs.

He drowsed fitfully, woke, drowsed and woke again. Thought dissolved into fantasy and, not dreaming yet not awake, he imagined himself stepping through his embrasured window as from the fissured opening of a cave; and emerging, saw again under starlight the Ledges descending between the trees of Quiso. He was about to bound away down their steep pitch but, pausing at a sound from behind him, turned and found himself face to face with the old, muttering hag of Gelt, who stooped and laid at his feet - He cried out and started up. The fog sail filled the room, but it was murky daylight and in the corridor he could hear the voices of the servants. His bound wounds throbbed and ached. He called for water and then, robing himself without help and laying his crown and staff ready on the bed, sat down to wait for Sheldra.

Soon there came from the terrace below sounds of footsteps and low voices. Those who were to attend the execution must be converging on the hall. He did not look out, but remained on the edge of the bed, staring before him, the dark robe covering him from his shoulders to the ground. Elleroth, he thought, must also be waiting; he did not know where; perhaps not far away - perhaps near enough to hear the footsteps and voices diminish and silence return - a waiting, expectant silence.

When he heard Sheldra's step in the corridor, he rose at once and went to the door before she could reach it. He realized that he wished to prevent the need for him to hear her voice, that voice which would sound no different had she come to tell him that Lord Shardik had raised the dead to life and established peace from Ikat to the Telthearna. As he stepped across the threshold she was waiting and looked at him impassively, her face expressing neither dread nor excitement. He nodded gravely and she, unspeaking, turned about to precede him. Beyond her the other women were waiting, their stiff robes filling the narrow corridor from wall to wall. He raised his hand to silence their whispering and asked, 'Lord Shardik - what is his mood? Is he disturbed by the crowd?'

'He is restless, my lord, and looks fiercely about him,' answered one of the girls.

'He is impatient to sec his enemy brought before him,' said another. She gave a quick laugh and at once fell silent, biting her lip as Kelderek turned his head and stared coldly at her.

At his word they began to file slowly along the corridor, preceded by the beat of the gong. Looking down as he reached the head of the stairway, he saw the fog trailing through the open doorway and the young soldier at the entrance shifting his feet and gazing up at them. One of the girls stumbled, recovering herself with a hand that slapped against the wall. An officer appeared, looked up at Sheldra, nodded and went out through the door. She turned her head and whispered, 'He has gone to fetch the prisoner, my lord.'

Now they were entering the hall. He would scarcely have recognized it, so much closer and smaller did it seem to have grown. This was no longer the echoing space of flame-shot dusk where he had kept watch so many nights in solitude and where he had leapt empty-handed upon the Kabin envoy at his evil task. Except along the line of a narrow path extending before him between two ropes, men stood pressed together from wall to wall. There was a confusion of heads, robes, cloaks, armour, and of faces turned towards him, swaying and bobbing as each sought to catch a glimpse of him over and round his neighbour. Above them, the fog hung like the smoke of bonfires in the cold air. The charred, irregular gaps in the roof showed only as lighter patches of fog. Though the clothes of the spectators were of every hue - some gaudy and barbaric as nomads' or brigands' garb - yet in this dank gloom their brightness and variety seemed soaked away, like the colours of sodden leaves in autumn.

The floor had been covered with a mixture of sand and sawdust, so that no sound came from his footsteps or from those of the women pacing before him. At the centre of the hall an open space had been left in front of the bars and here, in an attempt to clear and warm the air, a brazier of charcoal had been set. The light smoke and fume drifted one way and another. Men coughed, and patches of the heaped fuel glowed as the draught blew them brighter. Close to the brazier stood a heavy bench, on which the three soldiers who were to carry out the execution had laid their gear - a long sword with a two-handed hilt, a sack of bran to soak up the blood and three cloaks, neatly folded, with which to cover the head and body as soon as the blow had been struck.

In the centre of the space a bronze disc had been placed on the floor, and upon this Kelderek, with the women flanking him on either side, took up his position, facing the bench and the waiting soldiers. For an instant his teeth chattered. He clenched them, raised his head; and found himself looking into the eyes of Shardik.

Insubstantial the bear appeared, monstrous, shadowy in the smoky, foggy gloom, like some djinn emergent from the fire and brooding darkly above it in the half-light. He had come close to the bars and, rising on his hind legs, stood peering down, his fore-paws resting on one of the iron tics. Seen through the heat and fume from the brazier his outline wavered, spectral and indistinct. Looking up at him, Kelderek was momentarily bemused, overcome by that dream-like state, experienced sometimes in fever, in which the mind is deceived as to the size and distance of objects, so that the shape against the light of a fly on a window-sill is supposed that of a house on the skyline, or the falling of a distant torrent is mistaken for the rustle of wall-hangings or curtains. Across a great distance Shardik, both bear and mountain-summit, inclined his divine head to perceive his priest, minute upon the plain below. In those far-off, gigantic eyes Kelderek - and he alone, it seemed, for none else moved or spoke - could discern unease, danger, impending disaster grim and foreboding as the rumbling of a long-silent volcano. Pity, too, he saw, for himself, as though it were he and not Elleroth who was the victim condemned to kneel at the bench, and Shardik his grave judge and executioner.

'Accept my life, Lord Shardik,' he said aloud, and as he uttered the familiar words awoke from the trance. The heads of the women on either side turned towards him, the illusion dissolved, the distance diminished to a few yards and the bear, more than twice his own height, dropped on all fours and resumed its uneasy rambling up and down the length of the bars. He saw the oozing scab of the half-healed spear-wound in its back and heard its feet stumbling through the thick, dry straw.

'He is not well,' he thought and, oblivious of all else, would have stepped forward even then, had not Sheldra laid a hand on his arm, motioning with her eyes towards the opening from the ambulatory on his right To the low, steady beat of a drum, two files of Ortelgan soldiers were entering the hall, their feet on the sand as soundless as his own had been. Between them walked Elleroth, Ban of Sarkid. He was very pale, his forehead sweating in the cold, his face drawn and streaked with sleeplessness: but his step was firm; and as he turned his eyes here and there he contrived to appear to be observing the scene in the hall with a detached and condescending air. Beyond him, Shardik had begun to prowl more violently, with a restless, dominating ferocity of which none in the hall could remain unaware; but Elleroth ignored him, affecting interest only in the packed mass of spectators to his left Kelderek thought, 'He has already considered how best to keep his dignity and determined upon this part to act' He remembered how once he himself, sure of immediate death, had lain waiting for the leopard to spring from the bank above; and thought, 'He is so much afraid that his sight and hearing are misted over. But he knew it would be so, and he has rehearsed these moments.' He called to mind the plot of which Elleroth was guilty and tried to recover the anger and hatred which had filled him on the night of the fire festival: but could feel only a mounting sense of dread and apprehension, as though some precarious tower of wrong piled upon wrong were about to topple and fall. He closed his eyes, but at once felt himself swaying, and opened them again as the drum ceased, the soldiers drew apart and Elleroth stepped forward from among them.

He was dressed plainly but finely, in the traditional style of a nobleman of Sarkid - much as he might have dressed, Kelderek supposed, to feast his tenants at home or to entertain friends at a dinner party. His veltron, veltron, pleated saffron and white, was of new cloth, embroidered with silk, and the slashed gores of his breeches were cross-stitched with an intricate, diapered pattern in silver filigree, a month's work for two women. The long pin at his shoulder was also silver, quite plain, such as might have belonged to any man of means. Kelderek wondered whether it might be a keepsake from some comrade of the slave wars - from Mollo himself, perhaps? He wore no jewels, no neck-chain, bracelet or ring; but now, as he stepped out from among the soldiers, he drew from his sleeve a gold pendant and chain, slipped it over his head and adjusted it at his neck. As it was recognized, murmurs arose among the spectators. It represented a couchant stag, the personal emblem of Santil-ke-Erketlis and his entourage. pleated saffron and white, was of new cloth, embroidered with silk, and the slashed gores of his breeches were cross-stitched with an intricate, diapered pattern in silver filigree, a month's work for two women. The long pin at his shoulder was also silver, quite plain, such as might have belonged to any man of means. Kelderek wondered whether it might be a keepsake from some comrade of the slave wars - from Mollo himself, perhaps? He wore no jewels, no neck-chain, bracelet or ring; but now, as he stepped out from among the soldiers, he drew from his sleeve a gold pendant and chain, slipped it over his head and adjusted it at his neck. As it was recognized, murmurs arose among the spectators. It represented a couchant stag, the personal emblem of Santil-ke-Erketlis and his entourage.

Elleroth came to the bench and paused, looking down at what was on it. Those nearest saw him brace himself against a quick tremor. Then, stooping, he felt the edge of the blade with one finger. As he straightened, his eyes met those of the executioner with a tense, forced smile and he spoke for the first time.