Ankray looked from one to another and scratched his head.

'Safety, saiyett? The Baron always said that General Erkcdis would be coming here one day, didn't he? That's why he sent that young fellow Elstrit -'

'General Erketlis may still come here, if we're lucky. But Farrass and the rest prefer to go now and seek him wherever he is. You're free to go with them and it will probably be the safest thing to do.'

'If you'll excuse my saying so, saiyett, I doubt it, among those men. I'd rather stay here, among Ortelgan people, if you understand me. The Baron, he always used to say that General Santil would come, so I reckon he will.'

'It's as you like, Ankray,' said Kelderek. 'But if he doesn't, then Zeray's going to become even more dangerous for all of us.'

'Why, sir, the way I see it, if that happens, we'll just have to set out for Kabin on our own account. But the Baron, he wouldn't want me to be leaving Ortelgan priestesses to shift for themselves, like, even with you to help them.'

'You're not afraid to stay, then?'

'No, sir,' answered Ankray. 'The Baron and me, we was never afraid of anyone in Zeray. The Baron, he always used to say, "Ankray, you just remember you've got a good conscience and they haven't." He usually -'

'Good,' said Kelderek, 'I'm glad that's what you want. But do you think,' he asked, turning to Melathys, 'that they may try to force force you to join them?' you to join them?'

She stared at him solemnly, wide-eyed, so that he saw again the girl who had drawn Bel-ka-Trazet's sword and asked him what it was.

"They can try to persuade persuade me if they like, but I doubt they will. You see, I've caught the Tuginda's fever, haven't I, which shows that it must be very infectious? That's what they'll be told, if they come here.' me if they like, but I doubt they will. You see, I've caught the Tuginda's fever, haven't I, which shows that it must be very infectious? That's what they'll be told, if they come here.'

'Pray God you won't catch it in all earnest,' said Kelderek. He realized with a blaze of passionate admiration that, despite all she knew of Zeray, her decision to remain, taken with delight rather than determination, was affording her not fear, but an elated joy in the recovery of her self-respect. To her, the appearance of the Tuginda in the graveyard had seemed first a miracle, then an act of incredible love and generosity; and though she now knew the true story of the Tuginda's journey, nevertheless she still attributed it to God. Like a disgraced soldier whose commander has suddenly called him out of the lock-up, given him back his arms and told him to go and retrieve his good name on the battlefield, she was soaring upon the realization that enemies, danger and even death were of small account compared with the misery of guilt which, against all expectation, had been removed from her. Despite what Kelderek had seen at the Baron's tomb, he had not until now believed that all she had suffered in Zeray had caused her less grief than the memory of her flight from Ortelga.

The Tuginda seemed no better, being still tormented by a continual restlessness. As evening fell Ankray remained with her, while Melathys and Kelderek used the last of the daylight to make sure of the locks and shutter-bars and to check food and weapons. The Baron, Melathys explained, had had certain sources of supply which he had kept secret even from his followers, either he or Ankray going now and then by night to bring back a goat or half a sheep from a village up river. The house was still fairly well supplied with meat. There was also a good deal of salt and a certain amount of the rough wine.

'Did he pay?' asked Kelderek, looking with satisfaction at the haunches in the brine-tubs and reflecting that he had never expected to feel gratitude towards Bel-ka-Trazet.

'Chiefly by guaranteeing that the villagers would not be molested "from Zeray. But he was always very ingenious in finding or making things we could trade. We made arrows, for instance, and needles out of bone. I have certain skills, too. Every postulant on Quiso has to carve her own rings, but I can carve wood still better now, believe me. Do you remember this ? I've taken to using it.'

It was Bel-ka-Trazet's knife. Kelderek recognized it instantly, drew it from the sheath and held the point close before his eyes. She watched, puzzled, and he laughed.

'I've reason to remember it almost better than any man on Ortelga, I dare say. I saw both it and Lord Shardik for the first time on one and the same day - that day when I first saw you. I'll tell you the story at supper. Had he a sword?'

'Here it is. And a bow. I still have my bow too. I hid it soon after I reached Zeray, but I recovered it when I joined the Baron. My priestess's knife was stolen, of course, but the Baron gave me another - a dead man's, I dare say, though he never told. It's rough workmanship, but the blade's good. Now over here, let me show you -'

She was like a girl looking over her trousseau. He remembered how once, years before, having built a cage trap for birds, he had found a hawk in it it There was no market for hawks - the factor from Bekla had wanted bright feathers and cageable birds - and, having no use for it himself, he had released it, watching as it flashed up and out of sight, full of joy at the recovery of its hard, dangerous life. Having walked through Zeray that afternoon, he now believed all that he had been told of sudden, unpredictable danger, of lust and murder moving below the surface of half-starved torpor like alligators through the water of some foetid creek. Yet Melathys, who had better reason than any to know of these things, plainly felt herself in a state of grace so immune that they had for the moment, at all events, no power to make her afraid. It must be for him to see that she took no foolish risks. There was no market for hawks - the factor from Bekla had wanted bright feathers and cageable birds - and, having no use for it himself, he had released it, watching as it flashed up and out of sight, full of joy at the recovery of its hard, dangerous life. Having walked through Zeray that afternoon, he now believed all that he had been told of sudden, unpredictable danger, of lust and murder moving below the surface of half-starved torpor like alligators through the water of some foetid creek. Yet Melathys, who had better reason than any to know of these things, plainly felt herself in a state of grace so immune that they had for the moment, at all events, no power to make her afraid. It must be for him to see that she took no foolish risks.

The Tuginda still lay in her arid sleep; a sleep comfortless as a choked and smoking fire, of which she seemed less the beneficiary than the victim. Her face was passive and sunken as Kelderek had never seen it, the flesh of her arms and throat slack and wasted. Ankray boiled a salt meat soup and cooled it, but they could do no more than moisten her lips, for she did not swallow. When Kelderek suggested that he should go out and find some milk, Ankray only shook his head without raising his eyes from the ground.

'There's no milk in Zeray,' said Melathys, 'nor cheese, nor butter. I've seen none in five years. But you're right - it's fresh food she ought to have. Salt meat and dried fruit are no cure for a fever. We can do nothing tonight. You sleep first, Kelderek. I'll wake you later.'

But she did not wake him, evidently content to watch - with a little sleep, perhaps, for herself - beside the Tuginda until morning. It was Ankray, returned from some early expedition of his own, who woke him with the news that Farrass and his companions had left Zeray during the night.

'There's no doubt of it?' asked Kelderek, spluttering as he splashed cold water over his face and shoulders.

'I don't reckon so, sir.'

Kelderek had not expected that they would go without some attempt to force Melathys to join them, but when he told her the news she was less surprised.

'I dare say each of them may have thought of trying to make me his property,' she said.' But to have me with them across the kind of country that lies between here and Kabin, slowing them down and causing quarrels - I'm not surprised that Farrass decided against that. He probably expected that as soon as I'd learned from you what they meant to do I'd come back and beg him to take me. When I didn't, he thought he'd show me how little I meant to them. They always felt resentment, you know, because they naturally supposed the Baron was my lover, but they feared him and needed him too much to show it. All the same, I wondered yesterday whether they might not try to force me to go with them. That was why I left it to you to tell them that Santil was at Kabin. I wanted to be well out of the way when they learned that,'

'Why didn't you warn me to conceal it from them? They might have come here for you.'

'If they'd learned it from someone else - and one never knows what news is going to reach Zeray - they'd have had strong suspicions that we had concealed it. They'd probably have turned against us then, and that could have been nasty.'

She paused, kneeling down before the fire. After a time she said, 'Perhaps I wanted them to go.'

'Your danger's greater now they're gone.'

She smiled and went on staring into the fire. At length she answered, 'Possibly - possibly not. You remember what you told me Farrass said - "Someone's bound to try soon." Anyway, I know where I'd rather be. Things have changed very much with me, you know.'

Later, he persuaded her to keep to the house so that people, no longer seeing her, might suppose that she had gone with Farrass and Thrild. Ankray, when told, nodded approvingly.

'There's sure to be trouble now, sir,' he said. 'It'll likely take a day or two to come to the boil, but when a wolf moves out, a wolf moves in, as they say.'

'Do you think we may be attacked here?'

'Not necessarily, sir. It might come to that and it might not. We'll just have to see how things turn out. But I dare say we'll still be here all right when General Santil comes.'

Kelderek had not told Ankray what he himself had to expect in this eventuality; nor did he do so now.

Later that afternoon, taking with him a knife and some fishing-tackle - two hand-lines of woven thread and hair, three or four small, fire-hardened, wooden hooks, and a paste of meat-fat and dried fruit kneaded together - he went down to the shore. He could observe no change from the previous day in the lack-lustre movements and aimless loitering of the men whom he saw. Although some had cast lines from a kind of spit running out into deeper water, the place did not look to him a likely one for a catch. After watching them for a time he made his way unobtrusively upstream, coming at length to the graveyard and its creek. Here, too, there were a few fishermen, but none who struck him as either skilled or painstaking. He was surprised, for from what he had heard the town to a large extent depended for food on catching fish and birds.

Retracing his steps of two days before, he went inland, up the shore of the creek, until he found a spot where, with the help of an overhanging tree, he was able to scramble across. Half an hour later he had regained the Telthearna bank and come upon what he had been seeking; a deep pool close inshore, with trees and bushes giving cover.

It was satisfying to find that he had not lost his old skill. As a man tormented by a law-suit, by money troubles or anxiety about a woman, can nevertheless derive pleasure and actual solace from a game skilfully played or a plant which he has nurtured into bloom (so accurate, despite all the mind's attempts to mislead it, is the heart's divination of where true delight is to be found), so Kelderek, despite his conviction that he would the in Zeray, despite his fears for the Tuginda, his grief for the evil he had done and the hopelessness of his longing for Melathys (for what possibility could there now be, in the time left to him in this evil place, of healing the wounds inflicted by all she had undergone at the hands of men?), still found comfort in the windless, cloudy afternoon, in the light on the water, the silence broken only by the faint breeze and river sounds and in his own ability, where a man lacking it would have wasted the time idling at one end of a motionless line. Here at least was something he could do - and a pity, he thought bitterly, that he had ever left it. Would he not, if Shardik had never appeared on Ortelga, have remained a contented hunter and fisher, Kelderek Play-with-the-Children, looking no further than his solitary, hard-acquired skill and evening games on the shore? He put these thoughts aside and set to work in earnest.

After lying prone and hidden for some time, ground-baiting the pool and fishing each part of it with watchful attention, he hooked a fish which he was obliged to play with great care on the light hand-line before at last it broke surface and proved to be a good-sized trout. A few minutes more and he contrived to snatch it with a finger and thumb thrust into the gills. Then, sucking his bleeding scratches, he cast out again.

By the early evening he had taken three more trout and a perch, lost a hook and a length of line and run out of bait. The air was watery and cool, the clearing sky feathered with light cloud, and he could neither hear nor smell Zeray. For a time he sat beside the pool, wondering whether their best course, when the Tuginda had recovered, might not be to leave Zeray altogether and, now that the summer was approaching, live and hunt in the open, as they had lived on Ortelga during the days of Shardik's cure and first wanderings. From murder they would be safer than in Zeray, and with Ankray's help he should be able to forage for them well enough. As for his own life, if Erketlis' troops came his chances of escape, even if they put a price on his head, would be better than if he were to await them in Zeray. Deciding that he would put the idea to Melathys that evening, he wound the lines carefully, threaded his fish on a stick and set out to return.

It was twilight when he crossed the creek but, peering towards Zeray through the mist which already covered the shoreward ground and now seemed to be creeping inland, he could see not one lamp shining. Filled with a sudden and more immediate fear than he had hitherto felt-of this cinder-pit of burnt-out rogues, he cut a cudgel from a tree before continuing on his way. He had not been alone outdoors and after dark since the night on the battlfield and now, as the twilight deepened, he became more and more nervous and uneasy. Unable to face the graveyard, he turned short to his right and was soon stumbling among muddy pools and tussocks of coarse grass as big as his head. When at last he came to the outskirts of Zeray he could not tell in which direction the Baron's house might lie. Houses and hovels stood haphazard as anthills in a field. There were no definable streets or alleys, as in a true town: neither loiterers nor passers-by; and although he could now see, here and there, faint streaks of light showing through the chinks of doors and shutters, he knew better than to knock. For an hour - or less than an hour, perhaps, or more - he wandered gropingly in the dark, starting at every noise and hastening to set his back against the nearest wall; and, as he crept on, expecting each moment a blow on the back of the head. Suddenly, as he stood looking up at the few stars visible through the mist and trying to make out which way he was facing, he realized that the roof outlined faintly against the sky was that of the Baron's house. Making quickly towards it, he tripped over something pliant and fell his length in the mud. At once a door opened near by and two men appeared, one carrying a light He had just time to scramble to his feet before they reached him.

'Fell over the cord, eh?' said the man without the light, who had an axe in one hand. He spoke in Beklan and, seeing that Kelderek understood him, continued, 'That's what the cord's for, to be sure. Why you hanging round here, eh?'

'I'm not - I'm going home,' said Kelderek, watching them closely.

'Home?' The man gave a short laugh. 'First time I heard it called that in Zeray.'

'Good night' said Kelderek. 'I'm sorry I disturbed you.'

'Not so fast,' said the other man, taking a step to one side. 'Fisherman, are you?' Suddenly he started, held up his light and looked more searchingly at Kelderek. 'God!' he said. 'I know you. You're the Ortelgan king of Bekla!'

The first man peered in his turn. 'He mucking is, too,' he said. 'Aren't you? The Ortelgan king of Bekla, him as used to talk to the bear?'

'Don't be ridiculous,' said Kelderek. 'I don't even know what you mean.'

'We was Beklans once,' said the second man, 'until we had to run for knifing an Ortelgan bastard that mucking well deserved it I reckon it's your turn now. Lost your bear, have you?'

'I was never in Bekla in my life and as for the bear, I've never even seen it.'

'You're an Ortelgan all right though,' said the second man. 'D'you think we can't tell that? You talk the same as the mucking lot of them -'

'And I tell you I never left Ortelga until I had to come here, and I wouldn't know the bear if I saw it. To hell with the bear!'

'You bloody liar!' The first man swung up his axe. Kelderek hit him quickly with his cudgel, turned and ran. The light went out as they followed and they stopped uncertainly. He found himself before the courtyard door and hammered on it shouting 'Ankray! Ankray!' At once they were after him. He shouted again, dropped the fish, gripped his cudgel and faced about. He heard the bolts being drawn. Then the door opened and Ankray was beside him, jabbing with a spear into the dark and cursing like a peasant with a bull on the pole. The oncoming footsteps faltered and Kelderek, sufficiently self-possessed to pick up his fish, pulled Ankray through the door into the courtyard and bolted it behind them.

'Thank God it was no worse, sir,' said Ankray. 'I've been out here waiting for you since nightfall. I thought like enough you might run into some kind of trouble. The priestess has been very anxious. It's always dangerous after dark.'

'It's lucky for me you did wait,' answered Kelderek, 'Thanks for your help. Those fellows don't seem to like Ortelgans.'

'It's not a matter of Ortelgans, sir,' said Ankray reproachfully. 'No one's safe in Zeray after dark. Now the Baron, he always-'

Melathys appeared at the inner door, holding a lamp above her head and staring out in silence. Coming close, he saw that she was trembling. He smiled, but she looked up at him unsmilingly, forlorn and pallid as the moon in daylight. On an impulse, and feeling it to be the most natural thing in the world, he put one arm round her shoulder, bent and kissed her cheek. 'Don't be angry,' he said. 'I've learnt my lesson, I promise you: and at least I've got something to show for it,' He sat down by the fire and threw on a log. 'Bring me a pail, Ankray, and I'll gut these fish. Hot water too, if you've got it. I'm filthy.' Then, realizing that the girl had still said not a word, he asked her, 'The Tuginda - how is she?'

'Better. I think she's begun to recover.'

Now she smiled, and at once he perceived that her natural anxiety, her alarm at the sound of the scuffle outside, her impulse to anger with him, had been no more than clouds across the sun. 'So have you,' he thought, looking at her. Her presence was instinct with a new quality at once natural, complementary and enhancing, like that imparted by snow to a mountain peak or a dove to a myrtle tree. Where another might have noticed nothing, to him the change was as plain and entire as that of spring branches misted green with the first appearing leaves. Her face no longer looked drawn. Her bearing and movements, the very cadence of her voice, were smoother, gentler and more assured. Looking at her now, he had no need to call upon his memories of the beautiful priestess of Quiso.

'She woke this afternoon and we talked together for a time. The fever was lower and she was able to eat a little. She's sleeping again now, more peacefully.'

'It's good news,' replied Kelderek. 'I was afraid she must have taken some infection - some pestilence. Now I believe it was no more than shock and exhaustion.'

'She's still weak. She'll need rest and quiet for some time; and fresh food she must have; but that, I hope, we can get Are you a sorcerer, Kelderek, to catch trout in Zeray? They're almost the first I've ever seen. How was it done?'

'By knowing where to look and how to go about it.'

'It's a foretaste of good luck. Believe that, won't you, for I do. But stay here tomorrow - don't go out again - for Ankray's off to Lak. If he's to get back before nightfall he'll need all day.'

'Lak? Where is Lak?'

'Lak's the village I told you of, about eight or nine miles to the north. The Baron used to call it his secret cupboard. Glabron once robbed Lak and murdered a man there, so when the Baron had killed him I took care that they should learn of it. He promised them they should never again be troubled from Zeray and later, when he'd got control - or as much control as we ever had - he used to send them a few men at harvest and in the hut-building season - any he felt he could trust. In the end, one or two were actually allowed to settle in Lak. It was part of another scheme of the Baron's for settling men from Zeray throughout the province. Like so many of our schemes, it never got far for lack of material; but at least it achieved something - it gave us a private larder. Bel-ka-Trazet never asked for anything from Lak, but we traded, as I told you, and the elder thought it prudent to send him gifts from time to time. Since he died, though, they must have been waiting on events, for we've had no message, and while I was alone I was afraid to send Ankray so far. Now you're here, he can go and try our luck. I've got a little money I can give him. He's known in Lak, of course, and they might let us have some fresh food for the sake of old times.'

'Wouldn't we be safer there than in Zeray - all four of us?'

'Why, yes - if they would suffer us. If Ankray gets the chance tomorrow, he's going to tell the chief about the flight of Farrass and Thrild and about the Tuginda and yourself. But Kelderek, you know the minds of village elders - half ox, half fox, as they say. Their old fear of Zeray will have returned; and if we show them that we are in haste to leave it, they will wonder why and fear the more. If we could take refuge in Lak, we might yet find a way out of this trap: but everything depends on showing no haste. Besides, we can't go until the Tuginda has recovered. The most that Ankray will be able to do tomorrow is to see how the land Kes. Are your fish ready? Good. I'll cook three of them and put the other two by. We'll feast tonight, for to tell you the truth -' she dropped her voice in a pretence of secrecy and leaned towards him, smiling and speaking behind her hand - 'neither Ankray nor the Baron ever had the knack of catching fish!'

When they had eaten and Ankray, after drinking to the fisherman's skill in the sharp wine, had gone to watch by the Tuginda while he wove a fresh length of line out of thread from an old cloak and a strand of Melathys' hair, Kelderek, sitting close to the girl so that he could keep his voice low, recounted all that had happened since the day in Bekla when Zelda had first told him of his belief that Erketlis could not be defeated. Those things which had all but destroyed him, those things of which he was most ashamed - the elder who had thought him a slave-trader, the Streels of Urtah, the breaking of his mind upon the battlefield, Elleroth's mercy, the reason for it and the manner of his leaving Kabin - these he told without concealment, looking into the fire as though alone, but never for a moment losing his sense of the sympathy of this listener, to whom defilement, regret and shame had long been as familiar as they had become to himself. As he spoke of the Tuginda's explanation of what had happened at the Streels and of the ordained and now inevitable death of Shardik, he felt Melathys' hand laid gently upon his arm. He covered it with his own, and it was as though his longing for her broke in upon and quenched the flow of his story. He fell silent, and at length she said, 'And Lord Shardik - where is he now?'

'No one knows. He crossed the Vrako, but I believe he may be already dead. I have wished myself dead many times, but now -' 'Why then did you come to Zeray?'

'Why indeed? For the same reason as any other criminal. To the Yeldashay I'm an outlawed slave-trader. I was driven across the Vrako; and once across it, where else can a man go but Zeray? Besides, as you know, I fell in with the Tuginda. Yet there is another reason, or so I believe. I have disgraced and perverted the divine power of Shardik, so that all that now remains to God is his death. That disgrace and death will be required of me, and where should I wait but in Zeray ?'

'Yet you have been speaking of saving our lives by going to Lak?'

'Yes, and if I can I will. A man on the earth is but an animal and what animal will not try to save its life while there remains a chance?'

Gently she withdrew her hand. 'Now listen to the wisdom of a coward, a murderer's woman, a defiled priestess of Quiso. If you try to save your life you will lose it. Either you can accept the truth of what you have told me and wait humbly and patiently upon the outcome - or else you can run up and down this land, this rats' cage, like any other fugitive, never admitting to what is past and using a little more fraud to gain a little more time, until both run out.'

'The outcome?*

'An outcome there will surely be. Since I turned and saw the Tuginda standing at the Baron's grave, I have come to understand a great deal - more than I can put into words. But that is why I am here with you and not with Farrass and Thrild. In the sight of God there is only one time and only one story, of which all days on earth and all human events are parts. But that can only be discovered - it cannot be taught'

Puzzled and daunted by her words, he nevertheless felt comforted that she should think him worth her solicitude, even while he grasped - or thought he grasped - that she was advising him to resign himself to death. Presently, to prolong the time of sitting thus close beside her, he asked, 'If the Yeldashay come, they may well help the Tuginda to return to Quiso. Shall you return with her?'

'I am - what you know. I can never set foot on Quiso again. It would be sacrilege.'

'What will you do?'

'I told you - wait upon the outcome. Kelderek, you must have faith in life. I have been restored to faith in life. If only they would understand it, the task of the disgraced and guilty is not to struggle to redeem themselves but simply to wait, never to cease to wait, in the hope and expectation of redemption. Many err in setting that hope aside, in losing belief that they are still sons and daughters.'

He shook his head, gazing into her smiling, wine-flushed face with such a look of bewilderment that she burst out laughing; and then, leaning forward to stir the fire, half-murmured, half-sang the refrain of an Ortelgan lullaby which he had long forgotten.

Where does the moon go every month And where have the old years fled? And where have the old years fled? Don't trouble your poor old head, my dear, Don't trouble your poor old head, my dear, Don't trouble your poor old head. Don't trouble your poor old head.'You didn't know I knew that, did you?' 'You're happy,' he said, feeling envy.

'And you will be,' she answered, taking his hands in her own. 'Yes, even though we die. There, that's enough of riddling for one night; it's time to sleep. But I'll tell you something easier, and this you can can understand and believe' He looked at her expectantly, and she said with emphasis, 'That was the best fish I've ever eaten in Zeray. Catch some more!' understand and believe' He looked at her expectantly, and she said with emphasis, 'That was the best fish I've ever eaten in Zeray. Catch some more!'

46 The Kynat

Opening his eyes next morning, Kelderek knew at once that he had been woken by some unusual sound. Uncertain, he lay as still as though in wait for a beast. Suddenly the sound came again, so close that he started. It was the call of the kynat - kynat - two smooth, fluting notes, the second higher than the first, followed by a chirring trill cut suddenly short. On the instant he was back in Ortelga, with the gleam from the Telthearna reflected on the inside of the hut roof, the smell of green wood-smoke and his father whistling as he sharpened his knife on a stone. The beautiful, gold-and-purple bird came to the Telthearna in spring but seldom remained, continuing its passage northward. Despite its marvellous plumage, to kill it was unlucky and ill-omened, for it brought the summer and bestowed blessing, announcing its good news to all - 'KynatI Kynat churrrrr - ak!' ('Kynat, Kynat will tell!') Welcome and propitious hero of many songs and tales, it would be heard and blest for a month and then be gone, leaving behind it, like a gift, the best season of the year. Biting his lower lip in his stealth, Kelderek crept to the window, noiselessly lifted the stout bar, opened the shutter a crack and looked out. two smooth, fluting notes, the second higher than the first, followed by a chirring trill cut suddenly short. On the instant he was back in Ortelga, with the gleam from the Telthearna reflected on the inside of the hut roof, the smell of green wood-smoke and his father whistling as he sharpened his knife on a stone. The beautiful, gold-and-purple bird came to the Telthearna in spring but seldom remained, continuing its passage northward. Despite its marvellous plumage, to kill it was unlucky and ill-omened, for it brought the summer and bestowed blessing, announcing its good news to all - 'KynatI Kynat churrrrr - ak!' ('Kynat, Kynat will tell!') Welcome and propitious hero of many songs and tales, it would be heard and blest for a month and then be gone, leaving behind it, like a gift, the best season of the year. Biting his lower lip in his stealth, Kelderek crept to the window, noiselessly lifted the stout bar, opened the shutter a crack and looked out.

The kynat, not thirty feet away, was perched on the roof-ridge on the opposite side of the little courtyard. The vivid purple of its breast and back glowed in the first sunlight, more magnificent than an emperor's banner. The crest, purple interplumed with gold, was erect, and the broad flange of the tail, each feather bordered with gold, lay open upon the grey slope of the tiles, brilliant as a butterfly on a stone. Seen thus at close quarters, it was inexpressibly beautiful, with a splendour beyond description to those who had never seen it. The river sunset, the orchid pendent in mossy shade, the translucent, coloured flames of temple incenses and gums wavering in their copper bowls - none could surpass this bird, displayed in the morning silence like a testament, a visible exemplar of the beauty and humility of God. As Kelderek gazed, it suddenly spread its wings, displaying the soft, saffron-coloured down of the under-sides. It opened its bill and called again, 'Kynat! Kynat will tell!' Then it was gone, eastward towards the river.

Kelderek flung back the shutter and stood dazzled in the sun that had just cleared the wall. As he did so, another shutter opened on his left and Melathys, in her shift, her arms bare and her long hair loose, leaned out, as though trying to follow with her eyes the flight of the kynat. She caught sight of him, started for a moment and then, smiling, pointed silently after the bird, like a child to whom gestures come more naturally than words. Kelderek nodded and raised one hand in the sign used by Ortelgan messengers and returning hunters to signify good news. He realized that she, like him, felt the accident of his seeing her half-naked simply as something acceptable between them; not that it was no matter, as it might have been in the commotion of a fire or some other disaster, but rather that its significance was altered, as though in a time of festival, from immodesty to a happy extravagance becoming the occasion. To use plain terms, he thought, the kynat had taken her out of herself, because that was the kind of lass she was. And as this thought crossed his mind, he realized also that he had ceased to think of her as either the one-time priestess of Quiso or the consort of Bel-ka-Trazet His understanding of her had outgrown these images, which had now opened, like doors, to admit him to a warmer, undissembling reality within. Henceforth, in his mind, Melathys would be a woman whom he knew, and whatever front she might present to the world he, like herself, would look through it from the inside, aware of much, if not all, that it concealed from others. He found that he was trembling. He laughed and sat down on the bed.

What had taken place, he knew, involved a contradiction. After all she had suffered, she no doubt felt impatient of conventional ideas of modesty. Nevertheless, what she had done sprang from sensitivity and not from shamelessness. Carried away by her delight in the kynat, she had yet known well enough that he would understand that this was no invitation, in the sense that Thrild or Ruvit would receive it. She had been sure that he would accept what he saw simply as part of their common delight in the moment. She would not have behaved before another man in this way. So in fact there was an invitation - to a deeper level of confidence, where formality and even propriety could be used or set aside entirely as they might be felt to help or hinder mutual understanding. In such a framework, desire could wait to find its allotted place.

So much, though it was new to him and outside any experience that he had had of the dealings between men and women, Kelderek understood. His excitement grew intense. He longed for Melathys, her voice, her company, her mere presence, to the exclusion of all else. He became determined to save her life and his own, to take her away from Zeray, to leave behind for ever the wars of Ikat and Bekla, the sour vocation that had fallen upon him unsought and the fruitless hope which he had once entertained of discovering the great secret to be imparted through Shardik. To reach Lak and from there, somehow, to escape with this girl who had restored to him the desire to live - if it could be done, he would do it. If it were possible for her to love a man, he would win her with a fervour and constancy beyond any in the world. He stood up, stretched out his hands and began to pray with passionate earnestness.

A stick tapped gently upon the courtyard paving and he turned with a start to see Ankray standing outside the window, cloaked and hooded, carrying a sack over his shoulder and armed with a sword at his belt and a kind of rough javelin or short spear. He was holding one finger to his lips, and Kelderek went over to him.

'Are you off to Lak?' he asked.

'Yes, sir. The priestess has given me some money and I'll make it go far enough. You'll be wanting to bolt the gate behind me. I just thought I'd tell you without letting the priestess know - there's a dead man lying in the road - a stranger, I reckon - some newcomer, maybe: they're the ones that catch it soonest here, as often as not You'll want to be very careful while I'm gone. I wouldn't go out, sir, or leave the women at all, not if I was you. Anything could happen in the town just now.'

'But aren't you the one that needs to be careful?' replied Kelderek. 'Do you think you ought to go? '

Ankray laughed. 'Oh, they're no match for me, sir,' he said. 'Now the Baron, he always used to say, "Ankray," he used to say, "you knock 'em down, I'll pick 'em up." Well, after all, you don't have to pick 'em up, sir, now do you? So if I just go on knocking 'em down, it'll all be the same, you see.'

Apparently highly satisfied with this piece of incontrovertible logic, Ankray leant comfortably against the wall. 'Yes, sir,' he said, 'the Baron always used to say, "Ankray, you knock 'em down -"'

'I'll come and see you off,' said Kelderek, leaving the window. At the courtyard gate he drew the bolts and stepped out first into the empty lane. The dead man was lying on his back about thirty yards away, eyes open and arms spread wide. The flesh of his face and hands had a fixed, pale, waxen look. His sprawling, untidy posture, together with the few torn clothes left on the body, made him look less like a corpse than like rubbish, something broken and thrown away. One finger had been severed, no doubt to remove a ring, and the stump showed as a dull red circle against the pallid hand.