On this cloudy spring morning the surface of the Barb, ruffled by the south wind, had the dull, broken shine of an incised glaze. Along the lonelier, southeastern shore, from which pasture land, enclosed within the city walls, stretched away up the slopes of Crandor, a flock of cranes were feeding and squabbling, wading through the shallows and bending their long necks down to the weeds. On the opposite side, in the sheltering cypress gardens, men were strolling in twos and threes or sitting out of the wind in the evergreen arbors. Some were attended by servants who walked behind them carrying cloaks, papers and writing materials, while others, harsh-voiced and shaggy as brigands, broke from time to time into loud laughter or slapped each other's shoulders, betraying, even while they tried to hide it, the lack of ease which they felt in these trim and unaccustomed surroundings. Others again clearly wished to be known for soldiers and, though personally unarmed, in deference to the place and the occasion, had instructed their servants to carry their empty scabbards conspicuously. It seemed that a number of these men were strangers to each other, for their greetings as they passed were formal--a bow, a grave nod or a few words: yet their very presence together showed that they must have something in common. After a time a certain restlessness--even impatience--began to show among them. Evidently they were waiting for something that was delayed.
At length the figure of a woman, scarlet-cloaked and carrying a silver staff, was seen approaching the garden from the King's House. There was a general move in the direction of the gate leading into the walled road, so that by the time the woman reached it, forty or fifty men were already waiting there. As she entered some thronged about her; others, with an air of detachment, idled, or pretended to idle, within earshot. The woman, dour and stolid in manner, looked around among them, raised in greeting her hand with its crimson wooden rings, and began to speak. Although she spoke in Beklan, it was plain that this was not her tongue. Her voice had the slow, flat cadence of Telthearna province and she was, as they all knew, a priestess of the conquerors, an Ortelgan.
"My lords, the king greets you and welcomes you to Bekla. He is grateful to each of you, for he knows that you have the strength and safety of the empire at heart. As you all know, it was--"
At this moment she was interrupted by the stammering excitement of a thickset, lank-haired man who spoke with the accent of a westerner from Paltesh.
"--Madam Sheldra--saiyett--tell us--the king--Lord Crendrik--no harm has befallen him?"
Sheldra turned toward him unsmilingly and stared him into silence. Then she continued,
"As you all know, he intended to have received you this morning in audience at the Palace, and to have held the first meeting of the Council this afternoon. He has now been obliged to alter this intention."
She paused, but there was no further interruption. All were listening with attention. The distant idlers came closer, glancing at each other with raised eyebrows.
"General Ged-la-Dan was expected to reach Bekla last night, together with the delegates from eastern Lapan. However, they have been unexpectedly delayed. A messenger reached the king at dawn with the news that they will not be here until this evening. The king therefore asks your patience for a day. The audience will be held at this time tomorrow and the Council will commence in the afternoon. Until then you are the guests of the city, and the king will welcome all who may wish to sup with him in the Palace an hour after sunset."
A tall, beardless man, wearing a fox-fur cloak over a white, pleated kilt and purple damask tunic blazoned with three corn sheaves, came strolling elegantly along the terrace and turned his eyes toward the crowd as though he had just noticed them for the first time. He stopped, paused a moment and then addressed Sheldra across their heads in the courteous and almost apologetic tone of a gentleman questioning someone else's servant.
"I wonder what might have delayed the general? Perhaps you can be so kind as to tell me?"
Sheldra made no immediate reply and it seemed that her self-possession was not altogether equal either to the question or to the questioner. She appeared to be not so much considering the question as hoping that it might go away, as though it were some kind of pestering insect. She betrayed no actual confusion but at length, keeping her eyes on the ground, she turned, avoiding the tall man's gaze in the manner of some governess or duenna in a wealthy house, out of countenance to find herself required to respond graciously to unsought attention from friends of the family. She was about to leave when the newcomer, inclining his sleek head and persisting in his kindly and condescending manner, stepped smoothly through the crowd to her side.
"You see, I am most anxious to learn, since if I am not mistaken, the general's army is at present in Lapan province, and any misfortune of his would certainly be mine as well. I am sure that in the circumstances you will excuse my importunity."
Sheldra's muttered answer seemed appropriate less to a royal messenger than to some gauche and sullen waiting-woman in a yeoman's kitchen.
"He stayed with the army, I think--I heard, that is. He is coming soon."
"Thank you," replied the tall man. "He had some reason, no doubt? I know that you will wish to help me if you can."
Sheldra flung up her head like a mare troubled by the flies.
"The enemy in Ikat--General Erketlis--General Ged-la-Dan wished to leave everything secure before he set out for Bekla. And now, my lords, I must leave you--until tomorrow--"
Almost forcing her way past them, she left the garden with clumsy and less than becoming haste.
The man with the corn-sheaves tunic strolled on toward the shrubbery by the lake, looking across at the feeding cranes and toying with a silver pomander secured to his belt by a fine gold chain. He shivered in the wind and drew his cloak closer about him, lifting the hem above the damp grass with a kind of stylized grace almost like that of a girl on a dance floor. He had stopped to admire the mauve-stippled, frosty sparkle on the petals of an early-flowering saldis, when someone plucked his sleeve from behind. He looked over his shoulder. The man who had attracted his attention stood looking back at him with a grin. He had a rugged, somewhat battered appearance and the skeptical air of a man who has experienced much, gained advancement and prosperity in a hard school and come to regard both with a certain detachment.
"Mollo!" cried the tall man, opening his arms in a gesture of welcome. "My dear fellow, what a pleasant surprise! I thought you were in Terekenalt--across the Vrako--in the clouds--anywhere but here. If I weren't half frozen in this pestilential city I'd be able to show all the pleasure I feel, instead of only half of it."
Thereupon he embraced Mollo, who appeared a trifle embarrassed but took it in good part, and then, holding him by the hand at arm's length as though they were dancing some courtly measure, looked him up and down, shaking his head slowly and continuing to speak as he had commenced, in Yeldashay, the tongue of Ikat and the south.
"Wasting away, wasting away! Obviously full of tribesmen's snapped-off arrowheads and rot-gut booze from the barracks of beyond. One wonders why the holes made by the former wouldn't drain off some of the latter. But come, tell me how you happen to be here--and how's Kabin and all the jolly water boys?"
"I'm the governor of Kabin now," replied Mollo with a grin, "so the place has come down in the world."
"My dear fellow, I congratulate you! So the water rats have engaged the services of a wolf? Very prudent, very prudent." He half-sang a couple of lines.
A jolly old cattle thief said to his wife, (San, tan, tennerferee)
"I mean to live easy the rest of my life--"
"That's it," said Mollo with a grin. "After that little business of the Slave Wars we got mixed up in--"
"When you saved my life--"
"When I saved your life (God help me, I must have been out of my mind), I couldn't stay in Kabin. What was there for me? My father sand-blind in the chimney corner and my elder brother taking damned good care that neither Shrain nor I got anything out of the estate. Shrain raised forty men and
joined the Beklan army, but I didn't fancy that and I decided to go further. Arrowheads and rot-gut--well, you're right, that's about it."
"Boot, brute and loot, as it were?"
"If you can't steal it, you've got to fight for it, that's it. I made myself useful. I finished up as a provincial governor to the king of Deelguy--honest work for a change--"
"In Deelguy, Mollo? Oh, come now--"
"Well, fairly honest, anyway. Plenty of headaches and worries--too much responsibility--"
"I can vividly imagine your feelings on discovering yourself north of the Telthearna, in sole command of Fort Horrible--"
"It was Klamsid province, actually. Well, it's one way of feathering your nest, if you can survive. That was where I was when I heard of Shrain's death--he was killed by the Ortelgans, five years ago now, at the battle of the Foothills, when Gel-Ethlin lost his army. Poor lad! Anyway, about six months back a Deelguy merchant comes up before me for a travel permit--a nasty, slimy brute by the name of Lalloc. When we're alone, 'Are you Lord Mollo,' says he, 'from Kabin of the Waters?' 'I'm Mollo the governor,' says I, 'and apt to come down heavy on oily flatterers.' 'Why, my lord,' says he, 'there's no flattery.'"
"Flottery, you mean."
"Well, flottery, then. I can't imitate their damned talk. 'I've come from spending the rainy season at Kabin,' he says, 'and there's news for you. Your elder brother's dead and the property's yours, but no one knew where to find you. You've three months in law to claim it.' 'What's that to me?' I thought to myself; but later I got to thinking about it and I knew I wanted to go home. So I appointed my deputy as governor on my own authority, sent the king a message to say what I'd done--and left."
"The inhabitants were heartbroken? The pigs wept real tears in the bedrooms?"
"They may have--I didn't notice. You can't tell them from the inhabitants, anyway. It was a bad journey at that time of year. I nearly drowned, crossing the Telthearna by night."
"It had to be by night?"
"Well, I was in a hurry, you see."
"Not to be observed?"
"Not to be observed. I went over the hills by way of Gelt--I wanted to see where Shrain died--say a few prayers for him and make an offering, you know. My God, that's an awful place! I don't want to talk about it--the ghosts must be thicker than frogs in a marsh. I wouldn't be there at night for all the gold in Bekla. Shrain's at peace, anyway--I did all that's proper. Well, when I came down the pass to the plain--and I had to pay toll at the southern end, that was new--it was late afternoon already and I thought, 'I shan't get to Kabin tonight--I'll go to old S'marr Torruin, him that used to breed the prize bulls when my father was alive, that's it.' When I got there--only myself and a couple of fellows--why, you never saw a place so much changed: servants by the bushel, everything made of silver, all the women in silk and jewels. S'marr was just the same, though, and he remembered me all right. When we were drinking together after dinner I said, 'Bulls seem to be paying well.' 'Oh,' says he, 'haven't you heard? They made me governor of the Foothills and warden of the Gelt pass.' How on earth did that come about?' I asked. 'Well,' says he, 'you've got to watch out to jump the right way in a time of trouble--it's a case of win all or lose all. After I'd heard what happened at the battle of the Foothills, I knew these Ortelgans were bound to take Bekla: it stood to reason--they were meant to win. I could see it plain, but no one else seemed able to. I went straight to their generals myself--caught 'em up as they were marching south across the plain to Bekla--and promised them all the help I could give. You see, the night before the battle the best half of Gel-Ethlin's army had been sent to Kabin to repair the dam--and if that wasn't the finger of God, what was? The rains had just begun, but all the same, those Beklans at Kabin were in the Ortelgans' rear as they marched south. It's not the sort of risk any general can feel happy about. I made it impossible for them to move--took my fellows out and destroyed three bridges, sent false information to Kabin, intercepted their messengers--' 'Lord,' says I to S'marr, 'what a gamble to take on the Ortelgans!' 'Not at all,' says S'marr. 'I can tell when lightning's going to strike, and I don't need to know exactly where. I tell you, the Ortelgans were meant to win. That half-army of poor old Gel-Ethlin's simply broke up--never fought again. They marched out of Kabin in the rain, turned back again, went on half-rations--then there was mutiny, wholesale desertion. By the time a messenger got through from Santil-ke-Erketlis, a mutineers' faction was in command and they nearly hanged the poor fellow. A lot of that was my doing, and didn't I let this King Crendrik fellow know it, too? That was how the Ortelgans came to make me governor of the Foothills and warden of the Gelt pass, my boy, and very lucrative it is.' All of a sudden S'marr looks up at me. 'Have you come home to claim the family property?' he asks. 'That's it,' I said. 'Well,' says he, 'I never liked your brother--griping, hard-fisted curmudgeon--but you're all right. They're short of a governor in Kabin. There was a foreigner there until recently--name of Orcad, formerly in the Beklan service. He understood the reservoir, you see, and that's more than the Ortelgans do--but he's just been murdered. Now you're a local lad, so you won't get murdered, and the Ortelgans like local men as long as they feel they can trust them. After what's happened they trust me, naturally, and if I put in a word with General Zelda you'll probably be appointed.' Well, the long and short of it was, I agreed to make it worth S'marr's while to speak for me, and that's how I come to be governor of Kabin."
"I see. And you commune with the reservoir from the profound depths of your aquatic knowledge, do you?"
"I've no idea how to look after a reservoir, but while I'm here I mean to find someone who has and take him back with me, that's it."
"And is he up here now for the Council, your charming old bull-breeding chum?"
"S'marr? Not he--he's sent his deputy. He's no fool."
"How long have you been governor of Kabin?"
"About three days. I tell you, all this happened very recently. General Zelda was recruiting in those parts, as it happened, and S'marr saw him the next day. I'd not been back home more than one night when he sent an officer to tell me I was appointed governor and order me to come to Bekla in person. So here I am, Elleroth, you see, and the first person I run into is you!"
"Elleroth Ban--bow three times before addressing me."
"Well, we have become an exalted pair, that's it. Ban of Sarkid? How long have you been Elleroth Ban?"
"Oh, a few years now. My poor father died a while back. But tell me, how much do you know about the new, modern Bekla and its humane and enlightened rulers?"
At this moment two of the other delegates overtook them, talking earnestly in Katrian Chistol, the dialect of eastern Terekenalt. One, as he passed, turned his head and continued to stare unsmilingly over his shoulder for some moments before resuming his conversation.
"You ought to be more careful," said Mollo. "Remarks like that shouldn't be made at all in a place like this, let alone overheard."
"My dear fellow, how much Yeldashay do you suppose those cultivated pumpkins understand? Their bodies scarcely cover their minds with propriety. Their oafishness is indecently exposed."
"You never know. Discretion--that's one thing I've learned and I'm alive to prove it."
"Very well, we will indulge your desire for privacy, chilly though it may be to do so. Yonder is a fellow with a boat, yo ho, and no doubt he has his price, like everyone in this world."
Addressing the boatman, as he had Sheldra, in excellent Beklan, with scarcely a trace of Yeldashay accent, Elleroth gave him a ten-meld piece, fastened his fox-fur cloak at the throat, turned up the deep collar round the back of his head and stepped into the boat, followed by Mollo.
As the man rowed them out toward the center of the lake and the choppy wavelets began to set up a regular, hollow slapping under the bow, Elleroth remained silent, staring intently across at the grazing land that extended from the southern side of the king's house, around the western shore of the lake and on to the northern slopes of Crandor in t
he distance.
"Lonely, isn't it?" he said at last, still speaking in Yeldashay.
"Lonely?" replied Mollo. "Hardly that."
"Well, let us say relatively unfrequented--and that ground's nice and smooth--no obstacles. Good." He paused, smiling at Mollo's frowning incomprehension.
"But to resume where we were so poignantly interrupted. How much do you know about Bekla and these bear-bemused river boys from the Telthearna?"
"I tell you--next to nothing. I've had hardly any time to find out."
"Did you know, for example, that after the battle in the Foothills, five and a half years ago, they didn't bury the dead--neither their own nor Gel-Ethlin's? They left them for the wolves and the kites."
"I'm not surprised to hear it. I've been on that field, as I told you, and I've never been so glad to leave anywhere. My two fellows were almost crazy with fear--and that was in daylight. I did what had to be done for Shrain's sake and came away quick."
"Did you see anything?"
"No, it was just what we all felt. Oh, you mean the remains of the dead? No--we didn't stray off the road, you see, and that was cleared soon after the battle by men who came down from Gelt to do it, so I heard."
"Yes. The Ortelgans, of course, didn't bother. But it wasn't really to be expected that they would, was it?"
"By the time the battle was won the rains had set in and night was falling, wasn't that it? They were desperate to get on to Bekla."