Shardik (81 page)

K
elderek, looking quickly to eith
er side, whispered, ‘I could get you out alive.’

Without waiting for an answer, he shuffled away to where Radu was feeding Shara from his own handful.

‘You can’t afford to do that,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to keep up your own strength if you want to be able to look after her.’

‘I’ve done it before,’ answered Radu. ‘I’ll be all right as long as she is.’ He turned back to the little girl. ‘We’re going home soon, aren’t we?’ he said. ‘You’re going to show me the new calf, aren’t you, when we get home?’

‘All the way, underground,’ said a boy standing near; but Shara only nodded and fell to making patterns with her stones.

Soon they began to move off, following Genshed towards the river bank. Once there the slave-trader turned upstream, making his way along the open, pebbly shore.

Now that they were no longer among the close trees and he could see
the
whole column, Kelderek understood, as he had not on
the
previous day, why their progress was so much interrupted and so slow. What he saw was an exhausted rabble, which surely could not be far from complete disintegration. Continually, one child or another would stop, leaning face forwards against a rock or bank and, when Bled or Shouter came up to threaten him, only staring back as
though
too much stupefied even to feel fear. From time to time a boy would fall and Genshed, Shouter or Bled would pull him to his feet and slap h
im or dash water in his f
ace. The slave-dealer himself seemed well aware of the perishable condition of his stock. He was sparing with blows and called frequent halts, allowing the children to drink and bathe their feet. Once, when Bled, in a frenzy of rage, set about a boy who was fumbling and hesitating at the foot of a pile of rocks, he cuffed him away with a curse, asking where he thought he could sell a dead slave.

Later, as he and Radu lay gazing out across the glittering, noonday river,
Kelderek
, carefully keeping his voice low, said, ‘Shouter must know that he’s got all he ever can out of Genshed. Surely he must fear returning to Terckenalt? The best thing he could do would be to cut and run, and take us with him. I know how to survive in this sort of country. I could save his life and ours if only I could persuade him to trust me. Do you think Genshed’s made him some promise?’

For a time Radu answered nothing, looking sideways into the shallows and stroking Shara’s hands. At length he said, ‘Genshed means more to him than you think. He’s converted him, you see.’

‘Converted him?’

‘That’s why I’m afraid of Genshed. I know we all fear his cruelty, but I fear more
than
that.’

‘You mustn’t let him break your spirit,’ said Kelderek. ‘He’s nothing but a contemptible brute - a sneak thief - mean and stupid.’

‘He was once,’ answered Radu, ‘but that was before he got the power he prayed for.’

‘What do you mean? What power?’

‘Where he’s concerned, it’s no longer a matter of thieves and
honest men,’ said Radu. ‘He’s gone beyond that. Once he was noth
ing but a cruel, nasty slum-cree
per. But evil’s made him strong. He’s paid its price, and in return he’s been
given its power. You don’t feel
it yet, but you will. He’s been granted the power to make others evil - to make them believe in the strength of evil, to inspire them to become as evil as himself. What he offers is the joy of evil, not just money, or safety, or anything that you and I could understand. He can make some people want to devote their lives to evil. That’s what he did to Bled, only Bled wasn’t up to it and it drove him mad. Shouter - he was just a poor, deserted boy, sold away from his home. It’s not a question of how long he’ll last with Genshed or what he’ll get. He admires him - he wants to give him everything he’s got - he isn’t thinking about rewards. He wants to spend his life beating and hurting and terrifying. He knows he’s not much good at it yet, but he hopes to improve.’

Their hunger was like a mist in the air between them.
Kelderek
, looking about him for Shara, caught sight of her kneeling beside a pool a
little
way off and pulling out long strips of bright-yellow and dark-red weed, which she laid side by side on the stones.

‘All this is only your fancy, you know,’ he said. ‘You’re lightheaded with hunger and hardship.’

‘I’m light-headed, that’s true enough,’ answered Radu. ‘But I can see more c
learly for that. If you don’t th
ink it’s true, you wait and see.’

He nodded towards Shara. ‘It’s for her sake that I’ve not given in,’ he said. ‘Genshed wanted me to become an overseer in place of Bled. Bled’s become a nuisance to him - he can’t be relied on not to cripple boys or kill them. He’s killed three boys since Lapan, you know.’

‘If you became an overseer, mightn’t it give you a chance to escape?’

‘Perhaps - from anyone but Genshed.’

‘But did he only try to talk you into becoming an overseer? Didn’t he threaten you? You told me he once used the fly-trap on you.’

‘That was because I hit
Shouter
to stop him interfering with Shara. Genshed would never threaten a boy to make him become an overseer. A boy who’s going to become an overseer has got to want to do it. He’s got to admire Genshed of his own accord and want to live up to him. Of course Genshed wants the ransom money for me, but if he could persuade me to become an overseer, that would mean even more to him, I believe. He wants to feel he’s had a hand in making a nobleman’s son as evil as himself.’

‘But as long as he doesn’t threaten you, surely there’s no question of your giving in to him ?’

Radu paused, as though hesitating before confiding in Kelderek. Then he said deliberately, ‘God’s given in. Either that or He’s got no power over
Genshed
. I’ll tell you something that
I shall never forget. Before The
ttit there was a boy with us - a big, shambling lad called Bellin. He could never have crossed the Vrako; he was clumsy and a bit simple.
Genshed
put him up for sale along with the girls. The man who bought him told
Genshed
he wanted to make him a professional beggar. He kept several, he said, and lived off what they
brought in. He wanted Bellin muti
latcd, to excite pity when he was begging.
Genshed
hacked off
Bel
lin’s hands and held his wrists in boiling pitch to stop the bleeding. He charged the man forty-three meld. He said that was his rate for that particular job.’

Turning aside, he tore a handful of leaves from a bush and began to cat them. After a moment
Kelderek
copied him. The leaves were sour and fibrous and he chewed them voraciously.

‘
Come on! Come on!’ bawled Shoute
r, slapping at the surface of the shallows with his s
tick. ‘Get on your mucking feet!
Linsho -that’s where the grub is, not here!’

Radu stood up, swayed a moment and stumbled against
Kelderek
.

‘It’s the hunger,’ he said. ‘It’ll pass off in a moment.’ He called to Shara, who came running, with a long strip of coloured weed wound like a torque round one thin arm. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that hunger’s a form of torture. If there’s more food for overseers than slaves when we get to Linsho, I might become an overseer yet. Cruelty and evil - they’re not very far down in anyone. It’s only a matter of digging
them
up, you know.’

5
1
The
Gap
of
Linsho

Later, in the afternoon, they came to a wide bend in the river and
Genshed
once more struck inland to cut across the peninsula. The humid heat of the forest became a torment. The children, some of whom lacked energy even to brush the
flies
from their faces, were ordered to come close together and to grasp each his neighbour’s shoulder, so that
they
inched onward
like some ghastl
y pack of
purblind cripples, many keeping closed their insect-blackened eyes. The boy in front of Kelderek kept up a low, rh
ythmic sobbing -‘Ah-hoo! Ah-hoo!’
- until at length Bled flew at him, uttering a stream of curses and jabbing at his legs with the point of his sdek. The boy fell, bleeding, and Genshed was forced to call a halt while he staunched his wounds. This done, he sat down wit
h his back against a tree, whistl
ing through his teeth and rummaging in the depths of his pack. On an impulse Kelderek went up to him.

‘Can you tell me why you’ve taken me prisoner and how much you hope to get out of it? I can promise you a large sum to release me - more than you’d get for selling me as a slave.’

Genshed did not look up and made no reply.
Kelderek
bent down, stooping over the slave-trader’s sandy hair and speaking more urg
ently
.

‘You can believe what I say. I’m offering you more than you could get for me in any other way. I’m not what I seem. Tell me how much you want to let me go.’

Genshed closed his pack and rose slowly to his feet, wiping his sweating hands along his thighs. Some of the children near by looked up, waiting apprehensively for the snap of his fingers. He did not look at
Kelderek
, who had the odd impression that he heard and did not hear him, as a man might ignore a dog’s barking while deep in thoughts of his own affairs.

‘You can believe me,’ persisted
Kelderek
. ‘At Ortelga, which I suppose you mean to pass, I -‘

Suddenly, with the speed of a fish taking its prey, Genshed’s hand shot upwards and gripped the pierced lobe of Kelderek’s ear between finger and thumb. As his thumb-nail dug into
the
wound Kelderek shrieked and tried to clutch his wrist. Before he could do so, the slave-dealer drove his knee into his groin, at the same time releasing his ear to allow him to double up and fall to the ground. Then, stooping, he picked up his pack, put his arms through the straps and hoisted it behind his shoulders.

Two or three of the children tittered uncertainly. One threw a stick at Kelderek. Genshed, still with an air of abstraction, snapped his fingers and, as the children began pulling one another up and
Shouter
set up his usual bawling, walked away to the head of the line and nodded for the first boy to lay hold of his belt.

Kelderek
opened his eyes to find Shara looking down at him.

‘He hurt you, didn’t he?’ she said, speaking in a kind of Yeldashay patois.

He nodded and cl
imbed heavily to his feet.

‘He hurts us all,’ she said. ‘One day he’s going away. Radu told me.’

Pain and
hunger swirled in him as sti
rred mud clouds a pool.

‘Radu told me,’ she repeated. ‘Here’s a red stone, look, and I’ve got a blue one, kind of a blue one. Arc you hungry? You find caterpillars, can you? Radu finds caterpillars.’

Shouter came up, took hold of
Kelderek
‘s hand and put it on Radu’s shoulder in front of him.

An hour later they regained the shore and halted for the night, Kelderek found that he could form little idea of how far they might have gone during the day. Ten miles at the most, he supposed. Tomorrow Genshed meant to pass the Gap of Linsho. Would there be food, and would they rest? Surely Genshed could see
that
they must rest. Hunger closed down upon his mind as rain blots out the view across a plain. His thoughts, sliding like wet fingers, could compass nothing. Would there be food at Linsho? Would
there
, for a time, be no more shuffling, no more stooping to free the chain? Genshed might refrain from hurting him at Linsho, the pain in his finger would grow less. These were things to hope for - but he must try to look beyond these - consider - must consider what was best to be done -

‘What
are you thinking?’ asked Radu.
Kelderek
tried to laugh, and tapped his head. ‘Where I was born, they used to say, “You can tap on the wood, but will the insects run out? ” ‘ ‘Where was that?’

He hesitated. ‘
Ortelga
. But it doesn’t matter now.’

After a pause, Radu said, ‘If ever you get back there-‘

‘All the way, underground,’ said Kelderek.

‘You know what we mean when we say that?’

Shara came running towards them along the bank. She took Radu’s hand, chattering faster than Kelderek could understand and pointing in the direction she had come from. A little way off, a thick tangle of creepers, covered with gaudy, trumpet-like flowers, hung like a curtain between the foreshore and the forest. Looking where Shara pointed, they saw
that
the whole mass was tremulous, shaking sli
ghtly
but rapidly, vibrant with some strange, unexplained energy of its own. There was no bird or beast to be seen, yet along an expanse as broad as a hut-wall the leaves and blooms quivered spasmodically and the long tendrils undulated
with
a kind of light, quick violence. The little girl, frightened yet fascinated, stared from behind Radu’s shoulder. One or two of the other children gathered about them, also gazing curiously. Radu himself was plainly uncertain whether some strange creature might not be about to appear.