Shardik (86 page)

‘Thot’s not moch, eh?’

‘Well, it’s all right - watch their faces when they bring them out - you know, when they sec it all laid out for their personal benefit -the clindcrs and the frags and that.’

‘Frags first, ain’t it?’

‘Can be either,’ answered Genshed, ‘long as the fingers are broken. But you can’t let yourself go, only now and then.’ ‘What’s now and then?’ Genshed drank again, and considered.

‘If a man’s condemned, all you can do is carry out the sentence. That’s all right, but it’s no better than boys or animals, is it? That’s what I came to see, anyway.’

‘Why, what more you can do, then?’

‘Screaming and crying, you get ti
red of that,’ said Genshed. ‘There’s a bit more to it when
they
want information. The real style’s breaking a man’s mind, so that he turns what you want and stays that way even when you’ve finished with him.’

‘You got you can do thot?’

‘Needs brains,’ said Genshed. ‘Of course I could have done it; I got the brains, but the bastards wouldn’t give me the chance. Job like that’s sold to the one who can buy it, isn’t it? They don’t want quality. I knew what I was worth. I wasn’t going to stay hot-iron man all my life, just for the bare living. I started taking what I could get from prisoners - you know, to let ‘em off light - or just take the money and not let ‘em off - what could they do? That was what lost
me
the job. After that I was in a bad way for a time. Most people don’t want to employ you when you’ve been in that line of trade - more fools them.’

Lalloc threw another branch on the fire and squinted into
the
neck of the wine-skin. In the corner Shara twisted on the floor, babbled a few words and licked her dry lips without waking.

‘Ortolgans give you chonce, eh, like
me
?’

‘They wouldn’t give me a licence, the bastards. You know that.’ ‘Why they don’t?’

‘Too many children injured, they said. More like I hadn’t got the money to buy the licence.’

Lalloc chuckled, but broke off as Genshed looked sharply across at him.

‘Well, I don’t laugh, no, no, but you need style,
Gensh
, to be slave-dealer, you know. Why you don’t gotting proper overseers? Then don’t lot your children
the
, don’t hurt them where it shows. Make them look nice, you know, teach them act up a
little
for the costome
rs.’

Genshed crashed his fist into his palm.

‘All right for you, eh? I got to work on the cheap. You don
‘t
need overseers for kids. Pick out a couple of the kids themselves -get rid of them soon as they know more than you want them
to
know. You - you only buy from
other
dealers, don’t you, got capital
to
work with? I got to go out and get ‘em on
the
cheap, all the trouble, all the danger, no licence, then you buy them
off
me and sell ‘cm for more, don’t you?’

‘Well, but you ollways spoil so monny, Gensh, ain’t it?’

‘You got to expect to spoil some - got to expect to lose some as well. You got to break their minds - make
them
so they can
‘t
even think of running away. Beat one or two to death if you have
to
- frighten
the
rest half silly. I don’t have to do so much as I did once - not now I’ve got the trick. I’ve driven kids mad without even touching them - that’s style, if you like.’

‘Bot you can’t soil them if they’re gone mad, Gensh.’

‘Not for so much,’ admitted Genshed. ‘But you can count on getting some sort of price for almost anything, and you’ve had a bit of sport for the difference. Loony ones, ugly ones, all the ones rich dealers like you don’t take - I can still sell them to the beggar-masters. You know, chop their hands off, chop their feet
off,
something of that, send them out to beg. Man in Bekla used
to
live off eighteen or twenty, most of them he got from me. Used to send them out begging in
the
Caravan Market.’

‘Well, thot might be your style, Gensh, but it’s not big money. You got to make
them
look pretty, jost ontil the costomer’s bought them, you know. Then you got to stoddy what the rich costomer want, you got to talk to the children, tell them it’s all for their good they tickle the costomer, you know, eh?’

His voice held a barely-concealed note of condescension. Genshed slashed at the fire in silence.

‘What you keeping the little girl for?’ asked Lalloc. ‘You gotting rod all the girls in Tonilda, you told me. Why you not soiling her?’

‘Ah - to keep
him
in order, that’s it,’ said Genshed, jerking his thumb at Radu.

“Ow’s
th
ot?’

‘He’s a funny one,’ said Genshed. ‘Smartest thing I ever did, biggest risk I ever took; if it comes off I’ll make a fortune; and it still could. That’s a young aristoc
rat, that is - ransom job, once
I get him back to Terekenalt. Long as I keep
him
I can lose all the rest I can’t break him - not altogether - you never can tell with that sort, even when they think they’re broken themselves. The baby - she’s better than anything for keeping the likes of
him
in order. Long as he’s set himself to look after her, he won’t be trying anything on, will he? The joke was he came to me of himself at Thettit and said we had to keep her - got her across the Vrako, too. That was a risk - he could have drowned - but it was worth it to have no trouble from him. That sort can make a lot of trouble. Pride - oh yes, he’s too good for the likes of you and me. But I’ll break him before I’m done, the fine young gentleman - I’ll have him flogging boys to earn his supper and never have to raise a finger to force him - you sec if I don’t,’ ‘Who is he?‘asked Lalloc.

‘AhI Who is he?’ Genshed paused for effect ‘That’s the Ban of Sarkid’s heir, that is.’

Lalloc whistl
ed. ‘Oh, Gensh, woll, no wonder the place full of Ikats, eh? You done it right, now we know why they don’t stop looking, eh ? We got a lot to thonk you for, Gensh.’

‘Two hundred thousand meld,’ said Genshed. ‘Isn’t that worth a risk? And you said we’d get over the river in the morning, didn’t you?’

‘Who’s the other one, Gensh - the man? ‘Thought you dodn’t only go for boys and girls ?’

‘Don’t you know?’ replied Genshed. ‘You ought to, you oily, creeping, bribing bastard.’

Lalloc paused in drinking, looking over the top of the wine-skin with raised eyebrows and reflective eyes. Then the wine slopped in its hollow cavern as he shook his head and the skin together.

‘That’s King Crendrik, that is,’ said Genshed. ‘Him that used to be the priest-king of Bekla. Him with the bear.’

Lalloc nearly dropped the wine-skin, caught it just in time and lowered it in slow amazement.

‘Found him lying senseless in a swamp thirty mile south of here,* said Genshed. ‘Don’t know how he came there, but I recognized him all right. ‘Seen him in Bekla, same as you have. Well, he won’t run. He knows the Ikats are out to kill him.’

Lalloc stared questioningly.

‘It’s like this, you see,’ said Genshed, stabbing at the fire. ‘I’m sharp. I keep him and the boy - leave the rest, but keep
those
two at all costs. Well now, we know the Ban of Sarkid’s fighting for the Ikats. If ever the Ortelgans was to catch me - I got no licence, remember -
I
can tell them I’ve got the Ban’s son, hand him over to them, very likely they’ll be so pleased they’ll let me go. But if the Ikats catch us, I can give them Crendrik. Same thing - they’d be glad to get
him
,
‘might let us go. Crendrik’s got no other value, of course, but the boy’s got plenty if only we can get away. The way the luck’s turned out, we look more like being caught by the Ikats than the Ortelgans, so I’m hanging on to Crendrik.’

‘Butif the Ikats cotch you with the boy, Gensh?’

‘They won’t,’ said
Genshed
. ‘I’ll sec to that. They won’t catch me with a single child - or find the bodies, either.’

He stood up brusquely, broke two or three branches across his knee and fed the fire. Kelderek could hear the back of Shara’s head thud against the cobbles as she tossed and cried in her sleep.

‘What’s
the
scheme, then?’ asked Genshed pres
ently
. ‘How d’you reckon to cross the Telthearna?’

‘Well, it’s a big rosk, Gensh, but it’s only chonce we got. We got to try it, olse we’re for the Ikats all right. Down below here there’s a vullage - Tissarn they call it - fishing vullage - by the ruwer, you know.’

‘I know -
I
came inland yesterday to avoid it.’

‘Woll, vorry soon as day we leave owrything - go straight down there, we find some man, I pay him all I got, he govv us canoe, boat, something, before the Ikats c
ome. We go across, gotting to De
elguy. Current’s strong, we go down long way, all the same we gotting across. Onnyway we got to try it.’

‘Won’t the village be watched? That’s why I dodged it.’

‘We got to try it, Gensh.*

‘We’ll take the boy.’

‘I don’t like thot. I’m wanted man in Deelguy, you know. I don’t want onnybody sec oss, maybe they gotting to know who the boy is, find out we’re slave-dealers, you know? It’s not legal in Dcelguy.’

Genshed said nothing.

‘Gensh, I’m hurt drodful bad. You my friend, Gensh, you stick by me? You holp
me
?’ ‘Yes, of course I’ll help you, don’t worry.’

‘No, but you swear it, Gensh? Swear you’re my friend, swear you stick by
me
, holp me always, yoss? Please swear it, Gensh.’

Genshed stepped across and clasped his hand .

‘I swear I’ll be your friend, Lalloc, and I’ll stand by you, so help me God.’

‘Oh, thonk God, Gensh, thonk God I meeting you. We gotting safe all right. We sleep a time now, eh, but roddy we go fost thing what it’s daylight. No time to lose, you know.’

He wrapped himself clumsily in his cloak, lay down beside the fire and seemed at once to drop, almost to disappear into sleep, like a stone thrown into a pool.

Kelderek
turned to crawl away in the darkness, but the pupils of his eyes, contracted by the light of the fire, admitted not the least
image from the night about him. He waited, and as he did so realized that not only did he not know where he could go, but that it mattered nothing. Genshed would not sleep - of this he felt sure. He could either crawl away, weaponless, into the forest, to starve
until
the soldiers found him, or remain to await the will of Genshed at daylight. Should an ox in the abattoir choose to go to the right or the left? ‘We’ll take the boy.’ But Genshed would not take him,
Kelderek
, across the Telth
earna - there would be no profit to him in doing so. If he did not kill him, he would leave him on the shore to await the soldiers.

A horrible despair seized him, as a beast its prey, and a panic fear - the fear of one who knows that all he has dreaded is even now at hand and inescapable; that the door is fast and the water rising. Standing up, he stretched out his arms, peering into the blackness as he tried to make out
the
shapes of the ruins about him. One he could perceive - a dark mass to his right, low but just discernible against what appeared to be a gap in the trees. He stooped, and then knelt, to try to sec it more clearly against the sky. As he stared, it moved, and at the same moment there came to his nostrils a smell that brought back instantly the straw, the smoky torches and brick-filled arcades of the King’s House in
Bekla
- the rank, foeti
d smell of the bear.

For long moments it seemed to
Kelderek
that he must be already dead. The po
o
l and the trepsis he had accepted as a portent of his death. That Genshed knew who he was - had known him from the first - and meant, if occasion offered, to profit by delivering him up to death - this had struck him full of that sense of helplessness which always accompanies the discovery that what we thought was hidden has, in fact, been known all along to our enemy. Now, in this, his last extremity, unseen, unheard, Shardik had appeared out of the miles of forest - Shardik, whom he himself had seen far to the south three days before. To wonder whether he was come in vengeance or in pity did not occur to
Kelderek
. Simply
the
terror of the incredible flooded his broken mind.