The distortion of Bel-ka-Trazet's face seemed like a trick of the lamplight, the features monstrous as a devil-mask in a play, the nose appearing to extend to the neck in a single, unbroken line, the shadows under the jaw pulsing slightly and rhythmically, like the throat of a toad. And indeed it was a play they were now to act^ thought Kelderek, for it accorded with nothing in life as he had known it A plain man, seeking only his living and neither wealth nor power, had been mysteriously singled out and made an instrument to cross the will of Bel-ka-Trazet
'Well, Kelderek,' said the High Baron, pronouncing his name with a slight emphasis that somehow conveyed contempt, 'while you have been filling your belly, I have learned as much as there is to be known about a man like you – all, that is, but what you are going to tell me now, Kelderek Zenzuata. Do you know they call you that?* 'Yes, my lord.'
'Kelderek Play-with-the-Children. A solitary young man, with no taste for taverns, it seems, and an unnatural indifference towards girls: but known nevertheless for a skilful hunter, who often brings in game and rarities for the factors trading with Gelt and Bekla.' 'If you have heard so much, my lord -'
'So that he is allowed to come and go alone, much as he pleases, with no questions asked. Sometimes he is gone for several days at a time, is he not?' 'It is necessary, my lord, if the game – 'Why do you play with the children? A young man unmarried – what sort of nonsense is that?' Kelderek considered.
'Children often need friends,' he said. 'Some of the children I play with are unhappy. Some have been left with no parents – their parents have deserted them -'
He broke off in confusion, meeting the gaze of Bel-ka-Trazet's distorted eye over the ridge. After some minutes he muttered uncertainly, 'The flames of God -' 'What? What did you say?'
'The flames of God, my lord. Children – their eyes and ears are still open – they speak the truth -'
'And so shall you, Kelderek, before you are done. You'd be thought a simple fellow, then, soft in the head perhaps, a stranger to drink and wenches, playing with children and given to talk of God; for no one would suspect such a man, would he, of spying, of treachery, of carrying messages or treating with enemies on his lonely hunting expeditions -' 'My lord -'
'Until one day he returns injured and almost empty-handed from a place believed to be full of game, too much confused to have been able to invent a tale -' 'My lord!' The hunter fell on his knees.
'Did you displease the man, Kelderek, was that it? Some brigand from Deelguy, perhaps, or slimy slave-trader from Terekenalt out to make a little extra money by carrying messages during his dirty travels? Your information was displeasing, perhaps, or the pay was not enough?' 'No, my lord, no!' 'Stand up!'
The beads clicked in a gust that flattened the lamp-flame and made the shadows dart on the wall like fish startled in a deep pool. The High Baron was silent, collecting himself with the air of a man repulsed by an obstacle but still determined to overcome it by one means or another. When he spoke again it was in a quieter tone.
'Well, so far as I am any judge, Kelderek, you may be an honest man, though you are a great fool with your talk of children and God. Could you not have asked for one single friend to come here, to testify to your honesty?' 'My lord -'
'No, you could not, it seems, or else it never occurred to you. But let us assume that you are honest, and that something took place today which for some reason you have neither concealed nor revealed. If you had gone about with ginning to conceal it altogether, I suppose you would not have been compelled to come here – you would not be standing here now. No doubt, then, you know very well that it is something that is bound to come to light sooner or later, so that it would have been foolish for you to try to hide it.'
'Yes, I am sure enough of that, my lord,' replied Kelderek without hesitation.
Bel-ka-Trazet drew his knife and, like a man idly passing the time while waiting for supper or a friend, began to heat the point in the lamp-flame.
'My lord,' said Kelderek suddenly, 'if a man were to return from hunting and say to the shendron, or to his friends, "I have found a star, fallen from the sky to the earth," who would believe him?'
Bel-ka-Trazet made no reply, but went on turning the point of the knife in the flame.
'But if that man had indeed found a star, my lord, what then? What should he do and to whom should he bring it?'
'You question me, and in riddles, Kelderek, do you? I have no love for visionaries or their talk, so be careful.'
The High Baron clenched his fist but then, like a man determined to exercise patience, let it fall open and remained staring at Kelderek with a sceptical look. 'Well?' he said at length.
'I fear you, my lord. I fear your power and your anger. But the star that I found – it is from God, and this, too, I fear. I fear it more. I know to whom it must be revealed -' his voice came in a strangled gasp – 'I can reveal it – only to the Tuginda!'
In an instant Bel-ka-Trazet had seized him by the throat and forced him to the floor. The hunter's head bent sharply backwards, away from the hot knife-point thrust close to his face.
'I will do this -1 can do only that! By the Bear, you will no longer choose what you will do when your bow-eye is out! You'll end in Zeray, my child!'
Kelderek's hands stretched upwards, clutching at the black cloak bending over him and pressing him backwards from knee to wounded shoulder. His eyes were closed against the heat of the knife and he seemed about to faint in the High Baron's grasp. Yet when at length he spoke – Bel-ka-Trazet stooping close to catch the words – he whispered, 'It can be only as God wills, my lord. The matter is great -greater, even, than your hot knife.' The beads clashed in the doorway. Without relinquishing his hold the Baron peered over his shoulder into the gloom beyond the lamp. Zelda's voice said,
'My lord, there are messengers from the Tuginda. She would speak with you urgently, she says. She requests that you go to Quiso tonight.'
Bel-ka-Trazet drew in his breath with a hiss and stood straight, shaking off Kelderek, who fell his length and lay without moving. The knife slipped from the High Baron's hand and stuck in the floor, transfixing a fragment of some greasy rubbish, which began to smoulder with an evil smell. He stooped quickly, recovered the knife and trod out the fragment. Then he said quietly,
'To Quiso, tonight? What can this mean? God protect us! Are you sure?'
'Yes, my lord. Would you speak yourself with the girls who brought the message?'
'Yes – no, let it be. She would not send such a message unless -Go and tell Ankray and Faron to get a canoe ready. And see that this man is put aboard.' 'This man, my lord?' 'Put aboard.'
The bead curtain clashed once more as the High Baron passed through it, across the Sindrad and out among the trees beyond. Zelda, hurrying across to the servants' quarters, could sec in the light of the quarter moon the conical shape of the great fur cloak striding impatiently up and down the shore.
5 To Quiso by Night
Kelderek knelt in the bow, now peering into the speckled gloom ahead, now shutting his eyes and dropping his chin on his chest in a fresh spasm of fear. At his back the enormous Ankray, Bel-ka-Trazet's servant and bodyguard, sat silent as the canoe drifted with the current along the south bank of the Telthearna. From time to time Ankray's paddle would drop to arrest or change their course, and at the sound Kelderek started as though the loud stir of the water were about to reveal them to enemies in the dark. Since giving the order to set out Bel-ka-Trazet had said not a word, sitting hunched in the narrow stern, hands clasped about his knees. More than once, as the paddles fell, the swirl and seethe of bubbles alarmed some nearby creature, and Kelderek jerked his head towards the clatter of wings, the splash of a dive or the crackle of undergrowth on the bank. Biting his lip and clutching at the side of the canoe, he tried to recall that these were nothing but birds and animals with which he was familiar – that by day he would recognize each one. Yet beyond these noises of flight he was listening always for another, more terrible sound and dreading the second appearance of that animal to whom, as he believed, the miles of jungle and river presented no obstacle. And again, shrinking from this, his mind confronted dismally another life-long fear – the fear of the island for which they were bound. Why had the Baron been summoned thither and what had that summons to do with the news which he himself had refused to tell?