Domes of Fire

7

‘Isn’t that just a little blunt, dear?’ Ehlana said, reading over her husband’s shoulder. She smelled very good.

‘Komier’s a blunt sort of fellow, Ehlana,’ Sparhawk shrugged, laying down his quill, ‘and I’m not really very good at writing letters.’

‘I noticed.’

They were in their ornate apartments in one of the Church buildings adjoining the Basilica where they had spent the day composing messages to people scattered over most of the continent.

‘Don’t you have letters of your own to write?’ Sparhawk asked his wife.

‘I’m all finished. All I really had to do was send a short note to Lenda. He knows what to do.’ She glanced across the room at Mirtai, who sat patiently snipping the tips off Mmrr’s claws. Mmrr was not taking it very well.

Ehlana smiled. ‘Mirtai’s communication with Kring was much more direct. She called in an itinerant Peloi and told him to ride to Kring with her command to ride to Basne on the Zemoch-Astel border with a hundred of his tribesmen. She said that if he isn’t waiting when she gets there, she’ll take it to mean that he doesn’t love her.’

Ehlana pushed her pale blonde hair back from her brow. ‘Poor Kring.’

Sparhawk smiled. ‘She could raise him from the dead with a message like that. Do you think she’ll ever really marry him?’

‘That’s very hard to say, Sparhawk. He does have her attention, though.’

There was a knock at the door, and Mirtai rose to let Kalten in. ‘It’s a beautiful day out there,’ the blond man told them. ‘We’ll have good weather for the trip.’

‘How are things coming along?’ Sparhawk asked him.

‘We’re just about all ready.’ Kalten was wearing a green brocade doublet, and he bowed extravagantly to the queen. ‘Actually, we are ready. About the only things happening now are the usual redundancies.’

‘Could you clarify that just a bit, Sir Kalten?’ Ehlana said.

He shrugged. ‘Everyone’s going over all the things everyone else has done to make sure that nothing’s been left out.’ He sprawled in a chair. ‘We’re surrounded by busybodies, Sparhawk. Nobody seems to be able to believe that anybody else can do something right. If Emban asks me if the knights are all ready to ride about one more time, I think I’ll strangle him. He has no idea at all about what’s involved in moving a large group of people from one place to another. Would you believe that he was going to try to put all of us on one ship? Horses and all?’

‘That might have been just a bit crowded,’ Ehlana smiled. ‘How many ships did he finally decide on?’

‘I’m not sure. I still don’t know for certain how many people are going. Your attendants are all absolutely convinced that you’ll simply die without their company, my Queen. There are about forty or so who are making preparations for the trip.’

‘You’d better weed them out, Ehlana,’ Sparhawk suggested. ‘I don’t want to be saddled with the entire court.’

‘I will need a few people, Sparhawk—if only for the sake of appearances.’

Talen came into the room. The gangly boy was wearing what he called his ‘street clothes’—slightly mismatched, very ordinary and just this side of shabby. He’s still out there,’ he said, his eyes bright.

‘Who?’ Kalten asked.

‘Krager. He’s creeping around Chyrellos like a lost puppy looking for a home. Stragen’s got people from the local thieves’ community watching him. We haven’t been able to figure out exactly what he’s up to just yet. If Martel were still alive, I’d almost say he’s doing the same sort of thing he used to do—letting himself be seen.’

‘How does he look?’

‘Worse.’ Talen’s voice cracked slightly. It was still hovering somewhere between soprano and baritone. ‘The years aren’t treating Krager very well. His eyes look like they’ve been poached in bacon grease. He looks absolutely miserable.’

‘I think I can bear Krager’s misery,’ Sparhawk noted. ‘He’s beginning to make me just a little tired, though. He’s been sort of hovering around the edge of my awareness for the last ten years or more—sort of like a hangnail or an ingrown toenail. He always seems to be working for the other side, but he’s too insignificant to really worry about.’

‘Stragen could ask one of the local thieves to cut his throat,’ Talen offered.

Sparhawk considered it. ‘Maybe not,’ he decided. ‘Krager’s always been a good source of information. Tell Stragen that if the opportunity happens to come up, we might want to have a little chat with our old friend, though. The offer to braid his legs together usually makes Krager very talkative.’

Ulath stopped by about a half hour later. ‘Did you finish that letter to Komier?’ he asked Sparhawk.

‘He has a draft copy, Sir Ulath,’ Ehlana replied for her husband. ‘It definitely needs some polish.’

‘You don’t have to polish things for Komier, your Majesty. He’s used to strange letters. One of my Genidian brothers sent him a report written on human skin once.’

She stared at him. ‘He did what?’

‘There wasn’t anything else handy to write on. A Genidian Knight just arrived with a message for me from Komier, though. The knight’s going back to Emsat, and he can carry Sparhawk’s letter if it’s ready to go.’

‘It’s close enough,’ Sparhawk said, folding the parchment and dribbling candle wax on it to seal it. ‘What did Komier have to say?’

‘It was good news for a change. All the Trolls have left Thalesia for some reason.’

‘Where did they go?’

‘Who knows? Who cares?’

‘The people who live in the country they’ve gone to might be slightly interested,’ Kalten suggested.

‘That’s their problem,’ Ulath shrugged. ‘It’s funny, though. The Trolls don’t really get along with each other. I couldn’t even begin to guess at a reason why they’d all decide to pack up and leave at the same time. The discussions must have been very interesting. They usually kill each other on sight.’

‘There’s not much help I can give you, Sparhawk,’ Dolmant’ said gravely when the two of them met privately later that day. ‘The Church is fragmented in Daresia. They don’t accept the authority of Chyrellos, so I can’t order them to assist you.’

Dolmant’s face was careworn, and his white cassock made his complexion look sallow. In a very real sense, Dolmant ruled an empire that stretched from Thalesia to Cammoria, and the burdens of his office bore down on him heavily. The change they had all noticed in their friend in the past several years derived more likely from that than from any kind of inflated notion of his exalted station. ‘You’ll get more co-operation in Astel than either Edam or Daconia,’ he continued. ‘The doctrine of the church of Astel is very close to ours—close enough that we even recognise Astellian ecclesiastical rank. Edam and Daconia broke away from the Astellian Church thousands of years ago and went their own way.’ The Archprelate smiled ruefully. ‘The sermons in those two kingdoms are generally little more than hysterical denunciations of the Church of Chyrellos and of me personally. They’re anti-hierarchical, much like the Renders. If you should happen to go into those two kingdoms, you can expect the Church there to oppose you. The fact that you’re a Church knight will be held against you rather than the reverse. The children there are all taught that the Knights of the Church have horns and tails. They’ll expect you to burn churches, murder clergymen and enslave the people.’

‘I’ll do what I can to stay away from those places, Sarathi,’ Sparhawk assured him. ‘Who’s in charge in Astel?’

‘The Archimandrite of Darsas is nominally the head of the Astellian Church. It’s an obscure rank approximately the equivalent of our patriarch. The Church of Astel’s organised along monastic lines. They don’t have a secular clergy there.’

‘Are there any other significant differences I should know about?’

‘Some of the customs are different—liturgical variations primarily. I doubt that you’ll be asked to conduct any services, so that shouldn’t cause any problems. It’s probably just as well. I heard you deliver a sermon once.’

Sparhawk smiled. ‘We serve in different ways, Sarathi. Our Holy Mother didn’t hire me to preach to people. How do I address the Archimandrite of Darsas—in case I meet him?’

‘Call him “your Grace”, the same as you would a patriarch. He’s an imposing man with a huge beard, and there’s nothing in Astel that he doesn’t know about. His priests are everywhere. The people trust them implicitly, and they all submit weekly reports to the Archimandrite. The Church has enormous power there.’

‘What a novel idea.’

‘Don’t mistreat me, Sparhawk. Things haven’t been going very well for me lately.’

‘Would you be willing to listen to an assessment, Dolmant?’

‘Of me personally? Probably not.’

‘I wasn’t talking about that. You’re too old to change, I expect. I’m talking about your policies in Render. Your basic idea was good enough, but you went at it the wrong way.’

‘Be careful, Sparhawk. I’ve sent men to monasteries permanently for less than that.’

‘Your policy of reconciliation with the Renders was very sound. I spent ten years down there, and I know how they think. The ordinary people in Render would really like to be reconciled with the Church—if for no other reason than to get rid of all the howling fanatics out in the desert. Your policy is good, but you sent the wrong people there to carry it out.’

‘The priests I sent are all experts in doctrine, Sparhawk.’

‘That’s the problem. You sent doctrinaire fanatics down there. All they want to do is punish the Renders for their heresy.’

‘Heresy is a sort of problem, Sparhawk.’

‘The heresy of the Renders isn’t theological, Dolmant. They worship the same God we do, and their body of religous belief is identical to ours. The disagreements between us are entirely in the field of Church government. The Church was corrupt when the Renders broke away from us. The members of the Hierocracy were sending relatives to fill Church positions in Render, and those relatives were parasitic opportunists who were far more interested in lining their own purses than caring for the souls of the people. When you get right down to it, that’s why the Renders started murdering primates and priests—and they’re doing it for exactly the same reason now. You’ll never reconcile the Renders to the Church if you try to punish them. They don’t care who’s governing our Holy Mother. They’ll never see you personally, my friend, but they will see their local priest probably every day. If he spends all his time calling them heretics and tearing the veils off their women, they’ll kill him. It’s as simple as that.’

Dolmant’s face was troubled. ‘Perhaps I have blundered,’ he admitted. ‘Of course if you tell anybody I said that, I’ll deny it.’

‘Naturally.’

‘All right, what should I do about it?’

Sparhawk remembered something then. ‘There’s a vicar in a poor church in Borrata,’ he said. ‘He’s probably the closest thing to a saint I’ve ever seen, and I didn’t even get his name. Berit knows what it is though. Disguise some investigators as beggars and send them down to Cammoria to observe him. He’s exactly the kind of man you need.’

‘Why not just send for him?’

‘He’d be too tongue-tied to speak to you, Sarathi. He’s what they had in mind when they coined the word ‘humble’. Besides, he’d never leave his flock. If you order him to Chyrellos and then send him to Render, he’ll probably die within six months. He’s that kind of man.’

Dolmant’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘You trouble me, Sparhawk,’ he said. ‘You trouble me. That’s the ideal we all had when we took holy orders.’ He sighed. ‘How did we all get so far away from it?’

‘You got too much involved in the world, Dolmant,’ Sparhawk told him gently. ‘The church has to live in the world, but the world corrupts her much faster than she can redeem it.’

‘What’s the answer to that problem, Sparhawk?’

‘I honestly don’t know, Sarathi. Maybe there isn’t any.’

‘Sparhawk.’ It was his daughter’s voice, and it was somehow inside his head. He was passing through the nave of the Basilica, and he quickly knelt as if in prayer to cover what he was really doing.

‘What is it, Aphrael?’ he asked silently.

‘You don’t have to genuflect to me, Sparhawk.’ Her voice was amused.

‘I’m not. If they catch me walking through the corridors holding long conversations with somebody who isn’t there, they’ll lock me up in an asylum.’

‘You look very reverential in that position, though, I’m touched.’

‘Was there something significant, or are you just amusing yourself?’

‘Sephrenia wants to talk with you again.’

‘All right. I’m in the nave right now. Come down and meet me here. We’ll go up to the cupola again.’

‘I’ll meet you up there.’

‘There’s only one stairway leading up there, Aphrael. We have to climb it.’

‘You might have to, but I don’t. I don’t like going into the nave, Sparhawk. I always have to stop and talk with your God, and he’s so tedious most of the time.’ Sparhawk’s mind shuddered back from the implications of that.

The dried-out wooden stairs circling up to the top of the dome still shrieked their protest as Sparhawk mounted. It was a long climb, and he was winded when he reached the top.

‘What took you so long?’ Danae asked him. She wore a simple white smock. It was a little-girl sort of dress, so no one seemed to even notice that its cut was definitely Styric.

‘You enjoy saying things like that to me, don’t you?’ Sparhawk accused.

‘I’m only teasing, father,’ she laughed.

‘I hope no one saw you coming up here. I don’t think the world’s ready for a flying princess just yet.’

‘No one saw me, Sparhawk. I’ve done this before, you know. Trust me.’

‘Do I have any choice? Let’s get to work. I’ve still got a lot left to do today if we’re going to leave tomorrow morning.’

She nodded and sat cross-legged near one of the huge bells. She lifted her face again and raised that flute-like trill. Then her voice drifted off, and her face went blank.

‘Where have you been?’ Sephrenia asked, opening Danae’s eyes to stare at her pupil.’

He sighed. ‘If you two don’t stop that, I’m going to go into another line of work.’

‘Has Aphrael been teasing you again?’ she asked.

‘Of course she has. Did you know that she can fly?’

‘I’ve never seen her do it, but I’d assumed she could.’

‘What did you want to see me about?’

‘I’ve been hearing disturbing rumours. The northern Atans have been seeing some very large, shaggy creatures in the forests near their north coast.’

‘So that’s where they went.’

‘Don’t be cryptic, dear one.’

‘Komier sent word to Ulath. It seems that the Trolls have all left Thalesia.’

‘The Trolls!’ she exclaimed. ‘They wouldn’t do that! Thalesia’s their ancestral home.’

‘Maybe you’d better go tell the Trolls about that. Komier swears that there’s not a single one of them left in Thalesia.’

‘Something very, very strange is going on here, Sparhawk.’

‘Ambassador Oscagne said more or less the same thing. Can the Styrics there at Sarsos make any sense out of it yet?’

‘No. Zalasta’s at his wits’ end.’

‘Have you come up with any idea at all of who’s behind it?’

‘Sparhawk, we don’t even know what’s behind it. We can’t even make a guess about the species of whatever it is.’

‘We sort of keep coming back to the idea that it’s the Troll-Gods again. Something had to have enough authority over the Trolls to command them to leave Thalesia, and that points directly at the Troll Gods. Are we absolutely sure that they haven’t managed to get loose?’

‘It’s not a good idea to discount any possibility when you’re dealing with Gods, Sparhawk. I don’t know the spell Ghwerig used when he put them inside the Bhelliom, so I don’t know if it can be broken.’

‘Then it is possible.’

That’s what I just said, dear one. Have you seen that shadow—or the cloud—lately?’

‘No.’

‘Has Aphrael ever seen it?’

‘No.’

‘She could tell you, but I’d rather not have her exposed to whatever it is. Perhaps we can come up with a way to lure it out when you get here so that I can take a look at it. When are you leaving?’

‘First thing tomorrow morning. Danae sort of told me that she can play with time the way she did when we were marching to Acie with Wargun’s army. That would get us there faster, but can she do it as undetectably now as she did when she was Flute?’

The bell behind the motionless form of his daughter gave a deep, soft-toned sound. ‘Why don’t you ask me, Sparhawk?’ Danae’s voice hummed in the bell-sound. ‘It’s not as if I weren’t here, you know.’

‘How was I supposed to know that?’ He waited. ‘Well?’ he asked the still-humming bell. ‘Can you?’

‘Well, of course I can, Sparhawk.’ The Child Goddess sounded irritated. ‘Don’t you know anything?’

‘That will do,’ Sephrenia chided.

‘He’s such a lump.’

‘Aphrael. I said that will do. You will not be disrespectful to your father.’ A faint smile touched the lips of the apparently somnolent little princess. ‘Even if he is a hopeless lump.’

‘If you two want to discuss my failings, I’ll go back downstairs so you can speak freely,’ Sparhawk told them.

‘No, that’s all right, Sparhawk,’ Aphrael said lightly. ‘We’re all friends, so we shouldn’t have any secrets from each other.’

They left Chyrellos the following morning and rode south on the Arcian side of the Sarin river in bright morning sunshine with one hundred Church Knights in full armour riding escort. The grass along the riverbank was very green, and the blue sky was dotted with fluffy white clouds. After some discussion, Sparhawk and Ehlana had decided that the attendants she would need for the sake of appearances could be drawn for the most part from the ranks of the Church Knights.

‘Stragen can coach them,’ Sparhawk had told his wife. ‘He’s had a certain amount of experience, so he can make honest knights look like useless butterflies.’

It had been necessary, however, to include one lady-in-waiting, Baroness Melidere, a young woman of Ehlana’s own age with honey-blonde hair, deep blue eyes and an apparently empty head. Ehlana also took along a personal maid, a doe-eyed girl named Alcan. The two of them rode in the carriage with the Queen, Mirtai, Danae and Stragen, who, dressed in his elegant best, kept them amused with light banter. Sparhawk reasoned that between them, Stragen and Mirtai could provide his wife and daughter with a fairly significant defence if the occasion arose. Patriarch Emban was going to be a problem. Sparhawk could see that after they had gone no more than a few miles. Emban was not comfortable on a horse, and he filled the air with complaints as he rode.

‘That isn’t going to work, you know,’ Kalten observed about mid-morning. ‘Churchman or not, if the knights have to listen to Emban feel sorry for himself all the way across the Daresian continent, he’s likely to have some kind of an accident before we get to Matherion. I’m ready to drown him right now myself, and the river’s very handy.’

Sparhawk thought about it. He looked at the queen’s carriage. ‘That landau’s not quite big enough,’ he told his friend. ‘I think we need something grander. Six horses are more impressive than four anyway. See if you can find Bevier.’

When the olive-skinned Arcian rode forward, Sparhawk explained the situation. ‘If we don’t get Emban off that horse, it’s going to take us a year to cross Daresia. Are you still on speaking terms with your cousin Lycien?’

‘Of course. We’re the best of friends.’

‘Why don’t you ride on ahead and have a chat with him? We need a large carriage—roomy enough for eight, with six horses probably. We’ll put Emban and Ambassador Oscagne in the carriage with my wife and her entourage. Ask your cousin to locate one for us.’

‘That might be expensive, Sparhawk,’ Bevier said dubiously.

‘That’s all right, Bevier. The Church will pay for it. After a week on horseback, Emban should be willing to sign for anything that doesn’t wear a saddle. Oh, as long as you’re going there anyway, have our ships moved upriver to Lycien’s docks. Madel’s not so attractive a city that any of us would enjoy a stay there all that much, and Lycien’s docks are more conveniently arranged.’

‘Do we need anything else, Sparhawk?’ Bevier asked.

‘Not that I can think of. Feel free to improvise, though. Add anything you can think of on your way to Madel. For once, we have a more or less unlimited budget at our disposal. The coffers of the Church are wide open to us.’

‘I wouldn’t tell that to Stragen or Talen, my friend,’ Bevier laughed. ‘I’ll be at Lycien’s house. I’ll see you when you get there.’ He wheeled his horse and rode south at a gallop.

‘Why didn’t you just have him pick up another carriage for Emban and Oscagne?’ Kalten asked.

‘Because I don’t want to have to defend two when we get to Tamuli.’

‘Oh. That makes sense—sort of.’

They arrived at the house of Sir Bevier’s cousin the Marquis Lycien, late one afternoon, and met Bevier and his stout, florid-faced kinsman in the gravelled court in front of Lycien’s opulent home. The Marquis bowed deeply to the Queen of Elenia and insisted that she accept his hospitality during her stay in Madel. Kalten dispersed the knights in Lycien’s park-like grounds.

‘Did you find a carriage?’ Sparhawk asked Bevier.

Bevier nodded. ‘It’s large enough for our purposes,’ he said a bit dubiously, ‘but the cost of it may turn Patriarch Emban’s hair white.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Let’s ask him.’ They crossed the gravelled court to where the Patriarch of Ucera stood beside his horse, clinging to his saddle-horn with a look of profound misery on his face.

‘Pleasant little ride, wasn’t it, your Grace?’ Sparhawk asked the fat man brightly.

Emban groaned. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to walk for a week.’

‘Of course we were only strolling,’ Sparhawk continued. ‘We’ll have to move along much faster when we get to Tamuli.’ He paused. ‘May I speak frankly, your Grace?’

‘You will anyway, Sparhawk,’ Emban said sourly. ‘Would you really pay any attention to me if I objected?’

‘Probably not. You’re slowing us down, you know.’

‘Well, excuse me.’

‘You’re not really built for horseback riding, Patriarch Emban. Your talent’s in your head, not your backside.

Emban’s eyes narrowed with hostility. ‘Go on,’ he said in an ominous tone of voice.

‘Since we’re in a hurry, we’ve decided to put wheels under you. Would you be more comfortable in a cushioned carriage; your Grace?’

‘Sparhawk, I could kiss you!’

‘I’m a married man, your Grace. My wife might misunderstand. For security reasons, one carriage is far better than two, so I’ve taken the liberty of locating one that’s somewhat larger than the one Ehlana rode down from Chyrellos. You wouldn’t mind riding with her, would you? We thought we’d put you and Ambassador Oscagne in the carriage with my queen and her attendants. Would that be satisfactory?’

‘Did you want me to kiss the ground you’re standing on, Sparhawk?’

‘Oh, that won’t be necessary, your Grace. All you really have to do is sign the authorisation for the carriage. This is urgent Church business, after all, so the purchase of the carriage is fully justified, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Where do I sign?’ Emban’s expression was eager.

‘A carriage that large is expensive, your Grace, Sparhawk warned him.

‘I’d pawn the Basilica itself if it’d keep me out of that saddle.’

‘You see?’ Sparhawk said to Bevier as they walked away. ‘That wasn’t hard at all, was it?’

‘How did you know he’d agree so quickly?’

‘Timing, Bevier, timing. Later on, he might have objected to the price. You need to ask that sort of question while the man you’re asking is still in pain.’

‘You’re a cruel fellow, Sparhawk,’ Bevier laughed.

‘All sorts of people have said that to me from time to time,’ Sparhawk replied blandly.

‘My people will finish loading the supplies for your voyage today, Sparhawk,’ Marquis Lycien said as they rode toward the riverside village and its wharves on the edge of his estate. ‘You’ll be able to sail with the morning tide.

‘You’re a true friend, my lord,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘You’re always here when we need you.’

‘You’re exaggerating my benevolence, Sir Sparhawk,’ Lycien laughed. ‘I’m making a very handsome profit by outfitting your vessels.’

‘I like to see friends get on in the world.’

Lycien looked back over his shoulder at the Queen of Elenia, who rode a grey palfrey some distance to the rear. ‘You’re the luckiest man in the world, Sparhawk,’ he observed. ‘Your wife is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.’

‘I’ll tell her you said that, Marquis Lycien. I’m sure she’ll be pleased.’

Ehlana and Emban had decided to accompany them as they rode down to the Marquis’ enclave on the river, Ehlana to inspect the accommodations aboard ship, and Emban to have a look at the carriage he had just purchased. The flotilla moored to Lycien’s wharves consisted of a dozen large, well-fitted vessels, ships which made the merchantmen moored nearby look scruffy by comparison. Lycien led the way through the village which had grown up around the wharves toward the river, which sparkled in the morning sun.

‘Master Cluff!’ the voice was not unlike a fog-horn.

Sparhawk turned in his saddle. ‘Well strike me down if it isn’t Captain Sorgi!’ he said with genuine pleasure. He liked the blunt, silvery-haired sea captain with whom he had spent so many hours. He swung down from Faran’s back and warmly clasped his friend’s hand.

‘I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age, Master Cluff,’ Sorgi said expansively. ‘Are you still running from those cousins?’

Sparhawk pulled a long face and sighed mournfully. It was just too good an opportunity to pass up. ‘No,’ he replied in a ‘broken voice, ‘not any more, I’m afraid. I made the mistake of staying in an ale-house in Apalia up in northern Pelosia for one last tankard. The cousins caught up with me there.’

‘Were you able to escape?’ Sorgi’s face mirrored his concern.

‘There were a dozen of them, Captain, and they were on me before I could even move. They clapped me in irons and took me to the estate of the ugly heiress I told you about.’

‘They didn’t force you to marry her, did they?’ Sorgi asked, sounding shocked.

‘I’m afraid so, my friend,’ Sparhawk said in a tragic voice. ‘That’s my wife on that grey horse there.’ He pointed at the radiant Queen of Elenia. Captain Sorgi stared, his eyes growing wider and his mouth gaping open. ‘Horrible, isn’t it?’ Sparhawk said with a brokenhearted catch in his voice.

8

Baroness Melidere was a pretty girl with hair the colour of honey and eyes as blue as a summer sky. She did not have a brain in her head—at least that was what she wanted people to believe. In actuality, the Baroness was probably more clever than most of the people in Ehlana’s court, but she had learned early in life that people with limited intelligence feel threatened by pretty, clever young women, and she had perfected a vapid, empty-headed smile, a look of blank incomprehension and a silly giggle. She erected these defenses as the situation required and kept her own counsel. Queen Ehlana saw through the subterfuge and even encouraged it.

Melidere was very observant and had excellent hearing. People tend not to pay much attention to brainless girls, and they say things in their presence they might not ordinarily say. Melidere always reported these conversational lapses back to the queen, and so Ehlana found the Baroness useful to have around. Melidere, however, drove Stragen absolutely wild. He knew with complete certainty that she could not be as stupid as she appeared, but he could never catch her off guard.

Alcan, the queen’s maid, was quite another matter. Her mind was very ordinary, but her nature was such that people automatically loved her. She was sweet, gentle and very loving. She had brown hair and enormous, soft brown eyes. She was shy and modest and seldom spoke. Kalten looked upon her as his natural prey, much as the wolf looks upon deer with a proprietary sense of ownership. Kalten was fond of maids. They did not usually threaten him, and he could normally proceed with them without any particular fear of failure.

The ship in which they sailed from Madel that spring was well-appointed. It belonged to the Church and it had been built to convey high-ranking churchmen and their servants to various parts of Eosia. There is a certain neat, cosy quality about ship cabins. They are uniformly constructed of dark-stained wood, the oily stain being a necessary protection for wood which is perpetually exposed to excessive humidity. The furniture is stationary, resisting all efforts to rearrange it, since it is customarily bolted to the floor to prevent its migration from one part of the cabin to another in rough weather. Since the ceiling of a ship’s cabin is in reality the underside of the deck overhead where the sailors are working, the dark supporting beams are substantial.

In the particular vessel upon which the Queen of Elenia and her entourage sailed, there was a large cabin in the stern with a broad window running across the back of the ship. It was a sort of floating audience chamber, and it was ideally suited for gatherings. Because of the window at the back, the cabin was light and airy, and, since the vessel was moved by her sails, the wind always came from astern, and it efficiently carried the smell of the bilges forward for the crew to enjoy in their cramped quarters in the forecastle.

On the second day out, Sparhawk and Ehlana dressed themselves in plain, utilitarian garments and went up to what had come to be called ‘the throne-room’ from their private cabin just below. Alcan was preparing Princess Danae’s breakfast over a cunning little utensil which was part lamp and part stove. Alcan prepared most of Danae’s meals, since she accepted the child’s dietary prejudices without question.

There was a polite knock, and then Kalten and Stragen entered. Kalten bore himself strangely, half crouched, twisted off to one side and quite obviously in pain.

‘What happened to you?’ Sparhawk asked him.

‘I tried to sleep in a hammock,’ Kalten groaned. ‘Since we’re at sea, I thought it was the thing to do. I think I’ve ruined myself, Sparhawk.’

Mirtai rose from her chair near the door. ‘Stand still,’ she peremptorily ordered the blond man.

‘What are you doing?’ he demanded suspiciously.

‘Be quiet.’ She ran one hand up his back, gently probing with her fingertips. ‘Lie down on the floor,’ she commanded, ‘on your stomach.’

‘Not very likely.’

‘Do you want me to kick your feet out from under you?’

Grumbling, he painfully lowered himself to the deck.

‘Is this going to hurt?’ he asked.

‘It won’t hurt me a bit,’ she assured him, removing her sandals. ‘Try to relax.’ Then she started to walk on him.

There were crackling noises and loud pops. There were also gasps and cries of pain as Kalten writhed under her feet. She finally paused, thoughtfully probing at a stubborn spot between his shoulder blades with her toes. Then she rose up on her toes and came down quite firmly. Kalten’s shriek was strangled as his breath whooshed out, and the noise that came from his back was very loud, much like the sound which might come from a tree trunk being snapped in two. He lay face down, gasping and groaning.

‘Don’t be such a baby,’ Mirtai told him heartlessly. ‘Get up.’

‘I can’t. You’ve killed me.’

She picked him up by one arm and set him on his feet. ‘Walk around,’ she commanded him.

‘Walk? I can’t even breathe.’ She drew one of her daggers. ‘All right. All right. Don’t get excited. I’m walking.’

‘Swing your arms back and forth.’

‘Why?’

‘Just do it, Kalten. You’ve got to loosen up those muscles.’

He walked back and forth, swinging his arms and gingerly turning his head back and forth. ‘You know, I hate to admit it, but I do feel better—much better actually.’

‘Naturally.’ She put her dagger away.

‘You didn’t have to be so rough, though.’

‘I can put you back into exactly the same condition as you were when you came in, if you’d like.’

‘No. That’s quite all right, Mirtai.’ He said it very quickly and backed away from her. Then, always the opportunist, he sidled up to Alcan. ‘Don’t you feel sorry for me?’ he asked in an insinuating voice.

‘Kalten!’ Mirtai snapped. ‘No!’

‘I was only—’ She smacked him sharply on the nose with two fingers, much as one would do to persuade a puppy to give up the notion of chewing on a pair of shoes. ‘That hurt,’ he protested putting his hand to his nose.

‘It was meant to. Leave her alone.’

‘Are you going to let her do that, Sparhawk?’ Kalten appealed to his friend.

‘Do as she says,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘Leave the girl alone.’

‘Your morning’s not going too well, is it, Sir Kalten?’ Stragen noted.

Kalten went off to a corner to sulk. The others drifted in, and they all sat down to the breakfast two crewmen brought from the galley. Princess Danae sat alone near the large window at the stern where the salt-tinged breeze would keep the smell of pork sausage from her delicate nostrils.

After breakfast, Sparhawk and Kalten went up on deck for a breath of air and stood leaning on the port rail watching the south coast of Cammoria slide by. The day was particularly fine. The sun was very bright, and the sky very blue. There was a good following breeze, and their ship, her white sails spread wide, led the small flotilla across the white-cap-speckled sea.

‘The captain says that we should pass Miruscum about noon,’ Kalten said. ‘We’re making better time than we expected.’

‘We’ve got a good breeze,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘How’s your back?’

‘Sore. I’ve got bruises from my hips to my neck.’

‘At least you’re standing up straight.’

Kalten grunted sourly. ‘Mirtai’s very direct, isn’t she? I still don’t know exactly what to make of her. What I mean is, how are we supposed to treat her? She’s obviously a woman.’

‘You’ve noticed.’

‘Very funny, Sparhawk. What I’m getting at is the fact that you can’t really treat her like a woman. She’s as big as Ulath, and she seems to expect us to accept her as a comrade in arms.’

‘So?’

‘It’s unnatural.’

‘Just treat her as a special case. That’s what I do. It’s easier than arguing with her. Are you in the mood for a bit of advice?’

‘That depends on the advice.’

‘Mirtai feels that it’s her duty to protect the royal family and she’s extended that to include my wife’s maid. I’d strongly recommend that you curb your instincts. We don’t fully understand Mirtai, and so we don’t know exactly how far she’ll go. Even if Alcan seems to be encouraging you, I wouldn’t pursue the matter. It could be very dangerous.’

‘The girl likes me,’ Kalten objected. ‘I’ve been around long enough to know that.’

‘You might be right, but I’m not sure if that’ll make any difference to Mirtai. Do me a favour, Kalten. Just leave the girl alone.’

‘But she’s the only one on board ship,’ Kalten protested.

‘You’ll live.’

Sparhawk turned and saw Patriarch Emban and Ambassador Oscagne standing near the stern. They were an oddly matched pair. The Patriarch of Ucera had laid aside his cassock for the voyage and wore instead a brown jerkin over a plain robe. He was very nearly as wide as he was tall, and he had a florid face. Oscagne, on the other hand, was a slight man with fine bones and little flesh. His skin was a pallid bronze colour. Their minds, however, were very similar. They were both consummate politicians. Sparhawk and Kalten drifted back to join them.

‘All power comes from the throne in Tamuli, your Grace,’ Oscagne was explaining. ‘Nothing is done there except at the express instruction of the emperor.’

‘We delegate things in Eosia, your Excellency,’ Emban told him. ‘We pick a good man, tell him what we want done and leave the details up to him.’

‘We’ve tried that and it doesn’t really work in our culture. Our religion is fairly superficial, and it doesn’t encourage the kind of personal loyalty yours does.’

‘Your emperor has to make all the decisions?’ Emban asked a bit incredulously. ‘How does he find the time!’

Oscagne smiled. ‘No, no, your Grace. Day-to-day decisions are all taken care of by custom and tradition. We’re great believers in custom and tradition. It’s one of our more serious failings. Once a Tamul moves out of those realms, he’s obliged to improvise, and that’s when he usually gets into trouble. His improvisations always seem to be guided by self-interest, for some reason. We’ve discovered that it’s best to discourage these expeditions into free decision-making. By definition, the emperor is all-wise anyway, so it’s probably best to leave these things in his hands.’

‘A standard definition isn’t always very accurate, your Excellency. “All-wise” means different things when it’s applied to different people. We have one ourselves. We like to say that the Archprelate is guided by the voice of God. There have been a number of Archprelates in the past who didn’t listen very well, though.’

‘We’ve noticed the same sort of thing, your Grace. The definition “all wise” does seem to have a wide range of meaning. To be honest with you, my friend, we’ve had some frightfully stupid emperors from time to time. We’re rather fortunate just now though. Emperor Sarabian is moderately accomplished.’

‘What’s he like?’ Emban asked intently.

‘He’s an institution, unfortunately. He’s as much at the mercy of custom and tradition as we are. He’s obliged to speak in formulas, so it’s almost impossible to get to know him.’ The ambassador smiled. ‘The visit of Queen Ehlana may just jerk him into humanity. He’ll have to treat her as an equal—for political reasons and he was raised to believe that he didn’t have any equals. I hope your lovely blonde queen is gentle with him. I think I like him—or I would if I could get past all the formalities—and it would just be too bad if she happened to say something that stopped his heart.’

‘Ehlana knows exactly what she’s doing every minute of the day, your Excellency,’ Emban assured him. ‘You and I are babies compared to her. You don’t have to tell her I said that, Sparhawk.’

‘What’s my silence worth to you, your Grace?’ Sparhawk grinned.

Emban glowered at him for a moment. ‘What are we likely to encounter in Astel, your Excellency?’

‘Tears, probably,’ Oscagne replied.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The Astels are an emotional people. They cry at the drop of a handkerchief. Their culture is much like that of the kingdom of Pelosia. They’re tediously devout and invincibly backward. It’s been demonstrated to them over and over again that serfdom is an archaic, inefficient institution, but they maintain it anyway—largely at the connivance of the serfs themselves. Astellian nobles don’t exert themselves in any way, so they have no concept of the extent of human endurance. Their serfs take advantage of that outrageously. Astellian serfs have been known to collapse from sheer exhaustion at the very mention of such unpleasant words as ‘reaping’ or ‘digging’ . The weepy nobles are tender-hearted, so the serfs get away with it almost every time. Western Astel’s a silly place filled with silly people. That changes as one moves east.’

‘One would hope so. I’m not certain just how much silliness I can—’ It was that same flicker of darkness at the very edge of Sparhawk’s vision, and it was accompanied by that same chill. Patriarch Emban broke off turning his head quickly to try to see it more clearly. ‘What?—?’

‘It’ll pass,’ Sparhawk told him tersely. ‘Try to concentrate on it, your Grace, and you as well, if you don’t mind, your Excellency.’

They were seeing the shadow for the first time, and their initial reactions might be useful. Sparhawk watched them closely as they tried to turn their heads to look directly at the annoying darkmess just beyond the range of sight. Then the shadow was gone.

‘All right,’ Sparhawk said crisply, ‘Exactly what did you see?’

‘I couldn’t see anything,’ Kalten told him. ‘It was like having someone trying to sneak up behind me.’ Although Kalten had seen the cloud several times, this was the first time he had encountered the shadow.

‘What was it, Sir Sparhawk?’ Ambassador Oscagne asked.

‘I’ll explain in a moment, your Excellency. Please try to remember exactly what you saw and felt.’

‘It was something dark,’ Oscagne replied, ‘very dark. It seemed to be quite substantial, but somehow it was able to move just enough to stay where I couldn’t quite see it. No matter how quickly I turned my head or moved my eyes, it was never where I could see it directly. It felt as if it were standing just behind my head.’

Emban nodded. ‘And it made me feel cold.’ He shuddered. ‘I’m still cold, as a matter of fact.’

‘It was unfriendly, too,’ Kalten added. ‘Not quite ready to attack, but very nearly.’

‘Anything else?’ Sparhawk asked them. ‘Anything at all—no matter how small.’

‘There was a peculiar odour,’ Oscagne told him.

Sparhawk looked at him sharply. He had never noticed that. ‘Could you describe it at all, your Excellency?’

‘I seemed to catch the faintest smell of tainted meat, a haunch or a side that had been left hanging for perhaps a week too long.’

Kalten grunted. ‘I caught that too, Sparhawk, just for a second, and it left a very bad taste in my mouth.’

Emban nodded vigorously. ‘I’m an expert on flavours. It was definitely rotten meat.’

‘We were sort of standing in a semi-circle,’ Sparhawk mused, ‘and we all saw—or sensed—it right behind us. Did any of you see it behind anybody else?’ They all shook their heads.

‘Would you please explain this, Sparhawk?’ Emban said irritably.

‘In just a moment, your Grace.’ Sparhawk crossed the deck to a sailor who was splicing a loop into the bight of a rope. He spoke with the tar-smeared man for a few minutes and then returned. ‘He saw it too,’ he reported. ‘Let’s spread out and talk with the rest of the sailors on deck. I’m not being deliberately secretive, gentlemen, but let’s get what information we can from the sailors before they forget the incident entirely. I’d like to know just how widespread this visitation was.’

It was about a half hour later when they gathered again near the aft companionway, and they had all begun to exhibit a kind of excitement.

‘One of the sailors heard a kind of crackling noise like a large fire,’ Kalten reported.

‘I talked to one fellow, and he thought there was a kind of reddish tinge to the shadow,’ Oscagne added.

‘No,’ Emban disagreed. ‘It was green. The sailor I talked with said that it was definitely green.’

‘And I spoke with a man who’d just come up on deck, and he hadn’t seen or felt a thing,’ Sparhawk added.

‘This is all very interesting, Sir Sparhawk,’ Oscagne said, ‘but could you please explain it to us?’

‘Kalten already knows, your Excellency,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘It would appear that we’ve just been visited by the Troll-Gods.’

‘Be careful, Sparhawk,’ Emban warned, ‘you’re walking on the edge of heresy.’

‘The Church Knights are permitted to do that, your Grace. Anyway, that shadow’s followed me before, and Ehlana’s seen it too. We’d assumed it was because we were wearing the rings. The stones in the rings were fashioned from shards of the Bhelliom. The shadow seems to be a little less selective now.’

‘That’s all it is? just a shadow?’ Oscagne asked him.

Sparhawk shook his head. ‘It can also show up as a very dark cloud, and everybody can see that.’

‘But not the things that are concealed in it,’ Kalten added.

‘Such as what?’ Oscagne asked.

Sparhawk gave Emban a quick sidelong glance. ‘It would start an argument, your Excellency, and we don’t really want to spend the morning in a theological debate, do we?’

‘I’m not all that doctrinaire, Sparhawk,’ Emban protested.

‘What would be your immediate response if I told you that humans and Trolls are related, your Grace?’

‘I’d have to investigate the condition of your soul.’

‘Then I’d probably better not tell you the truth about our cousins, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, Aphrael told us that the shadow—and later the cloud—were manifestations of the Troll-Gods.’

‘Who’s Aphrael?’ Oscagne asked.

‘We had a tutor in the Styric arts when we were novices, your Excellency,’ Sparhawk explained. ‘Aphrael is her Goddess. We thought that the cloud was somehow related to Azash, but we were wrong about that. The reddish colour and the heat that one sailor sensed was Khwaj, the God of Fire. The greenish colour and that rotten meat-smell was Ghnomb, the God of Eat.’

Kalten was frowning. ‘I thought it was just one of those things you might expect from sailors,’ he said, ‘but one fellow told me that he had some rather overpowering thoughts about women while the shadow was lurking behind him. Don’t the Trolls have a God of mating?’

‘I think so,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Ulath would know.’

‘This is all very interesting, Sir Sparhawk,’ Oscagne said dubiously, ‘but I don’t quite see its relevance.’

‘You’ve been encountering supernatural incidents that seem to be connected to the turmoil in Tamuli, your Excellency. There’s almost exactly the same sort of disturbances cropping up in Lamorkand, and the same sort of unnatural events accompanying them. We were questioning a man who knew some things about it once, and the cloud engulfed him and killed him before he could talk. That strongly suggests some kind of connection. The shadow may have been present in Tamuli as well, but no one would have recognised it for what it really is.’

‘Zalasta was right then,’ Oscagne murmured. ‘You are the man for this job.’

‘The Troll-Gods are following you again, Sparhawk,’ Kalten said. ‘What is this strange fascination they seem to have with you? We can probably discount your looks—but then again, maybe not. They’re used to Trolls, after all.’

Sparhawk looked meaningfully at the ship rail. ‘How would you like to run alongside the ship for a while, Kalten?’

‘No, that’s all right, Sparhawk. I got all the exertion I need for the day when Mirtai decided to use me for a rug.’

The wind held, and the sky remained clear. They rounded the southern tip of Zemoch and sailed up the east coast in a northeasterly direction. Once, when Sparhawk and his daughter were standing in the bow, he decided to satisfy a growing curiosity.

‘How long have we actually been at sea, Danae?’ he asked her directly.

‘Five days,’ she replied.

‘It seems like two weeks or more.’

‘Thank you, father. Does that answer your question about how well I can manage time?’

‘We certainly haven’t eaten as much in five days as we would have in two weeks. Won’t our cooks get suspicious?’

‘Look behind us, father. Why do you suppose all those fish are gleefully jumping out of the water? And what are all those seagulls doing following us?’

‘Maybe they’re feeding.’

‘Very perceptive, Sparhawk, but what could possibly be out there for that many of them to eat? Unless, of course, somebody’s been throwing food to them off the aft deck.’

‘When do you do that?’

‘At night,’ she shrugged. ‘The fish are terribly grateful. I think they’re right on the verge of worshipping me.’ She laughed. ‘I’ve never been worshipped by fish before, and I don’t really speak their language very well. It’s mostly bubbles. Can I have a pet whale?’

‘No. You’ve already got a kitten.’

‘I’ll pout.’

‘It makes you look silly, but go ahead if you feel like it.’

‘Why can’t I have a whale?’

‘Because they can’t be housebroken. They don’t make good pets.’

‘That’s a ridiculous answer, Sparhawk.’

‘It was a ridiculous request, Aphrael.’

The port of Salesha at the head of the Gulf of Daconia was an ugly city that reflected the culture which had prevailed in Zemoch for nineteen hundred years. The Zemochs appeared to be confused by what had happened in their capital six years before. No matter how often they were assured that Otha and Azash were no more, they still tended to start violently at sudden loud noises, and they generally reacted to any sort of surprise by running away.

‘I’d strongly advise that we spend the night on board our ships, your Majesty,’ Stragen advised the queen after he had made a brief survey of the accommodations available in the city. ‘I wouldn’t kennel dogs in the finest house in Salesha.’

‘That bad?’ she asked.

‘Worse, my Queen.’

And so they stayed on board and set out early the following morning. The road they followed north was truly bad, and the carriage in which the queen and her entourage rode jolted and creaked as their column wound up into the low range of mountains lying between the coast and the town of Basne.

After they had been travelling for no more than an hour, Talen rode forward. As the queen’s page, it was one of the boy’s duties to carry messages for her. Talen was not alone on his horse this time, however. Sparhawk’s daughter rode behind him, her arms about his waist and her cheek resting against his back.

‘She wants to ride with you,’ Talen told Sparhawk. ‘Your wife, Emban and the ambassador are talking politics. The princess kept yawning in their faces until the queen gave her permission to get out of the carriage.’

Sparhawk nodded. The suddenly-acquired timidity of the Zemochs made this part of the trip fairly safe. He reached over and lifted his daughter onto Faran’s back in front of his saddle. ‘I thought you liked politics,’ he said to her after Talen had returned to his post beside the carriage.

‘Oscagne’s describing the organisation of the Tamul Empire,’ she replied. ‘I already know about that. He’s not making too many mistakes.’

‘Are you going to shrink the distance from here to Basne?’

‘Unless you enjoy long, tedious journeys through boring terrain. Faran and the other horses appreciate my shortening things up a bit, don’t you Faran?’ The big roan nickered enthusiastically. ‘He’s such a nice horse,’ Danae said, leaning back against her father’s armoured chest.

‘Faran? He’s a foul-tempered brute.’

‘That’s because you expect him to be that way, father. He’s only trying to please you.’ She rapped on his armour. ‘I’m going to have to do something about this,’ she said. ‘How can you stand that awful smell?’

‘You get used to it.’ The Church Knights were all wearing full armour, and brightly-coloured pennons snapped from their lances. Sparhawk looked around to be sure no one was close enough to overhear them. ‘Aphrael,’ he said quietly, ‘can you arrange things so that I can see real time?’

‘Nobody can see time, Sparhawk.’

‘You know what I mean. I want to see what’s really going on, not the illusion you create to keep what you’re doing a secret.’

‘Why?’

‘I like to know what’s going on, that’s all.’

‘You won’t like it,’ she warned.

‘I’m ‘a Church Knight. I’m supposed to do things I don’t like.’

‘If you insist, father.’ He was not entirely certain what he had expected, some jerky, accelerated motion, perhaps, and the voices of his friends sounding like the twittering of birds as they condensed long conversations into little bursts of unintelligible babble. That was not what happened, however. Faran’s gait became impossibly smooth. The big horse seemed almost to flow across the ground—or, more properly, the ground seemed to flow back beneath his hooves. Sparhawk swallowed hard and looked around at his companions. Their faces seemed blank, wooden, and their eyes half-closed.

‘They’re sleeping just now,’ Aphrael explained. ‘They’re all quite comfortable. They believe that they’ve had a good supper and that the sun’s gone down. I fixed them a rather nice camp-site. Stop the horse, father. You can help me get rid of the extra food.’

‘Can’t you just make it vanish?’

‘And waste it?’ She sounded shocked. ‘The birds and animals have to eat too, you know.’

‘How long is it really going to take us to reach Basne?’

‘Two days. We could go faster if there was an emergency, but there’s nothing quite that serious going on just now.’

Sparhawk reined in, and he followed his little daughter back to where the pack animals stood patiently. ‘You’re keeping all of this in your head at the same time?’ he asked her.

‘It’s not that difficult, Sparhawk. You just have to pay attention to details, that’s all.’

‘You sound like Kurik.’

‘He’d have made an excellent God, actually. Attention to detail is the most important lesson we learn. Put that beef shoulder over near that tree with the broken-off top. There’s a bear-cub back in the bushes who got separated from his mother. He’s very hungry.’

‘Do you keep track of every single thing that’s happening around you?’

‘Well, somebody has to, Sparhawk.’

The Zemoch town of Basne lay in a pleasant valley where the main east-west road forded a small, sparkling river. It was a fairly important trading centre. Not even Azash had been able to curb the natural human instinct to do business. There was an encampment just outside of town. Sparhawk had dropped back to return Princess Danae to her mother, and he was riding beside the carriage as they started down into the valley. Mirtai seemed uncharacteristically nervous as the carriage moved down toward the encampment.

‘It appears that your admirer has obeyed your summons, Mirtai,’ Baroness Melidere observed brightly.

‘Of course,’ the giantess replied.

‘It must be enormously satisfying to have such absolute control over a man.’

‘I rather like it,’ Mirtai admitted. ‘How do I look? Be honest, Melidere. I haven’t seen Kring for months, and I wouldn’t want to disappoint him.’

‘You’re lovely, Mirtai.’

‘You’re not just saying that?’

‘Of course not.’

‘What do you think, Ehlana?’ the Tamul woman appealed to her owner. Her tone was a bit uncertain. In

‘You’re ravishing, Mirtai.’

‘I’ll know better when I see his face.’ Mirtai paused. ‘Maybe I should marry him,’ she said. ‘I think I’d feel much more secure if I had my brand on him.’ She rose, opening the carriage door and leaning out to pull her tethered horse up from behind the carriage and then quite literally flowed onto his back. Mirtai never used a saddle. ‘Well,’ she sighed, ‘I guess I’d better go down there and find out if he still loves me.’ And she tapped her heels into her horse’s flanks and galloped on down into the valley to meet the waiting Domi.

9

The Peloi were nomadic herders from the marches of eastern Pelosia. They were superb horsemen and savage warriors. They spoke a somewhat archaic form of Elenic, and many of the words in their tongue had fallen out of use in the modern language. Among those words was ‘Domi’, a word filled with profoundest respect. It meant ‘Chief’—sort of—although, as Sir Ulath had once said, it lost a great deal in translation. The current Domi of the Peloi was named Kring. Kring was a lean man of slightly more than medium height. As was customary among the men of his people, he shaved his head, and there were savage-looking saber scars on his scalp and face, an indication that the process of rising to a position of leadership among the Peloi involved a certain amount of rough-and-tumble competition. He wore black leather clothing, and a lifetime spent on horseback had made him bandy-legged. He was a fiercely loyal friend, and he had worshipped Mirtai from the moment he had first seen her. Mirtai did not discourage him, although she refused to commit herself. They made an odd-looking couple, since the Atan woman towered more than a foot over her ardent suitor.

Peloi hospitality was generous, and the business of ‘taking salt together’ usually involved enormous amounts of roasted meat, during the consumption of which the men ‘spoke of affairs’, a phrase with many implications ranging in subject matter from the weather to formal declarations of war.

After they had eaten, Kring described what he had observed during the ride of the hundred Peloi across Zemoch. ‘It never really was a kingdom, friend Sparhawk,’ he said. ‘Not the way we understand the word. There are too many different kinds of people living in Zemoch for them all to come together under one roof. The only thing that kept them united was their fear of Otha and Azash. Now that their emperor and their God aren’t there any more, the Zemochs are just kind of drifting apart. There’s not any sort of war or anything like that. It’s just that they don’t stay in touch with each other any more. They all have their own concerns, so they don’t really have any reason to talk to each other.’

‘Is there any kind of government at all?’ Tynian asked the shaved-headed Domi.

‘There’s a sort of a framework, friend Tynian,’ Kring replied.

They were sitting in a large, open pavilion in the centre of the Peloi encampment feasting on roast ox. The sun was just going down and the shadows of the peaks lying to the west lay long across the pleasant valley. There were lights in the windows of Basne a half mile or so away.

‘The departments of Otha’s government have all moved to Gama Dorit,’ Kring elaborated. ‘Nobody will even go near the city of Zemoch any more. The bureaucrats in Gama Dorit spend their time writing directives, but their messengers usually just stop in the nearest village, tear up the directives, wait a suitable period of time, and then go back and tell their employers that all is going well. The bureaucrats are happy, the messengers don’t have to travel very far, and the people go on about their business. Actually, it’s not a bad form of government.’

‘And their religion?’ Sir Bevier asked intently. Bevier was a devout young knight, and he spent a great deal of his time talking and thinking about God. His companions liked him in spite of that.

‘They don’t speak very much about their beliefs, friend Bevier,’ Kring replied. ‘It was their religion that got them into trouble in the first place, so they’re a bit shy about discussing the matter openly. They grow their crops, tend their sheep and goats and let the Gods settle their own disputes. They’re not a threat to anybody any more.’

‘Except for the fact that a disintegrated nation is an open invitation to anyone nearby with anything even remotely resembling an army,’ Ambassador Oscagne added.

‘Why would anyone want to bother, your Excellency?’ Stragen asked him. ‘There’s nothing in Zemoch of any value. The thieves there have to get honest jobs in order to make ends meet. Otha’s gold appears to have been an illusion. It all vanished when Azash died.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘And you have no idea of how chagrined any number of people who’d supported the Primate of Cimmura were when that happened.’

Something rather peculiar happened to Kring’s face. The savage horsemen whose very name struck fear into the hearts of his neighbour went first pale, then bright red. Mirtai had emerged from the women’s pavilion to which Peloi custom had relegated her and the others. Strangely, Queen Ehlana had not even objected, a fact that caused Sparhawk a certain nervousness. Mirtai had taken advantage of the accommodations within the pavilian to make herself ‘presentable’.

Kring, quite obviously, was impressed. ‘You’ll excuse me,’ he said, rising quickly and moving directly toward the lode-star of his life.

‘I think we’re in the presence of a legend in the making,’ Tynian noted. ‘The Peloi will compose songs about Kring and Mirtai for the next hundred years at least.’ He looked at the Tamul ambassador. ‘Is Mirtai behaving at all the way other Atan women do, your Excellency? She obviously likes Kring’s attentions, but she simply won’t give him a definite answer.’

‘The Atana’s doing what’s customary, Sir Tynian,’ Oscagne replied. ‘Atan women believe in long, leisurely courtships. They find being pursued entertaining, and most men turn their attention to other matters after the wedding. For this period of time in her life, she knows that she’s the absolute centre of the Domi’s attention. Women, I’m told, appreciate that sort of thing.’

‘She wouldn’t just be leading him on, would she?’ Berit asked. ‘I like the Domi, and I’d hate to see him get his heart broken.’

‘Oh, no, Sir Berit. She’s definitely interested. If she found his attentions annoying, she’d have killed him a long time ago.’

‘Courtship among the Atans must be a very nervous business,’ Kalten observed.

‘Oh, yes,’ Oscagne laughed. ‘A man must be very careful. If he’s too aggressive, the woman will kill him, and if he’s not aggressive enough, she’ll marry someone else.’

‘That’s very uncivilised,’ Kalten said disapprovingly.

‘Atan women seem to enjoy it, but then, women are more elemental than we are.’

They left Basne early the following morning and rode eastward toward Esos on the border between Zemoch and the kingdom of Astel. It was a peculiar journey for Sparhawk. It took three days, he was absolutely certain of that. He could clearly remember every minute of those three days and every mile they travelled. And yet his daughter periodically roused him when he was firmly convinced that he was sleeping in a tent, and he would be startled to find that he was dozing on Faran’s back instead and that the position of the sun clearly indicated that what had appeared to be a full day’s travel had taken less than six hours.

Princess Danae woke her father for a very practical reason during what was in reality no more than a one-day ride. The addition of the Peloi had greatly increased the amount of stores that had to be carefully depleted each ‘night’, and Danae made her father help her dispose of the excess.

‘What did you do with all the supplies when we were travelling with Wargun’s army?’ Sparhawk asked her on the second ‘night’ which actually consumed about a half hour during the early afternoon of that endless day.

‘I did it the other way,’ she shrugged.

‘Other way?’

‘I just made the excess go away.’

‘Couldn’t you do that this time too?’

‘Of course, but then I couldn’t leave it for the animals. Besides, this gives you and me the chance to talk when nobody’s around to hear us. Pour that sack of grain under those bushes, Sparhawk. There’s a covey of quail back in the grass. They haven’t been eating very well lately, and the chicks are growing very fast right now.’

‘Was there something you wanted to talk about?’ he asked her, slitting open the grain sack with his dagger.

‘Nothing special,’ she said. ‘I just like talking with you, and you’re usually too busy.’

‘And this gives you a chance to show off too, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose it does, yes. It’s not all that much fun being a Goddess if you can’t show off just a little bit now and then.’

‘I love you,’ he laughed.

‘Oh, that’s very nice, Sparhawk!’ she exclaimed happily. ‘Right from the heart and without even thinking about it. Would you like to have me turn the grass lavender for you—just to show my appreciation.’

I’ll settle for a kiss. Lavender grass might confuse the horses.’

They reached Esos that evening. The Child Goddess so perfectly melded real and apparent time that they fitted together seamlessly. Sparhawk was a Church Knight, and he had been trained in the use of magic, but his imagination shuddered back from the kind of power possessed by this whimsical little divinity who, she had announced during the confrontation with Azash in the City of Zemoch, had willed herself into existence, and who had decided independently to be reborn as his daughter. They set up for the night some distance from town, and after they had eaten, Talen and Stragen took Sparhawk aside.

‘What’s your feeling about a bit of reconnoitring?’ Stragen asked the big Pandion.

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Esos is a fair-sized town,’ the blond Thalesian replied, ‘and there’s sure to be a certain amount of organisation among the thieves there. I thought the three of us might be able to pick up some useful information by getting in touch with their leader.’

‘Would he know you?’

‘I doubt it. Emsat’s a long way away from here.’

‘What makes you think he’d want to talk with you?’

‘Courtesy, Sparhawk. Thieves and murderers are exquisitely courteous to each other. It’s healthier that way.’

‘If he doesn’t know who you are, how will he know that he’s supposed to be courteous toward you?’

‘There are certain signals he’ll recognise.’

‘You people have a very complex society, don’t you?’

‘All societies are complex, Sparhawk. It’s one of the burdens of civilisation.’

‘Someday you’ll have to teach me these signals.’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re not a thief. It’s another of those complexities we were talking about. The point of all of this is that all we have to work with is the ambassador’s rather generalised notion of what’s going on. I think I’d like something a bit more specific, wouldn’t you?’

‘That I would, my friend.’

‘Why don’t we drift on into Esos and see what we can find out then?’

‘Why don’t we?’

The three of them changed into nondescript clothing and rode away from the encampment, circling around to the west to approach the town from that direction. As they approached, Talen looked critically at the fortifications and the unguarded gate.

‘They seem a little relaxed when you consider how close they are to the Zemoch border,’ he observed.

‘Zemoch doesn’t pose much of a threat any more,’ Stragen disagreed.

‘Old customs die hard, Milord Stragen, and it hasn’t been all that long since Otha was frothing at the frontier with Azash standing right behind him.’

‘I doubt that these people found Azash to be all that impressive,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Otha’s God didn’t have any reason to come this way. He was looking west, because that’s where Bhelliom was.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ Talen conceded.

Esos was not a very large town, perhaps about the size of the city of Lenda in central Elenia. There was a kind of archaic quality about it, though, since there had been a town on this spot since the dawn of time. The cobbled streets were narrow and crooked, and they wandered this way and that without any particular reason.

‘How are we going to find the part of town where your colleagues stay?’ Sparhawk asked Stragen. ‘We can’t just walk up to some burgher and ask him where we’ll find the thieves, can we?’

‘We’ll take care of it,’ Stragen smiled. ‘Talen, go ask some pickpocket where the thieves’ den is around here.’

‘Right,’ Talen grinned, slipping down from his horse.

‘That could take him all night,’ Sparhawk said.

‘Not unless he’s been struck blind,’ Stragen replied as the boy moved off into a crowded byway. ‘I’ve seen six pickpockets since we came into town, and I wasn’t even looking very hard.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Their technique’s a little different here. It probably has to do with the narrow streets.’

‘What would that have to do with it?’

‘People jostle each other in tight quarters,’ Stragen shrugged. ‘A pickpocket in Emsat or Cimmura could never get away with bumping into a client the way they do here. It’s more efficient, I’ll grant you, but it establishes bad work-habits.’

Talen returned after a few minutes. ‘It’s down by the river,’ he reported.

‘Inevitably,’ Stragen said. ‘Something seems to draw thieves to rivers. I’ve never been able to figure out why.’

Talen shrugged. ‘It’s probably so that we can swim for it in case things go wrong. We’d better walk. Mounted men attract too much attention. There’s a stable down at the end of the street where we can leave the horses.’

They spoke briefly with the surly stableman and then proceeded on foot. The thieves’ den in Esos was in a shabby tavern at the rear of a narrow cul-de-sac. A crude sign depicting a bunch of grapes hung from a rusty hook just over the door, and a pair of burly loafers sprawled on the doorstep drinking ale from battered tankards.

‘We’re looking for a man named Djukta,’ Talen told them.

‘What was it about?’ one of the loafers growled suspiciously.

‘Business,’ Stragen told him in a cold tone.

‘Anybody could say that,’ the unshaven man said, rising to his feet with a thick cudgel in his hand.

‘This is always so tedious,’ Stragen sighed to Sparhawk. Then his hand flashed to the hilt of his rapier, and the slim blade came whistling out of its sheath. ‘Friend,’ he said to the loafer, ‘unless you want three feet of steel between your breakfast and your supper, you’ll stand aside.’ The needle-like point of the rapier touched the man’s belly suggestively. The other ruffian sidled off to one side, his hand reaching furtively toward the handle of his dagger.

‘I wouldn’t,’ Sparhawk warned him in a dreadfully quiet voice. He pushed his cloak aside to reveal his mail-shirt and the hilt of his broadsword. ‘I’m not entirely positive where your breakfast or your supper are located just now, neighbour, but I’ll probably be able to pick them out when your guts are lying in the street.’ The fellow froze in his tracks, swallowing hard. ‘The knife,’ Sparhawk grated. ‘Lose it.’ The dagger clattered to the cobblestones.

‘I’m so happy that we could resolve this little problem without unpleasantness,’ Stragen drawled. ‘Now why don’t we all go inside so you can introduce us to Djukta?’

The tavern had a low ceiling and the floor was covered with mouldy straw. It was lit by a few crude lamps that burned melted tallow. Djukta was by far the hairiest man Sparhawk had ever seen. His arms and hands seemed to be covered with curly black fur. Great wads of hair protruded from the neck of his tunic, his ears and nostrils looked like bird’s nests, and his beard began just under his lower eyelids.

‘What’s this?’ he demanded, his voice issuing from somewhere behind his shaggy rug of a face.

‘They made us let them come inside, Djukta,’ one of the men from the doorway whined, pointing at Stragen’s rapier. Djukta’s piggish eyes narrowed dangerously.

‘Don’t be tiresome,’ Stragen told him, ‘and pay attention. I’ve given you the recognition signal twice already, and you didn’t even notice.’

‘I noticed, but coming in here with a sword in your hand isn’t the best way to get things off to a good start.’

‘We were a little pressed for time. I think we’re being followed.’ Stragen sheathed his rapier.

‘You’re not from around here, are you?’

‘No. We’re from Eosia.’

‘You’re a long way from home.’

‘That was sort of the idea. Things were getting unhealthy back there.’

‘What line are you in?’

‘We’re vagabonds at heart, so we were seeking fame and fortune on the highways and byways of Pelosia. A high-ranking churchman suddenly fell ill and died while we were talking business with him, and the Church Knights decided to investigate the causes of his illness. My friends and I decided to find fresh scenery to look at right about then.’

‘Are those Church Knights really as bad as they say?’

‘Worse, probably. The three of us are all that’s left of a band of thirty.’

‘Are you planning to go into business around here?’

‘We haven’t decided yet. We thought we’d look things over first—and make sure that the knights aren’t still following us.’

‘Do you feel like telling us your names?’

‘Not particularly. We’re not sure we’re going to stay and there’s not much point in making up new names if we’re not going to settle down.’

Djukta laughed. ‘If you aren’t sure you’re going into business, what’s the reason for this visit?’

‘Courtesy, for the most part. It’s terribly impolite not to pay a call on one’s colleagues when one’s passing through a town, and we thought it might save a bit of time if you could spare a few minutes to give us a rundown on local practices in the field of law-enforcement.’

‘I’ve never been to Eosia, but I’d imagine that things like that are fairly standard. Highwaymen aren’t held in high regard.’

‘We’re so misunderstood,’ Stragen sighed. ‘They have the usual sheriffs and the like, I suppose?’

‘There are sheriffs right enough,’ Djukta said, ‘but they don’t go out into the countryside very often in this part of Astel. The nobles out there more or less police their own estates. The sheriffs are usually involved in collecting taxes, and they aren’t all that welcome when they ride out of town.’

‘That’s useful. All we’d really have to deal with would be poorly-trained serfs who fare better at catching diidcen-thieves than at dealing with serious people. Is that more or less the way it is?’

Djukta nodded. ‘The good part is that these serf-sheriffs won’t go past the borders of their own estate.’

‘That’s a highwayman’s dream,’ Stragen grinned.

‘Not entirely,’ Djukta disagreed. ‘It’s not a good idea to make too much noise out there. The local sheriff wouldn’t chase you, but he would send word to the Atan garrison up in Canae. A man can’t run far enough or fast enough to get away from the Atans, and nobody’s ever taught them how to take prisoners.’

‘That could be a drawback,’ Stragen conceded. ‘Is there anything else we should know about?’

‘Did you ever hear of Ayachin?’

‘I can’t say that I have.’

‘That could get you into all kinds of trouble.’

‘Who is he?’

Djukta turned his head. ‘Akros,’ he called, ‘come here and tell our colleagues here about Ayachin.’ He shrugged and spread his hands. ‘I’m not too well-versed in ancient history,’ he explained. ‘Akros used to be a teacher before he got caught stealing from his employer. He may not be too coherent. He has a little problem with drink.’

Akros was a shabby-looking fellow with bloodshot eyes and a five-day growth of beard. ‘What was it you wanted, Djukta?’ he asked, swaying on his feet.

‘Sort through what’s left of your brain and tell our friends here what you can remember about Ayachin.’

The drunken pedagogue smiled, his bleary eyes coming alight. He slid into a chair and took a drink from his tankard. ‘I’m only a little drunk,’ he said, his speech slurred.

‘That’s true,’ Djukta told Stragen. ‘When he’s really drunk, he can’t even talk.’

‘How much do you gentlemen know of the history of Astel?’ Akros asked them.

‘Not too much,’ Stragen admitted.

‘I’ll touch the high spots then.’ Akros leaned back in his chair. ‘It was in the ninth century that one of the Archprelates in Chyrellos decided that the Elene faith ought to be re-united—under his domination, naturally. ‘

‘Naturally,’ Stragen smiled. ‘It always seems to get down to that, doesn’t it?’

Akros rubbed at his face. ‘I’m a little shaky on this, so I might leave some things out. This was before the founding of the Church knights, so this Archprelate forced the Kings of Eosia to provide him with armies, and they marched through Zemoch. That was before Otha was born, so Zemoch wasn’t much of a barrier. The Archprelate was interested in religious unity, but the noblemen in his army were more interested in conquest. They ravaged the kingdom of Astel until Ayachin came.’

Talen leaned forward, his eyes bright. It was the boy’s one weakness. A good story could paralyze him.

Akros took another drink. ‘There are all sorts of conflicting stories about who Ayachin really was,’ he continued. ‘Some say he was a prince, some that he was a baron, and there are even those who say he was only a serf. Anyway, whoever he was, he was a fervent patriot. He roused such noblemen as hadn’t yet gone over to the invaders, and then he did something no one had ever dared do before. He armed the serfs. The campaign against the invaders lasted for years, and after a fairly large battle that he seemed to lose, Ayachin fled southward, luring the Eosian armies into the Astel marshes in the south of the kingdom. He’d made secret alliances with patriots in Edam, and there was a huge army lining the southern fringe of the marshes. Serfs who lived in the region guided Ayachin’s armies through the bogs and quicksand, but the Eosians tried to just bull their way through, and most of them drowned, pulled under by all that muck. The few who reached the far side were slaughtered by the combined forces of Ayachin and his Edomish allies. He was a great national hero for a time, of course, till the nobles who had been outraged because he’d armed the serfs conspired against him, and he was eventually murdered.’

‘Why do these stories always have to end that way?’ Talen complained.

‘Our young friend here is a literary critic,’ Stragen said. ‘He wants his stories to all have happy endings.’

‘The ancient history is all well and good,’ Djukta growled, ‘but the point of all this is that Ayachin’s returned—or so the serfs say.’

‘It’s a part of the folk-lore of Astel,’ Akros said. ‘Serfs used to tell each other that someday a great crisis would arise, and that Ayachin would rise from the grave to lead them again.’

Stragen sighed. ‘Can’t anyone come up with a new story?’

‘What’s that?’ Djukta asked him.

‘Nothing, really. There’s a similar story making the rounds in Eosia. Why would this concern us if we decided to go into business around here?’

‘Part of that folk-lore Akros was telling you about is something that makes everybody’s blood run cold. The serfs believe that when Ayachin returns, he’s going to emancipate them. Now there’s a hot-head out there stirring them up. We don’t know his real name, but the serfs call him “Sabre”. He’s going around telling them that he’s actually seen Ayachin. The serfs are secretly gathering weapons—or making them. They sneak out into the forests at night to listen to this “Sabre” make speeches. You should probably know that they’re out there, since it might be dangerous if you happened upon them unexpectedly.’

Djukta scratched at his shaggy beard. ‘I don’t normally feel this way, but I wish the government would catch this Sabre fellow and hang him or something. He’s got the serfs all worked up about throwing off the oppressors, and he’s not too specific about which oppressors he means. He could be talking about the Tamuls, but many of his followers think he’s talking about the upper classes. Restless serfs are dangerous serfs. Nobody knows how many of them there really are, and if they begin to get wild ideas about equality and justice, God only knows where it might end.’

10

‘We’d go a long way toward understanding the situation if we could pinpoint just exactly what he is after, Emban added.

‘Opportunity,’ Ulath suggested. ‘If everything’s all settled and the wealth and power have all been distrib- uted, there’s nothing left for the people coming up the ladder. The only way they can get their share is to turn everything upside down and shake it a few times.’

‘That is a brutal political theory, Sir Ulath,’ Oscagne said disapprovingly.

‘It’s a brutal world, your Excellency,’ Ulath shrugged.

‘I’d have to disagree,’ Bevier stubbornly asserted.

‘Go right ahead, my young friend,’ Ulath smiled. ‘I don’t mind all that much when people disagree with me.’

‘There is such a thing as genuine political progress. The people’s lot is much better now than it was five hundred years ago.’

‘Granted, but what’s it going to be like next year?’ Ulath leaned back in his saddle, his blue eyes speculative. ‘Ambitious people need followers, and the best way to get people to follow you is to promise them that you’re going to correct everything that’s wrong with the world. The promises are all very stirring, but only babies expect leaders to actually keep them.’

‘You’re a cynic, Ulath.’

‘I think that’s the word people use, yes.’

The weather grew increasingly threatening as the morning progressed. A thick bank of purplish cloud marched steadily in from the west, and there were flickers of lightning along the horizon.

‘It’s going to rain, isn’t it?’ Tynian asked Khalad.

Khalad looked pointedly toward the cloud-bank. ‘That’s a fairly safe bet, Sir Knight,’ the young man replied.

‘How long until we start to get wet?’

‘An hour or so—unless the wind picks up.’

‘What do you think, Sparhawk?’ Tynian asked. ‘Should we look for some kind of shelter?’ There was a far-off rumble of thunder from the west.

‘I think that answers that question,’ Sparhawk decided. ‘Men dressed in steel don’t have any business being out in a thunderstorm.’

‘Good point,’ Tynian agreed. He looked around. ‘The next question is where? I don’t see any woods around.’

‘We might have to set up the tents.’

‘That’s awfully tedious, Sparhawk.’

‘So’s being fried in your armour if you get struck by lightning.’

Kring came riding back toward the main column with a small, two-wheeled carriage following him. The man in the carriage was blond, plump and soft-looking. He wore clothing cut in a style which had gone out of fashion in the west forty years ago.

‘This is the landowner Kotyk,’ the Domi said to Sparhawk. ‘He calls himself a baron. He wanted to meet you.’

‘I am overwhelmed to meet the stalwarts of the church, Sir Knights,’ the plump man gushed.

‘We are honoured, Baron Kotyk,’ Sparhawk replied, inclining his head politely.

‘My manor house is nearby,’ Kotyk rushed on, ‘and I do foresee unpleasant weather on the horizon. Might I offer my poor hospitality?’

‘As I’ve told you so many times in the past, Sparhawk,’ Bevier said mildly, ‘you have but to put your trust in God. He will provide.’

Kotyk looked puzzled. ‘A somewhat feeble attempt at humour, my Lord,’ Sparhawk explained. ‘My companions and I were just discussing our need for shelter. Your most generous offer solves a rather vexing problem for us.’ Sparhawk was not familiar with local customs, but the Baron’s ornate speech hinted at a somewhat stiff formality.

‘I note that you have ladies in your company,’ Kotyk observed, looking toward the carriage in which Ehlana rode. ‘Their comfort must be our first concern. We can become better acquainted once we are safely under my roof.’

‘We shall be guided by you, my Lord,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘I pray you, lead us whither you will, and I shall inform the ladies of this fortuitous encounter.’ If Kotyk wanted formal, Sparhawk would give him formal. He wheeled Faran and rode back along the column.

‘Who’s the fat fellow in the carriage, Sparhawk?’ Ehlana asked.

‘Speak not disparagingly of our host, light of my life.’

‘Aren’t you feeling well?’

‘The fat fellow has just offered us shelter from that thunderstorm snapping at our heels. Treat him with gratitude if not respect.’

‘What a nice man.’

‘It might not be a bad idea for us to sort of keep your identity to ourselves. We don’t know exactly what we’re walking into. Why don’t I just introduce you as an aristocrat of some kind, and—’

‘A Margravine, I think,’ she improvised. ‘Margravine Ehlana of Cardos.’

‘Why Cardos?’

‘It’s a nice district with mountains and a beautiful coastline. Absolutely perfect climate and industrious, law-abiding people.’

‘You’re not trying to sell it to him, Ehlana.’

‘But I need to know the pertinent details so that I can gush suitably.’

Sparhawk sighed. ‘All right, my Lady, practise gushing then, and come up with suitable stories for the others.’ He looked at Emban. ‘Are your morals flexible enough to stand a bit of falsehood, your Grace?’ Sparhawk asked.

‘That depends on what you want me to lie about, Sparhawk.’

‘It won’t exactly be a lie, your Grace,’ Sparhawk smiled. ‘If we demote my wife, you’ll be the ranking member of our party. The presence of Ambassador Oscagne here suggests a high-level visit of some sort. I’ll just tell Baron Kotyk that you’re the Archprelate’s personal emissary to the Imperial court, and that the Knights are your escort instead of the Queen’s.’

‘That doesn’t stretch my conscience too far,’ Emban grinned. ‘Go ahead, Sparhawk. You lie, and I’ll swear to it. Say whatever you have to. That storm is coming this way very fast.’

‘Talen,’ Sparhawk said to the boy, who was riding beside the carriage, ‘sort of move up and down the column and let the knights know what we’re doing. A misplaced ‘your Majesty’’ or two could expose us all as frauds.’

‘Your husband shows some promise, Margravine Ehlana,’ Stragen noted. ‘Give me some time to train him a bit, and I’ll make an excellent swindler of him. His instincts are good, but his technique’s a little shaky.’

Baron Kotyk’s manor house was a palatial residence in a park-like setting, and there was a fair-sized village at the foot of the hill upon which it stood. There were a number of large out-buildings standing to the rear of the main house.

‘Fortunately, Sir Knights, I have ample room for even so large a party as yours,’ the baron told them. The quarters for the bulk of your men may be a bit crude, though, I’m afraid. They’re dormitories for the harvest crews.’

‘We’re Church Knights, my Lord Kotyk,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We’re accustomed to hardship.’

Kotyk sighed. ‘We have no such institution here,’ he mourned. ‘There are so many things lacking in our poor, backward country.’

They approached the manor house by a long, white-travelled drive lined on both sides by lofty elms and halted at the foot of the broad stone stairs leading up to an arched front door. The baron climbed heavily down from his carriage and handed his reins to one of the bearded serfs who had rushed from the house to meet them.

‘I pray you, gentles all,’ he said, ‘stand not on ceremony. Let us enter ere the approaching storm descend upon us.’

Sparhawk could not be certain if the Baron’s stilted speech was a characteristic of the country, a personal idiosyncracy, or a nervous reaction to the rank of his visitors. He motioned to Kalten and Tynian.

‘See to it that the knights and the Peloi are settled in,’ he told them quietly. ‘Then join us in the house. Khalad, go with them. Make sure that the serfs don’t just leave the horses standing out in the rain.’

The door to the manor house swung wide, and three ladies dressed in antiquated gowns emerged. One was tall and angular. She had a wealth of dark hair and the lingering traces of youthful beauty. The years had not been kind to her, however. Her rigid, haughty face was lined, and she had a noticeable squint. The other two were both blonde, flabby, and their features clearly revealed a blood relationship to the baron. Behind them came a pale young man. dressed all in black velvet. He seemed to have a permanent sneer stamped on his face. His dark hair was done in long curls that cascaded down his back in an artfully-arranged display.

After the briefest of introductions Kotyk led them all inside. The tall, dark-haired lady was the baron’s wife, Astansia. The two blondes were, as Sparhawk had guessed, his sisters, Ermude the elder and Katina the younger. The pale young man was Baroness Astansia’s brother, Elron, who she proudly advised them was a poet in a voice hovering on the verge of adoration.

‘Do you think I could get away with pleading a sick headache?’ Ehlana murmured to Sparhawk as they followed the baron and his family down a long, tapestry-lined coridor toward the centre of the house. ‘This is going to be deadly, I’m afraid.’

‘‘If I have to put up with it, so do you,’ Sparhawk whispered. ‘We need the baron’s roof, so we’ll have to endure his hospitality.’

She sighed. ‘It might be a little more endurable if the whole place didn’t reek of cooked cabbage.’

They were led into a ‘sitting-room’ that was only slightly smaller than the throne-room in Cimmura, a musty-smelling room filled with stiff, uncomfortable chairs and divans and carpeted in an unwholesome-looking mustard yellow.

‘We are so isolated here,’ Katina sighed to the Baroness Melidere, ‘and so dreadfully out of fashion. My poor brother tries as best he can to keep abreast of what’s happening in the west, but our remote location imprisons us and keeps visitors from our door. Ermude and I have tried over and over to persuade him to take a house in the capital where we can be near the centre of things, but she won’t hear of it. The estate came to my brother by marriage, and his wife’s so terribly provintial. Would you believe that my poor sister and I are forced to have our gowns made up by serfs?’

Melidere put her palms to her cheeks in feigned horror. ‘My goodness!’ she exclaimed. Katina reached for her handkerchief as tears of misery began to roll down her cheeks.

‘Wouldn’t your Atan be more comfortable with the soldiers, Margravine?’ Baroness Astansia was asking, looking with some distaste at Mirtai.

‘I rather doubt it, Baroness,’ Ehlana replied, ‘and even if she were, I wouldn’t be. I have powerful enemies, my Lady, and my husband is much involved in the affairs of Elenia. The queen relies heavily upon him, and so I must look to my own defences.’

‘I’ll admit that your Atan is imposing, Margravine,’ Astansia sniffed, ‘but she’s still only a woman, after all.’

Ehlana smiled. ‘You might tell that to the ten men she’s already killed, Baroness,’ she replied. The Baroness stared at her in horror.

‘The Eosian continent has a thin veneer of civilisation, my Lady,’ Stragen advised her, ‘but underneath it all, we’re really quite savage.’

‘It’s a tedious journey, Baron Kotyk,’ Patriarch Emban said, ‘but the Archprelate and the emperor have been in communication with each other since the collapse of Zemoch, and they both feel that the time has come to exchange personal envoys. Misunderstandings can arise in the absence of direct contact, and the world has seen enough of war for a while.’

‘A wise decision, your Grace.’ Kotyk was quite obviously overwhelmed by the presence of people of exalted station in his house.

‘I have some small reputation in the capital, Sir Bevier,’ Elron was saying in a lofty tone of voice. ‘My poems are eagerly sought after by the intelligentsia. They’re quite beyond the grasp of the unlettered, however. I’m particularly noted for my ability to convey colours. I do think that colour is the very soul of the real world. I’ve been working on my Ode to Blue for the past six months.’

‘Astonishing perseverance,’ Bevier murmured.

‘I try to be as thorough as possible,’ Elron declared. ‘I’ve already composed two hundred and sixty-three stanzas, and there’s no end in sight, I’m afraid.’

Bevier sighed. ‘As a Knight of the Church, I have little time for literature,’ he mourned. ‘Because of my vocation, I must concentrate on military texts and devotional works. Sir Sparhawk is more worldly than I, and his descriptions of people and places verge sometimes on the poetic.’

‘I should be most interested,’ Elron lied, his face revealing a professional’s contempt for the efforts of amateurs. ‘Does he touch at all on colour?’

‘More with light, I believe,’ Bevier replied, ‘but then they’re the same thing, aren’t they? Colour doesn’t exist without light. I remember that once he described a street in the city of Jiroch. The city lies on the coast of Render where the sun pounds the earth like a hammer. Very early in the morning, before the sun rises, and when the night is just beginning to fade, the sky has the colour of forged steel. It casts no shadows, and so everything seems etched by that sourceless grey. The All untaught, they move with a grace beyond the capability of dancers. Their silent, beautiful procession marks each day’s beginning as, like shadows, they greet the dawn in a ritual as old as time. Have you ever seen that peculiar light before the sun rises, Elron?’

‘I seldom rise before noon,’ the young man said stiffly.

‘You should make an effort to see it sometime,’ Bevier suggested mildly. ‘An artist should be willing to make some sacrifices for his art, after all.’

‘I trust you’ll excuse me,’ the young fellow with the dark curls said brusquely. He bowed slightly and then left, a mortified expression replacing his supercilious sneer.

‘That was cruel, Bevier,’ Sparhawk chided, ‘and you put words in my mouth. I’ll admit that you have a certain flair for language though.’

‘It had the desired effect, Sparhawk. If that conceited young ass had patronised me about one more time, i’d have strangled him. Two hundred some odd verses in an ode to the colour blue? What a donkey.’

‘The next time he bothers you about blue, describe Bhelliom to him.’

Bevier shuddered. ‘Not me, Sparhawk. Just the thought of it makes my blood run cold.’

Sparhawk laughed and went over to the window to look at the rain slashing at the glass. Danae came to his side and took his hand. ‘Do we really have to stay here father?’ she asked. ‘These people turn my stomach.’

‘We need some place to shelter us from the rain, Danae.’

‘I can make it stop raining, if that’s all you’re worried about. If one of those disgusting women starts talking baby-talk to me one more time, I’m going to turn her into a toad.’

‘I think I have a better idea.’ Sparhawk bent and picked her up. ‘Act sleepy,’ he instructed. Danae promptly went limp and dangled from his arms like a rag doll. ‘You’re overdoing it,’ he told her.

He crossed to the far side of the room, gently laid her on a divan and covered her with her traveling cloak. ‘Don’t snore,’ he advised. ‘You’re not old enough to snore yet.’

She gave him an innocent little look. ‘I wouldn’t do that, Sparhawk. Find my cat and bring her to me.’ Then her smile turned hard. ‘Pay close attention to our host and his family, father. I think you should see what kind of people they really are.’

‘What are you up to!’

‘Nothing. I just think you should see what they’re really like.’

‘I can see quite enough already.’

‘No, not really. They’re trying to be polite, so they’re glossing over things. Let’s take a look at the truth. For the rest of the evening, they’ll tell you what they really think and feel.’

‘I’d rather they didn’t.’

‘you’re supposed to be brave, Sparhawk, and this horrid little family is typical of the gentry here in Astel. Once you understand them, you’ll be able to see what’s wrong with the kingdom. It might be useful.’ Her eyes and face grew serious. ‘There’s something here, Sparhawk—something we absolutely have to know.’

‘What?’

‘I’m not sure. Pay attention, father. Somebody’s going to tell you something important tonight. Now go find my cat.’

The supper they were offered was poorly prepared, and the conversation at the table was dreadful. Freed of constraint by Danae’s spell, the baron and his family said things they might normally have concealed, and their spiteful, self-pitying vanity emerged all the more painfully under the influence of the inferior wine they all quaffed like common tavern drunkards.

‘I was not intended for this barbaric isolation,’ Katina confided to poor Melidere. ‘Surely God could not have meant for me to bloom unnoticed so far from the balls and gaiety of the capital. We were cruelly decieved before my brother’s marriage to that dreadful woman. Her parents led us to believe that the estate would bring us wealth and position, but it scarcely provides enough to keep us in this hovel. There’s no hope that we shall ever be able to afford a house in Darsas.’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘What shall become of me?’ she wailed. ‘The lights, the balls, the hordes of Morslrmry flocking to my door, dazzled by my wit and—’

‘Oh, don’t cry, Katina,’ Ermude wailed. ‘If you cry, I shall surely cry too.’

The sisters were so similar in appearance that Sparhawk had some difficulty telling them apart. Their plumpness was more like dough than flesh. Their colourless hair was limp and uninspired, and their complexions were bad. Neither of them was really very clean.

‘I try so hard to protect my poor sister,’ Ermude blubbered to the long-suffering Melidere, ‘but this dreadful place is destroying her. There’s no culture here. We live like beasts—like serfs. It’s so meaningless. Life should have meaning, but what possible meaning can there be so far from the capital? That horrid woman won’t permit our poor brother to sell this desolate waste so that we can take a proper residence in Darsas. We’re trapped here—trapped, I tell you—and we shall live out our lives in this hideous isolation.’ Then she too buried her face in her hands and wept. Melidere sighed, rolling her eyes ceilingward.

‘I have some influence with the governor of the district,’ Baron Kotyk was telling patriarch Emban with pompous self-importance. ‘He relies heavily on my judgement. We’ve been having a deuce of a time with the burghers in town—untitled rascals, every one of them—runaway serfs, if the truth were known. They complain bitterly at each new tax and try to shift the burden to us. We pay quite enough in taxes already, thank you, and they’re the ones who are demanding all the services. What good does it do me if the streets in town are paved? It’s the roads that are important. I’ve said that to his Excellency the governor over and over again.’

The baron was deep in his cups. His voice was slurred, and his head wobbled on his neck. ‘All the burdens of the district are placed on our shoulders,’ he declared, his eyes filling with self-pitying tears. ‘I must support five hundred idle serfs—serfs so lazy that not even flogging can get any work out of them. It’s all so unfair. I’m an aristocrat, but that doesn’t count for anything any more.’ The tears began to roll down his cheeks, and his nose started to run. ‘No one seems to realise that the aristocracy is God’s special gift to mankind. The burghers treat us no better than commoners. Considering our divine origins, such disrespect is the worst form of impiety. I’m sure your Grace agrees.’ The Baron sniffed loudly. Patriarch Emban’s father had been a tavern-keeper in the city of Ucera, and Sparhawk was fairly sure that the fat little churchman most definitely did not agree.

Ehlana had been trapped by the baron’s wife, and she was beginning to look a little desperate. ‘The estate’s mine, of course,’ Astansia declared in a coldly haughty voice. ‘My father was in his dotage when he married me off to that fat swine.’ She sneered. ‘Kotyk only had those piggish little eyes of his on the income from my estate. My father was so impressed with the idiot’s title that he couldn’t see him for what he really is, a titled opportunist with two fat, ugly sisters hanging from his coat-tails.’ She sneered, and then the sneer slid from her face, and the inevitable tears filled her eyes. ‘I can only find solace for my tragic state in religion, my beloved brother’s art, and in the satisfaction I take in making absolutely sure that those two harridans never see the lights of Darsas. They’ll rot here—right up until the moment my pig of a husband eats and drinks himself to death. Then I shall turn them out with nothing but the clothes on their backs.’ Her hard eyes became exultant. ‘I can hardly wait,’ she said fiercely. ‘I shall have my revenge, and then my sainted brother and I can live here in perfect contentment.’

Princess Danae crawled up into her father’s lap. ‘Lovely people, aren’t they?’ she said quietly.

‘Are you making all this up?’ he asked accusingly.

‘No, father, I can’t do that. None of us can. People are what they are. We can’t change them.’

‘I thought you could do anything.’

‘There are limits, Sparhawk.’ Her dark eyes grew hard again. ‘I am going to do something, though.’

‘Oh?’

‘Your Elene God owes me a couple of favours. I did something nice for Him once.’

‘Why do you need His help?’

‘These people are Elenes. They belong to Him. I can’t do anything to them without His permission. That’s the worst form of bad manners.’

‘I’m an Elene, and you do things to me.’

‘You’re Anakha, Sparhawk. You don’t belong to anybody.’

‘That’s depressing. I’m loose in the world with no God to guide me?’

‘You don’t need guidance. Advice sometimes, yes. Guidance, no.’

‘Don’t do anything exotic here,’ he cautioned. ‘We don’t know exactly what we’ll be dealing with when we get deeper into Tamuli. Let’s not announce our presence until we have to.’ Then his curiosity got the better of him. ‘Nobody’s said anything very relevant yet.’

‘Then keep listening, Sparhawk. It will come.’

‘Exactly what were you planning to ask God to do to these people?’

‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘Absolutely nothing at all. I won’t ask Him to do a thing to change their circumstances. All I want Him to do is to make sure that they all live very, very long lives.’

He looked around the table at the petulant faces of their host’s family. ‘You’re going to imprison them here?’ he accused. ‘Chain five people who loathe each other together for all eternity so that they can gradually tear each other to pieces?’

‘Not quite eternity, Sparhawk,’ the little girl corrected, ‘though it’s probably going to seem that way to them.’

‘That’s cruel.’

‘No, Sparhawk. It’s justice. These people richly deserve each other. I only want to be sure that they have a long time to enjoy each others’ company.’

‘What’s your feeling about a breath of fresh air?’ Stragen asked, leaning over Sparhawk’s shoulder.

‘It’s raining out there.’

‘I don’t think you’ll melt.’

‘Maybe it’s not a bad idea at that.’ Sparhawk rose to his feet and carried his sleeping daughter back into the sitting room and the divan where Mmrr drowsed, purring absently and kneading one of the cushions with her needle-sharp claws. He covered them both and followed Stragen into the corridor.

‘Are you feeling restless?’ he asked the Thalesian.

‘No, revolted. I’ve known some of the worst people in the world, my friend, and I’m no angel myself, but this little family—’ He shuddered. ‘Did you happen to lay in a store of poison while you were in Render?’

‘I don’t approve of poison.’

‘A bit short-sighted there, old boy. Poison’s a tidy way to deal with intolerable people.’

‘Annias felt much the same way, as I recall.’

‘I’d forgotten about that,’ Stragen admitted. ‘I imagine that prejudiced you slightly against a very practical solution to a sticky problem. Something really ought to be done about these monsters, though.’

‘It’s already been taken care of.’

‘Oh? How?’

‘I’m not at liberty to say.’

They stepped out onto the wide veranda that ran across the back of the house and stood leaning on the railing looking out into the muddy back yard.

‘It doesn’t show any signs of letting up, does it?’ Stragen said.

‘How long can it continue at this time of year?’

‘You’ll have to ask Khalad. He’s the expert on the weather.’

‘My Lords?’ Stragen and Sparhawk turned. It was Elron, the baron’s poetic brother-in-law. ‘I came to assure you that my sister and I aren’t responsible for Kotyk and his relatives,’ he said.

‘We were fairly sure that was the case, Elron,’ Stragen murmured.

‘All they had in the world was Kotyk’s title. Their father gambled away their inheritance. It sickens me to have that clutch of out-at-the-elbows aristocrats lording it over us the way they do.’

‘We’ve heard some rumours,’ Stragen smoothly changed the subject. ‘Some people in Esos were telling us that there was unrest among the serfs. We got some garbled account of a fellow called “Sabre” and another named Ayachin. We couldn’t make any sense out of it.’

Elron looked around in an over-dramatically conspiratorial fashion. ‘It is not wise to mention those names here in Astel, Milord Stragen,’ he said in a hoarse whisper that probably could have been heard across the yard. ‘The Tamuls have ears everywhere.’

‘The serfs are unhappy with the Tamuls?’ Stragen asked with some surprise. ‘I’d have thought that they wouldn’t’t have had so far to look for someone to hate.’

‘The serfs are superstitious animals, Milord,’ Elron sneered. ‘They can be led anywhere with a combination of religion, folklore and strong drink. The real movement is directed at the yellow devils.’ Elron’s eyes narrowed. ‘The honour of Astel demands that the Tamul yoke be thrown off. That’s the real goal of the movement. Sabre is a patriot, a mysterious figure who appears out of the night to inspire the men of Astel to rise up and smash the oppressor’s chains. He’s always masked, you know.’

‘I hadn’t heard that.’

‘Oh, yes. It’s necessary, of course. Actually, he’s a well-known personage who very carefully conceals his real identity and opinions. By day he’s an idle member of the gentry, but at night, he’s a masked firebrand, igniting the patriotism of his countrymen.’

‘You have certain opinions, I gather,’ Stragen assumed.

Elron’s expression grew cautious. ‘I’m only a poet, Milord Stragen,’ he said deprecatingly. ‘My interest is in the drama of the situation—for the purposes of my art, you understand.’

‘Oh, of course.’

‘Where does this Ayachin come in?’ Sparhawk asked. ‘As I understand it, he’s been dead for quite some time now.’

‘There are strange things afoot in Astel, Sir Sparhawk,’ Elron assured him. ‘Things which have lain locked in the blood of all the Astels for generations. We know in our hearts that Ayachin is not dead. He can never die—not so long as tyranny is alive.’

‘Just as a practical consideration, Elron,’ Stragen said in his most urbane manner, ‘this movement seems to rely rather heavily on the serfs for manpower. What’s in it for them? Why should men who are bound to the soil have any concern at all about who runs the government?’

‘They’re sheep. They’ll stampede in any direction you want them to. All you have to do is murmur the word ‘emancipation’ and they’d follow you into the mouth of hell.’

‘Then Sabre has no intention of actually freeing them?’

Elron laughed. ‘My dear fellow, why would any reasonable man want to do that? What’s the point of liberating cattle?’ He looked around furtively. ‘I must return before I’m missed. Kotyk hates me, and he’d like nothing better than the chance to denounce me to the authorities. I’m obliged to smile and be polite to him and those two overfed sows he calls his sisters. I keep my own counsel, gentlemen, but when the day of our liberation comes, there will be changes here—as God is my judge. Social change is sometimes violent, and I can almost guarantee that Kotyk and his sisters will not live to see the dawn of the new day.’ His eyes narrowed with a kind of self-important secretiveness. ‘But I speak too much. I keep my own counsel, gentlemen. I keep my own counsel.’ He swirled his black cloak around him and crept back into the house, his head high and his expression resolute.

‘Fascinating young fellow,’ Stragen observed. ‘He makes my rapier itch for some reason.’

Sparhawk grunted his agreement and looked up at the rainy night. ‘I hope this blows over by morning,’ he said. ‘I’d really like to get out of this sewer.’

11

The following morning dawned blustery and unpromising. Sparhawk and his companions ate a hasty breakfast and made ready to depart. The baron and his family were not awake as yet, and none of his guests were in any mood for extended farewells. They rode out about an hour after sunrise and turned northeasterly on the Darsas road, moving at a distance-consuming canter. Although none of them mentioned it, they all wanted to get well out of the range of any possible pursuit before their hosts awakened.

About mid-morning, they reached the white stone pillar that marked the eastern border of the baron’s estate and breathed a collective sigh of relief. The column slowed to a walk, and Sparhawk and the other knights dropped back to ride alongside the carriage. Ehlana’s maid, Alcan, was crying, and the queen and Baroness Melidere were trying to comfort her.

‘She’s a very gentle child,’ Melidere explained to Sparhawk. ‘The horror of that sorry household has moved her to tears.’

‘Did someone back there say something to you he shouldn’t have?’ Kalten asked the sobbing girl, his tone hard. Kalten’s attitude toward Alcan was strange. Once he had been persuaded not to press his attentions on her, he had become rather fiercely protective. ‘If anybody insulted you, I’ll go back and teach him better manners.’

‘No’, my Lord,’ the girl replied disconsolately. ‘It was nothing like that. It’s just that they’re all trapped in that awful place. They hate each other, but they’ll have to spend the rest of their lives together, and they’ll go on cutting little pieces out of each other until they’re all dead.’

‘Someone once told me that there’s a certain kind of justice at work in situations like that,’ Sparhawk observed, not looking at his daughter. ‘All right then, we all had the chance to talk with the members of our host’s family individually. Did anyone pick up anything useful?’

‘The serfs are right on the verge of open rebellion, my Lord,’ Khalad said. ‘I sort of drifted around the stable and other outbuildings and talked with them. The Barons’ father was a kindly master, I guess, and the serfs loved him. After he died, though, Kotyk started to show his real nature. He’s a brutal sort of man, and he’s very fond of using the knout.’

‘What’s a knout?’ Talen asked.

‘It’s a sort of scourge,’ his half-brother replied bleakly.

‘A whip?’

‘It goes a little further than that. Serfs are lazy, Sparhawk. There’s no question about that. And they’ve perfected the art of either pretending to be stupid or feigning illness or injury. It’s always been a sort of game, I guess. The masters knew what the serfs were up to, and the serfs knew that they weren’t really fooling anybody. Actually, I think they all enjoyed it. Then, a few years ago, the masters suddenly stopped playing. Instead of trying to coax the serfs to work, the gentry began to resort to the knout. They threw a thousand years of tradition out the window and turned vicious overnight. The serfs can’t understand it. Kotyk’s not the only noble who’s been mistreating his serfs. They say it’s been happening all over western Astel. Serfs tend to exaggerate things, but they all seem to be convinced that their masters have set out on a course of deliberate brutality designed to eradicate traditional rights and to reduce the serfs to absolute slavery. A serf can’t be sold, but a slave can. The one they call “Sabre” has been making quite an issue of that. If you tell a man that somebody’s planning to sell his wife and children, you’re going to get him just a little bit excited.’

‘That doesn’t match up too well with what Baron Kotyk was telling me,’ Patriarch Emban put in.

‘The baron drank more than was really good for him last night, and he let a number of things slip that he otherwise might not have. It’s his position that Sabre’s primary goal is to drive the Tamuls out of Astel. To be honest with you, Sparhawk, I was a bit sceptical about what that thief in Esos said about this Sabre fellow, but he certainly has the attention of the nobles. He’s been making an issue of racial and religious differences between Elenes and Tamuls. Kotyk kept referring to the Tamuls as “godless yellow dogs”.’

‘We have Gods, your Grace,’ Oscagne protested mildly. ‘If you give me a few moments, I might even be able to remember some of their names.’

‘Our friend Sabre’s been busy,’ Tynian said. ‘He’s saying one thing to the nobles and another to the serfs.’

‘I think it’s called talking out of both sides of your face at once,’ Ulath noted.

‘I believe the empire might want to give the discovery of Sabre’s identity a certain priority,’ Oscagne mused. ‘It’s embarrassingly predictable, but we brutal oppressors and godless yellow dogs always want to identify ring-leaders and troublemakers.’

‘So that you can catch them and hang them?’ Talen asked.’

‘Not necessarily, young man. When a natural talent comes to the surface, one shouldn’t waste it. I’m sure we find a use for this fellow’s gifts.’

‘But he hates your empire, your Excellency,’ Ehlana pointed out.

‘That’s no real drawback, your Majesty,’ Oscagne smiled. ‘The fact that a man hates the empire doesn’t automatically make him a criminal. Anyone with any common sense hates the empire. There are days when even the emperor himself hates it. The presence of revolutionaries is a fair indication that something’s seriously wrong in a given province. The revolutionary’s made it his business to pinpoint the problems, so it’s easier in the long run to just let him go ahead and fix things. I’ve known quite a few revolutionaries who made very good provincial governors.’

‘That’s an interesting line of thought, your Excellency,’ Ehlana said, ‘but how do you persuade people who hate you to go to work for you?’

‘You trick them, your Majesty. You just ask them if they think they can do any better. They inevitably think they can, so you just tell them to have a go at it. It usually takes them a few months to realise that they’ve been had. Being a provincial governor is the worst job in the world. Everybody hates you.’

‘Where does this Ayachin fit in?’ Bevier asked.

‘I gather he’s the rallying point,’ Stragen replied. ‘Sort of the way Drychtnath is in Lamorkand.’

‘A figurehead?’ Tynian suggested.

‘Most probably. You wouldn’t really expect a ninth-century hero to understand contemporary political reality.’

‘He’s sort of an enigma, though,’ Ulath pointed out. ‘The nobility believes he is one sort of man, and the serfs believe he’s another. Sabre must have two different sets of speeches. Just exactly who was Ayachin anyway?’

‘Kotyk told me that he was a minor nobleman who was very devoted to the Astellian Church,’ Emban supplied. ‘‘In the ninth century, there was a Church-inspired invasion from Eosia. Your thief in Esos was right about that part, at least. The Astels believe that our Holy Mother in Chyrellos is heretical. Ayachin’s supposed to have rallied the nobles and finally won a great victory in the Astel marshes.’

‘The serfs have a different story,’ Khalad told them. ‘They believe that Ayachin was a serf disguised as a nobleman and that his real goal was the emancipation of his class. They say that the victory in the marshes was the work of the serfs, not the nobility. Later, when the nobles found out who Ayachin really was, they had him murdered.’

‘He makes a perfect figurehead then,’ Ehlana said. ‘He was so ambitious that he seems to offer something to everyone.’

Emban was frowning. ‘The mistreatment of the serfs doesn’t make any sense. Serfs aren’t very industrious, but there are so many of them that all you have to do is pile on more people until you get the job done. If you maltreat them, all you really do is encourage them to turn on you. Even an idiot knows that. Sparhawk, is there some spell that might have induced the nobility to follow a course that’s ultimately suicidal?’

‘None that I know of,’ Sparhawk replied. He looked around at the other knights, and they all shook their heads. Princess Danae nodded very slightly, however, indicating that there might very well be some way to do what Emban suggested. ‘I wouldn’t discount the possibilitty though, your Grace,’ he added. ‘Just because none of us know the spell doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. If someone wanted turmoil here in Astel, there’s probably nothing that would have suited his purposes better than a serf uprising, and if all the nobles started knouting their serfs at about the same time, it would have been a perfect way to set one off.’

‘And this Sabre fellow seems to be responsible,’ Emban said. ‘He’s stirring the nobles against the godless yellow dogs—sorry, Oscagne—and at the same time he’s agitating the serfs against their masters. Was anyone able to pick up anything about him?’

‘Elron was in his cups last night too,’ Stragen said. ‘He told Sparhawk and me that Sabre creeps around at night wearing a mask and making speeches.’

‘You’re not serious!’ Bevier asked incredulously.

‘Pathetic, isn’t it? We’re obviously dealing with a juvenile mind here. Elron’s quite overwhelmed by the melodrama of it all.’

‘He would be,’ Bevier sighed. ‘It does sort of sound like the fabrication of a third-rate literary fellow, doesn’t it?’ Stragen smiled.

‘That’s Elron, all right,’’ Tynian said.

‘You’re flattering him,’ Ulath grunted. ‘He trapped me in a corner last night and recited some of his verse to me. “Third-rate” is a gross overstatement of his talent.’

Sparhawk was troubled. Aphrael had told him that someone at Kotyk’s house would say something important, but, aside from the revelation of some fairly unsavoury personality defects, no one had directly told him anything of earth-shaking note. When he thought about it Aphrael had not, in fact promised that whatever was so important would be said to him. Quite possibly, it had been revealed to one of the others. He brooded about it.

The simplest way to resolve the question would have been to ask his daughter, but to do that would once more expose him to some offensive comments about his limited understanding, so he decided that he’d much prefer to work it out for himself.

Their map indicated that the journey to the capital at Darsas would take them ten days. It actually did not, of course.

‘How do you deal with people who happen to see us when we’re moving this way,’ he asked Danae as they moved along at that accelerated pace later that day. He looked at his blank-faced uncomprehending friends. ‘I’ve got a sort of an idea of how you convince the people who are travelling with us that we’re just plodding along, but what about strangers?’

‘We don’t move this way when there are strangers around, Sparhawk,’ she replied, ‘but they wouldn’t see us anyway. We’re going too fast.’

‘You’re freezing time then, the same way Ghnomb did in Pelosia?’

‘No, I’m actually doing just the opposite. Ghnomb froze time and made you plod along through an endless second. What I’m doing is—’ She looked speculatively at her father. ‘I’ll explain it some other time,’ she decided. ‘We’re moving in little spurts, a few miles at a time. Then we amble along for a while, and then we spurt ahead again. Making it all fit together is really very challenging. It gives me something to occupy my mind during these long, boring journeys.’

‘Did that important thing you mentioned get said?’ he asked her.

‘Yes.’

‘What was it?’ He decided that a small bruise on his dignity wouldn’t really hurt all that much.

‘I don’t know. I know that it was important and that somebody was going to say it, but I don’t know the details.’

‘Then you’re not omniscient.

‘I never said that I was.’

‘Could it have come in bits and pieces? A word or two to Emban, a couple to Stragen and me and quite a bit more to Khalad? And then we sort of had to put them all together to get the whole message?’

She thought about it. ‘That’s brilliant, father!’ she exclaimed.

‘Thank you.’ Their speculations earlier had borne some fruit after all. Then he pushed it a bit further.

‘Is someone here in Astel changing the attitudes of the people?’

‘Yes, but that goes on all the time.’

‘So when the nobility began to mistreat their serfs, it wasn’t their own idea?’

‘Of course not. Deliberate, calculated cruelty is very hard to maintain. You have to concentrate on it, and the Astels are too lazy for that. It was externally imposed.’

‘Could a Styric magician have done it?’

‘One by one, yes. A Styric could have selected one nobleman and turned him into a monster.’ She thought a moment. ‘Maybe two,’ she amended. ‘Three at the most. There are too many variables for a human to keep track of when you get past that.’

‘Then it’s a God—or Gods—that made them all start mistreating their serfs here a few years back?’

‘I thought I just said that.’

He ignored that and went on. ‘And the whole purpose of that was to make the serfs resentful and ready to listen to someone inciting them to revolution.’

‘Your logic is blinding me, Sparhawk.’

‘You can be a very offensive little girl when you set your mind to it, did you know that?’

‘But you love me anyway, don’t you? Get to the point, Sparhawk. It’s almost time for me to wake the others.’

‘And the sudden resentment directed at the Tamuls came from the same source, didn’t it?’

‘And probably at about the same time,’ she agreed. ‘It’s easier to do it all at once. Going back into someone’s mind over and over is so tedious.’

A sudden thought came to him. ‘How many things can you think about at the same time?’ he asked her.

‘I’ve never counted—several thousand, I’d imagine. Of course there aren’t really any limits. I guess if I really wanted to, I could think about everything all at once. I’ll try it sometime and let you know.’

‘That’s really the difference between us, isn’t it? You can think about more things at the same time than I can.’

‘Well, that’s one of the differences.’

‘What’s another?’

‘You’re a boy, and I’m a girl.’

‘That’s fairly obvious—and not very profound.’

‘You’re wrong, Sparhawk. It’s much, much more profound than you could ever imagine.’

After they crossed the river Antun, they entered a heavily forested region where rocky crags jutted up above the treetops here and there. The weather continued blustery and threatening, though it did not rain. Kring’s Peloi were very uncomfortable in the forest, and they rode huddled close to the Church Knights, their eyes a bit wild.

‘We might want to remember that,’ Ulath noted late that afternoon, jerking his chin in the direction of a pair of savage-looking, shaved-headed warriors following so closely behind Berit that their mounts were almost treading on his horse’s hind hooves.

‘What was that?’ Kalten asked him.

‘Don’t take the Peloi into the woods.’ Ulath paused and leaned back in his saddle. ‘I knew a girl in Heid one summer who felt more or less the same way,’ he reminisced. ‘She was absolutely terrified of the woods. The young men of the town sort of gave up on her—even though she was a great beauty. Heid’s a crowded little town, and there are always aunts and grandmothers and younger brothers underfoot in the houses. The young men have found that the woods offer the kind of privacy young people need from time to time, but this girl wouldn’t go near the woods. Then I made an amazing discovery. The girl was afraid of the woods, but she was absolutely fearless where hay-barns were concerned. I tested the theory personally any number of times, and she never once showed the slightest bit of timidity about barns—or goatsheds either, for that matter.’

‘I really don’t get the connection,’ Kalten said. ‘We were talking about the fact that the Peloi are afraid of the woods. If somebody attacks us here in this forest, we’re not going to have time to stop and build a barn for them, are we?’

‘No, I suppose you’re right there.’

‘All right, what is the connection then?’

‘I don’t think there is one, Kalten.’

‘Why did you tell the story then?’

‘Well, it’s an awfully good story, don’t you think?’ Ulath sounded a bit injured.

Talen came galloping forward. ‘I think you’d better come back to the carriage, Sir Knights,’ he laughed, trying without much success to control his mirth.

‘What’s the trouble?’ Sparhawk asked him. ‘We’ve got company’—well, not company exactly, but there’s somebody watching us.’

Sparhawk and the others wheeled their mounts and rode back along the column to the carriage. ‘You’ve got to see this, Sparhawk,’ Stragen said, trying to stifle his laughter. ‘Don’t be too obvious when you look, but there’s a man on horseback on top of that crag off to the left side of the road.’

Sparhawk leaned forward as if speaking to his wife and raised his eyes to look at the rocky crag jutting up from the forest floor. The rider was about forty yards away, and he was outlined by the sunset behind him. He was making no attempt to conceal himself. He sat astride a black horse, and his clothing was all of the same hue. His inky cape streamed out from his shoulders in the stiff wind, and his broad-brimmed hat was crammed tightly down on his head. His face was covered with a bag-like black mask with two large, slightly off-centre eye holes in it.

‘Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen in your life?’ Stragen laughed.

‘Very impressive,’ Ulath murmured. ‘At least he’s impressed.’

‘I wish I had a crossbow,’ Kalten said. ‘Berit, do you think you could nick him a little with your longbow?’

‘It might be a little chancy in this wind, Kalten,’ the young knight replied. ‘It might deflect my arrow and kill him instead.’

‘How long’s he going to sit there?’ Mirtai asked.

‘Until he’s sure that everybody in the column has seen him, I expect,’ Stragen said. ‘He went to a lot of trouble to deck himself out like that. What do you think, Sparhawk? Is that the fellow Elron told us about?’

‘The mask certainly fits,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘I wasn’t expecting all the rest, though.’

‘What’s this?’ Emban asked.

‘Unless Sparhawk and I are mistaken, your Grace, we are privileged to be in the presence of a living legend. I think that’s Sabre, the masked whatever-you-call-it, making his evening rounds.’

‘What on earth is he doing?’ Oscagne sounded baffled.

‘I imagine that he’s out wronging rights, depressing the oppressed and generally making an ass of himself, your Excellency. He looks as if he’s having a lot of fun, though.’

The masked rider reared his horse dramatically, and his black cape swirled around him. Then he plunged down the far side of the crag and was gone.

‘Wait,’ Stragen urged before the others could move.

‘For what?’ Kalten asked.

‘Listen.’ From beyond the crag came the brassy note of a horn that trailed off into a distinctly unmusical squawk. ‘He had to have a horn,’ Stragen explained. ‘No performance like that would ever be complete without a horn.’ He laughed delightedly. ‘Maybe if he practises, he’ll even learn to carry a tune with it.’

Darsas was an ancient city situated on the east bank of the Astel River. The bridge which approached it was a massive arch which had probably been in place for at least a thousand years, and most of the city’s buildings showed a similar antiquity. The cobbled streets were narrow and twisting, following, quite probably, paths along which cows had gone to water aeons in the past. Although its antiquity seemed strange, there was still something profoundly familiar about Darsas. It was an almost prototypical Elene town, and Sparhawk felt as if his very bones were responding to its peculiar architecture. Ambassador Oscagne led them through the narrow streets and cluttered bazaars to an imposing square at the centre of the city. He pointed out a fairy-tale structure with a broad gate, and soaring towers bedecked with brightly-coloured pennons. ‘The royal palace,’ he told Sparhawk. ‘I’ll st with Ambassador Fontan, our local man, and h’ to see King Alberen. I’ll only be a moment’ he called to his friend. ips A bit of ceremony % the Tamul embassy, building adjoining by an ancienttally hairless and ‘n of a’ very old Juite formally, my, Ambassaitative here Sparhawk and Fontan exchanged polite bows. ‘Have I your Highness’ permission to present his Excellency to her Majesty, the Queen?’ Oscagne asked.

‘Tedious, isn’t it Sparhawk?’ Fontan asked in a voice as dry as dust. ‘Oscagne’s a good boy. He was my most promising pupil, but his fondness for ritual and formula overcomes him at times.’

‘I’ll borrow a sword and immolate myself at once, Fontan,’ Oscagne bantered.

‘I’ve seen you fumbling with a sword, Oscagne,’ Fontan replied. ‘If you’re suicidally inclined, go molest a cobra instead. If you try to do it with a sword, you’ll take all week.’

‘I gather that I’m watching a reunion of sorts,’ Sparhawk smiled.

‘I always like to lower Oscagne’s opinion of himself, Sparhawk,’ Fontan replied. ‘He’s brilliant, of course, but sometimes he lacks humility. Now, why don’t you introduce me to your wife? She’s much prettier than us, and the imperial messenger from Matherion rode three horses to death bringing me the emperor’s instructions to be excruciatingly nice to her. We’ll chat for a few moments, and then I’ll take you to meet my dear, incompetent friend, the king. I’m sure he’ll swoon at the unspeakable honour your queen’s visit does him.’

Ehlana was delighted to meet the ambassador. Sparhawk knew that to be true because she said so herself. She invited the ancient Tamul, the real ruler of Astel, to join her in the carriage, and the entire party moved rather inexorably on to the palace gates.

The captain of the palace guard was nervous. When two hundred professional killers descend on one with fylacble pace, one is almost always nervous. Ambassador Fontan put him at his ease, and three messengers were dispatched to advise the king of their ‘killed him and my brothers, I suppose it technically belongs to me—spoils of war, you understand.’

‘My goodness,’ Baroness Melidere murmured, her blue eyes alight, ‘I seem to be standing in the middle of a whole constellation of stars.’ She seemed positively breathless.

‘I wish she wouldn’t do that,’ Stragen complained.

‘What’s the problem?’ Kalten asked him.

‘She makes it seem as if the light in her eyes is the sun streaming in through the hole in the back of her head. I know she’s far more clever than that. I hate dishonest people.’

‘You?’

‘Let it lie, Kalten.’

The throne-room of King Alberen of Astel was filled with an awed silence as the eminence of the visitors was revealed. King Alberen himself, an ineffectual-looking fellow whose royal robes looked a size or so too large for him, seemed to shrink with each new title.

Alberen, it appeared, had weak eyes, and his myopic gaze gave him the fearful, timid look of a rabbit or some other such small helpless animal which all other creatures look upon as a food source. The splendour of his throne-room seemed to shrink him all the more, the wide expanses of crimson carpets and drapes, the massive gilt and crystal chandeliers and marble columns providing an heroic setting which he could never hope to fill.

Sparhawk’s queen, regal and lovely, approached the throne on Ambassador Fontan’s arm with her steel-plated entourage drawn up around her. King Alberen seemed a bit uncertain about the customary ceremonies. As the reigning monarch of Astel, he was entitled to remain seated upon his throne, but the fact that his entire court genuflected as Ehlana passed intimidated him, and he rose to his feet and even stepped down from the dais to greet her.

‘Now has our life seen its crown,’ Ehlana proclaimed in her most formal and oratorical style, ‘for we have, as God most surely must have decreed since time’s beginning, come at last into the presence of our dear brother of Astel, whom we have longed to meet since our earliest girlhood.’

‘Is she speaking for all of us?’ Talen whispered to Berit. ‘I didn’t really have a girlhood, you know.’

‘She’s using the royal plural,’ Berit explained. ‘The queen’s more than one person. She’s speaking for the entire kingdom.’

‘We are honoured more than we can say, your Majesty,’ Alberen faltered.

Ehlana quickly assessed her host’s limitations and smoothly adopted a less formal tone. She abandoned ceremony and unleashed her charm on the poor fellow. At the end of five minutes they were chatting together as if they had known each other all their lives. At the end of ten, he’d have given her his crown had she asked for it.

After the obligatory exchanges, Sparhawk and the other members of Ehlana’s entourage moved away from the throne to engage in that silly but necessary pastime known as ‘circulating.’ They talked about the weather mostly. The weather is a politically correct topic. Emban and Archimandrite Morsel, the head of the Church of Astel, exchanged theological platitudes without touching on those doctrinal differences which divided their two Churches. Morsel wore an elaborate mitre and intricately embroidered vestments. He also wore a full black beard that reached to his waist.

Sparhawk had discovered early in life that a scowl was his best defence in such situations, and he customarily intimidated whole rooms-full of people who might otherwise inflict conversational inanities upon him.

‘Are you in some kind of distress, Prince Sparhawk?’ It was Ambassador Fontan. ‘Your face has a decidedly dyspeptic cast to it.’

‘It’s entirely tactical, your Excellency,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘When a military man doesn’t want to be pestered, he digs a ditch and lines the bottom and sides with sharpened stakes. A scowl serves the same purpose in social situations.’

‘You look bristly enough, my boy. Let’s take a turn around the battlements and enjoy the view, the fresh air and the’ privacy. There are things you should know, and this may be my only chance to get you alone. King Alberen’s court is full of inconsequential people who would all die for the chance to be able to manoeuvre conversations around to the point where they can assert that they know you personally. You have quite a reputation, you know.’

‘Largely exaggerated, your Excellency.’

‘You’re too modest, my boy. Shall we go?’ They left the throne-room unobtrusively and climbed several flights of stairs until they came out on the windswept battlements. Fontan looked down at the city spread below.

‘Quaint, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Elene cities are always quaint, your Excellency,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Elene architects haven’t had a new idea in the last five millennia.’

‘Matherion will open your eyes, Sparhawk. All right, then, Astel’s right on the verge of flying apart. So’s the rest of the world, but Astel’s carrying it to extremes. I’m doing what I can to hold things together, but Alberen’s so pliable that almost anyone can influence him. He’ll literally sign anything anybody puts in front of him. You’ve heard about Ayachin, of course? And his running dog, Sabre?’ Sparhawk nodded. ‘I’ve got every imperial agent in Astel out trying to identify Sabre, but we haven’t had much luck so far. He’s out there blithely dismantling a system the empire spent centuries creating. We don’t really know very much about him.’

‘He’s an adolescent, your Excellency,’ Sparhawk said. ‘No matter what his age, he’s profoundly juvenile.’ He briefly described the incident in the forest.

‘That’s helpful,’ Fontan said. ‘None of my people have ever been able to infiltrate one of those famous meetings, so we had no idea of what sort of fellow we were dealing with. He’s got the nobility completely in his grasp. I stopped Alberen just in time a few weeks ago when he was on the verge of signing a proclamation which would have criminalised a serf if he ran away. That would have brought the kingdom down around our ears, I’m afraid. That’s always been the serf’s final answer to an intolerable situation. If he can run away and stay away for a year and a day, he’s free. If you take that away from the serfs, they’ll revolt, and a serf rebellion is too hideous a notion to even contemplate.

‘It’s quite deliberate, your Excellency,’ Sparhawk advised him. ‘Sabre’s agitating the serfs as well. He wants a serf rebellion here in Astel. He’s been using his influence over the nobility to persuade them to commit the exact blunders that will outrage the serfs all the more.’

‘What’s the man thinking of?’ Fontan burst out. ‘He’ll drown Astel in blood.’

Sparhawk made an intuitive leap at the point. ‘I don’t think he really cares about Astel, your Excellency. Sabre’s no more than a tool for someone who has his eye on a much bigger goal.’

‘Oh? What’s that?’

I’m guessing, your Excellency, but I think there’s somebody out there who wants the whole world, and he’d sacrifice Astel and every living person in it to get what he wants.’

12

‘It’s hard to put your finger on it, Prince Sparhawk,’ Baroness Melidere said that evening after the extended royal family had retired to their oversized apartment for the night. At the queen’s insistence, Melidere, Mirtai and Alcan, her maid, had been provided with rooms in the apartment. Ehlana needed women around her for a number of reasons, some practical, some political and some very obscure. The ladies had removed their formal gowns, and, except for Mirtai, they wore soft pastel dressing gowns. Melidere was brushing Mirtai’s wealth of blue-black hair, and the doe-eyed Alcan was performing the same service for Ehlana.

‘I’m not sure exactly how to describe it,’ the honeyblonde Baroness continued. ‘It’s a sort of generalised sadness. They all sigh a great deal.’

‘I noticed that myself, Sparhawk,’ Ehlana told her husband. ‘Alberen hardly smiles at all, and I can make anybody smile.’

‘Your presence alone is enough to make us all smile, my Queen,’ Talen told her. Talen was the queen’s page, and he was also a member of the extended family. The young thief was elegant tonight, dressed in a plumcoloured velvet doublet and knee-britches in the same shade and fabric. Knee-britches were just coming into fashion, and Ehlana had tried her very best to get Sparhawk into a pair of them. He had categorically refused, and his wife had been obliged to settle for coercing her page into the ridiculous-looking garments.

‘The plan is to make you a knight, Talen,’ Melidere told the boy pointedly, ‘not a courtier.’

‘Stragen says it’s always a good idea to have something to fall back on, Baroness,’ he shrugged, his voice cracking and warbling somewhere between soprano and baritone.

‘He would,’ the Baroness sniffed. Melidere affected a strong disapproval of Stragen, but Sparhawk was not so sure about that.

Talen and Princess Danae sat on the floor rolling a ball back and forth between them. Mmrr was participating in the game enthusiastically.

‘They all seem to secretly believe that the world’s going to come to an end week after next,’ the Baroness went on, slowly drawing her brush through Mirtai’s hair. ‘They’re all bright and brittle on the surface, but once you get beneath that, there’s the blackest melancholy, and they all drink like fish. I couldn’t prove this, but I really think they all believe they’re going to die very soon.’ She lifted Mirtai’s hair speculatively. ‘I think I’ll braid a gold chain into it, dear,’ she told the giantess.

‘No, Melidere,’ Mirtai said firmly. ‘I’m not entitled to wear gold yet.’

‘Every woman’s entitled to wear gold, Mirtai,’ Melidere laughed, ‘provided that she can charm it out of some man.’

‘Not among my people,’ Mirtai disagreed. ‘Gold is for adults. Children don’t wear it.’

‘You’re hardly a child, Mirtai,’

‘I am until I go through a certain ceremony. Silver, Melidere—or steel.’

‘You can’t make jewellery out of steel.’

‘You can if you polish it enough.’

Melidere sighed. ‘Fetch me the silver chains, Talen,’ she said. At the moment, that was Talen’s vocation. He fetched things. He didn’t like it very much, but he did it—largely because Mirtai was bigger than he was.

There was a polite knock at the door, and Talen veered over to answer it. Ambassador Oscagne entered. He bowed to Ehlana. ‘I’ve spoken with Fontan, your Majesty,’ he reported. ‘He’s sending to the garrison at Canae for two Atan legions to escort us to Matherion. I’m sure we’ll all feel more secure with them around us.’

‘What’s a legion, your Excellency?’ Talen asked, crossing the room to the jewellery cabinet.

‘A thousand warriors,’ Oscagne replied. He smiled at Ehlana. ‘With two thousand Atans at your disposal, your Majesty could conquer Edam. Would you like to establish a toe-hold on the Daresian continent? It won’t really be all that inconvenient. We Tamuls will administer it for you for the usual fee, of course—and we’ll send you glowing reports at the end of each year. The reports will be a tissue of lies, but we’ll send them anyway.’

‘Along with the profits?’ She actually sounded interested.

‘Oh no, your Majesty,’ he laughed. ‘For some reason, not one single kingdom in the whole empire ever shows profit—except Tamul itself, of course.’

‘Why would I want a kingdom that doesn’t pay?’

‘Prestige, your Majesty, and vanity. You’d have another title and another crown.’

‘I don’t really need another crown, your Excellency. I’ve only got one head. Why don’t we just let the King of Edam keep his unprofitable kingdom?’

‘Probably a wise decision, your Majesty,’ he agreed. ‘Edom’s a tedious sort of place. They grow wheat there, and wheat-farmers are a stodgy group of people all obsessively interested in the weather.’

‘How long is it likely to be until those legions arrive?’ Sparhawk asked him.

‘A week or so. They’ll come on foot, so they’ll make better time than they would on horseback.’

‘Isn’t that the other way around, your Excellency?’ Melidere asked him. ‘I thought horses moved much faster than men on foot.’ Mirtai laughed. ‘Did I say something funny?’ Melidere asked.

‘When I was fourteen, a man down in Daconia insulted me,’ the giantess told her. ‘He was drunk. When he sobered up the next morning, he realised what he’d done and fled on horseback. It was about dawn. I caught up with him just before noon. His horse had died from exhaustion. I always felt sort of sorry for the horse. A trained warrior can run all day. A horse can’t. A horse has to stop when he wants to eat, so he’s not used to running for more than a few hours at a time. We eat while we’re running, so we just keep on going.’

‘What did you do to the fellow who insulted you?’ Talen asked her.

‘Do you really want to know?’

‘Ah—no, Mirtai,’ he replied. ‘Now that you mention it, probably not.’

And so they had a week on their hands. Baroness Melidere devoted her time to breaking hearts. The young noblemen of King Alberen’s court flocked around her. She flirted outrageously, made all sorts of promises none of which she kept—and occasionally allowed herself to be kissed in dark corners by persistent suitors. She had a great deal of fun and gathered a great deal of information. A young man pursuing a pretty girl will often share secrets with her, secrets which he should probably keep to himself.

To the surprise of Sparhawk and his fellow knights, Sir Berit devastated the young ladies of the court quite nearly as much as the Baroness did the young men. ‘It’s absolutely uncanny,’ Kalten was saying one evening. ‘He doesn’t really do anything at all. He doesn’t talk to them, he doesn’t smile at them, he doesn’t do any of the things he’s supposed to do. I don’t know what it is, but every time he walks through a room, every young woman in the place starts to come all unraveled.’

‘He is a very handsome young man, Kalten,’ Ehlana pointed out.

‘Berit? He doesn’t even shave regularly yet.

‘What’s that got to do with it? He’s’ tall, he’s a knight, he has broad shoulders and good manners. He’s also got the deepest blue eyes I’ve ever seen—and the longest eyelashes. ‘

‘But he’s only a boy.’

‘Not any more. You haven’t really looked at him lately. Besides, the young ladies who sigh and cry into their pillows over him are quite young themselves.’

‘What’s really so irritating is the fact that he doesn’t even know what effect he has on all those poor girls,’ Tynian observed. ‘They’re doing everything but tearing their clothes off to get his attention, and he hasn’t got the faintest notion of what’s going on.’

‘That’s part of his charm, Sir Knight.’ Ehlana smiled. ‘if it weren’t for that innocence of his, they wouldn’t find him nearly so attractive. Sir Bevier here has much the same quality. The difference though, is that Bevier knows that he’s an extraordinarily handsome young man. He chooses not to do anything about it because of his religious convictions. Berit doesn’t even know.’

‘Maybe one of us should take him aside and tell him,’ Ulath suggested.

‘Never mind.’ Mirtai told him. ‘He’s fine just the way he is. Leave him alone.’

‘Mirtai’s right.’ Ehlana said. ‘Don’t tamper with him, gentlemen. We’d like to keep him innocent for just a while longer.’ A hint of mischief touched her lips. ‘Sir Bevier, on the other hand, is quite another matter. It’s time for us to find him a wife. He’ll make some girl an excellent husband.’

Bevier smiled faintly. ‘I’m already married, your Majesty—to the Church.’

‘Betrothed perhaps, Bevier, but not yet married. Don’t start buying ecclesiastical garb just yet, Sir Knight. I haven’t entirely given up on you.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier to start closer to home, your Majesty?’ he suggested. ‘If you feel the urge to marry someone off, Sir Kalten is readily at hand.’

‘Kalten?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Don’t be absurd, Bevier. I wouldn’t do that to any woman.’

‘Your Majesty.’ Kalten protested.

‘I love you dearly, Kalten,’ she smiled at the blond Pandion, ‘but you’re just not husband material. I couldn’t give you away. In good conscience I couldn’t even order anyone to marry you. Tynian is remotely possible, but God intended you and Ulath to be bachelors.’

‘Me?’ Ulath said mildly.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you.’

The door opened, and Stragen and Talen entered. They were both dressed in the plain clothing they usually wore when making one of their sorties into the streets. ‘Any luck?’ Sparhawk asked them.

‘We found him,’ Stragen replied, handing his cloak to Alcan. ‘He’s not really my sort. He’s a pickpocket by profession, and pickpockets don’t really make good leaders. There’s something fundamentally lacking in their character.’

‘Stragen!’ Talen protested.

‘You’re not really a pickpocket, my young friend,’ Stragen told him. ‘That’s only an interim occupation while you’re waiting to grow up. Anyway, the local chief’s named Kondrak. He could see that we all have a mutual interest in stable governments, I’ll give him that. Looting houses when there’s turmoil in the streets is a fast way to make a lot of money, but over the long run, a good thief can accumulate more in times of domestic tranquillity. Of course Kondrak can’t make any kind of overall decision on his own. He’ll have to consult with his counterparts in other cities in the empire.’

‘That shouldn’t take more than a year or so,’ Sparhawk noted drily.

‘Hardly,’ Stragen disagreed. ‘Thieves move much more rapidly than honest men. Kondrak’s going to send out word of what we’re trying to accomplish. He’ll put it in the best possible light, so there’s a very good chance that the thieves of all the kingdoms in the empire will co-operate.’

‘How will we know their decision?’ Tynian asked him.

‘I’ll make courtesy calls each time we come to a fair-sized city,’ Stragen shrugged. ‘Sooner or later I’ll get an official reply. It shouldn’t take all that long. We’ll certainly have a final decision by the time we reach Matherion.’ He looked speculatively at Ehlana. ‘Your Majesty’s learned a great deal about the subterranean government in the past few years,’ he noted. ‘Do you suppose we could put that information on the level of a state secret? We’re perfectly willing to co-operate and even assist on occasion, but we’d be much happier if the other monarchs of the world didn’t know too much about the way we operate. Some crusader might decide to smash the secret government, and that would inconvenience us a bit.’

‘What’s it worth to you, Milord Stragen?’ she teased him.

His eyes grew very serious. ‘It’s a decision you’ll have to make for yourself, Ehlana,’ he told her, cutting across rank and customary courtesies. ‘I’ve tried to assist you whenever I could because I’m genuinely fond of you. If you make a little conversational slip, though, and other monarchs find out things they shouldn’t know, I won’t be able to do that any more.’

‘You’d abandon me, Milord Stragen?’

‘Never, my Queen, but my colleagues would have me killed, and I wouldn’t really be of much use to you in that condition, now would I?

Archimandrite Morsel was a large, impressive man with piercing black eyes and an imposing black beard. It was a forceful beard, an assertive beard, a beard impossible to overlook, and the Archimandrite used it like a battering ram. It preceded him by a yard wherever he went. It bristled when he was irritated, which was often, and in damp weather it knotted up into snarls like half a mile of cheap fishing line. The beard waggled when Morsel talked, emphasising points all on its own.

Patriarch Emban was absolutely fascinated by the Archimandrite’s beard. ‘It’s like talking to an animated hedge,’ he observed to Sparhawk as the two of them walked through the corridors of the palace toward a private audience with the Astellian ecclesiast.

‘Are there any topics I should avoid, your Grace?’ Sparhawk asked. ‘I’m not familiar with the Church of Astel, and I don’t want to start any theological debates.’

‘Our disagreements with the Astels are in the field of Church government, Sparhawk. Our purely theological differences are very minor. We have a secular clergy, but their Church is monastically organised. Our priests are just priests, theirs are also monks. I’ll grant you that it’s a fine distinction, but it’s a distinction nonetheless. They also have many, many more priests and monks than we do—probably about a tenth of the population.’

‘That many?’

‘Oh, yes. Every noble mansion in Astel has its own private chapel and its own priest, and the priest ‘assists’ in making decisions.’

‘Where do they find so many men willing to enter the priesthood?’

‘From the ranks of the serfs. Being a clergyman has its drawbacks, but it’s better than being a serf.’

‘I suppose the Church would be preferable.’

‘Much. Morsel will respect you, because you’re a member of a religious order. Oh, incidentally, since you’re the interim preceptor of the Pandion Knights, you’re technically a patriarch. Don’t be surprised if he addresses you as ‘your Grace.’

They were admitted into Morsel’s chambers by a long-bearded monk. Sparhawk had noticed that all Astellian clergymen wore beards. The room was small and panelled in dark wood. The carpet was a deep maroon, and the heavy drapes at the windows were black. There were books and scrolls and dog-eared sheets of parchment everywhere.

‘Ah, Emban,’ Morsel said. ‘What have you been up to?’

‘Mischief, Morsel. I’ve been out proselytising among the heathens.’

‘Really? Where did you find any here? I thought most heathens lived in the Basilica in Chyrellos. Sit down, gentlemen. I’ll send for some wine and we can debate theology.’

‘You’ve met Sparhawk?’ Emban asked as they all took chairs before an open window where the breeze billowed the black drapes.

‘Briefly,’ Morsel replied. ‘How are you today, your Highness?’

‘Well. And you, your Grace?’

‘Curious, more than anything. Why are we engaging in private consultations?’

‘We’re all clergymen, your Grace,’ Emban pointed out. ‘Sparhawk wears a cassock made of steel most of the time, but he is of the clergy. We’ve come to discuss something that probably concerns you as much as it does us. I think I know you well enough to know that you’ve got a practical side that’s not going to get sidetracked by the fact that you think we genuflect wrong.’

‘What’s this?’ Sparhawk asked.

‘We kneel on our right knee,’ Emban shrugged. ‘These poor, benighted heathens kneel on the left.’

‘Shocking,’ Sparhawk murmured. ‘Do you think we should come here in force and compel them to do it right?’

‘You see?’ Emban said to the Archimandrite. ‘That’s exactly what I was talking about. You should fall to your knees and thank God that you’re not saddled with Church Knights, Morsel. I think most of them secretly worship Styric Gods.’

‘Only the Younger Gods, your Grace,’ Sparhawk said mildly. ‘We’ve had our differences with the Elder Gods.’

‘He says it so casually,’ Morsel shuddered. ‘If you think we’ve exhausted the conversational potential of genuflectory variation, Emban, why don’t you get to the point?’

‘This is in strictest confidence, your Grace, but our mission here to Tamuli’s not entirely what it seems. It was Queen Ehlana’s idea, of course. She’s not the sort to go anywhere just because somebody tells her to—but all of this elaborate fol-de-rol was just a subterfuge to hide our real purpose, which was to put Sparhawk on the Daresian Continent. The world’s coming apart at the seams, so we’ve decided to let him fix it.’

‘I thought that was God’s job.’

‘God’s busy just now, and He’s got complete confidence in Sparhawk. All sorts of Gods feel that way about him, I understand.’ Morsel’s eyes widened, and his beard bristled. ‘Relax, Morsel,’ Emban told him. ‘We of the Church are not required to believe in other Gods. All we’have to do is make a few allowances for their speculative existence.’

‘Oh, that’s different. If this is speculation, I suppose it’s all right.’

‘There’s one thing that isn’t speculation, your Grace,’ Sparhawk said. ‘You’ve got trouble here in Astel.’

‘You’ve noticed. Your Highness is very perceptive.’

‘You may not have been advised, since the Tamuls are trying to keep it on a low key, but very similar things are afoot in many other Daresian kingdoms, and we’re beginning to encounter the same sort of problem in Eosia.’

‘I think the Tamuls sometimes keep secrets just for the fun of it,’ Morsel grunted.

‘I have a friend who says the same thing about our Eosian Church,’ Sparhawk said cautiously. They had not yet fully explored the Archimandrite’s political opinions. A wrong word or two here would not only preclude any possibility of obtaining his help, but might even compromise their mission.

‘Knowledge is power,’ Emban said rather sententiously, ‘and only a fool shares power if he doesn’t have to. Let me be blunt, Morsel. What’s your opinion of the Tamuls?’

‘I don’t like them.’ Morsel’s response was to the point. ‘They’re heathens, they’re members of an alien race, and you can’t tell what they’re thinking.’ Sparhawk’s heart sank. ‘I have to admit, though, that when they absorbed Astel into their empire, it was the best thing that ever happened to us. Whether we like them or not is beside the point. Their passion for order and stability has averted war time and time again in my own lifetime. There have been other empires in ages past, and their time of ascendancy was a time of unmitigated horror and suffering. I think we’ll candidly have to admit that the Tamuls are history’s finest imperialists. They don’t interfere with local customs or religions. They don’t disrupt the social structure, and they function through the established governments. Their taxes, however much we complain about them, are really minimal. They build good roads and encourage trade. Aside from that, they generally leave us alone. About all they really insist upon is that we don’t go to war with each other. I can live with that—although some of my predecessors felt dreadfully abused because the Tamuls wouldn’t let them convert their neighbours by the sword.’ Sparhawk breathed a little easier. ‘But I’m straying from the point here,’ Morsel said. ‘You were suggesting a world-wide conspiracy of some kind, I think.’

‘Were we suggesting that, Sparhawk?’ Emban asked.

‘I suppose we were, your Grace.’

‘Do you have anything concrete upon which to base this theory, Sir Sparhawk?’ Morsel asked.

‘Logic is about all, your Grace.’

‘I’ll listen to logic—as long as she doesn’t contradict my beliefs.’

‘If a series of events happens in one place and it’s identical to a series of events taking place in another, we’re justified in considering the possibility of a common source, wouldn’t you say?’

‘On an interim basis, perhaps.’

‘It’s about all we have to work with at the moment, your Grace. The same sort of thing could happen at the same time in two different places and still be a coincidence, but when you get up to five or ten different occurrences, coincidence sort of goes out the window. This current upheaval involving Ayachin and the one they call Sabre here in Astel is almost exactly duplicated in the kingdom of Lamorkand in Eosia, and Ambassador Oscagne assures us that the same sort of thing’s erupting in other Daresian kingdoms as well. It’s always the same. First there are the rumours that some towering hero of antiquity has somehow returned. Then some firebrand emerges to keep things stirred up. Here in Astel, you’ve got the wild stories about Ayachin. In Lamorkand, they talk about Drychtnath. Here you have a man named Sabre, and in Lamorkand they’ve got one named Gerrich. I’m fairly sure we’ll find the same sort of thing in Edam, Daconia, Arjuna and Cynesga. Oscagne tells us that their national heroes are putting in an appearance as well.’ Sparhawk rather carefully avoided mentioning Krager. He was still not entirely certain where Morsel’s sympathies lay.

‘You build a good case, Sparhawk,’ Morsel conceded. ‘But couldn’t this master plot be directed at the Tamuls? They aren’t widely loved, you know.’

‘I think your Grace is overlooking Lamorkand,’ Emban said. ‘There aren’t any Tamuls there. I’m guessing, but I’d say that the master plot—if that’s what we want to call it—is directed at the Church in Eosia as opposed to the empire here.’

‘Organised anarchy perhaps?’

‘I believe that’s a contradiction in terms, your Grace,’ Sparhawk pointed out. ‘I’m not sure that we’re far enough along to deal with causes yet, though. Right now we’re trying to sort through effects. If we’re correct in assuming that this plot is all coming from the same person, then what we’re seeing is someone who’s got a wric plan with common elements which he modifies to fit each particular culture. What we really want to do is to identify this Sabre fellow.’

‘So that you can have him killed?’ Morsel’s tone was accusing.

‘No, your Grace, that wouldn’t be practical. If we kill him, he’ll be replaced by someone else—somebody we don’t know. I want to know who he is, and what he is and everything I can possibly find out about him. I want to know how he thinks, what drives him and what his personal motivations are. If I know all of that, I can neutralise him without killing him. To be completely honest with you, I don’t really care about Sabre. I want the one who’s behind him.’

Morsel seemed shaken. ‘This is a dreadful man, Emban,’ he said in a hushed tone.

‘Implacable is the word, I think.’

‘If we can believe Oscagne—and I think we can, someone’s using the arcane arts in this business,’ Sparhawk told them. ‘That’s why the Church Knights were created originally. It’s our business to deal with magic. Our Elene religion can’t cope with it because there’s no place in our faith for it. We had to go outside the faith to the Styrics—to learn how to counteract magic. It opened some doors we might have preferred had been left closed, but that’s the price we had to pay. Somebody or something—on the other side’s using magic of a very high order. I’m here to stop him to kill him if need be. Once he’s gone, the Atans can deal with Sabre. I know an Atan, and if her people are at all like her, I know we can count on them to be thorough.’

‘You trouble me, Sparhawk,’ Morsel admitted. ‘Your devotion to your duty’s almost inhuman, and your resolve goes even beyond that. You shame me, Sparhawk.’ He sighed and sat tugging at his beard, his eyes lost in thought. finally, he straightened. ‘All right, Emban, can we suspend the rules?’

‘I didn’t quite follow that.’

‘I wasn’t going to tell you this,’ the Archimandrite said, ‘first of all because it’ll probably raise your doctrinal hackles, but more importantly because I didn’t really want to share it with you. This implacable Sparhawk of yours has convinced me otherwise. If I don’t tell you what I know, he’ll dismantle Astel and everyone in it to get the information, won’t you, Sparhawk?’

‘I’d really hate that, your Grace.’

‘But you’d do it anyway, wouldn’t you?’

‘If I had to.’

Morsel shuddered. ‘You’re both churchmen, so I’m going to invoke the rule of clerical confidentiality. You haven’t changed the requirements of that in Chyrellos yet, have you, Emban?’

‘Not unless Sarathi did it since I’ve been gone. At any rate, you have our word that neither of us will reveal anything you tell us.’

‘Except to another clergyman,’ Morsel amended. ‘I’ll go that far.’

‘All right,’ Emban agreed.

Morsel leaned back in his chair, stroking his beard. ‘The Tamuls have no real conception of how powerful the Church is in the Elene kingdoms here in Western Daresia,’ he began. ‘In the first place, their religion’s hardly more than a set of ceremonies. Tamuls don’t even think about religion, so they can’t understand the depth of the faith in the hearts of the devout—and the serfs of Astel are quite likely the most devout people on earth. They take all of their problems to their priests, and not only their own problems, but their neighbours’ as well. The serfs are everywhere and they see everything, and they tell their priests.’

‘I think it was called tale-bearing when I was in the seminary,’ Emban noted.

‘We had a worse name for it during our novitiate,’ Sparhawk added. ‘All sorts of unpleasant accidents used to happen on the training-field because of it.’

‘Nobody likes a snitch,’ Morsel agreed, ‘but like it or not, the Astellian clergy knows everything that happens in the kingdom, literally everything. We’re sworn to keep these secrets, of course, but we feel that our primary responsibility is to the spiritual health of our flock. Since a large proportion of our priests were originally serfs, they simply don’t have the theological training to deal with complex spiritual problems. We’ve devised a way to provide them with the advice they need. The serf-priests do not reveal the names of those who have come to them, but they do take serious matters to their superiors, and their superiors bring those matters to me.’

‘I have no real difficulty with that,’ Emban said. ‘As long as the names are kept secret, the confidentiality hasn’t been violated.’

‘We’ll get on well together, Emban.’ Morsel smiled briefly. ‘The serfs look upon Sabre as a liberator.’

‘So we gathered,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘There seems to be a certain lack of consistency in his speeches, though. He tells the nobles that Ayachin wants to throw off the Tamul yoke, and then he tells the serfs that Ayachin’s real goal is the abolition of serfdom. Moreover, he’s persuaded the nobles to become very brutal in their dealings with the serfs. That’s not only disgusting, it’s irrational. The nobles should be trying to enlist the serfs, not alienate them. Viewed realistically, Sabre’s no more than an agitator, and he’s not even particularly subtle. He’s a political adolescent.’

‘That’s going a little far, Sparhawk,’ Emban protested. ‘How do you account for his success then? An idiot like that could never persuade the Astels to accept his word.’

‘They’re not accepting his word. They’re accepting Ayachin’s.’

‘Have you taken leave of your senses, Sparhawk?’

‘No, your Grace. I mentioned before that someone on the other side’s been using magic. This is what I was talking about. The people here have actually been seeing Ayachin himself.’

‘That’s absurd!’ Morsel seemed profoundly disturbed.

Sparhawk sighed. ‘For the sake of your Grace’s theological comfort, let’s call it some kind of hallucination, a mass illusion created by a clever charlatan, or some accomplice dressed in archaic clothing who appears suddenly in some spectacular fashion. Whatever its source, if what’s happening here is anything like what’s happening in Lamorkand, your people are absolutely convinced that Ayachin’s returned from the grave. Sabre probably makes a speech—a rambling collection of disconnected platitudes—and then this hallucination appears in a flash of light and a clap of thunder and confirms all his pronouncements. That’s a guess, of course, but it’s probably not too far off the mark.’

‘It’s an elaborate hoax then?’

‘If that’s what you want to believe, your Grace.’

‘But you don’t believe it’s a hoax, do you, Sparhawk?’

‘I’ve been trained not to actively disbelieve things, your Grace. Whether the apparition of Ayachin is real or some trick is beside the point. It’s what the people believe that’s important, and I’m sure they believe that Ayachin’s returned and that Sabre speaks for him. That’s what makes Sabre so dangerous. With the apparition to support him, he can make people believe anything. That’s why I have to find out everything about him that I can. I have to be able to know what he’s going to do so that I can counter him.’

‘I’m going to behave as if I believe what you’ve just told me, Sparhawk,’ Morsel said in a troubled voice. ‘I really think you need some spiritual help, though.’ His face grew grave. ‘We know who Sabre is,’ he said finally. ‘We’ve known for over a year now. At first we thought as you do that he was no more than a dielinkd fanatic with a taste for melodrama. We expected the Tamuls to deal with him, so we didn’t think we had to do anything ourselves. I’ve had some second thoughts on that score of late, though. On the condition that neither of you will reveal anything I say except to another clergyman, I’ll tell you who he is. Do I have your word on that condition?’

‘You have, your Grace,’ Emban swore. ‘And you, Sparhawk?’

‘Of course.’

‘Very well, then. Sabre’s the younger brother-in-law of a minor nobleman who has an estate a few leagues to the east of Esos.’ It all fell into place in Sparhawk’s mind with a loud clank. ‘The nobleman is a Baron Kotyk, a silly, ineffectual fool. Sabre’s a melodramatic adolescent named Elron.’

13

‘That’s impossible!’ Sparhawk exclaimed.

Morsel was taken aback by his sudden vehemence. ‘We have more than ample evidence, Sir Sparhawk. The serf who reported the fact has known him since childhood. You’ve met Elron, I gather.’

‘We took shelter from a storm in Baron Kotyk’s house,’ Emban explained. ‘Elron could be Sabre, you know, Sparhawk. He’s certainly got the right kind of mentality. Why are you so certain he’s not the one?’

‘He couldn’t have caught up with us,’ Sparhawk said lamely. Morsel looked baffled.

‘We saw Sabre in the woods on our way here,’ Emban told him. ‘It was the sort of thing you’d expect—a masked man in black on a black horse outlined against the sky—silliest thing I ever saw. We weren’t really moving all that fast, Sparhawk. Elron could have caught up with us quite easily.’

Sparhawk could not tell him that they had, in fact, been moving far too rapidly for anyone to have caught them—not with Aphrael tampering with time and distance the way she had been. He choked back his objections.

‘It just surprised me, that’s all,’ he lied. ‘Stragen and I spoke with Elron the night we were there. I can’t believe he’d be out stirring up the serfs. He had nothing but contempt for them.’

‘A pose, perhaps?’ Morsel suggested. ‘Something to conceal his real feelings?’

‘I don’t think he’s capable of that, your Grace. He was too ingenuous for that kind of subtlety.’

‘Don’t be too quick to make judgements, Sparhawk,’ Emban told him. ‘if there’s magic involved, it wouldn’t make any difference what kind of man Sabre is, would it? Isn’t there some way he could be rather tightly controlled?’

‘Several, actually,’ Sparhawk admitted.

‘I’m a little surprised you didn’t consider that yourself. You’re the expert on magic. Elron’s personal beliefs are probably beside the point. When he’s speaking as Sabre, it’s the man behind him—our real adversary who’s talking.’

‘I should have thought of that.’ Sparhawk was angry with himself for having overlooked the obvious—and the equally obvious explanation for Elron’s ability to overtake them. Another God could certainly compress time and distance the same way Aphrael could. ‘Just how widespread is this contempt for the serfs, your Grace?’ he asked Morsel.

‘Unfortunately, it’s almost universal, Prince Sparhawk,’ Morsel sighed. ‘The serfs are uneducated and superstitious, but they’re not nearly as stupid as the nobility would like to believe. The reports I’ve received tell me that Sabre spends almost as much time denouncing the serfs as he does the Tamuls when he’s speaking to the nobility. ‘Lazy’ is about the kindest thing he says about them. He’s managed to half-persuade the gentry that the serfs are in league with the Tamuls in some vast, dark plot with its ultimate goal being the emancipation of the serfs and the redistribution of the land. The nobles are responding predictably. First they were goaded into hating the Tamuls, and then they were led to believe that the serfs are in league with the Tamuls and that their estates and positions are threatened by that alliance. They don’t dare confront the Tamuls directly because of the Atans, so they’re venting their hostility on their own serfs. There have been incidents of unprovoked savagery upon a class of people who will march en masse into heaven at the final judgement. The Church is doing what she can, but there’s only so far we can go in restraining the gentry.’

‘You need some Church Knights, your Grace,’ Sparhawk said in a bleak tone of voice. ‘We’re very good in the field of justice. If you take a nobleman’s knout away from him and apply it to his own back a few times, he tends to see the light very quickly.’

‘I wish that were possible here in Astel, Sir Sparhawk,’ Morsel replied sadly. ‘Unfortunately—’ It was the same chill, and that same annoying flicker at the edge of the eye. Morsel broke off and looked around quickly, trying to see what could not really be seen. ‘What—?’ he started.

‘It’s a visitation, your Grace,’ Emban told him, his voice tense. ‘Don’t dislocate your neck trying to catch a glimpse of it.’ He raised his voice slightly. ‘Awfully good to see you again, old boy,’ he said.’We were beginning to think you’d forgotten about us. Was there something you wanted in particular? Or were you just yearning for our company? We’re flattered, of course, but we’re a little busy at the moment. Why don’t you run along and play now? We can chat some other time.’

The chill quite suddenly turned hot, and the flicker darkened. ‘Are you insane, Emban?’ Sparhawk choked.

‘I don’t think so,’ the fat little Patriarch said. ‘Your flickering friend—or friends—are irritating me, that’s all.’ The shadow vanished, and the air around them returned to normal.

‘What was that all about?’ Morsel demanded.

‘The Patriarch of Ucera just insulted a God—several Gods, probably,’ Sparhawk replied through clenched teeth. ‘For a moment there, we all hovered on the brink of obliteration. Please don’t do that again, Emban—at least not without consulting me first.’ He suddenly laughed a bit sheepishly. ‘Now I know exactly how Sephrenia felt on any number of occasions. I’ll have to apologise to her the next time I see her.’

Emban was grinning with delight. ‘I sort of caught them off balance there, didn’t I?’

‘Don’t do it again, your Grace,’ Sparhawk pleaded. ‘I’ve seen what Gods can do to people, and I don’t want to be around if you really insult them.’

‘Our God protects me.’

‘Annias was praying to our God when Azash wrung him out like a wet rag, your Grace. It didn’t do him all that much good, as I recall.’

‘That was really stupid, you know,’ Emban said then.

‘I’m glad you realise that.’

‘Not me, Sparhawk. I’m talking about our adversary. Why did it reveal itself at this particular moment? It should have kept its flamboyant demonstration to itself and just listened. It could have found out what our plans are. Not only that, it revealed itself to Morsel. Until it appeared, he only had our word for the fact of its existence. Now he’s seen it for himself.’

‘Will someone please explain this?’ Morsel burst out.

‘It was the Troll-Gods, your Grace,’ Sparhawk told him.

‘That’s absurd. There’s no such thing as a Troll, so how can they have Gods?’

‘This may take longer than I’d thought,’ Sparhawk muttered half to himself. ‘As a matter of fact, your Grace, there are Trolls.’

‘Have you ever seen one?’ Morsel challenged.

‘Only one, your Grace. His name was Ghwerig. He was dwarfed, so he was only about seven feet tall. He was still very difficult to kill.’

‘You killed him?’ Morsel gasped.

‘He had something I wanted,’ Sparhawk shrugged. ‘Ulath’s seen a lot more of them than I have, your Grace. He can tell you all about them. He even speaks their language. I did for a while myself, but I’ve probably forgotten by now. Anyway, they have a language, which means that they’re semi-human, and that means that they have Gods, doesn’t it?’

Morsel looked helplessly at Emban. ‘Don’t ask me, my friend,’ the fat Patriarch said. ‘That’s a long way out of my theological depth.’

‘For the time being, you’ll have to take my word for it,’ Sparhawk told them. ‘There are Trolls, and they do have Gods—five of them—and they aren’t very nice. That shadow Patriarch Emban just so casually dismissed was them—or something very much like them—and that’s what we’re up against. That’s what’s trying to bring down the empire and the Church—both our churches, probably. I’m sorry I have to put it to you so abruptly, Archimandrite Morsel, but you have to know what you’re dealing with. Otherwise, you’ll be totally defenceless. You don’t have to believe what I just told you, but you’d better behave as if you did, because if you don’t, your Church doesn’t have a chance of surviving.’

The Atans arrived a few days later. A hush fell over the city of Darsas as the citizens scurried for cover. No man is so entirely guiltless in his own soul that the sudden appearance of a few thousand police does not give him a qualm or two. The Atans were superbly conditioned giants. The two thousand warriors of both sexes ran in perfect unison as they entered the city four abreast. They wore short leather kirtles, burnished steel breastplates and black half-boots. Their bare limbs gleamed golden in the morning sun as they ran, and their faces were stern and unbending.

Though they were obviously soldiers, there was no uniformity in their weapons. They carried a random collection of swords, short spears and axes, as well as other implements for which Sparhawk had no names. They all had several sheathed daggers strapped tightly to their arms and legs. They wore no helmets, but had slender gold circlets about their heads instead.

‘Lord,’ Kalten breathed to Sparhawk as the two of them stood on the palace battlements to watch the arrival of their escort, ‘I’d really hate to come up against that lot on a battlefield. Just looking at them makes my blood run cold.’

‘I believe that’s the idea, Kalten,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Mirtai’s impressive all by herself, but when you see a couple of thousand of them like this, you begin to understand how the Tamuls were able to conquer a continent without any particular difficulty. I’d imagine that whole armies simply capitulated when they saw them coming.’

The Atans entered the square in front of the palace and formed up before the residence of the Tamul Ambassador. A huge man went to Ambassador Fontan’s door, his pace quite clearly indicating that if the door were not opened for him, he would walk right through it.

‘Why don’t we go down?’ Sparhawk suggested. ‘I expect that Fontan will be bringing that fellow to call in a few moments. Watch what you say, Kalten. Those people strike me as a singularly humourless group. I’m sure they’d miss the point of almost any joke.’

‘Really,’ Kalten breathed his agreement.

The party accompanying the Queen of Elenia gathered in her Majesty’s private quarters and stood about rather nervously awaiting the arrival of the Tamul Ambassador and his general. Sparhawk watched Mirtai rather closely to see what her reaction might be upon being re-united with her people after so many years. She wore clothing he had not seen her wear before, clothing which closely resembled that worn by her countrymen. In place of the steel breastplate, however, she wore a tight-fitting, sleeveless black leather jerkin, and the band about her brow was of silver rather than gold. Her face was serene, seeming to show neither anticipation nor nervous apprehension. She merely waited.

Then Fontan and Oscagne arrived with the tallest man Sparhawk had ever seen. They introduced him as Atan Engessa. The word ‘Atan’ appeared to be not only the name of the people, but some kind of title as well. Engessa was well over seven feet tall, and the room seemed to shrink as he entered. His age, probably because of his race, was indeterminate. He was lean and muscular, and his expression sternly unyielding. His face showed no evidence that he had ever smiled.

Immediately upon his entrance into the room, he went directly to Mirtai, as if none of the rest of them were even in the room. He touched the fingertips of both hands to his steel-armoured chest and inclined his head to her. ‘Atana Mirtai,’ he greeted her respectfully.

‘Atan Engessa,’ she replied, duplicating his gesture of greeting. Then they spoke to each other at some length in the Tamul tongue.

‘What are they saying?’ Ehlana asked Oscagne, who walked to where they all stood.

‘It’s a ritual of greeting, your Majesty,’ Oscagne replied. ‘There are a great many formalities involved when Atans meet. The rituals help to hold down the bloodshed, I believe. At the moment, Engessa’s questioning Mirtai concerning her status as a child—the silver headband, you understand. It’s an indication that she hasn’t yet gone through the Rite of Passage.’ He paused and listened for a moment as Mirtai spoke. ‘She’s explaining that she’s been separated from humans since childhood and hasn’t had the opportunity to participate in the ritual as yet.’

‘Separated from humans?’ Ehlana objected. ‘What does she think we are?’

‘Atans believe that they are the only humans in the world. I’m not sure exactly what they consider us to be.’ The ambassador blinked. ‘Has she really killed that many people?’ he asked with some surprise.

‘Ten?’ Sparhawk asked.

‘She said thirty-four.’

‘That’s impossible!’ Ehlana exclaimed. ‘She’s been a member of my court for the past seven years. I’d have known if she’d killed anyone while she was in my service.’

‘Not if she did it at night, you wouldn’t, my Queen,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘She locks us in our rooms every night. She says that it’s for our own protection, but maybe it’s really so that she can go out looking for entertainment. Maybe we should change the procedure when we get home. Let’s start locking her up for the night instead of the other way around.’

‘She’ll just kick the door down, Sparhawk.’

‘That’s true, I suppose. We could always chain her to the wall at night, I guess.’

‘Sparhawk.’ Ehlana exclaimed.

‘We can talk about it later. Here comes Fontan and General Engessa.’

‘Atan Engessa, Sparhawk,’ Oscagne corrected. ‘Engessa wouldn’t even recognise the title of general. He’s a warrior—an ‘Atan’. That’s all the title he seems to need. If you call him ‘General’, you’ll insult him, and that’s not a good idea.’

Engessa had a deep, quiet voice, and he spoke the Elenic language haltingly and with an exotic accent. He carefully repeated each of their names when Fontan introduced them, obviously committing them to memory. He accepted Ehlana’s status without question, although the concept of a queen must have been alien to him. He recognised Sparhawk and the other knights as warriors, and respected them as such. The status of Patriarch Emban, Talen, Stragen and Baroness Melidere obviously baffled him. He greeted Kring, however, with the customary Peloi salute.

‘Atana Mirtai advises me that you seek marriage with her,’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ Kring replied a bit pugnaciously. ‘Have you any objections?’

‘That depends. How many have you killed?’

‘More than I can conveniently count.’

‘That could mean two things. Either you have slain many, or you have a poor head for figures.’

‘I can count past two hundred,’ Kring declared.

‘A respectable number. You are Domi among your people?’

‘I am.’

‘Who cut your head?’ Engessa pointed at the scars on Kring’s scalp and face.

‘A friend. We were discussing each others’ qualifications for leadership.’

‘Why did you let him cut you?’

‘I was busy. I had my saber in his belly at the time, and I was probing around for various things inside him.’

‘Your scars are honourable then. I respect them. Was he a good friend?’

Kring nodded. ‘The best. We were like brothers.’

‘You spared him the inconvenience of growing old.’

‘I did that, all right. He never got a day older.’

‘I take no exception to your suit of Atana Mirtai,’ Engessa told him. ‘She is a child with no family. As the first adult Atan she has met, it is my responsibility to serve as her father. Have you an Oma?’

‘Sparhawk serves as my Oma.’

‘I would be honoured, Atan. May I also call you friend?’

‘I also would be honoured, friend Kring. Hopefully, your Oma and I will be able to arrange the day when you and Atana Mirtai will be branded.’

‘May God speed the day, friend Engessa.’

‘I feel as if I’ve just witnessed something from the dark ages,’ Kalten whispered to Sparhawk. ‘What do you think would have happened if they’d taken a dislike to each other?’

‘It probably would have been messy.’

‘When do you want to leave, Ehlana, Queen of Elenia?’ Engessa asked.

Ehlana looked at her friends questioningly. ‘Tomorrow?’ she suggested.

‘You should not ask, Ehlana-Queen,’ Engessa reprimanded her firmly. ‘Command. If any object, have Sparhawk-Champion kill them.’

‘We’ve been trying to cut back on that, Atan Engessa,’ she said. ‘It’s always so hard on the carpeting.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I knew there was a reason. Tomorrow then?’

‘Tomorrow, Engessa.’

‘I will await you at first light, Ehlana-Queen.’ And he turned on his heel and marched from the room.

‘Abrupt sort of fellow, isn’t he?’ Stragen noted.

‘He doesn’t waste any words,’ Tynian agreed.

‘A word with you, Sparhawk?’ Kring said.

‘Of course.’

‘You will serve as my Oma, won’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘Don’t pledge too many horses.’ Kring frowned. ‘What did he mean when he was talking about branding?’

Sparhawk suddenly remembered. ‘It’s an Atan wedding custom. During the ceremony the happy couple is branded. Each wears the mark of the other.’

‘Branded?’

‘So I understand.’

‘What if a couple doesn’t get along?’

‘I imagine they cross out the brand.’

‘How do you cross out a brand?’

‘Probably with a hot iron. Are you still bent on marriage, Kring?’

‘Find out where the brand goes, Sparhawk. I’ll know better once I have that information.’

‘I gather there are places where you’d rather not be branded?’

‘Oh, yes. There are definitely places, Sparhawk.’

They left Darsas at first light the following morning and rode eastward toward Pela on the steppes of central Astel. The Atans enclosed the column, loping easily to match the speed of the horses. Sparhawk’s concerns about the safety of his queen diminished noticeably. Mirtai had very briefly—even peremptorily—advised her owner that she would travel with her countrymen. She did not precisely ask. A rather peculiar change had come over the golden giantess. That wary tension which had always characterised her seemed to have vanished.

‘I can’t exactly put my finger on it,’ Ehlana confessed about mid-morning when they were discussing it. ‘She just doesn’t seem quite the same.’

‘She isn’t, your Majesty,’ Stragen told her. ‘She’s come home, that’s all. Not only that, the presence of adults allows her to take her natural place in her own society. She’s still a child—in her own eyes at least. She’s never talked about her childhood, but I gather it wasn’t a time filled with happiness and security. Something happened to her parents, and she was sold into slavery.’

‘All of her people are slaves, Milord Stragen,’ Melidere objected.

‘There are different kinds of slavery, Baroness. The slavery of the Atan race by the Tamuls is institutionalised. Mirtai’s is personal. She was taken as a child, enslaved and then forced to take her own steps to protect herself. Now that she’s back among the Atans, she’s able to recapture some sense of her childhood.’ He made a wry face. ‘I never had that opportunity, of course. I was born into a different kind of slavery, and killing my father didn’t really liberate me.’

‘You concern yourself overmuch about that, Milord Stragen,’ Melidere told him. ‘You really shouldn’t make the issue of your unauthorised conception the central fact of your whole existence, you know. There are much more important things in life.’

Stragen looked at her sharply, then laughed, his expression a bit sheepish. ‘Do I really seem so self-pitying to you, Baroness?’

‘No, not really, but you always insist on bringing it up. Don’t worry at it so much, Milord. It doesn’t make any difference to the rest of us, so why brood about it?’

‘You see, Sparhawk,’ Stragen said. ‘That’s exactly what I meant about this girl. She’s the most dishonest person I’ve ever known.’

‘Milord Stragen.’ Melidere protested.

‘But you are, my dear Baroness,’ Stragen grinned. ‘You don’t lie with your mouth, you lie with your entire person. You pose as someone whose head is filled with air, and then you puncture a facade I’ve spent a lifetime building with one single observation. “Unauthorised conception” indeed. You’ve managed to trivialise the central tragedy of my entire life.’

‘Can you ever forgive me?’ Her eyes were wide and dishonestly innocent.

‘I give up,’ he said, throwing his hands in the air in mock surrender. ‘Where was I? Oh yes, Mirtai’s apparent change of personality. I think the Rite of Passage among the Atans is very significant to them, and that’s another reason our beloved little giantess is reverting to the social equivalent of baby-talk. Engessa’s obviously going to put her through the rite when we reach her homeland, so she’s enjoying the last few days of childhood to the hilt.’

‘Can I ride with you, Father?’ Danae asked.

‘If you wish.’

The little princess rose from her seat in the carriage, handed Rollo to Alcan and Mmrr to Baroness Melidere and held out her hands to Sparhawk. He lifted her to her usual seat in front of his saddle. ‘Take me for a ride, Father,’ she coaxed in her most little-girl tone.

‘We’ll be back in a bit,’ Sparhawk told his wife and cantered away from the carriage.

‘Stragen can be so tedious at times,’ Danae said tartly. ‘I’m glad Melidere’s the one who’s going to have to modify him.’

‘What?’ Sparhawk was startled.

‘Where are your eyes, father?’

‘I wasn’t actually looking. Do they really feel that way about each other?’

‘She does. She’ll let him know how he feels when she’s ready. What happened in Darsas?’

Sparhawk wrestled with his conscience a bit at that point. ‘Would you say that you’re a religious personage?’ he asked carefully.

‘That’s a novel way to put it.’

‘Just answer the question, Danae. Are you or are you not affiliated with a religion?’

‘Well, of course I am, Sparhawk. I’m the focus of a religion.’

‘Then in a general sort of way, you could be defined as a clergyman—uh—person?’

‘W hat are you getting at, Sparhawk?’

‘Just say yes, Danae. I’m tiptoeing around the edges of violating an oath, and I need a technical excuse for it.’

‘I give up. Yes, technically you could call me a church personage—it’s a different church, of course, but the definition still fits.’

‘Thank you. I swore not to reveal this except to another clergyman personage. You’re a clergyperson, so I can tell you.’

‘That’s sheer sophistry, Sparhawk.’

‘I know, but it gets me off the hook. Baron Kotyk’s brother-in-law, Elron, is Sabre.’ He gave her a suspicious look. ‘Have you been tampering again?’

‘Me?’

‘You’re starting to stretch the potentials of coincidence a bit, Danae,’ he said. ‘You knew what I just told you all along, didn’t you?’

‘Not the details, no. What you call ‘omniscience’ is a human concept. It was dreamed up to make people think that they couldn’t get away with anything. I get hints—little flashes of things, that’s all. I knew there was something significant in Kotyk’s house, and I knew that if you and the others listened carefully, you’d hear about it.’

‘It’s like intuition then?’

‘That’s a very good word for it, Sparhawk. Ours is a little more developed than yours, and we pay close attention to it. You humans tend to ignore it—particularly you men. Something else happened in Darsas, didn’t it?’

He nodded. ‘That shadow put in another appearance. Emban and I were talking with Archimandrite Morsel, and we were visited.

‘Whoever’s behind this is very stupid, then.’

‘The Troll-Gods? Isn’t that part of the definition of them?’

‘We’re not absolutely certain it’s the Troll-Gods, Sparhawk.’

‘Wouldn’t you know? I mean, isn’t there some way you can identify who’s opposing you?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not, Sparhawk. We can conceal ourselves from each other. The stupidity of that appearance in Darsas certainly suggests the Troll-Gods, though. We haven’t been able to make them understand why the sun comes up in the east as yet. They know it’s going to come up every morning, but they’re never sure just exactly where.’

‘You’re exaggerating.’

‘Of course I am.’ She frowned. ‘Let’s not set our feet in stone on the idea that we’re dealing with the Troll-Gods just yet, though. There are some very subtle differences—of course that may be the result of their encounter with you in the Temple of Azash. You frightened them very much, you know. I’d be more inclined to suspect an alliance between them and somebody else. I think the Troll-Gods would be more direct. If there is somebody else involved, he’s just a bit childish. He hasn’t been out in the world. He surrounded himself with people who aren’t bright, and he’s judging all humans by his worshipers. That appearance at Darsas was really a blunder, you know. He didn’t have to do it, and all he really did was to confirm what you’d already told that clergyman—you did tell him what’s happening, didn’t you?’ Sparhawk nodded. ‘We really need to get to Sarsos and talk with Sephrenia.’

‘You’re going to speed up the journey again, then?’

‘I think I’d better. I’m not entirely sure what the ones on the other side are doing yet, but they’re starting to move faster for some reason, so we’d better see what we can do to keep up. Take me back to the carriage, Sparhawk. Stragen’s probably finished showing off his education by now, and the smell of your armour’s beginning to make me nauseous.’

Although there was a community of interest between the three disparate segments of the force escorting the Queen of Elenia, Sparhawk, Engessa and Kring decided to make some effort to keep the Peloi, the Church Knights and the Atans more or less separate from each other. Cultural differences obviously made a general mingling unwise. The possibilities for misunderstandings were simply too numerous to be ignored. Each leader stressed the need for the strictest of courtesy and formality to his forces, and the end result was a tense and exaggerated stiffness.

In a very real sense, the Atans, the Peloi and the knights were allies rather than comrades. The fact that very few of the Atans spoke Elenic added to the distance between the component parts of the small army moving out onto the treeless expanse of the steppes. They encountered the eastern Peloi some distance from the town of Pela in central Astel. Kring’s ancestors had migrated from this vast grassland some three thousand years earlier, but despite the separation of time and distance, the two branches of the Peloi family were remarkably similar in matters of dress and custom. The only really significant difference seemed to be the marked preference of the eastern Peloi for the javelin as opposed to the sabre favoured by Kring’s people. After a ritual exchange of greetings and a somewhat extended ceremony during which Kring and his eastern cousin sat cross-legged on the turf ‘taking salt together and talking of affairs’ while two armies warily faced each other across three hundred yards of open grass. The decision not to go to war with each other today was apparently reached, and Kring led his new-found friend and kinsman to the carriage to introduce him all around.

The Domi of the eastern Peloi was named Tikume. He was somewhat taller than Kring, but his head was also shaved, a custom among those horsemen dating back to antiquity. Tikume greeted them all politely. ‘It is passing strange to see Peloi allied with foreigners,’ he noted. ‘Domi Kring has told me of the conditions which prevail in Eosia, but I had not fully realised that they had led to such peculiar arrangements. Of course he and I have not spoken together for more than ten years.’

‘You’ve met before, Domi Tikume?’ Patriarch Emban asked with a certain surprise.

‘Yes, your Grace,’ Kring replied. ‘Domi Tikume journeyed to Pelosia with the King of Astel some years back. He made a point of looking me up.’

‘King Alberen’s father was much wiser than his son,’ Tikume explained, ‘and he read a great deal. He saw many similarities between Pelosia and Astel, so he paid a state visit to King Saros. He invited me to go along.’

His expression became one of distaste. ‘I might have declined if I’d known he was going to travel by boat. I was sick every day for two months. Domi Kring and I got on well together. He was kind enough to take me with him to the marshes to hunt ears.’

‘Did he share the profits with you, Domi Tikume?’ Ehlana asked him.

‘What was that, queen Ehlana?’ Tikume looked baffled. Kring, however, laughed nervously and flushed just a bit. Then Mirtai strode up to the carriage.

‘Is this the one?’ Tikume asked Kring.

Kring nodded happily. ‘Isn’t she stupendous?’

‘Magnificent,’ Tikume agreed fervently, his tone almost reverential. Then he dropped to one knee. ‘Dona,’ he greeted her, clasping both hands in front of his face.

Mirtai looked inquiringly at Kring. ‘It’s a Peloi word, beloved,’ he explained. ‘It means ‘Domi’s mate’.’

‘That hasn’t been decided yet, Kring,’ she pointed out.

‘Can there be any doubt, beloved?’ he replied.

Tikume was still down on one knee. ‘You shall enter our camp with all honours, Dona Mirtai,’ he declared, ‘for among our people, you are a queen. All shall kneel to you, and all shall give way to you. Poems and songs shall be composed in your honour, and rich gifts shall be bestowed upon you.’

‘Well, now,’ Mirtai said.

‘Your beauty is clearly divine, Dona Mirtai,’ Tikume continued, warming to his subject. ‘Your very presence brightens a drab world and puts the sun to shame. I am awed at the wisdom of my brother Kring in having selected you as his mate. Come straightaway to our camp, divine one, so that my people may adore you.’

‘My goodness,’ Ehlana breathed. ‘Nobody’s ever said anything like that to me.’

‘We just didn’t want to embarrass you, my Queen,’ Stragen told her blandly. ‘We feel that way about you of course, but we didn’t want to be too obvious about it.’

‘Well said,’ Ulath approved.

Mirtai looked at Kring with a new interest. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this, Kring?’ she asked him.

‘I thought you knew, beloved.’

‘I didn’t,’ she replied. Her lower lip pushed forward slightly in a thoughtful kind of pout. ‘But I do now,’ she added. ‘Have you chosen an Oma as yet?’

‘Sparhawk serves me in that capacity, beloved.’

‘Why don’t you go have a talk with Atan Engessa, Sparhawk!’ she suggested. ‘Tell him for me that I do not look upon Domi Kring’s suit with disfavour.’

‘That’s a very good idea, Mirtai,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘I’m surprised I didn’t think of it myself.’

14

The town of Pela in central Astel was a major trading centre where merchants and cattle-buyers came from all parts of the empire to do business with the Peloi herders. It was a shabby-looking, unfinished sort of place. Many of its buildings were no more than ornate fronts with large tents erected behind them. No attempt had ever been made to pave its rutted streets, and the passage of strings of wagons and herds of cattle raised a cloud of dust that entirely obscured the town most of the time.

Beyond the poorly-defined outskirts lay an ocean of tents, the portable homes of the nomadic Peloi. Tikume led them through the town and on out to a hill-top where a number of brightly-striped pavilions encircled a large open area. A canopy held aloft by poles shaded a place of honour at the very top of the hill, and the ground beneath that canopy was carpeted and strewn with cushions and furs.

Mirtai was the absolute centre of attention. Her rather scanty marching clothes had been covered with a purple robe that reached to the ground, an indication of her near-royal status. Kring and Tikume formally escorted her to the ceremonial centre of the camp and introduced her to Tikume’s wife, Vida, a sharp-faced woman who also wore a purple robe and looked at Mirtai with undisguised hostility. Sparhawk and the rest joined the Peloi leaders in the shade as honoured guests. The face of Tikume’s wife grew darker and darker as Peloi warriors vied with each other to heap extravagant compliments upon Mirtai as they were presented to Kring and his purported bride-to-be. There were gifts and a number of songs praising the beauty of the golden giantess.

‘How did they find time to make up songs about her?’ Talen quietly asked Stragen.

‘I’d imagine that the songs have been around for a long time,’ Stragen replied. ‘They’ve substituted Mirtai’s name, that’s all. I expect there’ll be poems as well. I know a third-rate poet in Emsat who makes a fairly good living writing poems and love-letters for young nobles too lazy or uninspired to compose their own. There’s a whole body of literature with blank spaces in it that serves in such situations.’

‘They just fill in the blanks with the girl’s name?’ Talen demanded incredulously.

‘It wouldn’t really make much sense to fill them in with some other girl’s name, would it?’

‘That’s dishonest!’ Talen exclaimed.

‘What a novel attitude, Talen,’ Patriarch Emban laughed, ‘particularly coming from you.’

‘You aren’t supposed to cheat when you’re telling a girl how you feel about her,’ Talen insisted.

Talen had begun to notice girls. They had been there all along, of course, but he had not noticed them before, and he had some rather surprisingly strong convictions. It is to the credit of his friends that not one of them laughed at his peculiar expression of integrity. Baroness Melidere, however, impulsively embraced him.

‘What was that all about?’ he asked her a little suspiciously.

‘Oh, nothing,’ she replied, touching a gentle hand to his cheek. ‘When was the last time you shaved?’ she asked him.

‘Last week sometime, I think—or maybe the week before.’

‘You’re due again, I’d say. You’re definitely growing up, Talen.’ The boy flushed slightly. Princess Danae gave Sparhawk a sly little smirk.

After the gifts and the poems and songs came the demonstrations of prowess. Kring’s tribesmen demonstrated their proficiency with their sabres. Tikume’s men did much the same with their javelins, which they either cast or used as short lances. Sir Berit unhorsed an equally youthful Cyrinic Knight, and two blond-braided Genidians engaged in a fearsomely realistic mock axe-fight.

‘It’s all relatively standard, of course, Emban,’ Ambassador Oscagne said to the Patriarch of Ucera. The friendship of the two men had progressed to the point where they had begun to discard titles. ‘Warrior cultures almost totally circumscribe their lives with ceremonies.’

Emban smiled. ‘I’ve noticed that, Oscagne. Our Church Knights are the most courteous and ceremonial men I know.’

‘Prudence, your Grace,’ Ulath explained cryptically.

‘You’ll get used to that in time, your Excellency,’ Tynian assured the ambassador. ‘Sir Ulath hates to waste words.’

‘I wasn’t being mysterious, Tynian,’ Ulath told him. ‘I was only pointing out that you almost have to be polite to a man who’s holding an axe.’

Atan Engessa rose and bowed a bit stiffly to Ehlana. ‘May I test your slave, Ehlana-Queen?’ he asked.

‘How exactly do you mean, Atan Engessa?’ she asked warily.

‘She approaches the time of the Rite of Passage. We must decide if she is ready. I will not harm her. These others are demonstrating their skill. Atana Mirtai and I will participate. It will be a good time for the test.’

‘As you think best, Atan,’ Ehlana consented, ‘as long as the Atana does not object.’

‘If she is truly Atan, she will not object, Ehlana-Queen.’ He turned abruptly and crossed to where Mirtai sat with the Peloi.

‘Mirtai’s certainly the centre of things today,’ Melidere observed.

‘I think it’s very nice,’ Ehlana said. ‘She keeps herself in the background most of the time. She’s entitled to a bit of attention.’

‘It’s political, you realise,’ Stragen told her. ‘Tikume’s people are showering Mirtai with attention for Kring’s benefit.’

‘I know, Stragen, but it’s nice all the same.’ She looked speculatively at her golden slave. ‘Sparhawk, I’d take it as a personal favour if you’d actively pursue the marriage-negotiations with Atan Engessa. Mirtai deserves some happiness.’

‘I’ll see what I can arrange for her, my queen.’

Mirtai readily agreed to Engessa’s proposed test. She rose gracefully to her feet, unfastened the neck of her purple robe and let it fall. The Peloi gasped. Their women-folk were customarily dressed in far more concealing garments. The sneer on the face of Tikume’s wife Vida, however, was a bit wan. Mirtai was significantly female. She was also fully armed, and that also shocked the Peloi.

She and Engessa moved to the area in front of the canopy, curtly inclined their heads to each other and drew their swords. Sparhawk thought he knew the differences between contest and combat, but what followed blurred that boundary for him. Mirtai and Engessa seemed to be fully intent on killing each other. Their swordsmanship was superb, but their manner of fencing involved a great deal more physical contact than did western-style fighting.

‘It looks like a wrestling-match with swords,’ Kalten observed to Ulath.

‘Yes,’ Ulath agreed. ‘I wonder if a man could do that in an axe-fight. If you could kick somebody in the face the way she just did and then follow up with an axe-stroke, you could win a lot of fights in a hurry.’

‘I knew she was going to do that to him,’ Kalten chuckled as Engessa landed flat on his back in the dust. ‘She did it to me once.’

Engessa, however, did not lie gasping on the ground as Kalten had. He rolled away from Mirtai instead and came to his feet with his sword still in his hand. He raised his blade in a kind of salute and then immediately attacked again.

The ‘test’ continued for several more minutes until a watching Atan sharply banged his fist on his breastplate to signal the end of the match. The man who had signailed was much older than his compatriots, or so it seemed. His hair was white. Nothing else about him seemed any different, however.

Mirtai and Engessa bowed formally to each other, and he returned her to her place where she once again drew on her robe and sank down onto a cushion. Vida no longer sneered.

‘She is fit,’ Engessa reported to Ehlana. He reached up under his breastplate and tenderly touched a sore-spot. ‘More than fit,’ he added. ‘She is a skilled and dangerous opponent. I am proud to be the one she will call father. She will add luster to my name.’

‘We rather like her, Atan Engessa,’ Ehlana smiled. ‘I’m so glad you agree with us.’ She let the full impact of that devastating smile wash over the stern-faced Atan, and hesitantly, almost as if it were in spite of himself, he smiled back.

‘I think he lost two fights today,’ Talen whispered to Sparhawk.

‘So it would seem,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘We can never catch up with them, friend Sparhawk,’ Tikume said that evening as they all relaxed on carpets near a flaring campfire. ‘These steppes are open grasslands with only a few groves of trees. There isn’t really any place to hide, and you can’t ride a horse through tall grass without leaving a trail a blind man could follow. They come out of nowhere, kill the herders and run off the cattle. I followed one of those groups of raiders myself. They’d stolen a hundred cattle, and they left a broad trail through the grass. After a few miles, the trail just ended. There was no sign that they’d dispersed. They just vanished. It was as if something had reached down and carried them off into the sky.’

‘Have there been any other disturbances, Domi?’ Tynian asked carefully. ‘What I’m trying to say is, has there been unrest of any kind among your people? Wild stories? rumours? That sort of thing?’

‘No, friend Tynian.’ Ticume smiled. ‘We are an open-faced people. We do not conceal our emotions from each other. I’d know if there were something afoot. I’ve heard about what’s been happening over around Darsas, so I know why you ask. Nothing like that is happening here. We don’t worship our heroes the way they do, we just try to be like them. Someone’s stealing our cattle and killing our herdsmen.’ He looked a bit accusingly at Oscagne. ‘I would not insult you for all the world, your Honour,’ he said, ‘but you might suggest to the emperor that he would be wise to have some of his Atans look into it. If we have to deal with it ourselves, our neighbours won’t like it very much. We of the Peloi tend to be a bit indiscriminate when someone steals our cattle.’

‘I’ll bring the matter to his Imperial Majesty’s attention,’ Oscagne promised.

‘Soon, friend Oscagne,’ Tikume recommended. ‘Very soon.’

‘She’s a highly-skilled warrior, Sparhawk-Knight,’ Engessa was saying the following morning as the two sat by a small fire.

‘Granted,’ Sparhawk replied, ‘but by your own traditions, she’s still a child.’

‘That’s why it’s my place to negotiate for her,’ Engessa pointed out. ‘If she were adult, she would do it herself. Children sometimes do not know their own worth.’

‘But a child cannot be as valuable as an adult.’

‘That’s not always entirely true, Sparhawk-Knight. The younger a woman, the greater her price.’

‘Oh, this is absurd,’ Ehlana broke in. The negotiations were of a delicate nature and would normally have taken place in private. ‘Normally’, however, did not always apply to Sparhawk’s wife. ‘Your offer’s completely unacceptable, Sparhawk.’

‘Whose side are you on, dear?’ he asked her mildly.

‘Mirtai’s my friend. I won’t permit you to insult her. Ten horses indeed. I could get that much for Talen.’

‘Were you planning to sell him too?’

‘I was just illustrating a point.’

Sir Tynian had also stopped by. Of all of their group, he was closest to Kring, and he keenly felt the responsibilities of friendship. ‘What sort of offer would your Majesty consider properly respectful?’ he asked Ehlana.

‘Not a horse less than sixty,’ she declared adamantly. ‘Sixty.’ Tynian exclaimed. ‘You’ll impoverish him. What kind of a life will Mirtai have if you marry her off to a pauper?’

‘Kring’s hardly a pauper, Sir Knight,’ she retorted. ‘He still has all that gold King Saros paid him for those Zemoch ears.’

‘But that’s not his gold, your Majesty,’ Tynian pointed out. ‘It belongs to his people.’

Sparhawk smiled and motioned with his head to Engessa. Unobtrusively, the two stepped away from the fire. ‘I’d guess that they’ll settle on thirty, Atan Engessa,’ he tentatively suggested.

‘Most probably,’ Engessa agreed.

‘It seems like a fair number to me. Doesn’t it to you?’ It hovered sort of on the verge of an offer.

‘It’s more or less what I had in mind, Sparhawk-Knight.’

‘Me too. Done then?’

‘Done.’ The two of them clasped hands. ‘Should we tell them?’ the Atan asked, the faintest hint of a smile touching his face.

‘They’re having a lot of fun,’ Sparhawk grinned. ‘Why don’t we let them play it out? We can find out how close our guess was. Besides, these negotiations are very important to Kring and Mirtai. If we were to agree in just a few minutes, it might make them feel cheapened.’

‘You have been much in the world, SparhawkKnight,’ Engessa observed. ‘You know well the hearts of men—and of women.’

‘No man ever truly knows the heart of a woman, Engessa-Atan,’ Sparhawk replied ruefuly.

The negotiations between Tynian and Ehlana had reached the tragic stage, each of them accusing the other of ripping out hearts and similar extravagances. Ehlana’s performance was masterful. The Queen of Elenia had a strong flair for histrionics, and she was a highly skilled orator. She extemporised at length upon Sir Tynian’s disgraceful niggardliness, her voice rising and falling in majestic cadences. Tynian, on the other hand, was coolly rational, although he too became emotional at times.

Kring and Mirtai sat holding hands not far away, their eyes filled with concern as they hung breathlessly on every word. Tikume’s Peloi encircled the haggling pair, straining to hear. It went on for hours, and it was nearly sunset when Ehlana and Tynian finally reached a grudging agreement—thirty horses—and concluded the bargain by spitting in their hands and smacking their palms together. Sparhawk and Engessa formalised the agreement in the same fashion, and a tumultuous cheer went up from the rapt Peloi. It had been a highly entertaining day all round, and that evening’s celebration was loud and long.

‘I’m exhausted,’ Ehlana confessed to her husband after they had retired to their tent for the night.

‘Poor dear,’ Sparhawk commiserated.

‘I had to step in, though. You were just being too meek, Sparhawk. You’d have given her away. It’s a good thing I was there. You’d never have managed to reach that kind of agreement.’

‘I was on the other side, Ehlana, remember?’

‘That’s what I don’t understand, Sparhawk. How could you treat poor Mirtai so disgracefully?’

‘Rules of the game, love. I was representing Kring.’

‘I’m still very disappointed in you, Sparhawk.’

‘Well, fortunately, you and Tynian were there to get it all done properly. Engessa and I couldn’t have done half so well.’

‘It did turn out rather well, didn’t it—even though it took us all day.’

‘You were brilliant, my love, absolutely brilliant.’

‘I’ve been in some very shabby places in my life, Sparhawk,’ Stragen said the next morning, ‘but Pela’s the absolute worst. It’s been abandoned several times, did you know that? Maybe abandoned isn’t the right word. ‘Moved’ is probably closer to the truth. Pela exists wherever the Peloi establish their summer encampment.’

‘I’d imagine that sends the map-makers into hysterics.’

‘More than likely. It’s a temporary town, but it absolutely reeks of money. It takes a great deal of ready cash to buy a cattle-herd.’

‘Were you able to make contact with the local thieves?’

‘They contacted us actually,’ Talen grinned. ‘A boy no more than eight lifted Stragen’s purse. He’s very good—except that he doesn’t run very well. I caught him within fifty yards. After we’d explained who we were, he was very happy to take us to see the man in charge.’

‘Has the thieves’ council made any decision as yet?’ Sparhawk asked Stragen.

‘They’re still mulling it over,’ Stragen replied. ‘They’re a bit conservative here in Daresia. The notion of cooperating with the authorities strikes them as immoral for some reason. I sort of expect an answer when we get to Sarsos. The thieves of Sarsos carry a great deal of weight in the empire. Did anything meaningful happen while we were gone?’

‘Kring and Mirtai got betrothed.’

‘That was quick. I’ll have to congratulate them.’

‘Why don’t you two get some sleep,’ Sparhawk suggested. ‘We’ll be leaving for Sarsos tomorrow. Tikume’s going to ride along with us to the edge of the steppes. I think he’d like to go a bit farther, but the Styrics at Sarsos make him nervous.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Get some sleep,’ he told them. ‘I want to go have a talk with Oscagne.’

The Peloi encampment was quiet. It was early summer now, and the midday heat kept the nomads inside their tents. Sparhawk walked across the hard-packed earth toward the tent shared by Ambassador Oscagne and Patriarch Emban. His chain-mail jingled as he walked. Since they were in a secure encampment, the knights had decided to forego the discomfort of their formal armour. He found them sitting beneath a canopy at the side of their tent eating a melon.

‘Well-met, Sir Knight,’ Oscagne said as the Pandion approached.

‘That’s an archaic form of greeting, Oscagne,’ Emban told him.

‘I’m an archaic sort of fellow, Emban.’

‘I was curious about something,’ Sparhawk said, joining them on the shaded carpet.

‘It’s a characteristic of the young, I suppose,’ Oscagne smiled.

Sparhawk let that pass. ‘This part of Astel seems quite different from what we ran into farther west,’ he observed.

‘Yes,’ Oscagne agreed. ‘Astel’s the melting-pot that gave rise to all Elene cultures—both here in Daresia and in Eosia as well.’

‘We might want to argue about that some day,’ Emban murmured.

‘Daresia’s older, that’s all,’ Oscagne shrugged. ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s better. Anyway, what you’ve seen of Astel so far is very much like what you’d encounter in the Elene Kingdom of Pelosia, wouldn’t you say?’

‘There are similarities, yes,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘The similarities will stop when we reach the edge of the steppes. The western two-thirds of Astel are Elene. From the edge of the steppes to the Atan border, Astel’s Styric.’

‘How did that happen?’ Emban asked. ‘The Styrics in Eosia are widely dispersed. They live in their own villages and follow their own laws and customs.’

‘How cosmopolitan are you feeling today, Emban?’

‘You’re planning to insult my provincialism, I take it.’

‘Not too much, I hope. Your prototypical Elene is a bigot.’ Oscagne held up one hand. ‘Let me finish before you explode. Bigotry’s a form of egotism, and I think you’ll have to concede that Elenes have a very high opinion of themselves. They seem to feel that God smiles particularly for them.’

‘Doesn’t He?’ Emban feigned surprise.

‘Stop that. For reasons only God can understand, the Styrics particularly irritate the Elenes.’

‘I have no trouble understanding it,’ Emban shrugged. ‘It’s their superior attitude. They treat us as if we were children.’

‘From their perspective, we are, your Grace,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘Styrics have been civilised for forty thousand years. We got started somewhat later.’

‘For whatever the reason,’ Oscagne continued, ‘the initial impulse of the Elenes has been to drive the Styrics out—or to kill them. That’s why the Styrics migrated to Eosia much earlier than you Elenes did. They were driven into the wilderness by Elene prejudice. Eosia was not the only wilderness, however. There’s another that exists along the Atan border, and many Styrics fled there in antiquity. After the Empire was formed, we Tamuls asked the Elenes to stop molesting the Styrics living around Sarsos.’

‘Asked?’

‘We were quite firm, and we did have all those Atans with nothing else to do. We’ve agreed to let the Elene clergy deliver thunderous denunciations from the pulpit, but we garrison enough Atans around Sarsos to keep the two peoples separate. It’s quieter that way, and we Tamuls are extraordinarily fond of quiet. I think you gentlemen are in for a surprise when we reach Sarsos. It’s the only truly Styric city in the entire world. It’s an astonishing place. God seems to smile in a very special way there.’

‘You keep talking about God, Oscagne,’ Emban noted. ‘I thought a preoccupation with God was an Elene conceit.’

‘You’re more cosmopolitan than I thought, your Grace.’

‘Just exactly what do you mean when you use the word God, your Excellency?’

‘We use the term generically. Our Tamul religion isn’t very profound. We tend to think that a man’s relationship with his God—or Gods—is his own affair.’

‘That’s heresy, you know. It would put the Church out of business.’

‘That’s all right, Emban,’ Oscagne smiled. ‘Heresy’s encouraged in the Tamul Empire. It gives us something to talk about on long, rainy afternoons.’

They rode out with a huge Peloi escort the following morning. The party moving northeasterly looked not so much like an army on the march as it did a migration. Kring and Tikume rode more or less by themselves for the next several days, renewing their blood-ties and discussing an exchange of breeding-stock. Sparhawk attempted an experiment during the ride from Pela to the edge of the steppes, but try though he might, he could not detect any traces of Aphrael’s tampering with time and distance. The Child Goddess was simply too skilled and her manipulations too seamless for him to detect them. Once, when she had joined him on Faran’s back, he raised an issue that had been troubling him.

‘I’m not trying to pry, but it seems that it’s been about fifty days since we landed at Salesha. How long has it really been?’

‘Quite a bit less than that, Sparhawk,’ she replied. ‘Half that long at most.’

‘I was sort of looking for an exact answer, Danae.’

‘I’m not very good with numbers, father. I know the difference between a few and a lot, and that’s all that’s really important, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a bit imprecise, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Is precision all that important to you, Sparhawk?’

‘You can’t begin to think logically without precision, Danae.’

‘Don’t think logically then. Try being intuitive for a change. You might even find that you like it.’

‘How long, Danae?’ he insisted.

‘Three weeks,’ she shrugged.

‘That’s a little better.’

‘Well—more or less.’

The edge of the steppes was marked by a dense forest of pale-trunked birches, and Tikume and his tribesmen turned back there. Since it was late in the day, the royal escort made camp on the edge of the forest so that they might follow the shaded road leading off through the trees in the full light of day. After they had settled down and the cooking fires were going, Sparhawk took Kring and they went looking for Engessa.

‘We have a peculiar situation here, gentlemen,’ he told them as they walked together near the edge of the forest.

‘How so, Sparhawk-Knight?’ Engessa asked.

‘We’ve got three different kinds of warrior in this group, and I’d imagine there are three different approaches to engagement. We should probably discuss the differences so that we won’t be working at cross-purposes if trouble arises. The standard approach of the Church Knights is based on our equipment. We wear armour, and we ride large horses. Whenever there’s trouble, we usually just smash the centre of an opposing army.’

‘We prefer to peel an enemy like an apple,’ Kring said. ‘We ride around his force very fast and slice off bits and pieces as we go.’

‘We fight on foot,’ Engessa supplied. ‘We’re trained to be self-sufficient, so we just rush the enemy and engage him hand-to-hand.’

‘Does that work very well?’ Kring asked him.

‘It always has,’ Engessa shrugged.

‘If we happen to run into any kind of trouble, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for us all to dash right in,’ Sparhawk mused. ‘We’d be stumbling all over each other. See what you think of this. If a force of any significant size tries to attack us, Kring and his men circle around behind them, I form up the knights and charge the centre and Atan Engessa spreads his force out along a broad front. The enemy will sort of fold in behind the knights after we bash a hole in their centre. They always do for some reason. Kring’s attacks along the rear and the flanks will add to their confusion. They’ll be disorganised and most of them will be cut off from their leaders in one way or another. That would be a good time for Engessa to attack. The best soldiers in the world don’t function too well when nobody’s close enough to give orders.’

‘It’s a workable tactic,’ Engessa conceded. ‘It’s a bit surprising to find that other people in the world know how to plan battles too.’

‘The story of man has been pretty much the story of one long battle, Atan Engessa,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘We’re all experienced at it, so we devise tactics that take advantage of our strengths. Do we want to do it the way I suggested?’

Kring and Engessa looked at each other. ‘Almost any plan will work,’ Kring shrugged, ‘as long as we all know what we’re doing.’

‘How will we know when you’re ready for us to attack?’ Engessa asked Sparhawk.

‘My friend Ulath has a horn,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘When he blows it once, my knights will charge. When he blows it twice, Kring’s men will start peeling off the rear elements. When we’ve got the enemy’s full attention, I’ll have Ulath blow three times. That’s when you’ll want to charge.’

Engessa’s eyes were alight. ‘It’s the sort of strategy that doesn’t leave very many survivors among the enemy, Sparhawk-Knight,’ he said.

‘That was sort of the idea, Engessa-Atan.’

The birch forest lay on a long, gradual slope rising from the steppes of central Astel to the rugged foothills on the Atan border. The road was broad and well-maintained, though it tended to wander a great deal. Engessa’s unmounted Atans ranged out about a mile on each side of the road, and for the first three days they reported no sightings of men, although they did encounter large herds of deer. Summer had not yet dried the lingering dampness from the forest floor, and the air in the sun-dappled shade was cool and moist, still smelling of new growth and renewal. Since the trees obstructed their vision, they rode cautiously. They set up their nighttime encampments while the sun was still above the horizon, and erected certain rudimentary fortifications to prevent surprises after dark.

On the morning of their fourth day in the forest, Sparhawk rose early and walked through the first steel-grey light of dawn to the line where the horses were picketed. He found Khalad there. Kurik’s eldest son had snubbed Faran’s head up close to a birch tree and was carefully inspecting the big roan’s hooves.

‘I was just going to do that,’ Sparhawk said quietly. ‘He seemed to be favouring his left forehoof yesterday.’

‘Stone bruise,’ Khalad said shortly. ‘You know, Sparhawk, you might want to give some thought to putting him out to pasture when we get back home. He’s not a colt any more, you know.’

‘Neither am I, when you get right down to it. Sleeping on the ground’s not nearly as much fun as it used to be.’

‘You’re just getting soft.’

‘Thanks. Is this weather going to hold?’

‘As nearly as I can tell, yes.’ Khalad lowered Faran’s hoof to the ground and took hold of the snubbing rope. ‘No biting,’ he cautioned the horse. ‘If you bite me, I’ll kick you in the ribs.’ Faran’s long face took on an injured expression. ‘He’s an evil-tempered brute,’ Khalad noted, ‘but he’s far and away the smartest horse I’ve ever come across. You should put him to stud. It might be interesting to train intelligent colts for a change. Most horses aren’t really very bright.’

‘I thought horses were among the cleverest of animals.’

‘That’s a myth, Sparhawk. If you want a smart animal, get yourself a pig. I’ve never yet been able to build a pen that a pig couldn’t think his way out of.’

‘They’re built a little close to the ground for riding. Let’s go see how breakfast’s coming.’

‘Who’s cooking this morning?’

‘Kalten, I think. Ulath would know.’

‘Kalten? Maybe I’ll stay here and eat with the horses.’

‘I’m not sure that a bucketful of raw oats would taste all that good.’

‘I’d put it up against Kalten’s cooking any day, my Lord.’

They rode out shortly after the sun rose, and proceeded through the cool, sun-speckled forest. The birds seemed to be everywhere, and they sang enthusiastically. Sparhawk smiled as he remembered how Sephrenia had once punctured his illusion that birdsong was an expression of a love for music. ‘Actually they’re warning other birds to stay away, dear one,’ she had said. ‘They’re claiming possession of nesting-sites. It sounds very pretty, but all they’re really saying is, ‘My tree. My tree. My tree.’

Mirtai came back along the road late that morning running with an effortless stride. ‘Sparhawk,’ she said quietly when she reached the carriage, ‘Atan Engessa’s scouts report that there are people up ahead.’

‘How many?’ he asked, his tone suddenly all business.

‘We can’t be certain. The scouts didn’t want to be seen. There are soldiers of some kind out there, and they seem to be waiting for us.’

‘Berit,’ Sparhawk said to the young knight, ‘why don’t you ride on ahead and ask Kalten and the others to join us? Don’t run. Try to make it look casual.’

‘Right.’ Berit rode forward at a trot.

‘Mirtai,’ the big knight said, trying to keep his voice calm, ‘is there any kind of defensible position nearby?’

‘I was just coming to that,’ she replied. ‘There’s a kind of hill about a quarter of a mile ahead. It sort of juts up from the floor of the forest boulders mostly. They’re covered over with moss.’

‘Could we get the carriage up there?’ She shook her head. ‘You get to walk then, my Queen,’ he said to his wife.

‘We don’t know that they’re hostile, Sparhawk,’ Ehlana objected.

‘That’s true,’ he conceded, ‘but we don’t know that they aren’t either, and that’s far more important.’ Kalten and the others came back along the column with Kring and Engessa. ‘Are they doing anything at all, Atan Engessa?’ Sparhawk asked.

‘Just watching, Sparhawk-Knight. There are more of them than we thought at first—a thousand at least probably a lot more.’

‘It’s going to be tricky with all these trees,’ Kalten pointed out.

‘I know,’ Sparhawk grunted. ‘Khalad, how close is it to noon?’

‘About another hour, my Lord,’ Khalad replied from the carriage driver’s seat.

‘Close enough then. There’s a hill just up ahead. We’ll ride on to it and make some show of stopping for our midday meal. Our friends here in the carriage will sort of stroll up to the top. The rest of us will spread out around the base of the hill. We’ll build fires and rattle pots and pans together. Ehlana, be silly. I want you and the Baroness to do a lot of laughing up there on that hilltop. Stragen, take some men and erect a pavilion of some kind up there. Try to make it look festive. Move some rocks out of your way and sort of pile them up around the hilltop.

‘A siege again, Sparhawk?’ Ulath said disapprovingly.

‘Have you got a better idea?’

‘Not really, but you know how I feel about sieges.’

‘Nobody said you had to like it, Ulath,’ Tynian told him.

‘Spread the word,’ Sparhawk told them, ‘and let’s try to make it all look very casual.’

They were tense as they proceeded along the road at a leisurely-appearing pace. When they rounded a bend and Sparhawk saw the hill, he immediately approved of its strategic potential. It was one of those rock-piles that inexplicably rear up out of forests the world over. It was a conical heap of rounded boulders perhaps forty feet high, green with moss and totally devoid of trees or brush. It stood about two hundred yards to the left of the road.

Talen rode to its base, dismounted, scampered up to the top and looked around. ‘It’s perfect, my Queen,’ he shouted back down. ‘You can see for miles up here. It’s just what you were looking for.’

‘That’s a nice touch,’ Bevier noted, ‘assuming that our friends out there speak Elenic, of course.’

Stragen came forward from the line of pack-horses carrying a lute. ‘A little finishing touch, my Queen,’ he smiled to Ehlana.

‘Do you play, Milord?’ she asked him.

‘Any gentleman plays, your Majesty.’

‘Sparhawk doesn’t.’

‘We’re still working on a definition of Sparhawk, Queen Ehlana,’ Stragen replied lightly. ‘We’re not altogether certain that ‘gentleman’ really fits him—no offence intended of course, old boy,’ he hastily assured the black-armoured Pandion.

‘A suggestion, Sparhawk?’ Tynian said.

‘Go ahead.’

‘We don’t know anything about those people out there, but they don’t know anything about us either or at the most, very, very little.’

‘That’s probably true.’

‘Just because they’re watching doesn’t mean they’re planning an immediate attack—if they’re even planning to attack at all. If they are, they could just sit and wait until we’re back on the road again.’

‘All right.’

‘But we’re travelling with some giddy noblewomen—begging your Majesty’s pardon—and noblewomen don’t really need reasons for the things they do.’

Your popularity isn’t growing in certain quarters, Sir Tynian,’ Ehlana said ominously.

‘I’m crushed, but couldn’t your Majesty decide—on a whim that you absolutely adore this place and that you’re bored with riding in a carriage? Under those circumstances, wouldn’t it be natural for you to order a halt for the day?’

‘It’s not bad, Sparhawk,’ Kalten said. ‘While we’re all lunching, we can sort of unobtrusively fortify that hill a little better. Then, after a few hours, when it’s obvious that we aren’t going any further today, we can set up the usual evening camp—field fortifications and the like. We’re not on any specific timetable, so a half a day lost isn’t going to put us behind any sort of schedule. The queen’s safety’s a lot more important than speed right now, wouldn’t you say?’

‘You know how I’m going to answer that, Kalten.’

‘I was sure I could count on you.’

‘It’s good, Sparhawk-Knight,’ Engessa approved. ‘Give my scouts one whole night to work with, and we’ll not only know how many are out there, but their names as well.’

‘Break a wheel,’ Ulath added.

‘What was that, Sir Knight?’ Ambassador Oscagne asked, looking perplexed.

‘That would give us another excuse for stopping,’ the Thalesian replied. ‘If the carriage broke down, we’d have to stop.’

‘Can you fix a wheel, Sir Ulath?’

‘No, but we can rig some kind of a skid to get us by until we can find a blacksmith.’

‘Wouldn’t a skid make the carriage jolt and bump around a great deal?’ Patriarch Emban asked with a pained look.

‘Probably,’ Ulath shrugged.

‘I’m almost certain we can find some other reason to stop, Sir Knight. Have you any idea of how uncomfortable that would be?’

‘I didn’t really give it much thought, your Grace,’ Ulath replied blandly. ‘But then, I won’t be riding in the carriage, so it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.’

15

The addition of a dozen female Atans added to the subterfuge of a courtly gathering on the hilltop, although it was difficult to persuade the Atan girls that their faces would not break if they smiled or that the Gods had issued no commandment against laughing. Berit and a number of other youthful knights entertained the ladies, while casually clearing inconvenient—and not a few convenient—bushel-basket sized rocks from the kind of natural amphitheatre at the top of the hill. The back-side of the pile of boulders was more precipitous than the front, and the rim of the hilltop on that side formed a very defensible wall.

The young knights piled up the rock to form a crude kind of breastwork around the other three sides. It was all very casual, but within an hour some fairly substantial fortifications had been erected. There were many cooking-fires around the base of the hill, and their smoke laid a kind of blue haze out among the white tree trunks. There was a great deal of clankingand rattling and shouting back and forth as the oddly assorted force made some show of preparing a meal.

The Atans gathered up large piles of firewood chopped in ten-foot lengths, and all of the cooks stated a preference for wood chips for their fires rather than trunks. It was therefore necessary to chop at the ends of the birch logs, and there were soon neat piles of ten-foot stakes surrounding the hill, ready for use either as firewood or as poles spaced out at regular intervals that could be erected in a few minutes. The knights and the Peloi tethered their horses nearby and lounged around the foot of the hill while the Atans were evenly dispersed a bit further out under the trees.

Sparhawk stood at the top of the hill surveying the progress of the work below. The ladies were gathered under a broad canopy erected on poles in the centre of the depressed basin on the hilltop. Stragen was strumming his lute and singing to them in his deep rich voice.

‘How’s it going down there?’ Talen asked, coming up to where Sparhawk stood.

‘It’s about as secure as Khalad can make it without being obvious about it,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘He’s awfully good, isn’t he?’ Talen said with a certain pride.

‘Your brother? Oh, yes. Your father trained him very well.’

‘It might have been nice to grow up with my brothers. Talen sounded a bit wistful. He shrugged. ‘But then...’ he peered out at the forest. ‘Any word from Engessa?’

‘Our friends are still out there.’

‘They’re going to attack, aren’t they?’

‘Probably. You don’t gather that many armed men in one place without having something military in mind.’

‘I like your plan here, Sparhawk, but I think it’s got a hole in it.’

‘Oh?’

‘Once they finally realise that we aren’t going to move from this spot, they might decide to wait and then come at us after dark. Fighting at night’s a lot different from doing it in the daytime, isn’t it?’

‘Usually, yes, but we’ll cheat.’ Talen gave him a quizzical look. ‘There are a couple of spells that brighten things up when you need to see.’

‘I keep forgetting about that.’

‘You might as well get used to it, Talen,’ Sparhawk told him with a faint smile. ‘When we get back home, you’re going to start your novitiate.’

‘When did we decide that?’

‘Just now. You’re old enough, and if you keep on growing the way you have been lately, you’ll be big enough.’

‘Is magic hard to learn?’

‘You have to pay attention. It’s all done in Styric, and Styric’s a tricky language. If you use the wrong word, all sorts of things can go wrong.’

‘Thanks, Sparhawk. That’s all I need—something else to worry about.’

‘We’ll talk with Sephrenia when we get to Sarsos. Maybe she’ll agree to train you. Flute likes you, so she’ll forgive you if you make any mistakes.’

‘What’s Flute got to do with it?’

‘If Sephrenia trains you, you’ll be submitting your requests to Aphrael.’

‘Requests?’

‘That’s what magic is, Talen. You ask a God to do something for you.’

‘Praying?’ the boy asked incredulously.

‘Sort of.’

‘Does Emban know that you’re praying to a Styric Goddess!’

‘More than likely. The Church chooses to ignore the fact, though—for practical reasons.’

‘He’s a hypocrite then.’

‘I wouldn’t mention that to Emban, if I were you.’

‘Let me get this straight. If I get to be a Church Knight, I’ll be worshipping Flute?’

‘Praying to her, Talen. I didn’t say anything about worshipping.’

‘Praying, worshipping, what’s the difference?’

‘Sephrenia will explain it.’

‘She’s in Sarsos, you say?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ Sparhawk silently cursed his careless tongue.

‘Yes, as a matter of fact you did.’

‘All right, but keep it to yourself.’

‘That’s why we came overland, isn’t it?’

‘One of the reasons, yes. Haven’t you got something else to do?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘Go find something—because if you don’t, I will.’

‘You don’t have to get all huffy.’ Sparhawk gave him a steady stare. ‘All right, all right, don’t get excited. I’ll go entertain Danae and her cat.’

Sparhawk stood watching the boy as he returned to the festivities under the canopy. It was obviously time to start being a little careful around Talen. He was dangerously intelligent, and a slip of the tongue might give away things that were supposed to be kept private. The discussion had raised an issue, however. Sparhawk went back to the group gathered on the hilltop and took Berit aside.

‘Go tell the knights that if those people out there decide to wait until after dark to attack, I’ll take care of giving us light to work by. If we all try to do it at the same time, we might confuse things.’

Berit nodded. Sparhawk considered it further. ‘And I’ll go talk with Kring and Engessa,’ he added. ‘We don’t want the Atans and the Peloi going into a panic if the sky suddenly lights up along about midnight tonight.’

‘Is that what you’re going to do?’ Berit asked.

‘It usually works out about the best in cases like this. One big light’s easier to control than several hundred little ones—and it disrupts the enemy’s concentration a lot more.’

Berit grinned. ‘It would be a little startling to be creeping through the bushes and have the sun come back up again, wouldn’t it?’

‘A lot of battles have been averted by lighting up the night, Berit, and a battle averted is sometimes even better than one you win.’

‘I’ll remember that, Sparhawk.’

The afternoon wore on, and the party on the hilltop became a little strained. There were only so many things to laugh at, and only so many jokes to tell. The warriors round the base of the hill either spent their time attending to equipment or pretending to sleep.

Out near the road, Sparhawk met with the others about mid-afternoon. ‘If they don’t know by now that we aren’t going any further today, they aren’t very bright,’ Kalten noted.

‘We do look a bit settled in, don’t we?’ Ulath agreed.

‘A suggestion, Sparhawk?’ Tynian offered.

‘Why do you always say that?’

‘Habit, I suppose. I was taught to be polite to my elders. Even the best of spells isn’t going to give us the same kind of light we’ll have before the sun goes down. We know they’re out there, we’re in position and we’re rested. Why don’t we push things a bit? If we can force them to attack now, we can fight them in daylight.’

‘How are you going to make somebody attack when he doesn’t want to?’ Patriarch Emban asked.

‘We start making obvious preparations, your Grace,’ Tynian replied. ‘It’s logical to start on the field fortifications about now anyway. Let’s put up the palisade around the foot of the hill, and start digging ditches.’

‘And felling trees,’ Ulath added. ‘We could clear away some avenues leading out into the woods and pile the tree trunks up where they’ll hinder anybody trying to come through the forest. If they’re going to attack, let’s make them attack across open ground.’

It took a surprisingly short time. The logs for the fence around the base of the hill were already sharpened and stacked in neat piles where they were handy. Digging them in was an easy matter. The birch trees in the forest were all no more than ten inches thick at the base, and they fell quickly to the axes of the warriors and were dragged into the surrounding forest to form large, jumbled piles which would be virtually impossible to penetrate, even for men on foot. Sparhawk and the others went back up to the hilltop to survey their preparations.

‘Why don’t they attack us now, before we’re ready?’ Emban tensely asked the knights.

‘Because it takes time to organise an attack, your Grace,’ Bevier explained. ‘The scouts have to run back and tell the generals what we’re doing, the generals have to sneak through the woods to have a look for themselves, and then they all have to get together and argue about what they’re going to do. They were planning an ambush. They aren’t really ready to attack fortified positions. The business of adjusting one’s thinking to a different tactical situation is what takes the longest.’

‘How long?’

‘It depends entirely on the personality of the man in charge. If his mind was really set on an ambush, it could take him as long as a week.’

‘He’s dead then, Bevier-Knight,’ Engessa told the Cyrinic tersely. ‘As soon as we saw the warriors in the woods I dispatched a dozen of my people to the garrison at Sarsos. If our enemy takes more than two days to make up his mind, he’ll have five thousand Atans climbing his back.’

‘Sound thinking, Atan Engessa,’ Tynian approved. He pondered it. ‘A thought, Sparhawk. If our friend out there gets all caught up in indecision, we can just continue to strengthen our defences around this hill ditches, sharpened stakes, the usual encumbrances. Each improvement we add will make him think things over that much longer—which will give us time to add more fortifications, which will make him think all the more. If we can keep him thinking for two days, the Atans from Sarsos will come up behind him and wipe out his force before he ever gets around to using it.’

‘Good point,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘Let’s get to it.’

‘I thought that being a military person just involved banging on people with axes and swords,’ Emban conceded.

‘There’s a lot of that involved too, your Grace,’ Ulath smiled, ‘but it doesn’t hurt to outsmart your enemy a little too.’ He looked at Bevier. ‘Engines?’ he asked. Bevier blinked. Ulath’s cryptic questions always took him by surprise for some reason. ‘As long as we have some time on our hands, we could erect some catapults on the hilltop. Attacking through a rain of boulders is always sort of distracting. Getting hit on the head with a fifty pound rock always seems to break a man’s concentration for some reason. If we’re going to set up for a siege, we might as well do it right.’ He looked around at them. ‘I still don’t like sieges though,’ he added. ‘I want everybody to understand that.’

The warriors set to work, and the ladies and the young men attending them renewed their festivities, although their hilarity was even more forced now.

Sparhawk and Kalten were reinforcing the breastworks atop the hill. Since his wife and daughter were going to be inside those fortifications, their strength was a matter of more than passing interest to the prince consort. The party under the pavilion had begun to show gaps, and Stragen was increasingly obliged to fill them with his lute.

‘He’s going to wear out his fingers,’ Kalten grunted, lifting another large rock into place.

‘Stragen enjoys attention,’ Sparhawk shrugged. ‘He’ll keep playing until the blood runs out from under his fingernails if there’s anybody around to listen.’

Stragen’s lute took up a very old air, and he began to sing again. Sparhawk didn’t really have much of an ear for music, but he had to admit that the Thalesian thief had a beautiful voice. And then Baroness Melidere joined in. Her voice was a rich contralto that blended smoothly with Stragen’s baritone. Their duet was perfectly balanced, smooth and rich with the dark tones of their deeper voices.

Sparhawk smiled to himself. The baroness was continuing her campaign. Once Aphrael had alerted him to the blonde girl’s designs on Stragen, Sparhawk could see dozens of artful little ploys she was using to keep her intended victim’s attention. He almost felt sorry for Stragen, but he concluded that Melidere would be good for him.

The pair concluded their duet to loud applause. Sparhawk glanced toward the pavilion and saw Melidere lay one lingering hand almost caressingly on Stragen’s wrist. Sparhawk knew just how potent those accidental-seeming contacts were. Lillias had explained it to him once, and Lillias had been the world’s champion seductress—as probably half the men in Jiroch could have sworn to.

Then Stragen turned to another traditional air, and a new voice lifted in song. Kalten dropped the rock he had been lifting. It fell onto his foot, but he did not even wince. The voice was that of an angel, high, sweet, and as clear as glass. It soared effortlessly toward the upper reaches of the soprano range. It was a lyric voice, uncontaminated by the subtle variations of the coloratura, and it seemed as untaught as bird-song. It was Ehlana’s maid, Alcan. The doe-eyed girl, always so quiet and unassuming, stood in the centre of the Pavilion, her face luminous as she sang.

Sparhawk heard Kalten snuffle, and he was astonished to see great tears streaming down his friend’s face as the blond Pandion wept unashamed. Perhaps his recent conversation with the Child Goddess had alerted Sparhawk to the potentials of intuition, and he suddenly knew, without knowing exactly how he knew, that two campaigns were in progress—and, moreover, that the one being waged by Baroness Melidere was the more overt and blatant. He carefully concealed a smile behind his hand.

‘Lord, that girl’s got a beautiful voice!’ Kalten said in stunned admiration as Alcan concluded her song. ‘God!’ he said then, doubling over to clutch at the foot he had unwittingly injured five minutes earlier.

The work progressed until sunset, and then the combined army pulled back behind the reinforced palisade and waited. Sir Bevier and his Cyrinic Knights retired to the hilltop, where they completed the construction of their catapults. Then they amused themselves by lobbing large rocks into the forest seemingly at random.

‘What are they shooting at, Sparhawk?’ Ehlana asked after supper.

‘The trees,’ he shrugged.

‘The trees aren’t threatening us.’

‘No, but there are probably people hiding among them. The boulders falling out of the sky should make them a little jumpy.’ He smiled. ‘Actually, Bevier’s men are testing the range of the engines, dear. If our friends in the forest decide to attack down those avenues we’ve provided for them, Bevier wants to know exactly when to start shooting.’

‘There’s a great deal more involved in being a soldier than just keeping your equipment clean, isn’t there?’

‘I’m glad you appreciate that, my Queen.’

‘Shall we go to bed then?’

‘Sorry, Ehlana,’ he replied, ‘but I won’t be sleeping tonight. If our friend out there makes up his mind and attacks, there are some things I’ll have to do rather quickly.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Danae?’

‘She and Talen are over there watching Bevier’s people throw rocks at the trees.’

‘I’ll go get her. You’ll probably want to keep her close to you tonight.’

He crossed the basin to where Bevier was directing the activities of his knights. ‘Bed-time,’ he told his daughter, lifting her into his arms. She pouted a little at that, but raised no other objections. When Sparhawk was about half-way back to his wife’s tent, he slowed. ‘How much of a stickler are you for formality, Aphrael?’ he asked.

‘A few genuflections are nice, father,’ she replied, ‘but I can live without them—in an emergency.’

‘Good. If the attack comes tonight, we’re going to need some light to see them by.’

‘How much light?’

‘Sort of noonish would be good.’

‘I can’t do that, Sparhawk. Do you have any idea of how much trouble I’d get into if I made the sun rise when it wasn’t supposed to?’

‘I wasn’t really suggesting that. I just want enough light so that people can’t sneak up on us through the shadows. The spell’s a fairly long one with a lot of formalities involved and many, many specifics. I may be a little pressed for time, so would you be terribly offended if I just asked you for light and left the details up to you?’

‘It’s highly irregular, Sparhawk,’ she chided him primly.

‘I know, but just this once maybe?’

‘Oh, I guess so, but let’s not make a habit of it. I do have a reputation to maintain, after all.’

‘I love you,’ he laughed.

‘Oh, if that’s the case, it’s perfectly all right then. We can bend all sorts of rules for people who really love us. Just ask for light, Sparhawk. I’ll see to it that you get lots and lots of light.’

The attack came shortly before midnight. It began with a rain of arrows lofting in out of the darkness, followed quickly by attacks on the Atan pickets. That last proved to be what might best be described as a tactical blunder. The Atans were the finest foot-soldiers in the world, and they welcomed hand-to-hand combat. Sparhawk could not clearly see the attacking force from his vantage-point on the hilltop, but he firmly controlled his curiosity and held off on illuminating the battlefield until such time as the opposing force was more fully engaged.

As they had anticipated, their enemies used the cover of these first probing moves to attack the log-jams designed to impede their progress through the belts of trees set off by Sir Ulath’s avenues radiating out from the base of the hill like the spokes of a huge wheel. As it turned out, Bevier’s Cyrinics had not been lobbing rocks out into the forest entirely for the fun of it. They had rather precisely pin-pointed the range of those jumbles of fallen trees with their catapults, and they hurled basketfuls of fist-sized rocks into the air to rain down on the men attempting to tear down the barricades or to widen the narrow gaps which had been deliberately left to permit the Peloi to ride out in search of entertainment. A two-pound rock falling out of the sky will not crush a man, but it will break his bones, and after ten minutes or so, the men out in the woods withdrew.

‘I confess it to you, Sparhawk-Knight,’ Engessa said gravely, ‘I had thought your elaborate preparations a bit silly. Atans do not fight so. Your approach does have certain advantages, though.’

‘Our societies are different, Atan Engessa. Your people live and fight in the wilderness where enemies are encountered singly or in small groups. Our wildermess has been tamed, so our enemies come at us in large numbers. We build forts to live in, and over the centuries we’ve devised many means to defend those forts.’

‘When will you make the light come?’

‘At a time when it’s most inconvenient for our enemy. I want him to commit a large part of his force and to have them fully engaged before I sweep away the darkness. He won’t expect that, and it takes time to get orders through to men who are already fighting. We should be able to eliminate a sizeable part of his army before he can pull them back. Defensive warfare has certain advantages if you make the proper preparations.’

‘Ulath-Knight does not like it.’

‘Ulath doesn’t have the patience for it. Bevier’s the expert on defence. He’d be perfectly willing to wait for ten years if need be for the enemy to come to him on his terms.’

‘What will the enemy do next? We Atans are not accustomed to interrupted fights.’

‘He’ll draw back and shoot arrows at us while he thinks things over. Then he’ll probably try a direct assault down one of those avenues.’

‘Why only one? Why not attack from all directions at once?’

‘Because he doesn’t know how much we can hurt him yet. He’ll have to find that out first. He’ll learn in time, but it’s going to cost him a great deal to get his education. After we’ve killed about half of his soldiers, he’ll do one of two things. He’ll either go away, or he’ll throw everything he’s got at us from all sides at once.’

‘And then?’

‘Then we’ll kill the rest of his soldiers and be on our way,’ Sparhawk shrugged. ‘Assuming that everything goes the way we’ve planned, of course.’

At two hundred paces and with only starlight to see by, the figures were hardly more than shadows. They marched out into the centre of one of Ulath’s corridors and halted while others filed out to join them and to form up into a kind of massed formation.

‘I can’t believe that!’ Kalten exclaimed, gaping at the shadowy soldiers at the end of the corridor.

‘Is something wrong, Sir Kalten?’ Emban’s voice was a little shrill.

‘Not in the least, your Grace,’ Kalten replied gaily. ‘It’s just that we’re dealing with an idiot.’ He turned his head slightly. ‘Bevier,’ he called, ‘he’s forming up his troops on the road to march them into place.’

‘You’re not serious!’

‘May all of my toenails fall out if I’m not.’

Bevier barked a number of commands, and his knights swung the catapults around to bring them to bear on the unseen avenue leading toward the road.

‘Give the word, Sparhawk,’ the young Cyrinic called.

‘We’re going on down now,’ Sparhawk called back. You can start as soon as we reach the bottom. We’ll wait so that you can pound them for a while, and then we’ll charge. We’d take it as a kindness if you’d stop about then.’

Bevier grinned at him. ‘Look after my wife while I’m gone.’

‘Naturally.’ Sparhawk and the other warriors began to climb down the hill.

‘I’ll break my men into two groups, friend Sparhawk,’ Kring said. ‘We’ll circle around and come up onto the road about a half mile behind them on either side. We’ll wait for your signal there.’

‘Don’t kill all of them.’ Engessa cautioned. ‘My Atans grow sulky if there’s fighting and they aren’t allowed to participate.’

They reached the bottom of the hill, and Bevier’s catapults began to thud, launching large rocks this time. There were sounds from off in the direction of the road indicating that the Cyrinic Knights had found the proper range.

‘Luck, Sparhawk,’ Kring said tersely and melted off into the shadows.

‘Be careful, Sir Knights,’ Khalad cautioned them. ‘Those tree-stumps out there are dangerous in the dark.’

‘It won’t be dark when we charge, Khalad,’ Sparhawk assured him. ‘I’ve made some arrangements.’

Engessa slipped quietly through an opening in the palisade to join his warriors out in the forest.

‘Is it just my imagination, or does it seem to the rest of you that we’re dealing with someone who’s not really very sophisticated?’ Tynian said. ‘He doesn’t seem to have any conception of modern warfare or modern technology.’

‘I think the word you’re groping for is ‘stupid’, Tynian,’ Kalten chuckled.

‘I’m not so sure,’ Tynian frowned. ‘It was too dark for me to make out very much from the hilltop, but it looked almost as if he were forming up his troops into a phalanx. Nobody’s done that in the west for over a thousand years.’

‘It wouldn’t be very effective against mounted knights, would it?’ Kalten asked.

‘I’m not so sure. It would depend on how long his spears are and the size of those overlapping shields. He could give us trouble.’

‘Berit,’ Sparhawk said, ‘go back up the hill and tell Bevier to shift his catapults a bit. I’d like the enemy formation broken up.’

‘Right.’ The young knight turned and scrambled back on up the hill.

‘If he is using a phalanx formation,’ Tynian continued, ‘it means that he’s never come up against mounted troops before and that he’s used to fighting in open country.’

Bevier’s catapults began to hurl boulders at the shadowy formation at the far end of the cleared avenue.

‘Let’s get started,’ Sparhawk decided. ‘I was going to wait a while, but let’s see what we’re up against.’ He hauled himself up onto Faran’s back and led the knights to a position outside the palisade. Then he drew in a deep breath. ‘We could use a bit of light now, Divine One.’ He cast the thought out without even bothering to frame it in Styrick.

‘That’s really improper, Sparhawk,’ Aphrael’s voice in his ear was tart. ‘You know I’m not supposed to respond to prayers in Elenic.’

‘You know both languages. What difference does it make?’

‘It’s a question of style, Sparhawk.’

‘I’ll try to do better next time.’

‘I’d really appreciate it. How’s this?’

It began as a kind of pulsating lavender glow along the northern horizon. Then long streaks of pure, multicoloured light spread upward in seething, curtain-like sheets, wavering, undulating like a vast curtain shimmering against the night sky.

‘What is it?’ Khalad exclaimed.

‘The northern lights,’ Ulath grunted. ‘I’ve never seen them this far south—or quite so bright. I’m impressed, Sparhawk.’

The shimmering curtain of light, rising and falling, crept up and up into the darkness, erasing the stars and filling the night with rainbow light. A huge groan of consternation and awe rose from the army massing near the road. Sparhawk looked intently down the stump-dotted avenue. The soldiers facing them wore antique armour—breastplates, horse-hair crested helmets and large, round shields. They wore short swords and carried twelve-foot spears. Their front rank had evidently been formed with overlapping shields and advanced spears. Bevier’s catapults, however, had broken those tightly-packed ranks, and the rain of boulders continued to smash down among men so jammed together they could not flee.

Sparhawk watched grimly for a few moments. ‘All right, Ulath,’ he said at last, ‘sing the Ogre’s song for them.’

Ulath grinned and lifted his curled Ogre-horn to his lips and blew a single, deep-toned blast. The massed foot-troops, their ranks broken by the catapults and their minds filled with wonder and dismay by the sudden brilliant light covering half the sky, were in no way prepared to meet the awesome charge of the armoured knights and their massive horses. There was a resounding crash, and the front ranks of the massed foot-soldiers fell beneath the churning hooves of the war-horses. The knights discarded their lances, drew their swords and axes and fell to work, carving great swathes through the tightly-packed ranks.

‘Ulath!’ Sparhawk bellowed. ‘Turn loose the Peloi!’

Sir Ulath blew his Ogre-horn again—twice this time. The Peloi war-cries were shrill and ululating. Sparhawk glanced quickly along the road. The warriors Kring’s Peloi were attacking were not the same as the ones facing the knights. Sparhawk had led a charge against infantry, men in breastplates and horse-hair crested helmets who fought on foot. Kring was attacking mounted men, men wearing flowing robes and cloth head-coverings, all armed with curved swords much like the Peloi sabres. Quite obviously, the attacking force was comprised of two different elements.

There would be time later to ponder those differences. Right now, they were all very busy. Sparhawk swung his heavy broadsword rhythmically in huge overhead strokes that sheared down into the sea of horsehair-crested helmets surrounding him. He continued for several minutes until the sounds from along the road indicated that the Peloi were fully engaged.

‘Sir Ulath’ he roared. ‘Ask the Atans to join us!’

The Ogre-horn sang again—and again—and yet once again. Sounds of fighting erupted back among the trees. Enemy soldiers who had fled the charge of the knights and the slashing attack of the Peloi found no sanctuary in the woods. Engessa’s Atans, silent and deadly, moved through the eerie, multi-coloured light streaming down from the pulsating sky, seeking and destroying.

‘Sparhawk!’ Kalten shouted. ‘Look!’

Sparhawk jerked his head around, and his heart froze.

‘I thought that thing was dead!’ Kalten exclaimed.

The figure was robed and hooded all in black, and it was astride a gaunt horse. A kind of greenish nimbus surrounded it, and waves of implacable hatred seemed to shimmer out from it.

Sparhawk looked a bit more closely and then let out his breath relieved. ‘It’s not a Seeker,’ he told Kalten. ‘It’s got human hands. It’s probably the one we’ve been fighting, though.’

Then another man in black rode out from farther back in the trees. This one wore exaggeratedly dramatic clothing. He had on a black, wide-brimmed hat and wore a black bag with ragged eye-holes over his head.

‘Has this all been some sort of joke?’ Tynian demanded. ‘Is that who I think it is?’

‘I’d guess that it’s the one in the robe who’s been in charge,’ Ulath said. ‘I doubt that Sabre could successfully herd goats.’

‘Savour thine empty victory, Anakha,’ the hooded figure called in a hollow, strangely metallic voice. ‘I did but test thee that I might discern thy strength—and thy weaknesses. Go thy ways now. I have learned what I needed to learn. I will trouble thee no further—for now. But mistake me not, oh man without destiny, we will meet anon, and in our next meeting shall I try thee more significantly.’

Then Sabre and his hooded companion wavered and vanished. The wailing and groaning of the wounded enemies all around them suddenly broke off. Sparhawk looked around quickly. The strangely-armoured foot-troops he and his friends had been fighting were all gone. Only the dead remained. Back along the road in either direction, Kring’s Peloi were reining in their horses In amazement. The troops they had engaged had vanished as well, and startled exclamations from back among the trees indicated that the Atans had also been bereft of enemies.

‘‘What’s going on here?’ Kalten exclaimed.

‘I’m not sure,’ Sparhawk replied, ‘but I am sure that I don’t like it very much.’ He swung down from his saddle and turned one of the fallen enemies over with his foot. The body was little more than a dried husk, browned, Withered and totally desiccated. It looked very much like the body of a man who had been dead for several centuries at least.

‘We’ve encountered it once before, your Grace,’ Tynian was explaining to Patriarch Emban. It was nearly morning, and they were gathered once again atop the rocky hill. ‘Last time it was antique Lamorks. I don’t know what kind of antiques these were.’ He looked at the two mummified corpses the Atans had brought up the hill.

‘This one is a Cynesgan,’ Ambassador Oscagne said, pointing at one of the dead men.

‘Looks almost like a Render, doesn’t he?’ Talen observed.

‘There would be certain similarities,’ Oscagne agreed. ‘Cynesga is a desert, much like Render, and there are only so many kinds of clothing suitable for such a climate.’ The dead man in question was garbed in a flowing, loose-fitting robe, and his head was covered with a sort of cloth binding that flowed down to protect the back of his neck.

‘They aren’t very good fighters,’ Kring told them. ‘They all sort of went to pieces when we charged them.’

‘What about the other one, your Excellency?’ Tynian asked. ‘These ones in armour were very good fighters.’

The Tamul Ambassador’s eyes grew troubled. ‘That one’s a figment of someone’s imagination,’ he declared.

‘I don’t really think so, your Excellency,’ Sir Bevier disagreed. ‘The men we encountered back in Eosia had been drawn from the past. They were fairly exotic, I’ll grant you, but they had been living men once. Everything we’ve seen here tells us that we’ve run into the same thing again. This fellow’s most definitely not an imaginary soldier. He did live once, and what he’s wearing was his customary garb.’

‘It’s impossible,’ Oscagne declared adamantly.

‘Just for the sake of speculation, Oscagne,’ Emban said, ‘let’s shelve the word “impossible” for the time being. Who would you say he was if he weren’t impossible?’

‘It’s a very old legend,’ Oscagne said, his face still troubled. ‘We’re told that once, a long, long time ago, there were people in Cynesga who pre-dated the current inhabitants. The legend calls them the Cyrgai. Modern Cynesgans are supposed to be their degenerate descendants.’

‘They look as if they come from two different parts of the world,’ Kalten noted.

‘Cyrga, the city of the Cyrgai, was supposed to lie in the central highlands of Cynesga,’ Oscagne told him. ‘It’s higher than the surrounding desert, and the legend says there was a large, spring-fed lake there. The stories say that the climate there was markedly different from that of the desert. The Cyrgai wouldn’t have needed protection from the sun the way their bastard offspring would have. I’d imagine that there were indications of rank and status involved as well. Given the nature of the Cyrgai, they’d have definitely wanted to keep their inferiors from wearing the Cyrgai costume.’

‘They lived at the same time then?’ Tynian asked.

‘The legends are a little vague on that score, Sir Tynian. Evidently there was a period when the Cyrgai and the Cynesgans co-existed. The Cyrgai would certainly have been dominant, though.’ He made a face. ‘Why am I talking this way about a myth?’ he said plaintively.

‘This is a fairly substantial myth, Oscagne,’ Emban said, nudging the mummified Cyrgai with his foot. ‘I gather that these fellows had something of a reputation?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Oscagne said with distaste. ‘They had a hideous culture—all cruelty and militarism. They held themselves aloof from other peoples in order to avoid what they called contamination. They were said to be obsessively concerned with racial purity, and they were militantly opposed to any new ideas.’

‘That’s a futile sort of obsession,’ Tynian noted. ‘Any time you engage in trade, you’re going to encounter new ideas.’

‘The legends tell us they understood that, Sir Knight Trade was forbidden.’

‘No commerce at all?’ Kalten asked incredulously.

Oscagne shook his head. ‘They were supposed to be totally self-sufficient. They even went so far as to forbid the possession of gold or silver in their society.’

‘Monstrous!’ Stragen exclaimed. ‘They had no money at all?’

‘Iron bars, we’re told—heavy ones, I guess. It tended to discourage trade. They lived only for war. All the men were in the army, and all the women spent their time having babies. When they grew too old to either fight or bear children, they were expected to kill themselves. The legends say that they were the finest soldiers the world has ever known.’

‘The legends are exaggerated, Oscagne,’ Engessa told him. ‘I killed five of them myself. They spent a great deal of time flexing their muscles and posing with their weapons when they should have been paying attention to business.’

‘The ancients were very formal, Atan Engessa,’ Oscagne murmured.

‘Who was the fellow in the robe?’ Kalten asked. ‘The one who seemed to be trying to pass himself off as a Seeker?’

‘I’d guess that he holds a position somewhat akin to Gerrich in Lamorkand and to Sabre in Western Astel,’ Sparhawk surmised. ‘I was a little surprised to see Sabre here,’ he added. He had to step rather carefully here. Both he and Emban were sworn to secrecy on the matter of Sabre’s real identity.

‘Professional courtesy, no doubt,’ Stragen murmured. ‘The fact that he was here sort of confirms our guess that all these assorted upheavals and disturbances are tied together. There’s somebody in back of all this somebody we haven’t seen or even heard of yet. We’re going to have to catch one of these intermediaries of his and wring some information out of him sooner or later.’ The blond thief looked around. ‘What now?’ he asked.

‘How long did you say it would be until the Atans arrive from Sarsos, Engessa?’ Sparhawk asked the towering Atan.

‘They should arrive sometime the day after tomorrow, Sparhawk-Knight.’ The Atan glanced toward the east. ‘Tomorrow, that is,’ he corrected, ‘since it’s already starting to get light.’

‘We’ll care for our wounded and wait for them then,’ Sparhawk decided. ‘I like lots of friendly faces around me in times like this.’

‘One question, Sparhawk-Knight,’ Engessa said. ‘Who is Anakha?’

‘That’s Sparhawk,’ Ulath told him. ‘The Styrics call him that. It means “without destiny”.’

‘All men have a destiny, Ulath-Knight.’

‘Not Sparhawk, apparently, and you have no idea how nervous that makes the Gods.’

As Engessa had calculated, the Sarsos garrison arrived about noon the following day, and the hugely increased escort of the Queen of Elenia marched easterly. Two days later, they crested a hill and gazed down at a marble city situated in a broad green field backed by a dark forest stretching to the horizon.

Sparhawk had been sensing a familiar presence since early that morning, and he had ridden on ahead eagerly. Sephrenia was sitting on her white palfrey beside the road. She was a small, beautiful woman with black hair, snowy skin and deep blue eyes. She wore a white robe of a somewhat finer weave than the homespun she had normally worn in Eosia.

‘Hello, little mother,’ he smiled, saying it as if they had been apart for no more than a week. ‘You’ve been well, I trust?’ He removed his helmet.

‘Tolerable, Sparhawk.’ Her voice was rich and had that familiar lilt.

‘Will you permit me to greet you?’ he asked in that formal manner all Pandions used when meeting her after a separation.

‘Of course, dear one.’

Sparhawk dismounted, took her wrists and turned her hands over. Then he kissed her palms in the ritual Styric greeting. ‘And will you bless me, little mother?’ he asked.

She fondly placed her hands on his temples and spoke her benediction in Styric. ‘Help me down, Sparhawk,’ she commanded. He reached out and put his hands about her almost child-like waist. Then he lifted her easily from her saddle. Before he could set her down, however, she put her arms about his neck and kissed him full on the lips, something she had almost never done before. ‘I’ve missed you, my dear one,’ she breathed. ‘You cannot believe how I’ve missed you.’