Читать книгу The Complete Tamuli Trilogy: Domes of Fire, The Shining Ones, The Hidden City - David Eddings - Страница 27

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 axestroke, 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 signalled 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 lustre 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.’ Tikume smiled. ‘We are an openfaced 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 Soros 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, Sparhawk-Knight.’ 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 ruefully.

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 co-operating 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 bird-song 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.’