‘Who’s Platime?’
‘The best thief in Cimmura at least he was before he got so fat.’
‘Do you consort with thieves?’
‘I’m a thief myself, Berit. It’s an ancient and honourable profession.’
‘Hardly honourable.’
‘That depends on your point of view. All right, what happened after King Abrech got killed?’
‘The war with the Eshandists settled down into a stalemate,’ Berit took up the account. ‘There were raids back and forth across the Inner Sea and the Arcian Straits, but the nobles on both sides had other things on their minds. Eshand had died, and his successors were not nearly as zealous as he’d been. The Hierocracy of the Church in Chyrellos kept trying to prod the nobility into pressing the war, but the nobles were far more interested in politics than in theology.’
‘How long did it go on like that?’
‘For nearly three centuries.’
‘They took their wars seriously in those days, didn’t they? Wait a minute Where were the Church Knights during all of this?’
‘I’m just coming to that. When it became obvious that the nobility had lost its enthusiasm for the war, the Hierocracy gathered in Chyrellos to consider alternatives. What finally emerged was the idea of founding the militant orders to continue the struggle. The knights of the four orders all received training far beyond that given ordinary warriors; in addition, they were given instruction in the secrets of Styricum.’
‘What are those?’
‘Magic.’
‘Oh. Why didn’t you say so?’
‘I did. Pay attention, Talen.’
‘Did the Church Knights win the war then?’
‘They conquered all of Rendor, and the Eshandists finally capitulated. During their early years the militant orders were ambitious, and they began to carve Rendor up into four huge duchies. But then a far worse danger came out of the east.’
‘Zemoch?’ Talen guessed.
‘Exactly The invasion of Lamorkand came without any—’
‘Sparhawk!’ Kalten said sharply. ‘Up there!’ He pointed at a nearby hilltop. A dozen armed men had suddenly come riding over the crest and were crashing down through the bracken at a gallop.
Sparhawk and Kalten drew their swords and spurred forward to meet the charge. Kurik ranged out to one side shaking a spiked chain mace free from his saddle. Berit took the other side wielding his heavy-bladed battle-axe.
The two armoured knights crashed into the centre of the charge. Sparhawk felled two of the attackers in quick succession as Kalten chopped another out of his saddle with a rapid series of savage sword strokes. One man tried to flank them, but fell twitching as Kurik’s mace crushed in the side of his head. Sparhawk and Kalten were in the very centre of the attackers now, swinging their heavy broadswords in vast overhead strokes. Then Berit charged in from the flank, his axe crunching into the bodies of the riders on that side. After a few moments of concerted violence, the survivors broke and fled.
‘What was that all about?’ Kalten demanded. The blond man was red-faced and panting from his exertions.
‘I’ll chase one of them down and ask him, my Lord,’ Berit offered eagerly.
‘No,’ Sparhawk told him.
Berit’s face fell.
‘A novice must not volunteer, Berit,’ Kurik told the young man sternly, ‘at least, not until he’s proficient with his weapons.’
‘I did all right, Kurik,’ Berit protested.
‘Only because these people weren’t very good,’ Kurik said. ‘Your swings are too wide, Berit. You leave yourself open for counterstrokes. When we get to my farm in Demos, I’ll give you some more instruction.’
‘Sparhawk!’ Sephrenia cried from the bottom of the hill.
Sparhawk spun Faran quickly around and saw five men on foot wearing the rough smocks of Styrics running out of the bushes beside the road towards Sephrenia, Dolmant, and Talen. He swore and drove his spurs into Faran’s flanks.
It quickly became obvious that the Styrics were trying to reach Sephrenia and Flute. Sephrenia, however, was not utterly defenceless. One of the Styrics fell squealing to the ground, clutching at his belly. Another dropped to his knees, clawing at his eyes. The other three faltered, fatally as it turned out, because by then Sparhawk was there He sent one man’s head flying with a single swipe of his sword, then drove his blade into the chest of another. The last Styric tried to flee, but Faran took the bit between his teeth and ran him down with three quick bounds and trampled him into the earth with his steel-shod forehooves.
‘There!’ Sephrenia said sharply, pointing at the hilltop. A robed and hooded figure sat astride a pale horse, watching. Even as the small Styric woman began her incantation, the figure turned and rode back over the hill and out of sight.
‘Who were they?’ Kalten asked as he joined them on the road.
‘Mercenaries,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘You could tell by their armour.’
‘Was that one up on the hill the leader?’ Dolmant asked.
Sephrenia nodded.
‘He was a Styric, wasn’t he?’
‘Perhaps, but perhaps something else I sensed something familiar about him. Once before something tried to attack the little girl. Whatever it was, it was driven off. This time it tried more direct means.’ Her face grew dreadfully serious. ‘Sparhawk,’ she said, ‘I think we should ride on to Demos as quickly as we can. It’s very dangerous out here in the open.’
‘We could question the wounded,’ he suggested. ‘Maybe they could tell us something about this mysterious Styric who seems so interested in you and Flute.’
‘They won’t be able to tell you anything, Sparhawk,’ she disagreed. ‘If what was up there on that hill was what I think it was, they won’t even have any memory of it.’
‘All right,’ he decided, ‘let’s ride then.’
It was midafternoon when they reached Kurik’s substantial farmstead just outside Demos. The farm showed Kurik’s careful attention to detail. The logs forming the wall of his large house had been adzed square and they fitted tightly together with no need for chinking. The roof was constructed of overlapping split shakes. There were several outbuildings and storage sheds all built back into the side of the hill just behind the house, and the two-storey barn was of substantial size The carefully tended kitchen garden was surrounded by a sturdy rail fence A single brown and white calf stood at the fence looking wistfully at the wilted carrot tops and frost-browned cabbages inside the garden.
Two tall young men about the same age as Berit were splitting firewood in the yard, and two others, slightly older, were repairing the barn-roof. They all wore rough canvas smocks.
Kurik swung down from his saddle and approached the two in the yard. ‘How long has it been since you sharpened those axes?’ he demanded gruffly.
‘Father!’ one of the young men exclaimed. He dropped his axe and roughly embraced Kurik. He was, Sparhawk noticed, at least a head taller than his sire.
The other lad shouted to his brothers on the roof of the barn, and they came sliding down to leap from the edge with no apparent concern for life or limb.
Then Aslade came bustling out of the house. She was a plump woman wearing a grey homespun dress and a white apron. Her hair was touched at the temples with silver, but the dimples in her cheeks made her look girlish. She caught Kurik in a warm embrace, and for several moments Sparhawk’s squire was surrounded by his family Sparhawk watched almost wistfully.
‘Regrets, Sparhawk?’ Sephrenia asked him gently.
‘A few, I suppose,’ he admitted.
‘You should have listened to me when you were younger, dear one That could be you, you know.’
‘My profession’s a little too dangerous for me to include a wife and children in my life, Sephrenia.’ He sighed.
‘When the time comes, dear Sparhawk, you won’t even consider that.’
‘The time, I think, has long since passed.’
‘We’ll see,’ s
he replied mysteriously.
‘We have guests, Aslade,’ Kurik told his wife.
Aslade dabbed at her misty eyes with one corner of her apron and crossed to where Sparhawk and the others sat, still mounted. ‘Welcome to our home,’ she greeted them simply She curtsied to Sparhawk and Kalten, both of whom she had known since they were boys. ‘My Lords,’ she said formally Then she laughed. ‘Come down here, you two,’ she said, ‘and give me a kiss.’
Like two clumsy boys they slid from their saddles and embraced her ‘You’re looking well, Aslade,’ Sparhawk said, trying to recover some degree of dignity in the presence of Patriarch Dolmant.
‘Thank you, my Lord,’ she said with a mocking little curtsey Aslade had known them far too long to pay much attention to customary usages. Then she smiled broadly. She patted her ample hips. ‘I’m getting stouter, Sparhawk,’ she said. ‘It comes from all the tasting when I cook, I think.’ She shrugged good-humouredly ‘But you can’t tell if it’s right unless you taste it.’ Then she turned to Sephrenia. ‘Dear, dear Sephrenia,’ she said, ‘it’s been so long.’
‘Too long, Aslade,’ Sephrenia replied, sliding down from the back of her white palfrey and taking Aslade in her arms. Then she said something in Styric to Flute, and the little girl came shyly forward and kissed Aslade’s palms.
‘What a beautiful child,’ Aslade said. She looked a bit slyly at Sephrenia. ‘You should have told me, my dear,’ she said. ‘I’m a very good midwife, you know, and I’m just a little hurt that you didn’t invite me to officiate.’
Sephrenia looked startled at that, then suddenly burst out laughing. ‘It’s not like that at all, Aslade,’ she said. ‘There’s a kinship between the child and me, but not the one you suggested.’
Aslade smiled at Dolmant. ‘Come down from your horse, your Grace,’ she invited the patriarch. ‘Would the Church permit us an embrace—a chaste one, of course? Then you’ll get your reward. I’ve just taken five loaves from the oven, and they’re still nice and hot.’
Dolmant’s eyes brightened, and he quickly dismounted. Aslade threw her arms about his neck and kissed him noisily on the cheek. ‘He married Kurik and me, you know,’ she said to Sephrenia.
‘Yes, dear I was there, remember?’
Aslade blushed. ‘I remember very little about the ceremony,’ she confessed. ‘I had my mind on other things that day ‘ She gave Kurik a wicked little smile.
Sparhawk carefully concealed a grin when he saw his squire’s face redden noticeably.
Aslade looked inquiringly at Berit and Talen.
‘The husky lad is Berit,’ Kurik introduced them. ‘He’s a Pandion novice.’
‘You’re welcome here, Berit,’ she told him.
‘And the boy is my—uh—apprentice,’ Kurik fumbled. ‘I’m training him up to be a squire.’
Aslade looked appraisingly at the young thief. ‘His clothes are a disgrace, Kurik,’ she said critically. ‘Couldn’t you have found him something better to wear?’
‘He’s only recently joined us, Aslade,’ Kurik explained a little too quickly.
She looked even more sharply at Talen. ‘Do you know something, Kurik?’ she said. ‘He looks almost exactly the way you looked when you were his age.’
Kurik coughed nervously ‘Coincidence,’ he muttered.
Aslade smiled at Sephrenia. ‘Would you believe that I was after Kurik from the time I was six years old? It took me ten years, but I got him in the end. Come down from your horse, Talen. I have a trunk full of clothes my sons have outgrown. We’ll find something for you to wear.’
Talen’s face had a strange, almost wistful expression as he dismounted, and Sparhawk felt a sharp pang of sympathy as he realized what the usually impudent boy must be feeling. He sighed and turned to Dolmant. ‘Do you want to go to the cloister now, your Grace?’ he asked.
‘And leave Aslade’s freshly baked bread to get cold?’ Dolmant protested. ‘Be reasonable, Sparhawk.’
Sparhawk laughed as Dolmant turned to Kurik’s wife. ‘You have fresh butter, I hope?’ he asked.
‘Churned yesterday morning, your Grace,’ she replied, ‘and I just opened a pot of that plum jam you’re so fond of. Shall we step into the kitchen?’
‘Why don’t we?’
Almost absently, Aslade picked up Flute in one arm and wrapped the other about Talen’s shoulders. And then, with the children close to her, she led the way into the house.
The walled cloister in which Princess Arissa was confined stood in a wooded glen on the far side of the city Men were seldom admitted into this strict community of women, but Dolmant’s rank and authority in the Church gained them immediate entry A submissive little sister with doelike eyes and a bad complexion led them to a small garden near the south wall where they found the princess, sister of the late King Aldreas, sitting on a stone bench in the wan winter sunlight with a large book in her lap.
The years had touched Arissa only lightly Her long, dark blonde hair was lustrous, and her eyes a pale blue, so pale as to closely resemble the grey eyes of her niece, Queen Ehlana, although the dark circles beneath them spoke of long, sleepless nights filled with bitterness and a towering resentment. Her mouth was thin-lipped rather than sensual, and there were two hard lines of discontent at its corners. Although Sparhawk knew that she was approaching forty, her features were those of a much younger woman. She did not wear the habit of the sisters of the nunnery, but was wrapped instead in a soft red woollen robe open at the throat, and her head was crowned with an intricately folded wimple. ‘I’m honoured by your visit, gentlemen,’ she said in a husky voice, not bothering to rise. ‘I have so few visitors.’
‘Your Highness,’ Sparhawk greeted her formally. ‘I trust you’ve been well?’
‘Well, but bored, Sparhawk.’ Then she looked at Dolmant. ‘You’ve aged, your Grace,’ she observed spitefully, closing her book.
‘But you have not,’ he replied. ‘Will you accept my blessing, Princess?’
‘I think not, your Grace. The Church has done quite enough for me already.’ She looked meaningfully around at the walls enclosing the garden, and her refusal of the customary blessing seemed to give her some pleasure.
He sighed. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘What is the book you read?’ he asked her.
She held it up for him to see.
‘The Sermons of the Primate Subata,’ he noted, ‘a most instructional work.’
She smiled maliciously. ‘This particular edition is even more so,’ she told him. ‘I had it made especially for me, your Grace. Within this innocent-looking cover, which deceives the Mother Superior who is my jailer, there lurks a volume of salacious erotic poetry from Cammoria. Would you care to have me read you a few verses?’
His eyes hardened. ‘No, thank you, Princess,’ he replied coldly ‘You have not changed, I see.’
She laughed mockingly ‘I see no reason to change, Dolmant. I have merely altered my circumstances.’
‘Our visit here is not social, Princess,’ he said. ‘A rumour has surfaced in Cimmura that prior to your being cloistered here, you were secretly married to Duke Osten of Vardenais. Would you care to confirm—or deny—that rumour?’
‘Osten?’ She laughed. ‘That dried-up old stick? Who in her right mind would marry a man like that? I like my men younger, more ardent.’
‘You deny the rumour, then?’
‘Of course I deny it. I’m like the Church, Dolmant. I offer my bounty to all men—as everyone in Cimmura knows.’
‘Would you sign a document declaring the rumour to be false?’
‘I’ll think about it.’ She looked at Sparhawk. ‘What are you doing back in Elenia, Sir Knight? I thought my brother exiled you.’
‘I was summoned back, Arissa.’
‘How very interesting.’
Sparhawk thought of something. ‘Did you receive a dispensation to attend your brother’s funeral, Princess?’ he asked her.
‘Why, yes, Sparhawk. The Church generously granted me three
whole days of mourning. My poor, stupid brother looked very regal as he lay on his bier in his state robes.’ She critically examined her long, pointed fingernails. ‘Death improves some people,’ she added.
‘You hated him, didn’t you?’
‘I held him in contempt, Sparhawk. There’s a difference. I always used to bathe whenever I left him.’
Sparhawk held out his hand, showing her the blood-red ring on his finger ‘Did you happen to notice if he had the mate to this on his finger?’ he asked her.
She frowned slightly ‘No,’ she said. ‘As a matter of fact he didn’t. Perhaps the brat stole it after he died.’
Sparhawk clenched his teeth.
‘Poor, poor Sparhawk,’ she said mockingly ‘You cannot bear to hear the truth about your precious Ehlana, can you? We used to laugh about your attachment to her when she was a child. Did you have hopes, great Champion? I saw her at my brother’s funeral. She’s not a child any more, Sparhawk. She has the hips and breasts of a woman now But she’s sealed up in a diamond, isn’t she, so you can’t even touch her? All that soft, warm skin, and you can’t even put so much as a finger on it.’
‘I don’t think we need to pursue this, Arissa.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Who is your son’s father?’ he asked her suddenly, hoping to startle the truth out of her.
She laughed. ‘How could I possibly know that?’ she asked. ‘After my brother’s wedding, I amused myself in a certain establishment in Cimmura.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It was both enjoyable and profitable. I made a very great deal of money Most of the girls there overpriced themselves, but I learned as a child that the secret of great wealth is to sell cheaply to many’ She looked maliciously at Dolmant. ‘Besides,’ she added, ‘it’s a renewable resource.’
Dolmant’s face grew stiff, and Arissa laughed coarsely.
‘That’s enough, Princess,’ Sparhawk told her. ‘You would not care then to hazard a guess as to the identity of your bastard’s father?’ He said it quite deliberately, hoping to sting her into some inadvertent revelation.
Her eyes flashed with momentary anger, then she leaned back on the stone bench with a heavy-lidded look of voluptuous amusement. She put her hands to the front of her scarlet robe ‘I’m a bit out of practice, but I suppose I could improvise Would you like to try me, Sparhawk?’