‘Yes, Most Holy,’ Martel said, bowing. ‘I shall come back immediately.’
‘Within the hour, Sparhawk,’ Arasham said.
‘Within the hour, Most Holy,’ Sparhawk agreed with a deep bow ‘Come along then, Martel,’ he said, once again smacking his hand down on the renegade’s shoulder.
‘Of course.’ Martel winced, once again shrinking from Sparhawk’s comradely blow.
Once they were outside the pavilion, Martel turned on Sparhawk, his face white with fury ‘Just what do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded.
‘Testy today, aren’t we, old boy?” Sparhawk said mildly.
‘What are you up to, Sparhawk?’ Martel snarled, looking around to be sure that no one in the crowd of hovering disciples could hear him.
‘I’ve just spiked your wheel, Martel,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Arasham will sit here until he petrifies unless someone brings him that secret word. I can almost guarantee you that the Church Knights will be in Chyrellos when the time comes to elect the new Archprelate, because there won’t be anything going on in Rendor to drag them away.’
‘Very clever, Sparhawk.’
‘I’m glad you liked it.’
‘This is one more debt you owe me,’ Martel grated.
‘Feel free to call them in at any time, dear brother,’ Sparhawk said. ‘I’ll be more than happy to accommodate you.’ He took Sephrenia by the elbow and led her away.
‘Are you completely out of your senses, Sparhawk?’ she demanded once they were out of earshot of the fuming Martel.
‘I don’t think so,’ he replied. ‘Of course crazy people never really know, do they?’
‘What were you doing in there? Do you realize how many times I had to step in to keep you out of trouble?’
‘I noticed that. I couldn’t have pulled it off without you.’
‘Will you stop smirking and tell me what was behind all that?’
‘Martel was getting too close to our real reason for being here,’ he explained. ‘I had to throw something else in his path to keep him from realizing that we’d unearthed a possible antidote for the poison. It all worked out rather well, even if I do say so myself.’
‘If you knew you were going to do that before you went into the tent, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘How could I have known, Sephrenia? I didn’t even know Martel was there until I saw him.’
‘You mean.’ Her eyes went suddenly very wide.
He nodded. ‘I sort of made it up as I went along,’ he confessed.
‘Oh, Sparhawk,’ she said disgusted, ‘you know better than that.’
He shrugged. ‘It was about the best I could do at short notice.’
‘Why did you keep hitting Martel on the shoulder like that?’
‘He broke that shoulder when he was about fifteen. It’s always been very sensitive.’
‘That was cruel,’ she accused.
‘So was what happened in that alley back in Cippria ten years ago. Let’s go get Kurik and Flute. I think we’ve done about all we can here in Dabour.’
Arasham’s boat was more like a barge than the scow which had carried them upriver, and it was perhaps four times as large Banks of oarsmen lined each side, and black-robed zealots with swords and javelins clustered in the torchlit bow and stern. Martel had preceded them to the rickety dock, and he stood alone there, some distance from the hot-eyed disciples on shore, as Sparhawk, Sephrenia, Kurik, and Flute embarked. The renegade’s white hair gleamed in the starlight, and his face was very nearly as pale.
‘You’re not going to get away with this, Sparhawk,’ he said in a low voice.
‘Oh?’ Sparhawk said. ‘I think you’d better look again, Martel. It seems to me that I already have. You can try to follow me, of course, but all those troops patrolling the river banks are probably going to get in your way. Besides, I think that once you get over your pique, you’ll realize that about the only thing you can do is stay here and try to wheedle that magic word out of Arasham. Everything you’ve set up here in Rendor will be at a standstill until you do.’
‘You’ll pay for this, Sparhawk,’ Martel promised darkly.
‘I thought I already had, old boy,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘In Cippria, I believe it was.’ He reached out, and Martel jerked his shoulder out of range. Instead, however, Sparhawk patted him on the cheek insultingly. Take care of yourself, Martel,’ he said. ‘I want to see you again soon, and I want you to be well and in full possession of your faculties. Believe me, you’re going to need them.’ Then he turned and went up the gangway to the waiting barge.
The sailors cast off all lines and pushed the barge out into the slowly moving current. Then they ran out their oars and began to row slowly downriver. The dock behind them and the solitary man standing on the end of it shrank out of sight.
‘Oh, God!’ Sparhawk cried exultantly, ‘I loved that!’
The run downriver took them a day and a half, and they disembarked a league or so upstream from Jiroch to avoid any watchers Martel might have managed to get to the docks ahead of them. The precaution was probably unnecessary, Sparhawk admitted, but there was no point in taking chances. They entered the city through the west gate and mingled with the crowds as they made their way to Voren’s house again. It was late afternoon when they entered.
Voren was a trifle surprised at their reappearance ‘That was quick,’ he said as they entered his garden.
‘We were lucky,’ Sparhawk shrugged.
‘More than lucky,’ Sephrenia said darkly The small woman’s temper had not noticeably improved since they had left Dabour, and she still refused even to talk to Sparhawk.
‘Did something go wrong?’ Voren asked mildly.
‘Not that I noticed,’ Sparhawk replied blithely.
‘Stop congratulating yourself, Sparhawk,’ she snapped. ‘I’m vexed with you, very vexed.’
‘I’m sorry about that, Sephrenia, but I did the best I could.’ He turned to Voren. ‘We ran into Martel,’ he explained, ‘and I managed to stop him in his tracks. His whole scheme just collapsed around his ears.’
Voren whistled. ‘I don’t see anything wrong with that, Sephrenia.’
‘It’s not what he did, Voren. It was the way he did it.’
‘Oh?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She gathered Flute up in her arms, went to the bench by the fountain, and sat muttering darkly to the little girl in Styric.
‘We need a way to get aboard a fast ship bound for Vardenais without being seen,’ Sparhawk told Voren. ‘Can you come up with something?’
‘Quite easily,’ Voren replied. ‘Every so often the true identity of one of our brothers is exposed. We’ve devised a way to get them out of Rendor safely’ He smiled ironically ‘It was the first thing I did when I got to Jiroch, actually I was fairly sure I was going to need it for myself almost immediately I have a wharf down in the harbour. There’s a waterfront inn not far away It’s run by one of our brothers, and it has all the things an inn usually has—taproom, stables, sleeping rooms upstairs, and the like. It’s also got a cellar, and there’s a passageway running from that one to the cellar of my main warehouse. At low tide you can board a ship directly from that cellar without being seen by anyone on shore.’
‘Would that fool the Damork, Sephrenia?’ Sparhawk asked her.
She glared at him for a moment, then relented. She touched the fingertips of one hand lightly to her temple. Sparhawk noted that there was more silver there now. ‘I think it would,’ she replied. ‘We don’t even know that the Damork is here Martel could actually have been telling us the truth.’
‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ Kurik grunted.
‘Even so,’ she continued, ‘the Damork probably couldn’t begin to grasp the concept of a cellar—much less underground passageways.’
‘What’s a Damork?’ Voren asked.
Sparhawk told him and described what had happened to Captain Mabin’s ship in the Arcian Strait just out from Madel.
Voren rose and began to pace up and down. ‘That’s not the sort of thing our escape route was designed to cope with,’ he admitted. ‘I. think I’d better take some additional precautions. I’ve got six ships in port just now Why don’t I just send them all out at the same time? If you sail out in the middle of a flotilla, it might add a bit more confusion.’
‘Isn’t that a bit elaborate?’ Sparhawk asked him.
‘Sparhawk, I know how modest you are, but you’re probably the most important man in the world just now—at least you are until you get to Cimmura and make your report to Vanion. I’m not going to take any chances with you if I can help it.’ He went to the garden wall and squinted at the setting sun. ‘We’re going to have to hurry,’ he told them. ‘Low tide this evening comes just after dusk, and I’ll want you in the cellar when the ship’s rail drops below the edge of the wharf. I’ll go with you to make sure you get on board safely.’
They all rode out together towards the waterfront. Their route took them through the familiar quarter where Sparhawk had maintained his shop during the years he had been hidden there The buildings on either side of the street were almost like old friends, and he thought he recognized a few of the people hurrying home through the narrow streets as the sun sank towards the western horizon.
‘Brute” The voice from behind them probably carried halfway across the Arcian Strait, and it was painfully familiar ‘Assassin!’
‘Oh, no!’ Sparhawk groaned, reining Faran in. ‘And we were so close’ He looked longingly at the waterfront inn to which Voren was leading them and which was but one street away.
‘Monster!’ the voice went on in a strident tone.
‘Uh Sparhawk,’ Kurik said mildly, ‘is it my imagination, or is that lady trying to get your attention?’
‘Just let it lie, Kurik.’
‘Anything you say, my Lord.’
‘Assassin! Brute! Monster! Deserter!’
There was a brief pause ‘Murderer!’ the woman added.
‘I never did that,’ Sparhawk murmured. He sighed and turned Faran around. ‘Hello, Lillias,’ he said to the robed and veiled woman who had been shouting at him. He spoke in as mild and inoffensive a tone as he could manage.
‘Hello, Lillias?’ she shrieked. ‘Hello, Lillias! Is that all you have to say for yourself, brigand?’
Sparhawk tried very hard not to smile In a peculiar way, he loved Lillias and he was pleased to see her enjoying herself so much. ‘You’re looking well, Lillias,’ he said conversationally, knowing that a comment like that would spur her to new heights.
‘Well? Well? When you have murdered me? When you have cut my heart out? When you have sunk me in the mire of deepest despair?’ She leaned back in a tragic posture, head up and arms thrown wide. ‘Hardly a morsel of food has passed my lips since that hateful day when you abandoned me penniless in the gutter.’
‘I left you the shop, Lillias,’ he protested. ‘It fed us both before I left. Surely it still feeds you.’
‘Shop! What do I care about the shop? It is my heart that you have broken, Mahkra!’ She thrust back her hood and ripped off her veil. ‘Assassin!’ she cried. ‘Look at your handiwork!’ She began to tear at her long, glossy black hair and to gouge at her dark, full-lipped face with her fingernails.
‘Lillias!’ Sparhawk barked in the tone he had only had to use a few times during their years together. ‘Stop that! You’ll hurt yourself.’
But Lillias was in full voice now, and there was no stopping her. ‘Hurt?’ she cried tragically ‘What do I care about hurt? How can you hurt a dead woman? You want to see hurt, Mahkra? Look at my heart!’ She ripped open the front of her robe It was not her heart, however, that she revealed.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Kurik said in an awed voice, staring at the woman’s suddenly revealed attributes. Voren turned his head aside, concealing a smile. Sephrenia, however, looked at Sparhawk with a slightly different expression.
‘Oh, God,’ Sparhawk groaned. He swung down from his saddle ‘Lillias!’ he muttered sharply to her ‘Cover yourself! Think of the neighbours—and all the children watching.’
‘What do I care about the neighbours? Let them look!’ She thrust out her full breasts. ‘What does shame mean to a woman whose heart is dead?’
Grimly, Sparhawk advanced on her. When he got close enough, he spoke quietly to her from between clenched teeth. ‘They’re very nice, Lillias,’ he said, ‘but I don’t really think they’re much of a surprise to any man within six streets in any direction. Do you really want to go on with this?’
She suddenly looked a little less certain, but she did not close the front of her robe.
‘Have it your way,’ he shrugged. Then he too raised his voice ‘Your heart is not dead, Lillias,’ he declared to the audience breathlessly clustered on their balconies. ‘Far from it, I think. What of Georgias the baker? And Nendan the sausage-maker?’ He was selecting names at random.
Her face blanched, and she shrank back, covering her generous bosom with her robe ‘You know?’ she faltered.
That hurt him just a little, but he covered it. ‘Of course,’ he declared, still playing to the balconies, ‘but I forgive you. You are much woman, Lillias, and not meant to be alone’ He reached out and gently covered her hair with her hood again. ‘Have you been well?’ he asked her very softly.
‘I get by,’ she whispered.
‘Good. Are we almost done?’
‘I think we need something to round it out, don’t you?’ Her face looked hopeful.
He tried very hard to keep from laughing.
‘This is serious, Mahkra,’ she hissed. ‘My position in the community depends on it.’
‘Trust me,’ he murmured. ‘You have betrayed me, Lillias,’ he said to the balconies, ‘but I forgive you, for I have not been here to keep you from straying.’
She considered that for a moment, then sobbed, fell into his arms and buried her face in his chest. ‘It’s just that I missed you so much, my Mahkra. I weakened. I am but a poor, ignorant woman—a slave to my passions. Can you ever truly forgive me?’
‘What is there to forgive, my Lillias?’ he said grandly. ‘You are like the earth—like the sea. To give is a part of your nature.’
She thrust herself back from him. ‘Beat me!’ she demanded. ‘I deserve to be beaten!’ Huge tears, genuine for all he knew, stood in her glowing black eyes.
‘Oh, no,’ he refused, knowing exactly where that would lead. ‘No beatings, Lillias,’ he said. ‘Only this,’ and he gave her a single chaste kiss full on the lips. ‘Be well, Lillias,’ he murmured softly. Then he stepped back quickly before she could wrap her arms about his neck. He knew just how strong her arms were. ‘And now, though it rends my soul, I must leave you again,’ he declaimed. He reached out and drew her veil once again across her face ‘Think of me from time to time whilst I seek out the fate that destiny has in store for me.’ He did manage to resist the impulse to lay his hand on his heart.
‘I knew it!’ she cried, more to the onlookers than to him. ‘I knew that you were a man of affairs! I shall carry our love in my heart for all eternity, my Mahkra, and I shall remain faithful to you to the grave. And if you live, come back to me.’ She had both arms spread wide again. ‘And if you do not, send your ghost to me in my dreams, and I will comfort your pale shade as best I can.’
He backed away from her outstretched arms. Then he spun so that his robe would swirl dramatically—he owed her that much and vaulted into Faran’s saddle. ‘Farewell, my Lillias,’ he said melodramatically, jerking the reins to make Faran rear and paw the air with his front hooves. ‘And if we do not meet again in this world, may God grant that we meet once more in the next.’ And he drove his heels into Faran’s flanks and charged past her at a gallop.
‘Did you do all that on purpose?’ Sephrenia asked as they dismounted in the courtyard of the waterfront inn.
‘I might have got a little carried away,’ Sparhawk admitted. ‘Lillias does that to a
man from time to time.’ He smiled a bit ruefully. ‘She gets her heart broken on an average of three times a week,’ he noted clinically. ‘She was always militantly unfaithful and just a little dishonest where the cashbox was concerned. She’s vain and vulgar and self-indulgent. She’s deceptive and greedy and grossly overdramatic’ He paused then, thinking back over the years. ‘I liked her, though. She’s a good girl, despite her faults, and living with her was never dull. I owed her that performance. She’ll be able to walk through the quarter like a queen now, and it didn’t really cost me all that much, did it?’
‘Sparhawk,’ she said gravely, ‘I will never understand you.’
‘That’s what makes it all so much fun, isn’t it, little mother?’ He grinned at her.
Flute, still sitting on Sephrenia’s white horse, blew a mocking little trill on her pipes.
Talk with her,’ Sparhawk suggested to Sephrenia. ‘She understands.’
Flute rolled her eyes at him, then generously held out her hands to permit him to help her down.
Chapter 24
The voyage across the mouth of the Arcian Strait passed without incident. They ran northeasterly under clear skies with a fair following breeze and with the other ships of Voren’s flotilla clustered about them protectively.
About noon on the third day out, Sparhawk came up on deck to join Sephrenia in the bow where she and Flute stood looking out over the sparkling waves. ‘Are you still cross with me?’ he asked her.
She sighed. ‘No. I suppose not.’
Sparhawk was not entirely certain how to put his vague sense of unease into words, so he approached it obliquely. ‘Sephrenia,’ he said, ‘did it seem to you that everything in Dabour went just a little too smoothly? I somehow get the feeling that I’m being led around by the nose again.’
‘How do you mean, exactly?’
‘I know you tampered with Arasham a few times that night, but did you do anything to Martel?’
‘No. He’d have felt it if I’d tried and he’d have countered me.’