‘That’s what I thought. What was wrong with him then?’
‘I’m not sure I follow you.’
‘He acted almost like a schoolboy. We both know Martel. He’s intelligent, and he thinks very fast on his feet. What I did was so obvious that he should have seen through it almost immediately, but he didn’t do a thing. He just stood there like an idiot and let me pull his whole scheme down around his ears. It was just too easy, and that worries me.’
‘He didn’t really expect to see us in Arasham’s tent, Sparhawk. Maybe the surprise threw him off balance.’
‘Martel doesn’t surprise all that easily.’
She frowned. ‘No,’ she admitted, ‘he doesn’t, does he?’ She thought about it. ‘Do you remember what Lord Darellon was saying before we left Cimmura?’
‘Not exactly, no.’
‘He said that Annias behaved like a simpleton when he presented his case to the Elene kings. He announced the death of Count Radun without even verifying the fact that the count had really died.’
‘Oh, yes, now I remember. And you said that the whole scheme—the attempt to murder the count and to lay the blame on the Pandions might have originated with a Styric magician.’
‘Perhaps it goes a little farther than that. We know that Martel has had contacts with a Damork, and that means that Azash is involved somehow Azash has always dealt with Styrics, so he’s had very little experience with the subtleties of the Elene mind. The Gods of Styricum are very direct, and they seldom prepare for contingencies—probably because of the Styric lack of sophistication. Now, the whole purpose of the plot in Arcium and the one in Rendor has been to keep the Church Knights out of Chyrellos during the election. Annias behaved the way a Styric would have in the palace at Cimmura, and Martel behaved the same way in Arasham’s tent.’
‘You’re a little inconsistent, Sephrenia,’ he objected. ‘First you try to tell me that Styrics are unsophisticated, then you come up with an explanation so complicated that I can’t even follow it. Why don’t you just say what you mean?’
‘Azash has always dominated the minds of his followers,’ she replied, ‘and for the most part, they’ve been Styrics. If Annias and Martel both start behaving like Styrics, it raises some very interesting possibilities, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I’m sorry, Sephrenia, but I can’t accept that. Whatever other faults he may have, Martel’s still an Elene; and Annias is a churchman. Neither one of them would give his soul to Azash.’
‘Not consciously, perhaps, but Azash has ways to subvert the minds of people he finds useful.’
‘Where does all this lead?’
‘I’m not entirely sure, but it seems that Azash has some reason to want Annias to be the new Archprelate It’s something we might want to keep in mind. If Azash is controlling Annias and Martel, they’re both going to be thinking like Styrics, and Styrics don’t react very fast when they’re surprised. It’s a racial trait. Surprise could be our best weapon.’
‘Was that why you were so angry with me—because I surprised you?’
‘Of course I thought you knew that.’
‘Next time, I’ll try to warn you.’
‘I’d appreciate that.’
Two days later their ship entered the estuary of the River Ucera and sailed up towards the Elenian port city of Vardenais. As they approached the wharves, however, Sparhawk saw trouble Men in red tunics were patrolling the waterfront.
‘Now what?’ Kurik asked as the two of them crouched behind a low deckhouse to keep out of sight.
Sparhawk frowned. ‘I suppose we could sail across the bay and go inland on the Arcian side.’
‘If they’re watching the seaports, they’re bound to be patrolling the border as well. Use your head, Sparhawk.’
‘Maybe we could slip across at night.’
‘Isn’t what we’re doing a little too important to hang it all on a “maybe”?’ Kurik asked pointedly.
Sparhawk started to swear. ‘We’ve got to get to Cimmura,’ he said. ‘It’s getting close to the time when another of the twelve knights is going to die, and I don’t know how much more of the weight Sephrenia can carry. Think, Kurik. You’re always better at tactics than I am.’
‘That’s because I don’t wear armour. The sense of invincibility does funny things to a man’s brains.’
‘Thanks,’ Sparhawk said dryly.
Kurik knit his brows in thought.
‘Well?’ Sparhawk said impatiently.
‘I’m working on it. Don’t rush me.’
‘We’re getting closer to the wharf, Kurik.’
‘I can see that. Can you tell if they’re searching any of the ships?’
Sparhawk raised his head and peered over the top of the deckhouse ‘They don’t seem to be.’
‘Good. That means we won’t have to make any spur-of-the-moment decisions. We can go below and work this out.’
‘Any ideas at all?’
‘You’re pushing, Sparhawk,’ Kurik said disapprovingly. ‘That’s one of your failings, you know You always want to dash into the middle of things before you’ve thought your way completely through what you’re going to do.’
Their ship hove to beside a tar-smeared wharf, and the sailors cast lines to the longshoremen clustered there. Then they ran out the gangway and began to carry boxes and bales down to the wharf.
There was a clattering sound from the hold, and Faran trotted up on deck. Sparhawk stared at his war horse in amazement. Flute sat cross-legged on the big roan’s broad back playing her pipes. The melody she played was a peculiarly drowsy one, almost like a lullaby. Before Sparhawk and Kurik could run to intercept her, she tapped Faran’s back with the side of her foot, and he placidly walked down the gangway to the wharf.
‘What is she doing?’ Kurik exclaimed.
‘I can’t even begin to guess. Get Sephrenia—fast!’
On the wharf, Flute rode directly towards the squad of church soldiers stationed at the far end. The soldiers had been closely examining every disembarking passenger and sailor, but they paid no attention to Flute and the roan horse She impudently rode back and forth in front of them several times, then turned. She seemed to be looking directly at Sparhawk and, still playing her pipes, she raised one little hand and motioned to him.
He stared at her.
She made a little face and then quite deliberately rode directly through the soldiers’ ranks. They absently stepped aside for her, but not one of them so much as looked at her.
‘What’s going on down there?’ he demanded as Sephrenia and Kurik joined him behind the deckhouse.
‘I’m not altogether sure,’ Sephrenia replied, frowning.
‘Why aren’t the soldiers paying any attention to her?’ Kurik asked as Flute rode through the ranks of red tunics once again.
‘I don’t think they can see her.’
‘But she’s right there in front of them.’
‘That doesn’t seem to matter.’ Her face slowly took on an expression of wonder ‘I’d heard about this,’ she murmured. ‘I thought it was just an old folk tale, but perhaps I was wrong.’ She turned to Sparhawk. ‘Has she looked back at the ship at all since she rode down onto that wharf?’
‘She sort of motioned to me to follow her,’ he said.
‘You’re sure?’
‘That’s the way it looked to me.’
She drew in a deep breath. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s one way to find out, I suppose.’ Before Sparhawk could stop her, she rose and walked out from behind the deckhouse.
‘Sephrenia!’ he called after her, but she continued on across the deck as if she had not heard him. She reached the rail and stood there.
‘She’s right out in plain sight,’ Kurik said in a strangled tone.
‘I can see that.’
‘The soldiers are certain to have a description of her. Has she gone out of her mind?’
‘I doubt it. Look.’ Sparhawk pointed towards the soldiers on the wharf. Although Sephrenia was standing in
plain view, they did not even appear to look at her.
Flute, however, saw her and made another of those imperious little gestures.
Sephrenia sighed and looked at Sparhawk. ‘Wait here,’ she said.
‘Wait where?’
‘Here on board ship.’ She turned, walked to the gangway and went on down to the wharf.
‘That rips it,’ Sparhawk said bleakly, rising to his feet and drawing his sword. Quickly he counted the soldiers on the wharf. ‘There aren’t that many of them,’ he said to Kurik. ‘If we can take them by surprise, there might be a chance.’
‘Not a very good one, Sparhawk. Let’s wait a moment and see what happens.’
Sephrenia walked up the wharf and stopped directly in front of the soldiers.
They ignored her.
She spoke to them.
They paid no attention.
Then she turned back towards the ship. ‘It’s all right, Sparhawk,’ she called. ‘They can’t see us—or hear us. Bring the other horses and our things.’
‘Magic?’ Kurik asked in a stunned voice.
‘Not any kind that I ever heard about,’ Sparhawk replied.
‘I guess we’d better do what she says, then,’ Kurik advised, ‘and sort of immediately I’d hate to be right in the middle of those soldiers when the spell wears off.’
It was eerie to walk down the gangway in plain view of the church soldiers and to saunter casually up the wharf until they were face to face with them. The soldiers’ expressions were bored, and they gave no indication that anything at all was amiss. They routinely stopped every sailor and passenger leaving the wharf, but paid no attention whatsoever to Sparhawk, Kurik, and the horses. The soldiers stepped out of the way with no command from their corporal and immediately closed ranks again once Sparhawk and Kurik had led the horses off the wharf and onto the cobblestones of the street.
Without a word, Sparhawk lifted Flute down from Faran’s back and saddled the big roan. ‘All right,’ he said to Sephrenia when he had finished, ‘how did she do it?’
‘The usual way.’
‘But she can’t talk-or at least she doesn’t. How did she cast the spell?’
‘With her pipes, Sparhawk. I thought you knew that. She doesn’t speak the spell, she plays it on her pipes.’
‘Is it possible?’ His tone was incredulous.
‘You just saw her do it.’
‘Could you do it that way?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m just a bit tone deaf, Sparhawk,’ she confessed. ‘I can’t really tell one note from another, except in a general sort of way, and the melody has to be very precise. Shall we go, then?’
They rode up through the streets of Vardenais from the harbour.
‘Are we still invisible?’ Kurik asked.
‘We’re not actually invisible, Kurik,’ Sephrenia replied, wrapping her cloak about Flute, who still played the drowsy tune on her pipes. ‘If we were, we wouldn’t be able to see each other.’
‘I don’t understand at all.’
‘The soldiers knew we were there, Kurik. They stepped out of the way for us, remember? They just chose not to pay any attention to us.’
‘Chose?’
‘Perhaps that was the wrong word. Let’s say they were encouraged not to.’
They rode out through the north gate of Vardenais without being stopped by the guards posted there and were soon on the high road to Cimmura. The weather had changed since they had left Elenia many weeks before. The chill of winter had gone now, and the first budding leaves of spring tipped the branches of the trees at the sides of the road. Peasants plodded across their fields behind their ploughs, turning over the rich black loam. The rains had passed, and the sky was bright blue, dotted here and there with puffy white clouds. The breeze was fresh and warm, and the earth smelled of growth and renewal. They had discarded their Rendorish robes before leaving the ship, but Sparhawk still found his mail coat and padded tunic uncomfortably warm.
Kurik was looking out at the freshly ploughed fields they passed with an appraising eye. ‘I hope the boys have finished with the ploughing at home,’ he said. ‘I’d hate to have that chore in front of me when I get back.’
‘Aslade will see to it that they get it done,’ Sparhawk assured him.
‘You’re probably right.’ Kurik made a wry face. ‘When you get right down to it, she’s a better farmer than I am.’
‘Women always are,’ Sephrenia told him. ‘They’re more in tune with the moon and the seasons. In Styricum, women always manage the fields.’
‘What do the men do?’
‘As little as possible.’
It took them nearly five days to reach Cimmura, and they arrived on an early spring afternoon. Sparhawk reined in atop a hill a mile or so west of town. ‘Can she do it again?’ he asked Sephrenia.
‘Can who do what again?’
‘Flute Can she make people ignore us again?’
‘I don’t know Why don’t you ask her?’
‘Why don’t you ask her? I don’t think she likes me.’
‘Whatever gave you that idea? She adores you.’ Sephrenia leaned forward slightly and spoke in Styric to the little girl who rested against her.
Flute nodded and made an obscure kind of circling gesture with one hand.
‘What did she say?’ Sparhawk asked.
‘Approximately that the chapterhouse is on the other side of Cimmura. She suggests that we circle the city rather than ride through the streets.’
‘Approximately?’
‘It loses a great deal in translation.’
‘All right. We’ll do it her way, then. I definitely don’t want Annias to find out that we’re back in Cimmura.’
They rode on around the city, passing through open fields and sparse woodlands and keeping about a mile back from the city wall. Cimmura was not an attractive city, Sparhawk decided. The peculiar combination of its location and the prevailing weather seemed to capture the smoke from its thousands of chimneys and to hold it in a continual pall just above the roof tops. That lowering cloud of smoke made the place look perpetually grimy.
They finally reached a thicket about a half-mile from the walls of the chapterhouse Once again the land was dotted with peasants at work, and the road leading out from the east gate was alive with brightly dressed travellers.
‘Tell her it’s time,’ Sparhawk said to Sephrenia. ‘I’d imagine that a fair number of those people out there are working for Annias.’
‘She knows, Sparhawk. She’s not stupid.’
‘No. Only a little flighty.’
Flute made a face at him and began to play her pipes. It was that same lethargic, almost drowsy tune she had played in Vardenais.
They started across the field towards the few houses clustered outside the chapterhouse Though he was certain that the people they passed would pay no attention to them, Sparhawk instinctively tensed at each encounter.
‘Relax, Sparhawk,’ Sephrenia ordered him crisply ‘You’re making it harder for her.’
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Habit, I guess.’ With some effort he pulled a kind of calm about himself.
A number of workmen were repairing the road that led up to the gates of the fortress.
‘Spies,’ Kurik grunted.
‘How do you know that?’ Sparhawk asked.
‘Look at the way they’re laying the cobblestones, Sparhawk. They haven’t got the faintest idea of what they’re doing.’
‘It does look a bit slipshod, doesn’t it?’ Sparhawk agreed, looking critically at the section of newly laid stone as they rode past the unseeing road gang.
‘Annias must be getting old,’ Kurik said. ‘He never used to be this obvious.’
‘He’s got a lot on his mind, I guess.’
They clattered up the road to the drawbridge and then on across it and into the courtyard, passing the indifferent quartet of armoured knights on guard at the gate.
A young novice was drawing water from the well in the
centre of the courtyard, laboriously winding the creaking windlass mounted at the wellmouth. With a final little flourish, Flute took her pipes from her lips.
The novice choked out a startled oath and reached for his sword. The windlass squealed as the bucket plummeted down again.
‘Easy, brother,’ Sparhawk told him, dismounting.
‘How did you get past the gate?’ the novice exclaimed.
‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ Kurik told him, swinging down from his gelding’s back.
‘Forgive me, Sir Sparhawk,’ the novice stammered. ‘You startled me.’
‘It’s all right,’ Sparhawk assured him. ‘Has Kalten got back yet?’
‘Yes, my Lord. He and the knights from the other orders arrived some time back.’
‘Good. Do you know where I might find them?’
‘I believe they’re with Lord Vanion in his study.’
‘Thank you. Would you see to our horses?’
‘Of course, Sir Sparhawk.’
They entered the chapterhouse and went down the central corridor towards the south end of the building. Then they climbed the narrow flight of stairs to the tower.
‘Sir Sparhawk,’ one of the young knights on guard at the top said respectfully, ‘I’ll advise Lord Vanion that you’ve arrived.’
‘Thank you, brother,’ Sparhawk said.
The knight tapped on the door, then opened it. ‘Sir Sparhawk is here, my Lord,’ he reported to Vanion.
‘It’s about time,’ Sparhawk heard Kalten’s voice inside the room.
‘Please go in, Sir Sparhawk,’ the young knight said, stepping aside and bowing.
Vanion sat at the table. Kalten, Bevier, Ulath and Tynian had risen from their seats and come forward to greet Sparhawk and the others. Berit and Talen sat on a bench in the corner.
‘When did you get in?’ Sparhawk asked as Kalten roughly clasped his hand.
‘Early last week,’ the blond man replied. ‘What kept you?’
‘We had a long way to go, Kalten,’ Sparhawk protested. Wordlessly he gripped the hands of Tynian, Ulath, and Bevier. Then he bowed to Vanion. ‘My Lord,’ he said.
‘Sparhawk,’ Vanion nodded.
‘Did you get my messages?’
‘If there were only two, I did.’