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 long-bow?’
‘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 speak with Ambassador Fontan, our local man, and he’ll take us to see King Alberen. I’ll only be a moment.’
Sparhawk nodded. ‘Kalten,’ he called to his friend. ‘Let’s sort of form up the troops. A bit of ceremony might be in order here.’
When Oscagne emerged from the Tamul embassy, which was conveniently located in a building adjoining the palace, he was accompanied by an ancient-appearing Tamul whose head was totally hairless and whose face was as wrinkled as the skin of a very old apple. ‘Prince Sparhawk,’ Oscagne said quite formally, ‘I have the honour to present his Excellency, Ambassador Fontan, his Imperial Majesty’s representative here in the Kingdom of Astel.’
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 you are, 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 implacable pace, one is almost always nervous. Ambassador Fontan put him at his ease, and three messengers were dispatched to advise the king of their arrival. Sparhawk decided not to ask the captain why he sent three. The poor man was having a bad enough day already. The party was escorted into the palace courtyard where they dismounted and turned their horses over to the stable hands. ‘Behave yourself,’ Sparhawk muttered to Faran as a slack-mouthed groom took the reins.
There seemed to be a great deal of activity going on in the palace. Windows kept popping open, and excited people stuck their heads out to gape.
‘It’s the steel clothing, I think,’ Fontan observed to the queen. ‘The appearance of your Majesty’s escort on the doorstep may very well set a new fashion. A whole generation of tailors may have to learn black-smithing.’ He shrugged. ‘Oh, well,’ he added. ‘It’s a useful trade. They can always shoe horses when business is slow.’ He looked at his pupil, who had returned to the carriage. ‘You should have sent word on ahead, Oscagne. Now we’ll have to wait while everyone inside scurries around to make ready for us.’
After several minutes, a group of liveried trumpeters filed onto a balcony over the palace door and blew a shattering fanfare. The courtyard was enclosed by stone buildings, and the echoes from the trumpets were almost sufficient to unhorse the knights. Fontan climbed down from the carriage and offered Ehlana his arm with a graceful courtliness.
‘Your Excellency is exquisitely courteous,’ she murmured.
‘Evidence of a misspent youth, my dear.’
‘Your teacher’s manner seems quite familiar, Ambassador Oscagne,’ Stragen smiled.
‘My imitation of him is only a poor shadow of my master’s perfection, Milord.’ Oscagne looked fondly at his wrinkled tutor. ‘We all try to imitate him. His successes in the field of diplomacy are legendary. Don’t be deceived, Stragen. When he’s being urbane and ironically humorous, he’s completely disarming you and gathering more information about you than you could ever imagine. Fontan can read a man’s entire character in the twitch of one of his eyebrows.’
‘I expect I’ll be quite a challenge to him,’ Stragen said, ‘since I don’t have any character to speak of.’
‘You deceive yourself, Milord. You’re not nearly as unprincipled as you’d like us to believe.’
A stout factotum in splendid scarlet livery escorted them into the palace and along a broad, well-lit corridor. Ambassador Oscagne walked just behind him, identifying the members of their party as they went.
The broad doors at the end of the corridor swung wide, and their liveried guide preceded them into a vast, ornate throne-room filled with excited courtiers. The factotum thunderously pounded on the floor with the butt of the staff which was his badge of office. ‘My Lords and Ladies,’ he boomed, ‘I have the honour to present her Divine Majesty, Queen Ehlana of the Kingdom of Elenia!’
‘Divine?’ Kalten murmured to Sparhawk.
‘It grows more evident as you get to know her better.’
The liveried herald continued his introductions, laboriously embellishing their individual titles as he presented them. Oscagne had quite obviously done his homework very thoroughly, and the herald dusted off seldom-used ornaments of rank in his introductory remarks. Kalten’s nearly-forgotten baronetcy emerged. Bevier was exposed as a viscount, Tynian as a duke, and Ulath as an earl. Most surprising of all perhaps was the revelation that Berit, plain, earnest Berit, had been concealing the title of marquis in his luggage. Stragen was introduced as a baron. ‘My father’s title,’ the blond thief explained to them in an apologetic whisper. ‘Since I 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 steelplated 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 Monsel, the head of the Church of Astel, exchanged theological platitudes without touching on those doctrinal differences which divided their two Churches. Monsel 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.’
&
nbsp; ‘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.’