‘It’s strategically unsound, Sparhawk,’ Vanion said flatly.
‘Excuse me, my friend, but what’s so strategically sound about a stalemate on a flat battlefield? It took more than a century to recover from the last battle between the Zemochs and the west. This way we at least have a chance to end it once and for all. If it appears not to be working, I’ll destroy Bhelliom. Then Azash won’t have any reason to come west again. He’ll go and pester the Tamuls or something instead.’
‘You’d never get through, Sparhawk,’ Preceptor Abriel said. ‘You heard what this Peloi said. There are Zemochs in eastern Pelosia as well as the ones down in eastern Lamorkand. Do you propose to wade through them all by yourself?’
‘I think they’ll stand aside for me, My Lord. Martel’s going north – at least that’s what he said. He may go as far north as Paler, or he may not. It doesn’t really matter, because I’m going to follow him no matter where he goes. He wants me to follow him. He made that fairly clear down in that cellar, and he was very careful to make sure that I heard him because he wants to deliver me to Azash. I think I can trust him not to put anything in my way. I know it sounds a little peculiar, but I think we can actually trust Martel this time. If he really has to, he’ll take his sword and clear a path for me.’ He smiled bleakly. ‘My brother’s tender concern for my welfare touches my heart.’ He looked at Sephrenia. ‘You said that even suggesting the destruction of a God is unthinkable, didn’t you? What would be the general reaction to the idea of destroying Bhelliom?’
‘That’s even more unthinkable, Sparhawk.’
‘Then the notion that I might be considering it won’t even occur to them, will it?’
She shook her head mutely, her eyes strangely frightened as she looked at him.
‘That’s our advantage then, My Lords,’ Sparhawk declared. ‘I can do the one thing that no one can bring himself to believe that I’ll do. I can destroy the Bhelliom – or threaten to. Somehow I have the feeling that people – and Gods – are going to start getting out of my way if I do that.’
Preceptor Abriel was still stubbornly shaking his head. ‘You’ll be trying to bull your way through primitive Zemochs in eastern Pelosia and along the border, Sparhawk. Not even Otha has control over those savages.’
‘Permission to speak, Sarathi?’ Kring asked in a profoundly respectful tone.
‘Of course, my son.’ Dolmant looked a bit puzzled. He had no idea of who this fierce man was.
‘I can get you through eastern Pelosia and well into Zemoch, friend Sparhawk,’ Kring said. ‘If the Zemochs are all spread out, my horsemen can ride right through them. We’ll leave a swath of bodies five miles wide from Paler to the Zemoch border – all minus their right ears of course.’ Kring’s broad grin was wolfish. He looked around in a self-congratulatory way. Then he saw Mirtai, who sat demurely beside Ehlana. His eyes went wide, and he first went pale and then bright red. Then he sighed lustily.
‘I wouldn’t, if I were you,’ Sparhawk warned him.
‘What?’
‘I’ll explain later.’
‘I hate to admit it,’ Bevier said, ‘but this plan’s looking better and better. We really shouldn’t have much trouble at all getting to Otha’s capital.’
‘We?’ Kalten asked.
‘We were going to go along, weren’t we, Kalten?’
‘Has it got any chance at all of working, little mother?’ Vanion asked.
‘No, Lord Vanion, it hasn’t!’ Ehlana interrupted him. ‘Sparhawk can’t go to Zemoch and use Bhelliom to kill Azash because he doesn’t have both rings. I’ve got one of them, and he’ll have to kill me to get it away from me.’
That was something Sparhawk had not considered. ‘My Queen –’ he began.
‘I have not given you leave to speak, Sir Sparhawk!’ she told him. ‘You will not pursue this vain and foolhardy scheme! You will not throw your life away! Your life is mine, Sparhawk! Mine! You do not have our permission to take it from us!’
‘That’s plain enough,’ Wargun said, ‘and it takes us right back to where we started from.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Dolmant said quietly. He rose to his feet. ‘Queen Ehlana,’ he said sternly, ‘will you submit to the will of our holy mother, the Church?’
She looked at him defiantly.
‘Will you?’
‘I am a true daughter of the Church,’ she said sullenly.
‘I’m delighted to hear it, my child. It is the command of the Church that you surrender this trinket into her hands for some brief time that she may use it in furtherance of her work.’
‘That’s not fair, Dolmant,’ she accused.
‘Will you defy the Church, Ehlana?’
‘I – I can’t!’ she wailed.
‘Then give me the ring.’ He held out his hand.
Ehlana burst into tears. She clutched his arms and buried her face in his robe.
‘Give me the ring, Ehlana,’ he repeated.
She looked up at him, dashing the tears from her eyes with one defiant hand.
‘Only on one condition, Sarathi,’ she countered.
‘Will you try to bargain with our holy mother?’
‘No, Sarathi, I am merely obeying one of her earlier commands. She instructs us to marry so that we may increase the congregation of the faithful. I will surrender the ring to you on the day you join me with Sir Sparhawk in marriage. I’ve worked too hard to get him to let him escape me now. Will our holy mother consent to this?’
‘It seems fair to me,’ Dolmant said, smiling benignly at Sparhawk, who was gaping at the two of them as he was traded off like a side of beef.
Ehlana had a very good memory. As Platime had instructed her, she spat in her hand. ‘Done, then!’ she said.
Dolmant had been around for a long time, so he recognized the gesture. He also spat on his palm. ‘Done!’ he said, and the two of them smacked their palms together, sealing Sparhawk’s fate.
PART THREE
Zemoch
Chapter 19
The room was cool. The heat of the desert evaporated when the sun went down, and there was always an arid chill by morning. Sparhawk stood at the window as velvet night bled from the sky and the shadows in the street below shrank back into corners and doorways to be replaced by a pale greyness that was not so much light as it was an absence of dark.
Then the first of them emerged from a shadowy alley with a clay vessel balanced on her shoulder. She was robed and hooded in black, and a black veil covered the lower half of her face. She moved through the pale light with a grace so exquisite that it made Sparhawk’s heart ache. Then there were others. One by one they emerged from doorways and alleys to join the silent procession, each with her clay vessel upon her shoulder, and each following a ritual so old that it had become instinctive. However it was that the men began their day, the women inevitably started theirs by going to the well.
Lillias stirred. ‘Mahkra,’ she said in a voice blurred with sleep, ‘come back to bed.’
He could hear the bells in the distance even over the incessant bawling of the half-wild cows in the yards around him. The religion of this kingdom discouraged bells, so Sparhawk knew that the sound came from a place where members of his own faith were gathered. There was no other place to go, so he stumbled on towards the sound of the bells. The hilt of his sword was slippery with blood, and the weapon seemed very heavy now. He wanted to be free of its weight, and it would be so easy to let it slip from his fingers to he lost in the dung-smelling darkness. A true knight, however, surrendered his sword only to death, and Sparhawk grimly clamped his fist about the sword-hilt and lurched on, following the bells. He was cold, and the blood flowing from his wounds seemed very warm, even comforting. He staggered on through the chill night with the blood flowing from his side warming him.
‘Sparhawk.’ It was Kurik’s voice, and the hand shaking his shoulder was firm. ‘Sparhawk, wake up. You’re having a nightmare again.’
Sparhawk opened his eyes. He
was sweating profusely.
‘That same one?’ Kurik asked.
Sparhawk nodded.
‘Maybe you’ll be able to put it to rest when you finally kill Martel.’
Sparhawk sat up in bed.
Kurik’s face was creased with a broad grin. ‘I thought it might have been a different one,’ he said. ‘This is your wedding day, after all. Bridegrooms always have bad dreams on the night before their weddings. It’s sort of an old custom.’
‘Was your sleep uneasy the night before you married Aslade?’
‘Oh yes,’ Kurik laughed. ‘Something was chasing me, and I had to get to a seacoast so I could get on board a ship to escape. The only problem was that they kept moving the ocean. Do you want your breakfast now, or do you want to wait until after you’ve bathed and I shave you?’
‘I can shave myself.’
‘That wouldn’t be a good idea today. Hold out your hand.’
Sparhawk extended his right hand. It was visibly trembling.
‘You definitely shouldn’t try to shave yourself today, My Lord. Let’s call it my wedding present to the queen. I won’t let you go to her bed on her wedding night with your face in tatters.’
‘What time is it?’
‘A half-hour or so before dawn. Get up, Sparhawk. You’ve got a full day ahead of you. Oh, by the way, Ehlana sent you a present. It came last night after you fell asleep.’
‘You should have got me up.’
‘Why? You can’t wear it in bed.’
‘What is it?’
‘Your crown, My Lord.’
‘My what?’
‘Crown. It’s a sort of a hat. It won’t keep off much in the way of weather, though.’
‘What’s she thinking about?’
‘Propriety, My Lord. You’re the Prince Consort – or you will be by tonight. It’s not a bad crown – as crowns go. Gold, jewels, that sort of thing.’
‘Where did she get it?’
‘She had it made for you right after you left Cimmura to come here. She brought it along with her – sort of the way a fisherman always has a coil of line and a hook somewhere in his pocket. I gather that your bride didn’t want to be unprepared in case an opportunity arose. She wants me to carry it on a velvet cushion during the ceremony tonight. As soon as the two of you are married, she’s going to put it on your head.’
‘Foolishness,’ Sparhawk snorted, swinging his legs out of bed.
‘Perhaps, but you’ll learn in time that women look at the world differently from the way we do. It’s one of the things that makes life interesting. Now, what’s it to be? Your breakfast or your bath?’
They met that morning in the chapterhouse, since things in the Basilica were in turmoil. The changes Dolmant was making were sweeping, and the clergy was scrambling about like ants rooted from a ripped-open anthill. The huge Patriarch Bergsten, still in his mail-shirt and wearing his ogre-horned helmet, was grinning as he entered Sir Nashan’s study and stood his war-axe in the corner.
‘Where’s Emban?’ King Wargun asked him, ‘and Ortzel?’
‘They’re busy dismissing people. Sarathi’s giving the Basilica a thorough house-cleaning. Emban’s drawn up a list of the politically unreliable, and the populations of a number of monasteries are expanding sharply.’
‘Makova?’ Tynian asked.
‘He was among the first to leave.’
‘Who’s first secretary?’ King Dregos asked.
‘Who else? Emban, of course, and Ortzel’s the new head of the college of theologians. It’s probably what he’s best suited for anyway.’
‘And you?’ Wargun asked him.
‘Sarathi’s given me a rather specialized position,’ Bergsten replied. ‘We haven’t come up with a name for it as yet.’ He looked rather sternly at the Preceptors of the Church Knights. ‘There’s been some rather long-standing dissension among the militant orders,’ he told them. ‘Sarathi’s asked me to put a stop to it.’ His shaggy brows lowered ominously. ‘I trust we understand each other, gentlemen.’
The Preceptors looked at each other a bit nervously.
‘Now,’ Bergsten continued, ‘have we made any decisions here yet?’
‘We’re still arguing about that, Your Grace,’ Vanion answered. Vanion’s face was grey this morning for some reason, and he looked definitely unwell. Sparhawk sometimes forgot that Vanion was quite a bit older than he looked. ‘Sparhawk’s still bent on suicide, and we haven’t been able to come up with any convincing alternatives. The rest of the Church Knights are going to move out tomorrow to occupy various fortresses and castles in Lamorkand, and the army will follow once they’ve been organized.’
Bergsten nodded. ‘Exactly what are you going to do, Sparhawk?’
‘I thought I’d go and destroy Azash, kill Martel, Otha and Annias and then come home, Your Grace.’
‘Very funny,’ Bergsten said dryly. ‘Details, man. Give me details. I have to make a report to Sarathi, and he loves details.’
‘Yes, Your Grace. We’ve all more or less agreed that we don’t have much chance of catching up with Martel and his party before they get across into Zemoch. He’s got a three-day start on us – counting today. Martel isn’t very considerate of horses, and he has a lot of incentive to stay ahead of us.’
‘Are you going to follow him, or just ride straight on to the Zemoch border?’
Sparhawk leaned back in his chair. ‘We’re a little tenuous on that, Your Grace,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I’d like to catch Martel, certainly, but I’m not going to let that sidetrack me. My main goal is to get to the city of Zemoch before a general war breaks out in central Lamorkand. I had a talk with Krager, and he says that Martel plans to go north and then to try to cross over into Zemoch from somewhere up in Pelosia. I more or less want to do the same thing, so I’ll follow him – but only up to a point. I’m not going to waste time chasing Martel all over northern Pelosia. If he starts wandering around up there, I’ll break off the chase and go straight on to Zemoch. I’ve been playing Martel’s game ever since I came back from Rendor. I don’t think I want to play any more.’
‘What are you going to do about all the Zemochs in eastern Pelosia?’
‘That’s where I come in, Your Grace,’ Kring told him. ‘There’s a pass that leads into the interior. The Zemochs don’t seem to know about it for some reason. My horsemen and I have been using it for years – any time ears get scarce along the border.’ He stopped abruptly and looked with some consternation at King Soros. The King of Pelosia, however, was busy praying and appeared not to have heard the Domi’s inadvertent revelation.
‘That’s about all there is to it, Your Grace,’ Sparhawk concluded. ‘Nobody really knows for sure what’s going on in Zemoch, so we’ll have to improvise once we get there.’
‘How many of you are there?’ Bergsten asked.
‘The usual group. Five knights, Kurik, Berit and Sephrenia.’
‘What about me?’ Talen objected.
‘You are going back to Cimmura, young man,’ Sephrenia told him. ‘Ehlana can keep an eye on you. You’ll stay at the palace until we come back.’
‘That’s not fair!’
‘Life is filled with injustice, Talen. Sparhawk and your father have plans for you, and they don’t propose to let you get yourself killed before they have a chance to put them in motion.’
‘Can I appeal to the Church for sanctuary, Your Grace?’ Talen asked Bergsten quickly.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ the armoured Patriarch replied.
‘You have no idea how disappointed I am in our holy mother, Your Grace,’ Talen sulked. ‘Just for that, I don’t think I’ll join the Church after all.’
‘Praise God,’ Bergsten murmured.
‘Amen,’ Abriel sighed.
‘May I be excused?’ Talen asked in a huffy tone.
‘No.’ It was Berit, who sat by the door with his arms crossed and one leg thrust out to block the doorway.
Talen sat back down, looking i
njured.
The remainder of the discussion dealt with the deployment of troops at the various fortresses and castles in central Lamorkand. Sparhawk and his friends were not going to be involved in that, so the bridegroom’s attention wandered. He did not actually think of anything very coherently, but sat instead staring wide-eyed at the floor.
The meeting broke up about noon, and they began to file out. There were many preparations to make, and they all had things to do.
‘Friend Sparhawk,’ Kring said as they left Nashan’s study, ‘might I have a word with you?’
‘Of course, Domi.’
‘It’s sort of personal.’
Sparhawk nodded and led the scarred chief of the Peloi to a small chapel nearby. They both perfunctorily genuflected to the altar and then sat on a polished bench near the front of the chapel. ‘What is it, Kring?’ Sparhawk asked.
‘I’m a plain man, friend Sparhawk,’ Kring began, ‘so I’ll speak to the point. I’m mightily taken with that tall, beautiful woman who guards the Queen of Elenia.’
‘I thought I detected something like that.’
‘Do you think I might have any chance with her at all?’ Kring’s heart was in his eyes.
‘I’m not really sure, my friend,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘I scarcely know Mirtai.’
‘Is that her name? I never really had the chance to find out. Mirtai – it’s got a nice sound to it, doesn’t it? Everything about her is perfect. I have to ask this. Is she married?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Good. It’s always awkward to pay court to a woman if you have to kill her husband first. It seems to get things off to a bad start for some reason.’
‘I think you should know that Mirtai’s not an Elene, Kring. She’s a Tamul, and her culture – and religion – are not the same as ours. Are your intentions honourable?’