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‘There aren’t any deeper ones.’
‘That’s too bad. It looks as if someone’s managed to fish it out.’
‘It’s logical, Sparhawk,’ Ulath said. ‘That box was lined with gold, and Aphrael told us that the gold would keep Bhelliom from getting out on its own. Since the Troll-Gods can’t get out of Bhelliom, they were down there too. Somebody’s found that box.’
‘I’ve heard that the people who dive for pearls can go down quite deep,’ Stragen said.
‘Not that deep,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Besides, there’s something wrong.’
‘Are you just now realising that?’ Stragen asked him.
‘That’s not what I mean. When we were up in Pelosia, you could all see that cloud.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Ulath said fervently.
‘But before that – when it was just a shadow – only Ehlana and I could see it, and that was because we were wearing the rings. This was definitely a shadow and not a cloud, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Stragen admitted.
‘Then how is it that you and Ulath could see it too?’
Stragen spread his hands helplessly.
‘There’s something else too,’ Sparhawk added. ‘The night I came home from Lamorkand, I felt something in the street watching me – several somethings. They weren’t Elene or Styric, and I don’t think they were human. That shadow that just passed through here felt exactly the same.’
‘I wish there was some way we could talk with Sephrenia,’ Ulath muttered.
Sparhawk was fairly certain that there was a way, but he was not free to reveal it to any of them.
‘Do we tell anybody else about this?’ Stragen asked.
‘Let’s not start a panic until we find out some more about it,’ Sparhawk decided.
‘Right,’ Stragen agreed. ‘There’s always plenty of time for panic later – plenty of reason too, I think.’
The weather cleared over the next few days, and that fact alone lifted spirits in the palace. Sparhawk spent some time closeted with Platime and Stragen, and then the two thieves sent men into Lamorkand to investigate the situation there. ‘That’s what I should have done in the first place,’ Sparhawk said, ‘but Sarathi wouldn’t give me the chance. Our revered Archprelate has a few blind spots. He can’t seem to get it through his head that official investigators aren’t going to ever really get to the bottom of things.’
‘Typical aristocratic ineptitude,’ Stragen drawled. ‘It’s one of the things that makes life easier for people like Platime and me.’
Sparhawk didn’t argue with him about that. ‘Just tell your men to be careful,’ he cautioned them. ‘Lamorks tend to try to solve all their problems with daggers, and dead spies don’t bring home very much useful information.’
‘Astonishing insight there, old boy,’ Stragen said, his rich voice dripping with irony. ‘It’s absolutely amazing that Platime and I never thought of that.’
‘All right,’ Sparhawk admitted, ‘maybe I was being just a little obvious.’
‘We saw that too, didn’t we, Platime?’
Platime grunted. ‘Tell Ehlana that I’m going to be away from the palace for a few days, Sparhawk.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘None of your business. There’s something I want to take care of.’
‘All right, but keep in touch.’
‘You’re being obvious again, Sparhawk.’ The fat man scratched his paunch. ‘I’ll talk with Talen. He’ll know how to get in touch with me if the queen really needs me for something.’ He groaned as he hauled himself to his feet. ‘I’m going to have to lose some weight,’ he said half to himself. Then he waddled to the door with that peculiarly spraddle-legged gait of the grossly obese.
‘He’s in a charming humour today,’ Sparhawk noted.
‘He’s got a lot on his mind just now,’ Stragen shrugged.
‘How well-connected are you in the palace at Emsat, Stragen?’
‘I have some contacts there. What do you need?’
‘I’d like to put some stumbling blocks in the way of this accommodation between Avin and Count Gerrich. Gerrich’s beginning to get a little too much influence in northern Eosia. Maybe you ought to get word to Meland in Acie as well. Gerrich’s making alliances in Pelosia and Thalesia already. It doesn’t seem reasonable that he’d overlook Deira, and Deira’s a little chaotic right now. Ask Meland to keep his eyes open.’
‘This Gerrich’s really got you concerned, hasn’t he?’
‘There are some things going on in Lamorkand that I don’t understand, Stragen, and I don’t want Gerrich to get too far ahead of me while I’m trying to sort them out.’
‘That makes sense – I suppose.’
Khalad came to his feet with his eyes slightly unfocused and with a thin dribble of blood coming out of his nose.
‘You see? You over-extended again,’ Mirtai told him.
‘How did you do that?’ Sparhawk’s squire asked her.
‘I’ll show you. Kalten, come here.’
‘Not me,’ the blond Pandion refused, backing away.
‘Don’t be foolish. I’m not going to hurt you.’
‘Isn’t that what you told Khalad before you bounced him off the flagstones?’
‘You might as well do as I tell you, Kalten,’ she said. ‘You’ll wind up doing it in the end anyway, and it won’t be nearly as painful for you if you don’t argue with me. Take out your sword and stab me in the heart with it.’
‘I don’t want to hurt you, Mirtai.’
‘You? Hurt me?’ Her laugh was sardonic.
‘You don’t have to be insulting about it,’ he said in an injured tone, drawing his sword.
It had all begun when Mirtai had passed through the palace courtyard while Kalten was giving Khalad some instruction in swordsmanship. She had made a couple of highly unflattering comments. One thing had led to another, and the end result had been this impromptu training session, during which Kalten and Khalad learned humility, if nothing else.
‘Stab me through the heart, Kalten,’ Mirtai said again.
In Kalten’s defence it should be noted in passing that he really did try. He made a great deal of noise when he came down on his back on the flagstones.
‘He made the same mistake you did,’ Mirtai pointed out to Khalad. ‘He straightened his arm too much. A straight arm is a locked arm. Always keep your elbow slightly bent.’
‘We’re trained to thrust from the shoulder, Mirtai,’ Khalad explained.
‘There are a lot of Elenes, I suppose,’ she shrugged. ‘It shouldn’t be all that hard to replace you. The thing that makes me curious is why you all feel that it’s necessary to stick your sword all the way through somebody. If you haven’t hit the heart with the first six inches of the blade, another yard or so of steel going through the same hole won’t make much difference, will it?’
‘Maybe it’s because it looks dramatic,’ Khalad said.
‘You kill people for show? That’s contemptible, and it’s the sort of thinking that fills graveyards. Always keep your blade free so that you’re ready for your next enemy. People fold up when you run swords through them, and then you have to kick the body off the blade before you can use it again.’
‘I’ll try to remember that.’
‘I hope so. I rather like you, and I hate burying friends.’ She bent, professionally peeled Kalten’s eyelid back and glanced at his glazed eyeball. ‘You’d better throw a bucket of water on our friend here,’ she suggested. ‘He hasn’t learned how to fall yet. We’ll go into that next time.’
‘Next time?’
‘Of course. If you’re going to learn how to do this, you’d better learn how to do it right.’ She gave Sparhawk a challenging look. ‘Would you like to try?’ she asked him.
‘Ah – no, Mirtai, not right now. Thanks all the same, though.’
She went on into the palace, looking just slightly pleased with herself.
‘You know, I don’t think I really want to be a knight after all, Sparhawk,’ Talen said from nearby. ‘It looks awfully painful.’
‘Where have you been? My wife’s got people out looking for you.’
‘Yes. I saw them blundering around out in the streets. I had to go visit Platime in the cellar.’
‘Oh?’
‘He picked up something he thought you ought to be aware of. You know those unauthorised bandits in the hills near Cardos?’
‘Not personally, no.’
‘Funny, Sparhawk. Very funny. Platime’s found out that somebody we know is sort of directing their activities.’
‘Oh? Who’s that?’
‘Can you believe that it’s Krager? You should have killed him when you had the chance, Sparhawk.’
CHAPTER 3
The fog drifted in from the river not long after the sun went down that evening. The nights in Cimmura were always foggy in the spring when it wasn’t raining. Sparhawk, Stragen and Talen left the palace wearing plain clothing and heavy traveller’s cloaks and rode to the southeast quarter of town.
‘You don’t necessarily have to tell your wife I said this, Sparhawk,’ Stragen noted, looking around with distaste, ‘but her capital’s one of the least attractive cities in the world. You’ve got a truly miserable climate here.’
‘It’s not so bad in the summer-time,’ Sparhawk replied a little defensively.
‘I missed last summer,’ the blond thief said. ‘I took a short nap one afternoon and slept right through it. Where are we going?’
‘We want to see Platime.’
‘As I recall, his cellar’s near the west gate of the city. You’re taking us in the wrong direction.’
‘We have to go to a certain inn first.’ Sparhawk looked back over his shoulder. ‘Are we being followed, Talen?’ he asked.
‘Naturally.’
Sparhawk grunted. ‘That’s more or less what I expected.’
They rode on with the thick mist swirling around the legs of their horses and making the fronts of the nearby houses dim and hazy-looking. They reached the inn on Rose Street, and a surly-appearing porter admitted them to the inn yard and closed the gate behind them.
‘Anything you find out about this place isn’t for general dissemination,’ Sparhawk told Talen and Stragen as he dismounted. He handed Faran’s reins to the porter. ‘You know about this horse, don’t you, brother?’ he warned the man.
‘He’s a legend, Sparhawk,’ the porter replied. ‘The things you wanted are in the room at the top of the stairs.’
‘How’s the crowd in the tavern tonight?’
‘Loud, smelly and mostly drunk.’
‘There’s nothing new about that. What I meant, though, was how many of them are there?’
‘Fifteen or twenty. There are three of our men in there who know what to do.’
‘Good. Thank you, Sir Knight.’
‘You’re welcome, Sir Knight.’
Sparhawk led Talen and Stragen up the stairs.
‘This inn, I gather, isn’t altogether what it seems,’ Stragen observed.
‘The Pandions own it,’ Talen told him. ‘They come here when they don’t want to attract attention.’
‘There’s a little more to it than that,’ Sparhawk told him. He opened the door at the top of the stairs, and the three of them entered.
Stragen looked at the workmen’s smocks hanging on pegs near the door. ‘We’re going to resort to subterfuge, I see.’
‘It’s fairly standard practice,’ Sparhawk shrugged. ‘Let’s get changed. I’d sort of like to get back to the palace before my wife sends out search parties.’
The smocks were of blue canvas, worn and patched and with a few artfully-placed smudges on them. There were woollen leggings as well and thick-soled workmen’s boots. The caps were baggy affairs, designed more to keep off weather than they were for appearance.
‘You’re going to have to leave that here,’ Sparhawk said, pointing at Stragen’s rapier. ‘It’s a little obvious.’ The big Pandion tucked a heavy dagger under his belt.
‘You know that there are people watching the gate of the inn, don’t you, Sparhawk?’ Talen said.
‘I hope they enjoy their evening. We aren’t going out through the gate, though.’ Sparhawk led them back down to the inn yard, crossed to a narrow door in a side wall and opened it. The warm air that boiled out through the doorway smelled of stale beer and unwashed bodies. The three of them went inside and closed the door behind them. They seemed to be in a small storeroom. The straw on the floor was mouldy.
‘Where are we?’ Talen whispered.
‘In a tavern,’ Sparhawk replied softly. ‘There’s going to be a fight in just a few minutes. We’ll slip out into the main room during the confusion.’ He went to the curtained doorway leading out into the tavern and twitched the curtain several times. ‘All right,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll mingle with the crowd during the fight, and after a while, we’ll leave. Behave as if you’re slightly drunk, but don’t over-do it.’
‘I’m impressed,’ Stragen said.
‘I’m more than impressed,’ Talen added. ‘Not even Platime knows that there’s more than one way out of that inn.’
The fight began not long after that. It was noisy, involving a great deal of shouting and pushing and finally a few blows. Two totally uninvolved and evidently innocent by-standers were knocked senseless during the course of the altercation. Sparhawk and his friends smoothly insinuated themselves into the crowd, and after ten minutes or so, they reeled out through the door.
‘A little unprofessional,’ Stragen sniffed. ‘A staged fight shouldn’t involve the spectators that way.’
‘It should when the spectators might be looking for something other than a few tankards of ale,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘The two who fell asleep weren’t regular patrons in the tavern. They might have been completely innocent, but then again, they might not. This way, we don’t have to worry about them trailing along behind us.’
‘There’s more to being a Pandion Knight than I thought,’ Talen noted. ‘I may like it after all.’
They walked through the foggy streets towards the rundown quarter near the west gate, a maze of interconnecting lanes and unpaved alleys. They entered one of those alleys and went through it to a flight of muddy stone stairs leading down. A thick-bodied man lounged against the stone wall beside the stairs. ‘You’re late,’ he said to Talen in a flat voice.
‘We had to make sure we weren’t being followed,’ the boy shrugged.
‘Go on down,’ the man told them. ‘Platime’s waiting.’
The cellar hadn’t changed. It was still smoky and dim, and it was filled with a babble of coarse voices coming from the thieves, whores and cutthroats who lived there.
‘I don’t know how Platime can stand this place,’ Stragen shuddered.
Platime sat enthroned on a large chair on the other side of a smoky fire burning in an open pit. He heaved himself to his feet when he saw Sparhawk. ‘Where have you been?’ he bellowed in a thunderous voice.
‘Making sure that we weren’t followed,’ Sparhawk replied.
The fat man grunted. ‘He’s back here,’ he said, leading them toward the rear of the cellar. ‘He’s very interested in his health at the moment, so I’m keeping him more or less out of sight.’ He pushed his way into a small, closet-like chamber where a man sat on a stool nursing a tankard of watery beer. The man was a small. nervous-looking fellow with thinning hair and a cringing manner.
‘This is Pelk,’ Platime said. ‘He’s a sneak-thief. I sent him to Cardos to have a look around and to see what he could find out about some people we’re interested in. Tell him what you found out, Pelk.’
‘Well sir, good masters,’ the weedy man began, ‘it tuk me a goodly while to git close to them fellers, I’ll tell the world, but I made myself useful, an’ they finally sort of assepted me. They was all sorts of rigimarole I had to go thoo – swearin’ oaths an’ gettin’ blindfolded the first couple times they tuk me to ther camp an all, but after a while, they kinda let down ther guard, an’ I come an’ went purty much as I pleased. Like Platime prob’ly tole you, we figgered at first they wuz jist a buncha amachoors what didn’t know nothin’ about the way things is supposed to be did. We sees that sorta thing all the time, don’t we, Platime? Them’s the kind as gits therselves caught an’ hung.’
‘And good riddance to them,’ Platime growled.
‘Well sir,’ Pelk continued, ‘like I say, me’n Platime, we figgered as how them fellers in the mountings was jist a buncha them amachoors I tole you about – fellers what’d took up cuttin’ th’oats fer fun an’ profit, don’t y’know. As she turns out, howsomever, they was more’n that. Ther leaders was six er seven noblemen as was real disappointed ‘bout the way the big plans of the Primate Annias fell on ther faces, an’ they was powerful unhappy ‘bout what the queen had writ down on the warrants she put out fer ’em – nobles not bein’ accustomed to bein’ called them sorta names.
‘Well sir, t’ short it up some, these here noblemen all run off into the mountings ‘bout one jump ahead of the hangman, an’ they tuk t’ robbin’ travellers t’ make ends meet an’ spent the resta ther time thinkin’ up nasty names t’ call the queen.’
‘Get to the point, Pelk,’ Platime told him wearily.
‘Yessir, I wuz jist about to. Well now, it went on like that fer a spell, an’ then this here Krager feller, he come into camp, an’ some of them there nobles, they knowed him. He tole ’em as how he knowed some furriners as’d help ’em out iffn they’d raise enough fuss here in Elenia t’ keep the queen an’ her folks from gittin’ too curious ‘bout some stuff what’s goin’ on off in Lamorkand. This here Krager feller, he sez as how this stuff in Lamorkand might just could be a way fer ’em all t’ change the way ther forchunes bin goin’ since ol’ Annias got hisself kilt. Well, sir, them dukes an’ earls an’ such got real innerested at that point, an’ they tole us all t’ go talk t’ the local peasants an’ t’ start runnin’ down the tax-collectors an’ t’ say as how it ain’t natural fer no country t’ be run by no woman an’ the like. We wuz supposed t’ stir up them peasants an’ t’ git ’em t’ talkin’ among therselves ‘bout how the people oughtta all git together an’ thow the queen out an’ the like, an’ then them nobles, they caught a few tax collectors an’ hung ‘em an’ give the money back t’ the folks it’d been stole from in the first place, an’ them peasants, they wuz all happy as pigs in mud ‘bout that.’ Pelk scratched at his head. ‘Well sir, I guess I’ve said m’ piece now. At’s the way she stands in the mountings now. This here Krager feller, he’s got some money with ’im, an’ he’s mighty free with it, so them nobles what’s bin on short rations is gettin’ downright fond of ’im.’
‘Pelk,’ Sparhawk told him, ‘you’re a treasure.’ He gave the man several coins, and then he and his friends left the cubicle.
‘What are we going to do about it, Sparhawk?’ Platime asked.
‘We’re going to take steps,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘How many of these “liberators” are there?’
‘A hundred or so.’
‘I’ll need a couple dozen of your men who know the country.’
Platime nodded. ‘Are you going to bring in the army?’
‘I don’t think so. I think a troop of Pandions might make a more lasting impression on people who think they have grievances against our queen, don’t you?’
‘Isn’t that just a bit extreme?’ Stragen asked him.
‘I want to make a statement, Stragen. I want everybody in Elenia to know just how much I disapprove of people who start plotting against my wife. I don’t want to have to do it again, so I’m going to do it right the first time.’
‘He didn’t actually talk like that, did he, Sparhawk?’ Ehlana asked incredulously.
‘That’s fairly close,’ Sparhawk told her. ‘Stragen’s got a very good ear for dialect.’
‘It’s almost hypnotic, isn’t it?’ she marvelled, ‘and it goes on and on and on.’ She suddenly grinned impishly. ‘Write down “happy as pigs in mud”, Lenda. I may want to find a way to work that into some official communication.’
‘As you wish, your Majesty.’ Lenda’s tone was neutral, but Sparhawk knew that the old courtier disapproved.
‘What are we going to do about this?’ the queen asked.
‘Sparhawk said that he was going to take steps, your Majesty,’ Talen told her. ‘You might not want to know too many details.’
‘Sparhawk and I don’t keep secrets from each other, Talen.’
‘I’m not talking about secrets, your Majesty,’ the boy replied innocently. ‘I’m just talking about boring unimportant little things you shouldn’t really waste your time on.’ He made it sound very plausible, but Ehlana looked more than a little suspicious.
‘Don’t embarrass me, Sparhawk,’ she warned.
‘Of course not,’ he replied blandly.
The campaign was brief. Since Pelk knew the precise location of the camp of the dissidents, and Platime’s men knew all the other hiding places in the surrounding mountains, there was no real place for the bandits to run, and they were certainly no match for the thirty black-armoured Pandions Sparhawk, Kalten and Ulath led against them. The surviving nobles were held for the queen’s justice and the rest of the outlaws were turned over to the local sheriff for disposition.
‘Well, my Lord of Belton,’ Sparhawk said to an earl crouched before him on a log, with a blood-stained bandage around his head and his hands bound behind him. ‘Things didn’t turn out so well, did they?’
‘Curse you, Sparhawk.’ Belton spat, squinting up against the afternoon’s brightness. ‘How did you find out where we were?’
‘My dear Belton,’ Sparhawk laughed, ‘you didn’t really think you could hide from my wife, did you? She takes a very personal interest in her kingdom. She knows every tree, every town and village and all of the peasants. It’s even rumoured that she knows most of the deer by their first names.’
‘Why didn’t you come after us earlier then?’ Belton sneered.
‘The queen was busy. She finally found the time to make some decisions about you and your friends. I don’t imagine you’ll care much for these decisions, old boy. What I’m really interested in is any information you might have about Krager. He and I haven’t seen each other for quite some time, and I find myself yearning for his company again.’
Belton’s eyes grew frightened. ‘You won’t get anything from me, Sparhawk,’ he blustered.
‘How much would you care to wager on that?’ Kalten asked him. ‘You’d save yourself a great deal of unpleasantness if you told Sparhawk what he wants to know, and Krager’s not so loveable that you’d really want to go through that in order to protect him.’
‘Just talk, Belton,’ Sparhawk insisted implacably.
‘I – I can’t!’ Belton’s sneering bravado crumbled. His face turned deathly pale, and he began to tremble violently. ‘Sparhawk, I beg of you. It means my life if I say anything.’
‘Your life isn’t worth very much right now anyway,’ Ulath told him bluntly. ‘One way or another, you are going to talk.’
‘For God’s sake, Sparhawk! You don’t know what you’re asking!’
‘I’m not asking, Belton.’ Sparhawk’s face was bleak.
Then, without any warning or reason, a deathly chill suddenly enveloped the woods, and the mid-afternoon sun darkened. Sparhawk glanced upward. The sky was very blue, but the sun appeared wan and sickly.
Belton screamed.
An inky cloud seemed to spring from the surrounding trees, coalescing around the shrieking prisoner. Sparhawk jumped back with a startled oath, his hand going to his sword-hilt.
Belton’s voice had risen to a screech, and there were horrible sounds coming from the impenetrable darkness surrounding him – sounds of breaking bones and tearing flesh. The shrieking broke off quite suddenly, but the sounds continued for several eternal-seeming minutes. Then, as quickly as it had come, the cloud vanished.
Sparhawk recoiled in revulsion. His prisoner had been torn to pieces.
‘Good God!’ Kalten gasped. ‘What happened?’
‘We both know, Kalten,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We’ve seen it before. Don’t try to question any of the other prisoners. I’m almost positive they won’t be allowed to answer.’
There were five of them, Sparhawk, Ehlana, Kalten, Ulath and Stragen. They had gathered in the royal apartments, and their mood was bleak.
‘Was it the same cloud?’ Stragen asked intently.
‘There were some differences,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘It was more in the way it felt rather than anything I could really pin down.’