wanhn’ t’ talk t’ me ’bout some stuff oz had turnt up missin’ tum the cargo
hold, y’ know.’ He paused. ‘Have I sufficiently entertained you as yet,
Milord Stragen?’ he grinned. ‘Very, very good, Caalador,’ Stragen murmured.
‘Convincing – although it was a tribe overdone.’
‘A failing, Milord. It’s so much fun that I get carried away. Actually,
I’m a swindler. I’ve found that posing as an ignorant yokel disarms people.
No one in this world is as easy to gull as the man who thinks he’s smarter
than you are.’
‘Ohh.’ Ehlana’s tone was profoundly disappointed. Wuz yet Majesty tooken
with the iggernent way I wuz ‘atalkin?’ Caalador asked sympathetically.
‘I’ll do ‘er agm, iff’n yet of a mind – of course it takes a beastly long
time to get to the point that way.’ She laughed delightedly. ‘I think you
could charm the birds out of the bushes, Caalador,’ she told him. Thank
you, your Majesty,’ he said, bowing with fluid grace. Then he turned back
to Stragen. ‘Your proposal has baffled our Tamul friends, Milord,’ he said.
‘The demarcation line between corruption and outright theft is very clearly
defined in the Tamul culture. Tamul thieves are quite class-conscious, and
the notion of actually co-operating with the authorities strikes them as
unnatural for some reason. Fortunately, we Elenes are far more corrupt than
our simple yellow brothers, and Elenes seem to rise to the top in our
peculiar society natural talent, most likely. We saw the advantages of your
proposal immediately. Kondrak of Darsas was most eloquent in his
presentation. You seem to have impressed him enormously. The disturbances
here in Tamuli have been disastrous for business, and when we began
reciting profit and loss figures to the Tamuls, they started to listen to
reason. They agreed to co-operate grudgingly, I’ll grant you, but they will
help you to gather information.’
‘Thank God!’ Stragen said with a vast sigh of relief. ‘The delay was
beginning to make me very, very nervous.’
‘Ye made promises t’ yet queen, an’ y’ wuzn’t shore
iff’n y’ could deliver, is that it?’
‘That’s very, very close, my friend.’
‘I’ll give you the names of some people in Matherion.’ Caalador looked
around. ‘Private-like, if’n y’ take my meanin’,’ he added. ‘It’s all vury
well t’ talk ’bout lendin’ a helpin’ hand an’ sick, but ‘taint hardly
nach’ral t’ be namin’ no names right out in fronta no queens an’ knights
an’ sick.’ He grinned impudently at Ehlana. ‘An’ now, yet queenship, how’d
y’ like it iff’n I wuz t’ spin y’ a long, long tale ’bout my advenchoors in
the shadowy world o’ crime?’
‘i’d be delighted, Caalador,’ she replied eagerly.
Another of the injured knights died that night, but the two dozen
sorely-wounded seemed on the mend. As Oscagne had told them, Tamul
physicians were extraordinarily skilled, although some of their methods
were strange to Elenes. After a brief conference, Sparhawk and his friends
decided to press on to Matherion. Their trek across the continent had
yielded a great deal of’ information, and they all felt that it was time to
combine that information with the findings of the Imperial government. And
so they set out from Lebas early one morning and rode south under a kindly
summer sky. The countryside was neat, with crops growing in straight lines
across weedless fields marked off with low stone walls. Even the trees in
the woodlands grew in straight lines, and all traces of unfettered nature
seemed to have been erased. The peasants in the fields wore loose-fitting
trousers and shirts of white linen and tightly-woven straw hats that looked
not unlike mushroom-tops. Many of the crops grown in this alien countryside
were unrecognisable to the Elenes – odd-looking beans and peculiar grains.
They passed Lake Sama and saw fishermen casting nets from strange-looking
boats with high prows and sterns, boats of which Khalad profoundly
disapproved. ‘One good gust of wind from the side would capsize them,’ was
his verdic’t. They reached Toea, some sixty leagues to the north of the
capital, with that sense of impatience that comes near the end of every
long journey. The weather held fair, and they set out early and rode late
each day, counting off every league put behind them. The road followed the
coast of the Tamul sea, a low, rolling coast-line where rounded hills rose
from broad beaches of white sand and long waves rolled in to break and foam
and slither back out into deep blue water. Eight days – more or less after
they left Toea, they set up for the night in a park-like grove with
an almost holiday air, since Oscagne assured them that they were no’ more
than five leagues from Matherion. ‘We could ride on,’ Kalten suggested.
‘We’d be there by morning.’
‘Not on your life, Sir Kalten,’ Ehlana said adamantly. ‘Start heating
water, gentlemen, and put up a tent we can use for bathing. The ladies and
I are not going to ride into Matherion with half the dirt of Daresia caked
on us – and string some lines so that we can hang our gowns out to air and
to let the breeze shake the wrinkles out of them.’ She looked around
critically. ‘And then, gentlemen, I want you to see to yourselves and your
equipment. I’ll inspect you before we set out tomorrow morning, and I’d
better not find one single speck of rust. ‘ Kalten sighed mournfully. ‘Yes,
my Queen,’ he replied in a resigned tone of voice. They set out the
following morning in a formal column with the carriage near the front.
Their pace was slow to avoid raising dust, and Ehlana, gowned in blue and
crowned with gold and diamonds, sat regally in the carriage, looking for
all the world as if she owned everything in sight. There had been one small
but intense disagreement before they set out, however. Her Highness, the
Royal Princess Danae, had objected violently when told that she would wear
a proper dress and a delicate little tiara. Ehlana did not cajole her
daughter about the matter, but instead she did something she had never done
before. ‘Princess Danae,’ she said quite formally, ‘I am the queen. You
will obey me.’ Danae blinked in astonishment. Sparhawk was fairly certain
that no one had ever spoken to her that way before. ‘Yes, your Majesty,’
she replied finally in a suitably submissive tone. Word of their approach
had preceded them, of course. Engessa had seen to that, and as they rode up
a long hill about mid-afternoon, they saw a mounted detachment of
ceremonial troops wearing armour of black
lacquered steel inlaid with gold awaiting them at the summit. The honour
guard was drawn up in ranks on each side of the road. There were as yet no
greetings, and when the column crested the hill, Sparhawk immediately saw
why. ‘Dear God!’ Bevier breathed in awed reverence. A crescent-shaped city
embraced a deep blue harbour below. The sun had passed its zenith, and it
shone down on the crown of Tamuli. The architecture was graceful, and every
building had a dome-like, rounded roof. It was not so large as Chyrellos,
but it was not the size which had wrung that referential gasp from Sir
Bevier. The city was dazzling, but its splendour was not the splendour of
marble. An opalescent sheen covered the capital, a shifting rainbowrhued
fire that blazed beneath the surface of its very stones, a fire that at
times blinded the eye with its stunning magnificence. ‘Behold!’ Oscagne
intoned quite formally. ‘Behold the seat of beauty and truth! Behold the
home of wisdom and power! Behold fire-domed Matherion, the centre of the
world!’
CHAPTER 24
‘It’s been that way since the twelfth century,’ Ambassador Oscagne told
them as they were escorted down the hill toward the gleaming city. ‘Was it
magic?’ Talen asked him. The young thief’s eyes were filled with wonder.
‘You might call it that,’ Oscagne said wryly, ‘but it was the kind of magic
one performs with unlimited money and power rather than with incantations.
The eleventh and twelfth centuries were a foolish period in our history. It
was the time of the Micaen Dynasty, and they were probably the silliest
family to ever occupy the throne. The first Micaen emperor was given an
ornamental box of mother-of-pearl – or nacre, as some call it by an
emissary from the Isle of Tega when he was about fourteen years old.
History tells us that he would sit staring at it by the hour, paralysed by
the shifting colours. He was so enamoured of the nacre he had his throne
sheathed in the stuff.’ That must have been a fair-sized oyster,’ Ulath
noted. Oscagne smiled. ‘No, Sir Ulath. They cut the shells into little
tiles and fit them together very tightly. Then they polish the whole
surface for a month or so. It’s a very tedious and expensive process.
Anyway, the second Micaen emperor took it one step further and sheathed the
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