happening, didn’t you?’ Sparhawk nodded. we really need to get to Sarsos
and talk with Sephrenia. ‘
‘you’re going to speed up the journey again then?’
‘I think I’d better. I’m not entirely sure what the ones on the other side
are doing yet, but they’re starting to move faster for some reason, so we’d
better see what we can do to keep up. Take me back to the carriage,
Sparhawk. Stragen’s probably finished showing off hiS education by now, and
the smell of your armour’s beginning to make me nauseous.’
Although there was a community of interest between the three disparate
segments of the force escorting the Queen of Elenia, Sparhawk, Engessa and
Kring decided to make some effort to keep the Peloi, the Church Knights and
the Atans more or less separate from each other. Cultural differences
obviously made a general mingling unwise. The possibilities for
misunderstandings were simply too numerous to be ignored. Each leader
stressed the need for the strictest of courtesy and formality to his
forces, and the end result was a tense and exaggerated stiffness. In a very
real sense, the Atans, the Peloi and the knights were allies rather than
comrades. The fact that very few of the Atans spoke Elenic added to the
distance between the component parts of the small army moving out onto the
treeless expanse of the steppes. They encountered the eastern Peloi some
distance from the town of Pela in central Astel. Kring’s ancestors had
migrated from this vast grassland some three thousand’ years earlier, but
despite the separation of time and distance, the two branches of the Peloi
family were remarkably similar in matters of dress and custom. The only
really significant difference seemed to be the marked preference of the
eastern Peloi for the javelin as opposed to the sabre favoured by Kring’s
people. After a ritual exchange of greetings and a somewhat extended
ceremony during which Kring and his eastern cousin sat cross-legged on the
turf ‘taking salt together and talking of affairs’ while two armies warily
faced each other across three hundred yards of open grass. The decision not
to go to war with each other today was apparently reached, and Kring led
his new-found friend and kinsman to the carriage to introduce him all
around. The Domi of the eastern Peloi was named Tikume. He was somewhat
taller than Kring, but his head was also shaved, a custom among those
horsemen dating back to antiquity. Tikume greeted them all politely. ‘It is
passing strange to see Peloi allied with foreigners,’ he noted. ‘Domi Kring
has told me of the conditions which prevail in Eosia, but I had not fully
realised that they had led to such peculiar arrangements. Of course he and
I have not spoken together for more than ten years.’
‘You’ve met before, Domi Tikume?’ Patriarch Emban asked with a certain
surprise. ‘Yes, your Grace,’ Kring replied. ‘Domi Tikume journeyed to
Pelosia with the King of Astel some years back. He made a point of looking
me up.’
‘King Alberen’s father was much wiser than his son,’ Ticume explained,
‘and he read a great deal. He saw many similarities between Pelosia and
Astel, so he paid a state visit to King Saros. He invited me to go along.’
His expression became one of distaste. ‘I might have declined if I’d known
he was going to travel by boat. I was sick every day for two months. Domi
Kring and I got on well together. He was kind enough to take me’ with him
to the marshes to hunt ears.’
‘Did he share the profits with you, Domi Tikume?’ Ehlana asked him. what
was that, queen Ehlana?’ Tikume looked baffled. Kring, however, laughed
nervously and flushed just a bit. Then Mirtai strode up to the cariage. ‘is
this the one?’ Tikume asked Kring. Kring nodded happily. ‘isn’t she
stupendous?’
‘Magnificent,’ Tikume agreed fervently, his tone almost reverential. Then
he dropped to one knee. ‘Dona,’ he greeted her, clasping both hands in
front of his face. Mirtai looked inquiringly at Kring. ‘It’s a Peloi word,
beloved,’ he explained. ‘It means ‘Domi’s mate’.’
‘That hasn’t been decided yet, Kring,’ she pointed out. ‘Can there be any
doubt, beloved?’ he replied. , Tikume was still down on one knee. ‘You
shall enter our camp with all honours, Dona Mirtai,’ he declared, ‘for
among our people, you are a queen. All shall kneel to you, and all shall
give way to you. Poems and songs shall be composed in your honour, and rich
gifts shall be bestowed upon you.’
‘Well, now,’ Mirtai said. ‘Your beauty is clearly divine, Dona Mirtai,’
Tikume continued, warming to his subject. ‘Your very presence brightens a
drab world and puts the sun to shame. I am awed at the wisdom of my brother
Kring in having selected you as his mate. Come straightaway to our camp,
divine one, so that my people may adore you.’
‘My goodness,’ Ehlana breathed. ‘Nobody’s ever said anything like that to
me.’
‘We just didn’t want to embarrass you, my Queen,’ Stragen told her
blandly. ‘We feel that way about you of course, but we didn’t want to be
too obvious about it.’
‘Well said,’ Ulath approved. Mirtai looked at Kring with a new interest.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about this, Kring?’ she asked him. ‘I thought you
knew, beloved.’
‘I didn’t,’ she replied. Her lower lip pushed forward slightly in a
thoughtful kind of pout. ‘But I do now,’ she added. ‘Have you chosen an Oma
as yet?’
‘Sparhawk serves me in that capacity, beloved.’
‘Why don’t you go have a talk with Atan Engessa, Sparhawk!’ she suggested.
‘Tell him for me that I do not look upon Domi Kring’s suit with disfavour.’
‘That’s a very good idea, Mirtai,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘i’m surprised I
didn’t think of it myself.’
CHAPTER 14
The town of Pela in central Astel was a major trading centre where
merchants and cattle-buyers came from all parts of the empire to do
business with the Peloi herdors. It was a shabby-looking, unfinished sort
of place. Many of its buildings were no more than ornate fronts with large
tents erected behind them. No attempt had ever been made to pave its
rutted streets, and the passage of strings of wagons and herds of cattle
raised a cloud of dust that entirely obscured the town most of the time.
Beyond the poorly-defined outskirts lay an ocean of tents, the portable
homes of the nomadic Peloi. Tikume led them through the town and on out to
a hill-top where a number of brightly-striped pavilions encircled a large
open area. A canopy held aloft by poles shaded a place of honour at the
very top of the hill, and the ground beneath that canopy was carpeted and
strewn with cushions and furs. Mirtai was the absolute centre of
attention. Her rather scanty marching clothes had been covered with a
purple robe that reached to the ground, an indication of her near-royal
status. Kring and Tikume formally escorted her to the ceremonial centre of
the camp and introduced her to Tikume’s wife, Vida, a sharp-faced woman
who also wore a purple robe and looked at Mirtai with undisguised
hostility. Sparhawk and the rest joined the Peloi leaders in the shade as
honoured guests. The face of Tikume’s wife grew darker and darker as Peloi
warriors vied with each other to heap extravagant compliments upon Mirtai
as they were presented to Kring and his purported bride-to-be. There were
gifts and a number of songs praising the beauty of the golden giantess.
‘How did they find time to make up songs about her?’ Talen quietly asked
Stragen. ‘i’d imagine that the songs have been around for a long time,’
Stragen replied. ‘They’ve substituted Mirtai’s name, that’s all. I expect
there’ll be poems as well. I know a third-rate poet in Emsat who makes a
fairly good living writing poems and love-letters for young nobles too
lazy or uninspired to compose their own. There’s a whole body of
literature with blank spaces in it that serves in such situations.’
‘They just fill in the blanks with the girl’s name?’ Talen demanded
incredulously. ‘It wouldn’t really make much sense to fill them in with
some other girl’s name, would it?’
‘That’s dishonest!’ Talen exclaimed. ‘What a novel attitude, Talen,’
Patriarch Emban laughed, ‘particularly coming from you.’
‘You aren’t supposed to cheat when you’re telling a girl how you feel
about her,’ Talen insisted. Talen had begun to notice girls. They had been
there all along, of course, but he had not noticed them before, and he had
some rather surprisingly strong convictions. It is to the credit of his
friends that not one of them laughed at his peculiar expression of
integrity. Baroness Melidere, however, impulsively embraced him. ‘What was
that all about?’ he asked her a little suspiciously. ‘Oh, nothing,’ she
replied, touching a gentle hand to his cheek. ‘When was the last time you
shaved?’ she asked him. ‘Last week sometime, I think – or maybe the week