before.’
‘You’re due again, I’d say. You’re definitely growing up, Talen.’ The boy
flushed slightly. Princess Danae gave Sparhawk a sly little smirk. After
the gifts and the poems and songs came the demonstrations of prowess.
Kring’s tribesmen demonstrated their proficiency with their sabres.
Tikume’s men did much the same with their javelins, which they either cast
or used as short lances. Sir Berit unhorsed an equally youthful Cyrinic
Knight, and two blond-braided Genidians engaged in a fearsomely realistic
mock axe-fight. ‘It’s all relatively standard, of course, Emban,’
Ambassador Oscagne said to the Patriarch of Ucera. The friendship of the
two men had progressed to the point where they had begun to discard titles.
‘Warrior cultures almost totally circumscribe their lives with ceremonies.’
Emban smiled. ‘I’ve noticed that, Oscagne. Our Church Knights are the most
courteous and ceremonial men I know.’
‘Prudence, your Grace,’ Ulath explained cryptically. ‘You’ll get used to
that in time, your Excellency,’ Tynian assured the ambassador. ‘Sir Ulath
hates to waste words.’
‘I wasn’t being mysterious, Tynian,’ Ulath told him. ‘I was only pointing
out that you almost have to be polite to a man who’s holding an axe.’ Atan
Engessa rose and bowed a bit stiffly to Ehlana. ‘May I test your slave,
Ehlana-Queen?’ he asked. ‘How exactly do you mean, Atan Engessa?’ she asked
warily. ‘She approaches the time of the Rite of Passage. We must decide if
she is ready. I will not harm her. These others are demonstrating their
skill. Atana Mirtai and ,I will participate. It will be a good time for the
test.’
‘As you think best, Atan,’ Ehlana consented, ‘as long as the Atana does
not object.’
‘if she is truly Atan, she will not object, Ehlana-Queen.’ He turned
abruptly and crossed to where Mirtai sat with the Peloi. ‘Mirtai’s
certainly the centre of things today,’ Melidere observed. ‘I think it’s
very nice,’ Ehlana said. ‘She keeps herself in the background most of the
time. She’s entitled to a bit of attention.’
‘It’s political, you realise,’ Stragen told her. ‘Tikume’s people are
showering Mirtai with attention for Kring’s benefit.’
‘I know, Stragen, but it’s nice all the same.’ She looked speculatively at
her golden slave. ‘Sparhawk, I’d take it as a personal favour if you’d
actively pursue the marriage-negotiations with Atan Engessa. Mirtai
deserves some happiness.’
‘I’ll see what I can arrange for her, my queen.’ Mirtai readily agreed to
Engessa’s proposed test. She rose gracefully to her feet, unfastened the
neck of her purple robe and let it fall. The Peloi gasped. Their women-folk
were customarily dressed in far more concealing garments. The sneer on the
face of Tikume’s wife Vida, however, was a bit wan. Mirtai was
significantly female. She was also fully armed, and that also shocked the
Peloi. She and Engessa moved to the area in front of the canopy, curtly
inclined their heads to each other and drew their swords. Sparhawk thought
he knew the differences between contest and combat, but what followed
blurred that boundary for him. Mirtai and Engessa seemed to be fully intent
on killing each other. Their swordsmanship was superb, but their manner of
fencing involved a great deal more physical contact than did western-style
fighting. ‘It looks like a wrestling-match with swords,’ Kalten observed to
Ulath. ‘Yes,’ Ulath agreed. ‘I wonder if a man could do that in an
axe-fight. If you could kick somebody in the face the way she just did and
then follow up with an axestroke, you could win a lot of fights in a
hurry.’
‘I knew she was going to do that to him,’ Kalten chuckled as Engessa
landed flat on his back in the dust. ‘She did it to me once.’ Engessa,
however, did not lie gasping on the ground as Kalten had. He rolled away
from Mirtai instead and came to his feet with his sword still in his hand.
He raised his blade in a kind of salute and then immediately attacked
again.
The ‘test’ continued for several more minutes until a watching Atan sharply
banged his fist on his breastplate to signal the end of the match. The man
who had signailed was much older than his compatriots, or so it seemed. His
hair was white. Nothing else about him seemed any different, however.
Mirtai and Engessa bowed formally to each other, and he returned her to her
place where she once again drew on her robe and sank down onto a cushion.
Vida no longer sneered. ‘She is fit,’ Engessa reported to Ehlana. He
reached up under his breastplate and tenderly touched a sore-spot. ‘More
than fit,’ he added. ‘She is a skilled and dangerous opponent. I am proud
to be the one she will call father. She will add luster to my name.’
‘We rather like her, Atan Engessa,’ Ehlana smiled. ‘i’m so glad you agree
with us.’ She let the full impact of that devastating smile wash over the
stern-faced Atan, and hesitantly, almost as if it were in spite of himself,
he smiled back. ‘I think he lost two fights today,’ Talen whispered to
Sparhawk. ‘So it would seem,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We can never catch up with
them, friend Sparhawk,’ Tikume said that evening as they all relaxed on
carpets near a flaring campfire. ‘These steppes are open grasslands with
only a few groves of trees. There isn’t really any place to hide, and you
can’t ride a horse through tall grass without leaving a trail a blind man
could follow. They come out of nowhere, kill the herders and run off the
cattle. I followed one of those groups of raiders myself. They’d stolen a
hundred cattle, and they left a broad trail through the grass. After a few
miles, the trail just ended. There was no sign that they’d dispersed. They
just vanished. It was as if something had reached down and carried them off
into the sky.’
‘Have there been any other disturbances, Domi?’ Tynian asked carefully.
‘What I’m trying to say is, has there been unrest of any kind among your
people? Wild stories? rumours? That sort of thing?’
‘No,’friend Tynian.’ Ticume smiled. ‘We are an openfaced people. We do not
conceal our emotions from each other. I’d know if there were something
afoot. I’ve heard about what’s been happening over around Darsas, so I know
why you ask. Nothing like that is happening here. We don’t worship our
heroes the way they do, we just try to be like them. Someone’s stealing our
cattle and killing our herdsmen.’ He looked a bit accusingly at Oscagne. ‘I
would not insult you for all the world, your Honour,’ he said, ‘but you
might suggest to the emperor that he would be wise to have some of his
Atans look into it. If we have to deal with it ourselves, our neighbours
won’t like it very much. We of the Peloi tend to be a bit indiscriminate
when someone steals our cattle.’
‘I’ll bring the matter to his Imperial Majesty’s attention,’ Oscagne
promised. ‘Soon, friend Oscagne,’ Tikume recommended. ‘Very soon.’
‘She’s a highly-skilled warrior, Sparhawk-Knight,’ Engessa was saying the
following morning as the two sat by a small fire. ‘Granted,’ Sparhawk
replied, ‘but by your own traditions, she’s still a child.’
‘That’s why it’s my place to negotiate for her,’ Engessa pointed out. ‘if
she were adult, she would do it herself. Children sometimes do not know
their own worth.’
‘But a child cannot be as valuable as an adult.’
‘That’s not always entirely true, Sparhawk-Knight. The younger a woman,
the greater her price.’
‘Oh, this is absurd,’ Ehlana broke in. The negotiations were of a delicate
nature and would normally have taken place in private. ‘Normally’, however,
did not always apply to Sparhawk’s wife. ‘Your offer’s completely
unacceptable, Sparhawk.’
‘Whose side are you on, dear?’ he asked her mildly. ‘Mirtai’s my friend. I
won’t permit you to insult her. Ten horses indeed. I could get that much
for Talen.’
‘Were you planning to sell him too?’
‘I was just illustrating a point.’ Sir Tynian had also stopped by. Of all
of their group, he was closest to Kring, and he keenly felt the
responsibilities of friendship. ‘What sort of offer would your Majesty
consider properly respectful?’ he asked Ehlana. ‘Not a horse less than
sixty,’ she declared adamantly. ‘Sixty.’ Tynian exclaimed. ‘You’ll
impoverish him. What kind of a life will Mirtai have if you marry her off
to a pauper?’
‘Kring’s hardly a pauper, Sir Knight,’ she retorted.
‘He still has all that gold King Saros paid him for those Zemoch ears.’
‘But that’s not his gold, your Majesty,’ Tynian pointed out. ‘It belongs to
his people.’ Sparhawk smiled and motioned with his head to
Engessa. Unobtrusively, the two stepped away from the fire. ‘i’d Guess that
they’ll settle on thirty, Atan Engessa,’ he tentatively suggested. ‘Most
probably,’ Engessa agreed. ‘It seems like a fair number to me. Doesn’t it
to you?’ It hovered sort of on the verge of an offer. ‘It’s more or less