that they aren’t either, and that’s far more important.’ Kalten and the
others came back along the column with Kring and Engessa. ‘Are they doing
anything at all, Atan Engessa?’ Sparhawk asked. ‘Just watching,
Sparhawk-Knight. There are more of
them than we thought at first – a thousand at least probably a lot more.’
‘It’s going to be tricky with all these trees,’ Kalten pointed out. ‘I
know,’ Sparhawk grunted. ‘Khalad, how close is it to noon?’
‘About another hour, my Lord,’ Khalad replied from the carriage driver’s
seat. ‘Close enough then. There’s a hill just up ahead. We’ll ride on to it
and make some show of stopping for our midday meal. Our friends here in the
carriage will sort of stroll up to the top. The rest of us will spread out
around the base of the hill. We’ll build fires and rattle pots and pans
together. Ehlana, be silly. I want you and the Baroness to do a lot of
laughing up there on that hilltop. Stragen, take some men and erect a
pavilion of some kind up there. Try to make it look festive. Move some
rocks out of your way and sort of pile them up around the hilltop. ‘A siege
again, Sparhawk?’ Ulath said disapprovingly.
‘Have you got a better idea?’
‘Not really, but you know how I feel about sieges.’
‘Nobody said you had to like it, Ulath,’ Tynian told him. ‘Spread the
word,’ Sparhawk told them, ‘and let’s try
to make it all look very casual.’ They were tense as they proceeded along
the road at a leisurely-appearing pace. When they rounded a bend and
Sparhawk saw the hill, he immediately approved of its strategic potential.
‘It was one of those rock-piles that inexplicably rear up out of forests
the world over. It was a conical heap of rounded boulders perhaps forty
feet high, green with moss and totally devoid of trees or brush. It stood
about two hundred yards to the left of the road. Talen rode to its base,
dismounted, scampered up to the top and looked around. ‘It’s perfect, my
Queen,’ he shouted back down. ‘You can see for miles up here. It’s just
what you were looking for.’
‘That’s a nice touch,’ Bevier noted, ‘assuming that our friends out there
speak Elenic, of course.’ Stragen came forward from the line of pack-horses
carrying a lute. ‘A little finishing touch, my Queen,’ he smiled to Ehlana.
‘Do you play, Milord?’ she asked him. ‘Any gentleman plays, your Majesty.’
‘Sparhawk doesn’t.’
‘We’re still working on a definition of Sparhawk, Queen Ehlana,’ Stragen
replied lightly. ‘We’re not altogether certain that ‘gentleman’ really fits
him – no offence intended of course, old boy,’ he hastily assured the
black-armoured Pandion. ‘A suggestion, Sparhawk?’ Tynian said. ‘Go ahead.’
‘We don’t know anything about those people out there, but they don’t know
anything about us either or at the most, very, very little.’
‘That’s probably true.’ just because they’re watching doesn’t mean they’re
planning an immediate attack – if they’re even planning ‘to attack at all.
If they are, they could just sit and wait until we’re back on the road
again.’
‘All right.’
‘But we’re travelling with some giddy noblewomen begging your Majesty’s
pardon – and noblewomen don’t really need reasons for the things they do.’
Your popularity isn’t growing in certain quarters, Sir Tynian,’ Ehlana said
ominously. ‘i’m crushed, but couldn’t your Majesty decide – on ” a whim that
you absolutely adore this place and that you’re bored with riding in a
cariage? Under those .. ‘)” circumstances, wouldn’t it be natural for you
to order a halt for the day?’
‘it’s not bad, Sparhawk,’ Kalten said. ‘While we’re all lunching, we can
sort of unobtrusively fortify that hill a little better. Then, after a few
hours, when it’s obvious that we aren’t going any further today, we can set
up the usual evening camp – field fortifications and the like. We’re not on
any specific timetable, so a half a day lost isn’t going to put us behind
any sort of schedule. The queen’s safety’s a lot more important than speed
right now, wouldn’t you say?’
‘You know how I’m going to answer that, Kalten.’
‘I was sure I could count on you.’
‘It’s good, Sparhawk-Knight,’ Engessa approved. ‘Give my scouts one whole
night to work with, and we’ll not only know how many are out there, but
their names as well.’
‘Break a wheel,’ Ulath added. ‘What was that, Sir Knight?’ Ambassador
Oscagne asked, looking perplexed. ‘That would give us another exc’ use for
stopping,’ the Thalesian replied. ‘if the carriage broke down, we’d have to
stop.’
‘Can you fix a wheel, Sir Ulath?’
‘No, but we can rig some kind of a skid to get us by until we can find a
blacksmith.’
‘Wouldn’t a skid make the cariage jolt and bump around a great deal?’
Patriarch Emban asked with a pained look. ‘Probably,’ Ulath shrugged. ‘i’m
almost certain we can find some other reason to stop, Sir Knight. Have you
any idea of how uncomfortable that would be?’
‘I didn’t really give it much thought, your Grace,’ Ulath replied blandly.
‘But then, I won’t be riding in the carriage, so it wouldn’t bother me in
the slightest.’
CHAPTER 15
The addition of a dozen female Atans added to the subterfuge of a courtly
gathering on the hilltop, although it was difficult to persuade the Atan
girls that their faces would not break if they smiled or that the Gods had
‘)isued no commandment against laughing. Berit and a number of other
youthful knights entertained the ladies. ‘while casually clearing
inconvenient – and not a few convenient – bushel-basket sized rocks from
the kind of , natural amphitheatre at the top of the hill. The back-side ‘
of the pile of boulders was more precipitous than the front, and the rim of
the hilltop on that side formed a very defensible wall.
%. a9ue rock to form a crude kind of breastwork around
The young knights piled up ‘the other three sides. It was all very casual,
but within ) an hour some fairly substantial fortifications had been
erected” )’There were many cooking-fires around the base of the
‘hill, and their smoke laid a kind of blue haze out among the white tree
trunks. There was a great deal of clanking ‘ ) and rattling and shouting
back and forth as the oddly assorted
force made some show of preparing a meal.
The Atans gathered up large piles of firewood chopped in ten-foot lengths
– and all of the cooks stated ‘a preference for wood chips for their fires
rather ”);)than trunks. It was therefore necessary to chop at the ends
of the birch logs, and there were soon neat piles of ten-foot steaks
surrounding the hill, ready for use either as firewood or as poles spaced
out at regular intervals that could be erected in a few minutes. The
knights and the Peloi tethered their horses nearby and lounged
around the foot of the hill while the Atans were evenly dispersed a bit
further out under the trees. Sparhawk stood at the top of the hill
surveying the progress of the work below. The ladies were gathered under a
broad canopy erected on poles in the centre of the depressed basin on the
hilltop. Stragen was strumming his lute and singing to them in his deep
rich voice. ‘How’s it going down there?’ Talen asked, coming up to where
Sparhawk stood. ‘It’s about as secure as Khalad can make it without being
obvious about it,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘He’s awfully good, isn’t he?’ Talen
said with a certain pride. ‘Your brother? Oh, yes. Your father trained him
very well.’
‘It might have been nice to grow up with my brothers. Talen sounded a bit
wistful. He shrugged. ‘But then…’ he peered out at the forest. ‘Any word
from Engessa?’
‘Our friends are still out there.’
‘They’re going to attack, aren’t they?’
‘Probably. You don’t gather that many armed men in one place without
having something military in mind.’
‘I like your plan here, Sparhawk, but I think it’s got a hole in it.’
‘Oh?’
‘Once they finally realise that we aren’t going to move from this spot,
they might decide to wait and then come at us after dark. Fighting at
night’s a lot different from doing it in the daytime, isn’t it?’
‘Usually, yes, but we’ll cheat.’ Talen gave him a quizzical look. ‘There
are a couple of spells that brighten things up when you need to see.’
‘I keep forgetting about that.’
‘You might as well get used to it, Talen,’ Sparhawk told him with a faint
smile. ‘When we get back home,
you’re going to start your novitiate.’.., When did we decide that?’ just
now. You’re old enough, and if you keep on growing the way you have been
lately, you’ll be big enough.’ is magic hard to learn?’ you have to pay
attention. It’s all done in Styric, and Styric’s a tricky language. If you