a special significance, Sparhawk-Knight?’ Engessa asked curiously. ‘A very
special significance, Atan Engessa,’ Sparhawk replied, watching his
friends clustered around the small woman. ‘She ‘ touches our hearts in a
profound way. We’d probably take the world apart if she asked us to. That’s
a very great authority, Sparhawk-Knight.’ Engessa said it with some
approval. Engessa respected authority. ‘It is indeed, my friend,’
Sparhawk agreed, ‘and that’s only the least of her gifts. She’s wise and
beautiful, and I’m at least partially convinced that she could stop the
tides if she really wanted to.’
‘She is quite small, though,’ Engessa noted. ‘Not really. In our eyes
she’s at least a hundred feet tall – maybe even two hundred.’
‘The Styrics are a strange people with strange powers, but I had not heard
of this ability to alter their size before.’ Engessa was a profoundly
literal man, and hyperbole was beyond his grasp. ‘Two hundred, you say?’
‘At least, Atan. Sephrenia was completely caught up in the outpouring of
affection, and so Sparhawk was able to observe her rather closely. She had
changed. She seemed more open, for one thing. No Styric could ever
completely lower his defences among Elenes. Thousands of years of prejudice
and oppression had taught them to be wary – even of those Elenes they loved
the most. Sephrenia’s defensive shell, a shell she had kept in place around
her for so long that she had probably not even known it was there, was gone
now. The doors were all open. There was something more, however. Her face
had been luminous before, but now it was radiant. A kind of regretful
longing had always seemed to hover in her eyes, and it was gone now. For
the first time in all the years Sparhawk had known her, Sephrenia seemed
complete and totally happy. ‘Will this go on for long, Sparhawk-Knight?’
Engessa asked politely. ‘Sarsos is close at hand, but. :.’ He left the
suggestion hanging. ‘I’ll talk with them, Atan. I might be able to persuade
them that they can continue this later.’ Sparhawk walked toward the excited
group near the carriage. ‘Atan Engessa just made an interesting
suggestion,’ he said to them. ‘It’s a novel idea, of course, but he pointed
out that we could probably do all of this inside the walls of Sarsos since
it’s so close anyway.’
‘I see that hasn’t changed,’ Sephrenia observed to Ehlana. ‘Does he still
make these clumsy attempts at humour every chance he gets?’
‘I’ve been working on that, little mother,’ Ehlana smiled. ‘The question I
was really asking was whether or not you ladies would like to ride on into
the city, or would you like to have us set up camp for the night.’
‘Spoil-sport,’ Ehlana accused. ‘We really should go on down,’ Sephrenia
told them. ‘Vanion’s waiting, and you know how cross he gets when people
aren’t punctual.’
‘Vanion?’ Emban exclaimed. ‘I thought he’d be dead by now.’
‘Hardly. He’s quite vigorous, actually. Very vigorous at times. He’d have
come with me to meet you, but he sprained his ankle yesterday. He’s being
terribly brave about it, but it hurts him more than he’s willing to admit.’
Stragen stepped up and effortlessly lifted her up into ,the carriage. ‘What
should we expect in Sarsos, dear sister?’ he asked her in his flawless
Styric. Ehlana gave him a startled look. ‘You’ve been hiding things from
me, Milord Stragen. I didn’t know you spoke StyriC.’
‘I always meant to mention it to you, your Majesty, but it kept slipping
my mind.’
‘I think you’d better be prepared for some surpriSeS, Stragen,’ Sephrenia
told him. ‘All of you should.’ what sort of surprises?’ Stragen asked.
‘Remember that I’m a thief, Sephrenia, and surprises are very bad for
thieves. Our veins tend to come untied when we’re startled.’
‘I think you’d all better discard your preconceptions about Styrics,’
Sephrenia advised. ‘We aren’t obliged to be simple and rustic here in
Sarsos, so you’ll find an altogether different kind of Styric in those
streets.’ She seated herself in the carriage and held out her arms to
Danae. The little princess climbed up into her lap and kissed her. It
seemed very innocuous and perfectly natural, but Sparhawk ‘was privately
surprised that they were not surrounded by a halo of blazing light. Then
Sephrenia looked at Emban. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t really counted
on your being here, your Grace. How firmly fixed are your prejudices?’
‘I like you, Sephrenia,’ the little fat man replied. ‘I resent the
Styrics’ stubborn refusal to accept the true faith, but I’m not really a
howling bigot.’
‘Are you open to a suggestion, my friend?’ Oscagne asked. ‘I’ll listen.’
‘i’d recommend that you look upon your visit to Sarsos as a holiday, and
put your theology on a shelf someplace. Look all you want, but let the
things you don’t like pass without comment. The empire would really
appreciate your co-operation in this, Emban. Please don’t stir up the
Styrics. They’re a very prickly people with capabilities we don’t entirely
understand. Let’s not precipitate avoidable explosions.’ Emban opened his
mouth as if to retort, but then his eyes grew troubled, and he apparently
decided against it. Sparhawk conferred briefly with Oscagne and
Sephrenia and decided that the bulk of the Church Knights should set up
camp with the Peloi outside the city. It was a precaution designed to avert
incidents. Engessa sent his Atans to their garrison just north of the city
wall, and the party surrounding Ehlana’s cariage entered through an
unguarded gate. ‘What’s the trouble, Khalad?’ Sephrenia asked Sparhawk’s
squire. The young man was looking around, frowning. ‘It’s really none of my
business, Lady Sephrenia,’ he said, ‘but are marble buildings really a good
idea this far north? Aren’t they awfully cold in the winter time?’
‘He’s so much like his father,’ she smiled. ‘I think you’ve exposed one of
our vanities, Khalad. Actually, the buildings are made of brick. The
marble’s just a
sheathing to make our city impressive.’
‘Even brick isn’t too good at keeping out the cold, Lady Sephrenia.’
‘It is when you make double walls and fill the space between those walls
with a foot of plaster.’
‘That would take a lot of time and effort.’
‘You’d be amazed at the amount of time and effort people will waste for
the sake of vanity, Khalad, and we can always cheat a little, if we have
to. Our Gods are fond of marble buildings, and we like to make them feel at
home.’
‘Wood’s still more practical,’ he said stubbornly. ‘i’m sure it is,
Khalad, but it’s so commonplace. We like to be different.’
‘It’s different, all right.’ Sarsos even smelled different. A faint miasma
hung over every Elene city in the world, an unpleasant blend of sooty
smoke, rotting garbage and the effluvium from poorly-constructed and
infrequently drained cesspools. Sarsos, on the other hand, smelled of trees
and roses..It was summer, and there were small parks and rose ‘ bushes
everywhere. Ehlana’s expression grew speculative. With a peculiar flash of
insight, Sparhawk foresaw a vast programme of public works looming on the
horizon for the capital of Elenia. The architecture and layout of the city
was subtle and highly sophisticated. The streets were broad and, except
where the inhabitants had decided otherwise for assthetic reasons, they
were straight. The buildings were all sheathed in marble, and they were
fronted by graceful white pillars. This was most definitely not an Elene
city. The citizens looked strangely un-Styric. Their kinsmen in the west
all wore robes of lumpy white homespun. The garb was so universal as to be
a kind of identifying badge. The Styrics of Sarsos, however, wore Silks and
linens. White still appeared to be the preferred colour, but there were
other hues as well, blue and green and yellow, and not a few garments were
a brilliant scarlet. Styric women in the west were very seldom seen, but
they were much more in evidence here. They also wore colourful clothing and
flowers in their hair. More than anything, however, there was a marked
difference in attitude. The Styrics of the west were timid, sometimes as
fearful as deer. They were meek – a meekmess designed to soften Elene
aggressiveness, but that very attitude quite often inflamed the Elenes all
the more. The Styrics of Sarsos, on the other hand, were definitely not
meek. They did not keep their eyes lowered or speak in soft, hesitant
voices. They were assertive. They argued on street corners. They laughed
out loud. They walked along the broad avenues of their city with their
heads held high as if they were actually proud to be Styric. The one thing
that bespoke the difference more than anything else, however, was the fact
that the children played in the parks without any signs of fear. Emban’s
face had grown rigid, and his nostrils were pinched-in with anger. Sparhawk
knew exactly why the Patriarch of Ucera was showing so much resentment.