“I beg your pardon?’ Ulath said with a puzzled look.
‘Now do you see how exasperating that is, Ulath?’ she said
to him. ‘This charade we watched here tonight rather strongly
hints at the fact that there aren’t very many people who can
really work spells on the other side. They’re spread out a bit
thin, I’d say. What’s going on here in Edam – and probably in
Astel and Daconia as well – is rather commonplace, so they
don’t feel that they have to waste magic on it.’
‘Commonplace or not, it’s going to seriously hinder Tynian
when he tries to lead the Church Knights across Daresia to
Matherion,’ Sparhawk said. ‘if Rebal can stir up the whole kingdom
the way he did this group tonight, Tynian’s going to have to
wade his way through hordes of howling fanatics. The Edomish
peasantry’s going to be convinced that our brothers are coming
here to impose heresies on them by force, and they’ll be lurking
behind every bush with sickles and pitchforks.’
‘We still have a certain advantage, though,’ Bevier said
thoughtfully. ‘There’s no way that our enemies can possibly
know that we’re here in Edam and that we saw this business
tonight. Even if they were to know that we’re going to raise
Bhelliom – which isn’t very likely – they wouldn’t know where
it is, so they’d have no idea where we were going. Even we
don’t know where we’re going.’
‘And even if they did, they wouldn’t know that we could get
here as quickly as we did,’ Khalad added. “I think we’ve got the
jump on them, my Lords. If they’re relying on hoaxes here, that
probably means that they don’t have any magicians around to
sniff us out. If we can pass ourselves off as ordinary travelers,
we should be able to move around without much hindrance and
pick up all sorts of information in the process.’
‘We’re here to retrieve the Bhelliom, Khalad,’ Flute reminded
him.
‘Of course, but there’s no point in passing up little treasures
as we go along, is there?’
‘Aphrael,’ Vanion said, ‘have we seen and heard everything
we were supposed to?’
She nodded.
“I think we might want to move on to Jorsan rather quickly,
then. If Khalad’s right and we’re one jump ahead, let’s stay that
way. What would it take in the way of bribes to persuade you
to speed up the journey?’
‘We could negotiate that, I suppose, Lord Vanion,’ she smiled.
‘i’m sure you could all offer me something that might induce me
to lend a hand.’
They kissed the Child Goddess into submission and arrived
in Jorsan late the following day. Jorsan turned out to be a typical
Elene port-city squatting at the head of the gulf. The question
of suitable disguises had arisen during the journey. Bevier had
leaned strongly in the direction of posing as religious pilgrims.
Kalten had liked the notion of masquerading as a group of rowdies
in search of constructive debauchery, while Talen, perhaps
influenced by Rebal’s recent performance, had thought it might
be fun to pose as traveling players. They were still arguing about
it when Jorsan came into view.
‘isn’t all this a waste of time?’ Ulath asked them. ‘Why should
we play dress-up? It’s not really anybody’s business who we are,
is it? As long as we’re not wearing armor, the people in jorsan
won’t know – or care – about us. Why go to all the trouble of
lying about it?’
‘We’ll need to wear our mail-shirts, Sir Ulath,’ Berit reminded
him. ‘How do we explain that?’
‘We don’t. Lots of people wear chain-mail and carry weapons,
SO it’s not really that unusual. If somebody in town gets too
curious about who we are and where we’re going, I can make
him get un-curious in fairly short order.’ He held up his hand
and closed his fist suggestively.
‘You mean just bully our way through?’ Kalten asked.
‘Why not? Isn’t that what we’re trained for?’
The inn was not particularly elegant, but it was clean and not
so near the waterfront that the streets around it were filled with
bawling sailors lurching from ale-house to ale-house. The sleeping
-rooms were upstairs over the common-room on the main
floor, and the stables were in the back.
‘Let me handle this,’ Ulath muttered to Sparhawk as they
approached the innkeeper, a tousled fellow with a long, pointed
nose.
‘Feel free,’ Sparhawk replied.
‘You,’ Ulath said abruptly to the innkeeper, ‘we need five
rooms for the night, fodder for ten horses, and some decent
food.’
“I can provide all those, good master,’ the innkeeper assured
him.
‘Good. How much?’
‘Ah…’ The man with the pointed nose rubbed at his chin,
carefully appraising the big Thalesian’s clothes and general
appearance. ‘That would be a half-crown, good master,’ he said
somewhat tentatively. His rates seemed to be based on a sliding
scale of some sort.
Ulath turned on his heel. ‘Let’s go,’ he said shortly to
Sparhawk.
‘What was I thinking of?’ the innkeeper said, slapping his
forehead. ‘That was five rooms and fodder for ten horses, wasn’t
it? I got the numbers turned around in my head. I thought you
wanted ten rooms for some reason. A half-crown would be far
too much for only five rooms. The right price would be two
silver imperials, of course.’
‘i’m glad you got your mathematics straightened out,’ Ulath
grunted. ‘Let’s look at the rooms.’
‘Of course, good master.’ The innkeeper scurried on up the
stairs ahead of them.
‘You don’t leave very many conversational openings, do you,
my friend?’ Sparhawk chuckled.
‘i’ve never found innkeepers very interesting to talk
with.’
They reached an upper hallway, and Ulath looked into one
of the rooms. ‘Check it for bugs,’ he told Sparhawk.
‘Good master!’ the innkeeper protested.
“I like to sleep alone,’ Ulath told him. ‘Bugs crowd me, and
they’re always restless at night.’
The innkeeper laughed a bit weakly. ‘That’s very funny, good
master. I’ll have to remember it. Where is it you come from, and
where are you bound?’
Ulath gave him a long, iCy stare, his blue eyes as chill as a
northern winter and his shoulders swelling ominously as he
bunched them under his tunic.
‘Ah – no matter, I suppose,’ the innkeeper rushed on. “It’s
not really any of my affair, is it?’
‘You’ve got that part right,’ Ulath said. He looked around.
‘Good enough,’ he said. ‘We’ll stay.’ He nudged Sparhawk with
his elbow. ‘Pay him,’ he said, turned, and clumped down the
stairs.
They turned their horses over to the grooms and carried their
saddle-bags up to the sleeping-rooms. Then they went back
downstairs for supper.
Kalten, as usual, heaped his plate with steaming beef.
‘Maybe we should send out for another cow,’ Berit joked.
‘he’s young,’ Kalten told the others jovially, ‘but I like the
way he thinks.’ He grinned at Berit, but then the grin slowly
faded, and the big, blond Pandion grew quite pale. He stared
at the young knight’s face for quite some time. Then he abruptly
pushed his plate back and rose to his feet. “I don’t think I’m
really hungry,’ he said. ‘i’m tired. I’m going to bed.’ He turned,
quickly crossed the common-room to the stairs, and went up
them two at a time.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ Ulath asked in a puzzled
tone. ‘i’ve never seen him walk away from supper like that
before.’
‘That’s God’s own truth,’ Bevier agreed.
‘You’d better have a talk with him when you go up, Sparhawk,’
Vanion suggested. ‘Find out if he’s sick or something.
Kalten never leaves anything on his plate.’
‘Or anybody else’s, for that matter,’ Talen added.
Sparhawk did not linger over supper. He ate quickly, said
goodnight to the others, and went upstairs to have a talk with
his friend. He found Kalten sitting on the edge of his bed with
his face in his hands.
‘What’s the matter?’ SParhawk asked him. ‘Aren’t you feeling
well?’
Kalten turned his face away. ‘Leave me alone, Calton said
hoarsely.
‘Not very likely. What’s wrong?’
“It doesn’t matter.’ The blond knight sniffed and
wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I want to get
drunk.’
‘Not until you tell me what’s bothering you, we won’t.’
Kalten sniffed again and set his jaw. “It’s something
You’d laugh at me.’
‘You know better than that.’
‘There’s a girl, Sparhawk, and she loves somebody else. Are
you satisfied now?’
‘Why didn’t you say something earlier?’
“I just now found out about it.’
‘Kalten, you’re not making any sense at all. One girl’s
been the same as another to you. Most of the time you can’t
even remember their names.’
‘This time’s different. Can we go get drunk now?’
‘How do you know she doesn’t feel the same way about you?”
Sparhawk knew who the girl was, and he was quite certain
she did in fact return his friend’s feelings for her.
Kalten sighed. ‘God knows that there are people in this group