Amazingly Druss found no rising anger, no surging desire to strike out. Instead he laughed, tension flowing from him.
‘I like you, little man,’ he said.
*
Within the first day they had left the mountains behind them, and rode now through valleys and vales, and sweeping grassland dotted with hills and ribbon streams. There were many hamlets and villages beside the road, the buildings of whitewashed stone with roofs of timber or slate.
Sieben rode gracefully, straight of back and easy in the saddle, sunlight gleaming from his riding tunic of pale blue silk and the silver edging on his knee-length riding boots. His long blond hair was tied back in a pony-tail, and he also sported a silver headband. ‘How many headbands do you have?’ asked Druss as they set off.
‘Pitifully few. Pretty though, isn’t it? I picked it up in Drenan last year. I’ve always like silver.’
‘You look like a fop.’
‘Just what I needed this morning,’ said Sieben, smiling, ‘hints on sartorial elegance from a man whose hair has apparently been cut with a rusty saw, and whose only shirt carries wine stains, and . . . no, don’t tell me what the other marks are.’
Druss glanced down. ‘Dried blood. But it’s not mine.’
‘Well, what a relief. I shall sleep more soundly tonight for knowing that.’
For the first hour of the journey the poet tried to give helpful advice to the young axeman. ‘Don’t grip the horse with your calves, just your thighs. And straighten your back.’ Finally he gave up. ‘You know, Druss, my dear, some men are born to ride. You on the other hand have no feel for it. I’ve seen sacks of carrots with more grace than you.’
The axeman’s reply was short and brutally obscene. Sieben chuckled and gazed up at the sky which was cloudless and gloriously blue. ‘What a day to set off in search of a kidnapped princess,’ he said.
‘She’s not a princess.’
‘All kidnapped women are princesses,’ Sieben told him. ‘Have you never listened to the stories? Heroes are tall, golden-haired and wondrously handsome. Princesses are demure and beautiful, spending their lives waiting for the handsome prince who will free them. By the gods, Druss, no one would want to hear tales of the truth. Can you imagine? The young hero unable to ride in search of his sweetheart because the large boil on his buttocks prevents him from sitting on a horse?’ Sieben’s laughter rippled out.
Even normally grim Druss smiled and Sieben continued. ‘It’s the romance, you see. A woman in stories is either a goddess or a whore. The princess, being a beautiful virgin, falls into the former category. The hero must also be pure, waiting for the moment of his destiny in the arms of the virginal princess. It’s wonderfully quaint – and quite ridiculous of course. Love-making, like playing the lyre, requires enormous practice. Thankfully the stories always end before we see the young couple fumbling their way through their first coupling.’
‘You talk like a man who has never been in love,’ said Druss.
‘Nonsense. I have been in love scores of times,’ snapped the poet.
Druss shook his head. ‘If that were true, then you would know just how . . . how fine the fumbling can be. How far is it to Mashrapur?’
‘Two days. But the slave markets are always held on Missael or Manien, so we’ve time. Tell me about her.’
‘No.’
‘No? You don’t like talking about your wife?’
‘Not to strangers. Have you ever been wed?’
‘No – nor ever desired to be. Look around you, Druss. See all those flowers on the hillsides? Why would a man want to restrict himself to just one bloom? Just one scent? I had a horse once, Shadira, a beautiful beast, faster than the north wind. She could clear a four-bar fence with room to spare. I was ten when my father gave her to me, and Shadira was fifteen. But by the time I was twenty Shadira could no longer run as fast, and she jumped not at all. So I got a new horse. You understand what I am saying?’
‘Not a word of it,’ grunted Druss. ‘Women aren’t horses.’