“Mimbrate knights,” Lelldorin snarled, his eyes going flat.
“Keep your feelings to yourself,” Wolf told the young man. “If any of them say anything to you, answer in such a way that they’ll think you’re a Mimbrate sympathizer – like young Berentain back at your uncle’s house.”
Lelldorin’s face hardened.
“Do as he tells you, Lelldorin,” Aunt Pol said. “This isn’t the time for heroics.”
“Hold!” the leader of the armored column commanded, lowering his lance until the steel point was leveled at them. “Let one come forward so that I may speak with him.” The knight’s tone was peremptory.
Silk moved toward the steel-cased man, his smile ingratiating. “We’re glad to see you, Sir Knight,” he lied glibly. “We were set upon by robbers last night, and we’ve been riding in fear of our lives.”
“What is thy name?” the knight demanded, raising his visor, “and who are these who accompany thee?”
“I am Radek of Boktor, my Lord,” Silk answered, bowing and pulling off his velvet cap, “a merchant of Drasnia bound for Tol Honeth with Sendarian woolens in hopes of catching the winter market.”
The armored man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Thy party seems overlarge for so simple an undertaking, worthy merchant.”
“The three there are my servants,” Silk told him, pointing at Barak, Hettar, and Durnik. “The old man and the boy serve my sister, a widow of independent means who accompanies me so that she might visit Tol Honeth.”
“What of the other?” the knight pressed. “The Asturian?”
“A young nobleman traveling to Vo Mimbre to visit friends there. He graciously consented to guide us through this forest.”
The knight’s suspicion seemed to relax a bit. “Thou madest mention of robbers,” he said. “Where did this ambush take place?”
“About three or four leagues back. They set upon us after we had made our night’s encampment. We managed to beat them off, but my sister was terrified.”
“This province of Asturia seethes with rebellion and brigandage,” the knight said sternly. “My men and I are sent to suppress such offenses. Come here, Asturian.”
Lelldorin’s nostrils flared, but he obediently came forward. “I will require thy name of thee.”
“My name is Lelldorin, Sir Knight. How may I serve thee?”
“These robbers thy friends spoke of – were they commons or men of quality?”
“Serfs, my Lord,” Lelldorin replied, “ragged and uncouth. Doubtless fled from lawful submission to their masters to take up outlawry in the forest.”
“How may we expect duty and proper submission from serfs when nobles raise detestable rebellion against the crown?” the knight asserted.
“Truly, my Lord,” Lelldorin agreed with a show of sadness that was a trifle overdone. “Much have I argued that selfsame point with those who speak endlessly of Mimbrate oppression and overweening arrogance. My appeals for reason and dutiful respect for His Majesty, our Lord King, however, are greeted with derision and cold despite.” He sighed.
“Thy wisdom becomes thee, young Lelldorin,” the knight approved. “Regrettably, I must detain thee and thy companions in order that we may verify certain details.”
“Sir Knight!” Silk protested vigorously. “A change in the weather could destroy the value of my merchandise in Tol Honeth. I pray you, don’t delay me.”
“I regret the necessity, good merchant,” the knight replied, “but Asturia is filled with dissemblers and plotters. I can permit none to pass without meticulous examination.”
There was a stir at the rear of the Mimbrate column. In single file, resplendent in burnished breastplates, plumed helmets and crimson capes, a half a hundred Tolnedran legionnaires rode slowly along the flank of the armored knights.
“What seems to be the problem here?” the legion commander, a lean, leather-faced man of forty or so, asked politely as he stopped not far from Silk’s horse.
“We do not require the assistance of the legions in this matter,” the knight said coldly. “Our orders are from Vo Mimbre. We are sent to help restore order in Asturia and we were questioning these travelers to that end.”
“I have a great respect for order, Sir Knight,” the Tolnedran replied, “but the security of the highway is my responsibility.” He looked inquiringly at Silk.
“I am Radek of Boktor, Captain,” Silk told him, “a Drasnian merchant bound for Tol Honeth. I have documents, if you wish to see them.”
“Documents are easily forged,” the knight declared.
“So they are,” the Tolnedran agreed, “but to save time I make it a practice to accept all documents at face value. A Drasnian merchant with goods in his packs has a legitimate reason to be on an Imperial Highway, Sir Knight. There’s no reason to detain him, is there?”
“We seek to stamp out banditry and rebellion,” the knight asserted hotly.
“Stamp away,” the captain said, “but off the highway, if you don’t mind. By treaty the Imperial Highway is Tolnedran territory. What you do once you’re fifty yards back in the trees is your affair; what happens on this road is mine. I’m certain that no true Mimbrate knight would want to humiliate his king by violating a solemn agreement between the Arendish crown and the Emperor of Tolendra, would he?”
The knight looked at him helplessly.
“I think you should proceed, good merchant,” the Tolnedran told Silk. “I know that all Tol Honeth awaits your arrival breathlessly.” Silk grinned at him and bowed fioridly in his saddle. Then he gestured to the others and they all rode slowly past the fuming Mimbrate knight. After they had passed, the legionnaires closed ranks across the highway, effectively cutting off any pursuit.
“Good man there,” Barak said. “I don’t think much of Tolnedrans ordinarily, but that one’s different.”
“Let’s move right along,” Mister Wolf said. “I’d rather not have those knights doubling back on us after the Tolnedrans leave.”
They pushed their horses into a gallop and rode on, leaving the knights behind, arguing heatedly with the legion commander in the middle of the road.
They stayed that night at a thick-walled Tolnedran hostel, and for perhaps the first time in his life Garion bathed without the insistence or even the suggestion of his Aunt. Though he had not had the chance to become directly involved in the fight in the clearing the night before, he felt somehow as if he were spattered with blood or worse. He had not before realized how grotesquely men could be mutilated in close fighting. Watching a living man disembowled or brained had filled him with a kind of deep shame that the ultimate inner secrets of the human body could be so grossly exposed. He felt unclean. He removed his clothing in the chilly bathhouse and even, without thinking, the silver amulet Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol had given him, and then he entered the steaming tub where he scrubbed at his skin with a coarse brush and strong soap, much harder than even the most meticulous obsession with personal cleanliness would have required.
For the next several days they moved southward at a steady pace, stopping each night at the evenly spaced Tolnedran hostels where the presence of the hard-faced legionnaires was a continual reminder that all the might of Imperial Tolnedra guaranteed the safety of travelers who sought refuge there.
On the sixth day after the fight in the forest, however, Lelldorin’s horse pulled up lame. Durnik and Hettar, under Aunt Pol’s supervision, spent several hours brewing poultices over a small fire by the roadside and applying steaming compresses to the animal’s leg while Wolf fumed at the delay. By the time the horse was fit to continue, they all realized that there was no chance to reach the next hostel before dark.
“Well, Old Wolf,” Aunt Pol said after they had remounted, “what now? Do we ride on at night, or do we try to take shelter in the forest again?”
“I haven’t decided,” Wolf answered shortly.
“If I remember right, there’s a village not far ahead,” Lelldorin, now mounted on an Algar horse, stated. “It’s a poor place, but I think it has an inn – of sorts.”
“That sounds ominous,” Silk said. “What exactly do you mean by ‘of sorts’?”
“The Lord of this demesne is notoriously greedy,” Lelldorin replied. “His taxes are crushing, and his people have little left for themselves. The inn isn’t good.”
“We’ll have to chance it,” Wolf decided, and led them off at a brisk trot. As they approached the village, the heavy clouds began to clear off, and the sun broke through wanly.
The village was even worse than Lelldorin’s description had led them to believe. A half dozen ragged beggars stood in the mud on the outskirts, their hands held out imploringly and their voices shrill. The houses were nothing more than rude hovels oozing smoke from the pitiful fires within. Scrawny pigs rooted in the muddy streets, and the stench of the place was awful.
A funeral procession slogged through the mud toward the burial ground on the other side of the village. The corpse, carried on a board, was wrapped in a ragged brown blanket, and the richly robed and cowled priests of Chaldan, the Arendish God, chanted an age-old hymn that had much to do with war and vengeance, but little to do with comfort. The widow, a whimpering infant at her breast, followed the body, her face blank and her eyes dead.