The Diamond Throne (52 page)

‘I think we need something to round it out, don’t you?’ Her face looked hopeful.

He tried very hard to keep from laughing.

‘This is serious, Mahkra,’ she hissed. ‘My position in the community depends on it.’

‘Trust me,’ he murmured. ‘You have betrayed me, Lillias,’ he said to the balconies, ‘but I forgive you, for I have not been here to keep you from straying.’

She considered that for a moment, then sobbed, fell
into his arms and buried her face in his chest. ‘It’s just that I missed you so much, my Mahkra. I weakened. I am but a poor, ignorant woman – a slave to my passions. Can you ever truly forgive me?’

‘What is there to forgive, my Lillias?’ he said grandly. ‘You are like the earth – like the sea. To give is a part of your nature.’

She thrust herself back from him. ‘Beat me!’ she demanded. ‘I deserve to be beaten!’ Huge tears, genuine for all he knew, stood in her glowing black eyes.

‘Oh, no,’ he refused, knowing exactly where
that
would lead. ‘No beatings, Lillias,’ he said. ‘Only this,’ and he gave her a single chaste kiss full on the lips. ‘Be well, Lillias,’ he murmured softly. Then he stepped back quickly before she could wrap her arms about his neck. He knew just how strong her arms were. ‘And now, though it rends my soul, I must leave you again,’ he declaimed. He reached out and drew her veil once again across her face ‘Think of me from time to time whilst I seek out the fate that destiny has in store for me.’ He did manage to resist the impulse to lay his hand on his heart.

‘I knew it!’ she cried, more to the onlookers than to him. ‘I knew that you were a man of affairs! I shall carry our love in my heart for all eternity, my Mahkra, and I shall remain faithful to you to the grave. And if you live, come back to me.’ She had both arms spread wide again. ‘And if you do not, send your ghost to me in my dreams, and I will comfort your pale shade as best I can.’

He backed away from her outstretched arms. Then he spun so that his robe would swirl dramatically – he owed her that much and vaulted into Faran’s saddle. ‘Farewell, my Lillias,’ he said melodramatically, jerking the reins to make Faran rear and paw the air with his front hooves. ‘And if we do not meet again in this world, may God grant that we meet once more in the next.’ And he
drove his heels into Faran’s flanks and charged past her at a gallop.

‘Did you do all that on purpose?’ Sephrenia asked as they dismounted in the courtyard of the waterfront inn.

‘I might have got a little carried away,’ Sparhawk admitted. ‘Lillias does that to a man from time to time.’ He smiled a bit ruefully. ‘She gets her heart broken on an average of three times a week,’ he noted clinically. ‘She was always militantly unfaithful and just a little dishonest where the cashbox was concerned. She’s vain and vulgar and self-indulgent. She’s deceptive and greedy and grossly overdramatic’ He paused then, thinking back over the years. ‘I liked her, though. She’s a good girl, despite her faults, and living with her was never dull. I owed her that performance. She’ll be able to walk through the quarter like a queen now, and it didn’t really cost me all that much, did it?’

‘Sparhawk,’ she said gravely, ‘I will never understand you.’

‘That’s what makes it all so much fun, isn’t it, little mother?’ He grinned at her.

Flute, still sitting on Sephrenia’s white horse, blew a mocking little trill on her pipes.

Talk with her,’ Sparhawk suggested to Sephrenia. ‘She understands.’

Flute rolled her eyes at him, then generously held out her hands to permit him to help her down.

The voyage across the mouth of the Arcian Strait passed without incident. They ran northeasterly under clear skies with a fair following breeze and with the other ships of Voren’s flotilla clustered about them protectively.

About noon on the third day out, Sparhawk came up on deck to join Sephrenia in the bow where she and Flute stood looking out over the sparkling waves. ‘Are you still cross with me?’ he asked her.

She sighed. ‘No. I suppose not.’

Sparhawk was not entirely certain how to put his vague sense of unease into words, so he approached it obliquely. ‘Sephrenia,’ he said, ‘did it seem to you that everything in Dabour went just a little too smoothly? I somehow get the feeling that I’m being led around by the nose again.’

‘How do you mean, exactly?’

‘I know you tampered with Arasham a few times that night, but did you do anything to Martel?’

‘No. He’d have felt it if I’d tried and he’d have countered me.’

‘That’s what I thought. What was wrong with him then?’

‘I’m not sure I follow you.’

‘He acted almost like a schoolboy. We both know Martel. He’s intelligent, and he thinks very fast on his
feet. What I did was so obvious that he should have seen through it almost immediately, but he didn’t do a thing. He just stood there like an idiot and let me pull his whole scheme down around his ears. It was just too easy, and that worries me.’

‘He didn’t really expect to see us in Arasham’s tent, Sparhawk. Maybe the surprise threw him off balance.’

‘Martel doesn’t surprise all that easily.’

She frowned. ‘No,’ she admitted, ‘he doesn’t, does he?’ She thought about it. ‘Do you remember what Lord Darellon was saying before we left Cimmura?’

‘Not exactly, no.’

‘He said that Annias behaved like a simpleton when he presented his case to the Elene kings. He announced the death of Count Radun without even verifying the fact that the count had really died.’

‘Oh, yes, now I remember. And you said that the whole scheme – the attempt to murder the count and to lay the blame on the Pandions might have originated with a Styric magician.’

‘Perhaps it goes a little farther than that. We know that Martel has had contacts with a Damork, and that means that Azash is involved somehow Azash has always dealt with Styrics, so he’s had very little experience with the subtleties of the Elene mind. The Gods of Styricum are very direct, and they seldom prepare for contingencies – probably because of the Styric lack of sophistication. Now, the whole purpose of the plot in Arcium and the one in Rendor has been to keep the Church Knights out of Chyrellos during the election. Annias behaved the way a Styric would have in the palace at Cimmura, and Martel behaved the same way in Arasham’s tent.’

‘You’re a little inconsistent, Sephrenia,’ he objected. ‘First you try to tell me that Styrics are unsophisticated, then you come up with an explanation so complicated
that I can’t even follow it. Why don’t you just say what you mean?’

‘Azash has always dominated the minds of his followers, ’ she replied, ‘and for the most part, they’ve been Styrics. If Annias and Martel both start behaving like Styrics, it raises some very interesting possibilities, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I’m sorry, Sephrenia, but I can’t accept that. Whatever other faults he may have, Martel’s still an Elene; and Annias is a churchman. Neither one of them would give his soul to Azash.’

‘Not consciously, perhaps, but Azash has ways to subvert the minds of people he finds useful.’

‘Where does all this lead?’

‘I’m not entirely sure, but it seems that Azash has some reason to want Annias to be the new Archprelate It’s something we might want to keep in mind. If Azash is controlling Annias and Martel, they’re both going to be thinking like Styrics, and Styrics don’t react very fast when they’re surprised. It’s a racial trait. Surprise could be our best weapon.’

‘Was that why you were so angry with me – because I surprised you?’

‘Of course. I thought you knew that.’

‘Next time, I’ll try to warn you.’

‘I’d appreciate that.’

Two days later their ship entered the estuary of the River Ucera and sailed up towards the Elenian port city of Vardenais. As they approached the wharves, however, Sparhawk saw trouble. Men in red tunics were patrolling the waterfront.

‘Now what?’ Kurik asked as the two of them crouched behind a low deckhouse to keep out of sight.

Sparhawk frowned. ‘I suppose we could sail across the bay and go inland on the Arcian side.’

‘If they’re watching the seaports, they’re bound to be patrolling the border as well. Use your head, Sparhawk.’

‘Maybe we could slip across at night.’

‘Isn’t what we’re doing a little too important to hang it all on a “maybe”?’ Kurik asked pointedly.

Sparhawk started to swear. ‘We’ve
got
to get to Cimmura,’ he said. ‘It’s getting close to the time when another of the twelve knights is going to die, and I don’t know how much more of the weight Sephrenia can carry. Think, Kurik. You’re always better at tactics than I am.’

‘That’s because I don’t wear armour. The sense of invincibility does funny things to a man’s brains.’

‘Thanks,’ Sparhawk said dryly.

Kurik knit his brows in thought.

‘Well?’ Sparhawk said impatiently.

‘I’m working on it. Don’t rush me.’

‘We’re getting closer to the wharf, Kurik.’

‘I can see that. Can you tell if they’re searching any of the ships?’

Sparhawk raised his head and peered over the top of the deckhouse ‘They don’t seem to be.’

‘Good. That means we won’t have to make any spur-of-the-moment decisions. We can go below and work this out.’

‘Any ideas at all?’

‘You’re pushing, Sparhawk,’ Kurik said disapprovingly. ‘That’s one of your failings, you know You always want to dash into the middle of things before you’ve thought your way completely through what you’re going to do.’

Their ship hove to beside a tar-smeared wharf, and the sailors cast lines to the longshoremen clustered there. Then they ran out the gangway and began to carry boxes and bales down to the wharf.

There was a clattering sound from the hold, and Faran trotted up on deck. Sparhawk stared at his war horse in
amazement. Flute sat cross-legged on the big roan’s broad back playing her pipes. The melody she played was a peculiarly drowsy one, almost like a lullaby. Before Sparhawk and Kurik could run to intercept her, she tapped Faran’s back with the side of her foot, and he placidly walked down the gangway to the wharf.

‘What is she
doing?’
Kurik exclaimed.

‘I can’t even begin to guess. Get Sephrenia – fast!’

On the wharf, Flute rode directly towards the squad of church soldiers stationed at the far end. The soldiers had been closely examining every disembarking passenger and sailor, but they paid no attention to Flute and the roan horse She impudently rode back and forth in front of them several times, then turned. She seemed to be looking directly at Sparhawk and, still playing her pipes, she raised one little hand and motioned to him.

He stared at her.

She made a little face and then quite deliberately rode directly through the soldiers’ ranks. They absently stepped aside for her, but not one of them so much as looked at her.

‘What’s going on down there?’ he demanded as Sephrenia and Kurik joined him behind the deckhouse.

‘I’m not altogether sure,’ Sephrenia replied, frowning.

‘Why aren’t the soldiers paying any attention to her?’ Kurik asked as Flute rode through the ranks of red tunics once again.

‘I don’t think they can see her.’

‘But she’s right there in front of them.’

‘That doesn’t seem to matter.’ Her face slowly took on an expression of wonder. ‘I’d heard about this,’ she murmured. ‘I thought it was just an old folk tale, but perhaps I was wrong.’ She turned to Sparhawk. ‘Has she looked back at the ship at all since she rode down onto that wharf?’

‘She sort of motioned to me to follow her,’ he said.

‘You’re sure?’

‘That’s the way it looked to me.’

She drew in a deep breath. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s one way to find out, I suppose.’ Before Sparhawk could stop her, she rose and walked out from behind the deckhouse.

‘Sephrenia!’ he called after her, but she continued on across the deck as if she had not heard him. She reached the rail and stood there.

‘She’s right out in plain sight,’ Kurik said in a strangled tone.

‘I can see that.’

‘The soldiers are certain to have a description of her. Has she gone out of her mind?’

‘I doubt it. Look.’ Sparhawk pointed towards the soldiers on the wharf. Although Sephrenia was standing in plain view, they did not even appear to look at her.

Flute, however, saw her and made another of those imperious little gestures.

Sephrenia sighed and looked at Sparhawk. ‘Wait here,’ she said.

‘Wait where?’

‘Here on board ship.’ She turned, walked to the gangway and went on down to the wharf.

‘That rips it,’ Sparhawk said bleakly, rising to his feet and drawing his sword. Quickly he counted the soldiers on the wharf. ‘There aren’t that many of them,’ he said to Kurik. ‘If we can take them by surprise, there might be a chance.’

‘Not a very good one, Sparhawk. Let’s wait a moment and see what happens.’

Sephrenia walked up the wharf and stopped directly in front of the soldiers.

They ignored her.

She spoke to them. They paid no attention.

Then she turned back towards the ship. ‘It’s all right, Sparhawk,’ she called. ‘They can’t see us – or hear us. Bring the other horses and our things.’

‘Magic?’ Kurik asked in a stunned voice.

‘Not any kind that I ever heard about,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘I guess we’d better do what she says, then,’ Kurik advised, ‘and sort of immediately I’d hate to be right in the middle of those soldiers when the spell wears off.’

It was eerie to walk down the gangway in plain view of the church soldiers and to saunter casually up the wharf until they were face to face with them. The soldiers’ expressions were bored, and they gave no indication that anything at all was amiss. They routinely stopped every sailor and passenger leaving the wharf, but paid no attention whatsoever to Sparhawk, Kurik, and the horses. The soldiers stepped out of the way with no command from their corporal and immediately closed ranks again once Sparhawk and Kurik had led the horses off the wharf and onto the cobblestones of the street.

Without a word, Sparhawk lifted Flute down from Faran’s back and saddled the big roan. ‘All right,’ he said to Sephrenia when he had finished, ‘how did she do it?’