‘I will, of course, make arrangements to lodge this lady and the little girl here in safety,’ the count said.
‘No, my Lord,’ Sephrenia disagreed. ‘I will accompany Sir Sparhawk and Sir Kalten back to our hiding place. This Martel Sparhawk mentioned is a former Pandion and he has delved deeply into secret knowledge that is forbidden to honest men. It may be necessary to counter him, and I’m best equipped to do that.’
‘But surely the child –’
‘The child must stay with me,’ Sephrenia said firmly. She looked over at Flute, who was in the act of curiously opening a book. ‘No!’ she said, probably more sharply than she intended. She rose and took the book away from the little girl.
Flute sighed, and Sephrenia spoke briefly to her in that dialect Sparhawk did not understand.
Since there was no way to know when Martel’s mercenaries might arrive, the Pandions built no fires that night, and when the next morning dawned clear and cold, Sparhawk unrolled himself from his blankets and looked with some distaste at his armour, knowing that it would take at least an hour for the heat of his body to take the clammy chill out of it. He decided that he was not ready to face that just yet, so he belted on his sword, pulled his stout cloak around his shoulders, and walked down through the sleeping camp towards a small brook that trickled through the woods where he and his knights lay hidden.
He knelt beside the brook and drank from his cupped hands, then braced himself and splashed icy water on his face. Then he rose, dried his face with the hem of his cloak, and stepped across the brook. The just-risen sun streamed golden into the leafless wood, slanting between the dark trunks and touching fire into the dewdrops collected like strings of beads along the stems of the grass about his feet. Sparhawk walked on through the woods.
He had gone perhaps a half a mile when he saw a grassy meadow through the trees. As he approached the meadow, he heard the thudding of hooves. Somewhere ahead, a single horse was loping across the turf at a canter. And then he heard the sound of Flute’s pipes rising in the morning air.
He pushed his way to the edge of the meadow, parted the bushes, and peered out.
Faran, his roan coat glistening in the morning sun, cantered easily in a wide circular course around the meadow. He wore no saddle nor bridle, and there was something almost joyful about his stride. Flute lay face up on his back with her pipes at her lips. Her head was nestled comfortably on his surging front shoulders, her knees were crossed, and she was beating time on Faran’s rump with one little foot.
Sparhawk gaped at them, then stepped out into the meadow to stand directly in the big roan’s path. He spread his arms wide, and Faran slowed to a walk and then stopped in front of his master.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Sparhawk barked at him.
Faran’s expression grew lofty and he looked away.
‘Have you completely taken leave of your senses?’
Faran snorted and flicked his tail even as Flute continued to play her song. Then the little girl slapped her grass-stained foot imperiously on his rump several times, and he neatly sidestepped the fuming Sparhawk and cantered on with Flute’s song soaring above him.
Sparhawk swore and ran after them. After a few yards, he knew it was hopeless and he stopped, breathing hard.
‘Interesting, wouldn’t you say?’ Sephrenia said. She had come out from among the trees and stood at the edge of the meadow with her white robe gleaming in the morning sun.
‘Can you make them stop?’ Sparhawk asked her. ‘She’s going to fall off and get hurt.’
‘No, Sparhawk,’ Sephrenia disagreed, ‘she will not fall.’ She said it in that strange manner into which she sometimes lapsed. Despite the decades she had spent in Elene society, Sephrenia remained a Styric to her fingertips, and Styrics had always been an enigma to Elenes. The centuries of close association between the militant orders of the Elene Church and their Styric tutors, however, had taught the Church Knights to accept the words of their instructors without question.
‘If you’re sure,’ Sparhawk said a bit dubiously as he looked across the turf at Faran, who seemed somehow to have lost his normally vicious temperament.
‘Yes, dear one,’ she said, laying an affectionate hand on his arm in reassurance. ‘I’m absolutely sure.’ She looked out at the great horse and his tiny passenger joyously circling the dew-drenched meadow in the golden morning sunlight. ‘Let them play a while longer,’ she advised.
About midmorning Kalten returned from the vantage point to the south of the castle where he and Kurik had been keeping watch over the road coming up from Sarrinium. ‘Nothing yet,’ he reported as he dismounted, his armour clinking. ‘Do you think Martel might just try to come across country and avoid the roads?’
‘It’s not very likely,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘He wants to be seen, remember? He needs lots of witnesses.’
‘I suppose I hadn’t thought of that,’ Kalten admitted. ‘Have you got the road coming down from Darra covered?’
Sparhawk nodded. ‘Lakus and Berit are watching it.’
‘Berit?’ Kalten sounded surprised. ‘The apprentice? Isn’t he a little young?’
‘He’ll get over it. He’s steady, and he’s got good sense. Besides, Lakus can keep him out of trouble.’
‘You’re probably right. Is there any of that roast ox the count sent us left?’
‘Help yourself. It isn’t hot, though.’
Kalten shrugged. ‘Better cold meat than no meat.’
The day dragged on, as days spent only in waiting will do; by evening, Sparhawk was pacing the camp with his impatience gnawing at him. Finally Sephrenia emerged from the rough little tent she shared with Flute. She placed herself directly in front of the big knight in black armour with her hands on her hips. ‘Will you stop that?’ she demanded crossly.
‘Stop what?’
‘Pacing. You jingle at every step, and the noise is very distracting.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ll go jingle on the other side of camp.’
‘Why not just go and sit down?’
‘Nerves, I guess.’
‘Nerves? You?’
‘I get twinges now and then.’
‘Well, go twinge someplace else.’
‘Yes, little mother,’ he replied obediently.
It was cold again the following morning. Kurik rode quietly into camp just before sunrise. He carefully picked his way past the sleeping knights wrapped in their black cloaks to the place where Sparhawk had spread his blankets. ‘You’d better get up,’ he said, lightly touching Sparhawk’s shoulder. ‘They’re coming.’
Sparhawk sat up quickly. ‘How many?’ he asked, throwing off his blankets.
‘I make it about two hundred and fifty.’
Sparhawk stood up. ‘Where’s Kalten?’ he asked as Kurik began to buckle the black armour over his lord’s padded tunic.
‘He wanted to make sure that there wouldn’t be any surprises, so he joined the end of their column.’
‘He did what?’
‘Don’t worry, Sparhawk. They’re all wearing black armour, so he blends right in.’
‘Do you want to tie this on?’ Sparhawk handed his squire the length of bright ribbon that each knight was to wear as a means of identification during a battle in which both sides would be dressed in black.
Kurik took the red ribbon. ‘Kalten’s wearing a blue one,’ he noted. ‘It matches his eyes.’ He tied the ribbon around Sparhawk’s upper arm, then stepped back and looked at his lord appraisingly. ‘Adorable,’ he said, rolling his eyes.
Sparhawk laughed and clapped his friend on the shoulder. ‘Let’s go wake the children,’ he said, looking across the encampment of generally youthful knights.
