The two armoured knights crashed into the centre of the charge. Sparhawk felled two of the attackers in quick succession as Kalten chopped another out of his saddle with a rapid series of savage sword strokes. One man tried to flank them, but fell twitching as Kurik’s mace crushed in the side of his head. Sparhawk and Kalten were in the very centre of the attackers now, swinging their heavy broadswords in vast overhead strokes. Then Berit charged in from the flank, his axe crunching into the bodies of the riders on that side. After a few moments of concerted violence, the survivors broke and fled.
‘What was that all about?’ Kalten demanded. The blond man was red-faced and panting from his exertions.
‘I’ll chase one of them down and ask him, my Lord,’ Berit offered eagerly.
‘No,’ Sparhawk told him.
Berit’s face fell.
‘A novice must not volunteer, Berit,’ Kurik told the young man sternly, ‘at least, not until he’s proficient with his weapons.’
‘I did all right, Kurik,’ Berit protested.
‘Only because these people weren’t very good,’ Kurik said. ‘Your swings are too wide, Berit. You leave yourself open for counterstrokes. When we get to my farm in Demos, I’ll give you some more instruction.’
‘Sparhawk!’ Sephrenia cried from the bottom of the hill.
Sparhawk spun Faran quickly around and saw five men on foot wearing the rough smocks of Styrics running out of the bushes beside the road towards Sephrenia, Dolmant, and Talen. He swore and drove his spurs into Faran’s flanks.
It quickly became obvious that the Styrics were trying to reach Sephrenia and Flute. Sephrenia, however, was not utterly defenceless. One of the Styrics fell squealing to the ground, clutching at his belly. Another dropped to his knees, clawing at his eyes. The other three faltered, fatally as it turned out, because by then Sparhawk was there. He sent one man’s head flying with a single swipe of his sword, then drove his blade into the chest of another. The last Styric tried to flee, but Faran took the bit between his teeth and ran him down with three quick bounds and trampled him into the earth with his steel-shod forehooves.
‘There!’ Sephrenia said sharply, pointing at the hilltop. A robed and hooded figure sat astride a pale horse, watching. Even as the small Styric woman began her incantation, the figure turned and rode back over the hill and out of sight.
‘Who were they?’ Kalten asked as he joined them on the road.
‘Mercenaries,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘You could tell by their armour.’
‘Was that one up on the hill the leader?’ Dolmant asked.
Sephrenia nodded.
‘He was a Styric, wasn’t he?’
‘Perhaps, but perhaps something else. I sensed something familiar about him. Once before something tried to attack the little girl. Whatever it was, it was driven off. This time it tried more direct means.’ Her face grew dreadfully serious. ‘Sparhawk,’ she said, ‘I think we should ride on to Demos as quickly as we can. It’s very dangerous out here in the open.’
‘We could question the wounded,’ he suggested. ‘Maybe they could tell us something about this mysterious Styric who seems so interested in you and Flute.’
‘They won’t be able to tell you anything, Sparhawk,’ she disagreed. ‘If what was up there on that hill was what I think it was, they won’t even have any memory of it.’
‘All right,’ he decided, ‘let’s ride then.’
It was midafternoon when they reached Kurik’s substantial farmstead just outside Demos. The farm showed Kurik’s careful attention to detail. The logs forming the wall of his large house had been adzed square and they fitted tightly together with no need for chinking. The roof was constructed of overlapping split shakes. There were several outbuildings and storage sheds all built back into the side of the hill just behind the house, and the two-storey barn was of substantial size. The carefully tended kitchen garden was surrounded by a sturdy rail fence. A single brown and white calf stood at the fence looking wistfully at the wilted carrot tops and frost-browned cabbages inside the garden.
Two tall young men about the same age as Berit were splitting firewood in the yard, and two others, slightly older, were repairing the barn-roof. They all wore rough canvas smocks.
Kurik swung down from his saddle and approached the two in the yard. ‘How long has it been since you sharpened those axes?’ he demanded gruffly.
‘Father!’ one of the young men exclaimed. He dropped his axe and roughly embraced Kurik. He was, Sparhawk noticed, at least a head taller than his sire.
The other lad shouted to his brothers on the roof of the barn, and they came sliding down to leap from the edge with no apparent concern for life or limb.
Then Aslade came bustling out of the house. She was a plump woman wearing a grey homespun dress and a white apron. Her hair was touched at the temples with silver, but the dimples in her cheeks made her look girlish. She caught Kurik in a warm embrace, and for several moments Sparhawk’s squire was surrounded by his family. Sparhawk watched almost wistfully.
‘Regrets, Sparhawk?’ Sephrenia asked him gently.
‘A few, I suppose,’ he admitted.
‘You should have listened to me when you were younger, dear one. That could be you, you know.’
‘My profession’s a little too dangerous for me to include a wife and children in my life, Sephrenia.’ He sighed.
‘When the time comes, dear Sparhawk, you won’t even consider that.’
‘The time, I think, has long since passed.’
‘We’ll see,’ she replied mysteriously.
‘We have guests, Aslade,’ Kurik told his wife.
Aslade dabbed at her misty eyes with one corner of her apron and crossed to where Sparhawk and the others sat, still mounted. ‘Welcome to our home,’ she greeted them simply. She curtsied to Sparhawk and Kalten, both of whom she had known since they were boys. ‘My Lords,’ she said formally. Then she laughed. ‘Come down here, you two,’ she said, ‘and give me a kiss.’
Like two clumsy boys they slid from their saddles and embraced her. ‘You’re looking well, Aslade,’ Sparhawk said, trying to recover some degree of dignity in the presence of Patriarch Dolmant.
‘Thank you, my Lord,’ she said with a mocking little curtsey. Aslade had known them far too long to pay much attention to customary usages. Then she smiled broadly. She patted her ample hips. ‘I’m getting stouter, Sparhawk,’ she said. ‘It comes from all the tasting when I cook, I think.’ She shrugged good-humouredly. ‘But you can’t tell if it’s right unless you taste it.’ Then she turned to Sephrenia. ‘Dear, dear Sephrenia,’ she said, ‘it’s been so long.’
‘Too long, Aslade,’ Sephrenia replied, sliding down from the back of her white palfrey and taking Aslade in her arms. Then she said something in Styric to Flute, and the little girl came shyly forward and kissed Aslade’s palms.
‘What a beautiful child,’ Aslade said. She looked a bit slyly at Sephrenia. ‘You should have told me, my dear,’ she said. ‘I’m a very good midwife, you know, and I’m just a little hurt that you didn’t invite me to officiate.’
Sephrenia looked startled at that, then suddenly burst out laughing. ‘It’s not like that at all, Aslade,’ she said. ‘There’s a kinship between the child and me, but not the one you suggested.’
Aslade smiled at Dolmant. ‘Come down from your horse, your Grace,’ she invited the patriarch. ‘Would the Church permit us an embrace – a chaste one, of course? Then you’ll get your reward. I’ve just taken five loaves from the oven, and they’re still nice and hot.’
Dolmant’s eyes brightened, and he quickly dismounted. Aslade threw her arms about his neck and kissed him noisily on the cheek. ‘He married Kurik and me, you know,’ she said to Sephrenia.
‘Yes, dear. I was there, remember?’
Aslade blushed. ‘I remember very little about the ceremony,’ she confessed. ‘I had my mind on other things that day.’ She gave Kurik a wicked little smile.
Sparhawk carefully concealed a grin when he saw his squire’s face redden noticeably.
Aslade looked inquiringly at Berit and Talen.
‘The husky lad is Berit,’ Kurik introduced them. ‘He’s a Pandion novice.’
‘You’re welcome here, Berit,’ she told him.
‘And the boy is my – uh – apprentice,’ Kurik fumbled. ‘I’m training him up to be a squire.’
