The presence of the Child Goddess was having a peculiar effect on Emperor Sarabian. The brilliant, erratic ruler of the continent seemed dumbfounded by her presence and he sat gazing wide-eyed at her. His face was pale, and he was obviously not hearing a word Lord Vanion was saying.
Aphrael finally twisted round and returned his gaze. Then she slowly crossed her eyes at him.
The Emperor started back violently.
‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you that it’s not polite to stare, Sarabian?’ she asked him.
‘Mind your manners,’ Sephrenia chided.
‘He’s supposed to be listening. If I want adoration, I’ll get myself a puppy ‘
‘Forgive me, Goddess Aphrael,’ the Emperor apologized. ‘I seldom have divine visitors.’ He looked at her rather closely. ‘I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but you rather resemble Prince Sparhawk’s daughter. Have you ever met her Royal Highness?’
Sparhawk’s head came up sharply, and there was a strange, almost wild look in his eyes.
‘Now that you mention it, I don’t think I have,’ Flute said. She looked across the room at the Princess. Berit noticed that Sephrenia’s eyes were also just a bit wild as Flute slid down out of her lap and went across the room to Sparhawk’s chair. ‘Hullo, Danae,’ the Child Goddess said in an offhand sort of way.
‘Hullo, Aphrael,’ the Princess replied in almost exactly the same tone. ‘Are you going to do something to get my mother back home?’
‘I’m working on it. Try to keep your father from getting too excited about this. He’s no good to any of us when he flies all to pieces and we have to gather him up and put him back together again.’
‘I know. I’ll do what I can with him. Would you like to hold my cat?’
Flute glanced at Mmrr, whose eyes were filled with a look of absolute horror. ‘I don’t think she likes me,’ she declined.
‘I’ll take care of my father,’ Danae assured the little Goddess. ‘You deal with these others.’
‘All right.’ Aphrael paused. ‘I think we’ll get on well together,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t mind if I stopped by from time to time, would you?’
‘Any time, Aphrael.’
Something very peculiar was going on. Berit saw nothing unusual in the conversation between the two little girls, but Sparhawk’s face – and Sephrenia’s – clearly showed that they were both very disturbed. Berit kept his expression casual and looked around. Everyone else had faintly indulgent smiles on their faces as they watched the exchange – all except Lord Vanion and Anarae Xanetia. Their faces were no less strained than Sparhawk’s and Sephrenia’s. Evidently something titanic had just happened, but for the life of him, Berit could not fathom out what it might have been.
‘I don’t think we should discount the possibility,’ Oscagne said gravely. ‘Baroness Melidere has demonstrated again and again the fact that she has a very penetrating mind.’
Thank you, your Excellency,’ Melidere said sweetly.
‘I wasn’t really being complimentary, Baroness,’ he replied coolly. ‘Your intelligence is a resource to be exploited in this situation. You’ve seen Scarpa and we haven’t. Do you really believe he’s mad?’
‘Yes, your Excellency, quite mad. It wasn’t only his behavior that convinced me of it. Krager and the others treated him the way you’d treat a live cobra. They’re terrified of him.’
‘That dovetails rather neatly with some of the reports I got from the thieves of Arjuna,’ Caalador agreed. ‘There’s always a certain amount of exaggeration involved when people talk about madmen, but every report that came in mentioned it.’
‘If you’re trying to make Sparhawk and me feel better, you’re going at it in a strange way, Caalador,’ Kalten accused. ‘You’re suggesting that the women we love are the prisoners of a crazy man. He could do anything.’
‘It might not be as bad as it looks, Sir Kalten,’ Oscagne said. ‘If Scarpa’s mad, couldn’t this abduction have been his idea alone? If that’s the case, our solution becomes almost too simple. Prince Sparhawk simply follows the instructions he receives to the letter, and when Scarpa appears with Queen Ehlana and Alean, his Highness simply hands over the Bhelliom. We all know what'll happen to Scarpa as soon as he touches it.’
‘You’re equating insanity with feeble-mindedness, Oscagne,’ Sarabian disagreed, ‘and that’s simply not the way it works. Zalasta knows that the rings would protect him if he ever managed to get his hands on Bhelliom, and if he knows, then we have to assume that Scarpa does, too. He’ll demand the rings before he even tries to touch the jewel.’
‘We have three possibilities then,’ Patriarch Emban summed it all up. ‘Either Cyrgon instructed Zalasta to arrange for the abduction, or Zalasta came up with the notion on his own, or Scarpa’s so crazy that he thinks he can just pick up Bhelliom and start giving it commands with no instruction or preparation at all.’
‘There’s one more possibility, your Grace,’ Ulath said. ‘Klæl could already be in charge, and this could be his way to force Bhelliom to come to him for their customary contest.’
‘What difference does it make at this point?’ Sparhawk asked suddenly. ‘We won’t know whose idea it is until we see who shows up to make the exchange.’
‘We should have some plans in place, Prince Sparhawk,’ Oscagne pointed out. ‘We should try to think our way through each situation so that we’ll know what to do.’
‘I already know what I’m going to do, your Excellency,’ Sparhawk told him bleakly.
‘At the moment, we can’t do anything,’ Vanion said, moving in rather quickly. ‘All we can do is wait for Krager’s next note.’
‘Truly,’ Ulath agreed. ‘Krager’s going to give Sparhawk instructions. Those instructions might give us some clues about whose idea this really is,’
* * *
‘You noticed it, too, didn’t you?’ Berit said to Khalad that evening when the two of them were getting ready for bed.
‘Noticed what?’
‘Don’t play the innocent with me, Khalad. You see everything that’s going on around you. Nothing gets by you. Sparhawk and Sephrenia were behaving very peculiarly when Flute and Danae were talking to each other.’
‘Yes,’ Khalad admitted calmly. ‘So what?’
‘Aren’t you curious about why?’
‘Has it occurred to you that “why” might not be any of our business?’
Berit stepped round that. ‘Did you notice how much the two little girls resemble each other?’
Khalad shrugged. ‘You’re the expert on girls.’
Berit suddenly blushed and silently cursed himself for blushing.
‘It isn’t a secret, you know,’ Khalad told him. ‘Empress Elysoun’s fairly obvious. She doesn’t hide her feelings any more than she hides – well, you know.’
‘She’s a good girl,’ Berit quickly came to her defense. ‘It’s just that her people don’t pay any attention to our kind of morality. They can’t even comprehend the notion of fidelity.’
‘I’m not throwing rocks at her. If the way she behaves doesn’t bother her husband, it certainly doesn’t bother me. I’m a country boy, remember? We’re more realistic about things like that. I just wouldn’t get too attached to her, Berit. Her attention may wander in time.’
‘It already has,’ Berit replied. ‘She doesn’t want to discontinue our friendship, though. She wants to be friendly to me and to him – and to the half-dozen or so others she neglected to mention earlier.’
‘The world needs more friendliness, Berit,’ Khalad grinned. There wouldn’t be so many wars if people were friendlier.’
Krager’s next note arrived two days later, and it was authenticated by another lock of Ehlana’s hair. The thought of the sodden drunkard violating his Queen’s pale blonde hair enraged Berit for some obscure reason. Vanion once again read the note to them while Sparhawk sat somewhat apart, gently holding the lock of his wife’s hair in his fingers.
‘ “Sparhawk, old boy,”’ the note began. ‘ “You don’t mind if I call you that, do you? I always admired the way Martel sort of tossed that off when everything was going his way. It was possibly the only thing about him that I admired.
‘ “Enough of these fond reminiscences. You’re going to be making a trip, Sparhawk. We want you to take your squire and travel by the customary overland route to Beresa in southeastern Arjuna. You’ll be watched, so don’t take any side-trips, don’t have Kalten and the other baboons trailing along behind you, don’t have Sephrenia disguised as a mouse or a flea hidden in your pocket, and most definitely don’t use Bhelliom for anything at all – not even for building campfires. I know we can depend on your absolute co-operation, old boy, since you’ll never see Ehlana alive again if you misbehave.
