‘Oh, no, Sir Berit. She’s definitely interested. If she found his attentions annoying, she’d have killed him a long time ago.’
‘Courtship among the Atans must be a very nervous business,’ Kalten observed.
‘Oh, yes,’ Oscagne laughed. ‘A man must be very careful. If he’s too aggressive, the woman will kill him, and if he’s not aggressive enough, she’ll marry someone else.’
‘That’s very uncivilised,’ Kalten said disapprovingly.
‘Atan women seem to enjoy it, but then, women are more elemental than we are.’
They left Basne early the following morning and rode eastward toward Esos on the border between Zemoch and the kingdom of Astel. It was a peculiar journey for Sparhawk. It took three days, he was absolutely certain of that. He could clearly remember every minute of those three days and every mile they travelled. And yet his daughter periodically roused him when he was firmly convinced that he was sleeping in a tent, and he would be startled to find that he was dozing on Faran’s back instead and that the position of the sun clearly indicated that what had appeared to be a full day’s travel had taken less than six hours. Princess Danae woke her father for a very practical reason during what was in reality no more than a one-day ride. The addition of the Peloi had greatly increased the amount of stores that had to be carefully depleted each ‘night’, and Danae made her father help her dispose of the excess.
‘What did you do with all the supplies when we were travelling with Wargun’s army?’ Sparhawk asked her on the second ‘night’ which actually consumed about a half hour during the early afternoon of that endless day.
‘I did it the other way,’ she shrugged.
‘Other way?’
‘I just made the excess go away.’
‘Couldn’t you do that this time too?’
‘Of course, but then I couldn’t leave it for the animals. Besides, this gives you and me the chance to talk when nobody’s around to hear us. Pour that sack of grain under those bushes, Sparhawk. There’s a covey of quail back in the grass. They haven’t been eating very well lately, and the chicks are growing very fast right now.’
‘Was there something you wanted to talk about?’ he asked her, slitting open the grain sack with his dagger.
‘Nothing special,’ she said. ‘I just like talking with you, and you’re usually too busy.’
‘And this gives you a chance to show off too, doesn’t it?’
‘I suppose it does, yes. It’s not all that much fun being a Goddess if you can’t show off just a little bit now and then.’
‘I love you,’ he laughed.
‘Oh, that’s very nice, Sparhawk!’ she exclaimed happily. ‘Right from the heart and without even thinking about it. Would you like to have me turn the grass lavender for you – just to show my appreciation.’
‘I’ll settle for a kiss. Lavender grass might confuse the horses.’
They reached Esos that evening. The Child Goddess so perfectly melded real and apparent time that they fitted together seamlessly. Sparhawk was a Church Knight, and he had been trained in the use of magic, but his imagination shuddered back from the kind of power possessed by this whimsical little divinity who, she had announced during the confrontation with Azash in the City of Zemoch, had willed herself into existence, and who had decided independently to be reborn as his daughter.
They set up for the night some distance from town, and after they had eaten, Talen and Stragen took Sparhawk aside. ‘What’s your feeling about a bit of reconnoitring?’ Stragen asked the big Pandion.
‘What did you have in mind?’
‘Esos is a fair-sized town,’ the blond Thalesian replied, ‘and there’s sure to be a certain amount of organisation among the thieves there. I thought the three of us might be able to pick up some useful information by getting in touch with their leader.’
‘Would he know you?’
‘I doubt it. Emsat’s a long way away from here.’
‘What makes you think he’d want to talk with you?’
‘Courtesy, Sparhawk. Thieves and murderers are exquisitely courteous to each other. It’s healthier that way.’
‘If he doesn’t know who you are, how will he know that he’s supposed to be courteous toward you?’
‘There are certain signals he’ll recognise.’
‘You people have a very complex society, don’t you?’
‘All societies are complex, Sparhawk. It’s one of the burdens of civilisation.’
‘Someday you’ll have to teach me these signals.’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re not a thief. It’s another of those complexities we were talking about. The point of all of this is that all we have to work with is the ambassador’s rather generalised notion of what’s going on. I think I’d like something a bit more specific, wouldn’t you?’
‘That I would, my friend.’
‘Why don’t we drift on into Esos and see what we can find out then?’
‘Why don’t we?’
The three of them changed into nondescript clothing and rode away from the encampment, circling around to the west to approach the town from that direction.
As they approached, Talen looked critically at the fortifications and the unguarded gate. ‘They seem a little relaxed when you consider how close they are to the Zemoch border,’ he observed.
‘Zemoch doesn’t pose much of a threat any more,’ Stragen disagreed.
‘Old customs die hard, Milord Stragen, and it hasn’t been all that long since Otha was frothing at the frontier with Azash standing right behind him.’
‘I doubt that these people found Azash to be all that impressive,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Otha’s God didn’t have any reason to come this way. He was looking west, because that’s where Bhelliom was.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Talen conceded.
Esos was not a very large town, perhaps about the size of the city of Lenda in central Elenia. There was a kind of archaic quality about it, though, since there had been a town on this spot since the dawn of time. The cobbled streets were narrow and crooked, and they wandered this way and that without any particular reason.
‘How are we going to find the part of town where your colleagues stay?’ Sparhawk asked Stragen. ‘We can’t just walk up to some burgher and ask him where we’ll find the thieves, can we?’
‘We’ll take care of it,’ Stragen smiled. ‘Talen, go ask some pickpocket where the thieves’ den is around here.’
‘Right,’ Talen grinned, slipping down from his horse.
‘That could take him all night,’ Sparhawk said.
‘Not unless he’s been struck blind,’ Stragen replied as the boy moved off into a crowded byway. ‘I’ve seen six pickpockets since we came into town, and I wasn’t even looking very hard.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Their technique’s a little different here. It probably has to do with the narrow streets.’
