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 n.o.body"s around to hear us. Pour that sack of grain under those bushes, Sparhawk. There"s a covey of quail back in the gra.s.s. 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 G.o.ddess 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 gra.s.s lavender for you-just to show my appreciation."
I"ll settle for a kiss. Lavender gra.s.s might confuse the horses."
They reached Esos that evening. The Child G.o.ddess 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 amba.s.sador"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 G.o.d didn"t have any reason to come this way. He was looking west, because that"s where Bh.e.l.liom 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."
"What would that have to do with it?"
"People jostle each other in tight quarters," Stragen shrugged. "A pickpocket in Emsat or Cimmura could never get away with b.u.mping into a client the way they do here. It"s more efficient, I"ll grant you, but it establishes bad work-habits."
Talen returned after a few minutes. "It"s down by the river," he reported.
"Inevitably," Stragen said. "Something seems to draw thieves to rivers. I"ve never been able to figure out why."
Talen shrugged. "It"s probably so that we can swim for it in case things go wrong. We"d better walk. Mounted men attract too much attention. There"s a stable down at the end of the street where we can leave the horses."
They spoke briefly with the surly stableman and then proceeded on foot. The thieves" den in Esos was in a shabby tavern at the rear of a narrow cul-de-sac. A crude sign depicting a bunch of grapes hung from a rusty hook just over the door, and a pair of burly loafers sprawled on the doorstep drinking ale from battered tankards.
"We"re looking for a man named Djukta," Talen told them.
"What was it about?" one of the loafers growled suspiciously.
"Business," Stragen told him in a cold tone.
"Anybody could say that," the unshaven man said, rising to his feet with a thick cudgel in his hand.
"This is always so tedious," Stragen sighed to Sparhawk. Then his hand flashed to the hilt of his rapier, and the slim blade came whistling out of its sheath. "Friend," he said to the loafer, "unless you want three feet of steel between your breakfast and your supper, you"ll stand aside." The needle-like point of the rapier touched the man"s belly suggestively. The other ruffian sidled off to one side, his hand reaching furtively toward the handle of his dagger.
"I wouldn"t," Sparhawk warned him in a dreadfully quiet voice. He pushed his cloak aside to reveal his mail-shirt and the hilt of his broadsword. "I"m not entirely positive where your breakfast or your supper are located just now, neighbour, but I"ll probably be able to pick them out when your guts are lying in the street." The fellow froze in his tracks, swallowing hard. "The knife," Sparhawk grated. "Lose it." The dagger clattered to the cobblestones.
"I"m so happy that we could resolve this little problem without unpleasantness," Stragen drawled. "Now why don"t we all go inside so you can introduce us to Djukta?"
The tavern had a low ceiling and the floor was covered with mouldy straw. It was lit by a few crude lamps that kburned melted tallow. Djukta was by far the hairiest man Sparhawk had ever seen. His arms and hands seemed to be covered with curly black fur. Great wads of hair protruded from the neck of his tunic, his ears and nostrils looked like bird"s nests, and his beard began just under his lower eyelids.
"What"s this?" he demanded, his voice issuing from somewhere behind his s.h.a.ggy rug of a face.
"They made us let them come inside, Djukta," one of the men from the doorway whined, pointing at Stragen"s rapier. Djukta"s piggish eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Don"t be tiresome," Stragen told him, "and pay attention. I"ve given you the recognition signal twice already, and you didn"t even notice."
"I noticed, but coming in here with a sword in your hand isn"t the best way to get things off to a good start."
"We were a little pressed for time. I think we"re being followed." Stragen sheathed his rapier.
"You"re not from around here, are you?"
"No. We"re from Eosia."
"You"re a long way from home."
"That was sort of the idea. Things were getting unhealthy back there."
"What line are you in?"
"We"re vagabonds at heart, so we were seeking fame and fortune on the highways and byways of Pelosia. A high-ranking churchman suddenly fell ill and died while we were talking business with him, and the Church Knights decided to investigate the causes of his illness. My friends and I decided to find fresh scenery to look at right about then."
"Are those Church Knights really as bad as they say?"
"Worse, probably. The three of us are all that"s left of a band of thirty."
"Are you planning to go into business around here?"
"We haven"t decided yet. We thought we"d look things over first-and make sure that the knights aren"t still following us."
"Do you feel like telling us your names?"
"Not particularly. We"re not sure we"re going to stay and there"s not much point in making up new names if we"re not going to settle down."
Djukta laughed. "If you aren"t sure you"re going into business, what"s the reason for this visit?"
"Courtesy, for the most part. It"s terribly impolite not to pay a call on one"s colleagues when one"s pa.s.sing through a town, and we thought it might save a bit of time if you could spare a few minutes to give us a rundown on local practices in the field of law-enforcement."
"I"ve never been to Eosia, but I"d imagine that things like that are fairly standard. Highwaymen aren"t held in high regard."
"We"re so misunderstood," Stragen sighed. "They have the usual sheriffs and the like, I suppose?"
"There are sheriffs right enough," Djukta said, "but they don"t go out into the countryside very often in this part of Astel. The n.o.bles out there more or less police their own estates. The sheriffs are usually involved in collecting taxes, and they aren"t all that welcome when they ride out of town."
"That"s useful. All we"d really have to deal with would be poorly-trained serfs who fare better at catching diidcen-thieves than at dealing with serious people. Is that more or less the way it is?"
Djukta nodded. "The good part is that these serf-sheriffs won"t go past the borders of their own estate."
"That"s a highwayman"s dream," Stragen grinned.
"Not entirely," Djukta disagreed. "It"s not a good idea to make too much noise out there. The local sheriff wouldn"t chase you, but he would send word to the Atan garrison up in Canae. A man can"t run far enough or fast enough to get away from the Atans, and n.o.body"s ever taught them how to take prisoners."
"That could be a drawback," Stragen conceded. "Is there anything else we should know about?"
"Did you ever hear of Ayachin?"
"I can"t say that I have."
"That could get you into all kinds of trouble."
"Who is he?"
Djukta turned his head. "Akros," he called, "come here and tell our colleagues here about Ayachin." He shrugged and spread his hands. "I"m not too well-versed in ancient history," he explained. "Akros used to be a teacher before he got caught stealing from his employer. He may not be too coherent. He has a little problem with drink."
Akros was a shabby-looking fellow with bloodshot eyes and a five-day growth of beard. "What was it you wanted, Djukta?" he asked, swaying on his feet.
"Sort through what"s left of your brain and tell our friends here what you can remember about Ayachin."
The drunken pedagogue smiled, his bleary eyes coming alight. He slid into a chair and took a drink from his tankard. "I"m only a little drunk," he said, his speech slurred.
"That"s true," Djukta told Stragen. "When he"s really drunk, he can"t even talk."
"How much do you gentlemen know of the history of Astel?" Akros asked them.
"Not too much," Stragen admitted.
"I"ll touch the high spots then." Akros leaned back in his chair. "It was in the ninth century that one of the Archprelates in Chyrellos decided that the Elene faith ought to be re-united-under his domination, naturally. "
"Naturally," Stragen smiled. "It always seems to get down to that, doesn"t it?"