massive walls. The weather had cleared off, and the noonday sun was very bright as Sparhawk, Kalten, and Sephrenia, who still carried Flute in front of her saddle, rode across a broad meadow of yellow grass towards the fortress.
They were admitted without question; in the courtyard they were met by the count, a blocky man with heavy shoulders and silver-shot hair. He wore a dark green doublet trimmed in black and surmounted by a heavily starched white ruff of a collar. It was a style which had gone out of fashion in Elenia decades ago. ‘My house is honoured to welcome the knights of the Church,’ he declared formally after they had introduced themselves.
Sparhawk swung down off Faran’s back. ‘Your hospitality is legendary, my Lord,’ he said, ‘but our visit is not entirely social. Is there someplace private where we can talk? We have a matter of some urgency to discuss with you.’
‘Of course,’ the count replied. ‘If you will all be so good as to come with me.’ They followed him through the broad doors of his castle and along a candlelit corridor strewn with rushes. At the end of the corridor, the count produced a brass key and unlocked a door. ‘My private study,’ he said modestly. ‘I’m rather proud of my collection of books. I have almost two dozen.’
‘Formidable,’ Sephrenia murmured.
‘Perhaps you might care to read some of them, madame?’
‘The lady doesn’t read,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘She’s a Styric and an initiate in the secrets. She feels that reading might somehow interfere with her abilities.’
‘A witch?’ the count said, looking at the small woman. ‘Truly?’
‘We prefer to use other terms, my Lord,’ she replied mildly.
‘Please, sit down,’ the count said, pointing at a large table standing in a chill patch of wintry sunlight coming through a heavily barred window. ‘I’m curious to hear about this urgent matter.’
Sparhawk removed his helmet and gauntlets and laid them on the table. ‘Are you familiar with the name of Annias, Primate of Cimmura, my Lord?’
The count’s face hardened. ‘I’ve heard of him,’ he said shortly.
‘You know his reputation then?’
‘I do.’
‘Good. Quite by accident, Sir Kalten and I unearthed a plot hatched by the primate. Fortunately, he isn’t aware of the fact that we know about it. Is it your common practice so freely to admit Church Knights?’
‘Of course. I revere the Church and honour her Knights.’
‘Within a few days – a week at most – a sizeable group of men in black armour and bearing the standards of Pandion Knights will ride up to your gates. I strongly advise you not to admit them.’
‘But –’
Sparhawk held up one hand. ‘They will not be Pandion, my Lord. They’re mercenaries under the command of a renegade named Martel. If you let them in, they will kill everyone within your walls – excepting only a churchman or two who will spread word of the outrage.’
‘Monstrous!’ the count gasped. ‘What reason could the Primate of Cimmura have to bear me such hatred?’
‘The plot isn’t directed at you, Count Radun,’ Kalten told him. ‘Your murder is designed to discredit the Pandion Knights. Annias hopes that the Hierocracy of the Church will be so infuriated that they’ll disband the order.’
‘I must send word to Larium at once,’ the count declared, coming to his feet. ‘My nephew can have an army here in a few days.’
‘That won’t be necessary, my Lord,’ Sparhawk said. ‘I have five hundred fully armed Pandions – real ones – concealed in the woods just to the north of your castle. With your permission, I’ll bring a hundred of them inside your walls to reinforce your garrison. When the mercenaries arrive, find some excuse not to admit them.’
‘Won’t that seem strange?’ Radun asked. ‘I have a reputation for hospitality – for the Knights of the Church in particular.’
‘The drawbridge,’ Kalten said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Tell them that the windlass that operates your drawbridge is broken. Then tell them that you have men working on it and ask them to be patient.’
‘I will not lie,’ the count said stiffly.
‘That’s all right, my Lord,’ Kalten assured him. ‘I’ll break the windlass for you myself, so you won’t really be lying.’
The count stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing.
‘The mercenaries will be outside the castle,’ Sparhawk went on, ‘and your walls will give very little room for manoeuvring. That’s when we’ll attack them from behind.’
Kalten grinned broadly. ‘It should be almost like a cheese grater when we start to grind them up against your walls.’
‘And I can drop some interesting things on them from my battlements as well,’ the count added, also grinning. ‘Arrows, large rocks, burning pitch – that sort of thing.’
‘We’re going to get on splendidly, my Lord,’ Kalten told him.
‘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
