Lycheas again?’
Dolmant was smiling. Then he assumed a pious expression. ‘Let us press on to Demos, dear friends,’ he suggested. ‘I feel a sudden yearning to hear the confession of a certain sinner.’
‘Do you know something?’ Talen said. ‘I always thought that thieves were the most devious people in the world, but nobles and churchmen make us look like amateurs.’
‘How would Platime handle the situation?’ Kalten asked as they set off again.
‘He’d stick a knife in Lycheas.’ Talen shrugged. ‘Dead bastards can’t inherit thrones, can they?’
Kalten laughed. ‘It has a certain direct charm, I’ll admit.’
‘You cannot solve the world’s problems by murder, Kalten,’ Dolmant said disapprovingly.
‘Why, your Grace, I wasn’t talking about murder. The Church Knights are the Soldiers of God. If God tells us to kill somebody, it’s an act of faith, not murder. Do you suppose the Church could see its way clear to instruct Sparhawk and me to dispatch Lycheas – and Annias – and Otha too, while we’re at it?’
‘Absolutely not!’
Kalten sighed. ‘It was only a thought.’
‘Who’s Otha?’ Talen asked curiously.
‘Where did you grow up, boy?’ Berit asked him.
‘In the streets.’
‘Even in the streets you must have heard of the Emperor of Zemoch.’
‘Where’s Zemoch?’
‘If you’d stayed in that school I put you in, you’d know,’ Kurik growled.
‘Schools bore me, Kurik,’ the boy responded. ‘They spent months trying to teach me my letters. Once I learned how to write my own name, I didn’t think I needed any of the rest of it.’
‘That’s why you don’t know where Zemoch is – or why Otha may be the one who kills you.’
‘Why would somebody I don’t even know want to kill me?’
‘Because you’re an Elene.’
‘Everybody’s an Elene – except for the Styrics, of course.’
‘This boy has a long way to go,’ Kalten observed. ‘Somebody ought to take him in hand.’
‘If it please you, my Lords,’ Berit said, choosing his words carefully, largely, Sparhawk guessed, because of the presence of the revered Patriarch of Demos, ‘I know that you have pressing matters on your minds. I was never more than a passing fair scholar of history, but I will undertake the instruction of this urchin in the rudiments of the subject.’
‘I love to listen to this young man talk,’ Kalten said. ‘The formality almost makes me swoon with delight.’
‘Urchin?’ Talen objected loudly.
Berit’s expression did not change. With an almost casual backhanded swipe he knocked Talen out of his saddle. ‘Your first lesson, young man, is respect for your teacher,’ he said. ‘Never question his words.’
Talen came up sputtering and with a small dagger in his fist. Berit leaned back in his saddle and kicked him solidly in the chest, knocking the wind out of him.
‘Don’t you just adore the learning process?’ Kalten asked Sparhawk.
‘Now, get back on your horse,’ Berit said firmly, ‘and pay attention. I will test you from time to time, and your answers had better be correct.’
‘Are you going to let him do this?’ Talen appealed to his father.
Kurik grinned at him.
‘This isn’t fair,’ Talen complained, climbing back into his saddle. He wiped at his bleeding nose. ‘You see what you did?’ he accused Berit.
‘Press your finger against your upper lip,’ Berit suggested, ‘and don’t speak without permission.’
‘What was that?’ Talen demanded incredulously.
Berit raised his fist.
‘All right. All right,’ Talen said, cringing away from the offered blow. ‘Go ahead. I’ll listen.’
‘I always enjoy seeing a hunger for knowledge in the young,’ Dolmant observed blandly.
And so Talen’s education began as they rode on to Demos. At first he was quite sullen about it, but after a few hours of listening to Berit, he began to be caught up in the story. ‘Can I ask questions?’ he said finally.
‘Of course,’ Berit replied.
‘You said that there weren’t any kingdoms in those days – just a lot of duchies and the like?’
Berit nodded.
‘Then how did this Abrech of Deira gain control of the whole country in the fifteenth century? Didn’t the other nobles fight him?’
‘Abrech had control of the iron mines in central Deira. His warriors had steel weapons and armour. The people facing him were armed with bronze – or even flint.’
‘That would make a difference, I guess.’
‘After he had consolidated his hold on Deira, he turned south into what’s now Elenia. It didn’t take him very long to conquer the entire region. Then he moved down into Arcium and repeated the process there. After that, he turned towards central Eosia, Cammoria, Lamorkand, and Pelosia.’
‘Did he conquer all of Eosia?’
‘No. It was about that time that the Eshandist Heresy arose in Rendor, and Abrech was persuaded by the Church to give himself over to its suppression.’
‘I’ve heard about the Eshandists,’ Talen said, ‘but I could never get the straight of what they really believe.’
‘Eshand was antihierarchical.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘The Hierarchy is composed of higher church officials – primates, patriarchs and the Archprelate. Eshand believed that individual priests should decide matters of theology for their congregations and that the Hierocracy of the Church should be disbanded.’
‘I can see why high churchmen disliked him then.’
‘At any rate, Abrech gathered a huge army from western and central Eosia to move against Rendor. His eyes were fixed on heaven and so when the earls and dukes of the lands he had conquered asked for steel weapons – the better to fight the heretics, they said – he gave his consent without considering the implications. There were a few battles, but then Abrech’s empire suddenly disintegrated. Now that they had the advanced technology that the Deirans had kept secret before, the nobles of west and central Eosia no longer felt
