for that reason. You have every reason to be desperate. You’re more than a little reckless, I’d say, judging from the way I’ve seen you ride. No one wants to face you in an honour duel.’
‘I see. Well, truly, the only trouble I’d ever cause you and the warband would be over Hwilli.’
‘Good.’ The captain smiled briefly and put a sliver of ice in his voice. ‘That’s the answer I’d hoped for. There, you’d be within your rights.’
But nowhere else, Rhodorix thought. ‘Well and good, then,’ he said aloud. ‘That’s fair.’
Once they’d eaten, Rhodorix and Andariel left the great hall together. They were walking across the rear courtyard when the gongs boomed from the priests’ tower. A blare of horns answered them from a doorway at its base. Andariel caught Rhodorix’s arm and made him stop.
‘They’re coming,’ he said. ‘We have to kneel.’
‘Who?’
‘The priests. Don’t say a word to them unless they ask you a question.’
‘Well and good, then.’
Rhodorix knelt beside the captain on the hard cobbles. When he glanced around, he saw that everyone within sight had knelt as well. Bronze horns, as harsh as the tubae of the homeland, blared from the fortress walls. Silver horns answered with a chiming melody. To the beat of small drums, carried before them by two lads, four men emerged from the tower.
Long robes of cloth of silver swirled around them with each measured step. They held their heads high and rigid, balancing the weight of their plumed and studded headdresses. Gold and sapphires gleamed at their throats and in their earlobes; a long trail of peacock feathers swayed down their backs. As they passed each person kneeling along their route, in perfect unison the priests raised one hand and lowered it again, most likely in blessing, but they never spoke a word. Behind them came eight lads marching two abreast, dressed in dark blue linen, each carrying a silver sword two-handed and upright in front of him.
They marched the entire length of the fortress, turned in a perfectly executed sweep, and marched back again. The horns blared, the drums beat steadily, until the priests and their retinue returned to their tower by the door they’d left from. After so much processional music, the silence rolled around the courtyard like sound.
‘Ye gods!’ Rhodorix shook his head to steady down his hearing. ‘What was all that about?’
‘I’ve got no idea,’ Andariel said. ‘Maybe they just wanted a bit of fresh air.’ He stood up, dusting the dirt from his knees. ‘They don’t tell us anything, and we don’t ask them anything. Those young lads with the swords? They have the right to kill anyone who insults a priest, and you never know what might insult them.’
Rhodorix got up to join him. ‘Those swords don’t look like they’d cut meat at table.’
‘They look soft, but they’re not true silver. It’s some kind of mix. I don’t know what it is, but the Mountain Folk up in Lin Rej make it.’
‘Oh. Well and good, then, captain. I’ll remember what you say about the priests. They look a fair bit different from the ones from my own tribe, not that I would have crossed them, either.’ Rhodorix paused, remembering Galerinos. ‘Well, except for the one who was a cousin of mine, but he was just an apprentice. Ye gods, no doubt I’ll never see him again, and that’s a pity.’
‘It’s a hard thing, exile.’ Andariel paused to look up at Reaching Mountain and the huge slabs of stone towering above. ‘I hope to the gods I never have to face it.’ He reached out and gave Rhodorix a friendly slap on the shoulder. ‘Let’s go round up our lads and get to work.’
After the day’s riding lessons, Rhodorix went first to the bath house, then back to the chamber he shared with Gerontos. His brother was sitting in a chair by the window and eating bread and fruit from a tray on the table.
‘What’s this?’ Rhodorix said. ‘Does Hwilli know you’re out of bed?’
‘She does. I’m not to walk any farther than this, but it’s time, she said, to see if the leg can bear weight.’ Gerontos gestured at the tray of food. ‘There’s more there than I can eat.’
Rhodorix sat down across from him and picked up a chunk of bread and a knife to butter it.
‘I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ Gerontos said. ‘Does Hwilli have a sister or a friend who might –’ He let the words trail off.
Rhodorix grinned at him. ‘She doesn’t, not one who’s our kind of people.’ He let the smile fade. ‘But she’s mine, Gerro. I know we’ve shared women before, but not this time.’
‘Well and good then. I just asked.’
‘Naught wrong with asking.’ Rhodorix bit off a mouthful of bread and ate it while he thought. ‘She has a friend named Nalla, though, who’s a bit of a spark in tinder, if you ask me. She might find a different sort of man interesting, like, if you can ignore the ears.’
‘I’ll ask Hwilli if I can meet her, then. It’ll let her know that it’s not her I want to bed.’
‘Very gallant of you.’ He grinned again and reached for an apple. ‘How is the leg, by the by?’
‘Healing, she says, and fairly fast as these things go.’
‘Good. You’ll be riding again by winter, or so I hope.’
Eventually Gerontos managed, with the aid of a crutch and with Hwilli’s help as well, to hobble out down to the terrace to teach beside his brother, though generally Rhodorix and one of the men carried him back up again. The forty men under their instruction learned to handle the captured mounts in a much shorter time than Rhodorix had been expecting, not that any of them turned into splendid riders in a fortnight’s work.
The difficulties lay in the mount and dismount. Eventually the guardsmen all learned how to leap onto the wooden horse, but their nervousness communicated itself to the real horses, who usually refused to stand and hold for the practice. Until they could mount, the men would never learn anything else about riding, so Rhodorix reluctantly agreed to a set of wooden steps, such as the kitchen servants used to reach the nets of onions and apples, the smoked pork and other such preserved foods that hung from the kitchen’s high ceilings. Rhodorix made his men pay for the device with jests and shaming remarks that made them struggle all the harder to learn.
On a sunny day turned cool by a crisp wind, Prince Ranadar himself and his retinue came down to watch the riding practice. Skipping along beside him was his little son, Berenaladar, or Ren, as he was usually called. Through Andariel and the crystals, Ranadar asked Rhodorix to show him what ‘this riding thing is.’
Rhodorix whistled for Aur, the name he’d given his chosen horse, who trotted out of the herd at the command and joined him. His previous Meradani owner had trained Aur well; Rhodorix had spent many a morning learning what his new mount could do. When Rhodorix surreptitiously tapped the gelding on his off-fore, Aur bent the leg and seemed to bow to the prince. Ranadar smiled, and Ren clapped his hands with a laugh.
‘I want one of those, Da,’ the child said.
‘You shall have one when you’re older,’
