vacant. My two half-brothers were stupid enough to join in, and now all three of them share the same tomb. I rather imagine that my father regretted all the money he’d spent on my fencing lessons. The expression on his face while he was dying seemed to indicate that he was regretting something.’ The blond man shrugged. ‘I was younger then. I’d probably do it differently now. There’s not much profit involved in randomly rendering relatives down to dog-meat, is there?’
‘That depends on how you define profit.’
Stragen gave him a quick grin. ‘Anyway, I realized almost as soon as I took to the streets that there’s not that much difference between a baron and a cutpurse or a duchess and a whore. I tried to explain that to my predecessor, but the fool wouldn’t listen to me. He drew his sword on me, and I removed him from office. Then I began training the thieves and whores of Emsat. I’ve adorned them with imaginary titles, purloined finery and a thin crust of good manners to give them a semblance of gentility. Then I turned them loose on the aristocracy. Business is very, very good, and I’m able to repay my former class for a thousand slights and insults.’ He paused. ‘Have you had about enough of this malcontented diatribe yet, Sparhawk? I must say that your courtesy and forbearance are virtually superhuman. I’m tired of being rained on anyway. Why don’t we go below? I’ve got a dozen flagons of Arcian red in my cabin. We can both get a little tipsy and engage in some civilized conversation.’
Sparhawk considered this complex man as he followed him below. Stragen’s motives were clear, of course. His resentment and that towering hunger for revenge were completely understandable. What was unusual was his total lack of self-pity. Sparhawk found that he liked the man. He didn’t trust him, of course. That would have been foolish, but he liked him nonetheless.
‘So do I,’ Talen agreed that evening in their cabin when Sparhawk briefly recounted Stragen’s story and confessed his liking for the man. ‘That’s probably natural, though. Stragen and I have a lot in common.’
‘Are you going to throw that in my teeth again?’ Kurik asked him.
‘I’m not lobbing stones in your direction, father,’ Talen said. ‘Things like that happen, and I’m a lot less sensitive about it than Stragen is.’ He grinned then. ‘I was able to use our similar backgrounds to some advantage while I was in Emsat, though. I think he took a liking to me, and he made me some very interesting offers. He wants me to come to work for him.’
‘You’ve got a promising future ahead of you, Talen,’ Kurik said sourly. ‘You could inherit either Platime’s position or Stragen’s – assuming you don’t get yourself caught and hanged first.’
‘I’m starting to think on a larger scale,’ Talen said grandly. ‘Stragen and I did some speculating about it while I was in Emsat. The thieves’ council is very close to being a government now. About all it really needs to qualify is some single leader – a king maybe, or even an emperor. Wouldn’t it make you proud to be the father of the Emperor of the Thieves, Kurik?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘What do you think, Sparhawk?’ the boy asked, his eyes filled with mischief. ‘Should I go into politics?’
‘I believe we can find something more suitable for you to do, Talen.’
‘Maybe, but would it be as profitable – or as much fun?’
They reached the Elenian coast a league or so to the north of Cardos a week later and disembarked about midday on a lonely beach bordered on its upper end with dark fir trees.
‘The Cardos road?’ Kurik asked Sparhawk as they saddled Faran and Kurik’s gelding.
‘Might I make a suggestion?’ Stragen asked from nearby.
‘Certainly.’
‘King Wargun’s a maudlin man when he’s drunk – which is most of the time. Your defection probably has him blubbering in his beer every night. He offered a sizeable reward for your capture in Thalesia and Deira, and he’s probably circulated the same offer here. Your face is well-known in Elenia, and it’s about seventy leagues from here to Cimmura – a good week of hard travel at least. Do you really want to spend that much time on a well-travelled road under those circumstances? – Particularly in view of the fact that somebody wants to shoot you full of arrows rather than just turn you over to Wargun?’
‘Perhaps not. Can you think of an alternative?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I can. It may take us a day or so longer, but Platime once showed me a different route. It’s a bit rough, but very few people know about it.’
Sparhawk looked at the thin blond man with a certain amount of suspicion. ‘Can I trust you, Stragen?’ he asked bluntly.
Stragen shook his head in resignation. ‘Talen,’ he said, ‘haven’t you ever explained thieves’ sanctuary to him?’
‘I’ve tried, but sometimes Sparhawk has difficulty with moral concepts. It goes like this, Sparhawk. If Stragen lets anything happen to us while we’re under his protection, he’ll have to answer to Platime.’
‘That’s more or less why I came along, actually,’ Stragen admitted. ‘As long as I’m with you, you’re still under my protection. I like you, Sparhawk, and having a Church Knight to intercede with God for me in case I happen to be accidentally hanged couldn’t hurt.’ His sardonic expression returned then. ‘Not only that, watching out for all of you might expiate some of my grosser sins.’
‘Do you really have that many sins, Stragen?’ Sephrenia asked him gently.
‘More than I can remember, dear sister,’ he replied in Styric, ‘and many of them are too foul to be described in your presence.’
Sparhawk looked quickly at Talen, and the boy nodded gravely. ‘Sorry, Stragen,’ he apologized. ‘I misjudged you.’
‘Perfectly all right, old boy.’ Stragen grinned. ‘And perfectly understandable. There are days when I don’t even trust myself.’
‘Where’s this other road to Cimmura?’
Stragen looked around. ‘Why, do you know, I actually believe it starts just up there at the head of this beach. Isn’t that an amazing coincidence?’
‘That was your ship we sailed on?’
‘I’m a part owner, yes.’
‘And you suggested to the captain that this beach might be a good place to drop us off?’
‘I do seem to recall such a conversation, yes.’
‘An amazing coincidence, all right,’ Sparhawk said dryly.
Stragen stopped, looking out to sea. ‘Odd,’ he said, pointing at a passing ship. ‘There’s that same merchantman we saw up in the straits. She’s sailing very light. Otherwise she couldn’t have made such good time.’ He shrugged. ‘Oh well. Let’s go to Cimmura, shall we?’
The ‘alternative route’ they followed was little more than a forest trail that wound up across the range of mountains that lay between the coast and the broad tract of farmland drained by the Cimmura River. Once the track came down out of the mountains, it merged imperceptibly with a series of sunken country lanes meandering through
