‘Well put,’ Ulath said with an absolutely straight face.

The fire in the thatched roof continued to smoke and steam as the church soldiers threw bucket after bucket of water onto it during the next quarter of an hour. Gradually, by sheer dint of numbers and the volume of water poured on it, the fire was quenched, leaving the owner of the stable bemoaning the saturation of his store of fodder, but preventing any spread of the flames.

‘Bravo, Captain, bravo!’ Tynian cheered from atop the wall.

‘Don’t overdo it,’ Ulath muttered to him.

‘It’s the first time I’ve ever seen any of those fellows do anything useful,’ Tynian protested. ‘That sort of thing ought to be encouraged.’

‘We could start some more fires, if you’d like,’ the huge Genidian offered. ‘We could keep them hauling water all week.’

Tynian tugged at one earlobe. ‘No,’ he said after a moment’s thought. ‘They might get bored when the novelty wears off and decide to let the city burn.’ He glanced at Kurik. ‘Did the boy get away?’ he asked.

‘As slick as a snake going down a rat hole,’ Sparhawk’s squire replied, trying to conceal the note of pride in his voice.

‘Someday you’ll have to tell us about why the lad keeps calling you “father”.’

‘We might get to that one day, my Lord Tynian,’ Kurik muttered.

As the first light of dawn crept up the eastern sky, there came the measured tread of hundreds of feet some distance up the narrow street outside the front gate of the chapterhouse. Then the Patriarch Dolmant, astride a white mule, came into view at the head of a battalion or more of red-liveried soldiers.

‘Your Grace,’ the soot-smeared captain who had been blocking the gate of the chapterhouse exclaimed, rushing forward with a salute.

‘You are relieved, Captain,’ Dolmant told him. ‘You may return with your men to your barracks.’ He sniffed a bit disapprovingly. Tell them to clean up,’ he suggested. They look like chimney sweeps.’

‘Your Grace,’ the captain faltered, ‘I was commanded by the Patriarch of Coombe to secure this house. May I send to him for confirmation of your Grace’s counter-order?’

Dolmant considered it. ‘No, Captain,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so. Retire at once.’

‘But, your Grace!’

Dolmant slapped his hands sharply together, and the troops massed at his back moved into position, their pikes advanced. ‘Colonel,’ Dolmant said in the mildest of tones to the commander of his troops, ‘would you be so good as to escort the captain and his men back to their barracks?’

‘At once, your Grace,’ the officer replied with a sharp salute.

‘And I think they should be confined there until they are presentable.’

‘Of course, your Grace,’ the colonel said soberly. ‘I myself shall conduct the inspection.’

‘Meticulously, Colonel – most meticulously. The honour of the Church is reflected in the appearance of her soldiers.’

‘Your Grace may rely upon my attention to the most minute detail,’ the colonel assured him. ‘The honour of our service is also reflected by the appearance of our lowliest soldier.’

‘God appreciates your devotion, Colonel.’

‘I live but to serve Him, your Grace.’ The colonel bowed deeply.

Neither man smiled nor winked.

‘Oh,’ Dolmant said then, ‘before you leave, Colonel, bring me that ragged little beggar boy. I think I’ll leave him with the good brothers of this order – as an act of charity, of course.’

‘Of course, your Grace.’ The colonel snapped his fingers, and a burly sergeant dragged Talen by the scruff of the neck to the patriarch. Then Dolmant’s battalion advanced on the captain and his men, effectively pinning them against the high wall of the chapterhouse with their pikes. The sooty soldiers of the Patriarch of Coombe were quickly disarmed and then marched off under close guard.

Dolmant affectionately reached down and patted the slender neck of his white mule; then he looked critically up at the parapet. ‘Haven’t you left yet, Sparhawk?’ he asked.

‘We were just making our preparations, your Grace.’

‘The day wears on, my son,’ Dolmant told him. ‘God’s work cannot be accomplished by sloth.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind, your Grace,’ Sparhawk said. Then his eyes narrowed, and he stared hard down at Talen. ‘Give it back,’ he commanded.

‘What?’ Talen answered with a note of anguish in his voice.

‘All of it. Every last bit.’

‘But, Sparhawk –’

‘Now, Talen.’

Grumbling, the boy began to remove all manner of small, valuable objects from inside his clothes, depositing them in the hands of the startled Patriarch of Demos. ‘Are you satisfied now, Sparhawk?’ he demanded a bit sullenly, glaring up at the parapet.

‘Not entirely, but it’s a start. I’ll know better after I search you once you’re inside the gate.’

Talen sighed and dug into several more hidden pockets, adding more items to Dolmant’s already overflowing hands.

‘I assume you’re taking this boy with you, Sparhawk?’ Dolmant asked, tucking his valuables inside his cassock.

‘Yes, your Grace,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘Good. I’ll sleep better knowing that he’s not roaming the streets. Make haste, my son, and Godspeed.’ Then the patriarch turned his mule and rode on back up the street.

Chapter 15

‘At any rate,’ Sir Tynian continued his obviously embellished account of certain adventures of his youth, ‘the local Lamork barons grew tired of these brigands and came to our chapterhouse to enlist our aid in exterminating them. We had all grown rather bored with patrolling the Zemoch border, and so we agreed. To be honest about the whole thing, we looked upon the affair as something in the nature of a sporting event – a few days of hard riding and a nice brisk fight at the end.’

Sparhawk let his attention wander. Tynian’s compulsive talking had been virtually uninterrupted since they had left Chyrellos and crossed the border into the southern kingdom of Cammoria. Although the stories were at first amusing, they eventually grew repetitious. To hear Tynian tell it, he had figured prominently in every major battle and minor skirmish on the Eosian continent in the past ten years. Sparhawk concluded that the Alcione Knight was not so much an unabashed braggart as he was an ingenious storyteller who put himself in the centre of the action of each story to give it a certain immediacy. It was a harmless pastime, really, and it helped to make the miles go faster as they rode down into Cammoria on the road to Borrata.