‘Why don’t we start out with the truth? If I don’t like that, then you can make something up.’

Stragen flashed him a quick grin. ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘Up in Thalesia, I’m a counterfeit aristocrat. Down here, I’m the real thing – or very close to it. I associate with kings and queens, the nobility and the higher clergy on a more or less equal footing.’ He raised one hand. ‘I’m not deluding myself, my friend, so don’t become concerned about my sanity. I know what I am – a bastard thief – and I know that my proximity to the gentry down here is only temporary and that it’s based entirely on my usefulness. I’m tolerated, not really accepted. My ego, however, is sizeable.’

‘I noticed that,’ Sparhawk said with a gentle smile.

‘Be nice, Sparhawk. Anyway, I’ll accept this temporary and superficial equality – if only for the chance of some civilized conversation. Whores and thieves aren’t really very stimulating companions, you understand, and about all they can really offer in the way of conversation is shop talk. Have you ever heard a group of whores sitting around talking shop?’

‘I can’t say that I have.’

Stragen shuddered. ‘Absolutely awful. You learn things about men – and women – that you really don’t want to know.’

‘This won’t last. You know that, don’t you, Stragen? The time will come when things will return to normal, and people will start closing their doors to you again.’

‘You’re probably right, but it’s fun to pretend for a little while. And when it’s all over, I’ll have that much more reason to despise you stinking aristocrats.’ Stragen paused. ‘I do sort of like you though, Sparhawk – for the time being, at least.’

As they rode northeastwards, they began to encounter groups of armed men. The Lamorks were never very far from full mobilization anyway, and they were able to respond to their king’s call to arms quickly. In a melancholy repetition of the events of some five centuries earlier, men from all the kingdoms of western Eosia streamed towards a battlefield in Lamorkand. Sparhawk and Ulath passed the time conversing in Troll. Sparhawk was not certain when he might have occasion to talk to a Troll, but since he had learned the language, it seemed a shame to let it slip away. They reached Kadach at the end of a gloomy day when the sunset was staining the clouds to the west with an orange glow much like that of a distant forest fire. The wind from the east was stiff, and it carried with it the first faint chill of the oncoming winter. Kadach was a walled town, stiff and grey and rigidly unlovely. In what was to become a custom, Kring bade them goodnight and led his men on through the city and out of the east gate to set up camp in the fields beyond. The Peloi were uncomfortable when confined in cities with such urban frivolities as walls, rooms and roofs. Sparhawk and the rest of his friends found a comfortable inn near the centre of town, bathed, changed clothes and gathered in the common room for a supper of boiled ham and assorted vegetables. Sephrenia, as usual, declined the ham.

‘I’ve never understood why people would want to boil a perfectly good ham,’ Sir Bevier noted with some distaste.

‘Lamorks over-salt their hams when they cure them,’ Kalten explained. ‘You have to boil a Lamork ham for quite a while before it’s edible. They’re a strange people. They try to make everything an act of courage – even eating.’

‘Shall we go for a walk, Sparhawk?’ Kurik suggested to his lord after they had eaten.

‘I think I’ve had just about enough exercise for one day.’

‘You did want to know which way Martel went, didn’t you?’

‘That’s true, isn’t it? All right, Kurik. Let’s go nose around a bit.’

When they reached the street, Sparhawk looked around. ‘This is likely to take us half the night,’ he said.

‘Hardly,’ Kurik disagreed. ‘We’ll go to the east gate first, and if we don’t find out anything there, we’ll try the north one.’

‘We just start asking people in the street?’

Kurik sighed. ‘Use your head, Sparhawk. When people are on a journey, they usually start out first thing in the morning – about the same time that other people are going to work. A lot of workmen drink their breakfasts and so the taverns are usually open. When a tavern keeper’s waiting for the first customer of the day, he watches the street fairly closely. Believe me, Sparhawk, if Martel left Kadach in the last three days, at least half a dozen tavern keepers saw him.’

‘You’re an extraordinarily clever fellow, Kurik.’

‘Somebody in this party has to be, My Lord. As a group, knights don’t spend a great deal of their time thinking.’

‘Your class prejudices are showing, Kurik.’

‘We all have these little flaws, I guess.’

The streets of Kadach were very nearly deserted, and the few citizens abroad hurried along with their cloaks whipping around their ankles in the stiff wind. The torches set in the walls at intersections flared and streamed as the wind tore at them, casting wavering shadows that danced on the cobblestones of the streets.

The keeper of the first tavern they tried appeared to be his own best customer, and he had absolutely no idea of what time of day he normally opened his doors for business – or even what time of day it was now. The second tavern keeper was an unfriendly sort who spoke only in grunts. The third, however, proved to be a garrulous old fellow with a great fondness for conversation. ‘Well, now,’ he said, scratching at his head. ‘Lessee iff’n I kin call it t’ mind. The last three days, y’ say?’

‘About that, yes,’ Kurik told him. ‘Our friend said he’d meet us here, but we got delayed, and it looks as if he went on without us.’

‘Kin ye describe him agin?’

‘Fairly large man. He might have been wearing armour, but I couldn’t swear to that. If his head was uncovered, you’d have noticed him. He’s got white hair.’

‘Can’t seem t’ recollect nobody like that. Might could be he went out one t’ other gates.’

‘That’s possible, I suppose, but we’re fairly sure he was going east. Maybe he left town before you opened for business.’

‘Now that’s hardly likely. I opens ‘at door there when the watch opens the gate. Some of the fellers as works here in town lives on farms out yonder, an’ I usually gets some fairly brisk trade of a mornin’. Would yer friend a-bin travellin’ alone?’