‘Art thou afeared to speak of it, Goddess?’

Sparhawk spun around quickly, a startled oath coming to his lips. It was Xanetia. She stood all aglow not far from where they were talking.

‘This doesn’t concern you, Xanetia,’ Aphrael told her coldly.

‘I must needs know thine heart, Goddess. Thy sister’s enmity is of no real moment. Thine, however, would be more troublesome. Art thou also unkindly disposed toward me?’

‘Why don’t you leech my thoughts and find out for yourself?’

‘Thou knowest that I cannot, Aphrael. Thy mind is closed to me.’

‘I’m so glad you noticed that.’

‘Behave yourself,’ Sparhawk told his daughter, speaking very firmly.

‘Stay out of this, Sparhawk.’

‘No, Danae, I don’t think I will. Are you behind the way Sephrenia was behaving at Delphaeus?’

‘Don’t be absurd. I sent her to Delphaeus to cure her of that nonsense.’

‘Are you sure, Aphrael? You’re not behaving very well at the moment yourself, you know.’

‘I don’t like Edaemus, and I don’t like his people. I’m trying to cure Sephrenia out of love for her, not out of any affection for the Delphae.’

‘But thou didst stand for us against thy kindred when all this began, Goddess,’ Xanetia pointed out.

‘That also was not out of any great affection for your race, Xanetia. My family was wrong, and I opposed them out of principle. You wouldn’t understand that, though, would you? It had to do with love, and you Delphae have outgrown that, haven’t you?’

‘How little thou knowest us, Goddess,’ Xanetia said sadly.

‘As long as we’re all speaking so frankly, I’ve noticed a certain bias against Styrics in some of your remarks, Anarae,’ Sparhawk said pointedly.

‘I have reasons, Anakha – many reasons.’

‘I’m sure you have, and I’m sure Sephrenia has too. But whether we like each other or not is really beside the point. I am going to straighten this all out. I’ve got work to do, and I can’t do it in the middle of a cat-fight. I will make peace among you – even if I have to use the Bhelliom to do it.’

‘Sparhawk!’ Danae’s face was shocked.

‘Nobody wants to tell me what really happened during the Cyrgai wars, but maybe that’s just as well. I was curious at first, but not any longer. What it boils down to, ladies, is that I don’t care what happened. The way you’ve all been behaving sort of says that nobody’s hands were really clean. I want this spiteful wrangling to stop. You’re all behaving like children, and it’s beginning to make me tired.’

Chapter 17

There were dark circles under Sephrenia’s eyes the next morning, and the light had gone out of her face. Her white Styric robe was partially covered by a sleeveless overmantle of deepest black. Sparhawk had never seen her wear that kind of garment before, and her choice – of both the garment and the color – seemed ominous. She joined them at the breakfast table reluctantly, and only at Ehlana’s express command. She sat slightly apart from the rest of them with her injury drawn about her like a defensive wall. She would not look at Vanion, and refused breakfast despite Alean’s urgings.

Vanion appeared no less injured. His face was drawn and pale, quite nearly as pale as it had been when he had been carrying the burden of the swords, and his eyes were filled with pain.

Breakfast under those circumstances was strained, and they all left the table with a certain relief. They proceeded directly to the blue-draped sitting room and got down to business.

‘The others aren’t really all that significant,’ Caalador told them. ‘Rebal, Sabre and Baron Parok are decidedly second-rate. All they’re really doing is exploiting existing hostilities. Scarpa’s something quite different, though. Arjuna’s a troublesome sort of place to begin with, and Scarpa’s using that to the fullest. The others have to be fairly circumspect because the Elene kingdoms of western Tamuli are so well populated. There are people everywhere, so the conspirators have to sneak around. Southeastern Arjuna’s one vast jungle, though, so Scarpa’s got places to hide, and places he can defend. He makes some small pretense at nationalism in the way that the others do, but that doesn’t appear to be his main agenda. The Arjuni are far more shrewd than the Elene peasants and serfs of the west.’

‘Have you got any background on him?’ Ulath asked. ‘Where he came from, what he did before he set up shop, that sort of thing?’

Caalador nodded. ‘That part wasn’t very difficult. Scarpa was fairly well known in some circles before he joined the conspiracy.’ Caalador made a face. ‘I wish there were some other word. “Conspiracy” sounds so melodramatic.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, Scarpa’s a bastard.’

‘Caalador!’ Bevier said sharply. ‘There are ladies present!’

‘It wasn’t intended as an obscenity, Sir Bevier, merely as a legal definition. Scarpa’s the result of a dalliance between a militantly promiscuous Arjuni tavern-wench and a renegade Styric. It was an odd sort of pairing-off, and it produced a very odd sort of fellow.’

‘Don’t pursue this too far, Caalador,’ Stragen said ominously.

‘Grow up, Stragen. You’re not the only one with irregular parentage. When you get right down to it, I’m not entirely sure who my father was either. Bastardy’s no great inconvenience for a man with brains and talent.’

‘Milord Stragen’s oversensitive about his origins,’ Baroness Melidere explained lightly. ‘I’ve spoken with him time and again about it, but he still has feelings of inadequacy. It might not be a bad thing, though. He’s so generally stupendous otherwise that a little bit of insecurity keeps him from being absolutely unbearable.’

Stragen rose and bowed flamboyantly.

‘Oh, sit down, Stragen,’ she said.

‘Where was I?’ Caalador said. ‘Oh, yes, now I recollect. This yere Scarpa feller, he growed up in a shack-nasty sorta roadside tavern down thar in Ar-juna – an’ he done all the sorta thangs which it iz ez bastards does in ther formative years in a place ‘thout no real moral restraints on ‘em.’

‘Please, Caalador,’ Stragen sighed.

‘Just entertaining the queen, old boy,’ Caalador shrugged. ‘She pines away without periodic doses of down-home folksiness.’

‘What does “shack-nasty” mean, Caalador?’ Ehlana interrupted him.

‘Why, jist whut it sez, yer Queenship. A shack’s a kinda th’owed-together hovel built outten ole boards an’ scraps, an’ “nasty” means purty much whut it sez. I knowed a feller ez went by that name when I wuz a pup. He lived in th’ messiest place y’ ever did see, an’ he warn’t none too clean his own-self, neither.’

‘I think I can survive for several hours now without any more mangled language, Master Caalador,’ she smiled. ‘I want to thank you for your concern, though.’

‘Always glad to be of service, your Majesty.’ He grinned. ‘Scarpa grew up in a situation that sort of skirted the edges of crime. He was what you might call a gifted amateur. He never really settled down into one given trade.’ He made a face. ‘Dabblers. I absolutely detest dabblers. He pandered for his mother – just as every good boy should – and also for his numerous half-sisters, who, if we’re to believe the common gossip, were all whores from the cradle. He was a moderately competent pick-pocket and cut-purse, and a fairly gifted swindler. Unlike many of his mother’s one-time paramours, Scarpa’s Styric father stayed around for a time, and he used to drop back to visit his son from time to time, so Scarpa got a smattering of a Styric education. Eventually, however, he made the kind of mistake we expect amateurs to make. He tried to cut the purse of a tavern patron who wasn’t quite as drunk as he appeared to be. His intended victim grabbed him, and Scarpa demonstrated the Arjuni side of his nature. He whipped out a small, very sharp knife and spilled the fellow’s guts out on the floor of the tavern. Some busy-body went to the police about it, and Scarpa left home rather abruptly.’

‘Wise move,’ Talen murmured. ‘Didn’t he get any professional training while he was growing up?’

‘No. He appears to have picked things up on his own.’

‘Precocious.’

Caalador nodded his agreement. ‘If he’d had the right teachers, he probably could have become a master thief. After he ran away, he seems to have kept moving for a couple of years. He was only twelve or so when he killed that first man, and when he was about fourteen, he turned up in a traveling carnival. He billed himself as a magician – the usual sort of carnival fakery – although he occasionally utilized a few Styric spells to perform real magic. He grew a beard – which is very unusual among the Tamul races, since Tamul men don’t have much facial hair. Neither do Styrics for that matter, now that I think about it. Scarpa’s a half-breed, and the mixture of Southern Tamul and Styric came out rather peculiarly. Neither his features nor some of his traits are really characteristic of either race.’ Caalador reached inside his doublet and drew out a folded sheet of paper. ‘Here,’ he said, opening the paper, ‘judge for yourselves.’

The drawing was a bit crude – more a caricature than a portrait. It was a depiction of a man with a strangely compelling face. The eyes were deep-sunk under heavy brows. The cheekbones were high and prominent, the nose aquiline, and the mouth sensual. The beard appeared to be dense and black, and it was meticulously trimmed and shaped.

‘He spends a lot of time on that beard,’ Kalten observed. ‘It looks as if he shaves off stray whiskers hair by hair.’ He frowned slightly. ‘He looks familiar, for some reason – something around the eyes, I think.’

‘I’m surprised you can even recognize the fact that it’s supposed to be a picture of a human being,’ Talen sniffed. ‘The technique’s absolutely awful.’

‘The girl hasn’t had any training, Talen,’ Caalador defended the artist. ‘She’s gifted in her own profession, though.’

‘Which profession is that, Master Caalador?’ Ehlana asked.

‘She’s a whore, your Majesty.’ He shrugged. ‘The drawing is just a side-line. She likes to keep pictures of her customers. She studies their faces during the course of her business transactions, and some of the portraits have strange expressions.’

‘May I see that?’ Sephrenia asked suddenly.

‘Of course, Lady Sephrenia.’ Caalador looked a little surprised as he took the drawing to her. Then he returned to his seat. ‘Did you ever meet Djukta, Sparhawk?’ he asked.

‘Once.’

‘Now there’s a beard for you. Djukta looks like an ambulatory shrub. He’s even got whiskers on his eyelids. Anyhow, Scarpa traveled with the carnival for several seasons, and then about five years back he dropped out of sight for a year or so. When he came back, he went into politics – if that’s what you want to call it. He makes some small pretense at nationalism in the same way that Rebal, Parok and Sabre do, but that’s only for the benefit of the truly ignorant down in Arjuna. The national hero there was the man who established the slave-trade, a fellow named Sheguan. That’s a fairly contemptible sort of thing, so not many Arjunis take much pride in it.’

‘They still practice it, though,’ Mirtai said bleakly.

‘They do indeed, little dorlin’,’ Caalador agreed.

‘Friend Caalador,’ Kring said, ‘I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to call Mirtai that any more.’

‘Aw, it don’t mean nuthin’, Kring. It’s jist muh folksy way o’ settin’ people at ther ease.’ He paused. ‘Where was I?’ he asked.

‘You were starting to get to the point,’ Stragen replied.

‘Testy this morning, aren’t we, old boy?’ Caalador said mildly. ‘From what our people were able to discover, Scarpa’s far more dangerous than those three enthusiasts in western Tamuli. Arjuni thieves are more clever and devious than run-of-the-mill criminals, and a number of them have infiltrated Scarpa’s apparatus for fun and profit. The Arjuni are an untrustworthy people, so the Empire’s been obliged to deal with them quite firmly. Arjuni hatred for the Tamuls is very real, so Scarpa hasn’t had to stir it up artificially.’ Caalador tugged at his nose a bit doubtfully. ‘I’m not altogether sure how much of this we can believe – the Arjuni being what they are and all – but one highway robber down there claims to have been a member of Scarpa’s inner circle for a while. He told us that our man’s just a little deranged. He operates out of the ruins of Natayos down in the southern jungles. The town was destroyed during the Atan invasion back in the seventeenth century, and Scarpa doesn’t so much hide there as he does occupy the place – in a military sense of the word. He’s reinforced the crumbling old walls so that the town’s defensible. Our highwayman reports that Scarpa starts raving sometimes. If we can believe our informant, he started talking about the Cyrgai once, and about Cyrgon. He tells his cronies that Cyrgon wants to make his people the masters of the world, but that the Cyrgai, with that institutionalized stupidity of theirs, aren’t really intelligent enough to govern a global empire. Scarpa doesn’t have any problems with the idea of an empire. He just doesn’t like the way the present one’s set up. He’d be more than happy with it if there were just a few changes – up at the top. He believes that the Cyrgai will conquer the world and then retreat back into their splendid isolation. Somebody’s going to have to run the government of the world for them, and Scarpa’s got a candidate in mind for the position.’

‘That’s insane!’ Bevier exclaimed.

‘I think I already suggested that, Sir Knight. Scarpa seems to think he’d make a very good emperor.’

‘The position’s already been filled,’ Sarabian noted dryly.

‘Scarpa’s hoping that Cyrgon will vacate it, your Majesty. He tells his people that the Cyrgai have absolutely no administrative skills and that they’re going to need someone to run the conquered territories for them. He’ll volunteer at that point. He’ll genuflect perfunctorily in Cyrgon’s direction once in a while, and more or less run things to suit himself. He has large dreams, I’ll give him that.’