The Ruby Knight (15 page)

‘What's the matter with him?'

‘The contact with that being has almost destroyed his mind.'

‘Is he going to be all right?'

‘I don't know, Ulath, I really don't.'

Berit and Kurik finished erecting the tents, and Sparhawk and Ulath moved their injured friends inside one of them. ‘We're going to need a fire,' Kurik said, ‘and that's not going to be easy today, I'm afraid. I've got a little dry wood left, but not enough to last for very long. Those men are wet and cold, and we absolutely have to get them dried out and warm.'

‘Any suggestions?' Sparhawk asked him.

‘I'll work on it.'

It was some time after noon when Talen returned, driving a rickety wagon that was hardly more than a cart. ‘This was the best I could find,' he apologized.

‘Did you have to steal it?' Kurik asked him.

‘No. I didn't want the farmer chasing me. I bought it.'

‘With what?'

Talen looked slyly at the leather purse hanging from his father's belt. ‘Don't you feel just a little light on that side, Kurik?'

Kurik swore and looked closely at the purse. The bottom had been neatly slit open.

‘Here's what I didn't need, though,' Talen said, handing over a small handful of coins.

‘You actually stole from
me
?'

‘Be reasonable, Kurik. Sparhawk and the others are all wearing armour, and their purses are on the inside. Yours was the only one I could get to.'

‘What's under that canvas?' Sparhawk asked, looking into the wagon bed.

‘Dry firewood,' the boy replied. ‘The farmer had stacks of it in his barn. I picked up a few chickens, too. I didn't steal the wagon,' he noted clinically, ‘but I
did
steal the firewood and the chickens – just to keep in practice. Oh, incidentally, the farmer's name is Wat. He's a wall-eyed fellow who scratches a lot. It seems to me that when I was outside the tap-room door last night somebody was saying that he might possibly be significant for some reason.'

The rain was slackening, and a fitful breeze was coming in off the lake. It scattered the rain in gusty sheets across the surface of the pools of standing water lying in the muddy field. Kurik and Berit had built a fire in the centre of their circle of tents and set a canvas sheet on poles to the windward side, in part to protect the blaze from being quenched, but also in part to deflect its heat into the tent where the injured knights lay.

Ulath came out of one of the other tents wrapping a dry cloak about his huge mailed shoulders. He raised his shaggy-browed face towards the sky. ‘It seems to be letting up,' he said to Sparhawk.

‘We can hope,' Sparhawk said. ‘I don't think putting Tynian and the others in that wagon in a rainstorm would do them much good.'

Ulath grunted his agreement. ‘This really didn't turn out very well, did it, Sparhawk?' he said morosely. ‘We've got three men down, and we're still not any closer to finding Bhelliom.'

There was not much Sparhawk could say to that. ‘Let's go and see how Sephrenia's doing,' he suggested.

They went around the fire and entered the tent where the small Styric woman hovered over the injured. ‘How are they coming along?' Sparhawk asked her.

‘Kalten's going to be all right,' she replied, pulling a red wool blanket up under the blond Pandion's chin. ‘He's had bones broken before, and he mends fast. I gave Bevier something that may stop the bleeding. It's Tynian that worries me the most, though. If we can't do something – and fairly soon – his mind will slip away.'

Sparhawk shuddered at that. ‘Can't you do anything at all?'

She pursed her lips. ‘I've been thinking it over. The mind is a much more difficult thing to work with than the body. You have to be very careful.'

‘What actually happened to him?' Ulath asked her. ‘I didn't quite follow what you said before.'

‘At the end of his incantation, he was totally open to that creature from the mound. The dead usually wake slowly, so you've got time to put up your defences. The beast isn't really dead, so it came at him before he had time to protect himself.' She looked down at Tynian's ashen face. ‘There's one thing that might work,' she mused doubtfully. ‘It's worth a try, I suppose. I don't think anything else will save his sanity. Flute, come here.'

The little girl rose from where she had been sitting cross-legged on the canvas ground-sheet of the tent. Her bare feet were grass-stained, Sparhawk noted absently. Even in spite of all the mud and wet, Flute's feet always seemed to have those greenish stains on them. She softly crossed the tent to Sephrenia, her dark eyes questioning.

Sephrenia spoke to her in that peculiar Styric dialect.

Flute nodded.

‘All right, gentlemen,' Sephrenia said to Sparhawk and Ulath, ‘there's nothing you can do here, and at the moment you're just underfoot.'

‘We'll wait outside,' Sparhawk said, feeling slightly abashed at the crisp way they had been dismissed.

‘I'd appreciate it.'

The two knights went out of the tent. ‘She can be very abrupt, can't she?' Ulath noted.

‘When she has something serious on her mind.'

‘Has she always treated you Pandions this way?'

‘Yes.'

Then they heard the sound of Flute's pipes coming from inside the tent. The melody was much like the peculiarly drowsy one she had played to lull the attention of the spies outside the chapterhouse and the soldiers on the docks at Vardenais. There were slight differences, however, and Sephrenia was speaking sonorously in Styric as a sort of counterpoint. Suddenly, the tent began to glow with a peculiar golden light.

‘I don't believe I've ever heard that spell before,' Ulath admitted.

‘Our instruction only covers the things we're likely to need to know,' Sparhawk replied. ‘There are whole realms of Styric magic we don't even know exist. Some are too difficult, and some are too dangerous.' Then he raised his voice. ‘Talen,' he called.

The young thief poked his head out of one of the other tents. ‘What?' he said flatly.

‘Come here. I want to talk to you.'

‘Can't you do it inside? It's wet out there.'

Sparhawk sighed. ‘Just come here, Talen,' he said. ‘Please don't argue with me every time I ask you to do something.'

Grumbling, the boy came out of the tent. He approached Sparhawk warily. ‘Well, am I in trouble again?'

‘Not that I know of. You said that farmer you bought the wagon from is named Wat?'

‘Yes.'

‘How far is his farm from here?'

‘A couple of miles.'

‘What does he look like?'

‘His eyes look off in two different directions, and he scratches a lot. Isn't he the fellow that old man in the tap-room was telling you about?'

‘How did you know about that?'

‘I was listening outside the door.' Talen shrugged.

‘Eavesdropping?'

‘I don't know if I'd really put it that way. I'm a child, Sparhawk – or at least people think I am. Grown-ups don't think they have to tell things to children. I've found that if I really need to know anything, I'm going to have to find it out for myself.'

‘He's probably got a point, Sparhawk,' Ulath said.

‘You'd better get your cloak,' Sparhawk told the boy. ‘In just a little bit, you and I are going to pay a visit to this itchy farmer.'

Talen looked out over the rainy field and sighed.

From inside the tent, Flute's pipe-song broke off, and Sephrenia ceased her incantation.

‘I wonder if that's a good sign or a bad one,' Ulath said.

They waited tensely. Then, after a few moments, Sephrenia looked out. ‘I think he'll be all right now. Come in and talk to him. I'll know better once I hear how he answers.'

Tynian was propped up on a pillow. His face was still ashy grey and his hands were trembling. His eyes, however, though still haunted, appeared rational.

‘How are you feeling?' Sparhawk asked him, trying to sound casual.

Tynian laughed weakly. ‘If you really want to know the truth, I feel as if I'd been turned inside out and then put together again backwards. Did you manage to kill that monstrosity?'

‘Sparhawk drove it off with that spear of his,' Ulath told him.

A haunted fear came into Tynian's eyes. ‘It might come back then?' he asked.

‘Not very likely,' Ulath replied. ‘It jumped back into the burial mound and pulled the ground in after it.'

‘Thank God,' Tynian said with relief.

‘I think you'd better sleep now,' Sephrenia told him. ‘We can all talk more later.'

Tynian nodded and lay back again.

Sephrenia covered him with a blanket, motioned to Sparhawk and Ulath and led them outside. ‘I think he's going to be all right,' she said. ‘I felt much better when I heard him laugh. It's going to take some time, but at least he's on the mend.'

‘I'm going to take Talen and go and talk to that farmer,' Sparhawk told them. ‘He seems to be the one the old man at the inn told us about. He might be able to give us some idea of where to go next.'

‘It's worth a try, I suppose,' Ulath said a bit doubtfully. ‘Kurik and I'll keep an eye on things here.'

Sparhawk nodded and went into the tent he normally shared with Kalten. He removed his armour and put on his plain mail-shirt and stout woollen leggings instead. He belted on his sword and then pulled his grey, hooded traveller's cloak about his shoulders. He went back out to the fire. ‘Come along, Talen,' he called.

The boy came out of the tent with a look of resignation on his face. His still-damp cloak was wrapped tightly about him. ‘I don't suppose I could talk you out of this,' he said.

‘No.'

‘I hope that farmer hasn't looked into his barn yet, then. He might be a little touchy about the missing firewood.'

‘I'll pay for it if I have to.'

Talen winced. ‘After I went to all the trouble of stealing it? Sparhawk, that's degrading. It might even be immoral.'

Sparhawk looked at him quizzically. ‘Someday you're going to have to explain the morality of a thief to me.'

‘It's really very simple, Sparhawk. The first rule is not to pay for anything.'

‘I thought it might be something like that. Let's go.'

The sky to the west was definitely growing lighter as Sparhawk and Talen rode towards the lake, and the rain had become no more than sporadic showers. That in itself lightened Sparhawk's mood. It had been a bleak time. The uncertainty which had dogged his steps from the moment they had left Cimmura had proved to be fully justified, but even now the certainty that they had taken a wrong course provided him with firm ground for a new beginning. Sparhawk accepted his losses stoically and went on towards the lightening sky.

The house and outbuildings of the farmer, Wat, lay in a little dell. It was a slovenly-looking sort of place surrounded by a log palisade that leaned dispiritedly away from the prevailing wind. The house, half-log and half-stone, had a poorly thatched roof and looked definitely run-down. The barn was even worse, appearing to continue to stand more out of habit than from any structural integrity. A broken-down cart sat in the muddy yard, and rusting tools lay wherever their owner had discarded them. Wet, dishevelled chickens scratched in the mud without much hope, and a scrawny black and white pig rooted near the doorstep of the house.

‘Not very neat, is he?' Talen observed, as he and Sparhawk rode in.

‘I saw the cellar you were living in back in Cimmura,' Sparhawk replied. ‘It wasn't exactly what you'd call tidy.'

‘But at least it was out of sight. This fellow's messy in public.'

A man with dislocated eyes and unkempt, dirty hair shambled out of the house. His clothing appeared to be tied together with bits of twine, and he was absently scratching at his stomach. ‘What's yer business here?' he
asked in an unfriendly tone. He levelled a kick at the pig. ‘Get outta there, Sophie,' he said.

‘We were talking with an old man back there in the village,' Sparhawk replied, pointing with his thumb back over his shoulder. ‘He was a white-haired fellow with a wobbly neck who seemed to know a lot of old stories.'

‘You must mean old Farsh,' the farmer said.

‘Never did catch his name,' Sparhawk said easily. ‘We met him in the tap-room at the inn.'

‘That's Farsh, all right. He likes to stay close to the beer. What's this got to do with me?'

‘He said you were fond of the old stories too – the ones that have to do with the battle that went on here some five hundred or so years ago.'

The wall-eyed man's face brightened. ‘Oh, so that's it,' he said. ‘Me'n Farsh always used to swap those old tales. Why don't you an' yer boy come inside, yer worship? I ha'nt had a chance t' talk about the good ol' days fer a long time now.'

‘Why, that's mighty obliging of you, neighbour,' Sparhawk said, swinging down from Faran's back. ‘Come along, Talen.'

‘Lemme put yer mounts in the barn,' the itchy fellow offered.

Faran looked at the rickety struture and shuddered.

‘Thanks all the same, neighbour,' Sparhawk said, ‘but the rain's letting up, and the breeze ought to dry their coats. We'll just put them out in your meadow, if that's all right.'

‘Somebody might come along an' try to steal 'em.'

‘Not this horse,' Sparhawk told him. ‘This is not the sort of horse people want to steal.'

‘Yer the one as gets to walk if yer wrong,' the wall-eyed man shrugged, turning to open the door to his house.

The interior of the house was if anything more untidy
than the yard had been. The remains of several meals sat on the table, and dirty clothes lay in heaps in the corners. ‘The name's Wat,' the wall-eyed man identified himself. He flopped down in a chair. ‘Sit yerselves,' he invited. Then he squinted at Talen. ‘Say, you was the young fella as bought my ol' wagon.'

‘Yes,' Talen replied, a bit nervously.

‘She run all right fer you? I mean, none of the wheels fell off or nothin'?'

‘It worked just fine,' Talen said, with some relief.

‘Glad t'hear it. Now, which particular stories was you interested in?'

‘What we're really looking for, Wat,' Sparhawk began, ‘is any information you might be able to give us about what happened to the old King of Thalesia during the battle. A friend of ours is distantly related to him, and the family wants his bones brought back to Thalesia for proper burial.'

‘Never heard nothin' about no Thalesian king,' Wat admitted, ‘but that don't mean all that much. This was a big battle, and there was Thalesians fightin' with the Zemochs from the south end of the lake all the way up into Pelosia. Y'see now, what happened was that when the Thalesians started to land on the north coast up there, Zemoch patrols they seen 'em, an' Otha, he started to send some good-sized forces up there to try to keep 'em from gettin' to the main battlefield. At first, the Thalesians come down in small groups, an' the Zemochs, they had things pretty much their own way. There was a pretty fair number of runnin' fights up there when this group or that of the Thalesians got theirselves waylaid. But then the main body of the Thalesian army landed, an' they turned things around. Say, I got some homebrewed beer back there. Could I interest you in some?'

‘I wouldn't mind,' Sparhawk said, ‘but the boy's a bit young.'

‘Got some milk, if that'd suit you, young feller,' Wat offered.

Talen sighed. ‘Why not?' he said.

Sparhawk thought things over. ‘The Thalesian King would have been one of the first to land,' he said. ‘He left his capital before his army did, but he never got as far as the battlefield.'

‘Then most likely he's layin' somewhere up there in Pelosia or maybe someplace in Deira,' Wat replied. He rose to fetch beer and milk.