LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t want to hurt you, Mirtai.’

      ‘You? Hurt me?’ Her laugh was sardonic.

      ‘You don’t have to be insulting about it,’ he said in an injured tone, drawing his sword.

      It had all begun when Mirtai had passed through the palace courtyard while Kalten was giving Khalad some instruction in swordsmanship. She had made a couple of highly unflattering comments. One thing had led to another, and the end result had been this impromptu training session, during which Kalten and Khalad learned humility, if nothing else.

      ‘Stab me through the heart, Kalten,’ Mirtai said again.

      In Kalten’s defence it should be noted in passing that he really did try. He made a great deal of noise when he came down on his back on the flagstones.

      ‘He made the same mistake you did,’ Mirtai pointed out to Khalad. ‘He straightened his arm too much. A straight arm is a locked arm. Always keep your elbow slightly bent.’

      ‘We’re trained to thrust from the shoulder, Mirtai,’ Khalad explained.

      ‘There are a lot of Elenes, I suppose,’ she shrugged. ‘It shouldn’t be all that hard to replace you. The thing that makes me curious is why you all feel that it’s necessary to stick your sword all the way through somebody. If you haven’t hit the heart with the first six inches of the blade, another yard or so of steel going through the same hole won’t make much difference, will it?’

      ‘Maybe it’s because it looks dramatic,’ Khalad said.

      ‘You kill people for show? That’s contemptible, and it’s the sort of thinking that fills graveyards. Always keep your blade free so that you’re ready for your next enemy. People fold up when you run swords through them, and then you have to kick the body off the blade before you can use it again.’

      ‘I’ll try to remember that.’

      ‘I hope so. I rather like you, and I hate burying friends.’ She bent, professionally peeled Kalten’s eyelid back and glanced at his glazed eyeball. ‘You’d better throw a bucket of water on our friend here,’ she suggested. ‘He hasn’t learned how to fall yet. We’ll go into that next time.’

      ‘Next time?’

      ‘Of course. If you’re going to learn how to do this, you’d better learn how to do it right.’ She gave Sparhawk a challenging look. ‘Would you like to try?’ she asked him.

      ‘Ah – no, Mirtai, not right now. Thanks all the same, though.’

      She went on into the palace, looking just slightly pleased with herself.

      ‘You know, I don’t think I really want to be a knight after all, Sparhawk,’ Talen said from nearby. ‘It looks awfully painful.’

      ‘Where have you been? My wife’s got people out looking for you.’

      ‘Yes. I saw them blundering around out in the streets. I had to go visit Platime in the cellar.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘He picked up something he thought you ought to be aware of. You know those unauthorised bandits in the hills near Cardos?’

      ‘Not personally, no.’

      ‘Funny, Sparhawk. Very funny. Platime’s found out that somebody we know is sort of directing their activities.’

      ‘Oh? Who’s that?’

      ‘Can you believe that it’s Krager? You should have killed him when you had the chance, Sparhawk.’

Chapter 3

      The fog drifted in from the river not long after the sun went down that evening. The nights in Cimmura were always foggy in the spring when it wasn’t raining. Sparhawk, Stragen and Talen left the palace wearing plain clothing and heavy traveller’s cloaks and rode to the southeast quarter of town.

      ‘You don’t necessarily have to tell your wife I said this, Sparhawk,’ Stragen noted, looking around with distaste, ‘but her capital’s one of the least attractive cities in the world. You’ve got a truly miserable climate here.’

      ‘It’s not so bad in the summer-time,’ Sparhawk replied a little defensively.

      ‘I missed last summer,’ the blond thief said. ‘I took a short nap one afternoon and slept right through it. Where are we going?’

      ‘We want to see Platime.’

      ‘As I recall, his cellar’s near the west gate of the city. You’re taking us in the wrong direction.’

      ‘We have to go to a certain inn first.’ Sparhawk looked back over his shoulder. ‘Are we being followed, Talen?’ he asked.

      ‘Naturally.’

      Sparhawk grunted. ‘That’s more or less what I expected.’

      They rode on with the thick mist swirling around the legs of their horses and making the fronts of the nearby houses dim and hazy-looking. They reached the inn on Rose Street, and a surly-appearing porter admitted them to the inn yard and closed the gate behind them.

      ‘Anything you find out about this place isn’t for general dissemination,’ Sparhawk told Talen and Stragen as he dismounted. He handed Faran’s reins to the porter. ‘You know about this horse, don’t you, brother?’ he warned the man.

      ‘He’s a legend, Sparhawk,’ the porter replied. ‘The things you wanted are in the room at the top of the stairs.’

      ‘How’s the crowd in the tavern tonight?’

      ‘Loud, smelly and mostly drunk.’

      ‘There’s nothing new about that. What I meant, though, was how many of them are there?’

      ‘Fifteen or twenty. There are three of our men in there who know what to do.’

      ‘Good. Thank you, Sir Knight.’

      ‘You’re welcome, Sir Knight.’

      Sparhawk led Talen and Stragen up the stairs.

      ‘This inn, I gather, isn’t altogether what it seems,’ Stragen observed.

      ‘The Pandions own it,’ Talen told him. ‘They come here when they don’t want to attract attention.’

      ‘There’s a little more to it than that,’ Sparhawk told him. He opened the door at the top of the stairs, and the three of them entered.

      Stragen looked at the workmen’s smocks hanging on pegs near the door. ‘We’re going to resort to subterfuge, I see.’

      ‘It’s fairly standard practice,’ Sparhawk shrugged. ‘Let’s get changed. I’d sort of like to get back to the palace before my wife sends out search parties.’

      The smocks were of blue canvas, worn and patched and with a few artfully-placed smudges on them. There were woollen leggings as well and thick-soled workmen’s boots. The caps were baggy affairs, designed more to keep off weather than they were for appearance.

      ‘You’re going to have to leave that here,’ Sparhawk said, pointing at Stragen’s rapier. ‘It’s a little obvious.’ The big Pandion tucked a heavy dagger under his belt.

      ‘You know that there are people watching the gate of the inn, don’t you, Sparhawk?’ Talen said.

      ‘I hope they enjoy their evening. We aren’t going out through the gate, though.’ Sparhawk led them back down to the inn yard, crossed to a narrow door in a side wall and opened it. The warm air that boiled out through the doorway smelled of stale beer and unwashed bodies. The three of them went inside and closed the door behind them. They seemed to be in a small storeroom. The straw

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