LITMIR.BIZ

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      She thought about it. ‘That’s brilliant, father!’ she exclaimed.

      ‘Thank you.’ Their speculations earlier had borne some fruit after all. Then he pushed it a bit further. ‘Is someone here in Astel changing the attitudes of the people?’

      ‘Yes, but that goes on all the time.’

      ‘So when the nobility began to mistreat their serfs, it wasn’t their own idea?’

      ‘Of course not. Deliberate, calculated cruelty is very hard to maintain. You have to concentrate on it, and the Astels are too lazy for that. It was externally imposed.’

      ‘Could a Styric magician have done it?’

      ‘One by one, yes. A Styric could have selected one nobleman and turned him into a monster.’ She thought a moment. ‘Maybe two,’ she amended. ‘Three at the most. There are too many variables for a human to keep track of when you get past that.’

      ‘Then it’s a God – or Gods – that made them all start mistreating their serfs here a few years back?’

      ‘I thought I just said that.’

      He ignored that and went on. ‘And the whole purpose of that was to make the serfs resentful and ready to listen to someone inciting them to revolution.’

      ‘Your logic is blinding me, Sparhawk.’

      ‘You can be a very offensive little girl when you set your mind to it, did you know that?’

      ‘But you love me anyway, don’t you? Get to the point, Sparhawk. It’s almost time for me to wake the others.’

      ‘And the sudden resentment directed at the Tamuls came from the same source, didn’t it?’

      ‘And probably at about the same time,’ she agreed. ‘It’s easier to do it all at once. Going back into someone’s mind over and over is so tedious.’

      A sudden thought came to him. ‘How many things can you think about at the same time?’ he asked her.

      ‘I’ve never counted – several thousand, I’d imagine. Of course there aren’t really any limits. I guess if I really wanted to, I could think about everything all at once. I’ll try it sometime and let you know.’

      ‘That’s really the difference between us, isn’t it? You can think about more things at the same time than I can.’

      ‘Well, that’s one of the differences.’

      ‘What’s another?’

      ‘You’re a boy, and I’m a girl.’

      ‘That’s fairly obvious – and not very profound.’

      ‘You’re wrong Sparhawk. It’s much, much more profound than you could ever imagine.’

      After they crossed the river Antun, they entered a heavily forested region where rocky crags jutted up above the treetops here and there. The weather continued blustery and threatening, though it did not rain.

      Kring’s Peloi were very uncomfortable in the forest, and they rode huddled close to the Church Knights, their eyes a bit wild.

      ‘We might want to remember that,’ Ulath noted late that afternoon, jerking his chin in the direction of a pair of savage-looking, shaved-headed warriors following so closely behind Berit that their mounts were almost treading on his horse’s hind hooves.

      ‘What was that?’ Kalten asked him.

      ‘Don’t take the Peloi into the woods.’ Ulath paused and leaned back in his saddle. ‘I knew a girl in Heid one summer who felt more or less the same way,’ he reminisced. ‘She was absolutely terrified of the woods. The young men of the town sort of gave up on her – even though she was a great beauty. Heid’s a crowded little town, and there are always aunts and grandmothers and younger brothers underfoot in the houses. The young men have found that the woods offer the kind of privacy young people need from time to time, but this girl wouldn’t go near the woods. Then I made an amazing discovery. The girl was afraid of the woods, but she was absolutely fearless where hay-barns were concerned. I tested the theory personally any number of times, and she never once showed the slightest bit of timidity about barns – or goat-sheds either, for that matter.’

      ‘I really don’t get the connection,’ Kalten said. ‘We were talking about the fact that the Peloi are afraid of the woods. If somebody attacks us here in this forest, we’re not going to have time to stop and build a barn for them, are we?’

      ‘No, I suppose you’re right there.’

      ‘All right, what is the connection then?’

      ‘I don’t think there is one, Kalten.’

      ‘Why did you tell the story then?’

      ‘Well, it’s an awfully good story, don’t you think?’ Ulath sounded a bit injured.

      Talen came galloping forward. ‘I think you’d better come back to the carriage, Sir Knights,’ he laughed, trying without much success to control his mirth.

      ‘What’s the trouble?’ Sparhawk asked him.

      ‘We’ve got company – well, not company exactly, but there’s somebody watching us.’

      Sparhawk and the others wheeled their mounts and rode back along the column to the carriage.

      ‘You’ve got to see this, Sparhawk,’ Stragen said, trying to stifle his laughter. ‘Don’t be too obvious when you look, but there’s a man on horseback on top of that crag off to the left side of the road.’

      Sparhawk leaned forward as if speaking to his wife and raised his eyes to look at the rocky crag jutting up from the forest floor.

      The rider was about forty yards away, and he was outlined by the sunset behind him. He was making no attempt to conceal himself. He sat astride a black horse, and his clothing was all of the same hue. His inky cape streamed out from his shoulders in the stiff wind, and his broad-brimmed hat was crammed tightly down on his head. His face was covered with a bag-like black mask with two large, slightly off-centre eye holes in it.

      ‘Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen in your life?’ Stragen laughed.

      ‘Very impressive,’ Ulath murmured. ‘At least he’s impressed.’

      ‘I wish I had a crossbow,’ Kalten said. ‘Berit, do you think you could nick him a little with your longbow?’

      ‘It might be a little chancy in this wind, Kalten,’ the young knight replied. ‘It might deflect my arrow and kill him instead.’

      ‘How long’s he going to sit there?’ Mirtai asked.

      ‘Until he’s sure that everybody in the column has seen him, I expect,’ Stragen said. ‘He went to a lot of trouble to deck himself out like that. What do you think, Sparhawk? Is that the fellow Elron told us about?’

      ‘The mask certainly fits.’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘I wasn’t expecting all the rest, though.’

      ‘What’s this?’ Emban asked.

      ‘Unless Sparhawk and I are mistaken, your Grace, we are privileged to be in the presence of a living legend. I think that’s Sabre, the masked whatever-you-call-it, making his evening rounds.’

      ‘What on earth is he doing?’ Oscagne sounded baffled.

      ‘I imagine that he’s out wronging rights, depressing the oppressed and generally making an ass of himself, your Excellency. He looks as if he’s having a lot of fun, though.’

      The masked rider reared his horse dramatically, and his black cape swirled around him. Then he plunged down the far side of the crag and was gone.

      ‘Wait,’ Stragen urged before the others could move.

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