With a puzzled sigh, Morgan closed the door behind him and followed Kelson.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“They encourage themselves in an evil matter; they commune of laying snares privily; they say, Who shall see them?”

PSALMS 64:5

AT noon in Cardosa, the sun beat down fiercely in the thin mountain air, even though patches of snow still lay in the deep crannies and crevices of the mountains. Earlier that morning, Wencit, Rhydon, and Wencit’s kinsman Lionel had ridden down the Cardosa Defile to meet with Bran Coris and those of Wencit’s officers who were now assisting him in the deployment of Wencit’s assault forces. The defense works had been inspected, and now Wencit and his entourage drew rein before the great, flame-colored pavilion where the Torenthi king would make his headquarters once the enemy arrived.

Soldiers in Wencit’s black and white Furstán livery swarmed around the slight rise where the royal pavilion had been erected, setting tent poles and lines and seeing to the installation of those items of personal comfort that Wencit considered essential to any field operation.

The tent was enormous. A giant, onion-shaped dome of flame-colored silk, it covered an area easily the size of Wencit’s great hall at Beldour. Inside, the structure was divided into half a dozen separate rooms, the walls hung with heavy tapestries and furs designed both to beautify and to keep out sound and heat. Within these walls was ample space to hold any sort of conference that Wencit might have wished, but he judged the day too fair to be confined indoors, so had gestured for the major-domo to place chairs on the rich carpet laid before the enclosure.

As servants scurried to set up the chairs and stools required, one of Wencit’s personal body servants came to take his master’s cloak, which was mud-spattered and waterlogged from the ride down the defile. Another offered a khaftan-like robe of heavy amber silk, which Wencit shrugged on over his damp and stained riding leathers. He sat back in a leather camp chair and permitted yet another servant to exchange his boots for dry slippers, then watched as the major-domo poured steaming darja tea into fragile porcelain cups.

Wencit nodded benignly at his colleagues, inviting them to sit in the chairs that the servants had prepared; then, with his own hand, he took a cup from the tray that the major-domo offered and held it out to Bran Coris.

“Drink and be refreshed, my young friend,” he said in a low voice, smiling as Bran leaned forward to take the cup. “I am exceedingly pleased.”

As Bran took the cup, Wencit lifted two more and passed them to Rhydon and Lionel, who nodded their thanks before settling back with their tea. The Torenthi king smiled as he inhaled deeply of a fourth cup he took for himself, balancing it between the fingers of his two hands.

“Indeed, I am quite intrigued and impressed with the diversion which you have devised for our adversaries,” the sorcerer continued, watching the ripples his breath created on the steaming darja. “You have also done a commendable job of integrating our two forces, of multiplying our strengths and neutralizing any weaknesses. Lionel, we are fortunate to have such an ally.”