‘There was a woman up on a roof going through that fertility ritual,’ Sparhawk told him, still laughing. ‘She sort of distracted Kurik for a moment or two.’

‘Was she pretty?’ The abbot grinned at Kurik.

‘I couldn’t really say, my Lord. I wasn’t looking at her face.’

‘My Lord Abbot,’ Sparhawk said then, a bit more seriously, though he still felt enormously exuberant, ‘we’re going to question Elius as soon as he wakes up. Please don’t be alarmed by some of the things we say to him.’

‘I quite understand, Sparhawk,’ the abbot replied.

‘Good. All right, Kurik, let’s wake up his Excellency here and see what he has to say for himself.’

Kurik stripped the blanket off the consul’s limp body and began pinching the unconscious man’s ears and nose. After a moment, the consul’s eyelids fluttered. Then he groaned and opened his eyes. He stared blankly at them for a moment, then sat up quickly. ‘Who are you? What’s the meaning of this?’ he demanded.

Kurik smacked him firmly across the back of the head.

‘You see how it is, Elius,’ Sparhawk said blandly. ‘You don’t mind if I call you Elius, do you? Possibly you may remember me. The name’s Sparhawk.’

‘Sparhawk?’ the consul gasped. ‘I thought you were dead.’

‘That’s a highly exaggerated rumour, Elius. Now, the fact of the matter is that you’ve been abducted. We have a number of questions for you. Things will go much more pleasantly for you if you answer them freely. Otherwise, you’re in for a very bad night.’

‘You wouldn’t dare!’

Kurik hit him again.

‘I’m the consul of the Kingdom of Elenia,’ Elius blustered, trying to cover the back of his head with both hands, ‘and the cousin of the Primate of Cimmura. You can’t do this to me.’

Sparhawk sighed. ‘Break a few of his fingers, Kurik,’ he suggested, ‘just to show him that we can do this to him.’

Kurik set his foot against the consul’s chest, pushed him back onto the floor, and seized the weakly struggling captive’s right wrist.

‘No!’ Elius squealed. ‘Don’t! I’ll tell you anything you want.’

‘I told you he’d co-operate, my Lord,’ Sparhawk said conversationally to the abbot, pulling off his Rendorish robe to stand revealed in his mail coat and sword belt, ‘just as soon as he understood the seriousness of the situation.’

‘Your methods are direct, Sir Sparhawk,’ the abbot noted.