‘Well?’ Sparhawk whispered to Sephrenia.

‘He’s too far away,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t feel anything one way or the other. We’re going to have to get closer. I can’t even tell what he’s holding.’

Arasham’s voice sank into a harshly conspiratorial tone ‘I tell you this, oh ye faithful, and my words are true. The voice of God has revealed to me that even now our movement is spreading through the fields and forests of the kingdoms of the north. The ordinary people there – our brothers and sisters – grow weary of the yoke of the Church and they will join our holy cause.’

‘It was Martel who told him that,’ Sparhawk muttered, ‘and if he thinks that Martel is the voice of God, then he’s even crazier than I thought.’ He rose up on tiptoe and looked over the heads of the crowd. A large pavilion stood some distance down the hill from where Arasham was preaching. It was surrounded by a palisade of stout poles. ‘Let’s work our way around this crowd,’ he suggested. ‘I think I’ve located the old man’s tent.’

Slowly they moved back until they were at the edge of the crowd. Arasham continued his rambling harangue, but his slurred words were lost in the distance and the murmuring of his followers. Sparhawk and Sephrenia slipped around the crowd towards the palisade and the dark pavilion inside it. When they were perhaps twenty paces away, Sparhawk touched Sephrenia’s arm, and they stopped. A number of armed men stood before the opening at the front of the palisade. ‘We’ll have to wait until he finishes preaching,’ Sparhawk murmured.

‘Would you like to tell me what you have in mind?’ she said. ‘I hate surprises.’

‘I’m going to see if I can get us into his tent. If that talisman of his really has any power, it might be difficult to get it away from him in the middle of this crowd.’

‘How do you propose to manage that, Sparhawk?’

‘I thought I’d try flattery’

‘Isn’t that a bit dangerous – and very obvious?’

‘Of course it’s obvious, but you have to be obvious when you’re dealing with deranged people. They don’t have the concentration to grasp subtlety.’

Arasham’s voice was rising to a shrill climax, and his followers cheered at the end of each of his mumbled pronouncements. Then he delivered his benediction, and the crowd began to break up. Surrounded by a knot of jealous disciples, the holy man began to walk slowly through the milling throng towards his tent. Sparhawk and Sephrenia moved to place themselves in his path.

‘Stand aside!’ one of the disciples commanded harshly.