‘I thought I already had, old boy,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘In Cippria, I believe it was.’ He reached out, and Martel jerked his shoulder out of range. Instead, however, Sparhawk patted him on the cheek insultingly. Take care of yourself, Martel,’ he said. ‘I want to see you again soon, and I want you to be well and in full possession of your faculties. Believe me, you’re going to need them.’ Then he turned and went up the gangway to the waiting barge

The sailors cast off all lines and pushed the barge out into the slowly moving current. Then they ran out their oars and began to row slowly downriver. The dock behind them and the solitary man standing on the end of it shrank out of sight.

‘Oh, God!’ Sparhawk cried exultantly, ‘I loved that!’

The run downriver took them a day and a half, and they disembarked a league or so upstream from Jiroch to avoid any watchers Martel might have managed to get to the docks ahead of them. The precaution was probably unnecessary, Sparhawk admitted, but there was no point in taking chances. They entered the city through the west gate and mingled with the crowds as they made their way to Voren’s house again. It was late afternoon when they entered.

Voren was a trifle surprised at their reappearance ‘That was quick,’ he said as they entered his garden.

‘We were lucky,’ Sparhawk shrugged.

‘More than lucky,’ Sephrenia said darkly. The small woman’s temper had not noticeably improved since they had left Dabour, and she still refused even to talk to Sparhawk.

‘Did something go wrong?’ Voren asked mildly

‘Not that I noticed,’ Sparhawk replied blithely.

‘Stop congratulating yourself, Sparhawk,’ she snapped. ‘I’m vexed with you, very vexed.’

‘I’m sorry about that, Sephrenia, but I did the best I could.’ He turned to Voren. ‘We ran into Martel,’ he explained, ‘and I managed to stop him in his tracks. His whole scheme just collapsed around his ears.’

Voren whistled. ‘I don’t see anything wrong with that, Sephrenia.’

‘It’s not what he did, Voren. It was the way he did it.’ ‘Oh?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She gathered Flute up in her arms, went to the bench by the fountain, and sat muttering darkly to the little girl in Styric

‘We need a way to get aboard a fast ship bound for Vardenais without being seen,’ Sparhawk told Voren. ‘Can you come up with something?’