Kurik was looking out at the freshly ploughed fields they passed with an appraising eye. ‘I hope the boys have finished with the ploughing at home,’ he said. ‘I’d hate to have that chore in front of me when I get back.’

‘Aslade will see to it that they get it done,’ Sparhawk assured him.

‘You’re probably right.’ Kurik made a wry face. ‘When you get right down to it, she’s a better farmer than I am.’

‘Women always are,’ Sephrenia told him. ‘They’re more in tune with the moon and the seasons. In Styricum, women always manage the fields.’

‘What do the men do?’

‘As little as possible.’

It took them nearly five days to reach Cimmura, and they arrived on an early spring afternoon. Sparhawk reined in atop a hill a mile or so west of town. ‘Can she do it again?’ he asked Sephrenia.

‘Can who do what again?’

‘Flute Can she make people ignore us again?’

‘I don’t know Why don’t you ask her?’

‘Why don’t you ask her? I don’t think she likes me.’

‘Whatever gave you that idea? She adores you.’ Sephrenia leaned forward slightly and spoke in Styric to the little girl who rested against her

Flute nodded and made an obscure kind of circling gesture with one hand.

‘What did she say?’ Sparhawk asked.

‘Approximately that the chapterhouse is on the other side of Cimmura. She suggests that we circle the city rather than ride through the streets.’

‘Approximately?’

‘It loses a great deal in translation.’

‘All right. We’ll do it her way, then. I definitely don’t want Annias to find out that we’re back in Cimmura.’

They rode on around the city, passing through open fields and sparse woodlands and keeping about a mile back from the city wall. Cimmura was not an attractive city, Sparhawk decided. The peculiar combination of its location and the prevailing weather seemed to capture the smoke from its thousands of chimneys and to hold it in a continual pall just above the roof tops. That lowering cloud of smoke made the place look perpetually grimy.

They finally reached a thicket about a half-mile from the walls of the chapterhouse. Once again the land was dotted with peasants at work, and the road leading out from the east gate was alive with brightly dressed travellers.

‘Tell her it’s time,’ Sparhawk said to Sephrenia. ‘I’d imagine that a fair number of those people out there are working for Annias.’

‘She knows, Sparhawk. She’s not stupid.’

‘No. Only a little flighty.’

Flute made a face at him and began to play her pipes. It was that same lethargic, almost drowsy tune she had played in Vardenais.

They started across the field towards the few houses clustered outside the chapterhouse. Though he was certain that the people they passed would pay no attention to them, Sparhawk instinctively tensed at each encounter.