The fop winced at the word lanced. ‘Do you really think so, Sir Sparhawk?’ he asked plaintively, lowering his handkerchief. ‘Wouldn’t a poultice, perhaps –’

Sparhawk shook his head. ‘No, neighbour,’ he said with false sympathy ‘I can almost guarantee you that a poultice won’t work. Be brave, my man. Lancing is the only solution.’

The courtier’s face grew melancholy He bowed and left the room.

‘Did you do that to him, Sparhawk?’ Sephrenia asked suspiciously

‘Me?’ He gave her a look of wide-eyed innocence.

‘Somebody did. That eruption is not natural.’

‘My, my,’ he said, ‘Imagine that.’

‘Well?’ Vanion said. ‘Are you going to obey the bastard’s orders?’

‘Of course not,’ Sparhawk snorted. ‘I’ve got too many things to do here in Cimmura.’

‘You’ll make him very angry’

‘So?’

Chapter 4

The sky had turned threatening again when Sparhawk emerged from the chapterhouse and clanked down the stairs into the courtyard. The novice came from the stable door leading Faran, and Sparhawk looked thoughtfully at him. He was perhaps eighteen and quite tall. He had knobby wrists that stuck out of an earth-coloured tunic that was too small for him. ‘What’s your name, young man?’ Sparhawk asked him.

‘Berit, my Lord.’

‘What are your duties here?’

‘I haven’t been assigned anything specific as yet, my Lord. I just try to make myself useful.’

‘Good. Turn around.’

‘My Lord?’

‘I want to measure you.’

Berit looked puzzled, but he did as he was told. Sparhawk measured him across the shoulders with his hands. Although he looked bony, Berit was actually a husky youth. ‘You’ll do fine,’ Sparhawk told him.

Berit turned, baffled.

‘You’re going to be making a trip,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘Gather up what you’ll need while I go get the man who’s going to go with you.’

‘Yes, my Lord,’ Berit replied, bowing respectfully.

Sparhawk took hold of the saddlebow and hauled himself up onto Faran’s back. Berit handed him the reins, and Sparhawk nudged the big roan into a walk. They crossed the courtyard, and Sparhawk responded to the salutes of the knights at the gate. Then he rode on across the drawbridge and through the east gate of the city.

The streets of Cimmura were busy now. Workmen carrying large bundles wrapped in mud-coloured burlap grunted their way through the narrow lanes, and merchants dressed in conventional blue stood in the doorways of their shops with their brightly coloured wares piled around them. An occasional wagon clattered along the cobblestones. Near the intersection of two narrow streets, a squad of church soldiers in their scarlet livery marched with a certain arrogant precision. Sparhawk did not give way to them, but instead bore down on them at a steady trot. Grudgingly, they separated and stood aside as he passed. ‘Thank you, neighbours,’ Sparhawk said pleasantly

They did not answer him.

He reined Faran in. ‘I said, thank you, neighbours.’