Kalten nodded. ‘They were in one of the back rooms, and the young fellow was keeping his visor down. Have you ever seen anybody try to drink through his visor? Funniest thing I ever saw. There were a couple of local whores there, too. Your young Pandion might be getting an education along about now’

‘He’s due,’ Sparhawk observed.

‘I wonder if he’ll try to do that with his visor down as well.’

‘Those girls are usually adaptable’

Kalten laughed. ‘Anyhow, Kurik told me about the situation here. Do you really believe you can sneak around Cimmura without being recognized?’

‘I was thinking along the lines of a disguise of some sort.’

‘Better come up with a false nose,’ Kalten advised.

‘That broken beak of yours makes you fairly easy to pick out of a crowd.’

‘You should know,’ Sparhawk said. ‘You’re the one who broke it.’

‘We were only playing,’ Kalten said, sounding a bit defensive

‘I’ve got used to it. We’ll talk with Sephrenia in the morning. She should be able to come up with something in the way of disguises.’

‘I’d heard that she was here. How is she?’

‘The same. Sephrenia never changes.’

‘Truly’ Kalten took another drink from the wineskin and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘You know, I think I was always a big disappointment to her. No matter how hard she tried to teach me the secrets, I just couldn’t master the Styric language. Every time I tried to say “ogeragekgasek,” I almost dislocated my jaw.’

‘“Okeragukasek”,’ Sparhawk corrected him.

‘However you say it. I’ll just stick to my sword and let others play with magic ‘ He leaned forward on his stool. ‘They say that the Eshandists are on the rise again in Rendor. Is there any truth to that?’

‘It’s no particular danger.’ Sparhawk shrugged, lounging back on his cot. ‘They howl and spin around in circles out in the desert and recite slogans to each other. That’s about as far as it goes. Is anything very interesting going on in Lamorkand?’

Kalten snorted. ‘All the barons there are involved in private wars with each other,’ he reported. ‘The whole kingdom reeks with the lust for revenge. Would you believe that there’s actually a war going on over a bee sting? An earl got stung and declared war on the baron whose peasants owned the hive They’ve been fighting each other for ten years now’

‘That’s Lamorkand for you. Anything else happening?’

‘The whole countryside east of Motera is crawling with Zemochs.’

Sparhawk sat up quickly ‘Vanion did say that Otha was mobilizing.’

‘Otha mobilizes every ten years.’ Kalten handed his friend the wineskin. ‘I think he does it just to keep his people from getting restless.’

‘Are the Zemochs doing anything significant in Lamorkand?’