Sparhawk nodded slowly. ‘Probably. Martel’s ego’s a vast open sore. He’d go through the motions of being honourable even if it involved walking through fire.’

‘That’s more or less the way I see him too. Let’s go and find out if we’re right, but don’t get so caught up in exchanging insults with him that you forget to keep your eyes open, Sparhawk. What we really want to do is to get a closer look at his army. I need to know if it’s just some rabble he’s scraped together from country fairs and roadside taverns or something more serious.’

A commandeered bedsheet – although Vanion did offer to pay the frightened innkeeper for it even as Sparhawk was stripping it from the bed of an upstairs room – provided them with a flag of truce. It popped and flapped quite satisfyingly from Sparhawk’s lance as the two black-armoured knights thundered out through the south gate towards the approaching army. They rode to a hilltop and stopped there. Sparhawk turned Faran slightly so that the stiff breeze caught their improvised flag and blew it out for all to see. Though they were some distance from the van of Martel’s army, Sparhawk could hear distant shouts and commands. The army gradually undulated to a stop, and not long after, Martel, accompanied by one of his soldiers, rode out from the midst of their troops. Martel also carried a lance, and a white cape that looked suspiciously like that of a Cyrinic Knight flapped from it. Sparhawk squinted at him. ‘I wonder,’ he mused. ‘Bhelliom brought Ehlana back from the brink of death. I wonder if I could persuade it to do the same for Martel.’

‘Why would you want to?’

‘So I could kill him again, My Lord. I could make killing Martel over and over again my life’s work with just a little encouragement.’

Vanion gave him a very hard look, but he didn’t say anything.

Martel wore a very expensive suit of armour, its cuirass and shoulder-plates embossed with gold and silver and with the steel itself highly burnished. It appeared to be of Deiran forging, and it was much more elegant than the functional armour of the Church Knights. When he was within a few yards of Sparhawk and Vanion, he thrust the butt of his lance into the ground and removed his ornate, white-plumed helmet. His white hair flowed out behind him in the stiff breeze. ‘My Lord,’ he said with exaggerated courtesy, inclining his head to Vanion.

Vanion’s face was icy. He did not speak to the knight he had expelled from the Pandion Order, but motioned Sparhawk forward instead.

‘Ah,’ Martel said in a tone that might even have been one of genuine regret, ‘I expected better of you, Vanion,’ he said. ‘Oh well, I’ll talk with Sparhawk instead. Feel free to listen in, if you’d like.’