‘Beloved,’ it read. ‘You’ve been gone for only a few hours, and I already miss you desperately. Stragen is carrying other messages for you – messages which I hope will inspire you when things aren’t going well. They will also convey to you my unbending love and faith in you. I love you, my Sparhawk. Ehlana.’

‘How did you get ahead of us?’ Kalten was asking when Sparhawk rejoined them.

‘You’re wearing armour, Sir Kalten,’ Stragen replied, ‘and I’m not. You’d be amazed at how fast a horse can run when he’s not burdened with all that excess iron.’

‘Well?’ Ulath asked Sparhawk, ‘do we send him back to Chyrellos?’

Sparhawk shook his head. ‘He’s acting under orders from the queen. There’s an implicit command to me involved in that as well. He comes along.’

‘Remind me never to become a royal champion,’ the Genidian Knight said. ‘It seems to involve all sorts of politics and complications.’

The weather turned cloudy as they rode northeastwards along the Kadach road, although it did not rain as it had the last time they had been there. The southeastern border country of Lamorkand was more Pelosian in character than it was Lamork, and there were few castles atop the surrounding hills. Because of its proximity to Chyrellos, however, the landscape was dotted with monasteries and cloisters, and the sound of bells echoed mournfully across the fields.

‘The clouds are moving in the wrong direction,’ Kurik said as they were saddling their horses on the second morning out from Chyrellos. ‘An east wind in mid-autumn is very bad news. I’m afraid we’re in for a hard winter, and that’s not going to be pleasant for the troops campaigning on the plains of central Lamorkand.’

They mounted and rode on towards the northeast. About mid-morning, Kring and Stragen rode forward to join Sparhawk at the head of the column. ‘Friend Stragen here has been telling me some things about that Tamul woman, Mirtai,’ Kring said. ‘Did you ever get the chance to talk to her about me?’

‘I sort of broke the ice on the subject,’ Sparhawk said.

‘I was afraid of that. Some of the things Stragen told me are giving me some second thoughts about the whole notion.’

‘Oh?’

‘Did you know that she has knives strapped to her knees and elbows?’

‘Yes.’

‘I understand that they stick out whenever she bends one of her arms or legs.’

‘I think that’s the idea, yes.’

‘Stragen tells me that once when she was young, three ruffians set upon her. She bent an elbow and slashed one across the throat, drove her knee into the second one’s crotch, knocked the third down with her fist and knifed him in the heart. I’m not entirely sure that I want a woman like that for a wife. What did she say? When you told her about me, I mean?’

‘She laughed, I’m afraid.’