Part 22 (2/2)

'King Alberen's father was much wiser than his son,' Tik.u.me explained, 'and he read a great deal. He saw many similarities between Pelosia and Astel, so he paid a state visit to King Saros. He invited me to go along.'

His expression became one of distaste. 'I might have declined if I'd known he was going to travel by boat. I was sick every day for two months. Domi Kring and I got on well together. He was kind enough to take me with him to the marshes to hunt ears.'

'Did he share the profits with you, Domi Tik.u.me?' Ehlana asked him.

'What was that, queen Ehlana?' Tik.u.me looked baffled. Kring, however, laughed nervously and flushed just a bit. Then Mirtai strode up to the cariage.

'Is this the one?' Tik.u.me asked Kring.

Kring nodded happily. 'Isn't she stupendous?'

'Magnificent,' Tik.u.me agreed fervently, his tone almost reverential. Then he dropped to one knee. 'Dona,' he greeted her, clasping both hands in front of his face.

Mirtai looked inquiringly at Kring. 'It's a Peloi word, beloved,' he explained. 'It means 'Domi's mate'.'

'That hasn't been decided yet, Kring,' she pointed out.

'Can there be any doubt, beloved?' he replied.

Tik.u.me was still down on one knee. 'You shall enter our camp with all honours, Dona Mirtai,' he declared, 'for among our people, you are a queen. All shall kneel to you, and all shall give way to you. Poems and songs shall be composed in your honour, and rich gifts shall be bestowed upon you.'

'Well, now,' Mirtai said.

'Your beauty is clearly divine, Dona Mirtai,' Tik.u.me continued, warming to his subject. 'Your very presence brightens a drab world and puts the sun to shame. I am awed at the wisdom of my brother Kring in having selected you as his mate. Come straightaway to our camp, divine one, so that my people may adore you.'

'My goodness,' Ehlana breathed. 'n.o.body's ever said anything like that to me.'

'We just didn't want to embarra.s.s you, my Queen,' Stragen told her blandly. 'We feel that way about you of course, but we didn't want to be too obvious about it.'

'Well said,' Ulath approved.

Mirtai looked at Kring with a new interest. 'Why didn't you tell me about this, Kring?' she asked him.

'I thought you knew, beloved.'

'I didn't,' she replied. Her lower lip pushed forward slightly in a thoughtful kind of pout. 'But I do now,' she added. 'Have you chosen an Oma as yet?'

'Sparhawk serves me in that capacity, beloved.'

'Why don't you go have a talk with Atan Engessa, Sparhawk!' she suggested. 'Tell him for me that I do not look upon Domi Kring's suit with disfavour.'

'That's a very good idea, Mirtai,' Sparhawk replied. 'I'm surprised I didn't think of it myself.'

Chapter 14.

The town of Pela in central Astel was a major trading centre where merchants and cattle-buyers came from all parts of the empire to do business with the Peloi herders. It was a shabby-looking, unfinished sort of place. Many of its buildings were no more than ornate fronts with large tents erected behind them. No attempt had ever been made to pave its rutted streets, and the pa.s.sage of strings of wagons and herds of cattle raised a cloud of dust that entirely obscured the town most of the time.

Beyond the poorly-defined outskirts lay an ocean of tents, the portable homes of the nomadic Peloi. Tik.u.me led them through the town and on out to a hill-top where a number of brightly-striped pavilions encircled a large open area. A canopy held aloft by poles shaded a place of honour at the very top of the hill, and the ground beneath that canopy was carpeted and strewn with cus.h.i.+ons and furs.

Mirtai was the absolute centre of attention. Her rather scanty marching clothes had been covered with a purple robe that reached to the ground, an indication of her near-royal status. Kring and Tik.u.me formally escorted her to the ceremonial centre of the camp and introduced her to Tik.u.me's wife, Vida, a sharp-faced woman who also wore a purple robe and looked at Mirtai with undisguised hostility. Sparhawk and the rest joined the Peloi leaders in the shade as honoured guests. The face of Tik.u.me's wife grew darker and darker as Peloi warriors vied with each other to heap extravagant compliments upon Mirtai as they were presented to Kring and his purported bride-to-be. There were gifts and a number of songs praising the beauty of the golden giantess.

'How did they find time to make up songs about her?' Talen quietly asked Stragen.

'I'd imagine that the songs have been around for a long time,' Stragen replied. 'They've subst.i.tuted Mirtai's name, that's all. I expect there'll be poems as well. I know a third-rate poet in Emsat who makes a fairly good living writing poems and love-letters for young n.o.bles too lazy or uninspired to compose their own. There's a whole body of literature with blank s.p.a.ces in it that serves in such situations.'

'They just fill in the blanks with the girl's name?' Talen demanded incredulously.

'It wouldn't really make much sense to fill them in with some other girl's name, would it?'

'That's dishonest!' Talen exclaimed.

'What a novel att.i.tude, Talen,' Patriarch Emban laughed, 'particularly coming from you.'

'You aren't supposed to cheat when you're telling a girl how you feel about her,' Talen insisted.

Talen had begun to notice girls. They had been there all along, of course, but he had not noticed them before, and he had some rather surprisingly strong convictions. It is to the credit of his friends that not one of them laughed at his peculiar expression of integrity. Baroness Melidere, however, impulsively embraced him.

'What was that all about?' he asked her a little suspiciously.

'Oh, nothing,' she replied, touching a gentle hand to his cheek. 'When was the last time you shaved?' she asked him.

'Last week sometime, I think-or maybe the week before.'

'You're due again, I'd say. You're definitely growing up, Talen.' The boy flushed slightly. Princess Danae gave Sparhawk a sly little smirk.

After the gifts and the poems and songs came the demonstrations of prowess. Kring's tribesmen demonstrated their proficiency with their sabres. Tik.u.me's men did much the same with their javelins, which they either cast or used as short lances. Sir Berit unhorsed an equally youthful Cyrinic Knight, and two blond-braided Genidians engaged in a fearsomely realistic mock axe-fight.

'It's all relatively standard, of course, Emban,' Amba.s.sador Oscagne said to the Patriarch of Ucera. The friends.h.i.+p of the two men had progressed to the point where they had begun to discard t.i.tles. 'Warrior cultures almost totally circ.u.mscribe their lives with ceremonies.'

Emban smiled. 'I've noticed that, Oscagne. Our Church Knights are the most courteous and ceremonial men I know.'

'Prudence, your Grace,' Ulath explained cryptically.

'You'll get used to that in time, your Excellency,' Tynian a.s.sured the amba.s.sador. 'Sir Ulath hates to waste words.'

'I wasn't being mysterious, Tynian,' Ulath told him. 'I was only pointing out that you almost have to be polite to a man who's holding an axe.'

Atan Engessa rose and bowed a bit stiffly to Ehlana. 'May I test your slave, Ehlana-Queen?' he asked.

'How exactly do you mean, Atan Engessa?' she asked warily.

'She approaches the time of the Rite of Pa.s.sage. We must decide if she is ready. I will not harm her. These others are demonstrating their skill. Atana Mirtai and I will partic.i.p.ate. It will be a good time for the test.'

'As you think best, Atan,' Ehlana consented, 'as long as the Atana does not object.'

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