Part 27 (2/2)

The soldiers hesitated. Skilgannon's easy manner made them unsure. One of them spoke.

'You are from one of the emba.s.sies?'

'Drenai,' said Skilgannon. 'My compliments on the efficiency of your action. We thought to be waiting here all day. Come, my friends,' he said, turning to the others. 'Let us go through before the mob returns.'

Rabalyn scrambled up, and joined Garianne. Together they followed Skilgannon and Druss. No-one moved to stop them. Soldiers were still ma.s.sed upon the steps. 'Make way there,' called Skilgannon, climbing upwards and easing past the swordsmen.

On the square above there were bodies lying sprawled upon the stone. One moved and groaned. A soldier stepped alongside him and drove his sword through the injured man's throat.

Skilgannon and Druss approached the gates, which were still shut. 'Open up, lads!' called Druss.

And then they were through.

As they walked on Druss clapped Skilgannon on the shoulder. 'I like your style, laddie.

We'd have taken a few bruises if we had had to fight our way through them.'

'One or two,' agreed Skilgannon.

Later that afternoon Diagoras took Druss to see Orastes's servant, Bajin, but they learned little of consequence. Bajin was a gentle man, who had served Orastes for most of his adult life. His mind had been all but unhinged by his experiences in the Rikar cells. Heavily sedated, he wept and trembled as Druss tried to question him. One fact did emerge.

Orastes had indeed sought help from the Old Woman.

Diagoras led Druss out into the gardens of the emba.s.sy. The Drenai soldier's head was pounding. 'I'm never going to drink with you again,' he said, slumping down on a bench seat. 'My mouth feels like I tried to swallow a desert.'

'Aye, you look a little fragile today,' agreed Druss absently.

Diagoras looked up at the axeman. 'I am sorry, my friend,' he said. 'Orastes deserved a better fate.'

'Aye, he did. One fact I have learned in my long life is that what a man deserves rarely has any bearing on what he gets. As I walked this land I saw burnt-out farms, and many corpses. None of them deserved to die. Yet it will go on, as long as men like Ironmask hold sway.'

'You still intend to go after him?'

'Why would I not?'

Diagoras rose from the bench and walked to a well, in the shade of a high wall. Drawing up a bucket, he dipped the ladle into the water and drank deeply. Then he thrust his hands into the bucket, splas.h.i.+ng water to his face. ”Why would I not?'' Ironmask had more than seventy men with him, and was heading into a stronghold friendly to him. That stronghold would be packed with Nadir fighters. There were no more terrifying foes than the Nadir.

Life was cheap on the steppes and the tribesmen were raised to fight and die without question. Rarely did they take prisoners during battle, and if they did it was to torture them in ways too ghastly to contemplate. He glanced back at Druss. The axeman had walked over to a red rose bush, and was removing those of the flowers that were past their best. Diagoras joined him. 'What are you doing?'

'Dead-heading,' said Druss. 'If you allow the blooms to make seed pods the bush will cease to flower.' He stepped back and examined the plant. 'It has also been badly pruned. You need a better gardener here.'

'So, what is your plan, old horse?' asked Diagoras.

Druss walked across to a second bush, a yellow rose, and repeated the dead-heading manoeuvre, nipping off the faded blooms with thumb and forefinger. 'I shall find Ironmask and kill him.'

'That is not a plan, that is an intent.'

Druss shrugged. 'I never was much for planning.'

'Then it is just as well I'll be travelling with you. I am famous for my planning skills.

Diagoras the Planner they called me at school.'

Druss stepped back from the rose bush. 'You don't need to come, laddie. We are no longer searching for Orastes.'

'There is still the child, Elanin. She will need to be taken back to Purdol.'

Druss ran a hand through his black and silver beard. 'You are right. But I think you are a fool to volunteer for such an enterprise.'

'I am also famous for my foolish ways,' Diagoras told him. 'Which I expect is why they didn't make me a general. I think they were wrong. I would look spectacularly fine in the embossed breastplate and white cloak of a Gan. Will the d.a.m.ned be travelling with us?'

'Part of the way. He has no score to settle with Ironmask.'

'The man makes me uncomfortable.'

'Of course he does,' said Druss, with a smile. 'You and he are warriors. There is something in you that yearns to test yourself against him.'

'I guess that is true. Is it the same for him, do you think?'

'No, laddie. He no longer needs to test himself against anyone. He knows who he is, and what he is capable of. You are a fine brave fighter, Diagoras. But Skilgannon is deadly.'

Diagoras felt a flicker of irritation, but suppressed it. Druss always spoke the truth as he saw it, no matter what the consequences. He looked at the older man, and grinned as his natural good humour returned. 'You never mix honey with the medicine, do you, Druss?'

'No.'

'Not even velvet lies?'

'I don't know what they are.'

'A woman asks you what you think of her new dress. You look at her and think: ”It makes you look fat and dowdy.” Do you say it? Or do you find a velvet lie, like . . . ”What a fine colour it is” or ”You look wonderful”?'

'I will not lie. I would say I did not like the dress. Not that any woman has ever asked me about how she looks.'

'There's a surprise. I see now why you are not known as Druss the Lover. Very well, let me ask another question. Do you agree that in war it is necessary to deceive one's enemy? For example, to make him think you are weaker than you are, in order to lure him into a foolhardy a.s.sault?'

'Of course,' said Druss.

'Then it is fine to lie to an enemy?'

'Ah, laddie, you remind me of Sieben. He loved these debates, and would twist words and ideas round and round until everything I believed in sounded like the grandest nonsense.

He should have been a politician. I would say that evil should always be countered. He would say: ”Ah, but what is evil for one man may be good for another.” I remember once we watched the execution of a murderer. He maintained that in killing the man we were committing an evil as great as his. He said that perhaps the killer might have one day sired a child, who would be great and good, and change the world for the better. In killing him we might have robbed the world of a saviour.'

'Perhaps he was right,' said Diagoras.

'Perhaps he was. But if we followed that philosophy completely we would never punish anyone, for any crime. You could argue that to lock the killer away, rather than hanging him, might prevent him meeting the woman who would have given birth to that child. So what do we do? Free him? No. A man who wilfully takes the life of another forfeits his own life. Anything less makes a mockery of justice. I always enjoyed listening to Sieben ranting and railing against the ways of the world. He could make you think black was white, night was day, sweet was sour. It was good entertainment. But that is all it was. Would I deceive an enemy? Yes. Would I deceive a friend? No. How do I justify this? I don't.'

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