"Ilna, you are leaving?" Temple said.
Ilna looked at him sharply. "Yes," she said. There wasn't much reason for him to remain here at that. "Do you want to come with us?"
Then, in a crisp tone, "You'll have to find clothes if you come."
"I will find clothes," Temple said. He flexed his arms and smiled at her again. "And I will come with you."
"Mistress?" said Karpos. His left hand twitched unconsciously, rotating the arrow back to nock. He caught himself, glowered, and snatched the arrow away with his free hand. "Mistress, do you think that's a good idea?"
"I think it's a humane idea, Master Karpos," Ilna snapped. "I don't insist that being humane is good, but it's how I prefer to act when I can. If Temple doesn't want to remain alone at the place his companions were massacred, then I can't say I blame him. When we arrive at a more suitable place, he can leave us."
She looked at the stranger. He was smiling again, this time very broadly. "Sorry," she muttered. "I shouldn't have talked about you as if you weren't here, Master Temple."
"Just Temple, Ilna," he said. He looked at Karpos and said, "I will not be a burden to you, sir."
"The Sister bloody knows you won't!" Karpos said in an undertone, but it was just words rather than a threat. Ilna knew—and Karpos knew as well—that if she ordered the hunters to carry Temple on a litter, they'd obey.
The chance of that happening, barring accident or serious wounds, was vanishingly small. The man was clearly as fit as the hunters and they'd spent their entire lives in the wilderness.
Asion cleared his throat. "Look, I didn't see weapons out there with the bodies," he said, "but maybe in the houses they have something for Temple. A sickle or a billhook or something. He oughta have a weapon, out where we're going."
"They should've had weapons," Karpos said. "Here in the middle of nowhere without a spear to hand when they needed one!"
"Right," said Ilna, pursing her lips as she considered. Tunics and a cloak for Temple shouldn't be difficult; he was unusually tall, but several of the dead men were fat enough that their garments should cover him adequately if in a rather different manner from the way they did the original owners. Sandals, though, or boots—
"I will have weapons, sir," Temple said. He turned and squatted, then slid his hands to midpoint on opposite sides of the stone barrel between the images of the Gods.
"Are you praying?" Asion said. Then, to his partner, "Is he praying, do you think?"
The muscles of Temple's back and shoulders sprang out in bold relief. For a moment there was silence.
"Look, buddy," Karpos said, "if that's solid, you can forget about moving it by yourself. It weighs more'n all three of us together, aye and the mistress too!"
Stone scraped though nothing seemed to move. Temple's legs straightened with the slow certainty of sunrise. The massive cylinder—it must be at least as heavy as Karpos said—rose with him. He started to turn, balancing the stone above his head.
"Get back!" Ilna cried, but the hunters were already scrambling away. Nobody could balance something that heavy for long. When the barrel tipped one way or another it'd fall to the floor with a crash that'd shatter flagstones into flying splinters.
Temple squatted with the grace of an ox settling, still holding the stone. His smile was as set as that of a bare skull, and his muscles seemed to have been chiseled from wood. He lowered the stone barrel to the floor with no more than a
tock
and a rasping sound.
"By the Sister," Karpos said softly. "By the Sister."
Asion's left hand gripped the amulet bag he wore around his neck. He was mouthing something, probably a prayer. He absently sheathed his long knife, though Ilna guessed he wasn't aware of what he was doing.
Temple shuddered and wheezed, drawing in deep breaths and expelling them with the violence of a surfacing porpoise. He continued to grip the cylinder, now to anchor him so that he didn't topple over backward.
After a moment he turned his head to look at Karpos. Between gasps he said, "I will . . . no-not
burden
. . . you. Sir!"
"I give you best," Karpos said. He sounded awestruck. "By the Sister!"
Ilna sniffed. As a general rule she disapproved of boasting, and the feat Temple had just performed was certainly a boast. Still, it'd settled his place in this community of men without a fight, and it'd opened what turned out to be a cavity beneath the stone by the simplest if not the easiest means available. She walked over to look inside.
"Ilna," Temple said firmly. He bent over the barrel again, squeezing his eyes closed. He opened them and looked at her. "I'll take care of that, if you please."
"Yes," she said, stepping back. She stood as straight as the pillars, her face set. The stranger had rebuked her courteously. She'd often rebuked those who meddled in
her
business, but much less courteously.
Temple stood. She'd expected him to lurch, but the motion when it came was as smooth as all his other movements had been. He nodded to the hunters, bowed slightly to her, and reached down into the cavity.
Ilna laughed; a brief sound and half-suppressed, but even so more humor than normally passed her lips. Both hunters looked at her in surprise. Even Temple, straightening with armor in one hand and a sword in the other, glanced over his shoulder with an eyebrow cocked.
"Temple," she said, honestly saying what she'd thought but not explaining why she'd found it funny, "you and my brother Cashel would get along well together. He's a strong man also."
And he, like you,
she added within the amused silence of her mind
, doesn't pick fights to prove how strong he is. Though if the two of you did fight, it'd be something to see
.
The hunters were looking at Temple's equipment. Helmet, cuirass, and the round shield were all made of a metal Ilna didn't recognize. It had a copperish tinge, but it was too dark and had a hint almost of purple.
"So what is it, eh?" said Asion. "Is it bronze?"
"A sort of bronze," Temple said. His voice was quickly losing its odd intonation. He set the armor on the ground and, gripping the sheath at the balance with one hand, put his other on the hilt. "It's harder than most bronzes, though."
He drew the sword. The straight blade was of the same dark metal as the armor, but the edge shimmered brightly golden even in the dim light filtering through the door of the building twenty double paces behind them.
"I've never seen anything like that," Asion said, stepping closer. He moved his hand cautiously toward the sword as though he was about to pet a lion. "Where'd you get it?"
Temple lifted the sword slightly, keeping it away from the shorter man. Asion stepped back, and Temple shot the sword home in its sheath.
"I've had it a long time," he said quietly. "A very long time."
"Is there anything more you need here?" Ilna said sharply to break the mood. When Temple shook his head, smiling again, she went on, "All right, then we'll search the houses for food before we—"
She shrugged.
"—bury the dead in one of them. And we'll get you clothes."
"I will bury the Coerli also, Ilna," Temple said. "You need not help."
Ilna glared at him, then shrugged. "If you wish," she snapped as she started for the door. "If you wish, you can walk on your hands all the way to where we're going!"
Temple left the armor where it was for now, but he slung the sword belt around his naked waist as he followed the others into the bright sun.
* * *
Sharina'd managed to sleep in the carriage during much of her return from West Sesile, but she jerked awake when the iron tires began hammering on the bricks of the Main North Road running along the front of the palace compound. She rubbed her eyes. She hadn't slept well, but any sleep at all was a luxury nowadays.
She smiled. She didn't think she'd had what she'd call a good night's sleep since the Change. There was simply too much for Princess Sharina to do.
And not just Princess Sharina. Mistress Masmon in the opposite corner looked up when she saw Sharina awaken. Masmon had been annotating a parchment codex by the light of a candle sconce in the side of the compartment. She was using a small brass pen which she refilled by dipping into the ink horn dangling from the stud of her travelling cloak.
Sometimes when the pressure of work seemed unbearable, it helped Sharina to remember that others were feeling the same pressure and nonetheless continuing to do their jobs. All the people who really understood that the struggle was between Good and Evil and that Good
must
win if mankind were to survive—all of them were working as hard as humans could, and maybe a little harder yet.
Sharina smiled at Masmon in sudden sympathy. The clerk blinked in surprise, then managed a wan smile in reply. She closed her pen, capped and removed the ink horn, and was placing them and the book in a carrying case when the carriage pulled up at the palace gates.
The barred gates squealed open, but a discussion between the guards on the carriage and people in the roadway continued. Sharina couldn't catch the words—partly because she was still logy with sleep and lack of sleep both—so she opened the window shutter and stuck her head out to see what was happening.
Admiral Zettin stood in the gateway, his left hand gripping the headstall of the lead horse while he argued with the under-captain in command of carriage guards. When Zettin saw Sharina, he let go of the horse and strode back to the box, calling, "Your highness? May I ride to your quarters with you? There's a problem that I really need to discuss—"
"Yes, yes, of course," Sharina said, her heart sinking into a pit of shadows. She was
so
tired. The only thing on her mind had been having her maid help her undress—you simply couldn't get into or out of court robes by yourself—and getting into bed to sleep. Lord Zettin had been waiting at the palace entrance because he knew she'd have to pass here eventually and he didn't want to leave his problem for the morning.
Zettin opened the carriage door. He lifted himself onto the mounting step but paused with a frown when he saw Mistress Masmon.
"That's all right," said the clerk, snuffing the candle between her thumb and forefinger. "I'm getting out."
Sharina started to protest, then realized that she didn't know where Mistress Masmon's precise destination within the compound wall was; it might well be one of the buildings near the entrance. Regardless, the clerk would feel uncomfortable if the princess forced her to remain: and since Zettin obviously wouldn't discuss his business in front of an underling, the result of the whole exercise would be to keep Sharina awake that much longer.
Sharina leaned out the door by which the clerk had just left. "One of you men help Mistress Masmon with her case!" she called to the guards. "Yes, I mean you! The gate can do with one fewer man for the time it takes."
She sat down again. Zettin settled onto the opposite crossbench as the driver clucked the horses on. Leaning toward her, he said, "It's Pandah, your highness. There's a serious problem there, one that I think has to take precedence over integrating the Coerli into the kingdom."
Sharina looked at Zettin in puzzlement. Moonlight through the slatted shutters flicked across his face as the carriage rolled forward, hiding more than it revealed.
"I've stayed on Pandah," she said, trying to make sense of Zettin's words. "Pandah isn't a danger."
It's a sleepy island smelling faintly of spices, and even the breeze is mild
.
Pandah was the only major island in the middle of the Inner Sea. Besides providing water and locally-raised provisions for vessels crossing the sea, it was a place where regional cargoes could be sorted for shipping to their final destinations by local traders. The people there, from the king on down, were wealthy and focused on living well rather than getting involved in military adventures.
"Yes, your highness," Zettin said, probably more harshly than he'd intended. They were all tired and becoming snappish. "That was indeed the case before the Change, but it no longer is. In the years immediately following the collapse of the Old Kingdom, Pandah was a nest of pirates. That seems to be the case now, but the situation is rather worse because the human outlaws are making common cause with catmen who refuse to become part of the kingdom."
Sharina frowned. "How are they doing that?" she asked. "Can they talk to the Coerli? I don't see . . . ."
Zettin shrugged. "They manage somehow, I gather," he said with a black scowl. "The catmen're mostly young males, warriors that is, from keeps which surrendered to the army. They and the pirates they're joining aren't very different in attitude."
He turned his head away, though inside the slowly rumbling carriage he couldn't have been able to see Sharina's face any more clearly than she could see his. "From what those who've fled the area tell us," Zettin said with a careful lack of emotion, "they've taken up eating men. The humans have, that is. If you want to call them human."
Lord Zettin had been an officer of the Blood Eagles and a protégé of Lord Attaper. When Garric had restored the fleet as the only means of enforcing royal authority over the Kingdom of the Isles, Zettin had become its commander—in part because traditional army officers led by Lord Waldron had considered the fleet command beneath them. Now that the fleet had little value to a continental kingdom, Garric had appointed the former Admiral as chief military aide to Sharina who ran the civil administration while he was absent with the army.
"Ah," Sharina said, realizing now why Zettin had been so insistent on bringing the business to her immediately instead of waiting for the morning. "That's something we'll need to deal with promptly, yes. But milord, I'm afraid my brother will make the decision as to precisely how that will happen. This is a strictly military matter, and I keep out of those except in an immediate crisis."
"But your highness—"
"Milord!" Sharina said. "Garric—Prince Garric—should return the day after tomorrow at the latest. I'll send the information to him at once, but I will
not
take the decision out of his hands."