Pashtuk led them along the mountain trails for hours, diverting from the road when they pa.s.sed Raj Ahten's armies traveling near the fortress at Mutabayim. Borenson fell asleep again as he rode.

The five had already reached the heavily guarded borders of the Hest Mountains when Pashtuk finally stopped to wake Borenson for dinner.

Night was falling, and Pashtuk pulled Borenson from the saddle saying only, "Sleep here for an hour, while I fix dinner for Her Highness."

Borenson landed unceremoniously in some pine needles and would have slept soundly if not for Saffira's perfume.

He woke as she pa.s.sed near him. Sitting up, he watched her graceful movements, earning a warning scowl from Ha'Pim.

Pigeons cooed in nearby pines, and the dry mountain air carried the smell of a nearby stream. Borenson glanced off into the west.

He'd never seen the sun setting over the Salt Desert of Indhopal, and once having seen it, he would never forget the magnificent sight. To the west, the desert was a soft violet, seeming almost flat for hundreds of miles, and the evening wind stirred the dust over the flats just enough so that a bit of red sand dust floated in a distant haze. The sun seemed enormous as it intersected the horizon, a great swollen pearl the color of rose.

Yet even the glories of nature could not compare with the lovely Saffira. Borenson gazed raptly as she strolled downhill to the shelter of a glen, and there knelt by a rocky pool where honeybees flew about the evening primrose that grew beside the boulders. When she removed her veil and the wrap that covered her head and shoulders, Borenson felt her loveliness like pure torture. It wracked his body and eroded his mind.

She sat for half a second, poised above the pool, and studied her own reflection. Over the past few hours, the concubines had vectored hundreds, perhaps thousands, of endowments of glamour to her, while others had endowed her with Voice.

She glanced over her shoulder, found Borenson awake and staring at her.

"Sir Borenson," she said, her voice mellifluous. "Come sit by me."

Borenson got up, felt his legs go weak with the effort. He manipulated the things like clumsy logs until at last he fell at her knees. She smiled pleasantly and touched his hand.

Ha'Pim moved close, and rested a beefy fist on his dagger. He was a huge man, with a dark and surly expression.

"Will I be a worthy vessel to bear your supplication for peace?" Saffira asked.

"Worthy," was all that Borenson managed to croak. "Completely worthy." Her voice was like music to his ears, while his own seemed the raucous caw of a crow.

"Tell me," Saffira begged. "Do you have a wife?"

Borenson had to think a moment. He blinked nervously. "I...do, milady."

"Is she lovely?"

What could he answer? He had thought Myrrima lovely, but compared to Saffira, she seemed...overlarge, almost cowish. "No, milady."

"How long have you been married?"

He tried to recall, but could not quite count the days. "A few days, more than two. Maybe three." I must sound a fool, he thought.

"But you are quite old. Have you never had a wife before?"

"What?" he asked. "Four, I think."

"Four wives?" Saffira asked, arching a brow. "That is many wives for a man of Rofehavan. I thought your people took only one."

"No, four days since I married," Borenson managed. "I'm fairly sure of it. Four days." He tried to sound as if he spoke with authority.

"But no other wives?"

"None, milady," Borenson answered. "I.. was my prince's guard. I had no time for a wife."

"That is a shame;" Saffira said. "How old is your wife?"

"Twenty...years," Borenson managed. Saffira placed her hand on the rock, leaned back. In doing so, her finger touched the knuckle of Borenson's right hand, and he stared at the spot, unable to take his eyes from his own hand.

He wanted to reach out and touch her again, to stroke her hand, but realized that it was impossible. A thing like him was not meant to touch a wonder like her. It had only been by purest chance that their flesh had met, an astonishing chance. The air smelled heavy with her perfume.

"Twenty. That seems quite old," Saffira said. "I have heard that women often wait until they are old to marry in your country."

He did not know what to say. She looked to be no more than sixteen herself, yet Saffira had been married for years, had borne Raj Ahten four children. She trust be older than she looks, he imagined. Perhaps seventeen, but no more than that--unless she has taken endowments of glamour from children.

"My lord took me to bed on my twelfth birthday," Saffira said proudly. "I was the youngest of his wives, and he was the most handsome man who ever lived. He loved me from the start. Some concubines he keeps to look at, others he keeps to sing. But he loves me most. He has been very good to me. He always brings me presents. Last year he brought two white elephants for us to ride, and their headdresses and the pavilions on their backs were all covered in diamonds and pearls."

Borenson had seen Raj Ahten. The Wolf Lord had thousands of endowments of glamour to his own credit. Now as Borenson looked upon Saffira, he understood how a woman's heart might ache for him.

"I bore him his first child before I turned thirteen," Saffira said proudly. "I bore him four children." He detected a hint of sadness in her voice. He feared that he had led her to a topic that was painful for her, the death of her son.

Borenson's mouth felt dry "Uh...um, will you give him more?" he asked, praying that she would not "No," Saffira said, ducking her head. "I can have no more."

Borenson thought to ask her why, but she looked a flu askance and changed the subject.

"I do not think that men were meant to have red hair. It is not appealing."

"I...will shave it off for you, milady."

"No. Then I would be forced to see all of your white skin and your speckles."

"Then I will dye my hair, milady. I have heard that one can use indigo leaves and henna to make it black." He did not tell her that this was how northern spies and a.s.sa.s.sins colored their hair before striking south into Indhopal.

Saffira smiled captivatingly, the most beautiful smile ever to have graced a woman's face. "Yes, in some places in Indhopal, old people dye their hair when it starts to turn gray," she said. "I will send for such dye."

She fell silent for a moment. "My husband," she bragged, "is the greatest man in the world."

Borenson flinched. He had never heard that before, and had not really thought it possible. But now that Saffira said it, he realized it was true. "Yes, O Star of the Desert," he said, for he suddenly thought that "milady" was too common a word, a t.i.tle that should be reserved only for dried-up old matrons with leathery faces.

"He is the hope of the world," Saffira instructed him with perfect conviction. "He will unite mankind, and destroy the reavers."

Of course, now that he saw it, Borenson realized that it was a great plan. Who was more powerful than Raj Ahten?

"I look forward to the day," Borenson agreed.

"And I shall help him," Saffira said. "I shall bring peace to Rofehavan, begging all men to lay aside their weapons, and thus stop the depredations of the Knights Equitable. Long has my love fought for peace, and now the Great Light of Indhopal shall shine over the whole world. The barbarians of Rofehavan will humble themselves and kneel before him, or be destroyed."

Saffira had been speaking half to herself, as if listening in wonder to the pure tones of her own voice. From minute to minute the facilitators in her palace were adding endowments to her. "Wahoni had forty endowments of Voice. They must be mine now," Saffira said "She sang so beautifully; I will miss it, though I can sing more beautifully now." She raised her voice, sang a few lines in such a haunting tone that the music seemed to hang in the air about her like the down of a cottonwood tree. The song sent chills down Borenson's spine.

She suddenly glanced at him distractedly. "You should not stare at me with your mouth open," Saffira said. "You look as if you want to eat me. In fact, perhaps you should not look at me at all. I am going to take a bath now, and you must not look at me naked, do you understand?"

"I will close my eyes," Borenson promised. Ha'Pim kicked at Borenson's legs, and Borenson walked away a few yards. Then he sat with his back to a warm rock.

He listened to the delicious sound as she removed her silks, smelled the sweet scent of her body as she removed her dress, and her jasmine perfume suddenly became stronger.

He listened as she stepped timidly into the pond and made a small noise of surprise to find out how cold the mountain water could be. He listened to her splash and burble, but he did not look at her.

He closed his eyes tightly, obeying her every command, willing himself to obey no matter what the cost to himself.

Yet as he closed his eyes and tried to focus on anything but the sounds Saffira made as she splashed, he began to wonder.

She had said that Raj Ahten was the greatest man in the world, and at that moment, he'd thought the words sounded wise, reasonable, and well considered.

But now doubt began to creep in.

Saffira loved Raj Ahten?

She thought him kind? The man who had destroyed every neighboring king and now sought to subdue the world?

No, Borenson had seen Raj Ahten's cunning and his cruelty. He'd seen the dead bodies of Gaborn's brother and sisters and mother. When Borenson slew Raj Ahten's Dedicates at Castle Sylvarresta, he'd been forced to take the lives of the children that Raj Ahten drew endowments from. The Wolf Lord was a man wholly given to evil.

Raj Ahten had taken Saffira to wife as a child, and though she gloried in Raj Ahten's affection, Borenson wanted to see him die for that.

But he wondered. Saffira had gone to him willingly as a child, overpowered by his Glamour and Voice. She loved him. She loved him so much that she now promised to support him against the nations of Rofehavan.

She had never seen the world that her husband ruthlessly sought to usurp, Borenson realized. She was hopelessly naive. She'd spent all her time locked in her palace, awaiting the gifts Raj Ahten would bring, fearful of the Knights Equitable. She'd been stripped from her family at the age of twelve, and though Borenson had not been allowed to see the other concubines, he imagined that they'd be girls like Saffira--just as naive and foolish.

Already he realized how hopelessly Gaborn's plan might go astray: Saffira offered to forge a peace between Indhopal and Rofehavan, but she would do it for her own reasons, not because the Earth King sought it.

And if Raj Ahten could not be persuaded to call a halt to his war, then Saffira would join him and use her own Glamour to subvert the armies of Rofehavan.

Faintly, a voice in the back of Borenson's mind whispered that he had helped to create a monster, and that now he should destroy it, if possible.

Yet he could not bear the thought. Even if he'd still had his endowments, even if he thought himself capable of fighting Pashtuk, Ha'Pim, and Mahket, he did not think himself capable of killing Saffira.

No man could manage it.

And she did not deserve such rough treatment. Saffira was innocent, not evil.

Even if he had thought her evil, he knew that he would never have been able to lift a finger against her.

CHAPTER 30.

THE BOON COMPANION.

It was well after sunset when Iome reached Castle Groverman. Both Binnesman and Jureem rode the fine mounts, that Raj Ahten had graciously provided them a week before, and Myrrima rode Sir Borenson's mount, as swift a beast as Mystarria could offer. But the force horse Iome had been constrained to take from the King's stables had been a simple guardsman's mount with only three endowments.

It gave out after a hundred miles of hard running, so Iome was forced to slow until they could get to Bannisferre and buy a fresh mount.

Still, the stars shone brightly and the air up here high in the Dunnwood was cold and fresh, so that the evening ride was pleasant.

Once they arrived at the castle, Iome went off in search of the King. She took a retinue consisting of Jureem, Binnesman; and Myrrima, as well as her Days and the clubfooted boy.

With a few words to a captain, she caught up to Gaborn in Duke Groverman's Keep, where he had retired for dinner with a number of other lords.

Iome proceeded from the hall to the Duke's audience chamber. She was about to open the red curtains at the entrance to the Great Hall when she heard someone addressing her husband in a harsh voice. "This is a travesty, Your Highness!" a knight said too loudly. "You can't let them turn back now, not before the chase has even begun! This speaks of cowardice!"

She knew the whiny voice. It was Sir Gillis of Tor Insell.

A deep-voiced fellow roared, "Your Highness, I will not be called a coward by this man, nor will I have my king named one! I demand an apology!"

Iome motioned for those behind her to stop. She parted the curtain a bit. Duke Groverman had set a fine banquet, and Gaborn and three dozen lords crowded around a table that should not have held two dozen.

In the center of the room stood a young man with a pimpled face, Theovald Orwynne's son, fourteen-year-old Agunter.

Word had spread along the road of the day's events. Iome knew that King Orwynne and his son Barnell had been slain by the Darkling Glory. Agunter would be next in line for the throne. She'd also heard that Gaborn had lost his endowments.

At Agunter's side stood a big bear of a man, Sir Langley, and at his back counselors waited "I demand an apology from this lout..." Sir Langley roared at Sir Gillis, "or satisfaction!"

With a tone of wry amus.e.m.e.nt, Gaborn turned to his left, where Sir Gillis sat at the table, several places down. "What say you, Sir Gillis? Will you apologize for your insult, or will we all get to watch Orwynne's champion yank your tongue from your mouth?"

Red of face, Sir Gillis threw down a swan's leg he'd been gnawing at and glared over his dinner plate. "I say it again! Orwynne swore fealty to the Earth King, and if Agunter and his knights choose to depart now before the battle, then I say they are cowards all! Rip out my tongue if you can, Sir Langley. Though it wriggle on the floor, my tongue will still declare the truth!"

Sir Langley glared at Sir Gillis, and his hand strayed toward the dagger in his belt, but he dared not draw steel in the Earth King's presence.

"If you please, Your Highness!" one of Orwynne's counselors shouted "It was not milord Agunter's wish to return to his lands. I have sought all day to persuade him that this is the most prudent course!"

"Speak on," Gaborn told the counselor.

"I...I merely point out that Agunter is but fourteen, and though he has the size of a man about him--and a courage to equal that of any man in this room--today his kingdom suffered a tremendous loss. With King Orwynne dead, along with his oldest son, the royal family of Orwynne is now in a tenuous position. Agunter's nearest brother is but six years old, and if by some fell chance Agunter continued south and died in battle, his brother would be incapable of ruling in his stead. With our kingdom at war, we need a proper lord to lead us. For this reason alone, we pet.i.tion you for leave to return to our homes."

Gaborn sat back in the shadows, with Duke Groverman to his left and Chancellor Rodderman to his right Now he leaned forward in his chair.

"For young Agunter here to leave is one thing," Sir Gillis said "But must he take his entire retinue? Five hundred knights?"

Iome was torn at the thought. Agunter's father had indeed mounted five hundred of his best knights for this campaign, and with Heredon's forces so decimated, such knights would be sorely needed. While it was only prudent for young Agunter to turn back, it seemed excessive for him to take all of his men.

Sir Gillis was right, she decided. More than common sense lay behind Agunter's request. Agunter was sorely afraid--and with good reason.

Gaborn's father had stood up to Raj Ahten and been murdered for his trouble, as had her own father. Agunter's father was slain most terribly, crushed by the Darkling Glory right before Agunter's own eyes.

Agunter spoke now, voice shaky. "I think that to take all of my men would be excessive, but for the news my father bore last night: Reavers have surfaced in North Crowthen and again to the south in Mystarria. World worms shake the earth as they burrow beneath the Dunnwood. My kingdom borders the Hest, and we've spotted many signs of reavers this past summer in the mountains. How long will it be before they come at us en ma.s.se?"

"Hah! I call it robbery!" Sir Gillis said "The Earth King saves your whole nation and gives two thousand forcibles to make Sir Langley our champion, and then you think to ride off on your merry way with the booty. Shall Orwynne be named a boon companion?"