The Sapphire Rose

‘Anything at all, Aslade.’

‘I need to talk with Talen.’

Sparhawk was not sure where this was leading. He motioned to the young thief, and Talen joined them.

‘Talen,’ Aslade said.

‘Yes?’

‘We’re very proud of you, you know.’

‘Me?’

‘You avenged your father’s death. Your brothers and I share that with you.’

He stared at her. ‘Are you trying to say that you knew? About Kurik and me, I mean?’

‘Of course I knew. I’ve known for a long time. This is what you’re going to do – and if you don’t, Sparhawk here will thrash you. You’re going to Cimmura, and you’re going to bring your mother back here.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. I’ve met your mother a few times. I went to Cimmura to have a look at her just before you were born. I wanted to talk with her so that we could decide which of us would be best for your father. She’s a nice girl – a little skinny, perhaps, but I can fatten her up once I get her here. She and I get along quite well, and we’re all going to live here until you and your brothers enter your novitiates. After that, she and I can keep each other company.’

‘You want me to live on a farm?’ he asked incredulously.

‘Your father would have wanted that, and I’m sure your mother wants it, and so do I. You’re too good a boy to disappoint all three of us.’

‘But –’

‘Please don’t argue with me, Talen. It’s all settled. Now, let’s go inside. I’ve cooked a dinner for us, and I don’t want it to get cold.’

They buried Kurik beneath a tall elm tree on a hill overlooking his farm about noon the following day. The sky had been ominous all morning, but the sun broke through as Kurik’s sons carried their father up the hill. Sparhawk was not as good as his squire had been at judging the weather, but the sudden appearance of a patch of blue sky and bright sunlight hovering just over the farm and touching no other part of the city of Demos made him more than a little suspicious.

The funeral was very simple and very moving. The local priest, an elderly, almost doddering man, had known Kurik since boyhood, and he spoke not so much of sorrow as of love. When it was over, Kurik’s eldest son, Khalad, joined Sparhawk as they all walked back down the hill. ‘I’m honoured that you thought I might be worthy to become a Pandion, Sir Sparhawk,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.’

Sparhawk looked sharply at the husky, plain-faced young man whose black beard was only beginning to sprout.

‘It’s nothing personal, Sir Sparhawk,’ Khalad assured him. ‘It’s just that my father had other plans for me. In a few weeks – after you’ve had the chance to get settled in, I’ll be joining you in Cimmura.’

‘You will?’ Sparhawk was slightly taken aback by the lad’s matter-of-fact manner.

‘Of course, Sir Sparhawk. I’ll be taking up my father’s duties. It’s a family tradition. My grandfather served yours – and your father, and my father served your father and you, so I’ll be taking up where he left off.’

‘That’s not really necessary, Khalad. Don’t you want to be a Pandion Knight?’

‘What I want isn’t important, Sir Sparhawk. I have other duties.’

They left the farmstead the next morning, and Kalten rode forward to join Sparhawk. ‘Nice funeral,’ he noted, ‘– if you happen to like funerals. I’d rather keep my friends around me, personally.’

‘Do you want to help me with a problem?’ Sparhawk asked him.

‘I thought we’d already killed everybody who needs it.’

‘Can you be serious?’

‘That’s a lot to ask, Sparhawk, but I’ll try. What’s this problem?’

‘Khalad insists on being my squire.’

‘So? It’s the sort of thing country boys do – follow their fathers’ trades.’

‘I want him to become a Pandion Knight.’

‘I still don’t see any problem. Go ahead and get him knighted then.’

‘He can’t be a squire and a knight both, Kalten.’

‘Why not? Take you, for example. You’re a Pandion Knight, a member of the royal council, Queen’s Champion and the Prince Consort. Khalad’s got broad shoulders. He can handle both jobs.’

The more Sparhawk thought about that, the more he liked it. ‘Kalten,’ he laughed, ‘what would I ever do without you?’

‘Flounder, most likely. You complicate things too much, Sparhawk. You really ought to try to keep them simple.’

‘Thanks.’

‘No charge.’

It was raining. A soft, silvery drizzle sifted down out of the late afternoon sky and wreathed around the blocky watchtowers of the city of Cimmura. A lone rider approached the city. He was wrapped in a dark, heavy traveller’s cloak and rode a tall, shaggy roan horse with a long nose and flat, vicious eyes. ‘We always seem to come back to Cimmura in the rain, don’t we, Faran,’ the rider said to his horse.

Faran flicked his ears.

Sparhawk had left his friends behind that morning and had ridden on ahead. They all knew why, and they had not argued with him about it.

‘We can send word on ahead to the palace, if you’d like, Prince Sparhawk,’ one of the guards at the east gate offered. Ehlana, it appeared, had made some issue of his new title. Sparhawk wished that she had not. It was going to take some getting used to.

‘Thanks all the same, neighbour,’ Sparhawk told the guard, ‘but I’d sort of like to surprise my wife. She’s young enough to still enjoy surprises.’

The guard grinned at him.

‘Get back inside the guard-house, neighbour,’ Sparhawk advised. ‘You’ll catch cold out here in the weather.’

He rode on into Cimmura. The rain was keeping almost everyone inside, and Faran’s steel-shod hooves echoed on the cobblestones of the nearly empty streets.

Sparhawk dismounted in the palace courtyard and handed Faran’s reins to a groom. ‘Be a little careful of the horse, neighbour,’ he cautioned the stableman. ‘He’s bad-tempered. Give him some hay and grain and rub him down, if you would please. He’s had a hard trip.’

‘I’ll see to it, Prince Sparhawk.’ There it was again. Sparhawk decided to have a word with his wife about it.