‘Thank God!’ Stragen said with a vast sigh of relief. ‘The delay was beginning to make me very, very nervous.’

‘Y’d made promises t’ yer queen, an’ y’ wuzn’t shore iff’n y’ could deliver, is that it?’

‘That’s very, very close, my friend.’

‘I’ll give you the names of some people in Matherion.’ Caalador looked around. ‘Private-like, if’n y’ take my meanin’,’ he added. ‘It’s all vury well t’ talk ‘bout lendin’ a helpin’ hand an’ sich, but ‘taint hordly nach’ral t’ be namin’ no names right out in fronta no queens an’ knights an’ sich.’ He grinned impudently at Ehlana. ‘An’ now, yer queenship, how’d y’ like it iff’n I wuz t’ spin y’ a long, long tale ‘bout my advenchoors in the shadowy world o’ crime?’

‘I’d be delighted, Caalador,’ she replied eagerly.

Another of the injured knights died that night, but the two dozen sorely-wounded seemed on the mend. As Oscagne had told them, Tamul physicians were extraordinarily skilled, although some of their methods were strange to Elenes. After a brief conference, Sparhawk and his friends decided to press on to Matherion. Their trek across the continent had yielded a great deal of information, and they all felt that it was time to combine that information with the findings of the Imperial government.

And so they set out from Lebas early one morning and rode south under a kindly summer sky. The countryside was neat, with crops growing in straight lines across weedless fields marked off with low stone walls. Even the trees in the woodlands grew in straight lines, and all traces of unfettered nature seemed to have been erased. The peasants in the fields wore loose-fitting trousers and shirts of white linen and tightly-woven, straw hats that looked not unlike mushroom-tops. Many of the crops grown in this alien countryside were unrecognisable to the Elenes – odd-looking beans and peculiar grains. They passed Lake Sama and saw fishermen casting nets from strange-looking boats with high prows and sterns, boats of which Khalad profoundly disapproved. ‘One good gust of wind from the side would capsize them,’ was his verdict.

They reached Tosa, some sixty leagues to the north of the capital, with that sense of impatience that comes near the end of every long journey.

The weather held fair, and they set out early and rode late each day, counting off every league put behind them. The road followed the coast of the Tamul sea, a low, rolling coast-line where rounded hills rose from broad beaches of white sand and long waves rolled in to break and foam and slither back out into deep blue water.

Eight days – more or less – after they left Tosa, they set up for the night in a park-like grove with an almost holiday air, since Oscagne assured them that they were no more than five leagues from Matherion.

‘We could ride on,’ Kalten suggested. ‘We’d be there by morning.’

‘Not on your life, Sir Kalten,’ Ehlana said adamantly. ‘Start heating water, gentlemen, and put up a tent we can use for bathing. The ladies and I are not going to ride into Matherion with half the dirt of Daresia caked on us – and string some lines so that we can hang our gowns out to air and to let the breeze shake the wrinkles out of them.’ She looked around critically. ‘And then, gentlemen, I want you to see to yourselves and your equipment. I’ll inspect you before we set out tomorrow morning, and I’d better not find one single speck of rust.’

Kalten sighed mournfully. ‘Yes, my Queen,’ he replied in a resigned tone of voice.

They set out the following morning in a formal column with the carriage near the front. Their pace was slow to avoid raising dust, and Ehlana, gowned in blue and crowned with gold and diamonds, sat regally in the carriage, looking for all the world as if she owned everything in sight. There had been one small but intense disagreement before they set out, however. Her Highness, the Royal Princess Danae, had objected violently when told that she would wear a proper dress and a delicate little tiara. Ehlana did not cajole her daughter about the matter, but instead she did something she had never done before. ‘Princess Danae,’ she said quite formally, ‘I am the queen. You will obey me.’

Danae blinked in astonishment. Sparhawk was fairly certain that no one had ever spoken to her that way before. ‘Yes, your Majesty,’ she replied finally in a suitably submissive tone.

Word of their approach had preceded them, of course. Engessa had seen to that, and as they rode up a long hill about mid-afternoon, they saw a mounted detachment of ceremonial troops wearing armour of black lacquered steel inlaid with gold awaiting them at the summit. The honour guard was drawn up in ranks on each side of the road. There were as yet no greetings, and when the column crested the hill, Sparhawk immediately saw why.

‘Dear God!’ Bevier breathed in awed reverence.

A crescent-shaped city embraced a deep blue harbour below. The sun had passed its zenith, and it shone down on the crown of Tamuli. The architecture was graceful, and every building had a dome-like, rounded roof. It was not so large as Chyrellos, but it was not the size which had wrung that reverential gasp from Sir Bevier. The city was dazzling, but its splendour was not the splendour of marble. An opalescent sheen covered the capital; a shifting rainbow-hued fire that blazed beneath the surface of its very stones, a fire that at times blinded the eye with its stunning magnificence.

‘Behold!’ Oscagne intoned quite formally. ‘Behold the seat of beauty and truth! Behold the home of wisdom and power! Behold fire-domed Matherion, the centre of the world!’

PART FOUR

Matherion

Maps

CHAPTER 24

‘It’s been that way since the twelfth century,’ Ambassador Oscagne told them as they were escorted down the hill toward the gleaming city.

‘Was it magic?’ Talen asked him. The young thief’s eyes were filled with wonder.

‘You might call it that,’ Oscagne said wryly, ‘but it was the kind of magic one performs with unlimited money and power rather than with incantations. The eleventh and twelfth centuries were a foolish period in our history. It was the time of the Micaen Dynasty, and they were probably the silliest family to ever occupy the throne. The first Micaen emperor was given an ornamental box of mother-of-pearl – or nacre, as some call it – by an emissary from the Isle of Tega when he was about fourteen years old. History tells us that he would sit staring at it by the hour, paralysed by the shifting colours. He was so enamoured of the nacre he had his throne sheathed in the stuff.’