Emban smiled. ‘I’ve noticed that, Oscagne. Our Church Knights are the most courteous and ceremonial men I know.’

‘Prudence, your Grace,’ Ulath explained cryptically.

‘You’ll get used to that in time, your Excellency,’ Tynian assured the ambassador. ‘Sir Ulath hates to waste words.’

‘I wasn’t being mysterious, Tynian,’ Ulath told him. ‘I was only pointing out that you almost have to be polite to a man who’s holding an axe.’

Atan Engessa rose and bowed a bit stiffly to Ehlana. ‘May I test your slave, Ehlana-Queen?’ he asked.

‘How exactly do you mean, Atan Engessa?’ she asked warily.

‘She approaches the time of the Rite of Passage. We must decide if she is ready. I will not harm her. These others are demonstrating their skill. Atana Mirtai and I will participate. It will be a good time for the test.’

‘As you think best, Atan,’ Ehlana consented, ‘as long as the Atana does not object.’

‘If she is truly Atan, she will not object, Ehlana-Queen.’ He turned abruptly and crossed to where Mirtai sat with the Peloi.

‘Mirtai’s certainly the centre of things today,’ Melidere observed.

‘I think it’s very nice,’ Ehlana said. ‘She keeps herself in the background most of the time. She’s entitled to a bit of attention.’

‘It’s political, you realise,’ Stragen told her. ‘Tikume’s people are showering Mirtai with attention for Kring’s benefit.’

‘I know, Stragen, but it’s nice all the same.’ She looked speculatively at her golden slave. ‘Sparhawk, I’d take it as a personal favour if you’d actively pursue the marriage-negotiations with Atan Engessa. Mirtai deserves some happiness.’

‘I’ll see what I can arrange for her, my Queen.’

Mirtai readily agreed to Engessa’s proposed test. She rose gracefully to her feet, unfastened the neck of her purple robe and let it fall.

The Peloi gasped. Their women-folk were customarily dressed in far more concealing garments. The sneer on the face of Tikume’s wife Vida, however, was a bit wan. Mirtai was significantly female. She was also fully armed, and that also shocked the Peloi. She and Engessa moved to the area in front of the canopy, curtly inclined their heads to each other and drew their swords.

Sparhawk thought he knew the differences between contest and combat, but what followed blurred that boundary for him. Mirtai and Engessa seemed to be fully intent on killing each other. Their swordsmanship was superb, but their manner of fencing involved a great deal more physical contact than did western-style fighting.

‘It looks like a wrestling-match with swords,’ Kalten observed to Ulath.

‘Yes,’ Ulath agreed. ‘I wonder if a man could do that in an axe-fight. If you could kick somebody in the face the way she just did and then follow up with an axestroke, you could win a lot of fights in a hurry.’

‘I knew she was going to do that to him,’ Kalten chuckled as Engessa landed flat on his back in the dust. ‘She did it to me once.’

Engessa, however, did not lie gasping on the ground as Kalten had. He rolled away from Mirtai instead and came to his feet with his sword still in his hand. He raised his blade in a kind of salute and then immediately attacked again.

The ‘test’ continued for several more minutes until a watching Atan sharply banged his fist on his breastplate to signal the end of the match. The man who had signalled was much older than his compatriots, or so it seemed. His hair was white. Nothing else about him seemed any different, however.

Mirtai and Engessa bowed formally to each other, and he returned her to her place where she once again drew on her robe and sank down onto a cushion. Vida no longer sneered.

‘She is fit,’ Engessa reported to Ehlana. He reached up under his breastplate and tenderly touched a sore-spot. ‘More than fit,’ he added. ‘She is a skilled and dangerous opponent. I am proud to be the one she will call father. She will add lustre to my name.’

‘We rather like her, Atan Engessa,’ Ehlana smiled. ‘I’m so glad you agree with us.’ She let the full impact of that devastating smile wash over the stern-faced Atan, and hesitantly, almost as if it were in spite of himself, he smiled back.

‘I think he lost two fights today,’ Talen whispered to Sparhawk.

‘So it would seem,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘We can never catch up with them, friend Sparhawk,’ Tikume said that evening as they all relaxed on carpets near a flaring campfire. ‘These steppes are open grasslands with only a few groves of trees. There isn’t really any place to hide, and you can’t ride a horse through tall grass without leaving a trail a blind man could follow. They come out of nowhere, kill the herders and run off the cattle. I followed one of those groups of raiders myself. They’d stolen a hundred cattle, and they left a broad trail through the grass. After a few miles, the trail just ended. There was no sign that they’d dispersed. They just vanished. It was as if something had reached down and carried them off into the sky.’

‘Have there been any other disturbances, Domi?’ Tynian asked carefully. ‘What I’m trying to say is, has there been unrest of any kind among your people? Wild stories? Rumours? That sort of thing?’

‘No, friend Tynian.’ Tikume smiled. ‘We are an openfaced people. We do not conceal our emotions from each other. I’d know if there were something afoot. I’ve heard about what’s been happening over around Darsas, so I know why you ask. Nothing like that is happening here. We don’t worship our heroes the way they do, we just try to be like them. Someone’s stealing our cattle and killing our herdsmen.’ He looked a bit accusingly at Oscagne. ‘I would not insult you for all the world, your Honour,’ he said, ‘but you might suggest to the emperor that he would be wise to have some of his Atans look into it. If we have to deal with it ourselves, our neighbours won’t like it very much. We of the Peloi tend to be a bit indiscriminate when someone steals our cattle.’

‘I’ll bring the matter to his Imperial Majesty’s attention,’ Oscagne promised.

‘Soon, friend Oscagne,’ Tikume recommended. ‘Very soon.’

‘She’s a highly-skilled warrior, Sparhawk-Knight,’ Engessa was saying the following morning as the two sat by a small fire.

‘Granted,’ Sparhawk replied, ‘but by your own traditions, she’s still a child.’