‘Vanion?’ Emban exclaimed. ‘I thought he’d be dead by now.’
‘Hardly. He’s quite vigorous, actually. Very vigorous at times. He’d have come with me to meet you, but he sprained his ankle yesterday. He’s being terribly brave about it, but it hurts him more than he’s willing to admit.’
Stragen stepped up and effortlessly lifted her up into the carriage. ‘What should we expect in Sarsos, dear sister?’ he asked her in his flawless Styric.
Ehlana gave him a startled look. ‘You’ve been hiding things from me, Milord Stragen. I didn’t know you spoke Styric.’
‘I always meant to mention it to you, your Majesty, but it kept slipping my mind.’
‘I think you’d better be prepared for some surprises, Stragen,’ Sephrenia told him. ‘All of you should.’
‘What sort of surprises?’ Stragen asked. ‘Remember that I’m a thief, Sephrenia, and surprises are very bad for thieves. Our veins tend to come untied when we’re startled.’
‘I think you’d all better discard your preconceptions about Styrics,’ Sephrenia advised. ‘We aren’t obliged to be simple and rustic here in Sarsos, so you’ll find an altogether different kind of Styric in those streets.’ She seated herself in the carriage and held out her arms to Danae. The little princess climbed up into her lap and kissed her. It seemed very innocuous and perfectly natural, but Sparhawk was privately surprised that they were not surrounded by a halo of blazing light.
Then Sephrenia looked at Emban. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t really counted on your being here, your Grace. How firmly fixed are your prejudices?’
‘I like you, Sephrenia,’ the little fat man replied. ‘I resent the Styrics’ stubborn refusal to accept the true faith, but I’m not really a howling bigot.’
‘Are you open to a suggestion, my friend?’ Oscagne asked.
‘I’ll listen.’
‘I’d recommend that you look upon your visit to Sarsos as a holiday, and put your theology on a shelf someplace. Look all you want, but let the things you don’t like pass without comment. The empire would really appreciate your co-operation in this, Emban. Please don’t stir up the Styrics. They’re a very prickly people with capabilities we don’t entirely understand. Let’s not precipitate avoidable explosions.’
Emban opened his mouth as if to retort, but then his eyes grew troubled, and he apparently decided against it.
Sparhawk conferred briefly with Oscagne and Sephrenia and decided that the bulk of the Church Knights should set up camp with the Peloi outside the city. It was a precaution designed to avert incidents. Engessa sent his Atans to their garrison just north of the city wall, and the party surrounding Ehlana’s carriage entered through an unguarded gate.
‘What’s the trouble, Khalad?’ Sephrenia asked Sparhawk’s squire. The young man was looking around, frowning.
‘It’s really none of my business, Lady Sephrenia,’ he said, ‘but are marble buildings really a good idea this far north? Aren’t they awfully cold in the winter time?’
‘He’s so much like his father,’ she smiled. ‘I think you’ve exposed one of our vanities, Khalad. Actually, the buildings are made of brick. The marble’s just a sheathing to make our city impressive.’
‘Even brick isn’t too good at keeping out the cold, Lady Sephrenia.’
‘It is when you make double walls and fill the space between those walls with a foot of plaster.’
‘That would take a lot of time and effort.’
‘You’d be amazed at the amount of time and effort people will waste for the sake of vanity, Khalad, and we can always cheat a little, if we have to. Our Gods are fond of marble buildings, and we like to make them feel at home.’
‘Wood’s still more practical,’ he said stubbornly.
‘I’m sure it is, Khalad, but it’s so commonplace. We like to be different.’
‘It’s different, all right.’
Sarsos even smelled different. A faint miasma hung over every Elene city in the world, an unpleasant blend of sooty smoke, rotting garbage and the effluvium from poorly-constructed and infrequently drained cesspools. Sarsos, on the other hand, smelled of trees and roses. It was summer, and there were small parks and rose bushes everywhere. Ehlana’s expression grew speculative. With a peculiar flash of insight, Sparhawk foresaw a vast programme of public works looming on the horizon for the capital of Elenia.
The architecture and layout of the city was subtle and highly sophisticated. The streets were broad and, except where the inhabitants had decided otherwise for aesthetic reasons, they were straight. The buildings were all sheathed in marble, and they were fronted by graceful white pillars. This was most definitely not an Elene city.
The citizens looked strangely un-Styric. Their kinsmen to the west all wore robes of lumpy white homespun. The garb was so universal as to be a kind of identifying badge. The Styrics of Sarsos, however, wore silks and linens. White still appeared to be the preferred colour, but there were other hues as well, blue and green and yellow, and not a few garments were a brilliant scarlet. Styric women in the west were very seldom seen, but they were much more in evidence here. They also wore colourful clothing and flowers in their hair.
More than anything, however, there was a marked difference in attitude. The Styrics of the west were timid, sometimes as fearful as deer. They were meek – a meekness designed to soften Elene aggressiveness, but that very attitude quite often inflamed the Elenes all the more. The Styrics of Sarsos, on the other hand, were definitely not meek. They did not keep their eyes lowered or speak in soft, hesitant voices. They were assertive. They argued on street corners. They laughed out loud. They walked along the broad avenues of their city with their heads held high as if they were actually proud to be Styric. The one thing that bespoke the difference more than anything else, however, was the fact that the children played in the parks without any signs of fear.
Emban’s face had grown rigid, and his nostrils were pinched-in with anger. Sparhawk knew exactly why the Patriarch of Ucera was showing so much resentment. Candour compelled him to privately admit that he shared it. All Elenes believed that Styrics were an inferior race, and despite their indoctrination, the Church Knights still shared that belief at the deepest level of their minds. Sparhawk felt the thoughts rising in him unbidden. How dare these puffed-up, loud-mouthed Styrics have a more beautiful city than any the Elenes could construct? How dare they be prosperous? How dare they be happy? How dare they strut through these streets behaving for all the world as if they were every bit as good as Elenes?
Then he saw Danae looking at him sadly, and he pulled his thoughts and unspoken resentments up short. He took hold of those unattractive emotions firmly and looked at them. He didn’t like what he saw very much. So long as Styrics were meek and submissive and lived in misery in rude hovels, he was more than willing to leap to their defence, but when they brazenly looked him squarely in the eye with unbowed heads and challenging expressions, he found himself wanting to teach them lessons.
‘Difficult, isn’t it, Sparhawk?’ Stragen said wryly. ‘My bastardy has always made me feel a certain kinship with the downtrodden and despised. I found the towering humility of our Styric brethren so inspiring that I even went out of my way to learn their language. I’ll admit that the people here set my teeth on edge, though. They all seem so disgustingly self-satisfied.’
‘Stragen, sometimes you’re so civilised you make me sick.’
‘My, aren’t we touchy today?’
‘Sorry. I just found something in myself that I don’t like. It’s making me grouchy.’
Stragen sighed. ‘We should probably never look into our own hearts, Sparhawk. I don’t think