horse, not against it.”
Sterren nodded, not really believing that he would ever learn the skill.
“And we can pad the saddle, that velvet tunic in your pack will help. And you can walk sometimes.”
Sterren nodded again, with a bit more enthusiasm.
By midafternoon, thanks to additional cushioning, a slower pace, and walking when the blisters on his rump became unbearable, he had improved enough that, although he still ached in every joint and in several unjointed places as well, he was able to think about his future and to carry on some limited conversation with his companions as he rode.
He began by pointing in each direction and asking what lay there. All they could see was sand and sun and grass, which made it obvious that he was asking what lay beyond.
Ahead, of course, was Semma; behind was Akalla of the Diamond. To the left, the north, Dogal told him, “Skaia.” The name meant nothing to him.
The reply when he pointed to the right was more interesting.
“Nothing,” Dogal told him.
“Nothing?”
“Well, almost. A couple of leagues of sand, and then the edge of the World. If you stand up in the stirrups and stare, you may be able to see it.”
“See it?”
“Yes.”
That, Sterren thought, was a very interesting concept, seeing the edge of the World. Standing up in the stirrups, however, was a terrifying concept, so he decided to forgo the view.
How, he wondered, could one see the edge of the World? What did it look like? What lay beyond it? The southern horizon, he noticed, did look slightly different from the others; there seemed to be a yellowish tinge to both ground and sky in that direction. He stared, but could make out nothing.
The very idea fascinated him, all the same. To be so close to the actual edge!
He had thought that Ethshar of the Spices was in the center of the World, but if he had come so close to the edge so quickly, then that could not be so; he knew the World was bigger than that. He had heard travelers speak of Ethshar as being in the southeast, but had, until now, put it down to a distorted worldview.
Obviously, it was his own view that had been in error.
That was quite a realization, that he had been wrong. He wondered if he had ever been wrong about anything important.
Dogal distracted him from that line of thought. “Might be Ophkar to the north of us now,” he remarked. “Skaia’s not that big. Bigger than Semma or Akalla, smaller than Ophkar.”
“Semma is next, beyond Ophkar?” Sterren asked.
Dogal nodded. “That’s right. Your accent is improving greatly, Lord Sterren; congratulations.”
Sterren said nothing in return, but felt a touch of pride. He had tried very hard to get the accent right on the barbaric names of the surrounding kingdoms, and it was good to know he had succeeded.
He had come to realize that Akalla, Skaia, and Ophkar were all indeed separate kingdoms, squeezed into the thirteen leagues between Semma and the coast, and he marveled that the Small Kingdoms were that small.
He also wondered all the more just what he was getting into. If the kingdoms were crowded together that closely, they must surely rub each other the wrong way every so often. No wonder they needed warlords.
“What is Semma... What... Tell me about Semma,” he said, unable to come up with the words to ask, “What is Semma like?” or “What sort of a place is Semma?”
Dogal shrugged. “Not much to tell.”
“There must be something you can tell me; are there many cities?”
“No cities.”
Sterren could not think of a word for “town.” Instead, he asked, “Are there many castles?” The word for castle was indeed karnak; he had checked on that back at the inn.
“Just one, Semma Castle. That’s where we’re going.”
Dogal was not exactly a torrent of information, Sterren decided; he nudged his mount over toward Alder, on his right.
“Hello,” he said.
Alder nodded politely. “Hail, Lord Sterren.”
Sterren sighed; he supposed he would have to get used to that pompous greeting. “Tell me about Semma,” he said.
Alder glanced at him curiously. “What do you want to know?”
“What it... what I... how it is there.”
“What it’s like, you mean?”
Gratefully, Sterren latched onto the phrase he had been missing. “Yes, what it’s like.”
“Well, Lord Sterren, it’s hard for me to say, because it’s the only place I’ve ever been, except for this trip to Et’shar to fetch you. I was born there, never lived anywhere else.”
“Ethshar, not Et’shar,” Sterren said idly, pleased to be the one correcting for once, rather than the one corrected.
“Et’th’shar,” Alder said, spitting messily as he struggled with the unfamiliar combination of aspirants.
“Are there many people?”
Alder shrugged. “I don’t know, really,” he said. “The castle is certainly crowded enough.”
“I didn’t just mean the castle.” “Well, that’s where everyone lives except the peasants.”
That startled Sterren and caused him to wonder if he was still misunderstanding the word karnak after all. “Everyone?”
“Just about.”
“Peasants?” The word was new to him.
“The common people, the farmers,” Alder explained.
Sterren nodded, he knew about the easy marks from outside the walls. “Are there many peasants?” he asked.
Alder shrugged again. “I guess so.”
“Are you a peasant?”
“I’m a soldier, Lord Sterren.” The reproof was obvious in Alder’s tone.
“You weren’t born a soldier,” Sterren pointed out, proud he had remembered the word “born” from Alder’s earlier comments.
Alder reluctantly admitted, “True. I was born a peasant.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Sterren said, seeing he had hurt the big guard’s feelings. “I was born a peasant, too.”
This was a lie, of course; he had been born into the merchant class. He meant, however, that he had been born a commoner.
Startled, Alder corrected him. “No, Lord Sterren, you were born a nobleman.”
“Well, I didn’t know it,” Sterren retorted. Alder considered that, then smiled. “True,” he said. Sterren rode on in silence for a long moment, marshaling his thoughts.
At least he would be living in the castle, which would presumably be at least an imitation of real civilization. He had feared that he might find himself in some muddy little village somewhere. A castle was not a city, but it was, he hoped, better than nothing.
In the remainder of the afternoon and around the campfire that night, Sterren pieced together a rough idea of what Semma was like from a constant questioning of his two guards. This also served to improve his Semmat considerably, adding to his vocabulary and giving him practice in pronunciation and sentence construction.
Semma was a quiet little kingdom, almost all of it occupied by peasants on small family farms, scraping a living out of the sandy soil by growing oranges, lemons, dates, figs, olives, and corn, or by raising sheep, or goats, or cattle. At one time some peasants had grown spices for export, but Semma had lost its spice trade long ago, when Ophkar had temporarily cut off all the routes to the sea and the markets had found other, more reliable
