He took the water, seeming almost oblivious to her presence, to the touch of the cloth. He closed his eyes. and then slowly turned his head from side to side, as if blindly seeking something.
Then he opened his eyes again and pointed. ‘Over there, Rhamanus.’ Dianora followed his gaze. On a ridge of land south of them, across the uneven, tummocky ground, a number of figures could be discerned.
‘There are wizards there,’ Brandin said flatly. ‘Rhamanus, you’ll have to take the Guard after them. They are working with Alberico against me. I don’t know why. One of them looks like a Khardhu, but he isn’t; I would recognize Khardhun magic. There is something extremely odd about this.’
His eyes were a dark, clouded grey.
‘Can you match them, my lord?’ It was d’Eymon, his tone deliberately neutral, masking any hint of concern.
‘I am about to try,’ Brandin said. ‘But I am getting near to the limit of the power I can safely tap. And I can’t turn my magic on them alone, they are working with Alberico. Rhamanus, you’ll have to get those wizards for me yourself. Take everyone here.’
Rhamanus’s ruddy face was grim. ‘I will stop them or die, my lord. I swear it.’
Dianora watched him step out from under the canopy and summon the men of the King’s Guard. In pairs they fell into step behind him and started quickly down the goat-track leading west and south. Rhun took a couple of steps after them, and then stopped, looking confused and uncertain.
She felt a touch and turned from the Fool as Brandin took her hand. ‘Trust me, love,’ he murmured. ‘And trust Rhamanus.’ After a second he added, with what was almost a smile: ‘He brought you to me.’
Then he let her go and turned his attention back to the plain below. And now he did sit down in the chair. Watching, she could literally see him gather himself to renew his assault.
She looked over at d’Eymon, then followed the Chancellor’s narrowed, speculative gaze south again, across to the cluster of people on that slope half a mile away. They were near enough that she could see the dark-skinned figure Brandin said wasn’t really a Khardhu. She thought she could make out a red-haired woman as well.
She had no idea who they were. But suddenly, for the first time, looking around at their own thinned-out numbers on the hill, she felt afraid.
‘Here they come,’ Baerd said, looking north, a hand up to screen his eyes.
They had been waiting for this, and watching for it from the moment the wizards linked, but anticipation was not reality and, at the sight of the picked men of Brandin’s Guard moving swiftly down their hill and beginning to cross the ground between, Devin’s heart began thumping hard. There had been war all morning in the valley below; now it was coming to them.
‘How many?’ Rovigo asked, and Devin was grateful to hear the tension in the merchant’s voice: it meant he was not alone in what he was feeling now.
‘Forty-nine, if he sent them all, and Alessan thought he would,’ Baerd replied, not turning around. ‘That is always the number of the King’s Guard in Ygrath. It is sacred for them.’
Rovigo said nothing. Devin glanced to his right and saw the three wizards standing closely together. Erlein and Sertino had their eyes closed, but Sandre was staring fixedly downwards to where Alberico of Barbadior was at the back of his army. Alessan had been with the wizards but now he came quickly over to join the thirty or so men spread out behind Baerd on the ridge.
‘Ducas?’ he asked quietly.
‘I can’t see any of them,’ Baerd said, with a quick glance at the Prince. The last of the Ygrathen Guard had now descended their hill. The vanguard were already moving rapidly over the uneven ground between. ‘I still don’t believe it.’
‘Let me take my men to meet them below,’ Ducas had urged Alessan, the moment the wizards had linked. ‘We know he will be coming after us.’
‘Of course we do,’ Alessan had said, ‘but we are poorly armed and trained. We need the advantage of height up here.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Ducas di Tregea had growled.
‘There isn’t any cover down there. Where could you hide?’
‘You are telling me whether there is cover?’ Ducas replied, feigning anger. His mouth widened in his wolfish grin. ‘Alessan, go teach your fingers to know your fingernails! I was fighting running battles and ambushes in this kind of terrain while you were still numbering oak trees or some such thing in Quileia. Leave this to me.’
Alessan had not laughed. After a moment though, he nodded his head. Not waiting for more, red-bearded Ducas and his twenty-five men had immediately melted away down the slopes of their ridge. By the time the Ygrathens sent the Guard, the outlaws were down below, hidden among the gorse and heather, the high grass and the scattered olive and fig trees in the ground between the hills.
Squinting, Devin thought he could see one of them, but he wasn’t sure.
‘In Morian’s name!’ Erlein di Senzio suddenly cried from the east end of the ridge. ‘He is pushing us back again!’
‘Then hold!’ Sandre snarled. ‘Fight him! Go deeper!’
‘I haven’t got any deeper to go!’ Sertino gasped.
Baerd leaped from his crouch staring at the three of them. He hesitated, visibly racked by doubt for a moment, then he strode swiftly over to the wizards.
‘Sandre, Erlein? Can you hear me?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Sandre’s darkened face was streaming with perspiration. He was still staring east, but his gaze was unfocused now, inward.
‘Then do it! Do what we talked about. If he’s pushing all of you back we have to try or there is no point to any of this!’
‘Baerd, they could be . . .’ Erlein’s words came out one by one as if forced from his lips.
‘No, he’s right!’ Sertino gasped, cutting in. ‘Have to try. The
