But after we reached the wide plains of Far­row, such ham­lets were few and far between. Far­row’s rich farms and trad­ing cit­ies were far to the north of our path, along the Vin River. We trav­elled Far­row’s plains, where people were mostly no­madic her­ders, cre­at­ing towns only in the winter months when they settled along the trade routes for what they called ‘the green sea­son’. We passed herds of sheep, goats, or horses; or more rarely, the dan­ger­ous, rangy swine they called har­agars, but our con­tact with the people of that re­gion was usu­ally lim­ited to the sight of their con­ical tents in the dis­tance, or some her­der stand­ing tall in his saddle, hold­ing aloft his crook in greet­ing.

  Hands and I be­came reac­quain­ted. We would share food and a small cook-fire in the even­ings, and he would re­gale me with tales of Sevren’s nat­ter­ing wor­ries of dust get­ting into silk robes or bugs get­ting into fur col­lars and vel­vet get­ting chafed to pieces dur­ing the long trek. Grim­mer were his com­plaints about Rowd. I my­self had no fond memor­ies of the man, and Hands found him an op­press­ive trav­el­ling com­pan­ion, for he seemed to con­stantly sus­pect Hands of try­ing to steal from the packs of Regal’s be­long­ings. One even­ing Rowd even found his way to our fire, where he la­bor­i­ously de­livered a vague and in­dir­ect warn­ing against any who might con­spire to steal from his mas­ter.

  The fair weather held, and if we sweated by day, it was pleas­ant enough by night. I slept on top of my blanket, and sel­dom bothered with any other shel­ter. Each night I checked the con­tents of my trunk, and did my best to keep the roots from be­com­ing com­pletely de­sic­cated, and to keep the shift­ing from put­ting wear on the scrolls and tab­lets. One night I awoke to a loud whin­ny­ing from Sooty, and thought that the ce­dar chest had been moved slightly from where I placed it. But a brief check of its con­tents proved that all was in or­der, and when I men­tioned it to Hands, he merely asked if I were catch­ing Rowd’s dis­ease.

  The ham­lets and herds we passed fre­quently provided us with fresh foods, and were most gen­er­ous in their al­loc­a­tion of it, so we had little hard­ship on the jour­ney. Open wa­ter was not as plen­ti­ful as we could have wished as we crossed Far­row, but each day we found some spring or dusty well to wa­ter at, so even that was not as bad as it might have been.

  I saw very little of Burrich. He arose earlier than the rest of us, and pre­ceded the main cara­van, that his charges might have the best graz­ing and the clean­est wa­ter. I knew he would want his horses in prime con­di­tion when they ar­rived at Jhaampe. Au­gust, too, was al­most in­vis­ible. While he was tech­nic­ally in charge of our ex­ped­i­tion, he left the run­ning of it to the cap­tain of his hon­our-guard. I could not de­cide if he did this out of wis­dom, or lazi­ness. In any event, he kept mostly to him­self, al­though he did al­low Sevrens to tend him and share his tent and meals.

  For me, it was al­most a re­turn to a sort of child­hood. My re­spons­ib­il­it­ies were very lim­ited. Hands was a gen­ial com­pan­ion, and it took very little en­cour­age­ment to have him telling from his vast store of tales and gos­sip. I of­ten went for al­most the whole day be­fore I would re­call that, at the end of this jour­ney, I would kill a prince.

  Such thoughts usu­ally came on me when I awoke in the dark part of the night. Far­row’s sky seemed to be much thicker with stars than the night over Buck­keep, and I would stare up at them, and men­tally re­hearse ways to put an end to Rurisk. There was an­other chest, a tiny one, packed care­fully within the bag that held my cloth­ing and per­sonal items. I had com­piled it with much thought and anxi­ety for this as­sign­ment must be car­ried out per­fectly. It must be done cleanly, with not even the ti­ni­est sus­pi­cion raised. And tim­ing was crit­ical. The prince must not die while we were at Jhaampe. Noth­ing must cast the slight­est shadow upon the nup­tials. Nor must he die be­fore the ce­re­mon­ies were ob­served at Buck­keep and the wed­ding safely con­sum­mated, for that might be seen as an ill omen for the couple. It would not be an easy death to ar­range.

  Some­times I wondered why it had been en­trus­ted to me in­stead of to Chade. Was it a test of some sort, one that if I failed I would be put to death? Was Chade too old for this chal­lenge, or too valu­able to be risked for this? Could he simply not be spared from tend­ing Ver­ity’s health? And when I reined my mind away from these ques­tions, I was left won­der­ing whether to use a powder that would ir­rit­ate Rurisk’s dam­aged lungs so he might cough him­self to death. Per­haps I might treat his pil­lows and bed­ding with it. Should I of­fer him a pain rem­edy, one that would slowly ad­dict him and lure him into a sleep­ing death? I had a blood-thin­ning tonic. If his lungs were chron­ic­ally bleed­ing already, it might be enough to send him on his way. I had one poison, swift and deadly and taste­less as wa­ter, if I could de­vise a way to be sure he would en­counter it at a safely dis­tant time. None of these were thoughts con­du­cive to sleep, and yet the fresh air and the ex­er­cise of rid­ing all day were usu­ally suf­fi­cient to counter them, and I of­ten awoke eager for the next day of travel.

  When we fi­nally sighted Blue Lake, it was like a mir­acle in the dis­tance. It had been years since I had been so far from the sea for so long, and I was sur­prised how wel­come the sight of wa­ter was to me. Every an­imal in our bag­gage-train filled my thoughts with the clean scent of wa­ter. The coun­try be­came greener and more for­giv­ing as we ap­proached the great lake, and we were hard put to keep the horses from over­graz­ing them­selves at night.

  Hordes of sail­ing-boats plied their mer­chant trade on Blue Lake, and their sails were col­oured so as to tell not only what they sold but which fam­ily they sailed for. The set­tle­ments along Blue Lake were built out on pil­ings into the wa­ter. We were well greeted there, and feasted with fresh­wa­ter fish, which tasted odd to my sea-trained tongue. I felt my­self quite the trav­el­ler, and Hands and I were nearly over­whelmed with our opin­ions of ourselves when some green-eyed girls from a grain-trad­ing fam­ily came gig­gling to our fireside one night. They had brought with them small, brightly-col­oured drums, each toned dif­fer­ently, and they played and sang for us un­til their moth­ers came scold­ing to find them and lead them home. It was a heady ex­per­i­ence, and I did not think of Prince Rurisk at all that night.

  West and north we trav­elled now, fer­ried across Blue Lake on some flat-bot­tomed barges I trus­ted not at all. On the far side, we found ourselves sud­denly in forest lands, and the hot days of Far­row be­came a fond memory. Our path led us through im­mense stands of ce­dar, pricked here and there with groves of white pa­per-birch and seasoned in burned areas with alder and wil­low. Our horses’ hooves thud­ded on the black earth of the forest trail, and the sweet smells of the au­tumn were all around us. We saw un­fa­mil­iar birds, and once I glimpsed a great stag of a col­our and kind I had never seen be­fore or since. Night graz­ing for the horses was not good, and we were glad of the grain we had bought from the lake people. We lit fires at night, and Hands and I shared a tent.

  Our way led stead­ily up­hill now. We wound our way between the steep­est slopes, but we were un­mis­tak­ably mak­ing our way up into the moun­tains. One af­ter­noon we met a depu­ta­tion from Jhaampe, sent to greet us and guide us on our way. After that, we seemed to travel faster, and every even­ing we were en­ter­tained with mu­si­cians, po­ets and jug­glers, and feasted with their del­ic­acies. Every ef­fort was made to wel­come us and to hon­our us. But I found them passing strange and al­most fright­en­ing in their dif­fer­ences. Of­ten I was forced to re­mind my­self of what both Burrich and Chade had taught me about the cour­tes­ies, while poor Hands with­drew al­most totally from these new com­pan­ions.

  Phys­ic­ally, most of them were Chy­urda, and were as I had ex­pec­ted them to be; a tall, pale people, light of hair and eye, and some with hair as red as a fox. They were a brawny people, the wo­men as well as the men. All seemed to carry a bow or a sling, and they were ob­vi­ously more com­fort­able on foot than on horse­back. They dressed in wool and leather, and even the humblest wore fine furs as if they were no more than homespun. They strode along­side us, moun­ted as we were, and seemed to have no dif­fi­culty keep­ing up with the horses all day. They sang as they walked, long songs in an an­cient tongue that soun­ded al­most mourn­ful, but were in­ter­spersed with shouts of vic­tory or de­light. I was later to learn they were singing us their his­tory, that we might know bet­ter what kind of a people our prince was join­ing us to. I gathered that they were, for the most part, min­strels and po­ets, the ‘hos­pit­able’ ones, as their lan­guage trans­lated it, tra­di­tion­ally sent to greet guests and to make them glad they had come even be­fore they ar­rived.

  As the next two days passed, our trail widened, for other paths and roads fed into it the closer we came to Jhaampe. It be­came a broad trade­way, some­times paved with a crushed white stone. And the closer we came to Jhaampe, the greater our pro­ces­sion be­came, for we were joined by con­tin­gents from vil­lages and tribes, pour­ing in from the outer reaches of the Moun­tain King­dom to see their prin­cess pledge her­self to the power­ful prince from the low­lands. Soon, with dogs and horses and some sort of goat they used as pack-beasts, with wains of gifts and folk of every walk and de­gree trail­ing in fam­il­ies and knots be­hind us, we came to Jhaampe.

  TWENTY

  Jhaampe

  ‘– and so let them come, the people of who I am, and when they reach the city, let them al­ways be able to say, “this is our city and our home, for how­ever long we wish to stay” – Let there al­ways be spaces left, let – (words ob­scured) – of the herds and flocks. Then there will be no strangers in Jhaampe, but only neigh­bours and friends, com­ing and go­ing as they will.’ And the will of the Sac­ri­fice was ob­served in this, as in all things.

  So I read years later, in a frag­ment from a Chy­urda holy tab­let, and so fi­nally came to un­der­stand Jhaampe. But that first time, as we rode up the hills to­ward Jhaampe, I was both dis­ap­poin­ted and awed at what I saw.

  The temples, palaces, and pub­lic build­ings re­minded me of the im­mense closed blos­soms of tulips, both in col­our and shape. The shape they owe to the once tra­di­tional stretched-hide shel­ters of the nomads who foun­ded the city; the col­our purely to the moun­tain folk’s love of col­our in everything. Every build­ing had been re­cently res­tained in pre­par­a­tion for our com­ing and the Prin­cess’s nup­tials, and thus they were al­most gar­ishly bright. Shades of purple seemed to dom­in­ate, set off by yel­lows, but every col­our was rep­res­en­ted. It is best com­pared, per­haps, to chan­cing upon a patch of cro­cus, push­ing up through snow and black earth, for the bare, black rocks of the moun­tains and the dark ever­greens made the bright­ness of the build­ings even more im­press­ive. Ad­di­tion­ally, the city it­self is built on an area fully as steep as Buck­keep Town, so that when one be­holds it from be­low, the col­our and lines of it are presen­ted in lay­ers, like an art­ful ar­range­ment of flowers in a bas­ket.

  But as we drew closer, we were able to see that between and among the great build­ings were tents and tem­por­ary huts and tiny shel­ters of every kind. For at Jhaampe, only the pub­lic build­ings and the royal houses are per­man­ent. All else is the ebb and flow of folk com­ing to visit their cap­ital city, to ask judge­ment of the Sac­ri­fice, as they call the king or queen who rules there, or to visit the re­pos­it­or­ies of their treas­ures and know­ledge, or simply to trade with and visit other nomads. Tribes come and go, tents are pitched and in­hab­ited for a month or two, and then one morn­ing, all is bare, swept earth where they were, un­til an­other group moves in to claim the spot. Yet it is not a dis­orderly place, for the streets are well-defined, with stone stairs set into the steeper places. Wells and bath-houses and streams are loc­ated at in­ter­vals through­out the city, and the strict­est rules are ob­served about rub­bish and of­fal. It is also a green city, for the out­skirts of it are pas­tures for those who bring their herds and horses with them, with tent­ing areas defined by the shade trees and wells there. Within the city are stretches of garden, flowers and sculp­ted trees, more art­fully ten­ded than any­thing I had ever seen in Buck­keep. The vis­it­ing folk leave their cre­ations among these gar­dens, and they may take the form of stone sculp­tures or carvings of wood, or brightly-painted pot­tery creatures. In a way, it put me in mind of the Fool’s room, for in both places were col­our and shape set out simply for the pleas­ure of the eye.

  Our guides hal­ted us at a pas­ture out­side the city, and in­dic­ated that it had been set aside for us. After a while it be­came ob­vi­ous that they ex­pec­ted we would leave our horses and mules here, and pro­ceed on foot. Au­gust, who was the nom­inal head of our cara­van, did not handle this very dip­lo­mat­ic­ally. I winced as he an­grily ex­plained that we had brought with us much more than we could be ex­pec­ted to carry into the city, and that many there were too weary from trav­el­ling to rel­ish the idea of the up­hill walk. I bit my lip and forced my­self to stand quietly, to wit­ness the po­lite con­fu­sion of our hosts. Surely Regal had known of these cus­toms; why had he not warned us of them, so we would not be­gin our visit by ap­pear­ing boor­ish and un­ac­com­mod­at­ing?

  But the hos­pit­able folk tend­ing to us swiftly ad­ap­ted to our strange ways. They bade us rest, and begged us to be pa­tient with them. For a time we all stood about, vainly try­ing to ap­pear com­fort­able. Rowd and Sevrens joined Hands and me. Hands had a slosh or two of wine left in a skin, and this he shared, while Rowd grudgingly re­cip­roc­ated with some smoked meat in strips. We talked, but I con­fess I paid little at­ten­tion. I wished I had the cour­age to go to Au­gust, and en­treat him to be more ad­apt­able to the ways of this people. We were their guests, and it was already bad enough that the groom had not come in per­son to carry off his bride. I watched from a dis­tance as Au­gust con­sul­ted with sev­eral elder lords who had come with us, but from the mo­tions of their hands and heads I de­duced that they were only agree­ing with him.

  Mo­ments later, a stream of sturdy Chy­urda youths and maid­ens ap­peared on the road above us. Bear­ers had been summoned to help carry our goods into the city, and from some­where bright tents were con­jured for those ser­vants who would stay here to tend the horses and mules. I much re­gret­ted to find that Hands would be one of those left be­hind. I en­trus­ted Sooty to him. Then I shouldered the ce­dar herb-chest and slung my per­sonal bag from my other shoulder. As I joined the pro­ces­sion of those walk­ing into the city, I smelled meats sizz­ling and tubers cook­ing, and saw our hosts set­ting up an open-sided pa­vil­ion, and as­sem­bling tables within it. Hands, I de­cided, would not fare poorly, and al­most I wished I had noth­ing more to do than tend the an­im­als and ex­plore this bright city.

  We had not gone far up the wind­ing street as­cend­ing into the city be­fore we were met by a flock of lit­ters car­ried by tall Chy­urda wo­men. We were earn­estly in­vited to mount into these lit­ters and be car­ried into the city, and many apo­lo­gies were made that we had been wear­ied by our trip. Au­gust, Sevrens, the older lords and most of the ladies of our party seemed only too happy to take ad­vant­age of this of­fer, but for me, it seemed a hu­mi­li­ation to be car­ried into the city. How­ever, it would have been even ruder to turn down their po­lite in­sist­ence, and so I sur­rendered my chest to a boy ob­vi­ously younger than my­self, and moun­ted into a lit­ter borne by wo­men old enough to be my grand­mother. I blushed to see how curi­ously the folk on the streets re­garded us, and how they stooped to talk quickly to­gether as we passed. I saw few other lit­ters, and they were in­hab­ited by those ob­vi­ously old and in­firm. I set my teeth and tried not to think what Ver­ity would have felt about this dis­play of ig­nor­ance. I tried to look out pleas­antly on those we passed, and to let my de­light in their gar­dens and grace­ful build­ings show on my face.

  I must have suc­ceeded in this, for presently my lit­ter began to move more slowly, to al­low me more time to see things, and the wo­men to point to any­thing they thought I might have missed no­ti­cing. They spoke to me in Chy­urda, and were de­lighted to find I had a crude un­der­stand­ing of their lan­guage. Chade had taught me the little he knew, but he had not pre­pared me for how mu­sical the lan­guage was, and it soon be­came ap­par­ent to me that the note of a word was as im­port­ant as the pro­nun­ci­ation. For­tu­nately, I had a quick ear for lan­guages, so I blundered man­fully into con­ver­sa­tion with my bear­ers, re­solved that by the time I spoke to my bet­ters in the palace, I would no longer sound quite so much an out­land fool. One wo­man un­der­took to give me a com­ment­ary on all we passed. Jon­qui, her name was, and when I told her mine was FitzChiv­alry, she muttered it to her­self sev­eral times as if to fix it in her mind.

  With great dif­fi­culty, I per­suaded my bear­ers to pause once and let me alight to ex­am­ine a par­tic­u­lar garden. It was not the bright flowers that at­trac­ted me, but what ap­peared to be a sort of wil­low that was grow­ing in spir­als and curls rather than the straight wil­low I was ac­cus­tomed to. I ran my fin­gers along the supple bark of one limb and felt sure I could per­suade a cut­ting to sprout, but dared not take a piece of it, lest it be con­strued as rude. One old wo­man stooped down be­side me, grinned, and then ran her hand across the tops of a low-grow­ing, tiny-leaved bed of herbs. The fra­grance that arose from the stirred leaves was astound­ing, and she laughed aloud at the de­light on my face. I would have liked to linger longer, but my bear­ers em­phat­ic­ally in­sisted that we must hurry to catch up with the oth­ers be­fore they reached the palace. I gathered there was to be an of­fi­cial wel­com­ing, one I must not miss.