David Eddings - Queen of Sorcery

“How may we expect duty and proper submission from serfs when nobles raise detestable rebellion against the crown?” the knight asserted.

“Truly, my Lord,” Lelldorin agreed with a show of sadness that was a trifle overdone. “Much have I argued that selfsame point with those who speak endlessly of Mimbrate oppression and overweening arrogance. My appeals for reason and dutiful respect for His Majesty, our Lord King, however, are greeted with derision and cold despite.” He sighed.

“Thy wisdom becomes thee, young Lelldorin,” the knight approved. “Regrettably, I must detain thee and thy companions in order that we may verify certain details.”

“Sir Knight!” Silk protested vigorously. “A change in the weather could destroy the value of my merchandise in Tol Honeth. I pray you, don’t delay me.”

“I regret the necessity, good merchant,” the knight replied, “but Asturia is filled with dissemblers and plotters. I can permit none to pass without meticulous examination.”

There was a stir at the rear of the Mimbrate column. In single file, resplendent in burnished breastplates, plumed helmets and crimson capes, a half a hundred Tolnedran legionnaires rode slowly along the flank of the armored knights.

“What seems to be the problem here?” the legion commander, a lean, leather-faced man of forty or so, asked politely as he stopped not far from Silk’s horse.

“We do not require the assistance of the legions in this matter,” the knight said coldly. “Our orders are from Vo Mimbre. We are sent to help restore order in Asturia and we were questioning these travelers to that end.”

“I have a great respect for order, Sir Knight,” the Tolnedran replied, “but the security of the highway is my responsibility.” He looked inquiringly at Silk.

“I am Radek of Boktor, Captain,” Silk told him, “a Drasnian merchant bound for Tol Honeth. I have documents, if you wish to see them.”

“Documents are easily forged,” the knight declared.

“So they are,” the Tolnedran agreed, “but to save time I make it a practice to accept all documents at face value. A Drasnian merchant with goods in his packs has a legitimate reason to be on an Imperial Highway, Sir Knight. There’s no reason to detain him, is there?”

“We seek to stamp out banditry and rebellion,” the knight asserted hotly.

“Stamp away,” the captain said, “but off the highway, if you don’t mind. By treaty the Imperial Highway is Tolnedran territory. What you do once you’re fifty yards back in the trees is your affair; what happens on this road is mine. I’m certain that no true Mimbrate knight would want to humiliate his king by violating a solemn agreement between the Arendish crown and the Emperor of Tolnedra, would he?”

The knight looked at him helplessly.

“I think you should proceed, good merchant,” the Tolnedran told Silk. “I know that all Tol Honeth awaits your arrival breathlessly.” Silk grinned at him and bowed fioridly in his saddle. Then he gestured to the others and they all rode slowly past the fuming Mimbrate knight. After they had passed, the legionnaires closed ranks across the highway, effectively cutting off any pursuit.

“Good man there,” Barak said. “I don’t think much of Tolnedrans ordinarily, but that one’s different.”

“Let’s move right along,” Mister Wolf said. “I’d rather not have those knights doubling back on us after the Tolnedrans leave.”

They pushed their horses into a gallop and rode on, leaving the knights behind, arguing heatedly with the legion commander in the middle of the road.

They stayed that night at a thick-walled Tolnedran hostel, and for perhaps the first time in his life Garion bathed without the insistence or even the suggestion of his Aunt. Though he had not had the chance to become directly involved in the fight in the clearing the night before, he felt somehow as if he were spattered with blood or worse. He had not before realized how grotesquely men could be mutilated in close fighting. Watching a living man disembowled or brained had filled him with a kind of deep shame that the ultimate inner secrets of the human body could be so grossly exposed. He felt unclean. He removed his clothing in the chilly bathhouse and even, without thinking, the silver amulet Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol had given him, and then he entered the steaming tub where he scrubbed at his skin with a coarse brush and strong soap, much harder than even the most meticulous obsession with personal cleanliness would have required.

For the next several days they moved southward at a steady pace, stopping each night at the evenly spaced Tolnedran hostels where the presence of the hard-faced legionnaires was a continual reminder that all the might of Imperial Tolnedra guaranteed the safety of travelers who sought refuge there.

On the sixth day after the fight in the forest, however, Lelldorin’s horse pulled up lame. Durnik and Hettar, under Aunt Pol’s supervision, spent several hours brewing poultices over a small fire by the roadside and applying steaming compresses to the animal’s leg while Wolf fumed at the delay. By the time the horse was fit to continue, they all realized that there was no chance to reach the next hostel before dark.

“Well, Old Wolf,” Aunt Pol said after they had remounted, “what now? Do we ride on at night, or do we try to take shelter in the forest again?”

“I haven’t decided,” Wolf answered shortly.

“If I remember right, there’s a village not far ahead,” Lelldorin, now mounted on an Algar horse, stated. “It’s a poor place, but I think it has an inn—of sorts.”

“That sounds ominous,” Silk said. “What exactly do you mean by ‘of sorts’?”

“The Lord of this demesne is notoriously greedy,” Lelldorin replied. “His taxes are crushing, and his people have little left for themselves. The inn isn’t good.”

“We’ll have to chance it,” Wolf decided, and led them off at a brisk trot. As they approached the village, the heavy clouds began to clear off, and the sun broke through wanly.

The village was even worse than Lelldorin’s description had led them to believe. A half dozen ragged beggars stood in the mud on the outskirts, their hands held out imploringly and their voices shrill. The houses were nothing more than rude hovels oozing smoke from the pitiful fires within. Scrawny pigs rooted in the muddy streets, and the stench of the place was awful.

A funeral procession slogged through the mud toward the burial ground on the other side of the village. The corpse, carried on a board, was wrapped in a ragged brown blanket, and the richly robed and cowled priests of Chaldan, the Arendish God, chanted an age-old hymn that had much to do with war and vengeance, but little to do with comfort. The widow, a whimpering infant at her breast, followed the body, her face blank and her eyes dead.

The inn smelled of stale beer and half-rotten food. A fire had destroyed one end of the common room, charring and blackening the low-beamed ceiling. The gaping hole in the burned wall was curtained off with a sheet of rotting canvas. The fire pit in the center of the room smoked, and the hard-faced innkeeper was surly. For supper he offered only bowls of watery gruel—a mixture of barley and turnips.

“Charming,” Silk said sardonically, pushing away his untouched bowl. “I’m a bit surprised at you, Lelldorin. Your passion for correcting wrongs seems to have overlooked this place. Might I suggest that your next crusade include a visit to the Lord of this demesne? His hanging seems long overdue.”

“I hadn’t realized it was so bad,” Lelldorin replied in a subdued voice. He looked around as if seeing certain things for the first time. A kind of sick horror began to show itself in his transparent face.