John Flanagan - Erak_s ransom

Will and Gilan both snorted in an unsuccessful attempt to conceal their laughter. Halt's eyebrow rose fractionally as he regarded the grinning young man.

'A pussycat,' he repeated.

Svengal had been watching this exchange with interest. Now he joined in with a loud guffaw.

'More like a battered old tomcat, I'd have thought,' he said. Halt's withering gaze swung to the big Skandian, who remained resolutely unwithered.

'Everyone's a comedian all of a sudden,' Halt said. 'I think I'll go to bed.'

He exited the room with what little dignity remained to him. It wasn't much.

Breakfast was served in the internal courtyard the following morning an hour after sun-up. The air was fresh with the morning sea breeze, but already they could feel the coming heat of the day.

The three Rangers were delighted to find, among the platters of flat bread, sliced fruit, conserves and jars of Juice, a pot of hot, rich black liquid.

'Coffee!' Gilan said reverently, pouring himself a cup. There was brown sugar to sweeten it and he spooned it in, while Halt and Will also helped themselves. Evanlyn shook her head at the sight of them.

'If you ever wanted to capture you three,' she said, 'you'd just have to bait the trap with a pot of coffee.'

Will nodded. 'And we'd go gladly,' he agreed. Then he said to the others, 'This is really good coffee.'

'Should be,' Halt said, leaning back with his cup and putting his booted feet on the low table in front of him. 'The Arridi invented it. Everyone sleep well?'

In fact, most of them had slept patchily, unused to the.sensation of a bed that didn't roll and pitch rhythmically beneath them. But the mattresses had been soft and the bedrooms were cool and well ventilated. They were discussing the phenomenon that Svengal described as 'land wobbles', which most seafarers feel when they first go ashore after a long voyage, when one of the servants entered and bowed to Halt.

'Captain Selethen is here, sir.'

'Ask him to come in,' Halt said, removing his feet from the table and rising to greet the Arridi officer as he entered the courtyard. As before, Selethen made the hand gesture to lips, brow and lips in greeting.

'Good morning, my lady, and gentlemen. Is everything satisfactory?'

Halt returned the hand greeting and motioned the captain to a seat.

'Everything is excellent. Will you join us for coffee?' he offered but Selethen shook his head regretfully.

'Sadly, I have duties to attend to.' He glanced at Svengal. 'Your men have been given breakfast, captain,' he said. 'There is no need to check.'

Svengal nodded. The previous evening, he had made a point of visiting the ship to make sure his men were being looked after. They had their own supplies on board, of course, but he felt they should be fed by the Arridi, as they were part of an official delegation.

'Thank you,' he said gruffly. Selethen turned back to Halt and Evanlyn now.

'His Excellence the Wakir will be delighted to receive you at the tenth hour,' he said.

Evanlyn glanced uncertainly at Halt and he made a discreet hand gesture, signalling her to answer.

'That is suitable to us,' she said.

Selethen smiled and drew himself to attention.

'I will escort you,' he said. 'I will be back fifteen minutes before the tenth hour. Please be ready to leave at that time.'

Evanlyn said nothing, looking away with a disinterested expression. Princesses didn't respond to orders, Will realised.

'We will be ready,' Halt said. He and Selethen exchanged the graceful hand gesture of greeting and farewell once more and the Arridi backed away a few paces before turning to leave. Horace, watching, marvelled at the ease with which Halt fitted in to situations like this. He said as much to Will when the two of them returned to the room they were sharing, and he was a little surprised at his friend's gloomy response.

'I know. He's amazing, isn't he?' Will said. 'He always knows exactly what to do and say.'

Horace looked at him curiously, wondering at his less than enthusiastic manner. He had no idea that Will had been thinking exactly the same thing, and comparing himself to his master – a comparison that he found less than favourable. Once again Will was wondering how he would ever cope as a Ranger in his own right.

Fifteen minutes before Selethen was due to return, Halt summoned Will and Gilan to his room.

The two younger men entered curiously, wondering what their leader had in store for them. As it turned out, it was a pleasant and very welcome change to their equipment.

'Leave your cloaks here,' Halt told them. They noticed he was not wearing his. 'They're designed for the Araluan climate, not Arrida. And there's not a lot of forest and greenery around these parts.'

He was right, Will thought. The green and grey mottled cloaks were designed to blend into the background colours of their fertile homeland, not the dry, sunbaked vistas they found themselves in now. And the heavy wool cloaks were decidedly uncomfortable in the Arridi heat. Yet they were part of a Ranger's uniform and Will was reluctant to discard his.

Halt was opening a pack he had brought from the ship. He withdrew a folded garment from it now, shook it out and passed it to Gilan.

It was a cloak, a cowled Ranger's cloak, Will saw. But instead of the random green and grey colours they were used to, this one was unevenly mottled in varying shades of light brown. Furthermore, he realised, as Halt produced a second cloak and handed it to him, it was made of heavy-duty linen, not wool.

'Summer issue,' Halt said. 'Cooler in the heat and a lot better if we have to blend into the background here.'

Gilan had already swung his cloak around his shoulders. He looked at it, impressed. It was definitely more comfortable than the winter weight cloak he had laid across the back of a chair. Will donned his, examining the colouring at closer quarters. He liked the familiar feel of the cloak, the confidence that came with the ability to blend into the countryside and seem to disappear. That ability had become very much part of his life in recent years.

'Where did you get these from?' he asked. Halt regarded him quizzically.

'We have visited these parts before, you know,' he said. 'Crowley had the Castle Araluen quartermasters make some up the moment he heard we were coming here.'

He waited while Gilan and Will moved the cloaks experimentally, eyeing each other and studying the unusual colours, seeing how they would blend into the landscape of rock and desert that surrounded Al Shabah.

'All right, ladies,' he said, 'if you're finished the fashion show, let's go meet the Wakir.'

Flanked by an escort of a dozen Arridi warriors, the small party followed Selethen as he led the way towards the centre of the town, where the khadif, official residence of the Wakir, was located.

As they moved away from the harbour, and the cooling influence of the sea breeze, the temperature began to rise. It was a heavy, dry heat and the three Rangers were grateful that they had switched to their new cloaks.

The Rangers, Horace and Evanlyn kept their eyes straight ahead, as befitted the dignity of a diplomatic mission. Svengal felt no such inhibitions. He looked around curiously, getting a feeling for the town. The approach to the town square was similar to the one he had taken some weeks earlier in Erak's company, even though they had been approaching from the opposite side of the town. The narrow street wound through the same featureless whitewashed buildings. The roofs were flat and from time to time he saw curious brown faces peering over the balustrades at the small party, no doubt attracted by the solid tramp of their escort's feet on the street.

He studied the houses they passed. There were few windows, balconies or other openings looking onto the street. But now that he had seen the inside of the guest-'house, he realised that Arridi houses tended to look inwards, onto shaded central courtyards where the inhabitants relaxed.