Stephen Lawhead - Taliesin

“She could not have faced it if she thought anyone else knew.” Annubi smiled sadly. “You reminded me of her just now.”

“You helped her then. Will you help me now?”

“When could I ever refuse you?”

Charis chose a chariot for speed, if not for comfort. Carriages were too heavy and too slow, and even though every jounce of the chariot’s thin wheels made her wince with pain- and made the driver wince under the lash of her tongue-the road all but flew by. Even so, they did not reach Herakli until well after dark.

The stone-paved streets of the little town were deserted, but a handful of torches still burned in their sconces outside a few of the larger houses, and raucous laughter spilled out into the street from the white stucco inn, whose upper window blazed with a red seaman’s lantern, although Herakli was many miles from the sea.

The driver stopped the chariot, and Charis, stiff from the effort of keeping upright on the tiny seat of the vehicle, turned slowly around to gaze through the narrow murky windows of the inn. “Do you think they might be in there?” she wondered aloud.

Piros, the driver, scratched his jaw. “It would be a wager,” he replied. “I will go see.” He wrapped the reins around the handrail and stepped from the chariot, disappearing into the inn without another word or backward glance.

He was gone so long that Charis thought she might have to go searching for him and had nearly made up her mind to do so when he reappeared. “They are not there, Princess Charis,” he said, the smell of resinated wine emanating from him.

“Did you bathe in the stuff or just down an amphora or two?”

Piros blinked back at her, thunderstruck.

“You leave me sitting out here while you drink your weight in that” She sputtered, looking for words, “-that goat urine they serve in there.”

The stablehand went down on his knees in the street. “My life is forfeit, Princess, if you are displeased,” he said.

“Oh, get up!”

“Information must be bought, but innkeepers will talk to those with a jar in their hand. And driving is such a dusty business… I only thought…”

“Get up at once!” ordered Charis sternly. “And stop whining. You could have brought me one, at least.”

Piros stood, head down, hands hanging at his sides.

“Well, as you were in there long enough to take up residence, what did you find out?”

“Some of Kian’s men were in Herakli earlier today to buy food and drink. But they left again and did not return.”

“Are they still nearby?”

“No one knows. But one man, a vinedresser I think, said he saw a group of men on the road earlier today-near the bridge. There is a grove there on the Sarras side where people sometimes meet.”

“If they are here, that is where they will be,” said Charis. “Did he say how to get there?”

“He said he could take us.”

“Go get him then.”

Piros ducked his head and hurried away. “You have already paid your debt to social obligation, Piros,” she called after him. “Leave the wine alone.”

The vinedresser was a thin, dark-skinned fellow with a long, narrow nose which even by flickering torchlight Charis could see was inflamed and red from overindulgence in the produce of his craft. Charis eyed him skeptically. “You say you know where the men I am looking for can be found?” she asked.

“I know where they might be,” he replied with a stupid shrewd smirk.

“Are you in condition to lead us there?”

“I might be able to find it. Then again, I might not.” He jiggled an empty purse. The driver elbowed him and whispered in his ear; the smirk disappeared and the man added, “Most assured-certainly I can, Queen Charis.” Piros jabbed him again.

“Then do it,” commanded Charis. “We are wasting time.”

Piros climbed into the chariot and unwound the reins, snapping them smartly. The horses’ drooping heads lifted. The vinedresser climbed overcarefully into the vehicle, and they were off.

Finding the bridge posed no difficulty, even in the dark, for the road led directly to it. The besotted vinedresser had only to indicate which branch of the road to take when it forked on two occasions. The bridge was not far from the town, and they arrived as the moon rose above the surrounding hills.

There was no one at the bridge, but scattered through the grove a little distance away from the road Charis could see campfires winking through the trees. “There they are,” she said. “Piros, give our guide the price of a jar and let him go.”

Piros dipped into his purse and flipped a coin to the vinedresser, who was wearing the expression of a man who has just been stung by a hornet. “We do you no disservice, vinedresser,” said Charis. “Your help has been rewarded in kind, and the fresh air will clear your head wonderfully. Now go; if you hurry, there may still be time for another jar before the innkeeper closes the shutters.”

The vinedresser lurched from the chariot and, muttering under his breath, hurried away. Piros turned the team and started for the grove. They were soon stopped by armed sentries waiting among the trees.

“Turn back,” one of the sentries told them. “There is nothing to concern you here.”

“It is Piros,” replied the driver, foregoing all protocol. “Oh, and Princess Charis,” he added hastily, “to see her brother the prince and King Belyn of Tairn.”

The sentry approached, saw Charis sitting rigidly in the chariot, bowed, and came around to the back of the vehicle. “Princess, allow me to conduct you to your brother,” he said, offering his arm. Piros made a move to join them. “Take the horses to the teiher line,” the sentry told him, pointing back through the trees. “You will find fodder and water for them there.”

Piros turned the team and drove them through the trees. The sentry said nothing as he guided her into the center of the grove. They passed along a darkened pathway with camp-fires on either side, around which Charis glimpsed faces whose eyes sparkled in the lambent light, watching as she passed. They approached a larger campfire and Charis saw that three huge, round tents had been set up; lampstands within the tents made them seem like great glowing mushrooms sprouting up beneath the sheltering limbs of the trees.

“Prince Kian’s is on the left, Princess Charis,” said the sentry. “King Belyn’s on the right, and in the center is Prince Maildun’s.”

“Thank you,” she said and started toward Kian’s tent. The sentry hung back. “Was there something else?”

The man lowered his eyes, and even in the moonlight Charis could see that he was embarrassed. At first she thought he would not speak, but he looked at her again and said, “I was there-at the watchtower. I saw what you did. We all saw…”

“Anyone else would have done the same.”

The sentry nodded, as much as to say, Oh, yes, and swineherds fly.

“It was kind of you to remember.” She turned back to the tents. “The one on the left, you said?”

He nodded again and led her to it. Two more sentries stood outside the tent and when they saw Charis they suddenly snapped to attention. “The princess to see Prince Kian,” the sentry informed them, as if they had not already guessed.

One of the sentries ducked under the tent flap and a moment later the flap was thrown wide as Kian stepped out. “Charis, what are you doing here? Come in at once.”

Once inside, in the warmth and light of the tent, Charis’ fatigue, held off for so long, suddenly overwhelmed her. She sagged against a tent pole and closed her eyes.

“-foolish thing to do,” Kian was saying. “I told you at the tower that I” He broke off when he saw her. “By Cybel’s horns, Charis, you’re pale as milk. Sit down. Here” He reached for her to help her to a chair.