The Ruby Knight

Occasionally they saw poor farmsteads where shabby-looking peasants in muddy brown smocks laboured long and hard to wrest scanty crops from the unyielding earth. Kurik sniffed disdainfully. ‘Amateurs,’ he grunted. Kurik took farming very seriously.
    About mid-morning the narrow track they were following joined a well-travelled road that ran due east. ‘A suggestion, Sparhawk,’ Tynian said, shifting his blue-blazoned shield.
    ‘Suggest away.’
    ‘It might be better if we took this road to the border rather than cutting across country again. Pelosians tend to be sensitive about people who avoid the manned border-crossings. They’re obsessively concerned about smugglers. I don’t think we’d accomplish very much in a skirmish with one of their patrols.’
    ‘All right,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘Let’s stay out of trouble if we can.’
    Not very long after a dreary, sunless noon, they reached the border and passed without incident into the southern end of Pelosia. The farmsteads here were even more run-down than they had been in north-eastern Elenia. The houses and outbuildings were universally roofed with sod, and agile goats grazed on the roofs. Kurik looked about disapprovingly, but said nothing.
    As evening settled over the landscape, they crested a hill and saw the twinkling lights of a village in the valley below. ‘An inn perhaps?’ Kalten suggested. ‘I think Sephrenia’s spell is starting to wear off. My horse is staggering, and I’m in not much better shape.’
    ‘You won’t sleep alone in a Pelosian inn,’ Tynian warned. ‘Their beds are usually occupied by all sorts of unpleasant little creatures.’
    ‘Fleas?’ Kalten asked.
    ‘And lice, and bed-bugs the size of mice.’
    ‘I suppose we’ll have to risk it,’ Sparhawk decided. ‘The horses won’t be able to go much farther, and I don’t think the Seeker would attack us inside a building. It seems to prefer open country.’ He led the way down the hill to the village.
    The streets of the town were unpaved, and they were ankle-deep in mud. They reached the town’s only inn, and Sparhawk carried Sephrenia to the porch while Kurik followed with Flute. The steps leading up to the door were caked with mud, and the boot-scraper beside the door showed little signs of use. Pelosians, it appeared, were indifferent to mud. The interior of the inn was dim and smoky, and it smelled strongly of stale sweat and spoiled food. The floor had at one time been covered with rushes, but except in the corners, the rushes were buried in dried mud.
    ‘Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider this?’ Tynian asked Kalten as they entered.
    ‘My stomach’s fairly strong,’ Kalten replied, ‘and I caught a whiff of beer when we came in.’
    The supper the innkeeper provided was at least edible, although a bit over-garnished with boiled cabbage, and the beds, mere straw pallets, were not nearly as bug-infested as Tynian had predicted.
    They rose early the next morning and rode out of the muddy village in a murky dawn.
    ‘Doesn’t the sun ever shine in this part of the world?’ Talen asked sourly.
    ‘It’s spring,’ Kurik told him. ‘It’s always cloudy and rainy in the spring. It’s good for the crops.’
    ‘I’m not a radish, Kurik,’ the boy replied. ‘I don’t need to be watered.’
    ‘Talk to God about it,’ Kurik shrugged. ‘I don’t make the weather.’
    ‘God and I aren’t on the best of terms,’ Talen said glibly. ‘He’s busy, and so am I. We try not to interfere with each other.’
    ‘The boy is pert,’ Bevier observed disapprovingly. ‘Young man,’ he said, ‘it is not proper to speak so of the Lord of the universe.’
    ‘You are an honoured Knight of the Church, Sir Bevier,’ Talen pointed out. ‘I am but a thief of the streets. Different rules apply to us. God’s great flower-garden needs a few weeds to offset the splendour of the roses. I’m a weed. I’m sure God forgives me for that, since I’m a part of his grand design.’
    Bevier looked at him helplessly, and then began to laugh.
    They rode warily across south-eastern Pelosia for the next several days, taking turns scouting on ahead and riding to hilltops to survey the surrounding countryside. The sky remained dreary as they pushed on to the east. They saw peasants – serfs actually – labouring in the fields with the crudest of implements. There were birds nesting in the hedges, and occasionally they saw deer grazing among herds of scrubby