"Nor should you, if you follow the gleaming path," Olyvria said.
Phostis had to work hard not to stare at her. Now she sounded the way she had when she'd first fetched him to Etchmiadzin. What had become of the passion she'd shown? Was she dissembling now because Syagrios sat next to her? Or had she seduced Phostis to win him to the gleaming path when more honest methods failed?
He simply could not tell. In a certain sense, it didn't matter. When he got to Pityos, he was going to try to escape, no matter what. If she stood in his way then, he'd do it alone. But he knew some trust would go out of him forever if the girl he loved turned out only to have been using him for her own purposes.
He hoped she'd sneak up to his cubicle that night, both because he wanted her and so he could ask her the questions he couldn't speak with Syagrios listening. But she kept to herself. When morning came, Phostis packed a spare tunic he'd come by, belted on the sword he'd left in the little room ever since he came back from the raid on Aptos, and went downstairs.
Syagrios was already down in the kitchens eating. He flipped Phostis a wide-brimmed hat of woven straw like the one that sat at a jaunty angle on his own head. When Olyvria came down, she was wearing one like it, too, and mannish tunic and trousers suitable for riding.
"Good," Syagrios said, nodding approval when he saw her. "We'll take enough food here to keep us going till we get to Pityos, then stuff it into our saddlebags and be on our way. The bread'll go stale, but who cares?"
Phostis took several loaves, some cheese, some onions, and a length of hard, dry pork sausage flavored with fennel. He paused before some round pastries dusted with powdered sugar. "What's in these?" he asked.
"Take a few; they're good," Olyvria said. "They're made from chopped dates and nuts and honey. We must have a new cook out of Vaspurakan, because that's where they come from."
"True enough," Syagrios agreed. "You ever hear a Videssian who wants them, he'll call 'em 'princes' balls.' " He guffawed. Phostis smiled. Olyvria did her best to pretend she hadn't heard.
Phostis fed his foul-tempered horse one of the pastries in the hope of sweetening its disposition. The beast tried to bite his hand. He jerked it back just in time. Syagrios laughed again. Had Phostis been in any other company, he would have named his horse for the ruffian.
The ride into Pityos was a pleasant five days. The upland plateaus still wore their bright green coat of spring grass and shrubs; another month or two would go by before the vicious summer sun began baking everything brown. Fritillaries and hairstreaks flitted from one clump of red or yellow restharrow to another, and then on to white-flowered fenugreek. Swallows and skylarks swooped after the insects.
About halfway through the first day's ride, Syagrios dismounted to go off behind a bush some little distance from the road. Without turning her head toward Phostis. Olyvria said quietly, "It will be all right."
"Will it?" he answered. He wanted to believe her, but he'd grown chary of trusting anyone. If she meant what she'd said, she'd have the chance to prove it.
Before she could reply, back came Syagrios, buttoning the top button of his fly, rebuckling his belt, and whistling a marching song with more foul verses than clean ones. He grunted as he swung himself up into the saddle. "Off we go again," he declared.
The last day and a half of the journey were through the coastal lowlands. Peasants labored in the fields, plowing, planting, and pruning grape vines. Summer felt near in the lowlands, for the weather there was already hot and sticky. Phostis' shoulder twinged more than it had in the drier climate of the plateau.
As soon as Pityos came into view, the travelers all squinted and shaded their eyes to peer ahead. Phostis wondered how he'd feel to see a forest of masts in the harbor. But unless his eyes were tricking him. though the town seemed to boast fishing boats aplenty, none of them were the big imperial merchantmen that hauled troops and horses.
Syagrios grunted suspiciously. "Your old man is up to something sneaky," he told Phostis, as if it were the latter's fault. "Maybe the ships are lying out to sea so they can come in at nightfall and take folk by surprise, or maybe he's decided to have them make land at Tavas or Nakoleia after all."
"Livanios' Makuraner mage should have been able to divine where they'd put in," Phostis said.
"Naah." Syagrios made a slashing gesture of contempt with his hand. "Livanios took him on because his sorcery fuddles Videssian wizards, but it works the other way round, too, worse luck—some days he's lucky to find his way out of bed, that one is." He paused to give Phostis a meditative stare. "How did you know he's from Makuran?"
"By his accent," Phostis answered, as innocently as he could. "And when I recognized that, I remembered I'd seen Makuraner envoys at court who wore caftans like his."
"Oh. All right." Syagrios relaxed. Phostis breathed easier, too; if he'd let Artapan's name fall from his lips, he'd have thrown himself straight into the soup pot.
The sentries lounging in front of the gates of Pityos were Thanasioi, longer on ferocity than discipline. When Syagrios greeted them in the name of the gleaming path, grins creased their grim faces in unexpected directions. They waved him and his companions into the city.
Pityos was smaller than Nakoleia; as Phostis had thought Nakoleia little better than a village, he'd expected to feel cramped in Pityos as well. But after some months in Etchmiadzin, much of that time mewed up inside the fortress, he found Pityos spacious enough to suit him.
Syagrios rented an upstairs room in a tavern near the harbor so he could keep lookout and spy imperial ships before they started spewing out their men. Olyvria stayed quiet all through the spirited haggle that got the room; Phostis couldn't tell whether the taverner thought her a beardless youth or knew she was a woman but didn't care.
The chamber got crowded when a potboy fetched in a third straw pallet, but remained roomier than Phostis' cubicle had been with him there by himself. He unslung his bedroll and, with a sigh of relief, let it fall to the mattress he'd chosen.
Syagrios leaned out the window to examine the harbor at close range. He shook his head. "Bugger me with a pinecone if I know where they are. They ought to be here, unless I miss my guess altogether." By a slight swagger, he managed to indicate how unlikely that was.
Olyvria picked up the chamber pot, which had been shoved into a corner when the new set of bedding arrived. She looked down into it, made a face, then walked over to the window as if to throw its contents out onto the street—and any unwary passersby below. Instead, when she came up behind Syagrios, she raised the chamber pot high and smashed it over his head.
The pot was of heavy earthenware; no doubt she'd hoped he would sag silently and easily into unconsciousness. But Syagrios was made of stern stuff. He staggered and groaned out, blood running down his face, turned shakily on Olyvria.
Phostis felt his heart beat—once, twice—while he gaped dumbfounded on what she'd done. Then he unfroze. He grabbed Syagrios by the shoulder and hit the ruffian in the face as hard as he could with his left fist. Syagrios lurched backward. He tried to bring up his hands to protect himself or even to grapple with Phostis, but he moved as if in the slowness of a dream. Phostis hit him again, and again. His eyes rolled up in his head; he collapsed to the floor.
Olyvria seized the knife on his belt and held it above his neck. Phostis grabbed her wrist. "Have you gone mad?" she cried.
"No. We'll take his weapons and we'll tie him up," he answered. "But I owe him enough for this—" He touched his healing shoulder. "—that I don't care to slit his throat."
She made a face but didn't argue, instead turning the dagger on the linen mattress covers to cut strips of cloth for bonds. Syagrios grunted and stirred when Phostis rolled him over to tie his hands behind his back. Phostis hit him again, and also tied cloth strips over his mouth for a gag. Then he tied the ruffian's ankles together as tightly as he could.