With a mercenary’s typical preoccupation, Starhawk gave one of the saddlebags an experimental prod. It clinked faintly, and Sun Wolf asked, “All ten thousand there?” That was a patent impossibility; no horse in creation could have carried the unwieldy bulk of that much gold,
“The rest of the money will be forwarded to you at Wrynde, Captain,” Sheera said, “as soon as it can be raised by parliament. Have no fear of that.”
Looking from her calmly enigmatic face to the disgruntled countenances of the members of parliament, the Wolf only muttered to Starhawk, “Where have we heard that before?”
She swung lightly into the saddle, her fair hair catching the sunlight like pale silk. “What the hell does it matter?” she asked. “We’re not going back mere, anyway.”
The Wolf thought about that and realized that she was right. He had sold his sword for the last time—like the women, like Starhawk, he was no longer what he had been. “No,” he said quietly. “No, I don’t suppose we are.” Then he grinned to himself, mounting, and reined back to where Tarrin and Sheera still stood at the foot of the steps. Sun Wolf held out his hand. “My lady Sheera?”
Sheera of Mandrigyn came forward and raised her lace-gloved hand for his formal kiss. In former days he would have asked the permission of Tarrin, but the King said no word, and the glance Sheera cast them silenced the parliament, like a spell of dumbness. For the first time since he had seen them together. Sun Wolf noticed that Sheera stood an inch or so taller than Tarrin.
He bent from the saddle and touched her knuckles to his lips. Their eyes met—but if she had any regrets, or wished for things between them to be or to have been other than they were, he could find no trace of it in that serene and haughty gaze. She was Sheera of Mandrigyn, and no one would ever see her with mud and rain and sweat on her face again.
He said softly, “Don’t let the men get your ladies down, Commander.”
She elevated a contemptuous eyebrow. “What makes you think they could?”
The Wolf laughed. He found that he could take a great deal of pleasure in seeing those he loved behave exactly like themselves. “Nothing,” he said. “May your ancestors bless you, as you will bless those who follow you with blood and spirit.”
He reined his horse away; but as he did so, Starhawk rode forward and leaned to take Sheera’s hand. A few words were exchanged; then, in a very unqueenly gesture, Sheera slapped Starhawk’s knee, and Starhawk laughed. She rode back to him at a decorous walk; the crowd moved aside again to let them ride from the city.
As they moved under the flamboyant turrets of the Spired Bridge, Sun Wolf whispered, “What did she say to you?”
Starhawk glanced at him in the shadows, her wide, square shoulders and pale hair silhouetted against the rainbow colors of the throng they had just left. Past her, the Wolf could still see Tarrin and Sheera, two glittering dolls beneath the scintillating bulk of the Cathedral of Mandrigyn.
“She told me to look after you,” the Hawk said.
Sun Wolf’s spine stiffened with indignation. “She told you to look after me ... ?”
Her grin was white in the gloom of the covered bridge. “Race you to the city gates.”
To those standing in the great square of the Cathedral, all that could be heard of the departure of Sun Wolf and Starhawk from the town was the sudden thunder of galloping hooves in the tunnel of the enclosed bridge and, like an echo, a drift of unseemly laughter.