"Did you really? What did you study besides magecraft?" Far from being condescending, Riwhin showed eager interest.
"Natural philosophy, mostly, and history."
"History? Great Dyaus above, man, did you ever hear Maleinos lecture?"
"Yes, often. He interested me."
"What do you think of his cyclical notion of historical development? I was so impressed by the peroration he always used that I memorized it: 'Peoples and cities now have great success, now are so totally defeated as no longer to exist. And the changing circuit revealed such things before our time, and will reveal them again, and the revelations will not cease, so long as there be men and battles.' And he would stalk off, like an angry god."
"Yes, and do you know where he'd go?" Gerin said: "To a little tavern close by, to drink resinated wine-how do Sithonians stand the stuff?-for hours on end."
Rihwin looked pained. "You just shattered one of my few remaining illusions."
"I'm not saying he's not a brilliant man. I do think he presents his ideas too forcefully, though, and makes too little allowance for variations and exceptions to his rules."
"I can't quite agree with you there…" All but oblivious to their surroundings, they fenced with ideas, arguing in low voices until Rihwin exclaimed, "Is it growing light already?"
They made good progress the next day, and the next, and the next, reaching the Pranther River at the end of the fourth day out of the capital. They camped near its southern bank.
The night was quiet, save for the river's gentle murmur. Pale clouds drifted lazily from west to east, obscuring now the pale thin waxing crescent of Nothos, now Tiwaz's bright full face, now rosy Elleb, which came into the sky halfway through the midwatch. Gerin, whose watch that was, endured the muttering of the ghosts for another couple of hours, then nudged Van.
His friend woke with a thrash. "Anything happening?" he asked.
"Not so you'd notice," Gerin said.
"Aye, it seems restful enough." Van looked down. "What's this? Look what I've been all but sleeping on, captain-another aoratos plant." He plucked it from the ground.
Gerin eyed it with distaste. "Now that I'm only standing one watch in three I don't need anything to keep me awake at night, and the leaves are so bitter they shrivel my tongue. Throw it away."
"I'd sooner not. I want to see if Rihwin knows of it."
"Suit yourself. As for me, I can hardly keep my eyes open."
It was still nearly dark when Van woke him. "Something moved over by the river, behind that stand of brush," the outlander whispered. "I couldn't quite make out what it was, but I don't like it."
"Let's have a look." Grabbing for sword and trousers, the baron slid out of his bedroll. He roused Elise and Rihwin, told them to give him and Van a few minutes and then to use their own judgment. Then he slipped on his helm and followed Van down toward the Pranther.
As always, the Fox marveled at Van's uncanny ability to pick his way through undergrowth. His own woodscraft was better than most, but once or twice an arm or shoulder brushed a branch hard enough to make it rustle. His comrade made never a sound.
Van froze when he came to the edge of the brush. A moment later Gerin eased up beside him, following with his eyes the outlander's pointing finger. "Trokmoi!" he hissed, hand tightening of itself on swordhilt.
A pair of the barbarians sprawled by the riverbank. Their attention seemed focused on the stream. Their tunics were not checked in the usual northern fashion, but were all over fylfots. These were Balamung's men!
But they did not move, not even when Gerin parted the curtain of bushes and walked toward them. His bafflement grew with every step. He came up close behind them, and still they were oblivious. Then he bent down and prodded one of them.
The Trokme toppled. He was dead, his face an agonized rictus. In his throat stood an unfletched wooden dart, half its length stained with an orange paste. A matching dart was in his companion's unmoving chest. A fat green trout lay between the Trokmoi, bone hook still set in its mouth.
"What in the gods' holy names-!" Van burst out.
A grim smile formed on Gerin's face. "I do believe the rivermen have done us a good turn," he said. "Can you think of any reason Balamung would send men south, except to hunt us? And here, almost up with their prey, they stopped to do a little fishing-in the one river in all Elabon men don't fish." He explained how the rivermen had come to the Pranther.
Van shook his head. "Poor damned fools, to die for a trout. But it will make us a fine breakfast." He stooped to pick up the fish.
Gerin grabbed his arm and stopped him. A reptilian head was watching them from the river. No expression was readable in the riverman's unwinking amber eyes, but he held an envenomed dart ready to throw.
"All right, keep the blasted thing!" Van flung the trout into the Pranther. The riverman dove after it, surfacing a moment later with it in one webbed hand. A grave nod and he was gone.
"What's toward?" Riwhin called from the bushes. The baron was glad to see he'd had sense enough to don armor and to carry his bow with an arrow nocked and ready. He was a good deal less glad to see Elise behind Rihwin; he wished she wouldn't always run toward trouble. Frowning, he told them what had happened.
Rihwin said, "That Trokme must hate you indeed, to work so hard for your destruction. Or perhaps he fears you."
Gerin laughed bitterly. "Why should he? I doubt I'm more than a pebble underfoot to him-a sharp pebble, aye, but a pebble nonetheless."
Hooves thuttered on the bridge called Dalassenos' Revenge. Rihwin half drew his bow, expecting more Trokmoi. But it was only a dour courier in the black and gold of the Empire, a leather message pouch slung over one shoulder. He headed south fast as his lathered horses would take him. "Make way!" he shouted, though no one blocked him.
"Just once," Gerin said, "I'd like to see one of them have more to say than 'Make way!' It's no more likely than a wolf climbing trees, though."
The Fox disliked Elabon's courier corps. All the barons north of the Kirs saw it as part of the thin web binding them to the Empire, and they were right. The couriers carried news faster than anyone else, but only on imperial business.
Later that day another courier came south at the same headlong pace. Gerin called after him for news. He got none. They refused even to gossip, fearing it might somehow compromise them. Cursing, Gerin hurried his own northward pace.
Rihwin, as it happened, did not know of the aoratos plant or its uses. "And that is passing strange," he said, "for I thought surely the Collegium's herbalists were aware of the properties of every plant that grows within the Empire." He took the little bush from Van and studied it. "I must say it seems ordinary."
"Which is likely why no one's bothered with it here," Van said. " On the plains it stands out a good deal more."
"I must try it tonight," Rihwin said.
"The taste is foul," Gerin warned him.
"What if it is? If the effects are as interesting as claimed, I may be on the brink of discovering a whole new vice." He gave a voluptuary's leer, but spoiled it by winking.
"If you were half the carpet knight you pretend to be, you'd have debauched yourself to death years ago," Gerin said.
"And if you were as sour as you let on, you'd long since have pickled in your own juice," Rihwin retorted, a shot with so much justice that Gerin chuckled and owned himself beaten.
He stood first watch that night. By sunset he had grown so edgy that he decided to chew some aoratos leaves himself, regardless of their flavor. He felt fatigue flow away as the juice coursed through his veins. The curious extra sense the plant conferred showed him a squirrel asleep in its nest high in an aspen tree, a fox stalking a vole, a nightjar whipping after fluttering moths. The ghosts seemed troubled; thanks to his added perception, Gerin could almost make out the cause of their alarm, but in the end it eluded him.