his head. ‘He weren’t the one I was thinking of.’ He stepped back again, aware Ardela was poised to draw her sword. ‘But I heard some strange things in recent times; sounds like you deserve condolences for more than one reason.’
Legana dipped her head in acknowledgment. There was a moment’s silence before the soldier cleared his throat.
‘Right, well . . . Best get you inside with the others and fed.’
He set off without waiting and after a brief hesitation the three devotees followed along, Legana voicing for their benefit the question they were all thinking. ‘Others?’
The ‘others’ turned out to be two women and a mismatched collection of men. The majority were like the soldiers manning the gate - Ardela realised there were too many for them all to be titled. When she got close enough to one to inspect the crest they all bore on their collars, she realised she was looking at King Emin’s bee symbol.
King’s Men then, she thought, returning the stares she was getting from all around.
Ardela hadn’t come into contact with King Emin’s personal agents before, but she’d heard enough to respect them, and she guessed that the two dozen men assembled here comprised a significant proportion of the force. They had been ushered into a large square hall on the ground floor of the tower. The room itself lacked any decoration beyond the flags of the nation. The most significant feature was a huge cauldron, smelling of stew, simmering away at the far end in a massive fireplace. A balcony jutted out over the hall and a wide stone staircase ran up the left-hand wall.
Two King’s Men got up without a word and abandoned their table to make space for Legana. She didn’t need to be guided towards it, but sat with the caution of the blind. Once comfortable, Legana looked slowly around the room, pausing at each knot of people in the big hall. More than one man flinched under her gaze and Ardela couldn’t help but wonder what Legana was seeing with her shining emerald eyes.
Devotees were trained to assess people at a glance; even someone like Ardela, who had strayed from the path, did so by instinct. The King’s Men occupied the left-hand wall, and sitting with them were two mages who seemed together to average each other out: one was a shrunken little worm of a man, the other oversized, like a white-eye who’d done nothing but eat for months on end.
Sitting close by, but not quite included, were the only other women present. They sat together, and were obviously wary of everyone, despite the fact one was most likely a battle-mage. She wore her dark hair as short as a boy’s, and her leaf-brown padded tunic was adorned with a crisscrossed network of silver chain and crystal shards.
The other’s trade was harder to discern. A long scar down her right cheek showed she hadn’t spent her life closeted away, but she carried no obvious weapons and she was dressed in normal travelling clothes, which made her stand out in this crowd.
The rest were an ugly bunch. Four dark-skinned, tattoo-covered mercenaries from the south were sitting with a shaven-headed man who sported bronze earrings in his left ear and had a sheathed pair of scimitars slung over his shoulder. A second battle-mage, who looked, judging by his clothes, as if he’d fallen on hard time, loitered in the corner. He was biting his nails and eying his more reputable colleagues across the room.
Their white-eye was busy downing a jug of wine and ignoring his hunched table companion, whose face was hidden by a raised hood. Sitting furthest from everyone was a broken-nosed man of thirty-odd summers who bore the scars of many a kicking, if Ardela was any judge. He looked like a vagrant they’d picked up off the street rather than a mercenary, his hair and beard tangled and as filthy as his clothes, but she guessed it wasn’t just the smell that kept the rest away. From the way several of the mercenaries were eying each other she guessed they had met before, most likely not always on the same side.
Finishing his wine the white-eye slipped off his sheepskin coat to reveal well-muscled arms that rivalled the southerners’ for tattoos. He obviously startled one or two of the King’s Men, who whispered to their companions and checked their weapons were at the ready, but the white-eye seemed to be enjoying the reaction he was getting. He made an