CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

Chaldez was intensely happy to have had his men restored to him; as he and Dan led off down the valley he kept looking over his shoulder at them and grinning. At one point he reigned in his horse and told Dan to carry on, and as they passed him he called out "I praise the gods they let you go!"
Three hundred men, including the handlers in the baggage train, had left Nadim, and Chaldez had considered himself poorly equipped. Now his expeditionary force was down to a total of 34, including himself and Dan, and yet he might have had an army of 10,000 at his back; Dan could not understand why he was so cheerful, and Chaldez was unable to explain it.
After the day's ride they made a fire, and Chaldez was the most ebullient and talkative of them all.
"I'll tell you why I am glad they let you go," he said, and impulsively stripped off his travelling cloak and tunic to show off the brand mark on his chest.
The sight of it caused a sensation.
Up until then he had been a remote figure, having deliberately distanced himself by interposing Dan between them and himself so that it was Dan's presence they felt, not his. When they grumbled, it was about Dan; when they were enthusiastic it was he who made them so. Dan was famous for his exploits in the war and it was his approval they sought; his anger they feared. When he and Chaldez had been separated from them at the village they were crushed less by the prospect of slavery than by the loss of Dan's leadership.
Since their release, Chaldez's smiles and gratitude to the gods for their deliverance had merely bemused them, and his familiarity around the fire had made them unsettled. But now they crowded in to look at the mark of slavery, and he was of interest to them for the first time.
Dan disapproved and later he made his feelings known. "Your past is no business of theirs," he said. "The less they know about you, the better."
"I disagree," retorted Chaldez. "Their ignorance was desirable while they belonged to my so-called army but now there are less then forty of us in this, and things have changed and it is right they should know something about me."
"Nothing that has happened has altered the fact that you are a prince and that they are in your service and will probably die in it."
Chaldez knew the importance which Dan attached to discipline, and along with it unquestioning obedience. "I understand your concerns," he said, "but you should know that I intend to be friends with them."
Dan was furious. "How can I command them if they think they can appeal to your friendship over my head?"
"They'll find out they can't," said Chaldez. "I'll always support you, you must know that. We are brothers in all but blood." He looked at Dan in the eye. "I don't intend to quarrel with you over this. My mind is made up."
At the end of every day's ride, Chaldez mingled with his men, but tended to gravitate to a particular trio. Two of them, Rassi and Tsem, were about his own age; Zikir was several years older. The three of them always rode together, often laughing, and it was noticeable that most of the other men sought their company and wanted their good opinion.
Of the three, Chaldez felt most at ease with Tsem. A rather gaunt young man with long black hair, a straggly beard and intense, deep-set eyes, he belonged to the minor nobility and came from a slave-owning family, and as such might have been expected to be offended by Chaldez's implacable hatred of slavery. To slave-owners it was an unjustifiable reproach, and even non-slave owners tended to be puzzled or even angered by it. That Chaldez had twice been a slave was no explanation, for in the Empire some of the greatest slave owners were themselves former slaves, or descended from slaves. Tsem, however, appeared not to be troubled by his attitude.
He also took for granted Chaldez's distaste for lewd conversation, regarded by many as another quirk.
Tsem's somewhat gloomy appearance belied a sense of humour which found expression in witty epithets, delivered with a characteristic dead-pan tone. Where there was laughter and light-hearted banter Tsem was to be found too; but when he and Chaldez were on their own he exchanged the role of entertainer for that of a reflective and sensitive companion, and then Chaldez felt completely uninhibited. Tsem seemed never to tire of hearing about Doo or Theigia or his travels and adventures. Chaldez even confided in him about Meryn, the rope-maker's daughter, and Tassin and Pau, and always Tsem approved of, or at least sympathised with the things he had done.
Dan, despite the hard things he had said about being familiar with the men, took to joining Chaldez and Tsem, but his presence was disruptive. He was flippant when they were serious, argumentative when no argument was called for and censorious when he ought to have been tolerant. The easy, spontaneous, intimate conversation which Chaldez enjoyed when he and Tsem were alone became impossible, and Chaldez showed his disapproval by being cool and off-hand. Dan reacted by becoming even more obtuse: it was a silly game but Chaldez felt trapped. He had no intention of making an issue of it, Dan being his oldest friend, and he suspected that Dan knew it, and was perhaps exploiting it.
If he had had nothing else to think about, he might have been seriously irritated, but there were other things on his mind, principally the safety of his much-diminished force, for he did not intend to be surprised by a second ambush. Dan was in charge of posting sentries at night and sending scouts ahead each morning, and only when they were able to report positively that their route was safe would he allow the rest of his men to advance.
Another major concern was finding provisions. Dan's solution was typically direct: to take what they needed where they found it. The valley, still enclosed by lofty peaks, supported a scattered population of farmers whose goats and flocks of sheep were now in their winter pastures, and reluctantly Chaldez allowed them to be raided.
With each day's journey the mountains became less and less of a dominating presence; the valley, although still surrounded by high ground, was widening and much of it is forested.
On the eighth day after leaving Sazarat's village, Dan's scouts came back with a captive who had been spying, they said, on the main party. When Chaldez interviewed him he could see that he had been roughed up; there was a red swelling on his cheek and another on his forehead, and he was clearly very frightened. Chaldez wanted to put him at his ease and said, in Laifyan, that he was not to be frightened. To his considerable surprise the man seemed to understand. Chaldez asked him what his name was. "Welcal," he said, without hesitation.
Chaldez called to Dan in Theigian, the tongue they used for private conversation. "He speaks Laifyan, We must have gone farther than I thought!" He then asked Welcal if they were indeed in Laifya. Welcal merely looked perplexed, and then shook his head.

Chaldez found out from him that they were in the territory of a local ruler called the Bezane of Ajaktut and that Welcal's own master was a Laifyan prince called Feldak.
"So why were you spying on me?" Chaldez suddenly demanded.
Welcal, a small, sharp-featured man with rat-like eyes, was once more terrified.
Chaldez put his hand out, and he flinched, as though expecting to be hit. Chaldez laughed, not unkindly, and told him that he had nothing to fear as long as he answered the questions truthfully.
Welcal hesitantly told him that the Laifyans had been engaged by the Bezane to rid his territory of bandits.
"You mean us?" Chaldez asked. Welcal nodded.
"I want you to go back to your master," said Chaldez, "and tell him that I am no bandit. You must tell him that I am . . . " and he was about to say "Chaldez," but thought better of it. Sigmar, he remembered, had a long arm, and many spies. "Tell him I am Zoaden of the Empire and that I was on my way to help liberate Laifya from the invader but was betrayed and am now in a desperate plight. Tell him I mean the Bezane and his people no harm but that, for the sake of my mission, I must have provisions for my men. I will wait here for his reply."
Welcal was given back his horse and he rode off. Chaldez told Dan to disperse the men so that the Laifyan would be deprived of a target if he decided to attack, and then warily awaited events.
Towards mid-afternoon about 40 mounted men were seen riding up the valley from the direction taken by Welcal, and when Chaldez was satisfied that they were not deploying for an attack he gave instructions for his men to reassemble on the track by the river.
The last of them were still making their way down to it when a messenger rode up and announced that Feldak wished for an audience with Zoaden. Chaldez was for a moment non-plussed; Dan was grinning. Chaldez remembered. "Yes," he said, hoping that his embarrassment had not been noticed, "I am he."