Players of the Game. Graeme Talboys K.

a bit too complex for me.’

      ‘He did seem to go on about game playing. He clearly fancies himself as a strategist. In this case, you have two sets of guards. One obviously his own and sent out to draw interest while a covert group slips quietly away.’

      ‘Except, of course, that is a bit obvious. So anyone interested in the treasure, whatever it is, will be expecting such a strategy and keep a watch for the covert group. If they see one, they’ll go for that.’ She shook her head.

      ‘Might work.’

      ‘I don’t doubt it, and you are probably right. Dahbeer seemed to know a lot about us. A great deal more than he let on. In which case, he knows what I used to be. So he wouldn’t hire a thief to watch his most valued possession. Unless he’s trying to bluff us as well.’

      ‘I doubt that. He wouldn’t bother hiring you at all, unless he thought we were in the running.’

      ‘How so?’

      ‘Valuable object. Thief.’

      ‘So he hires me and put me in the decoy group to ensure I can’t get my hands on his valuables. I wonder if the rest of this party is made up of the light-fingered and morally challenged.’

      ‘Oh. That will be fun.’

      Jeniche went to the open doorway that looked out onto the garden. ‘I don’t buy it. Why go to all this trouble? He must know who all the likely candidates are. Which we weren’t, until now. We’d never heard of his treasure until he told us about it. Besides, why not just arrest all the likely thieves and throw them in jail for the duration? Why go to the bother of stealing our money and making us run, then recruiting us and paying us? What if we hadn’t run?’

      ‘He’s a game player. Perhaps it’s second nature.’

      ‘A game player who cheats.’

      ‘We can do that as well. We’re being fed and paid, provided with horses I would assume. And once we’re well away from this place, we can cut out and head off north. There are bound to be other ports along the coast to the west. More likely to find something there that’s heading up the coast of Iber and on to Brocel.’

      With something resembling a plan, they relaxed a little, but were given no time to enjoy themselves. Tohmarz appeared and asked them to collect their gear and follow him. Jeniche hoped the washing facilities would be as good. And as private.

      They were led through a maze of small rooms and passageways at the rear of the palace, emerging from the cool shadow where breezes blew onto a large sun-baked yard surrounded by stables and barracks. No fountains and bowers of jasmine here, just pumps and troughs with benches in the shade of the long roof that overhung the stable doors.

      Jeniche cast a seasoned eye over the horses’ accommodation. Grilles and shutters meant it was well ventilated and cool inside for the animals. She could hear them as she and Alltud crossed the yard, jostling and fidgeting, the quiet voices of grooms working in there with them.

      Those men that were outside sat on the benches, working on harnesses, sharpening swords, taking what rest they could in their duties. Only Tohmarz was dressed in the livery of the Qasireu’s household.

      He showed them to a small storeroom in one corner, half filled with bales of hay.

      ‘You can put your things here, sleep overnight. Hadar,’ he pointed to an open doorway at the far end of the range from which hammering emerged, ‘will check your boots and any harness or belts you want repaired.’

      Alltud put their things in the dusty, stuffy hay store and began to improvise places to sleep. Jeniche stood in the doorway watching Tohmarz as he made his way back across the yard toward the palace.

      ‘Why do these things always start so early?’

      Alltud continued to grumble to himself, still half asleep in the relative cool of the dark. Jeniche was used to it. He was not a morning person, always took his time waking. She smiled, walking in torchlight to the nearest pump. There she doused her head in cold water, shaking it from her cropped hair.

      All around her, the yard was filling with men and horses; order emerging by fits and starts from the chaos. Whilst Alltud woke himself properly at the pump, Jeniche pulled on her boots, strapped her swords on over her coat, and checked everything was neatly settled in her pack. By the time Alltud was likewise dressed and ready, their mounts were being led across to them by a large, smiling ostler. Jeniche could not help but think of her old friend Trag, lost all those years ago beneath the desert. He had worked with horses in the stables in Makamba, had sheltered Jeniche there and watched over her. One of many dear friends lost for ever. She hoped it wasn’t an omen.

      Alltud took the smaller horse intended for Jeniche. ‘That one leered at me,’ he said, pointing at the horse he had left for her.

      ‘Can’t bite you if you’re on its back,’ she said.

      Once they had made their first overtures to their beasts, checked the food in their saddle bags and the straps on the bedrolls, they climbed into their saddles and watched the rest of the company mounting up. No one was wearing Dahbeer’s livery, not even Tohmarz. In well-worn riding clothes, he had lost something of the effete look he had cultivated before. Jeniche wasn’t altogether surprised. She had already realized there was more to him than she had so far seen and wondered what games, if any, he played.

      As the troop formed up, Alltud edged his horse close to Jeniche. ‘Lot of riders,’ he said quietly.

      He stood in the stirrups to count those ranked in front of them while Jeniche twisted to count those behind.

      ‘At least twenty up front,’ he said.

      ‘Thirty or so behind. Others still mounting.’

      Alltud raised an eyebrow. ‘Big escort. And no sign of any treasure. Not so much as a pretty young daughter in disguise. No wagons, no boxes, not even any extra saddle bags as far as I can see.’

      ‘No uniforms either.’

      ‘Hmm. Decoy.’

      ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Look at their swords.’

      Alltud gave the once-over to all the swords he could see from his limited vantage point. ‘Now that is interesting.’

      They were all the same.

      Pale stars still littered the western sky as they rode out through the rear gates of the palace and down the main western thoroughfare of Alboran. Hoofs clattering, harnesses ringing, men coughing; a troop of sixty or so horses makes a lot of noise in a confined space and there was no way they could sneak out of the city. They didn’t even try. Shutters and doors opened and sleepy eyes watched as they passed. The city guard had the gates open before they arrived and doubtless had them closed again as soon as the last rider had gone through.

      With commendable casualness and riding with ease, Tohmarz slipped back down from the head of the column and took up a position alongside Jeniche and Alltud. They would have admired the deftness with which it was done had it not been for the equally casual way in which the riders had gone from two abreast in the city streets to three once they were on the open road, scouts galloping ahead in the first light of dawn.

      ‘That was an education,’ said Alltud to no one in particular.

      They had heard no order, seen no signal; knew they were riding with an experienced and well-drilled cavalry troop. The only reply offered by Tohmarz was a satisfied smile and a nod.

      As they followed the road along the coast, the early morning sky behind them took flame, sunlight filtered through the last of the dust. A rich red emerged from the dark and faded as the day grew, casting a strange light across the low mist before it burned away.

      To their right the sea was flat calm, small waves expiring on the smooth, pale beach. To their left, low sun-baked hills threw out long, misty shadows, glimpses of green lining the shallow valleys through which rivers ambled. The road rose and fell in gentle