Obviously she had just come out of the villa, but how had she passed the guards in there? How had she even entered the camp unchallenged? The hob was not reacting as it did to gramarye. Was this one of the camp brats playing a joke?
To his credit, the don remained on his stool. A slight narrowing of his eyes was the only sign of tension as he crossed his legs and leaned back to rest his elbows on the table. "And who might you be?"
She smiled, revealing a perfect set of sparkling white teeth. "Are you not in need of a hexer?" Her voice had a singsong accent and a curious huskiness. "And are you not all faithful children of His Splendor the Khan, who has sent his son to direct you? Who doubts that the illustrious prince has sent his personal shaman to be your guide and protector against the demons of the foe?"
Toby did, but he bowed. Hamish just glowered.
The don frowned. "A battlefield is not a fit place for a woman!"
"Who is it a fit place for?"
For a moment he bristled at such heresy, then twirled up his mustache, which was usually a sign of amusement. He rose gracefully and bowed. "Don Ramon de Nuñez y Pardo at your service, madonna."
"And I am Toby Longdirk."
"Who does not know you? Am I not Sorghaghtani? And is not Chabi my eyes, who found you?" The shaman raised an arm, and the great white owl floated down to settle on it, then shuffled sideways until it stood on her shoulder. The shaman was not just a boy playing pranks.
The don had not been aware of the owl.
Hamish said, "How do we know that you are sent by the prince and not the Fiend?"
"Are you not still breathing?" Chuckling, Sorghaghtani perched on a stool and arranged her drum on her lap. She ran fingertips over the skin, raising barely audible tremors like distant gunfire. Her hands and the visible part of her face had a brownish olive cast that was not European. Inside those extraordinary hodgepodge draperies she might be young or old, but there could not be very much of her. She was brazenly sure of herself and her owl — nothing else was provable at the moment. "Is your imp distressed by my presence, Little One?"
Toby assumed she was speaking to him, as the owl was staring in his direction. "No. Do you keep a spirit immured in your pet?"
"Who is the pet and who the keeper? Is it wise of you to arrange your council and not include the illustrious Neguder?"
"I have never heard of anyone called Neguder." Toby was starting to believe he was holding this conversation with the bird and not the woman. She was inhumanly motionless, except for the resonant tremor of her fingers on the drum and the movement of her lips as she spoke.
"Who else would be military advisor to the splendid prince?"
"Is he competent?" barked the don.
The owl turned its head in his direction. "Competent?" the shaman shrilled. "Who asks if a Tartar general is competent?"
"I do. Is he?"
"How could he be, when all preferment in the army is based on birth, when the Horde has not fought a war in two centuries, when all the skills of the steppes are forgotten and the swords rusted? Who would trust a man who drinks himself to stupidity every night?"
The don looked ready to eat his mustache. "Then why should I invite him to anything?"
"Will you defy the express command of illustrious Prince Sartaq, noble son of Ozberg Khan, your exalted liege lord?"
"Show me this command!"
"Can you not wait and ask him yourself?"
"Why," snapped the don, "do you always answer questions with questions?"
"Does it annoy you?"
"Yes it does."
The woman smiled.
Hamish leaned across the table, peering at her blindfold to see if it was genuine. "Why should we trust you? How do we know you are not sent by the enemy? Or are just a fake? How old are you?" He was seriously annoyed.
"Will you believe in me when I give you such boils on your backside that you cannot sit down?"
"Do that, and I'll wring your bird's neck and make it into soup. Why are you blindfolded?"
"If Chabi must be my eyes, will not the noon sun be too bright for her?"
"Well, yes, but…" Hamish straightened up. Frowning, he fell silent as he tried to puzzle out what that answer-question implied. At least the shaman had taken his mind off Lisa.
CHAPTER FOUR
They might be violent by nature, but soldiers of fortune were rarely monsters. The men of the Don Ramon Company were as concerned for the welfare of their souls as most other men, as heedful of the guidance of good spirits, and as abhorrent of demons' mindless evil. They were reasonably devout — but only reasonably. They would have as soon trusted their opponents not to use gramarye against them as they would have gone into battle wearing paper helmets. Only gramarye could fight gramarye, so the death of the company hexer had been the cause of much foreboding. If Longdirk tried to lead them to war before he found a credible replacement for the late Karl Fischart, he would march alone. Could they accept a woman? Even more unlikely, could they accept a shaman, whose style of conjuration would be so unfamiliar to them?
Could he? It was to be expected that the Tartar prince would show interest in the victor of Trent, but for Sartaq to assign his personal shaman to one of the smaller mercenary companies out of all the dozens in Italy was a gift horse with a very large mouth indeed. Was Sorghaghtani what she said she was? Whom did she serve? Hamish did not want to trust her, although he could not explain how he would test any adept for hidden loyalties. Toby was prepared to accept her because the hob seemed to. Either she was a hexer of such enormous power that she could blind the hob, or else she meant no harm. If he vouched for her, Hamish would go along, and the don probably would. How about the rest of the Company?
Sorghaghtani herself asked that question before he did. She also inquired why he did not invite all the officers to meet her at sunset in the courtyard and why he did not show her to her quarters in the meantime.
Since Fischart's death, the adytum held no spiritual threat to disturb the hob. Toby could go there now and had even inspected it a few days previously with the idea of turning it into a gunpowder store, eventually deciding it was too close to the villa. He conducted the little shaman there. She seemed pleased with the building and asked why he did not leave her to get on with her work.
He walked by it a few times during the day and each time heard her drum throbbing away inside as if she were performing some sort of shamanistic spring cleaning, but the hob paid no attention. Twice he tapped on the door to ask if she needed food and neither time was there any answer, but when he went to fetch her at sunset, she came out to meet him with her drum slung around her neck, all ready to go. An instant later the owl swooped down to settle on her shoulder.
"Do you need food, madonna?"
"Who? Why give me titles? If my mother called me Sorghaghtani, is that not good enough for you? Who can quest in the spirit world with a full stomach?" She hobbled off along the path. She was blindfolded, although the light would not bother her owl now. He could not tell whether her awkward gait meant that she was old or just badly shod. For all he knew, there was an adolescent inside that grotesque costume.
He caught up with her, staying on the non-owl side. "Have you cleansed the adytum of evil influences, Sorghaghtani, the shadow Oreste mentioned?"
"Have you sharpened the pikes, Little One?"
"You would rather I did not ask you questions?"