With a few deft hand gestures he explained its use. The woman was grinning at him. Rhodorix felt his face turn hot with a blush, but he knew that he needed the thing after all that wine. The woman obligingly stepped out of the chamber.
Once he and Gerontos had relieved their aches, the servant whisked a cloth over the chamber pot and took it away. The woman came back in, carrying a basket.
‘Ah gen Evandares,’ she said.
She set the basket down on the table, then brought out a pair of crystal pyramids, one black, one white, glittering in the morning sunlight. She handed the black to Rhodorix but kept the white. When she gestured with her free hand, Rhodorix realized that she wanted him to hold the pyramid close to his face. She smiled when he did so, then spoke into her crystal.
‘My name is Hwilli.’ Her words seemed to come out of the black crystal, yet at the same time he heard in the normal way her speaking in her unfamiliar tongue. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Rhodorix, and my brother is Gerontos.’ He aped her mannerism and spoke directly into the crystal.
‘What strange names!’ Yet her smile made the comment pleasant. ‘My master has asked me to talk to you and for you, because you and I are both children of Aethyr.’
‘Children of what? My apologies, but I don’t know that word.’
‘The word doesn’t matter.’ She smiled again. ‘Let’s just say that you and I are more alike than we’re like his people.’
That’s as true as it can be! Rhodorix thought. Aloud, he said, ‘Then my thanks. Can my brother’s leg be saved?’
‘It can, though I doubt me if it’ll heal perfectly straight. Still, he should be able to walk without pain.’
Tears of relief welled up in Rhodorix’s eyes. He brushed them away, then repeated the news to Gerontos. Gerro grinned so broadly that his smile was all the thanks that anyone needed. The healer patted him on the shoulder, then spoke to Hwilli, who in turn spoke to Rhodorix through the crystal.
‘Your brother needs to rest. Give him plenty of water whenever he asks. And make sure he eats, too, will you?’
‘I will, and gladly.’
‘In a little while a servant will come to lead you to the bath house. Others will help your brother get clean here. Um, your people do bathe, don’t they?’
‘Whenever we can.’ Rhodorix ran one hand over his stubbled face. ‘We shave, too.’
‘I’ll tell the servant that. I’ll leave this piece of stone with you. If you need something, give it to the servant and ask through the black one.’
‘Very well. One last thing, though. What’s in that stuff you smeared on his leg?’
‘Wine, honey, and egg whites. It stiffens the linen as it dries.’
‘So I see, and my thanks.’
Hwilli set the white crystal down upon the table. The healer and his retinue left, talking among themselves. Much to Rhodorix’s surprise, he could pick out three words that he understood – heal, leg, and water – words Hwilli had used when she spoke to him through the pyramid.
A bath, a clean tunic, and a good bronze razor went a long way to making both Rhodorix and Gerontos feel like men again. Later that day Hwilli returned with a flock of servants and a litter. She put the crystals into their basket, then gave orders to the servants. Rhodorix followed as they carried Gerontos to another chamber, this one with a bed that sported a straw mattress and blankets, big enough for the two brothers to share. Once they’d got Gerontos settled, Hwilli dismissed the servants. She handed Rhodorix the black pyramid and took up the white.
‘You’re a fighting man?’ she said.
‘I am that.’ He hesitated, then decided that she needn’t know of his shame. ‘So is my brother. We know swordcraft.’
‘Good. Our rhix needs swordsmen. Will you fight for him?’
‘It would gladden my heart to repay you for the aid you’ve given us, but truly, who is your rhix? Is he the head of your clan? I’ve never heard of him or this dunum until Evandar said its name.’
She stared at him slack-mouthed, then laughed. ‘You must come from very far away.’
‘We do. We were fleeing the Rhwmanes.’
‘Ah, so that’s what you call them! Master Jantalaber thought your tribe might have been trying to escape them. The master is the man who set your brother’s leg, by the by. The rhix is Ranadar of the Vale of Roses, cadvridoc of the Seven Cities, Master of Garangbeltangim.’
‘My thanks. I’d not heard of him before this day.’
‘I see. Master Jantalaber mentioned that Evandar favoured you.’
‘Well, he saved my brother and me from death.’
‘A sign of favour, sure enough!’
For the first time it occurred to Rhodorix to wonder why the god had come to their aid. Perhaps he wanted them to join this clan’s warband. Doing the will of the god, in that case, looked far better than either killing himself or returning to his own clan and facing his father’s outrage at his blunder over the ambush.
‘Is your rhix fighting those white-skinned savages?’
‘He is.’
‘Then it will gladden my heart to serve him.’ He glanced at Gerontos, who was listening intently, at least to Rhodorix’s half of the conversation. ‘Evandar brought us here to help the rhix who’s the master of this dunum. His name’s Ranadar.’
‘Then as soon as I can stand, I’ll fight for him,’ Gerontos said. ‘I owe these people my life.’
‘So do I.’ Rhodorix returned to speaking into the crystal. ‘It will gladden our hearts to swear loyalty to your cadvridoc.’
‘Splendid!’ Hwilli said. ‘I’ll tell the master of arms.’
Some of the words she spoke in her own language, those he heard as an echo to the words from the crystal, made sense to him, he realized. Somehow the crystal was teaching him her speech at the same time as it transformed it into his own. I wish we’d had these in the homeland, he thought. It would have made learning that wretched Rhwman tongue easier. As the eldest son of a clan head, he’d been expected to learn Latin in order to speak to the conquerors and a little Greek as well in order to bargain with merchants.
Rhodorix and Gerontos received their chance to swear to Ranadarix, as they called him, when the prince himself came to their chamber. His retinue, six men with spears, four with swords, marched in first. They all wore polished bronze breastplates, each inlaid with a red enamel rose, over their tunics.
The prince followed, unarmed, wearing no armour, though a glittering belt, inlaid with gems in a pattern of overlapping triangles and circles, clasped in his rich red tunic. Around his neck he wore an enormous sapphire, as blue as the winter sea, set into a gold pendant three fingers wide. He was a tall man, dark-haired, with lavender catslit eyes and the strange furled ears of his people. Behind him came a child, dressed in a simple white tunic, who looked so much like him that Rhodorix could assume him to be the prince’s son.
A swordsman picked up the white crystal and handed it to the prince. Rhodorix took the black, then knelt on the floor in front of the cadvridoc.
‘I understand that you’ve chosen to join my warband,’ Ranadarix said.
‘We have, honoured one,’ Rhodorix said, ‘in gratitude for the aid your people have given my brother. We both can fight on foot with swords or on horseback with javelins.’
‘On horseback?’ The prince suddenly grinned. ‘Well, now, this is a welcome thing! None of my men can do that. Horses are new to me and my people.’
Rhodorix stared,