r! There’s still a lot to do. And you’re not helping.”

“I know,” said Blade. “King Luther and Emperor Titus turned up.”

“Oh. Then I let you off,” said Barnabas. “Now leave them to be royal at one another or we’ll never get those latrines dug out.”

Blade was struck by an idea. “In a short while. I’ll see to the digging for you. You finish the beds and get the cookhouse straight.”

“There’s some toffee-nosed bard gone and parked himself inside there,” Barnabas complained. “What’s he supposed to be up to?”

“I haven’t a clue. Turn him out,” Blade said, and sped away out of the camp again.

Down near the river everyone was having a picnic, despite a few spits of rain falling. The majordomo bowed to Blade and handed him a gilded wooden plate heaped with smoked salmon, corn bread, and olives. “Thanks,” said Blade, at which the man looked startled, as if you were not supposed to thank him. Too bad. Blade took his plate to the hamper where the Emperor was sitting. “I say, can you spare a few legionaries to dig us some latrines?”

Titus grinned. “I don’t see why not. They’ve been doing it every day for a fortnight now. They should be rather good at it. And they’re only sitting about at the moment.” He said a word to one of his warriors, who commandeered the majordomo’s horse and rode off at a canter.

King Luther laughed so much at Blade’s idea that he nearly choked. Meanwhile Barnabas must have started work on the cookhouse. Conrad the Bard stalked loftily out of the dome and stood on the hill above them with his arms folded, looking considerably more kingly than the monarchs having lunch. Blade was wondering again why the man was here when Titus nudged him.

“More company for you. Here’s High Priest Umru now.”

Umru was coming along beside the river on an extremely sturdy white horse, which he was sitting on as if the horse were a bench, with his legs dangling off one side. With him rode numbers of other priests in variously colored robes. “Good day,” Umru called, and raised his hands in blessing. This seemed to be the priestly version of a bow. At any rate, Titus and Luther and their followers all bowed back, at which most of the other priests made blessing signs, too. Everyone bowed again. Umru beckoned Blade with a chubby finger. “A word with you, my boy.”

Blade went over to the priestly party. While he was covering the distance, two priests in black got down and helped Umru slide off the white horse. Looking at the size of him, Blade wondered how the high priest was ever going to get back on. “Yes, sir?” he asked politely.

“You had me shivering for three hours last time we met,” Umru remarked. “Has your father, the wizard, arrived yet?”

Blade explained that Derk would be here by the evening.

“We shall wait,” Umru said. “I owe him that courtesy for putting this camp so far away on this side of the mountains. This suggests that the battles will be here, too. Is this so?”

“I don’t really know,” said Blade.

“Then I must ask him,” Umru said. “But I fear these other priests with me are coming to complain. Maybe you should warn your father.” Blade looked up at them in their colored robes, staring grimly down from their horses. “From the other temples of the other gods,” Umru told him. “They do not like this idea that a god must manifest to the Pilgrim Parties.”

“That was Mr. Chesney’s idea,” Blade protested. “It’s nothing to do with my father.”

Umru turned to look up at the grim priests. “There, Reverences. As I told you. Will you take the boy’s word and return home?”

“We shall stay and talk to the wizard,” a dour priest in a red robe replied.

Umru sighed. “In that case, can you provide us with a place to wait, my boy?”

“You’d better come and sit on the hampers,” Blade said.

“Hampers?” said the dour priest.

“Yes indeed,” said Umru. “I see an emperor and a king sitting on those hampers. Abate your pride, Cartebras, if you must stay, and sit on a hamper, too.”

“Er—just a moment,” said Blade. He sprinted uphill to the camp, past the lofty bard, across the parade ground, and into the cookhouse, where Barnabas was just setting up the tables and benches. Blade threw himself across as many of the benches as his body would stretch over.

“What are you doing?” said Barnabas.

“There are sixteen high priests now,” Blade said, and translocated with the lot back to the riverside. The priests disdainfully seated themselves and sat looking so grim that the happy chatter around the hampers died away.

“Forgive us, my friends,” sighed Umru, and sat, very cautiously, on the third hamper. It swayed sideways, but luckily it held his weight.

Blade began to see that it was one of those days. And here he had been, expecting it to be a day of empty waiting. The next person to arrive appeared so suddenly and quietly behind him that Blade thought he must have translocated there. But it seemed not. He was a gaunt man dressed all over in leather, who looked nearly as grim as the priests. “Chief Werewolf,” he said abruptly. “This camp is in the wrong—”

“I know,” said Blade. “And I’m afraid my father won’t get here until this evening.”

Tags: Diana Wynne Jones Derkholm Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net