‘But you are not of the Temple?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said with a regretful smile. ‘I tend to pray to Ban-ath or Ruthia more often than not.’ He looked at her. ‘I try to avoid ending up on the side of those needing Dala’s intervention.’
‘And as an associate of the good Father-Bishop,’ said Sandreena, elbowing herself upright, ‘I assume you’re here to ask me what I’ve uncovered?’
He reached under the bed and pulled out a folded blanket. He put it behind her as a makeshift pillow and said, ‘Yes, straight to the heart of it. If you feel up to talking?’
‘I’m a little hungry, but I could talk before I eat.’
He nodded and moved to the door to speak to someone outside. While sitting up, Sandreena took stock of herself. Someone had bathed her and redressed her wounds, which now itched as they were almost fully healed. She was wearing a simple white shift of bleached linen, and even her hair smelled clean.
She had been near dead when she rode into town. She had endured a week on the road with no food, and water from the few creeks she could find. She vaguely recalled finding a stand of berries along the way, but they had made her sick to her stomach.
Her exact recollection of her journey south was hazy. She remembered reaching a hillside overlooking the town of Ithra, and then nothing until she was spoken to by someone at the town gate, perhaps a warden or town watchman. Then she remembered being at the entrance to the Temple and trying to speak to someone, and then awaking today.
The last week on the road had been a blur. Her wounds had stiffened, as she had suspected they would, as she hardly had time to recuperate in that damp cave, and she was woefully malnourished. Somewhere along the way time became meaningless. Training had evidently taken hold, for she had somehow managed to keep her horse watered and find grazing along the way. Perhaps she had slept while the animal had cropped grass.
In any event, it was clear to Sandreena that the Goddess had been watching over her.
‘So, you work for Creegan,’ she said as she pushed herself upright. Every part of her ached and she felt shockingly weak. It was a feeling she didn’t like.
‘Work with him, is more the case,’ said Zane. He looked over his shoulder at her as they waited for food to arrive. ‘Or rather, I work for people who work with him.’ He saw a monk approaching and said nothing while a tray was placed on Sandreena’s lap. While she ate, Zane said, ‘Your Order’s resources are spread thinly right now, and you were the only high-level Temple Knight around, apparently. So the Father-Bishop asked us to keep an eye out for you.’
‘You just happened to be in Ithra?’
‘This was where they sent me. We have other people in Dosra, Min, and Pointer’s Head just in case you showed up there. If none of us heard from you in another week, someone else would have been sent north. ‘There’s a strong suspicion something important is taking place in that very isolated village you went to . ..’
‘Akrakon,’ she supplied. She said nothing more, concentrating on eating the vegetable soup and coarse bread in front of her. She didn’t think this man would be standing around in the middle of the monastery if he were any sort of risk, but his claim to affiliation with the Temple in Krondor didn’t make it fact. As he observed, there were no other highly-placed members of the Order nearby; the monks and lay brothers of the Order in this little place of worship were far removed from Temple politics and intrigue.
When she said nothing for a while, Zane smiled and said, ‘Fair enough. You can report directly to the Father-Bishop if you wish. I was given no instructions about learning what you know, just to see that you got safely home, so you had a better chance of delivering the intelligence ... we need.’
She wondered which ‘we’ he spoke of, the Temple, the Father-Bishop, or whoever his masters were. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘You’re going to ride with me to Krondor?’ she asked between mouthfuls of soup and chewy bread.
‘Something like that,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ll wait until you’re done.’
She said nothing while she finished her food, then watched him take away her tray. When he returned she was standing on wobbly legs. ‘I’m weak as a kitten,’ she supplied.