That shaft went home, I could see. I was sorry for Aryenis’s pony, for the Sakae snaffles are rather jagged, and their stirrups, which they use as spurs, over-sharp. The simultaneous application of both stirrup and bit must be uncomfortable to a spirited mount. So I didn’t take much count of Aryenis’s over-emphasized statement, made with her chin well in the air: “As if I would ever tangle my thoughts over things like that!” “Perhaps you don’t tangle them. Perhaps the fairy prince without the marks tangles them for you.” “Well, you’ve got a big enough mark across your cheek to prevent you ever playing that part,” she retorted, looking ruthlessly at my face, which, as Forsyth said it would be, was embellished with a very angry-looking gash. “Still, as you said, it serves to remind me of what I saw in the gate,” I said, equally ruthlessly as I looked back at her. My lady seemed to have no answer to that, and we rode into the palace gate in silence. CHAPTER XXI I AM GIVEN A FOLLOWING The road to Aornos was bright in the November sunshine, and the light breeze rustled the falling leaves which dropped, russet-brown, from the trees bordering the road above the water-channels: glinting, rippling, sun-flecked water, splashed with patches of vivid turquoise from the white-flecked blue sky overhead. We were riding into Aornos to meet the rest of Kyrlos’s troops, concentrated there to march into the Shaman country. There were daily reports from the frontier of enemy concentrations, the majority of them to the south in the country beyond Henga’s fort; but so far there had been no sign of any general offensive movement, and it was considered that the frontier troops, strengthened by the levies of the border districts, would be quite sufficient to stop any advance the enemy might try to make. The scene was mediæval in the extreme, and yet had that sameness which must have characterized all bodies of troops since the first leader conceived some idea of discipline, and man began to fight in formed groups rather than in primeval fashion, individual against individual, with rough-chipped flint and sharpened bone. Ahead of the column moved a body of mail-clad mounted men, their long yellow bows swaying as they rode. Mounted fighting is uncommon among the Sakae, whose horses are but a means of extra mobility. Mounted or on foot, the equipment is ever the same, all designed for dismounted combat: the long bow, carried slung from the shoulder, the point supported in a stirrup bucket for mounted men; the well-filled leather quivers with the long gay-coloured shafts; the short straight Sakae sword designed for point-work, more deadly than any cut; and sometimes the small round shield with its bosses of brass. One man in three carried the short spear.