David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

He handed her a tight parchment scroll the diameter of a man's thumb. Garric didn't recognize his accent. The fellow failed to add, "Your highness," to his salutation the way a citizen of the kingdom should have done.

"We'll go over this when we have leisure," Liane said in the coolly businesslike tone of a master speaking to a servant. "Give us a quick overview of the situation."

The spy shrugged under his cloak. "Earl Wildulf doesn't rank with the Seven Sages," he said, "but he's got a shrewd grasp of the possible. He'll bargain for as much autonomy as he can get, but he won't rebel unless something happens to the royal army first."

"Will he be able to work within the kingdom?" Garric asked. "I've heard a lot of people on Sandrakkan hate Ornifal because of the way the royal army crushed the rebellion last generation at the Stone Wall."

Instead of replying, the spy turned his shadowed face toward Liane. "Answer him, Kaskal!" Liane said sharply.

The spy's head jerked back; Liane had used his name openly in an implicit rebuke of his posturing. He coughed and said, "As best I can judge, Wildulf doesn't have any real hostility toward Ornifal. He's aware that if his uncle and cousin hadn't died at the Stone Wall, he'd be managing the family's vineyards in the west of the island. He'd never say that, of course."

Outside a trumpet called to end the phalanx exercises. The troops gave a loud cheer in unison. They'd be raising their pikes straight in the air and carrying them to covered storage to protect the slim shafts from the elements. Every aspect of the phalanx required forethought and extreme care, but when all the pieces worked together, the pikemen could cut the heart out of any other army in the Isles.

Kaskal had jumped when four thousand soldiers bellowed. With a self-directed scowl he resumed, "There's plenty of people, especially among the nobles, who hate anything to do with Ornifal or the kingdom worse than a viper. Lord Tawnser's one of them. He has support in the court and outside it. If he stirs up trouble, it'll be against Wildulf's orders-but he's stupid enough that he might stir up trouble anyway."

"If there's a riot…," Garric said. His mind was full of images from King Carus' memories: men in armor breaking down doors while people on the roof hurl down tiles; buildings alight and the flames spreading across whole districts, trapping fighters and the innocent alike. "Will the Earl's troops put it down, or will we have to do that ourselves?"

"I don't know," the spy said. "It depends on just what the event is, who's in command of the troops on duty at the time, that sort of thing. I think Wildulf'd order his men to stop the riot, but how fast they'd obey-or how soon he'd be told what's going on-that I wouldn't bet on."

He pressed his fingertips together and frowned at them, deciding whether or not he was going to say more. Garric bit off a snarl, permitting Kaskal to decide to speak on his own. If the fellow thought he was going to get out of this tentwithout saying the rest of what he was on his mind, though, he was badly mistaken.

"There's Countess Balila," Kaskal said at last. "I don't know about her. She's devoted to her husband, that I'm sure of. He seems to love her too, but Balila's… more than that. She worships Wildulf the way people are supposed to worship the gods."

"Do you see the Countess' attitude as a danger?" Liane said. She held a wax tablet in one hand and a stylus in the other, but she wasn't taking notes; it was just a way of occupying her fingers while her mind was on the spy's words.

"Not unless she thinks the Prince is a danger to her husband," Kaskal said. "I can't estimate how likely that is because I don't understand how her mind works. Balila doesn't have any real power, but she could probably find servants to poison a cup if she wanted to. And for the past year she's been thick as thieves with a wizard, an old woman who calls herself Lady Dipsas. I can't find out anything about where Dipsas's from, but if she's really a lady, so's my uncle's sow."

"Her birth doesn't matter," Garric said, feeling the spirit of Carus draw itself up in disgust. "How serious a wizard is she?"

He was well aware that he'd sent Tenoctris off with Sharina and Lord Waldron. Their squadron hadn't sailed from Volita yet-at the current rate of preparations, they'd leave a few hours after Garric and his escort crossed to Erdin-but he wasn't willing to reneg on an offer he'd made his sister. Apart from personal reasons, it'd make him look vacillating. That was more of a danger to his leadership than the possibility that his initial decision had been a bad one.

"I don't know," Kaskal said. Then, angrily, "I don't know anything about that sort of business. I've seen her do tricks. If she does more than that, I don't know about it!"

The spy had the same attitude that King Carus and quite a lot of other people did: wizardry was evil, dangerous, and deeply disgusting. In the main Garric, who'd had a good deal of experience with wizards in the past two years, agreed with them. But though the bloody dismemberment of thousands of men in battle was also evil, dangerous, and deeply disgusting, sometimes battle was necessary if the kingdom and Mankind itself were to survive.

A trumpet and a long curved horn blew together, signaling that the ships were ready to carry the Prince and his escort to Erdin. Garric sighed. He didn't want to go, but it was his duty-and one he'd taken upon himself willingly.

He rose to his feet and shrugged. "I suppose we'll learn for ourselves in good time," he said mildly. "We'll hope that the Countess realizes we won't harm her husband unless he initiates hostilities, and we'll hope that the Countess' wizard shows similar good judgment. If they don't, then we'll deal with the situation as it arises."

Through Garric's mind cascaded more of Carus' memories, the faces of wizards who'd learned the spells they were babbling weren't sufficient to fend off either the king's long sword or the death that came on its edge and point. It was a comforting reminder just now.

Ilna rose, feeling the chill and the emptiness of her belly as well. She'd always treated food as a necessity, not a pleasure in itself. But though an orphan thrown on her own and her brother's resources at age nine learns what it means to go hungry, Ilna hadn't missed meals in a long time. When the orphans are as able as Ilna and Cashel, they earn enough to feed themselves in short order.

Well, she wouldn't starve for a good long while. Water was more of a concern, but not yet a serious one.

"I heard rabbits running about all night," said Chalcus ruefully, looking across the brush and straggling trees around them. "I've fished for everything from whales to fingerlings for bait. If I'd spent a little of that time learning to lay snares, we might have breakfast waiting for us."

He and Ilna had slept on pine boughs, a good enough mattress if they'd had a ground sheet to lay over it. As well wish for a down comforter, which would've been more use yet. The night air here was beyond cool.

Davus had made do with a scrape for his hip in the coarse soil and a smooth rock for a pillow. He seemed no worse for the experience than they were, and all three of them were fit to meet the day and whatever it brought.

Davus laid out a selection of pebbles, all about the size of a walnut, then picked three from the lot and left the remainder on the ground. "We should have lunch, at any rate," he said, tossing the stones from hand to hand in a pattern that was remarkably complex for only three stones. One was white quartz and served as a marker for Ilna's inexpert eyes.

Davus gathered the stones into his left hand. "How do you choose to proceed, sir and madam?" he asked with polite formality.

Chalcus raised an eyebrow toward Ilna. He could've spoken as easily as she-there was only one possible answer, after all-but since he put it to her Ilna said, "If Merota is at the Citadel, we'll go to the Citadel."