David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

"What about the army?" Waldron demanded. "You have four regiments. What have they accomplished?"

"Nothing," said Royhas. "Because I haven't dared use them."

He raised his hand to silence the retort on the tip of Waldron's tongue. "Not because I didn't trust the troops, milord," he said, "but because I didn't trust myself to lead them. And before you ask-I didn't trust any of the regimental commanders to lead the force in my place. As a matter of fact, I don't trust Lord Titer's loyalty, nor do

He leaned toward the army commander to add emphasis without raising his voice.

"-trust Lord Olinus' ability to find his ass with both hands. I'm very glad to seeyou, milord, however many troops you've brought with you."

Lord Waldron relaxed abruptly and barked a laugh. "Well, to tell the truth," he said, "when I was deciding who'd go with me to settle the rebellion in the West and who'd stay in Valles where nothing was going to happen, I may have left the garrison here a little short of brilliance. I ask your pardon for that, milord, but I'll try to correct it now."

Servants hovered at the back of the room with trays and pitchers, but Royhas hadn't ordered them forward so they had no choice but to wait. He glanced over his shoulder, making sure the servants were still out of earshot, and said, "Whereas I assure you, milord, that the financial staff accompanying Prince Garricis skilled to the point of brilliance. That's because Lord Tadai is quite as capable of running the Chancellery as I am-and he'd be trying to do just that if he were in Valles, which praise the Lady he is not. But I understand the choice you faced; and as you say, you're here to deal with the problem now."

Lord Waldron rose. "All right, Royhas," he said. "I think we understand each other. I'll call a military council and put some spine into the garrison, then we'll see about this Valgard. And if Titer's the problem you think he is, I'll sort him out myself!"

He bowed curtly to the seated Chancellor and started toward the door. Only then did he remember that Sharina was the highest ranking person in the room-and save for Valence, pottering about somewhere in the palace, the highest ranking person on Ornifal. Waldron clacked his boots to a halt and stood stiff as a pikestaff.

"Good luck with your business, milord," Sharina said, smiling at his back. "I'd appreciate a report when you've had a chance to appraise the situation."

"Yes, your highness," Waldron said, too embarrassed by his gaffe to face her. "With your leave." He clicked his heels again, then strode out of the room much faster than he'd entered.

Royhas, smiling also, turned to Sharina. "Your highness," he said, "what do you wish of me?"

"Just to carry on as you've been doing, milord," Sharina said. "I think-and my brother thought-that I'll be of most use to you if I'm simply seen in public. In Valles to begin with, but perhaps we'll be able to widen our range later as Waldron gets the security situation under control. And of course-"

She looked at Tenoctris.

"-support Lady Tenoctris in whatever fashion she wants. Is there anything…?"

Tenoctris nodded. "Yes," she said. "Since this Valgard is said to be the son of Stronghand, I'd like to see Stronghand's burial place. Is that possible?"

"Easily," said the Chancellor, nodding approval. "It's on the Caldar Road, following the left bank of the Val just north of the city proper. Perhaps you'd like to accompany her, your highness? It's precisely the sort of public event you suggested making."

"Yes," said Sharina, rising to her feet. She offered Tenoctris a hand, though the older woman seemed her best sprightly self today and didn't need the help. "But I want to see King Valence first."

She smiled wryly in response to the others' looks of surprise. "I suppose it's silly," she explained. "But I'd like to hear what the king himself thinks about the notion that he has a half brother."

Ilna turned at the northern edge of the flax field. The villagers had cut patches of scrub for firewood beyond here, but the terrain was basically natural. "Thank you again for your hospitality!" she called.

Polus and another of the men hoeing among the lentil fields to the south raised their heads and waved. The other men just continued working.

"I wish we could've paid them," Ilna said, more to herself than her companions. "It was good to sleep with a roof overhead again."

It was odd to find that she missed a roof, but she did. She'd grown up in an massive Old Kingdom mill, the oldest and most solid building in Barca's Hamlet. Her brother was in the sheep fold or out in the pastures as many nights as he wasn't, but Ilna herself hadn't slept under the stars until she left home.

"It didn't seem they'd have had much use for money even if we'd been carrying our purses," Chalcus said. "Though coins make pretty bangles, which I'd judge our hostess wouldn't have turned down."

"This village seems to exist apart from the world," said Davus thoughtfully. "They'll forget us completely in a few days, I suspect. Maybe they've forgotten us already, most of them."

"Well, it's in the back of beyond," Chalcus commented. His blades were sheathed, but he kept his head moving in a fairly successful attempt to look in all directions. "I didn't see anything in the village that hadn't been made there, with the exception of a few iron knives and some perfume bottles."

"Yes," said Davus, "but it shouldn't bethat isolated. There's enough here to draw more than half a dozen peddlers over the course of… how long would you say? A generation at least."

The women were back among the houses, preparing meals for their households. Simple as the food was, it required a great deal of effort. The oats were parched, then ground with the lentils and boiled as porridge. There was no miller; the work was done by individual housewives, grinding with pestles in bowls whose coarse inner surface was as effective as a stone and easier to manufacture.

Ilna'd found the porridge filling and quite tasty for one meal. It was likely to pall as a steady diet, though, even for a person like her who ate to live instead the other way around.

Preparing cloth seemed to take up the rest of the women's time. They rotted the flax stems in water, then separated the useful fibers from the pulp by a process not very different from the way they turned oats into porridge. After they'd spun the flax into linen thread, they wove it much the same way as Ilna did wool.

She tried not to be overly critical-the villagers had been extremely kind to her and her companions, after all-but their weaving didn't impress her. It was all very well to say that they lacked Ilna's advantage of having the wide world to measure themselves against; but the truth was, these women were simply sloppy.

"The cat keeps folk away, do you think?" Chalcus said in his usual pleasant tenor, calm and cheerful in this as in almost all things. "I'd thought we'd hear it snuffling about us in the night, but there were only the crickets and a nightjar. And no cat to greet us this morning, neither."

Davus took off the length of linen which Polus' wife had given him; for a sash, he'd said, but now he looped it and dropped one of his fist-sized stones into the pocket of it. "Not in the village, at least," he said as he began to spin the simple sling in a lazy circle at his side.

They entered open forest, walking between pines and broad-leafed trees a little taller than the scrub near the village. The land was rising. Ilna didn't fancy herself as a woodsman, but she judged it shouldn't be long before they were out of the valley.

She weighed the choices, then put the hank of yarn back in her sleeve and readied the noose. Of course she might be quite wrong in her concerns…