Page 53 of Valdemar

Well, that would probably come later.

But as he approached the main gate he saw a little knot of people in front of it. There were three people in clothing of an unfamiliar cut and dull colors of dark green, ocher and dark brick, and a selection of guards who did not seem inclined to let them pass. Huh. Wonder what’s going on?

Darshay didn’t slacken her pace until they got to the gate, and Restil called out to the guards as they pulled up beside the group. “What’s the problem?”

They all recognized him, and the fellow with the patch that marked him as a watch commander sketched a salute. “These folks insist on seein’ th’ King, Prince Restil. They say they got his seal, but . . . I dunno, such things can be forged—”

Restil hopped down off Darshay’s back. “May I see the seal please? I can tell if it’s forged or not.”

The fellow in dark green looked very relieved, and handed him a bit of ribbon with a wax-seal impression on it. Restil invoked mage-sight, and sure enough, his father’s initials, a K imposed over a V, appeared in faint glowing lines over the top of the seal. “It’s genuine,” he said. “The King is in a Council meeting. Is this urgent? If so, I’ll escort you there.”

All three of the people, two men and a woman, looked exhausted, and so relieved that their eyes got a little moist. “Oh, thank you, Prince Restil!” the woman exclaimed. “We—”

“You look ready to drop,” he interrupted. “It’s obviously urgent, so save yourself for the King and the Council.” He turned to one of the guards. “If I unsaddle Darshay, can you please take the saddle back to the stables? Hand it to one of the grooms and ask them to put it away.”

:I’ll let Ardatha know you’re coming. He’ll tell Kordas.:Once again, Restil was profoundly grateful for the Companions’ ability to Mindspeak with each other.

The guard didn’t really have a choice—Restil was the Prince after all—but he didn’t seem put out. “You do that, Tahler,” the watch commander said, and once Darshay was unsaddled, she trotted away, the guard following in her wake.

“Let’s go,” Restil said to the three. He set off at a pace he hoped wasn’t too fast for people who were clearly on their last legs.

“But Prince—” the fellow in green began.

“The King knows we’re coming,” Restil promised. They either believed him or were too tired to argue.

Fortunately the gardens had been laid out mathematically, so there was a clean, straight path to the door nearest the Council Chamber.

The door to the Chamber was flung open for them by one of the door guards, revealing that the King was waiting for them on the other side with a look of concern on his face.

“Your Majesty!” cried the fellow in green as Kordas appeared in the door. “We have—”

Kordas cut him short, and a page hustled them inside, all but shoving them down into chairs and putting cups of cider and chunks of bread stuffed with sausage into their hands. “It can wait while you eat and get a little strength back, Laramir,” the King said. “Whatever is happening across the border is not going to affect us in the next quarter mark.”

He emphasized his words with a look that brooked no argument.

Meekly, Laramir stuffed his face, took a long drink of his cider, and looked to the King for approval to speak.

“All right,” Kordas said, as Restil took his usual seat at the Council table, setting down his bridge plans and lists. “What brought you hot-footing it back from our dissenters’ refuge?”

“We know now why they have been kept isolated from the rest of the Adept’s citizens,” Laramir replied. “The Adept has made them into an army.”

:The Adept? Who are they talking about?:

:Ardatha says that the suspected threat northward has been confirmed as an Adept-level spellcaster, who behaved aberrantly and then—left the Tayledras, absorbed the least-loyal Valdemarans and has—put them to use,: Darshay summed up delicately. :Most of what we thought we knew about the “Archmage”—who is actually an Adept—is wrong. There has been a disinformation campaign for more than ten years.:

“Is making,”the woman corrected Laramir. “They’re not an army yet. But they’ve conscripted everyone between the ages of thirteen and sixty, they’ve put Lord Legenfall in charge, and he’s conducting Imperial-style training.”

The Councilors looked appalled, and well they might. Restil knew enough about Lord Legenfall to know that this was a role he would relish. If he had still been in Valdemar, he would have been apoplectic that he had not been made King, rather than Kordas.

And Restil knew that, unfortunately, Lord Legenfall knew quite a bit about Imperial military strategy. He’d been a hostage too, and had gone through the same schooling as Kordas.

“There’s some good news,” the second man ventured. “The Adept seems to have lost interest in Valdemar for now, for some reason we don’t know. Her attention is very much focused elsewhere, and that’s what the army is for.”

Kordas blinked at that. “I wonder why?” Then he shook his head. “We can’t count on that state to last. But that does give us breathing room to decide how to fortify the border against a conventional attack and magical attacks. You were right to come straight here.”

“We just barely got out in time,” Laramir replied, his speech starting to slur a little with fatigue. “Lord Legenfall got permission to conscript from outside the former Valdemaran community, as long as those he conscripts are non-essential. People like us, who subsisted on minor labor jobs.”

Kordas signaled to a page with a lifted finger. “Young Merlis here will escort you to—” He glanced over at Isla.

“I suspect all that you care about right now is a flat place with blankets,” Isla replied.

“Yes, Majesty,” Laramir said wearily. “It doesn’t even have to be flat.”

“We can do better than that,” she said. “Merlis, take them to the squire’s sickroom. There’s no one there right now, it’s close, and it has six cots and a full washroom in it. Round up some clean clothing for them and leave it on one of the empty cots. Then get food and drink for them.” She turned back to Kordas’s three spies. “Eat something more than a bit of sausage and bread. Get rest, and once you are rested, we’ll hear all the details at the next Council meeting. Restil—”

“I’ll get them filled in on what happened while they were gone; Heralds, Companions, all that,” Restil said, anticipating what she was going to ask.

It was a sign of how very weary the three were that after a moment of confusion, they simply accepted that there was something they were missing and that they would deal with it later. Obediently, they put their empty cups down on the sideboard and followed the page out, and the door closed behind them.

“Well,” Restil said. “After all that, my bridge news doesn’t seem that important.”

“Nevertheless,” his father decreed, “Let us be the judge of that.”