:Or hurting his feelings.:
:Good answer,: Alberich replied, and levered his own stiff, sore body up off the bench. A hot soak, something to eat, and then— :Do you think I'd be allowed to sit in on any strategy sessions?: he asked. Perhaps he wasn't a great general, but there was only one way to get that expertise, and that was to watch an expert in the craft of war.
:Just slip in and stay in the background, and we'll see to it that no one notices you,: Kantor replied.
Well! That was interesting.
And he'd better take advantage of it.
He limped toward the door to his shared quarters. It was going to be a long night.
The first of many, he suspected.
:The first of many,: Kantor agreed. :But it won't be alone, Chosen. Never alone.:
«»
Talamir clenched his jaw and told himself that it wasn't wise to contemplate strangling his King.
He sat, rather stiffly, in the armchair that Sendar had nodded him toward. He knew that chair of old. It was seductively comfortable, and it was supposed to make him relax. He wasn't going to allow it to.
And he wasn't going to strangle his King. "Sendar," he said instead, "I am fully aware that you are an accomplished King and leader, and under most circumstances you are perfectly able to defend yourself, but may I be bold and point out to you that you can neither remain awake from now until this war is over, nor can you do everything that you refuse to delegate, even though there are plenty of your humble servants who are perishing for something constructive to do. Therefore you can resign yourself to the fact that you will have to sleep, now and again and will require bodyguards while you do so, and you will have to learn how to delegate." He took a deep breath and waited for the inevitable reaction.
The King growled under his breath; something inaudible, but it sounded unflattering.
"Furthermore," Talamir persisted, "if you intend to persuade your daughter to put up with her bodyguards, you are going to have to set her a good example."
"That," Sendar said, clearly and distinctly, "is blackmail."
"The blackest," Talamir agreed. "It's also the truth."
He neglected to tell the King that he had pointed out the converse to his Heir. If each of them thought that the good example she (or he) was setting was the reason for the other behaving in a sensible fashion, it would make everyone's job much easier.
Although Sendar looked sullenly at him (recalling to Talamir's mind the rebellious adolescent that he'd been as a Trainee), he nodded. "All right. I'll accept the bodyguards. But I want to train with them," he said stubbornly.
"I don't think you're going to have a choice in the matter. I believe Alberich was going to insist on it." Talamir had the satisfaction of seeing surprise on the King's face. "He's a very thorough fellow, is Alberich. He realized immediately that having a bodyguard doesn't do you a great deal of good if someone attacks you, and you don't know what to do but they do. The wrong move could put you in as much danger as if you didn't have them at all."
"Selenay—" Sendar began, and was interrupted by his daughter walking into the room.
"Selenay has been training with her bodyguards," she said, flinging herself down into a chair with a groan and a wince. Talamir noticed that her hair was wet. She must have just come from the bathing room. "Six of them! And the so-gentle Alberich promises that it's going to get harder from here. I have, in the course of the afternoon, been thrown to the ground, thrown onto Caryo's back, hauled about like a sack of wheat, and taught how to dive for all manner of cover. Not to mention done just a trifle of fighting practice myself. I'm quite looking forward to facing the Tedrels; they can't be worse than this."
Talamir decided not to disabuse her of that notion. He just caught Sendar's eye and nodded. Sendar grimaced.
"Well, I'll be doing the same tomorrow," the King said, to Talamir's pleasure. "Though how I'm to squeeze more hours into the day, I do not know."
"I've already told you, and done so repeatedly. By putting the Council meetings and any other business that is not directly concerned with the war into the hands of your Seneschal," Talamir told him, with a little heat, because he had been advising this very move for months now. "That is what he is there for. You can't be two places at once, and if we don't win this thing, there won't be a Valdemar for you to reign over! Your Seneschal is competent, unflappable, and far better at obfuscation than you are. If it's something he can't do, he is supremely good at stalling things until you have the leisure to deal with it, and what is more, he knows to a nicety what he can and cannot do. Delegate, Sendar! How many times do I have to repeat that?"
Sendar shook his head. "I don't—" he began, then shrugged. "I will. But—"
"And don't tell me that you don't like it," Talamir snapped, deciding to show his King and friend the edge of his anger. After all, Sendar wasn't the only person in the Kingdom who was doing things he didn't "like."
"I won't," Sendar replied, in a way that told Talamir that this was exactly what he had been going to say. "What else do you want me to put on my plate?"
"A speech. You're going to have to tell the people—of Haven, at least—what's coming. And I've never been the speechmaker that you are." That was certainly something that needed doing that only Sendar could handle. "I can't write it, and I certainly can't deliver it."
"A speech." Sendar sighed. "Yes, that will have to be me. Selenay, I advise you that when you take the throne, find someone else to write the speeches for you."
"I think not," she replied, so somberly that both Talamir and her father shot a look at her. "Speeches aren't just something that we deliver, as if we were mere actors. They have to come from our hearts, father, and there has to be truth in them. If they don't resonate from inside us, and they don't have truth behind them, how can we ever expect people to believe in us and what we say?"
They both focused on her at once. It wasn't so much with astonishment as—unanticipated pleasure. She sounded like an adult. She was an adult. And she sounded like someone who had learned all the right lessons from her father.
She returned their looks gravely. "Platitudes might satisfy for a short time, father—but soon or late, the people will realize they are being fed form without substance. What I tell them must be the truth, and I must believe it, and I must hold to it. That is what you have taught me. I have learned far more from you than that, but that is one of the important things you have taught me by your example."
He nodded, and so did Talamir. :She knows. We've done our job, haven't we?: he asked Taver.
:We have. She may not yet have all the skills, but she has the spirit and the heart. Skill will come with time.: