Jeni added, “This was just a test, really. We could go much faster on the circle stairs.”
“I daresay you could.” Alasen bit her lip, then glanced around. No one had appeared in response to their gleeful shrieks, but that wasn’t surprising. Previous escapades had seen half a dozen servants successfully bribed beforehand. She wondered briefly what Milar, the more conniving of the pair, had thought up this time, then gave in and grinned down at her daughters. “Shall we go try it out?”
If Donato was shocked to encounter a Princess of Kierst and her daughters hurtling down a staircase in a serving bowl, he gave no sign. When they tumbled to a laughing halt two paces from him—with predictably disastrous consequences to the pillows piled there—he helped them up and brushed them off with perfect aplomb.
“Do you want to try?” Milar offered. “It’s almost as good as the snow this winter.”
“Perhaps another time, my lady,” Donato replied courteously, plucking feathers from her pale brown hair.
Alasen recognized a certain look in the faradhi’s eyes and all the fun went out of the morning. “I think you’d better take this back now,” she told Jeni. “Your lessons are supposed to begin immediately after breakfast.”
“Mama!” both girls wailed.
“Do I have to call someone to escort you? Go on. Oh—and on your way find Iavol and tell him I’ll see him before noon. Hurry, now!”
They left dejectedly, the bowl dragged along between them. Donato watched them go, a fond smile on his face.
“Goddess help the men who try to tame them,” he murmured.
“Ostvel says we’ll have to find each a nice, calm, tolerant husband with an excellent sense of humor. But that’s many years ahead of us, and you didn’t come looking for me to discuss Jeni and Milar. What’s wrong?” Donato touched her elbow. “In private, my lady.” Really worried now by his request for privacy—for through the years Pandsala’s servants had been replaced by trusted people loyal only to Ostvel and Alasen—she stayed silent until they had climbed back up the circular stairs to the oratory. Thick, heavy fog formed another wall a finger’s breadth beyond the glass, blocking the view of the Faolain gorge below. Alasen seated herself on one of the chairs, folded her hands, and waited for Donato to speak. “This fog came up quickly, didn’t it?” he said. “It was clear last night.”
“And what did you see on moonlight that you’ve been thinking about ever since?”
“My lady, I’ve been trying to puzzle something out all night. I waited to consult you, hoping the fog would lift and I could get a clearer look by sunlight, but—” He shrugged. “You know that I keep regular watch on all Princemarch’s holdings and take a look at the borders every so often as well.”
She nodded. Donato’s observations were occasionally very useful—for instance, when he caught Geir of Waes in a little smuggling off the coastline three years ago.
Ostvel was bothered by what he thought of as spying, but Alasen quashed his doubts with the simple logic that people who had nothing to hide would never even know they had been seen.
“It may be nothing.” Donato shrugged uneasily and sat down across the aisle from her. “But—has Ostvel or his grace authorized any military exercises around Rezeld?”
“Ostvel has not,” she replied with total confidence. “I doubt if Prince Pol has, either. How many troops and horses are we discussing here?”
“The manor can stable twenty horses and could conceivably pack about a hundred extra people into the hall for sleeping.” He hesitated. “Alasen, camped in the fields nearby were at least three hundred, possibly more. I can’t think where they’d be keeping the horses—in the woods, perhaps. And if they’ve bows and spears, they’re as hidden as the horses. I won’t be sure until I can get a better look.”
“What about banners, colors of any kind?”
“None. I’m not familiar with how one prepares for war. We’ll have to ask Ostvel what else I should look for when I go back.”
Alasen frowned. “Who could Morlen be thinking of warring against? Surely not us. Castle Crag is impenetrable. And not Dragon’s Rest, either. That would be ludicrous. It would take twice three hundred soldiers and then some even to make the attempt. If there were brigands to be chased out of the mountains again, he’d apply to us for help while Pol’s at Stronghold—and to you as a Sunrunner, to let him know where they’re hiding.”
“It makes very little sense, my lady—unless Morlen has the assurance of more troops from someone.”
Alasen rose. “I’m going to talk to Ostvel about this. Donato, keep alert for any break in the fog. If it doesn’t clear by noon, then we’ll have to send you out in search of some usable sunlight.”
He contemplated the swirling gray outside the oratory wall. “I hope this really is fog up from the river and not a cloud hugging the ground. Otherwise I’d have to ride all the way to the top of Whitespur.”
Ostvel was fast asleep, snoring gently. Alasen paused a moment, urgent worry fading a little as the familiar tenderness crept through her. His dark hair was going gray and the lines carved on his face by twenty years in the Desert were deeper, but in slumber he looked nearly her own age. His sensitive mouth curved softly, its almost vulnerable lines belied by the strong bones of brow and nose and cheek bequeathed to their son. Not a beautiful face as masculine beauty was usually reckoned, but a face she had grown to love very much.
“Ostvel,” she whispered, brushing the hair from his forehead. “Dearest, I’m sorry to wake you, but we must talk.”
He grunted and rolled away from her touch. She shook his shoulder.
“Ostvel!”
“Go ’way,” he muttered, hunching into the quilts.
“What a welcome for your loving wife,” she chided. Climbing onto the bed, she knelt at his back and tickled his nape with one finger. “Come on, I know you’re awake.”
“If you were a loving wife, you’d let me sleep.” He flopped onto his back and glared up at her. “Better still, you’d teach our pest of a son some manners, so I could sleep nights like the honest, hardworking athri I am. Very well, I’m awake. What is it?”
She told him.
“Damn.” He flung back the quilt and strode to the dressing room. Alasen followed, demanding to know what he thought he was doing.
“We can’t wait for the fog to lift,” he explained as he pulled his warmest clothes from the closets. “Donato and I will have to ride up Whitespur now, as soon as possible.”
“But why? I know the activity at Rezeld is suspicious, but—”
“It fits in with a few other puzzling things I’ve noticed this last year.” His head disappeared for a moment beneath a thick knitted-wool shirt. “Why, for instance, Morlen has asked Pol to secure him a quantity of iron at the Rialla bargaining this year. He says he wants to reinforce Rezeld using the new techniques devised at Feruche and perfected at Dragon’s Rest—but how could he do that without tearing down his whole keep? My guess is that he’s going to need replacement iron for things he’s melted down to make spears and arrowtips for this little comedy.”
“Ostvel!”
“Hand me those other leggings, will you, my love? Moths have been at these. There’s something else. Chadric wrote of a curious circumstance in a letter recently. Someone contracted for a great deal of silk. It was a huge order and he filled it, of course, at a tidy profit. But once it reached Radzyn, it vanished before the shipping duties were paid.”
“Lord Chaynal never mentioned—”
“It would have shown up on the account books only at next New Year. I doubt he’s had the time or inclination to do his bookkeeping recently.” Ostvel stamped his feet into his riding boots and reached for a heavy tunic. “Chadric thought the colors involved might interest me.”