“The Ironshod, on their way down to secure the border for the Duke of Triolle.” Halice shook her head. “I don’t want anything to do with it, I had their commander, Khys, serving under me a few years back; I owe him better than that.”

Halice’s mercenary career hadn’t been all foot-slogging in the mud then, not if she had friends like that. Most corps last a couple of seasons before they fall apart over rows about booty or because they’ve been stamped into the gurry once too often. There can’t be more than a handful of troops as good as the Ironshod, who’ve been striking sound coin out of Lescari misery for more than seven years now. “How do these brothers expect to take a pay chest on their own?”

“I don’t know.” Halice rinsed her cloth in the pail, eyes taking my measure. “I can manage here, why don’t you go and do something useful toward getting us on the road?”

I took the hint. “Is there a scribe round here who might have a reasonably up-to-date set of itineraries he’d be willing to sell?”

“Innel, lives next to the Reeve.” I left Halice to prove her independence by cleaning up without assistance.

Finding Innel the scribe easily enough, after a little conversation I decided could trust him with a letter for Messire, to be sent onto Lord Adrin with a request that he forward it through the Imperial Despatch. I double-sealed it but I wasn’t too concerned about anyone reading it since I’d written all the sensitive sections in the southern Formalin dialect of the ocean coast, the everyday tongue of our home city of Zyoutessela. If anyone within a hundred leagues could understand it, I’d eat my sealing wax still hot. I wrote my favorable assessment of Lord Adrin in formal Formalin however, just in case curiosity got the better of his sense of honor. Innel turned out to have several useful volumes to sell which I compared carefully until I was satisfied they agreed well enough. I’m always cautious about charts made outside Formalin; too often the map-maker’s information is out of date or just plain invented. These were almost good enough to be Toremal drawn.

While I was in the village, I made a quick survey of the inn, the shrine, the women selling their produce around the buttercross. Livak was nowhere to be seen, nor had she returned to the longhouse by the time I got back. Shiv went out to buy a horse and vehicle while Viltred showed Halice the auguries. She watched the horrors impassively, the stillness of her face unmoved but a catch of breath here and there betraying her shock. I did not need to watch again, needing no reminder of my duty, whatever attitude Livak might choose to take. Shiv came back some while later with a neat gig and a long-nosed harness horse with a winter-rough, light bay coat, which I helped him stable.

“Did you get a good deal?” I asked him with a faint grin as I spread straw in the byre. “Planir’s not too badly out of pocket?”

“It was a fair price, pigs seem to be a favored currency around here,” Shiv assured me, his good humor apparently restored.

I looked at the horse, which seemed a little overdocile to me and wondered about that. Livak still hadn’t returned by the time we went to bed and this time it was frustration keeping me awake long into the night. What could I do when the one woman we wanted was dead set against joining us, and the one who promised every chance of being dead weight in the water was determined to come?

Taken from the Library of the Caladhrian Parliament,

being a true copy of the letter sent to the Lord of each fiefdom

by Eglin, Baron Shalehall,

later First Preceptor of the Parliament,

generally dated to the 7th year of the Chaos.

I write this appeal in the hope that Caladhria may be saved from the calamities that beset our poor land on every side. Daily I hear the lamentations of the hungry, the despair of the beaten and the grief of the dispossessed; I can bear it no longer. Saedrin sees the woes of the common people and remembers, just as we take their fealty, so we take on an obligation to defend them against such misery; I have no doubt that he will ask some hard questions before some of us are allowed to enter the Otherworld. Yet all I hear from my peers are fruitless hand-wringing and divisive argument about which pattern of governance we should copy from those around us.

There are those who would step back a generation and set up an Emperor or King, but what would that achieve? How is such a man to be chosen? What qualities would we seek in a man to be entrusted with so much power? I for one, fear the shades of my forefathers would petition Arimelin to plague my dreams with demons, were I to deliberately submit to a tyranny that they struggled so long and hard to throw off. Are we perhaps to ape the self-proclaimed Dukes of Lescar and let the strongest seize what they may until no one dare challenge them? Their Graces’ wealth and fine palaces may look very well now the grass has grown over the battlefields, but let us not forget they established themselves in a manner little different from bandits laying claim to a forest hideout. They work hand in bloody hand to carve up the bounty of Lescar like poachers portioning out a stricken doe. I hear you ask me; are we then left only with the prospect of the division and strife that plagues Ensaimin? Will our sons and daughters life only to see our beloved land disintegrate into a patchwork of petty kinglets and greedy cities, squabbling among themselves like a litter of starving mongrels? By Misaen’s hammer, I will not have it so and I call on all honest men to help me.

Why are we looking beyond our borders for an answer? Let us look to ourselves, to the wisdom of our ancestors. Before Correl the so-called Peacemaker sent his cohorts to trample our land beneath the nailed tread of Tormalin rule, we were a peaceful and decently governed people. Our forefathers knew the dangers of placing too much power in the hands of one or even a few men and ruled themselves, fairly, through the Spearmote. All men of property could speak, all men of goodwill could work together for the common good. No tyrant, great or small, could hope to stifle the liberties that are all men’s birthright, that our fathers won anew for us when they threw off the rusted iron hand of the House of Nemith. We have managed to restore much that was lost to us. Let us come together once more in the Spearmote and take charge of our own destiny.

Livak turned up in the morning as Shiv and I were discussing our route and Halice was harnessing the horse in the gig, ignoring Viltred’s peremptory instructions. It was a bright morning, fine high cloud in a clear blue sky.

“What have you got there?” she demanded without preamble.

“Itineraries.” If she didn’t want to discuss her decisions, neither did I. Finding the volume that showed the closest stages of the River Road, I unfolded the long sections of map.

“They’re not Rationalist drawn, are they?” she challenged, “You’ll soon get lost if they are. All the distance and detail will be twisted to fit their notions of order and balance, you do know that?”

“No, they’re fine.” I wasn’t about to rise to this lure, pointing to an area marked with a stand of thick-branched trees. “What do you know about this place, Prosain Heath?”

Livak looked over my arm. “It’s where Lord Adrin’s lands meet the territories of these other Lords, Thevice and Dardier; they manage the forest between them as a hunting preserve.”

I tapped the river. “This looks a bit too close for my liking.”

Shiv nodded. “Cover for deer and boar will do fine for Lescari runaways as well, won’t it? There probably won’t be any trouble but we might as well join a larger group, if we can.”