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“An excellent suggestion, Chalthar,” Saratic mused aloud. “Of course, Fahlthu and Halnahk hate each other’s guts.”
“To be honest, Milord, that consideration is one reason I feel they’d be the best choices.”
“Ah?” Saratic leaned back in his chair, squinting his eyes against the bright sunlight streaming into his study through the windows behind Chalthar.
“Of course, Milord.” Chalthar waved a blunt-fingered hand. “To be honest, it we’re going to risk someone, I’d sooner lose Fahlthu than anyone else. But he’s only as reliable as his next payday, and I wouldn’t trust him not to betray you in a heartbeat if a better offer came along—or if he thought it would keep his own skin safe.” The marshal paused, then grimaced. “Actually, Milord, that’s not quite fair, I suppose. Fahlthu’s brave enough once it actually comes down to blows. It’s in his pla
Saratic nodded. That attitude of Fahlthu’s was one reason he’d recruited the man in the first place. There were times when a lord warden needed the proper tool for fishing in murky waters.
“Halnahk, on the other hand, isn’t much going to like his orders,” Chalthar continued with blunt honesty, “but he’s your man and always has been. He’ll carry ’em out, whatever they are, and he’s senior to Fahlthu. So, Milord, I think we should put him in command of this affair. His seniority would make it logical, but even more importantly, we can tell him your full intentions and rely upon him to act in accordance with them. In the meantime, let me tell Fahlthu a part of what you intend—the part he’ll have to know—but not enough details to make betraying us strike him as being worth the risk. We can trust Halnahk to make the best use of him … and if it should chance that my concerns prove to have been justified, he’ll make Halnahk a rear guard none of us will miss. Not to mention,” the marshal smiled thinly, “the fact that everyone knows Fahlthu’s little better than a common mercenary. If something unfortunate should befall him, I think it would not be unreasonable for Baron Cassan to conclude that Sir Fahlthu had been bribed by Lord Warden Erathian—who’s Tellian’s vassal, not the Baron’s—to vastly exceed any orders you might have given him.”
“As always, your reasoning is acute, Chalthar,” Saratic purred. “See to it. And see to it that Baron Cassan’s man, Warshoe, is attached to Sir Fahlthu.” Chalthar looked a question at him, and Saratic shrugged. “Something about the man worries me, Chalthar. Not enough to offend Baron Cassan by refusing his services, and the gods know he’s proved capable enough in everything we’ve asked of him so far. But if he’s a blade that’s likely to turn in our hands, I’d rather have him chopping off Fahlthu’s fingers than Halnahk’s. And having him safely among those ’bribed by Erathian’ might not be a very bad thing, either.”
“There’s a messenger from Sir Jahlahan, Milord.”
Baron Tellian looked up from the breakfast campfire beside the Balthar high road at the sound of Tarith Shieldarm’s voice.
He and his armsmen were still two days’ travel—for those on warhorses, instead of coursers, at least—from Hill Guard. They’d been setting an easy pace, allowing the horses from whom they had demanded so much in their pursuit of Leeana to recover somewhat. Even so, it had not been a pleasant journey, and especially not for Tarith. The burly, dark-haired and dark-eyed armsman had been assigned as Leeana’s personal armsman even before she could walk, and when she’d been a baby, she’d held his heart in her two pudgy hands. Nor had she ever released that grip. Of all Tellian’s armsmen, Tarith had taken his daughter’s loss to the war maids hardest, and he continued to blame himself for it. It was nonsense, and Tellian knew it, but Tarith stubbornly insisted that he should have disobeyed Leeana’s direct orders and refused to let her send him away. The fact that she’d constructed a totally plausible errand for him to run seemed lost upon him, and Tellian only hoped time would heal his grief and blunt that draining sense of guilt.
“From Sir Jahlahan?” the baron said after a moment, shaking off his reverie.
“Aye, Milord,” Tarith said, and extended a sealed message pouch.
Tellian took it with a grunt of thanks that partially concealed a pang of anxiety. He’d deliberately avoided sending any messages ahead to Balthar. Despite the relatively moderate pace he’d set, he and his armsmen would reach Hill Guard no more than two days—two and a half, at most—after a messenger from Kalatha could have arrived. He refused to subject Hanatha to a written confirmation that they had lost their daughter forever when the delay to tell her in person, and hold her in his arms as she wept, would be so brief.
But Jahlahan had to know Tellian must be well on his way back to Balthar by now, whether with Leeana, or without her. So what could be so urgent that the seneschal hadn’t felt able to wait and report it to him directly?
He gazed down at the message pouch for a moment, then drew a deep breath and broke the seal. He extracted the message inside, opened it, and sat back on his haunches to read it.
But then the report’s second sentence wrenched him upright with a jerk and a white-faced oath of disbelief.
He felt all his armsmen staring at him, knew his expression was giving away entirely too much, but he couldn’t help it. He read the short, horrifying message all the way through, then made himself reread it to be certain there’d been no mistake.
There hadn’t been, and he felt his shoulders slump.
“Milord?” a voice asked. “Wind Brother?!” it said more sharply, and he shook himself.
“Yes—yes, Hathan,” he said, looking across to meet his wind brother’s anxious eyes.
“What is it? Surely not the Baroness—?!”
“No.” Tellian shook his head again, sharply, as if trying to shake his mind back into functioning. “No, Hanatha is well. It’s—”
He looked back down at Jahlahan’s message, then crushed it into a ball in a white-knuckled fist.
“It’s not anything at Hill Guard or Balthar,” he said hoarsely. “There was an … emergency at Warm Springs. Prince Bahzell has gone to deal with it.”
“I see,” Hathan gazed at him for a moment, and Tellian flicked a thought to Dathgar.
his courser replied. Dathgar continued dryly.
Tellian assured him, and felt a familiar sense of comfort from Dathgar’s attitude. Although, he reflected more grimly, even Dathgar was going to be horrified by this news.
“All right, Tarith,” he said aloud, turning back to the senior armsman. “As I’m sure you’ve already figured out, Sir Jahlahan’s note is scarcely good news. All’s well at Balthar and Hill Guard, though. The problem lies further north, and as I told Hathan, Prince Bahzell and Lord Brandark have already left Hill Guard to deal with it. However, I am the Lord Warden of the West Riding. It’s my responsibility, not Prince Bahzell’s, to respond to my lord wardens’ requests for help. There’s nothing that any of you—” he swept the listening armsmen with his eyes “— could do to help with this … particular problem, however. So Hathan and I are going to leave you here and go on ahead.”
“Milord—!” Tarith began an instant, automatic armsman’s protest, but Tellian shook his head firmly.
“We’re not going to argue about this, old friend,” he said. “Hathan and I are riding ahead. And I don’t want you laming the horses trying to catch up with us, either!” He eyed the armsman sternly. “There’s no way your mounts could keep up with us, so there’s no use trying. Is that understood?”