“He’s repeating our entire message back to us,” the Captain explained. “We started this check after a few too many misreadings had caused some serious tangles. Now if he’s mistaken any of it, we can correct him before he sends it on.”

“Sir. Message correct, sir,” the signalman replied.

“Send the confirmation,” the Captain ordered, then continued his commentary. “Now the closer you get to any of the major cities, especially the capital, the more men we have on each tower. That makes sure that several incoming messages can be handled at once. If the originator doesn’t get confirmation, he assumes that there was a momentary jam-up, and keeps sending until he does.”

“It’s really brilliant,” Talia said, and she and the Captain exchanged a grin at her pun, “but what do you do on cloudy days or at night?”

He laughed. “We go back to the old, reliable courier system in bad weather. We back it up by making our posting stations part of the tower system, so as soon as the clouds break or the sun rises, the message can be relayed. Even when conditions have been at their worst the towers usually still manage to beat the courier. At night, of course, we can signal with lanterns, but that won’t be of any help in this case, since no one is going to want to trouble envoys with orders after they’ve presumably retired. That’s assuming anyone highborn enough to issue those orders is willing to take the time to do so after the sun sets!”

They followed him back down the ladders. Once back on the ground, since neither of them showed any signs of fatigue, he gave them a tour of the post that lasted until darkness fell. Talia was intrigued, and not just by the signal towers. This was more than simply a Border-guard station; there was a company of Alessandar’s army on permanent duty here. When not patrolling the road for bandits or standing watch on the relay tower, the men (there were no women in Alessandar’s army) performed policing functions for local villages.

It was an interesting contrast to the Valdemar system, where Selenay’s soldiery was kept in central locations, and shifted about at need. But then, Alessandar had a much larger standing army.

In addition to the army company, there were four Healers—all women—permanently assigned here. There were three buildings, not including the tower; the barracks, the Border station where the Healers lived and where Customs checks were made and taxes collected from those passing across the Border, and a kind of all-purpose building that included the kitchen and storage facilities.