“Them at the capital need to know where ye be; they’ll be takin’ it amiss if they can’t find ye should they need ye,” he said, making it sound as if “they” would be taking it more than “amiss” if the Heralds changed their stated plans.

Kris exchanged a flickering, sober glance with his partner, but made no retort.

At the hostel, which held a scant handful of travelers, they split up, each taking a likely prospect, and began trying to eke a little more information out of them.

Talia had chosen a shy priestess of one of the Moon-oriented orders, and hoped she could get something useful out of her without her Gift. She began her conversation with ordinary enough exchanges; the difficulties women faced when making long journeys, commiseration over the fact that men in authority seemed to take them lightly—Hostelmasters serving the men in the room first, no matter what the order of their arrival was, and much more in the same vein. Carefully, over the entire evening, she began steering the talk to the topics that seemed to be the most sensitive.

“Your King—I must say, he certainly seems to be a good ruler,” Talia said casually, when the topic of Alessandar came up. “From what I can see, everyone seems to be prospering. That ought to be making for good days with your temple.”

“Oh, yes . . . Alessandar is a fine ruler to us; things have never been better . . .” The priestess trailed off into hesitant uncertainty.

“And he has a fine, strong son to follow him? Or so I’m told.”

“Yes, yes, Ancar is strong enough . . . has there been much flooding in Valdemar? We’ve never seen the like of it this spring.”

Had there been uneasiness when the woman spoke Ancar’s name?

“Flooding, for fair. Crops and herds wiped out, rivers changing course even. Young Elspeth has been at the Queen to let her be about the countryside doing what she can—but of course that’s out of the question while she’s still in schooling. Once she’s older though, I’ve no doubt she’ll be the Queen’s own right hand. Surely Ancar has been seeing to things for his father?”

“No . . . no, not really. The . . . the factors take care of all that, you know. And . . . we really don’t want to be seeing Ancar . . . it isn’t fitting for someone in his station to be going among the common folk. He has his own Court—has since he came of age, you know. He has—other interests.”

“Ah,” Talia replied, and allowed the conversation to turn to another topic.

“Not very conclusive,” Kris mused. “But it’s looking odd.”

Talia nodded; they’d waited again until they were on the road before talking.

“I’ve gotten a similar sort of impression,” he began.

“As if things were reasonably well now, but that folk are not entirely sure of what the morrow might bring.”