“Damn that goatsfoot! If we could just have some idea how deeply this goes—if it’s more than just the usual worries about ‘better the straw king than the lion king’ —gods, we need your Gift!”

“It’s still not reliable,” she told him regretfully.

“Well, we just have to muddle along on our own.” He sighed. “This is exactly the kind of reason we’ve been sent on ahead, and we have to have clearer information than we’ve got. Selenay can’t act on anything this vague.”

“I know,” she said, biting her lip. “I know.”

That night Talia tackled an elderly clerk. When she brought up the topic of the King, he was voluble in his praise of Alessandar.

“Look at these hostels—wonderful idea, wonderful! I remember when I was just a lad, my first post as taxcollector—Lord Sun, the inns I had to stay in, verminous, filthy, and costing so high you wondered why they didn’t just put a knife to your throat and have done with it! And he’s cleaned out most of the brigands and robbers, him and his Army; Karse daren’t even think about invading anymore. Oh, aye, he’s a great King—but he’s old . . .”

“Surely Ancar—”

“Well, that’s as may be. The Prince is a one for protocol and position; he doesn’t seem to be as open-handed as his sire. And there’s the rumors. . . .”

“Oh?”

“Oh, you know, young m’lady—there’s always rumors.”

Indeed there were rumors; and now Kris actually suspected listeners, so he signaled Talia to wait to talk until they were on an open stretch of road the next day, with no one else near.

She told him what she’d gotten, and what she’d guessed.

“So Ancar has his own little Court, hm?” Kris mused. “And his own circle of followers and hangers-on. I can’t say as I like the sound of that. Even if the Prince is innocent and fair-minded, there’s likely to be those that would use him in a situation like that.”

“He doesn’t sound innocent or fair-minded from the little I’ve pried out of anyone,” Talia replied. “Granted in fairness—he may just be a naturally cold and hard man. Goddess knows he’s seen enough warfare at his age to have turned him hard.”

“Oh? This is news to me—say on.”

“At fourteen he participated in a series of campaigns that wiped out every trace of the Northern barbarians along their North Border. That set of campaigns lasted almost two years. At seventeen he led the Army against the last raid Karse ever dared make on them—and again, the raiders were utterly wiped out. At twenty he personally mounted a campaign against highwaymen, with the result that nearly every tree from here to the capital was bearing gallows’ fruit that summer.”

“Sounds like he should be regarded as a hero.”