“See that you keep it that way.”

About a week later Talia was on her way from the Audience Chamber to her own room to change for arms practice, and her mood was a somber one. The audiences were no longer dull, and that was unfortunate. More and more often those seeking audience with the Queen were from Gyrefalcon’s Marches reporting the depredations of what was obviously a small army of bandits. It was the wild and rocky character of the countryside that had let them organize without anyone realizing it; that same wild countryside enabled them to vanish before the Guard could pin them down.

Orthallen was using the existence of these bandits as a political tool—a tactic that disgusted Talia, considering the suffering that they were causing, not to mention that they were preying on some of the lands supposedly in his jurisdiction.

She had just endured one such session.

There were six Heralds out there now—along with the Guard company Selenay had sent. The Heralds were organizing the common folk to their own defense, since the Guard could not be everywhere at once. One of those Heralds, Herald Patris, sent a messenger that had only arrived today.

“ ‘They seem to know exactly where the Guard is at all times,’ Patris had written. ‘They strike, and are away before we can do anything. They know these hills of stone and the caves that honeycomb them better than we guessed; I suspect them of traveling a great deal underground, which would certainly answer the question of how they move about without being spotted. At this point, we are beyond saving the livestock or the harvest; Majesty, I must be frank with you. It will be all we can do just to save the lives of these people. And I must tell you worse yet—having stripped them of all possessions, the bastards have taken to carrying off the only thing these folk have left. Their children.’ ”

“Great Goddess!” Lady Wyrist had exclaimed.

“I’m on it, Majesty,” Lady Cathan had said grimly at almost the same moment. “They won’t get children out past my Guildsmen—not after that slaver scandal—with your permission?”

Selenay. had nodded distractedly, and Lady Cathan sprinted from the room in a swirl of colorful brocades.

“Majesty,” Orthallen said then, “It is as I have been saying. We need a larger standing army—and we need more autonomy in local hands. If I had been given two or three companies of the Guard and the power to order them, this emergency would never have become the disaster it is!”