“A full dozen, all healthy,” Lesley said, not trying to keep the gloating out of his voice. “Reskin is going to be beside himself. His Nonesuch only had a litter of eight.” Kliff Reskin was Squire Lesley’s chief rival in the matter of pigs. Reskin had been injudicious enough to challenge Lesley’s supremacy in the matter of pigs in the Duchy, and had become Lesley’s mortal enemy from that day forward. It did not help that Reskin was not a farmer, but a pub owner and brewer, that he fed his sow on leftovers, scraps, and the spent barley from his brewing rather than following Lesley’s example of free-ranging his pigs or supplying them with good fodder like turnip-tops and cabbages that had a touch of worm. It was worse that Reskin was openly contemptuous of Lesley’s knowledge.

“Well, that’ll disappoint some bettors,” Kordas observed. “He was awfully sure Nonesuch would have a bigger litter than that.”

Lesley snorted. “As if he could tell!” the Squire scoffed, and as the Empress ambled over to the wall, looking for a scratch, he handed Kordas a stick. Kordas took it, and obliged the Empress and Lesley both by gently scratching her pink rump while Lesley did the more delicate work around her ears.

“Anything to report?” Kordas asked.

“If the weather’s aught to go by, and I reckon it is, the Emperor’s war in the west is a-heating up,” Lesley pronounced with authority. “Wizard weather’s going to make it chancy for hay, so I’d advise Hakkon to tell your men to cut early, cure quickly, and get ’er in as fast as they can. If you get a second and third crop that way, all the better. If you don’t, you’ll still have the early crop. It’ll be a good year for pigs and a chancy one for sheep, and keep your horses out of that field down by the canal that likes to flood unless you want to be treating hoof-rot half the summer.” He cocked an eye at Kordas. “Anything to report?”

“We’ve had some success on the Plan.”

If there was anyone outside of Hakkon that Kordas trusted without question in this entire Duchy, it was Squire Lesley. The same had been true of their fathers and grandfathers. And the Squire signaled his appreciation of this news with a low whistle.

“Welladay. I can have my second son, daughter-in-law, their brood, and half the herd ready to go with two days’ notice,” the Squire said. “The others will take some uprooting, but we’ve been hoping for this as long as you have.”

“That bad?” he asked in surprise. Had the Emperor’s people been harassing his without his knowledge?