“I won’t even begin to point out how my father would have responded to such an idea,” she continued, looking at all of them and making a point of staring each in the eyes until he either dropped his gaze or met hers with agreement. “It is so totally foreign to everything Valdemar has always stood for! I agree with Alberich; if anyone has crossed to our side of the Border, the likeliest thing is that they’ll try to get over to Rethwellan and be of no concern to us. If any stay, they will either settle and fit in, or not and break the law, and we can deal with them on that basis.”

“Well, Majesty—” Lord Orthallen began.

But he was interrupted.

“Dammit, I will see Her Majesty!” snapped a querulous, aged female voice that he knew and had not expected to hear. And a moment later, the owner of that voice, someone he knew—as well as he knew himself—

—pushed her way in past everyone.

He should know Herald Laika, though he’d last seen her just before she left to infiltrate the Tedrels in her guise of an old washerwoman. After all, he’d helped form half of the “memories” that now made her what she was.

:And given that fact, you shouldn’t be surprised that she’s as stubborn as a mule and as intractable as a goat,: Kantor put in, as she bullied her way right past the Lord Marshal, made a pretense at a courtly curtsy, then stood glaring at Selenay with her hands on her hips.

Selenay stared at her blankly and without recognition; well, she wouldn’t recognize Laika, though she might know the name, for as far as Alberich knew, neither she nor Caryo would have seen Laika before.

“Herald Laika, Majesty,” Alberich said carefully. “One of our four Herald-agents, behind Tedrel lines, she was. Within the camp; infiltrated, was she, as a washerwoman. And very valuable.”

“Damn right,” the old woman grunted. “And that’s why I’m here. I want to know what the hell you’re going to do about the children?”

Selenay blinked. “I beg your pardon, Herald Laika, but we do already have people—Healers and others—out trying to find the children whose parents were killed by the Tedrel cav—”

“Not those children!” Laika exclaimed. “Not the children of Valdemar! I’m talking about the Tedrel children! What are you going to do about the Tedrel children?”

18

18

“What Tedrel children?” Selenay asked, blankly.

Alberich was going to explain, but Laika saved him the effort. “This wasn’t just a mercenary company, this was a nation,” she said, with the irritation of a teacher whose student hasn’t studied her subject sufficiently. “Granted, they’d made a vow never to wed or have families until they had a land of their own again, but that sure as hellfires didn’t stop them from breeding.”