Information trafficking was mostly going the other way now, and even those prices were deflated. He could almost feel sorry—almost—for the fellows whose sole stock in trade was in intelligence.

On the other hand, this made two of his personae very popular fellows with those selling information about Valdemar’s neighbors, since both those personae were still buying. Though for information about Karse, he was relying on Geri and the informal network that the Sunpriests who had escaped to or been born in Valdemar had built over the years.

As a consequence, he had known well in advance of today that one of the younger Princes of Rethwellan was arriving “secretly” with the intention of paying court to the Queen. He had told Talamir, and neither of them had seen any reason to spoil the surprise by informing Selenay. “Let her have a little romance,” Talamir had opined, and his opinion was seconded by Herald Kyril. “She is sensible enough to know that whatever courting or romantic attention he pays her is only an illusion, and that he is here purely for the purpose of making an advantageous alliance. She will bear in mind, I am sure, that he would pay her the same compliments if she was stooped and squint-eyed. This will amuse her, and she has had little enough pure amusement since the Ice Festival.”

Illusion or not, romance was not in Alberich’s area of expertise, nor were the doings of princes. He would leave that to Talamir, and had said as much. His personal opinion was that the arrival of this princeling was a damned good thing for Talamir. Between the discovery of the ciphered papers and the advent of the Rethwellan Prince, Talamir was looking more centered than he had since the Coronation.

Alberich had filed that observation away for further thought, but there was one conclusion to be made from it that was obvious—Talamir needed real things to do, too, things he could get his metaphorical teeth into, things that focused him on what was going on around him. Alberich made up his mind to find more such tasks.

Now, following that actor fellow—that was something he could do.

Though once the weather turned and spring was well and truly in bloom, he began to wonder where the man got his energy, and whether he could manage to follow him without dropping over.

It wasn’t only that Norris was performing every evening with the full company at the inn and rehearsing new productions every afternoon—

That is, when he wasn’t performing with a reduced company at special private performances of an afternoon—