His History tutor was yet another Herald, a little bird of a man called Elcarth, who had probably read more books in the past year than Alberich and any two other Karsite officers combined had seen in their lives. He did have a knack with history, though, being able to get at the story behind the history—and breezing right past the things that didn’t have a lot of relevance to what was going on in the world at the moment. He’d concentrated on the Founding of Valdemar in regard to Baron Valdemar’s issues with the Great Empire and his decision to flee with his people, then skipped over all the years between settling and the coming of the Companions with a dismissive “hardship, suffering, sacrifice, the usual sort of tales of our heroic ancestors that you’d expect to see, and you can read about it all later.” Then, stopped on the tale of how Valdemar had prayed to all gods for help in ensuring that his Kingdom was well led after his death. The answer had taken the form of the Companions… which had given Alberich a double shock, for Elcarth had unearthed a dusty account of the event, too tattered and ancient to have been created just for Alberich’s benefit. If it didn’t date all the way back to King Valdemar, it was old enough to have been copied directly from a document of that time. And in that account was the supposed litany of all of the gods that Valdemar had prayed to. One of them had been Vkandis Sunlord…

Which implied that either Valdemar had been familiar with Alberich’s God, or the author of the account had been. Now, in either case, the further implication was that Vkandis would be favorably inclined to Valdemar and her King. Oh, there were a lot more implications than just that one, but that single suggestion was enough to undermine everything he had thought of as “history.”