“Cal, I’m keeping your father away from his work; forgive me. Aliam—go on. I’ll be there shortly.”

By the time the sun was at noon, the Lady and other elves had cleared much of the tumbled stone away, setting the unbroken stones in neat rows, while the humans salvaged smaller, lighter items strewn across the meadow. Kieri, forbidden to work magic, picked up whatever he could find.

“Another bridle,” Cal said. “I wish we’d find the rolls of strapping.”

“I wish we’d find a whole saddle,” Aliam said. “My backside’s too old to ride bareback on that ridgepole backbone our horses have.”

“You should buy Marrakai blood,” Kieri said. It was an old argument. “They’re double-backed and easy to sit on.”

“And expensive,” Aliam said. “Cheaper to buy new saddles. Gods above, what this is going to cost!”

“You’ll have to take the Company south again, Father,” Cal said.

“I might let you take it,” Aliam said. “There’ll be enough work here to keep me busy.”

Cal glanced at him and went back to turning over rubble. “You feel up to it?”

“King’s touch, Cal. I’m healed. And Kieri has no one in Lyonya who knows war the way I do. He should have someone here to depend on. Though he hasn’t said yes yet.” He looked at Kieri.

Kieri mopped the sweat off his brow. “If war comes, you are the commander I’d want in the field, Aliam. But I’m hoping it doesn’t come. And it might be good for you to go back to Aarenis, recover—”

“I’m recovered enough to think clearly, Kieri. Look it in the face. Is the king of Pargun happy that his daughter did not return and is not your wife? Or the king of Kostandan?”

“It’s not my job to send wild girls back to fathers who treated them badly.”

Aliam put down the iron bar he’d been using to shift rocks. “Just what did their fathers do, but send them to the best man I know?”

“They didn’t know that. Elis at least had sisters who wanted to come. I wouldn’t have married them, either, but at least I would have felt better sending them home.”

“What did you do with them?”

“Sent them to the Knights of Falk. Where Elis really belongs, I think, is with a Kuakgan. She reminds me a lot of Kolya Ministierra.”

Aliam snorted. “The Lady would like that—I think not.”

“Not like what?” the Lady asked, appearing beside them. “Your pardon, Sir King, but Estil asks for Aliam. She thinks they’ve found the token of the Halveric founder.”

“The wardskull!” Aliam said, eyes alight.

“A head-bone, yes,” the Lady said, with obvious distaste. Before Kieri could say anything, she spread her hands. “It is a human thing, I know, but it is alien to me. Kieri, grandson, let Aliam go and tell me what you were speaking of.”

“He asked about the Pargunese and Kostandanyan princesses,” Kieri said. “I did not want to marry them—”

“Wise,” she said. “Neither one is right for you. And you sent them away, did you not?”