He changed horses at the first relay station, riding on through the night as Elis herself had, but with more awareness. If he had known the Pargunese thought women soldiers were all nothing more than whores for the men … if he had known the king would think an entry to Falk’s Hall was a disgrace and not an honor … what else could he have done?

They were insane, the Pargunese. They had strong women and destroyed them, just for the men’s pride … how was that honorable? He tried to imagine the king of Pargun and his grandmother talking … surely an elven lady could convince the man that strong women were not dishonorable. That imagined image dissolved as it came: the king of Pargun would believe he had been managed with elven magery, and he would never agree.

Another relay point—he chuckled as he remembered that he’d thought he wouldn’t need so many personal mounts. Through the night, he found himself thinking of one mistake after another he’d made since he became king. Most, he knew, were trivial, and he’d corrected them, but this—this one could plunge his realm into war.

At the third relay point, near dawn, he stopped to eat; his Squires looked less tired than he felt, but not as alert as usual. He had explained to them, while riding, what the king of Pargun thought. They’d been shocked, first angry and then thoughtful, as he was. Now, after the meal, he shook his head when one of them stood. “We will rest until the sun is two hands higher,” he said. He stretched out on the ground, feeling the healthy life beneath and around him, and fell asleep at once.

He woke before his Squires; the rangers at the relay station had more food ready, and he drank and ate before they were off again. Kieri thought about the taig, and what the Kuakgan had done the night of the battle. He had “roused the taig,” Paks said, and the Pargunese had been afraid to enter the trees.

Could he do something like that along the river and inland? Make the forest impassable so the Pargunese could not reach it to burn it? Or did they have engines of war able to throw stones—or fire—the distance across the river? They traded all the way to Aarenis—he had not realized that—and so their captains would have seen such engines.

Back in Chaya, he collected his Council at once, adding several of the elves not usually part of it. He outlined the situation.

“They think you sent her to a brothel? Falk’s Hall?”

“He has no conception of a woman choosing to be a soldier, and being one, other than coercion and rape,” Kieri said. “He knows I’ve commanded units with men and women both, which in their terms means the women are being exploited by the men.”

“That’s—obscene.”

“I agree. But he sees our behavior as obscene.”

“But—he sent the girl to you—”

“To kill me. That poisoned knife she gave me, you recall? It was meant for me, on our wedding night.”