Her father chuckled. “Ah. The Wolf King. Here am I, unable to claim a title mine by right. Perhaps I should simply invent one to my liking.” He shook his head in voiceless amusement. “But I also taught you not to equivocate. Let’s have it.”

“It has come to my notice that Josiri Trelan is not the collaborator our spies believed. Indeed, he may be preparing an uprising of his own.”

“And the Wolf King would choose his favour over ours.”

“He says not.”

“Do you believe him?”

Melanna recalled Crovan’s manner as he spoke of Josiri Trelan. Not deference, not even real respect – just the echo of such. “I do, Father.”

He turned back to the map, eyes sweeping from Kreska, to Eskavord and thence out to the distant western coast. As it always did when difficult decisions threatened, his right hand touched the golden locket at his throat, as if communing with the spirit of the woman whose portrait lay within. But if her mother spoke from beyond the mists, Melanna didn’t hear her words.

“Warleader? I want reports on these roads . . .” His finger tapped the map three times to the north of Kreska, and once to the south. “. . . I want to know about fortifications, patrols. Whether they’ll take wagons, the strength of the bridges – the usual.”

Melanna could have told him all that but, wary of further disapproval, said nothing.

Her father pressed on. “And send three warbands of hunters north-east, towards Venka. They’re not to bloody their spears unless challenged, and the populace are to be left unmolested. They’re to make noise and draw the eye, nothing more.”

The lines on Devren’s face creased in concern. “My prince, you’re not proposing that we act upon a girl’s guesses?”

Melanna stiffened.

Her father lifted his head from the table and regarded Devren with unconcern. “No, that would be folly. I place our fate in the hands of my daughter, for whom girlhood is but a memory. I’m sure you see the difference.”

Devren swallowed and nodded. “Of course, savir.”

“Whichever banner the Wolf King howls beneath, the advantage is ours. If he fights with us, I shall embrace him as a subject, and reward his deeds. If he draws steel alongside the duke and joins his uprising, the Republic faces a war on two fronts. But we must be ready. So get me those reports.”

“As you command.” Devren bowed and withdrew.

“Father . . .”

An upraised hand cut her short. “Drannic? Leave us. I am quite safe from my daughter, and she from me.”

Drannic’s departing bow held greater respect than Devren’s. When he had gone, Melanna’s father gathered her up in a bruising embrace. At once, she was a child again: warm, safe – and stifled – in the presence of her sire.

“Six weeks,” he breathed. “Six weeks and not a night passed by when I did not pray for you.”