Camwyn found himself paired with a Royal Guard officer for the rest of the morning, watching as the man made list after list of what must be carried along with them, handing each to Camwyn. Camwyn asked questions at first, but clearly the officer—who preferred to be addressed as Captain Rassen though he wore the Bells on his collar and must be a knight—thought princes should listen and not interrupt. He was left to figure out for himself why Captain Rassen inspected a stack of wagon wheels and rejected two and then demanded three to replace them. Why the rations carried for the horses and mules included much less hay than he’d expected. Why it mattered which wagon was where in the supply train.

He brought his conclusions to Mikeli at lunch, where he found Aris serving the table for them both, looking a little wary as he did so. “You’re mostly right, Cam,” the king said. Then, to Aris, “Thank you, Aris; you may eat now. Sit there.” And back to Camwyn. “This afternoon, I want you and Aris to go to the library and see that the maps are ready, correctly labeled, and that the carrying tubes are long enough for them. If any of the buckles or straps are worn, make a note and let one of the servants take it to the saddler for repair. I have a list of the maps I’ll need—I had them copied onto smaller sheets.”

By the time they set out two days later, Camwyn felt stuffed with new knowledge. His hands had not lit up again, and Aris had not asked any more questions, as they had not been alone long enough to discuss anything serious.

To his delight, his own clothes for the journey included the mail Mikeli had worn some years before—not a perfect fit, but—as Mikeli said—it was no use changing the fit while he was growing so fast. By midday, however, he felt much less gleeful about wearing real mail. It was both heavy and hot, and as the morning heated up, he wished he’d followed Mikeli’s advice to wear it around camp in the evenings for a while.

He told himself to ignore it, and that proved easier than he’d thought as they neared the edge of Mahieran lands and ventured into unknown—for Mikeli at least—territory. Ordinary-looking fields and orchards and pastures and patches of woodland … but ones he’d paid little attention to, riding in a carriage with Lady Verrakai and Egan, then his new best friend on that long-ago trip to Verrakai. Now, riding his own horse, he tried to notice everything. On their left the Honnorgat rolled on, sometimes near enough to see long-necked wading birds prowling the shallows fishing, sometimes screened by a field, a hedge, a fringe of trees. On their right, the land rose to distant hills, clearly arranged in some kind of pattern.