“Do you want me to parade the cohort here, my lord—Sir King?” Dorrin asked.

“I think not,” Kieri said. “I need to begin learning my way around; I’ll visit them where they’re quartered. Paks, I doubt I’ll have time to check on my mount today—would you see that he’s exercised a little? Tell whoever’s in charge of the stables that he should be walked in hand for perhaps a glass, but nothing fast. He’s in a strange stable and he can be fretful.”

“Of course, Sir King,” Paks said. “I can lead him from mine, if you like; I was going out.”

“He doesn’t usually—” Kieri began, then chuckled. Any horse would follow Paks’s paladin mount, he was sure. “Yes, if you have the time, that would be perfect. Let him get used to the place.” He turned to Dorrin. “A few minutes for the jacks and we’ll be off.”

The King’s Squires went before and behind as he and Dorrin walked briskly across the palace forecourt toward the great gates. The air was chill and damp, but not cold; he thought it felt like a light frost the night before, but nothing to harm the early spring that had followed him from the border.

Kieri looked around, trying to discern more of the layout than he had in the brief glimpses he’d had the afternoon and evening before. His childhood memories of the place did not help: then, all the walls had seemed the same height, and the child’s interest had been on knee-high things. It looked smaller now—but he had been smaller. Was it as big as the palace in Tsaia? He thought not, but he hadn’t seen all of it yet.

Outside the gates, they turned left. A broad cobbled street, a few muddy lumps of snow still piled along the margins, lay between them and a stretch of winter-tan grass just showing a little green between ranked trees far taller than the palace. It stretched away in the distance. “What’s that?” he asked.

“The Royal Ride,” one of the Squires answered. “It leads to the Royal Forest, if you like to hunt.”

If he liked to hunt? Kieri felt a grin stretch his face. His steading had no real forest, being far north of the Honnorgat, only patches of woods his tenants needed for wood and nuts and rooting for their hogs. He had hunted a few times with Marrakai, who had extensive forests, and once with the crown prince in Tsaia’s Royal Reserve. He looked at the long stretch of turf, imagined riding there, galloping flat-out … but he had work to do first.

“Most of the meat on the palace tables is game,” another Squire said. “The Royal Huntsman provides it as needed. Venison, wild boar, and small game.”

His mouth watered. He ignored it; he had just had breakfast. But the thought kept coming back. He had a forest … a palace and a forest. A forest full of game.

“I do not know your names,” Kieri said. “I met only those who came to Tsaia with Paks. How many King’s Squires are there?”