He stopped and looked at Ingolf Vogeler. “I don’t know Rudi Mackenzie,” he said. “Or Artos the High King. But I do know you, a little, Lord Vogeler. We’ve fought together side by side, and I’ve seen you at work with your own troops. And I flatter myself that though I’m young yet, I’m a fair judge of men. So tell me about Artos. Tell me if he’s a King worth risking all this”—he moved his arm about—“for. Is he a man who loves his vassals’ honor as much as his own? Is he worthy of true fealty, that I can ask my followers to lay down their lives and risk their homes for him?”

Ingolf stood rooted to the spot. Hell, how do I answer that? he thought desperately. OK, I know Rudi pretty damned good. We were together through two really stressful years and a lot of . . . wait a minute.

“Lord Maugis,” he said. “I could tell you what I think of Rudi . . . the High King . . . but that would just be words. My opinion at most. Let me tell you what I’ve seen him do, these last two years and more, since I rode into Sutterdown with the Prophet’s men on my tracks. Words are cheap, but a man is what he does.”

When Ingolf finished, he found his throat unexpectedly dry. And the sun was much lower, low enough to make him blink in surprise. They were sitting on a stone horse-trough with a spigot above it. He turned it on, and drank a double handful of the cold mineral-tasting water, shaking out his hands afterwards. The air sucked the moisture out of his beard in moments, but it was a little cooler now.

Lord Maugis stood looking westward for a long moment, his left hand on his sword-hilt. When he turned he bowed.

“My lord de Stafford said that all the barons of the County Palatine were summoned to a conference in Walla Walla by the Count, to consider our strategy in this war. If we could be spared from our domains. I think that I can be, now.”

A bell began ringing; the big one in the church, going a slow deep: bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . a dozen times.

“And it is time to return to the square,” he said.