Adlin had the white hair of an elder but he was as spry and excitable as a youth. He grinned. “The archon is eager to let his cousin know an exalted highness is coming, so she won’t be taken by surprise as he was! Why did the intendant not send us a message?”

“It all happened suddenly. I hear a palace runner came through yesterday. You know anything about that?”

Adlin shook his head. “Wasn’t on duty. I just heard the fellow was close-mouthed and proud, a real heartlander, if you take my meaning. Wore the yellow of a palace runner, so there you go.”

“What is an exalted highness like to travel with?” asked Ferso in a low voice, no doubt worried that such a question was forbidden, but too curious not to ask.

She wanted to say, He walks the same way the rest of us do, one stride at a time propelled by his very muscular buttocks, but knew better. “He is a trained warrior. I thought an exalted prince might be unable to keep up with the hardship of a brisk journey, but he is a warden, of course.”

“Yes, wardens are said to be as tough as nails, fighting Spore and brigands and traitors like they do,” said Ferso in his serious way.

Adlin grinned. “I always fancied being a warden, but the likes of me is too lowly to be admitted to their ranks. Say, I got a close look last night at the kit of one of the wardens. Do you know what kind of horn they use on the belly of their bows? It was dark in the archon’s hall by then, and I could swear it was gleaming, like it was magic.”

“I don’t know. We walked all day at a fast pace in order to reach here by nightfall. To be honest, palace wardens don’t have much to say to a provincial deputy courier like me. I didn’t get a good look at their equipment. But they do carry shrive-steel swords.”

They whistled, impressed. One of the reasons they liked Elen was that she treated the upland people as no different from herself. Many people from the prosperous lowlands felt obliged to condescend to those who lived upland. She’d seen it herself: merchants trying to cheat them because they thought uplanders were stupid; guards trying to finagle a sexual encounter with a lad or lass by offering a coin, not understanding that sex wasn’t commerce in these parts, it was either part of an alliance contracted between families or a night’s passing pleasure that was no one’s business once the sun rose.

Ferso looked around. They all heard the buzz of sound coming from the archon’s compound. “Why’s an exalted highness up here, anyway? My granny says no prince has ever walked the Moonrise Hills, and she knows everything.”