“Please assure His Exalted Highness that Orledder Halt received no message to warn us of his arrival,” said the intendant. “Had we known, all would have been in readiness.”

The sheen of arrogance could not disguise a deeper intelligence in the prince’s gaze. He was not a stupid man, even if he didn’t seem to be able to hear anything he didn’t want to know. “Besides the messengers sent by road, I also sent a griffin scout to alert each stage of my coming. The scout delivered his message at Ilvewind Cross. Are you saying the scout did not land here?”

The intendant bowed. “No griffin scout landed here. Perhaps Orledder Halt was deemed too unimportant, Your Highness.”

The prince rubbed his forehead as if he was getting a headache. “I do not need a missing griffin scout on top of every other delay,” he muttered to himself. Yet he looked up decisively, a man of action who knows his commands will be obeyed immediately. “Very well. A bath and a meal. Afterward, we shall go on. We must depart in haste to reach our destination with the speed given to us by the grace of the High Heavens.”

The sooner gone, the better, Elen thought, careful to keep her expression bland.

The intendant carefully addressed the theurgist and her interlocutor’s staff. “Worthy Luviara, may I humbly ask His Highness what destination I may assist him to reach?”

The prince jumped in with the impatience of a person who cannot believe he is surrounded by so much incompetence. “Can you not read, Intendant? The messages we sent ahead clearly state we are bound for Far Boundary Vigil. In case you are not conversant with the map of the empire, this Vigil stands on the northern border of Woodfall Province at the edge of Far Boundary Pall.”

“Your Highness, my most abject apologies, but as I have already stated, this office received no messages of any kind, no griffin scout, no warning of your arrival. Furthermore, no traveling party can reach Far Boundary Vigil by this route.”

“Of course they can! This is the most direct and fastest route!”

“Normally it is, yes. Unfortunately, the imperial road north of here was blocked by an avalanche two years ago.”

The prince had a well-shaped mouth of the sort folk might swoon over were he an actor in a traveling troupe speaking words of love to a shy suitor. His sneer made his mouth ugly. “I was warned about this by my sister Prince Astaylin, Exalted General of the Corps of Imperial Engineers. She assured me messages had been sent and assurances received. If she’d heard the way was not clear, she would have told me. Who are you, Intendant, to say otherwise? Do you call a Prince of the Third Estate a liar?”