How were Shinsan’s wars coming? He had helped facilitate the conclusion of one and had been the loser in another. The Matayangan front must have turned favorable, too. Mist had time to visit.

She observed, “O Shing was a cripple.”

“As you say. Vigilance is required.”

The night visitors withdrew, to the prisoner’s frustration. He had hoped to hear something more heartening.

Despair led to self-flagellation. Then, finally, feigned sleep segued into the real thing.

Inger watched her captains bicker over a map. They were getting nowhere. She was too tired to scold them. Too tired to ask what new disasters had them bickering.

Ethnically, three were Nordmen from Kavelin’s old ruling class. Two were Wessons, freemen, descendants of long-ago immigrants from Itaskia. Inger was Itaskian-born, as was the sixth man, whom she had borrowed from her cousin Dane. Dane’s little army was wintering fifty miles west of Vorgreberg, too far away to provide quick support. Regions nearer the capital were less friendly. Dane’s men suffered virulent guerrilla attacks if they moved nearer to Vorgreberg. That forced them to cluster in stronger bands. Those became a strain on local resources, which, in turn, left the locals more sympathetic to the rebels.

Inger refused to let Dane move into the city. She said she did not want to cede the countryside. In truth she did not want her uncontrollable cousin in position to control Kavelin by controlling her.

He would try, given the chance.

Power was his reason for having come to Kavelin. Power was why she had wed Kavelin’s lonely king.

Inger sipped scalding tea.

She was a tall, handsome woman whose blond hair had begun to streak grey. Time was not the thief of her beauty. Stress, fear, and lack of sleep were the demons responsible.

The hot tea wakened her fully. “Silence! Thank you, gentlemen. Using the term loosely. Mr. Cleary, you talk. Everyone else stay quiet.”

Cleary was the senior Wesson, a stout, sturdy man of thirty-three who had served King Bragi faithfully and remained loyal now that Bragi had fallen. Inger trusted him. The Nordmen and Nathan Wolf, borrowed from Dane of Greyfells, she trusted not at all. In Wolf’s case it was no secret that he was here to watch her because Dane no longer had faith in Josiah Gales.

“Ma’am. Your Majesty. The contention arose because General Liakopulos has gone missing. No one knows where, when, or how. He was polling units out west to see where they stand, now. Our discussion concerned possible hows and whys of his disappearance.”

Inger’s heart sank. This was bad news indeed, though not a surprise. Liakopulos had had little interest in supporting her. He had been Bragi’s man. He considered her incapable of, or uninterested in, pursuing Bragi’s reforms. “What are the theories? Mr. Wolf?”

“He deserted. He didn’t want to be here anymore.”

“And the rest of you disagree?”