DeWar checked the street and then they crossed it, carefully avoiding the small piles of animal dung. A warm wind blew up between the buildings, lifting whirls of straw from the cobblestones. Perrund held DeWar’s arm with her good hand, her forearm laid lightly on his. In DeWar’s other hand he held a cane basket she had asked him to carry for her when they’d left the palace. “Obviously I am not fit to be let out by myself,” she told him. “I have spent far too long in rooms and courtyards, and on terraces and lawns. Everywhere, in fact, where there is no traffic any larger or more threatening than a eunuch with an urgently needed tray of scented waters.”
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” DeWar asked, glancing at her.
“No, but if you had I think I might still count it better than being mangled beneath the iron wheels of a piece of siege artillery proceeding at a charge. Where do you think they are going in such a hurry?”
“Well, they won’t go anywhere very far at that rate. The mounts already looked half exhausted and that was before they’d left the city. I imagine that was a show for the locals. But they will be heading for Ladenscion eventually, I imagine.”
“Is the war begun, then?”
“What war, my lady?”
“The war against the troublesome barons of Ladenscion, DeWar. I am not an idiot.”
DeWar sighed and looked around, checking that nobody in the street was paying them too close attention. “It is not officially begun yet,” he said, putting his lips close to the hood of her cloak — she turned towards him and he smelled her perfume, sweet and musky — “but I think one might safely say it is inevitable.”
“How far away is Ladenscion?” she asked. They ducked under displays of fruit hanging outside a grocer’s.
“About twenty days’ ride to the border hills.”
“Will the Protector have to go himself?”
“I really couldn’t say.”
“DeWar,” she said softly, with what sounded like disappointment.
He sighed and looked around again. “I shouldn’t think so,” he said. “He has much to do here, and there are more than enough generals for the job. It… it shouldn’t take too long.”
“You sound unconvinced.”
“Do I?” They stopped at a side street to let a small herd of hauls pass, heading for the auction grounds. “I seem to be in a minority of one in thinking the war… suspicious.”
“Suspicious?” Perrund sounded amused.
“The barons’ complaints and their stubbornness, their refusal to negotiate, seem disproportionate.”
“You think they’re inviting war for its own sake?”
“Yes. Well, not just for its own sake. Only a madman would do that. But for some further reason than the desire to assert their independence from Tassasen.”
“But what else could their motive be?”
“It is not their motive that troubles me.”
“Then whose?”
“Someone behind them.”
“They are being encouraged to make war?”
“It feels so to me, but I am just a bodyguard. The Protector is cloistered with his generals now and believes he needs neither my presence nor my opinion.”
“And I am grateful for your company. But I had formed the impression the Protector valued your counsel.”
“It is most valued when it most closely accords with his own view.”
“DeWar, you are not jealous, are you?” She stopped and turned to him. He looked into her face, shaded and half hidden by the hood of the cloak and the thin veil. Her skin seemed to glow in that darkness like a hoard of gold at the back of a cave.
“Maybe I am,” he admitted, with a bashful grin. “Or perhaps I am once again exercising my duties in areas which are inappropriate.”
“As in our game.”
“As in our game.”
They turned together and walked on. She took his arm again. “Well then, who do you think might be behind the vexatious barons?”
“Kizitz, Breistler, Velfasse. Any one or combination of our three claimant Emperors. Kizitz will make mischief wherever he can. Breistler has a claim to part of Ladenscion itself and might seek to offer his forces as compromise occupants to keep the barons’ and our armies apart. Velfasse has his eye on our eastern provinces. Drawing our forces to the west might be a feint. Faross would like the Thrown Isles back, and may have a similar strategy. Then there’s Haspidus.”
“Haspidus?” she said. “I thought King Quience supported UrLeyn.”
“It may suit him to be seen to support UrLeyn for now. But Haspidus lies behind — beyond — Ladenscion. It would be easier for Quience to provide the barons with materiel than anybody else.”
“And you think Quience opposes the Protector out of Regal principle? Because UrLeyn dared to kill a king?”
“Quience knew the old king. He and Beddun were as close to being friends as two kings can be, so there might be something of the personal in his animosity. But even without that, Quience is no fool, and he has no pressing problems to occupy him at the moment. He has the luxury of time to think long, and the brains to know that UrLeyn’s example cannot go unopposed for ever if he wishes to pass on the crown to his heirs.”
“But Quience has no children yet, does he?”
“None that are regarded as mattering, and he has yet to decide who to marry, but even if he was concerned only for his own reign, he might still want to see the Protectorate fail.”
“Dear me. I had no idea we were quite so surrounded by enemies.”
“I’m afraid we are, my lady.”
“Ah. Here we are.”
The old stone-built building across the crowded street from them was the paupers’ hospital. It was here Perrund had wanted to come with her basket of foods and medicines. “My old home,” she said, staring over the heads of the people. A small troop of colourfully dressed soldiers appeared round a corner and came marching down the street, attended by a boy drummer at their head, tearful women to each side and capering children behind. Everybody turned to look except Perrund. Her gaze remained fixed on the worn, stained stones of the old hospital across the street.
DeWar looked this way and that. “Have you been back since?” he asked.
“No. But I have kept in touch. I have sent them some little things in the past. I thought it would be amusing to deliver them myself this time. Oh. What are those?” The troop of soldiers was passing in front of them. The soldiers wore bright red and yellow uniforms and polished metal hats. Each carried a long wood-mounted metal tube slung slanted across their shoulders and waving in the air above their gleaming helmets.
“Musketeers, my lady,” DeWar told her. “And that is Duke Simalg’s banner at their head.”
“Ah. These are the musket guns. I have heard about them.”
DeWar watched the troop pass with a troubled, distracted look. “UrLeyn won’t have them in the palace,” he said eventually. “They can be useful on the battlefield.”
The sound of the beating drum faded. The street filled again with its ordinary commerce. A gap opened in the traffic of carts and carriages between them and the hospital, and DeWar thought they would take advantage of it, but Perrund lingered on the pavement, her hand clutching at his forearm while she stared at the ornate and time-stained stonework of the ancient building.
DeWar cleared his throat. “Will there be anybody there from when you were?”
“The present matron was a nurse when I was here. It’s her I’ve corresponded with.” Still she did not move.
“Were you here long?”
“Only ten days or so. It was only five years ago, but it seems much longer.” She kept staring at the building.
DeWar was not sure what to say. “It must have been a difficult time.”