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of the hand toward the Runner who’d rejoined them that morning. On the nod of acknowledgment from the Guard captain, he continued. “We counted a dozen, all well-mounted, just over the Faral-Thad frontier. If they ride true to form there are at least treble that number hidden in the hills.”
    The Guard captain said, “Yesterday I dispatched half a wing to investigate. They have not yet returned to report.”
    Vranid saluted again.
    “Captains,” the Montredavan-An leader said. “We will patrol and watch for these brigands. But first I feel obliged to offer this truth: the Jarlan, herself granddaughter to Tdanar-Gunvaer, would take it amiss if a party from Algara-Vayir, from her kin-sister, in finding itself so near our border, did not pass through Montredavan-An lands for a single night.”
    The Guard captain considered. Treaty forbade any war parties entering Montredavan-An land. But this was no war party, it was an escort to a boy summoned by the king’s brother.
    He looked at the leaders. The Montredavan-An captain studied the horizon; the other frowned between his horse’s ears as though something of import lay there. They awaited his decision, without plea, argument, or persuasion. There was no suggestion of conspiracy here. More to the point, there seemed little to conspire about in a second son being conveyed on order from the royal city. And there was that reminder that the Montredavan-An Jarlan was related to the king and the Shield Arm through old Queen Tdanar. Occasionally parties were allowed in—and of course the border was crossed all the time by women’s Runners as they wrote letters back and forth, like women everywhere. The captain himself had to spend many weary evenings dutifully reading long letters about home affairs that the women always seemed to be writing: letters about children, horses, dogs, crops, even gardens, punctuated with all kinds of historical references, as the girls always seemed to get more training that way. Never about kingdom affairs, at least. He wondered what he’d do—that is, how he’d feel—if he ever did have to confiscate a letter, then arrest one of the tired, patient female Runners—
    —and shook his head. That was irrelevant right now.
    So. His decision? In his experience, men would hide their true thoughts, but boys did not. Therefore the Algara-Vayir boy’s reaction would decide the matter.
    He turned his attention to Inda, looking for either a smirk or anxiety, and saw only faint question and mostly boredom.
    Inda stared back, idly wondering what the granddaughter of so fierce a Marlovan queen would be like to meet. He knew that his mother had been intended to marry the Jarl of Montredavan-An, but was sent instead to his father through a complicated treaty, and the king’s cousin brought here to marry the Jarl. He was curious to see where his mother had grown up.
    The Guard captain finally sat back, and his mount shifted beneath him. Even she was bored. “Bad weather on the west. It would seem ill, I believe, to deny the Jarlan’s hospitality for a soggy camp bed.” He smiled faintly, saw no response in either the Montredavan-An or Algara-Vayir parties beyond polite acquiescence, and so he raised his fist and his men trotted past, around a green hillock, and out of sight.
    The Montredavan-An captain handed off the patrol to his next in command, taking three men with him as the Algara-Vayirs reassembled into columns. At their head, the captains rode side by side north toward Darchelde. Vranid said, “It was far too easy to lure those brigands after us.”
    The other nodded. “There will be trouble. But it will happen in your lands, not here. You must have been sent so far west by the Iofre for a purpose, then?”
    “Yes. She wanted to make certain the Jarlan found out about this new arrangement with the second sons.” They paused, both reflecting on how difficult it was to get communication across the Montredavan-An borderland. Vranid glanced back