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were skills a nobleman had to master. She handed him four envelopes with the Crown seal.
    “You’re to take these messages to the commanders at each; they’re just signal and scout detachments. Take any reply — written or verbal, they won’t be urgent or they would have used their heliographs.”
    “Your Majesty?”
    That was Tiphaine d’Ath, in her cool inflectionless voice. “Sending him alone is
almost
completely safe. Remember what we have Ogier nosing around up that way for.”
    The High Queen smiled, her strong, slightly irregular face lighting for a second. She was in her mid-twenties, a decade and a half younger than d’Ath, but tired enough by the labors of the last few days that you could see what she’d look like in middle-age when the freshness of youth was gone. Indomitable, like weathered rock.
    “Good point, my lady Grand Constable,” she said with a nod. “Which is not the same as
absolutely completely
safe.”
    D’Ath raised her voice in turn: “Lioncel!”
    The blond youngster seemed to appear magically. “My lady?”
    “Her Majesty’s squire is carrying dispatches to the posts north of the city. Accompany him, under his orders. Both of you keep a sharp lookout. If you see any sign of enemy activity, get out immediately and report it to Castle Goldendale. It’s not likely, but the unlikely happens sometimes.”
    “Yes, my lady!”
    Huon inclined his head. “When and where shall we rejoin, Your Majesty?”
    Mathilda looked at her watch.
    “Nine fifteen. We’re moving out to Castle Maryhill down on the Columbiain a couple of hours, once we get this cleared up. Rejoin there by no later than sundown, we’ll be moving east at dawn.”
    “And you have a new sister,” d’Ath said to Lioncel, handing over a parcel and a sealed note on lavender-colored paper. “Her name is Yolande. Your lady mother sent this for you with the courier.”
    “Thank you, my lady! That’s wonderful news!”
    Huon suppressed a pang of envy;
his
mother probably wouldn’t have sent the parcel. Even before she turned strange. Certainly not just before or after an accouchement.
    So much for unnatural mothers,
he thought a little sourly, seeing Lioncel’s unaffected delight.
    Both the squires bent their knee and turned about smartly. Both were smiling as they left; a day spent dashing about was a
lot
more exciting than standing and watching the grass grow. And they had all day to do it in, plenty of time. He suspected it was partly a test of his land-navigation skills, too; he hadn’t been given a map.
    “Congratulations,” Huon said. “Sisters can be fun; Yseult and I get along really well.”
    “Thanks, but she’s older than you, isn’t she?”
    “Two years,” Huon said. “It was Odard, then Yseult, then me. Then my father was killed in the Protector’s War, so I was the last, that’s why it’s such a small family.”
    “You’re the youngest, but I’m the oldest in ours. Little Heuradys is still toddling and drooling, and when they’re babies they’re about as interesting as a lump of dough and not nearly as cute as puppies. Plus a puppy doesn’t take years to housebreak, as Lady d’Ath says. I’m happy for my lady my mother, though; she always wanted two sons and two daughters. A matched set, she called it.”
    “Don’t worry now, they’ll both be old enough for you to be worrying about their suitors in no time!”
    They unhitched their fast coursers from the picket line, vaulted into the saddle and cantered off northward, turning west along a rutted lane bordered with London plane trees to avoid the city wall, riding off ontothe verge now and then to dodge the odd cart or wagon and once sweeping off their hats and bowing in the saddle as a lady went by on her palfrey, with maids and guards in attendance. She nodded back at them and smiled regally, teeth white against her brown face.
    Lioncel had stuffed the package in a saddlebag after sniffing hopefully at it.
    “My lady my mother is