asked Graham, Murdan’s Captain of the Overhall Guards.
The old soldier thought all great houses should have thick stone walls and tall watchtowers and deep moats, all the crenellated defensives of his beloved Overhall.
“No walls, except for flowers to climb upon!” said Tom positively.
“What use? The only way for an enemy to reach us will be either up the canyon, where ten men could hold off an army of a thousand...or drop straight down almost a thousand feet from the rim. Manda thought of putting up towers, as towers are elegant, but Retruance and I talked her out of it.”
“Towers,” admitted his Princess, “would look not just strange but downright silly in our canyon, I suppose. The tallest would reach no more than a third the way to the rim.”
“You’re right, of course,” admitted Graham, giving up.
He piled thinly sliced red roast beef slices on a slab of dark, seeded rye bread and slathered the whole with a generous dollop of hot brown mustard. “Still...”
“Have you heard anything from Retruance and Furbetrance?” Tom asked, turning to face the Historian. “They’ve been gone for almost four months now.”
“How well I know it!” sighed Murdan. “I’d never admit it to your good Dragon Mount, but I miss Retruance and his brother almost as much as I’ve missed their father. A Companion without a Dragon is only part a whole elf, as the saying goes.”
“Oh? I never heard that one,” Manda said, laughing. She was doing her best to surround a steaming meat pasty filled with tomatoes, onions, and hot peppers.
“Ho? I can’t imagine why not,” said the Historian with an innocent smile. “I made it up myself, not long ago.”
“Say, thirty seconds ago?” Manda teased.
Murdan wrinkled his nose at the Princess but said to Tom, “No, no word as yet. Not that I expected any this soon. I did hear from Hetabelle, however. She said that the boys headed south into Isthmusi.”
“Well, they’ve tried every other direction,” said Tom. “They’ll have fine tales to tell when they do return.”
Once at Overhall it was easy to fall into the familiar routine of the Historian’s castle. Tom spent his mornings supervising his own staff, gathered to arrange and care for Murdan’s vast personal library, his official papers, and the seemingly endless and entirely muddled papers of the late architect-Dragon Altruance, the builder of Overhall Castle.
“There are some files missing, sir,” said his chief assistant, a bright lad from Sprend, a village a half day’s walk toward Ffallmar Farm and Lakehead. ‘They appear to deal with tunnels and passages that aren’t there, whatever that means.”
“Make a note to ask Retruance about them,” answered the Librarian. “I’ve long suspected that good old Altruance built some secrets into these walls. His grandson may have some ideas where the notes got off to.”
Manda, as a Princess and a member of the Royal Family of Carolna, mistress of a number of important and valuable properties, threw herself into their administrative details and related social matters.
She was assisted by her own staff of butlers, majordomos, and factors, but mostly by a dour middle-aged woman named Mistress Plume.
“Have you ever heard any more from Plume?” Manda asked the woman.
“No, thank goodness!” the fugitive’s wife said with some heat. “Nor do I ever wish to.”
“I think you’re right, I must admit,” the Princess said with a sigh.
Mistress Plume’s acid and arid little husband had proved a spy and a traitor within Overhall in the pay of Lord Peter of Gantrell, Manda’s wicked and ambitious uncle. He’d disappeared into the far Northland of the Relling nomads, following Lord Peter into exile four years before.
Mistress Plume was neither glum nor acid, and Manda was very fond of her. The secretary now took a fat sheaf of papers and began to sort through them, telling Manda of their subjects as she riffled.
“You’ve been asked to sponsor the Fall Sessions Ball,” she noted.
“Did I tell you that?”
“No, but I knew Father was going to ask. When I was Princess Royal all I had to do was go to the ball. Now that I’m just an ordinary married Princess, I have to work at it.”
But she loved such doings and came to her bed each night still elated and happy with her daily tasks.
Murdan was already preparing to go to Fall Sessions, still two months off, and that called for a series of social events at Overhall as he gathered his delegates, wined and dined Small Achievement neighbors, and planned petitions and political strategems.
He had, at last, hired a new secretary of his own—a young, rather serious and scholarly young man named Flaretty—and spent long hours closeted with him in his Foretower office dictating letters and drawing up memoranda by the ream.
But in all this confusion of preparation there was time and op-portunity to ride off to a shucking bee or a harvest fair at this or that nearby Achievement or tenant holding. The Lord of Overhall was expected to make an appearance at each gala affair marking the end of another good growing and harvesting season.
The three of them, accompanied by Flaretty, rode down to Ffallmar Farm to escort Murdan’s daughter and her lively three children back to Ffallmar, Rosemary’s farmer husband, a prosperous, honest and thoroughly delightful man.
As they neared the Ffallmar Farm gate, they were met by Ffallmar himself, bluff, ruddy, and solid, accompanied by three officers of the Royal Courier Service in their orange-and-brown uniforms and tall plumed hats.
It was said their uniforms had been designed by the King himself, in colors and plumes that made a Royal Courier easy to spot, even at a great distance.
“Hello and most welcome home!” shouted Ffallmar as they approached the gate. “Most welcome home, sweetest wife! Obedient and loving offspring!”
Rosemary leaned out of her saddle—she rode astride, not in the new-fashioned sidesaddle manner that ladies of fashion were recommending to accommodate the season’s longer, tighter skirts—and gave her man a fierce hug and a long kiss, although they’d not been apart for more than a month.
“Manda, my beloved!” cried Ffallmar. “And good old Tom Librarian! So glad you’re back from the far wilderness. Wonderful to see you, Murdan, my liege!”
“We’ve been eagerly looking forward to seeing you, your farm, and Rosemary’s home-cooked meals,” laughed Tom, shaking the farmer warmly by the hand.
Murdan and Ffallmar slapped shoulders, Manda gave the farmer a kiss and a hug, but they were distracted by the presence of the three Royal Couriers.
“We do have important words for you from Lexor,” admitted their senior officer to Murdan as soon as the greeting had quieted down a mite. “It can wait a short while, Lord Historian, until you are dismounted. But not much longer. It
is
urgent!”
“Lead the way to the house, son-in-law,” Murdan commanded Ffallmar.
There were farm lads and lasses lining the long, elm-shaded drive to greet them. A bouquet of huge chrysanthemums in brilliant reds and golds were presented to Manda—the traditional Ffallmar greeting to a visiting member of the Royal Family.
“We can’t disappoint them,” apologized Manda to Murdan. “Tom and I will look at the new piglets and the colts, as they’ve planned for us. You go ahead to the house and hear what news comes from Father.”
Murdan nodded silently and gestured to the Courier officers and Ffallmar to follow him. They dismounted and climbed three stone steps onto the wide front veranda of the wide, rambling Ffallmar House, where they could talk in private comfort.
Manda and Tom went off, dragged almost bodily by Eddie and his sisters, Valerie and Molly, and followed by the farm men and maidens, all dressed in their very best for the occasion.
‘‘Come see my new horse!” cried Eddie. “No,
not
a pony! I love old Patch to death, but in a year, Papa says, my feet’ll be dragging in the farmyard dirt when I ride her. So he gave me a real, full-sized horse.
Her name is Challenger.”
Listening to the children’s excited babble and truly admiring the farm buildings, barns, stables, coops, sheds, tall silos, deep cellars, and the broad fields all around, the young couple spent a congenial two hours, hoping and planning someday to do almost as well in Hidden Lake Canyon.
They returned to the manor house at last, glowing with pleasure, a bit dusty, with wisps of golden wheat straw adhering here and there to their clothing, somewhat out of breath and rather sweaty from all the running about.
The Royal Courier Service officers were more relaxed, having loosened their gold-frogged jackets and put off their extra-tall plumed bon-nets to take a glass of cider, cool from Rosemary’s icehouse.
Murdan looked distracted. As soon as it was polite to do so, he drew Manda and Tom aside and showed them the letter brought by the Couriers.
“It’s from the Lord High Chamberlain,” he said. “It’s worrisome—
certainly quite serious.”
“Tell us about it,” said Manda. “To save us from having to read old Walden’s circumlocutions.”
“It’s actually pretty straightforward for Walden,” said Murdan seriously. “I’d better read it aloud to you.”
He rustled the parchment with its azure ribbon and red-wax Royal Privy Seal. Walden had been left in charge of the royal establishment in Lexor while the King and his family chose to travel.
Murdan read aloud:
“
Lord Murdan of Overhall, Royal Historian, post haste (by way
of Royal Courier; for his hand
only
!)
“My Lord:
“Two events of supreme concern have come to my attention this
moment.
“First, the acting commander of the garrison at Frontier has
sent urgent word to us that a large force of heavily armed Northmen,
led by the notorious Grand Blizzardmaker of the Rellings, several
days ago bypassed the post of the garrison at Frontier. His message
was sent, he said, just before he was going to be surrounded and
invested by vastly superior numbers. It is his understanding and
judgment that the Rellings and their wild allies intend to war on
Carolna immediately and are marching on Lexor with the purpose
of taking and leveling the capital, looting the warehouses and great
houses in order to finance a long and bloody war of conquest.
“We have no further word about this invasion at this point in
time, but I am making all possible preparations to resist the Northern hordes when they reach the capital walls.
“I
have sent what information I have toward Knollwater, where
the King and his family are currently visiting, but I understand that
heavy rains have made the roads impassable between here and
there. The Couriers bearing this message are instructed to carry
copies to the King by a roundabout route, as necessary.
“As more information becomes available, I will forward it to you
and to the King at Knollwater. Word has already been sent to all
Achievements ordering them to call their militia to arms in the King’s
name, and lead their soldiers toward Lexor at once.
“The second matter is less clear but even more frightening.
“The mayor and magistrate of Lakeheart, one Fellows, last night
forwarded to Lord Granger for presentation to the King a report made
to him by his bailiff Kedry. Kedry says he on Monday last attended
a Relling prisoner in his gaol who had been wounded and was expected to die.
“When asked to account for his wound, the Relling, who had
been caught on Lakeheart Lake the day before, admitted that he
first joined and later fled from a troop of Relling soldiers who were
moving south to Waterfields with the intention of stealing and looting in the wake of a disturbance they expected to arise following a
major uproar at Knollwater during the King’s visit.
“With his last breath
—
no medical care was able to save him—
the prisoner told Kedry that the ‘uproar’ the Relling band expected
would be the
kidnapping of the royal children!
He died before he
could give more details.
“I beg of you, Lord Historian, to come to the aid of Lexor
as quickly as possible,
and also to do what you can to warn His Majesty of the threat to the infant Prince Royal and Princess!
“Perhaps from your position you can advise the Couriers on the
fastest path to Waterfields to reach Knollwater with the warning
before it is too late!
“Awaiting further word on both matters, I remain your obedient
and loyal
—
and very frightened
—
servant...
Walden of Sweetwater.”
“The poor, poor little babes!” cried Manda, clutching Tom’s hand.
“We must do something, and at once!”
“Ffallmar!” shouted Murdan.
The farmer, who was talking to his guests, came running at once.
“Couriers! On your way at once! Ffallmar, how can they most quickly reach Knollwater? I hear the rivers are over their banks.”
‘There’s been an inordinate rainfall in the southeast,” said the farmer. “But, Murdan, there’re no direct roads between here and Knollwater! There’s no other option. They will have to ride to the head-waters of the Cristol and backtrack to Waterfields. It’ll take them several days!”
He sent a servant to his small library for a detailed map of the area.
“What can
we
do?” asked Manda, recovering her composure quickly. She was, after all, a Princess.
“Recall Retruance,” said Tom. “He can get here and take us to Knollwater quicker than Couriers can ride there.”
A Companion and his Mount shared a special rapport that allowed them to sense when one was calling the other, even at long distances. Tom had never tried it from this far away—no telling how far south the Constable brothers had gone—but he was sure it would work.