Aydrian nodded at the seemingly sound reasoning. The best estimate was that a few hundred men had fled to the north. He wasn't overly concerned.
He had Palmaris, and that was the immediate goal. Now he could secure the immediate region about the city, perhaps as far north as Caer Tinella and Landsdown.
But the real prize, the one Aydrian coveted above all else, the one Aydrian wanted even more desperately than De'Unnero wanted St.Mere - Abelle, lay not to the north, but to the west.
Of course, he hadn't told his commanders of that little side trip just yet.
"Prince Midalis remains a threat only if he can find his way to weak spots in our ever-lengthening line," Aydrian remarked. "He will try to strike behind us, or strike wherever our main force is not. He will not be able to do so before winter, nor will he be able to find any way around us if we force him to march all the way from Vanguard.
"Let us secure our hold from Entel to Ursal, from Ursal to Palmaris," the young king reasoned. "Let us show the people of these most populous parts of Honce-the-Bear that the Kingdom of Aydrian will bring them peace and prosperity, for that is all they want, after all. They care little for the name of their king. They care for the food on their tables."
"Midalis' claim is no small thing," said De'Unnero. "He will inspire many against us."
"The longer we keep him away, the less inspiration he will provide," Duke Kalas put in. He looked to Aydrian and gave a knowing smirk. "It is of great importance that we determine the prince's route, and that we make his trail as long and difficult as possible. The farther from Ursal that we do battle with Prince Midalis, if it must come to that, the less support he will find."
"Soon enough," Aydrian replied, and he looked to De'Unnero.
The discussions of the secular kingdom sat heavily on De'Unnero's strong shoulders, and he sat there, tapping the tips of his fingers together before him.
"Patience, my friend," Aydrian said to him. "We will turn our eyes to St.-Mere-Abelle soon enough."
"Not soon enough for me," De'Unnero admitted.
"We are not yet ready," Duke Kalas put in. "Trust me when I say that I wish to see the fall of St.-Mere-Abelle as much as do you! But we must control the sea, and that we cannot do with winter approaching. And we must isolate Prince Midalis."
"We will take the sea, and the Mantis Arm," Aydrian assured them both.
"When we approach St.-Mere-Abelle, it will be from the east and the west, with every other abbey of Honce-the-Bear already secured, save St.
Belfour of Vanguard. Fio Bou-raiy will find no support from without."
Marcalo De'Unnero nodded, and worked hard to keep the simmering anger from his expression. He knew the plan, of course, for it had been an intricate part of his and Olin's design long before Aydrian had ever ascended the throne. But Aydrian had altered that plan without consult by dangling a carrot before Abbot Olin that the old fool could not resist.
How might Aydrian facilitate the sweep along the eastern coast of Honce- the-Bear with his entire mercenary army diverted to the south, to Jacintha? "Time is our ally, not our enemy," Aydrian said to the monk, as if reading his thoughts exactly. "A church must be maintained from without, not within, and as we bring more and more abbeys around to our way of thinking, the present Father Abbot's influence will shrink and shrink to nothingness. We will speak to the people while Bou-raiy and his companions fester in the dark corridors of St.-Mere-Abelle."
He stopped and nodded, leaned back and smiled, as if everything was going along right on schedule.
Aydrian dismissed the courier with a wave of his hand, and when the man started to argue, the young king put on a great scowl.
The courier left without further delay.
"Abbot Olin must have dispatched him to the north to find us before he had gone halfway through Yorkey County," De'Unnero remarked.
Aydrian looked at the monk, who seemed more amused than anything else.
The courier had come into Palmaris with an urgent request from Abbot Olin, begging that more soldiers be released to him for his efforts in Jacintha.
"Olin cannot even know the disposition of the enemy allayed before him,"
Aydrian remarked.
"Likely he has come to know that some of the mercenaries we hired on our march to Ursal have returned to their