authority as Royal Tutor.
“Yes, I have … well, at least most of it. I can finish the rest as homework, can’t I?”
She seemed so desperate to get away that Maggiore sighed resignedly. “Oh, very well. But I expect it to be neater than last time.”
“It will be,” she answered, and as she rushed for the door she suddenly stopped and kissed him on the top of his bald head. “Thanks, Maggie!” she said, and ran off down the corridor.
The soldiers had been marching north for more than a month now, and the Polypontian Empire’s superb military roads meant that they’d covered more than seven hundred miles. Their regiment, the White Panthers of the Asterian Province, had been fighting in the south less than six weeks earlier, but after the victorious conclusion to that particular campaign, they’d been given a week’s rest and had then begun their march north.
None of the soldiers knew exactly where they were going, and neither did most of the officers, though rumors were rife. Some said they were finally going to attack the Icemark, the Empire’s immediate northern neighbor, and most thought it was about time. For some reason General Scipio Bellorum had left the Icemark in peace despite making war on all and sundry around its borders, and exactly why remained a deep mystery. But once again rumor provided some clues. The most popular was that the Icemark was a land of witchcraft, which even the formidable Bellorum found daunting. But others doubted that; the general was afraid of nothing; it was even said he’d live forever because death itself wouldn’t dare take him.
The troops were approaching the border area now, on their way to join the huge army that was being amassed. The wide, gently undulating plain that nestled beneath the foothills of the Dancing Maidens mountain range was covered with military camps, forges, armories, parade grounds, and cavalry training runs. To the soldiers of the White Panthers regiment, it was all very familiar. Every block of barrack tents and every parade ground was pitched in exactly the same position, so no matter where they were, in the Empire or on campaign, they felt completely at home.
And now they could see their great leader, Scipio Bellorum himself: part man, part god, ruthless and aloof, riding the lines of troops as they presented arms. They awaited his command.
Thirrin spent the rest of her day happily taking weapons drill with her father’s elite corps of housecarls. Within a few minutes of hitting a bull’s-eye with her throwing ax, she was happy and relaxed and the dust of the schoolroom had been blown away. The huge soldiers, all of them especially picked for their height and strength, treated her fighting skills with enormous respect. She was not only their future Queen but also their mascot and lucky symbol. They cheered every time she hit the target with her javelin and politely ignored her misses, but over the three years she’d been training with the weapons master, there’d been far more reason to cheer than to remain politely silent.
By sundown when the training session ended, she was pleasantly tired and began to make her way back to her rooms with happy thoughts of supper. Then, changing her mind, she headed instead for her father’s apartments. There was no official banquet tonight, so the kitchens would be having an easier time before the next round of diplomatic dinners for one or another of Redrought’s barons. And the King would be eating as quietly as he ever could in his rooms. Thirrin had decided to join him, knowing he’d be pleased to spend the evening with his daughter. Besides, she had things on her mind and wanted to talk to him.
She crossed the shadowy Great Hall, listening to her booted footsteps echo from the smoke-blackened beams high above her head in the gloom of the roof. As she passed by, some of the ancient battle standards waved lazily, as though some ghost of wind from a long-ago battlefield still stroked the faded regimental colors. Ahead she could see her father’s throne on its high dais rising out of the gathering shadows like a mountain made of carved oak. She reached it and quickly skirted around the back, where the door set in the wall behind stood slightly open.
“Grimswald! I said I wanted ale, not brown river water!” Redrought’s booming voice lashed the Chamberlain-of-the-Royal-Paraphernalia.
“Well, I’m sure that it came from the same barrel that His Majesty was happy to drink from