she must feel! Though Tristan had journeyed abroad many times during the last few years, Alicia doubted that the absences had become any easier for her mother to bear.
Finally the king reined in, dismounting on the dock beside the looming galleon. The queen joined him, while Alicia and Deirdre stood to the side. The older princess cast a sidelong look at her sister and saw that Deirdre's face was blank. Her mind might have been a thousand miles away.
Tristan turned to address the Ffolk who had ridden with him and those who now gathered to see him off. Perhaps two hundred citizens stood around the fringes of the long wharf, watching and waiting quietly.
They stood, ever patient, and Alicia thought that they reflected the faces of the Ffolk across all the isles. The men were bearded, muscular and strong, but not tall. They wore boots of leather and tunics of wool, with leggings of either dark woolen cloth or tanned animal skin. Some of the women wore leggings as well, though many were clad in colorful skirts. Their hair grew long, and those who had married kept it bound at the back of the head or the neck.
All of them were people of peace and hope. Perhaps that explained their interminable patience, Alicia reflected. Unlike the volatile northmen, the Ffolk were generally content to make do with what they had and to exert themselves as necessary to gradually improve the lot of their children.
Startled by a voice, the princess looked up to see that the king had begun to speak.
'My journey may extend up to a pair of months,' he announced. Later his words upon departure, witnessed by all those present, would become the public record of the decrees made in his name to govern during the king's absence.
'Until such time as I return, the High Queen shall rule in my stead. She is in all respects mistress of the realm.'
He paused, his listeners remaining silent.
'In my name, she will journey henceforth to Blackstone, attending to the business of the crown. For the duration of that travel, I hereby appoint Keane of Callidyrr acting seneschal for all matters of local importance until the return of the queen to Callidyrr.'
The tutor looked at the king, nearly dropping his jaw in shock. Alicia blinked, surprised and-even more surprising-a trifle jealous.
'Good-bye, Alicia,' said Tristan, clasping his daughter in his arms and kissing her forehead. She returned his hug, but at the same time, she felt hurt and rejected. Why had he appointed Keane to oversee the castle's daily affairs? Surely she was capable of that!
Her father embraced Deirdre and then Robyn while these thoughts chased through Alicia's mind. She said nothing as he climbed the gangplank, turned once to wave, and then stepped out of sight onto the galleon's high deck.
Thunderheads loomed into the heavens, columns of darkness that seemed to erupt from the ground, expanding upward into the limitless expanse of sky. Sunlight faded, and the darkness of the clouds intensified a hundredfold. Swirling into a deadly vortex, they centered themselves over a certain place.
Callidyrr.
The god who lay at the heart of the storm, Talos, knew that the white castle below him represented the greatest obstacle to his object: the reign of chaos upon these isles.
Throughout the Moonshaes, in secret shrines and dark temples, clerics of the Raging One worked their charms, pleading for his violence to continue. These clerics responded to the will of their dark-robed master, called the Priest With No Name. This priest gave to his minions gold and encouraged them to pray and pray some more.
Nevertheless, Talos the Destroyer sent his storms against the Moonshaes not because of prayers but because it pleased him to do so. He furthered the cause of chaos, driving a wedge into the peace that threatened to pacify the isles for all time. He would use his agents, the dracolich and the sahuagin and the clerics, to maintain the pressure of the assault.
Now Talos pored over the walls, swirled about the towers, and sifted through closed shutters, even into the deepest sanctums of the castle. He looked, and he listened, and he learned.
He would be patient, for he knew that he would not have to wait for long.
Supper that night in the palace dining hall was a quiet affair, especially compared to the gala dinners that had marked the spring court. Earlier this year, as during every spring, the noble lords and earls of the kingdom had attended Tristan's hall in Callidyrr. The High King presided over contests, feasts, and bouts, and often several hundred people would laugh and chatter in the Great Hall over a dinner that would last for many hours.
Now only the queen, her daughters, and Keane supped here at one end of the lone table that still remained. A fire blazed in the huge hearth, attempting with limited success to combat the unusual chill.
The venerable servingwoman, Gretta, who had left the Kendrick family estate on Corwell twenty years before when Tristan and Robyn had moved to the castle of the High King, served them their meal, producing from the kitchen a roast haunch of lamb, with a pudding of corn and a beverage mixed from the rare beans just now entering the markets of the Sword Coast. They were called 'cocoa' and originated in the land known as Maztica, discovered at the western shore of the Trackless Sea.
'You know, my Queen,' Gretta said as she moved around the table, pouring steaming cups of the delicacy, 'the cook tells me we're completely out of salt and fruit, and low on bacon as well. . '
'Perhaps, with Lord Keane's permission, we can shop the markets tomorrow?' asked Deirdre with a raised eyebrow. Her mouth twisted in a wry smile directed at Alicia.
As quickly as that, her father's slight came back to Alicia-
'Yes, of-of course,' stammered Keane finally, nonplussed by the young princess's sarcasm.
They had begun to drain the last of the hot, spicy drink when the palace sergeant-at-arms, after knocking respectfully on the great wooden door, entered. They all knew the bowlegged, gray-mustached old war-horse who- to Alicia's amusement-was called Young Arlen. He had been one of Tristan's youthful recruits during the Darkwalker War.
'A visitor, Your Majesty,' announced the bearded veteran. 'She has just arrived at the castle and begs leave to enter.'
'Of course,' replied Robyn. 'Her name?'
'It is the Lady Tavish, Bard of the Isles, Majesty.'
'Auntie Tavish!' Alicia sprang to her feet and ran toward the door as the guard bade the visitor to enter. She called the harpist by the name she had always known her, though no blood ties existed between them.
The merry bard swept the princess into a hug, beaming her broad smile across the room. Though Tavish neared sixty years of age, she had all the energy of a young tomboy.
'Greetings, my Queen!' she boomed. 'And a thousand thanks for the warmth of your hearth and the protection of your roof!'
'Oh, stop it!' chided Robyn. 'You know that you're always welcome here!'
'Nevertheless, I welcome the shelter-especially in these times, when traveling is such a chill, soggy affair. I saw no banner of the wolf above the gatehouse. Does the king travel away from the castle now?'
'To Amn,' Robyn explained. 'He left but this morning.'
'Rot my timing, then, though it is indeed a pleasure to end a trip with the company of the Kendrick ladies!'
'Have you journeyed far?' inquired Alicia. She always enjoyed the bard's tales of the far islands of the Moonshaes and even the Sword Coast.
'Always, lass-always! But not so far as sometimes, if the truth be told. I last hail from Corwell.'
'Corwell!' Robyn's face lit, and then her joy faded into a wistful remembrance. 'Tell me, how is life on that fair island?'
'I have news,' said Tavish. All the listeners detected a slight cautionary note to her voice. 'But perhaps it can wait until I've had a bite … or two.'
It was more like three or four, but none of them begrudged the woman the time to fill her ample stomach. As
