Silent glanced at Emily, who nodded. “As Your Ladyship pleases...”
“Odd girl, that one,” Lady Barb commented, as Silent hurried away. “Is she any warmer in private?”
“No.” Emily turned back to the older woman. “She’s very professional.”
“You must be losing your touch.” Lady Barb took her arm and led her into the inn. “I have a room upstairs, if you want to freshen up. Or have something to eat.”
Emily kept her thoughts to herself as they made their way through the lobby. The lobby was crammed with people, all looking as though they’d fled with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. She saw men holding swords - they weren’t peace-bonded - and women clutching their children, fearful eyes glancing from side to side. They looked upper middle class, she thought; their clothes were fine without ever quite breaking the Sumptuary Laws. A couple might even be aristocrats. They talked to each other in low voices, too quietly for her to make out the words without magic, or sat in silence as they waited for... for what? Emily doubted the inn could house them for long. Where could they go?
Dragon’s Den probably couldn’t house them either, she thought. The town was fairly large, but it didn’t have that much room for expansion. She’d heard the town council was pretty tough on vagrants. It would probably take much the same attitude to refugees, particularly ones who couldn’t pay their way. Where will they go?
“I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” she said, when they had gone up the stairs to Lady Barb’s room. It was a tiny cubbyhole, with barely enough room for two adults. “I didn’t expect him to demand your presence.”
“He has a point.” Lady Barb’s lips thinned. “You probably do need a bodyguard.”
Emily nodded, stiffly. She loved the older woman, but... right now, Lady Barb had other problems. Emily would almost have preferred Cat. He would have made dumb jokes about Emily having a body he would have liked to guard, or something that would anger and amuse her at the same time, but he didn’t have someone who needed him more. And yet... she winced, inwardly. Void had created one hell of a mess for her.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “How is Sergeant Miles?”
“There are times when he’s close to normal,” Lady Barb said. “And times when he just... loses it. His moods are just unpredictable. There’s no way he can return to teaching when he might flip out and attack the students, on the assumption they’re orcs bent on murder. I had to stun him two weeks ago, just to stop him from tearing the postman to bloody chunks. It’s just...”
Emily gritted her teeth. “Do you want to go back to him? Now? We’ll tell Void you came with me and...”
“He won’t thank you for lying to him,” Lady Barb said, flatly. “And I gave my word.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, once again. “I didn’t realize...”
“You need to stop apologizing,” Lady Barb told her. “It isn’t your fault. For the moment, Miles is fairly safe. I’ve got him in Dragon’s Den, with a couple of friends keeping watch on him. I’ll just need to come back every so often.”
“You can,” Emily assured her. “You can always take him to Heart’s Eye, long-term.”
“In principle, that’s a good idea,” Lady Barb said. “In practice, no one wants a half-mad instructor. Mistress Irene will object, strongly, to his presence. So will everyone else.”
Emily looked down. “I know,” she mumbled. “But he doesn’t have to teach.”
Lady Barb shrugged. “We don’t know what we’re going to do,” she said. “Right now, we’re taking each day as it comes.”
She straightened up. “Prince Hedrick and his bodyguards have been camped in the inn for the last two days. Queen Alassa paid the innkeeper to ensure they stayed out of sight, although rumors have already started to spread. I’ve spoken to the prince and he’s agreed to accept our assurances of his safety for the duration of the talks. If the rebels are insistent he be handled over, we’ll take him straight back here and he can do what he wants from there.”
“Good,” Emily said. “Did you send a message to the rebels?”
“Yes,” Lady Barb said. “They sent messengers to Dragon’s Den and Whitehall. I caught one of them and asked him to take a message to Jorlem. So far, there’s been no reply, let alone a promise of safe conduct. No two people appear to agree on who’s in charge over there” - she pointed north - “so it’s quite possible the messenger never reached someone who could actually make a decision.”
“Or simply never got through at all,” Emily said. Messengers - and postmen - were supposed to have complete freedom of movement, untouchable even in wartime, but the rules had been breaking down for years. The rebels - or the royalists - might impede messengers as they went about their duties. “How long should it take to get a reply?”
“I don’t know,” Lady Barb said. “Normally, the messengers would be able to change their horses every so often. Fresh horses were permanently kept in readiness along the royal roads. Now... I don’t know. It shouldn’t take longer than a day for him to gallop to the capital, but there’s no way to be sure. We might want to wait a day or two for a response before we move.”
“Which will also give more time for attitudes to harden,” Emily said. The reports of atrocities and horrors right out of the last set of wars were terrifying. She was fairly sure most of the stories were made up, but it would only take a handful of atrocities for both sides to decide the other had to be destroyed at all costs. “If we can at least get them talking...”
Lady Barb snorted. “Do you think this is anything other than a fool’s errand?”
Emily concealed her alarm behind a smile. “Void said the same thing.”
“Even a stopped timepiece is right twice
