The storm had banged the shutters of the royal residence throughout the night, but a part of Hansen's subconscious must have heard the pattern of outer door, inner door, and nervous voices. He was up and dressed when someone rapped on his bedroom door.
"Lord marshal?" a servant called. "L—oh!"
Hansen pulled the door open from the inside swiftly enough that the servant's lantern guttered. The man's knuckles, raised to knock again, almost struck Hansen instead of the doorpanel.
"Oh, I'm sorry, m-m-m," the servant stuttered. "M-milord!"
There was a crisis. Prandia would want Malcolm in crisis discussions, and Hansen's old friend didn't move very quickly any more. Therefore—
"In Malcolm's suite?" Hansen demanded.
The servant nodded.
Hansen was already trotting down the corridor toward the other wing of the residence.
"Alert my battalion commanders!" he threw over his shoulder, though he couldn't take time to be sure that the servant knew where those warriors were billeted. If the fellow did, it might save a little time.
The message that spurred this crisis almost certainly meant war. That was good. During the past several days, Hansen had been waiting for an excuse for war.
For the last twenty meters to Malcolm's door, Hansen could have followed the trail of wet footprints on the flagstones. Prandia's major domo stood outside the suite with a handful of flunkies carrying lanterns.
"Yes, milord marshal," he called. "His Majesty is waiting for you!"
The major domo had managed to pull on a velvet robe and cinch it with his sash of office, proving that it wasn't only military men who could move quickly in a crisis.
Malcolm had gotten up from his bed. He sat in one of the chimney seats. Servants had built up the hearth fire before they scurried out of the way.
With Malcolm when Hansen entered were the king and another man, both standing. The stranger was of middle height and had a facial scar which showed as a white worm across his dark beard. He wore rain-soaked leather garments. There was a crude bandage on his left hand. It was leaking blood.
"This is Kraft," said King Prandia. "He's, ah, a scout from the Solfygg border."
Hansen looked at the spy. "Your hand?" he asked.
"It'll wait," Kraft grunted. "I took a forest shortcut I shouldn't have. Wolves got my pony."
"The Duke of Gennt is about to switch his allegiance from my foster son to the King of Solfygg," Malcolm said. He looked like a bedroll in the corner of the hearth—unless you noticed the glitter of his eyes. "If our friend here is correct."
Kraft grinned at the old man. The expression suggested that not all of the wolves had survived to eat Kraft's pony.
Hansen said, "Yeah, let's operate on that assumption."
The spy had risked his life to deliver the information. That didn't prove he was right about Gennt's intentions, but it sure-hell predisposed Hansen to believe him.
"Well, then," said the king crisply. "I don't think this is any time for half measures. Lord Hansen, all the forces available to the kingdom have been mustered for the past month. Have they not?"
"Yessir," Hansen said, nodding.
His eye caught on Kraft. The spy was losing the nervous energy which had sustained him thus far; he looked all in. Hansen gestured to him, then pointed at the other chimney seat, opposite Malcolm.
Kraft hesitated. He glanced at the king. Prandia was still standing.
"Sit," ordered Hansen. "We've been asleep while you rode."
And fought the wolves. And god knew what all else.
"What's the state of training, Marshal Hansen?" Malcolm asked. He ended with a sound somewhere between a cough and a giggle.
Hansen shrugged. "You've seen them, Malcolm," he said. "They're a hell of a lot better overall than they were a month ago when we pushed the training."
Malcolm wore a stocking cap of wool dyed red. The pompon on the end of it bobbed as he nodded. "They're at a plateau, though?" he said in his cracked voice.
"Yeah, that's right," Hansen agreed. "I don't think we can expect any significant further improvement in less than another six months. And we don't have six months."
"Because Solfygg will invade us before that?" Prandia asked with a frown. The king's head shifted from his former marshal to the current one and back.
"It's their royal suits that're the problem," Hansen explained, drawing Prandia's attention again. "At the rate Solfygg is getting them, they'll have hundreds in six months' time."
"I don't understand that," the king said, shaking his head. "A royal suit is a year's work for a master smith!"
"It doesn't matter whe—" Malcolm said. He subsided in a fit of coughing.
Hansen stepped over to the fireplace and ducked under the mantel. He put an arm around the old man and held him gently.
Malcolm thrust a crabbed hand out of the quilts and clasped Hansen with it. "We don't have to understand, lad," he said to the king. "The world does what it pleases, whether we understand or not."
"Kraft," said Hansen. "Will the King of Solfygg be sending warriors to Gennt?"
The spy nodded. "That's how I learned what was going to happen," he said from his seat. "There's a party of fifty warriors on the way now. Ten of them have the new armor."
Kraft was shivering from reaction. The fire on the hearth cooked moisture out of his leather garments in a miasma of sweat and the chemicals used in tanning.
"Solfygg can't have that many good warriors!" Prandia snapped. "They may have armor, yes. But warriors of the first rank are just as rare as royal suits, and I haven't heard that Solfygg has gotten around that."
"They don't have to be good, Your Majesty," Hansen explained wearily. "You're thinking of a battle like you're used to, where the top warriors fight one another and the rest of the armies hack around. When there's this many first-class suits . . . it's slaughter. I've seen it, and it's bloody slaughter."
He rubbed his eyes, trying to erase the memory.
"A god couldn't have done better with your warriors than Marshal Hansen has," Malcolm mumbled from Hansen's arms. "But that won't keep them from dying, lad. Ten for every one they kill, that'll be the way the battle goes."
"All right!" Prandia said harshly. "All right. We'll take the full army to Gennt except for a guard detachment here. At least Thurmond of Gennt will regret his treachery."
"No," said Hansen, "Your Majesty."
"How dare you!" the king shouted.
Kraft shifted in his corner. The knife handle projecting from the top of his right boot was suddenly close to the spy's uninjured hand.
"Listen to him, lad," Malcolm cackled. "This one doesn't threaten any better than a dying old man does."
"King Prandia," Hansen said. He cleared his throat. He'd always made a horse's ass of himself in situations that required tact.
"Ah, Your Majesty," he resumed, "I think it's time to win. We don't go to Gennt—we go to Solfygg. And we finish this instead of letting those bastards nibble you down till there's only a nub to swallow."
Prandia made a moue of apology for his outburst. "Ah, can we win against the main Solfygg army, Marshal Hansen?" he asked. "I understood from what you said . . ."
"Easier now than later, lad," Malcolm whispered.
"And the contingent split off and sent to Gennt is a bonus," Hansen added. "But—what Malcolm said is the truth. There'll never be a better time to try."
"Very well," said the king. "Give the orders, Marshal Hansen. I will accompany the army, but it will be under your command."
Prandia shivered. "And may North be with us!" he added.
"No, lad," Malcolm said. "Pray that Hansen be with us."
He giggled. "The god, I mean. Of course."
Hansen held his old friend while the laughter turned into spasms of coughing; but in every pause, Malcolm's laughter resumed.