“Don’t you remember, Lord? This is the morning you wished to review the household guard.” Turning slightly, he gestured at the open doorway. “I have come to escort you.”
“Ah, yes. My mind was elsewhere, good Peregriff. On other matters.”
The general hazarded a guess. “The one whose coming the Worm predicted?”
“Actually, no.” Straightening, Hymneth rose to his full, towering height. “I have begun to believe no such person exists. If he did, and had power enough to inconvenience me even remotely, surely he would be here by now. I thought at the time that the Worm’s words made no sense, and I’ve seen or heard nothing since to make me change that opinion.”
“Still, Lord, it pays to be cautious.”
From behind the burnished steel, unblinking eyes narrowed ever so slightly; the timbre of voice from beneath the helmet’s projecting lip grew infinitesimally softer.
“Are you presuming to advise me on this matter, Peregriff?”
The general did not miss a beat in his reply. If there was one fault Hymneth could not tolerate in his senior advisers, it was hesitancy. “No, Lord. It is only my abiding concern for your welfare that impels me to comment on the matter at all.”
“Yes, well. Good intentions are always to be applauded.” The voice returned to normal, and the slight tremor Peregriff had experienced was not repeated. He had lived and labored too long in the Possessed’s service to frighten easily. It is hard to panic a man who has long since resigned himself to the possibility of perishing on the spur of the moment at the whim of another.