I love you, Krys. I love Little Joe, the son I thought I’d never have, would never have had on that other world. I miss you both and I pray for winter to hurry with all the fervor that Arthur prays for the capitulation of London with.
For all the fact that they’re my enemies, I cannot but pity the poor folk inside that doomed city. The refugees who have managed to escape for one reason or another paint a grim picture—not one horse, mule, ass, cow, or goat is left within London, and even rats are becoming rare as gold hen’s teeth, their supplies of both gunpowder and fuel are scant, and …
Well, Krys, Sir Ali is ready to leave for the north and I have still to sign this and some other letters, sand them, seal them, and pack them in a waterproof tube. Hug Little Joe for me and be ready to move to Rutland as soon as the gal-lowglasses arrive to escort you.
I do hate to ask you to leave the creature comforts of my little house, honey, but Fort Whyffler is just situated too far north for me to establish it as my principal seat.
All my love always,
Bass
Krystal Kent Foster refolded the letter and looked again at the elaborate beribboned seal of dark-blue wax. Her husband had obviously wasted no time in acquiring a coat of arms, for the largest blob of wax bore the deep imprint of those arms, but the detail was too tiny for her to make it out in the poor, fading light of the westering sun.
She had been living in Whyffler Hall for most of the summer. The central-air-conditioning unit in Bass’s house had worked in a fair manner for about a week after she first turned it on, but then had begun to blow only hot air. Her limited knowledge of the mechanics of the unit led her to believe that quite probably the device needed a fresh injection of coolant gas—neon or xeon or freon or some such name. She had no idea of whether or not Bass had any stored in his workshop and would not know how to put it in if she could find any. Without air conditioning, the trilevel was an oven, stifling from top to bottom.
Whyffler Hall, on the other hand, with its high ceilings behind thick stone walls, was divinely cool. Gradually, over a couple of weeks, Krystal moved most of the contents of Bass’ house into the hall, returning to the trilevel only to use the tub or shower.
She judged Sir Ali to be somewhere around twenty-five. He was dark of hair and eyes, with deep-olive coloring, and handsome despite the numerous scars on his face and the jutting beak of a nose that seemed almost too large for the head on which it was mounted; urbane, charming, and very courtly of manner, the Arab moved with the grace of a leopard.
He had arrived at Whyffler Hall a bit before noon, by way of the York Road, at the head of the most villainous-looking pack of mounted cutthroats Krystal had ever seen. Apparently Lieutenant Smythe, who commanded the small royal garrison still manning the Fort Whyffler defenses, had been similarly impressed, since the party had been trailed at a discreet distance by a dozen pikemen and half that number of men armed with the seven-shot arquebuses, their matches smoking.
“Saints preserve us a’,” old Geoffrey Musgrave had muttered, as he had stood beside but a little behind her on the broad veranda. “I c’d swear those pack o’ twa-legged wolves be o’ t’ domned Irish breed, none save t’ Irish gallowglasses bear an ax and twa swords, tae boot. W sich as them aboot, mlady, t’would be well tae arm tf serving men and bury t’ plate.”
But the troopers at the Arabian knight’s back had proven themselves, if not exactly models of civilized decorum, at least manageable.
When Sir Ali had made his formal obeisance and had been ushered into the hall, he had announced to all those assembled, “I, Sir Ali ibn Hossain, appear here in my function as herald to our most puissant lord, Sebastian Foster, Duke of Norfolk, Markgraf von Velegrad, Earl of Rutland, Baron of Strathtyne, Knight of the Garter, Noble Fellow of the Red Eagle of Brandenburg, Lord Commander of the Royal Horse of England, and good and faithful servant of His Majesty Arthur III, God bless and preserve him.” \