Chade set the kettle over the fire. I watched with distaste as he mixed brewing herbs for it. Some elfbark, but not near as much as I would have required earlier. Peppermint and catmint leaves. A bit of precious ginger root. I recognized much of what he used to give Verity for his Skill exhaustion. Then he came back to sit close beside me again. “It could not be. What you suggest would require blind loyalty from the coterie to Regal.”
“It can be created by one strongly Skilled. My flaw is a result of what Galen did to me. Do you remember Galen’s fanatical admiration of Chivalry? That was a created loyalty. Galen could have done it to them, before he died, when he was finishing their training.”
Chade shook his head slowly. “Do you think Regal could be so stupid as to think the Red-Ships would stop at Beams? Eventually they will want Buck, they will want Rippon and Shoaks. Where does that leave him?”
“With the Inland Duchies. The only ones he cares about, the only ones with which he has a mutual loyalty. It would give him a vast perimeter of land as an insulation against anything the Red-Ships might do. And like you, perhaps, he may believe they are not after territory, but only a raiding grounds. They are sea folk. They will not come that far inland to trouble him. And the Coastal Duchies will be too busy fighting the Red-Ships to turn on Regal.”
“If the Six Duchies loses her seacoast, she loses her trade, her shipping. How pleased will his Inland Dukes be with that?”
I shrugged. “I do not know. I have not all the answers, Chade. But this is the only theory I’ve been able to put together in which almost all the pieces fit.”