“Marshal, don’t try to make sense of it. Every time we meet, some of the commoner ministers bring up this business of their womenfolk running off. They usually accuse a neighboring province, either of harboring malefactors or of being in complicity. About once every five years, the ministers set up an investigative committee, and when they look into it, it turns out the women ran off to the city, or they eloped with someone, or they were pregnant by someone Papa didn’t approve of.”
“When will we get to business?” growled the Marshal, wishing to end this discussion of women running off. “I don’t intend to waste another half-day on this nonsense.”
“Get to business?” Prince Thumsort asked, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Oh, you mean the agenda? We won’t. We never do.”
“But weneed more P’naki!”
“Oh, His Majesty has that well underway. While the ministers argue, he goes right ahead, you know. He says it gives the people a sense of taking part without noticeably slowing down the necessities of government. Eventually, they’ll decide it’s best, and a day or so later the Lord Paramount will announce it’s done. That gives them participation and gives him a reputation for efficiency.”
“And lowering the age of marriage?” asked the Marshal, his own eyebrows almost at his hairline.
“The Tribunal has already decided that question. Including it on the agenda was just a way of informing the public. Our young men are so urgent that girls aren’t waiting until they’re thirty, so why make a fetish of that age, ah?” The Prince winked and smiled, a secretive sort of smile.
“Then what in deepsea does he need the ministers for?”
“Need us?” He bridled, ducking his head into a wealth of chins, grinning widely. “Well of course not, Marshal. He doesn’t need us. We’re just part of the cover, don’t you know?”
The Marshal did not understand all these winks and sidles, and his ignorance was explicit in the volume of his, “I don’t know, no!”
And suddenly Prince Thumbsort gave him a different sort of look, one full of surprise and apprehension, as though he had perhaps said something thoughtless, unwise, even dangerous. “Heh, heh, heh,” he chuckled. “Just joking, of course. The Lord Paramount needs all of us, Marshal. Of course he does.”
“Not a nice joke, not at all,” the Marshal rumbled. “Why, he told me himself he needed me here.”
“As he does,” Prince Thumsort soothed. “As he most certainly does. You especially, Lord Marshal.”
* * *
Aufors bought a horse in Reusel-on-mere and rode westward along the road that marked the county border between Wantresse and Southmarsh counties. The day was fine, crisp but not overly cold,- the reeds in the marshes south of him glittered with frost while the stubble fields of Wantresse were full of birds, scavenging for the odd beakful of grain missed by earlier gleaners. Fifty miles along the road he would find a post house, where he would spend the night, and another fifty miles would bring him to a small village where Wantresse stopped and Evermire began. Bessany Blodden and her child would be found another half-day’s ride farther on. By riding harder and longer, Aufors could have shortened the trip, but men who ride hard and fast are usually on a mission, for themselves or some other, and Aufors had decided it would be safer to appear unhurried, unworried, unconcerned, which would give him time to figure out, first, how to get rid of the rider or riders who stayed just out of view back on the road, and second, how he would transport a woman and infant back toward Merdune. A full day of riding into the wind gave him no idea about the former but a sensible notion about the latter. Sailing up the Potcherwater at this season would be a good deal easier than riding horseback. He had been well funded by the Duchess, so passage would be no problem. The wind was steady from the northwest. The Potcherwater was placid and deep from Wellsport all the way to County Gide, he knew Barfezi well from the Potcher War, and the river would take him to the very town where the inn stood, the one where the cook would, presumably, tell him where to find Genevieve.