At the far end of the long table, looking even smaller because of the distance, sat Binabik and Sisqi, who were receiving curious stares from those who had not traveled north with the royal couple. Beside them sat Tiamak, but his wife was absent, tending the wounded Sitha. Miriamele was also pleased and relieved to see her good friend Countess Rhona seated nearby. Both she and Simon valued the countess’s common sense, and the things to be discussed today would require level heads. Also, as Miriamele knew well, the countess noticed things that many of the male courtiers did not, and often understood currents in the life of the castle that the men did not even know existed.

The queen was much less pleased to see that her grandson was again absent, and hoped her husband had not noticed. He was already angry with Morgan over his many transgressions during their northern travels.

Simon gave his wife a significant look, and at first she thought he had guessed what she was thinking, but she realized her misunderstanding a moment later when he turned to Count Eolair. “I know your heart is elsewhere, old friend,” Simon said quietly. “But we need you now. The queen and I ask you to lead the Inner Council today.”

The lord steward nodded. “Of course, Majesty.”

Miriamele could not help feeling a pang of sorrow for him. She could guess what it had cost him to refuse Queen Inahwen’s request for his help. Thirty years and more Eolair had served the High Throne—a man who refused all titles and rewards, a man who could have and perhaps should have taken Hernystir’s throne for himself after the Storm King’s War, or at least so Miriamele had always thought, and she knew Simon agreed. Surely no man more politic and more useful lived anywhere beneath the High Ward.

And that is his one true failing, she thought. If Simon is too kind, Eolair is too dutiful. He has never been selfish enough. It had been her idea to have him lead the council meeting. She knew the count was pained at the thought of having failed Queen Inahwen, and Miri had learned from her grandfather and father that the best way to recapture the attention of a useful man was to give him an important task. If only her father had not strayed from the wisdom his own father had taught him!

“Hear me, all!” announced the royal herald at Miriamele’s signal, and stamped his staff on the stone flags, checking the quiet conversations along the table. “His Majesty the king and Her Majesty the queen command you to audience!”

When the room was silent, Simon said, “We thank the good Lord for bringing us safely back to you all. It is good to be in Erkynland once more. We wish it could be in happier times, but this coming week will be a busy one for all of us. Drorsday next will see a memorial mansa for Duke Isgrimnur, our dear friend.” For a moment the ghost of a smile flitted across his face. “Appropriate, I think. As good an Aedonite as Isgrimnur was, he could never lose the habit of swearing by the old gods in moments of upset.”

A few who had known the duke laughed, and others nodded. News of Isgrimnur’s death had arrived with royal dispatches from Elvritshalla a fortnight or more earlier, so the king’s words came as no surprise.

“After the memorial service, Freyday next will see a meeting of the Great Council, at which there will be much to discuss. Many of you have heard some stories of the attack we suffered as we left Rimmersgard. Events in Nabban, as Lord Pasevalles has made clear, also call for our attention, and there is the strange matter of the Sithi envoy, too.”

At this, Sir Kenrick and some of the others who been traveling with the king and queen looked confused. “Please, Majesty,” the guard captain asked, “have we had some message from the Sithi people, after all these years?”

“As I said, we will discuss it in the Great Council,” the king said. “Today we have a more pressing matter. Lord Steward, now is your moment.” Simon gestured for Eolair. “Tell everyone all of what has happened, and together we will try to puzzle out what it means. Understand, though, that you people gathered here are the closest to the throne, our dearest friends and closest allies. Until the queen and I say otherwise, this news is not to leave this room.”

“But the attack by the whiteskins has already been trumpeted around Erchester, Majesty,” said Count Rowson with the air of someone who would soon put everything right.

“The attack, yes,” said Miriamele, nettled as she often was by the man’s presumption. Simply being the scion of one of the oldest families in Erkynland did not give anyone the right to freely interrupt her husband. “But there are details known only to a few—important details. Surely you would like to learn those details, Count, so that your always-excellent counsel can be fully informed . . . ?”

Rowson could seldom tell when she was employing irony, one of the things she disliked most about him. He sat a little taller in his chair and stroked his beard in a way he clearly thought bespoke wisdom. “Of course, Majesty. My only goal is to serve the High Throne.”

“Then let me tell you the facts we know, my lords,” said Eolair.

As always, Eolair spoke concisely and carefully, laying out what was known, not what was supposed. Still, despite Eolair’s passion for the truth, he did not relate Lady Alva’s story of Norn and Sithi corpses in far-off Engby. Simon and Miriamele had agreed it was too soon to make it generally known because some of the nobles might decide that the only conflict was between two clans of immortals and then refuse to heed the other signs of danger. Most of them had never completely understood or trusted their rulers’ friendship with the Fair Ones, as they called them.

“Those of us who were on the North Road are agreed that we have never seen a giant of such a size,” Eolair finished. “Fully twice the height of a man and perhaps ten times the weight.”

“Have the fairies bred them so big, then?” Duke Osric asked. “That would be grim indeed. I’ve been told that in past battles we lost a dozen men or more for every one of those things we killed.”

“We do not know the answer to that, Your Grace,” said Eolair. “But even if the White Foxes now breed those monsters as though they were hounds or horses, it is still not the greatest of our problems.” He unrolled the blood-smirched piece of parchment. “After the Norns escaped us—fleeing east, we discovered—one of Sir Kenrick’s soldiers found this in the road. Archbishop, do you recognize this writing?”

Gervis rose and came closer to inspect it, leaning against Eolair’s chair for support. “Those are Rimmersgard runes!” he said. “Why should the Norns write in such a way?”

“Because as Lord Tiamak explained, Your Grace,” Eolair answered him, “the message itself—and it is a message—claims that the writer is not one of the Norns, but only one who travels with them, perhaps as a prisoner or slave. Tiamak?”

The Wrannaman came slowly forward. His limp, acquired in the days Miriamele had first met him, had grown worse with the passing years. He explained the ancient source of the runes to the Inner Council, then read the message out loud. When he had finished, the throne room was silent for no little time.

“It is a trick,” said Earl Rowson at last. “Some damnable bit of trickery by the whiteskins, to put us off our guard.”

“That is possible, my lord,” said Tiamak mildly. “But if they would cozen us somehow, why concoct a story designed, not to make us think them harmless, but to put us on our guard? And why go to such strange lengths to pass it to us instead of just leaving it behind in an abandoned camp to be found?”

“The name Jarnulf means nothing to me, but I have heard rumors of something called the White Hand,” Duke Osric said. “It’s a tale told in the northern lands that sometimes makes its way south, a tribe of bandits by that name who prey on the Norns, killing them whenever they cross the border into mortal lands. But I thought it most likely only the memory of some ancient hero and his band, like Jack Mundwode.”