Faila Beacon Lane, in Vanam's Upper Town, 9th of Aft-Summer of Aft-Summer

Hearing the knock at the door, Aremil hastily set his book aside and reached for his crutches. "Is that the carrying chair?" He heard the door being answered and brief conversation on the step. "Lyrlen!"

"You shouldn't be going out, my lord." Entering the sitting room, his nurse set her hands on her hips. "Let me send for Master Sempel."

Aremil managed a rueful smile. "He's an excellent doctor, but he cannot cure what ails me."

"He can make you more comfortable, my lord." Anxiety furrowed Lyrlen's brow. "Don't tell me you're not in pain. You're not eating and you're not sleeping."

He shouldn't have tried getting out of bed in the night. He'd underestimated just how tired his limbs were and thus more than usually recalcitrant. Though Lyrlen must have been lying awake herself to hear the noise of him losing his grip on the bedpost and falling to the floor.

"I ate my breakfast," he reminded her.

"Little enough of it," she retorted.

"Because I agreed to that dose of poppy tincture when you helped me back to bed," he said with some asperity. "You know it kills my appetite."

"You need to rest, my lord." Lyrlen was twisting her apron between her hands, always a sign she was unhappy. "Gallivanting up and down to the lower town has left you at a standstill."

Despite his irritation, Aremil had to laugh. "Lyrlen, I couldn't go gallivanting if I wished to."

Lyrlen smoothed her apron with angry hands. "That girl has no notion what you can and cannot do without harming yourself."

Aremil's smile vanished. "Branca has no more say over what I do than you have, Lyrlen. Please don't blame her. Now, I am already late, thanks to that cursed poppy tincture making me oversleep. Kindly pass me my crutches and help me out to the chair."

"Very well, my lord." Lyrlen escorted him over the threshold, as anxious as a black-feathered hen cherishing one precious chick. "When shall I expect you back?"

"No later than noon." He settled himself in the chair. None of the muslin drapes at his neighbours' windows twitched. The sight of his ungainly progress on his crutches was evidently no longer a novelty. "I'm only going to Mistress Charoleia's house."

Lyrlen looked somewhat mollified. "Very good, my lord."

The chair-men picked him up. This particular pair didn't need directions any longer, they were getting so used to carrying him the few streets to Charoleia's door.

Aremil listened in vain for bells. What time was it now? How long had it taken him to get up and dressed and send Lyrlen to find some urchin to summon the carrying chair? He shifted uncomfortably. Last night's dose of poppy tincture had long since worn off.

Lyrlen was right, not that he was about admit it to her. He was nowhere near recovered from his exertions over the Solstice Festival. His shoulders, back and legs all ached. Cramps had wracked him for at least a day after his visits to the lower town. But such visits were essential, if this undertaking was to prosper. It was the only way he could meet Lescari exiles without inviting them to the upper town, and that would attract unwelcome notice.

Regardless, he wasn't going to take any more poppy wine than he absolutely had to. It did his precarious digestion no good at all. More than that, its lingering effects made it impossible for him to work even the simplest of the aetheric enchantments he'd persuaded Branca to show him. He was determined to master them. If that meant mastering his pain through sheer effort of will, so be it.

"Here we are, my lord." The carriers set the chair down outside Charoleia's green door. "What time shall we call for you?"

"Noon. Thank you." Aremil accepted the foremost chair-carrier's strong arm and struggled to his feet.

The door opened as he settled himself on his crutches. Charoleia's maid was vigilant, as always.

"Are they here?" he asked without preamble.

"Madam Branca and the mistress are with them in the drawing room." As soon as she'd seen him manoeuvre safely though the entrance, she hurried to open the inner door. "Master Aremil, my lady."

"Please forgive my tardiness." Aremil did his best to sound offhand. "Some business arose that I had to deal with this morning."

"As it so often does." Charoleia smiled.

Settling himself in a chair, Aremil stole a swift look at the other people already in the room. Did they believe him or were they pitying his pathetic excuses? He fancied he saw a measuring look in Branca's dark eyes. The two men in the room barely spared him a glance, both clearly deep in thought.

"I take it you've explained our proposal to Master Kerith and Master Jettin?" Aremil propped his crutches at the side of his chair.

"I have," Charoleia confirmed.

Aremil nodded. He would find out from Branca exactly what had been said. He trusted Charoleia, more or less, but he wanted to know how she had shaded her words. What arguments had she used to persuade these two that their adeptness with aetheric enchantments would serve the cause of peace in Lescar?

"It is certainly a remarkable notion." Kerith, the older man, looked as impassive as ever, forbidding in his long black scholarly tunic. Aremil was beginning to wonder if he ever showed any emotion.

"It's a noble ambition," Jettin said fervently. Young, slightly built, he was the most intense of all the exiles whom Branca had introduced to Aremil, even if his accent showed no trace of his father's Triolle blood.

"Most assuredly," Kerith agreed.

If he wasn't as ready as Jettin to challenge taproom experts talking nonsense about Lescar, Aremil had seen the older scholar comprehensively demolish a mentor's ill-founded arguments at a university Solstice reception. The mentor had blithely favoured letting Lescar's warfare run its course until an undisputed High King emerged. What evidence could the man produce, Kerith had demanded, in the Carluse accents he made no effort to shed, that argued such an approach would ever yield results? It never had done in the past.

"So, are you willing to help our unfortunate folk?" Charoleia asked, her accent just coloured with a Marlier intonation.

Aremil admired her calmness. He and Branca had little enough to show for the hours they had spent mingling with exiles over those exhausting days of festival. There weren't many Lescari men and women studying the ancient enchantments of Artifice and still fewer were able to work enchantments with any degree of consistent success. They needed to find adepts sympathetic to their cause and bold enough to risk all the hazards of this clandestine undertaking. Most difficult of all, they had to find people they could trust to keep such a dangerous secret.

Running a hand through his black curls, Jettin didn't hesitate. "Of course."

Aremil was glad his impassive face would betray none of his misgivings about Jettin. The youth had broken off their first conversation to rush to defend a Lescari man accused of rolling weighted runes in the crowded tavern where Branca had found him. Jettin hadn't even known the man. But Charoleia had made her own enquiries and said the youth kept his father's spice-trading secrets as close as his own skin. Judging by Jettin's fine clothes, that spice business was certainly prospering. And Aremil had convinced Jettin to play a game of white raven with him one evening. He had been favourably impressed by the young merchant's shrewd tactics.

The scholar Kerith was still frowning. "I'll give you my answer in a day or so, if that's agreeable."

"Of course," Charoleia assured him. "If you have any concerns, or any more questions, don't hesitate to call upon me."

As she spoke, the elegant timepiece on the wall struck the third hour of the day.

"If you'll excuse me, my lady, Madam Scholar, Master Aremil--" Kerith rose and favoured them all with a brief bow "--I am expected at the Mordaunt Hall."

"And I'd better be about my father's errands." Jettin sprang to his feet.

"Let me show you out." Charoleia favoured both men with her most charming smile.

Aremil looked at Branca as the door closed behind them. "Are you sure Jettin can keep his mouth shut?"

She nodded. "He's nowhere near the reveller he looks. He won his legal advocate's ring inside three years, still working for his father all the while."

Aremil jerked one shoulder in a non-committal shrug. "Do you think Kerith will help us?"

Branca smiled. "Before you arrived, Charoleia was telling him how extraordinary times have always led to extraordinary advances in natural philosophy and alchemy."

"Warfare generally leads to progress." Aremil considered this. "Kerith is very keen to see how well Artifice works outside the halls and libraries, in more testing conditions."

"And to try some of the enchantments that the mentors have no interest in," Branca pointed out. "Are you all right, Aremil? You don't look well."

It was impossible to take offence at her matter-of-fact observation. "I'm tired."

"Do you want to leave off trying your own Artifice till tomorrow?"

From the outset, she'd been content for him to choose his own pace.

"I'll try and we'll see how we fare."

Whether he tried and succeeded or tried and failed, she would neither praise him for prevailing despite his handicaps nor chastise him, however kindly, for overtaxing his strength. She'd merely assess his progress and discuss his understanding of the relevant aspects of the enchantments.

Charoleia came back into the room looking pleased. "I think they will do very well."

"You think they'll join us?" Aremil hoped she was right.

"I do." She nodded. "We should send Jettin to join Reniack. He'll appreciate the boy's enthusiasm and know how to channel it effectively, and how to curb it when need be."

"And Kerith?" Branca enquired.

"He'll do best in Carluse," Charoleia said with conviction. "He's committed to the common Lescari cause as far as his reasoning goes, but Carluse's fate is still what holds his heart."

Aremil nodded. "So we still need to find someone to join Lady Derenna and someone to join Tathrin, Sorgrad and Gren."

"I think I would prefer to keep contact with Tathrin between ourselves." A crease appeared between Charoleia's perfectly shaped brows. "I'm confident neither Kerith nor Jettin would betray us deliberately, but there's always the chance they'll let something slip by mistake. Halcarion forfend, but if they're ever questioned, we want to be certain there'll be little they can say about anyone else's part in this business. The same goes for Failla and Nath, Lady Derenna and Welgren. Having our efforts in any one dukedom discovered will be bad enough. If the dukes get wind of Captain-General Evord's army, that'll be a whole different roll of the runes."

"I can continue to communicate with Tathrin," Branca said calmly. "It won't be long till Aremil can do the same."

Her confidence heartened him. She never flattered him, after all. He resolutely set aside his doubts in the despairing watches of the night, when he'd feared he'd never manage the enchantment. That was why he'd tried to get out of bed to retrieve the book of ancient lore, convinced that the light of the Greater Moon, riding unchallenged at its full in the cloudless dark, would be bright enough to read by.

"Have you spoken to Tathrin today?" Charoleia might have been asking if Branca had met him on the street rather than wielded enchantment reaching hundreds of leagues.

Branca nodded. "He says they're travelling at a good pace. There's only a small group with Evord, but a good many people have come and gone and Sorgrad's confident they will find a sizeable force mustering at the time and place Evord has appointed."

"When is that?" Aremil asked. "And where?"

"Tathrin didn't say." Branca surprised him with a grin. "He doesn't know. Evord won't tell him, nor Sorgrad."

"They both know the value of silence." Charoleia was unperturbed. "Is Sorgrad confident no word is trickling down to the lowlands?"

"He is," Branca confirmed.

Hearing news at second and third hand was intensely frustrating. Aremil clenched his feeble fingers. The sooner he could contact Tathrin for himself, the better. Then he realised Branca was looking slightly troubled.

"Tathrin says Evord and Sorgrad agree they need a banner, something with a bold blazon."

Charoleia was far from being surprised. "Of course."

"Why 'of course'?" Aremil looked curiously at her.

"They're raising an army," the composed beauty pointed out. "When they go into battle, they'll need a standard for Evord's personal company, so that the rest of the bands can see where he is. The lesser captains will need to send runners to his position or rally to him in case of retreat. They need a blazon that the other companies can add to their own standards. Evord will need to see how his own forces are faring across the battlefields."

Battlefields where men and women would fight and fall injured, some of them dying. Tathrin could so easily be among the wounded or--Poldrion forfend--the dead.

Aremil looked at Branca and saw his own misgivings reflected in her dark eyes.

"Foolish, isn't it?" she said frankly. "We've been talking about raising an army and overthrowing the Lescari dukes, but I've never really thought about the bloodshed."

"We're none of us warriors," Charoleia pointed out, "which is why we are leaving such things to Sorgrad and Evord. We must trust them while we play our part here." She paused. "We don't merely need to devise a standard. We need to see banners sewn and dispatched."

"Without anyone knowing what they're for," Aremil warned.

"Whatever we choose, it had better not be anything that could be confused with the dukes' badges," Branca said after a moment.

Aremil saw what she was thinking. "We don't want anyone to assume that this undertaking is just some feint to put a particular duke on the High King's throne."

"We don't want anything that could be mistaken for some Tormalin prince's insignia, either," Charoleia agreed.

"What manner of badges do they use?" Branca asked uncertainly.

"A great many animals." Aremil searched his recollections. "The swan for the House of Tor Kanselin, the lynx for D'Olbriot."

Branca sighed. "With Carluse's boar's head, Sharlac's stag and Triolle's green grebe, we had better avoid beasts and birds altogether."

"And weapons," Aremil agreed, "given Marlier's swords and Parnilesse's halberd and long sword."

Charoleia was still thinking about Tormalin badges. "D'Alsennin uses the holm oak and Den Dalderin the honeysuckle. Tormalin princes use at least as many trees and flowers as they do birds and animals, so we had best shun all such motifs."

"What does that leave?" Aremil looked at Branca and saw she was as bereft of inspiration as him.

"We need a design that mercenary companies can easily blend with their own."

Charoleia looked for Aremil's agreement but he could only look blankly at her.

"Why so?"

"A mercenary company that's sworn fealty to a duke or a Tormalin prince adopts some element of their paymaster's insignia alongside their own." She raised her brows. "Did you not know that?"

"I left Draximal as a child," he reminded her, "discarded as unfit to lead men into battle. No one explained the intricacies of hiring mercenaries to me."

"Master Reniack will want something that's easily drawn and copied, if he's to include it in his broadsheets and night letters," Branca observed.

Aremil nodded. "A blazon to identify our common purpose could serve more ends than just rallying men on the battlefield."

"So it must symbolise all aspects of our common endeavour." Charoleia frowned.

The faint sound of wheels on the cobbles outside emphasised the silence in the room.