Kushiel's Dart

crumbs from his beard. "They say the Skaldic tribes have found a leader," he said when he was done. "A Cinhil Ru of their own."
    After a moment of staring surpise, Delaunay gave his bark of laughter. "Surely you jest! The Skaldi have never been so quiet in our lives, Maestro."
    "Precisely." The Aragonian devoured another canape and held out his glass for Alcuin to refill. "They have found a leader who thinks."
    Delaunay was silent, thinking about the implications. The Skaldic tribes were numerous, more numerous than the tribes of Alba and Eire, who had united to defeat the Tiberian army, the greatest military force the continent of Europa had ever seen. Islanded, isolated and hemmed in for centuries by the Master of the Straits, the armies of the kingdom of Alba had never constituted a true threat to our borders.
    A united Skaldic force would be another matter.
    "What are they saying?" he asked at length.
    Gonzago set down his wineglass. "Not much, yet. But you know there are always Skaldi among the mercenaries, travelling the trade routes, yes? It began among them; a whisper, not even a rumor, of great doings in the north. Slowly, traders began to notice that their numbers were changing steadily .. . not more Skaldi, but different ones, changing places, replacing their numbers. Skaldi went and Skaldi came. It is hard to tell the difference," he added, "for diey are wild and ungroomed to a man, but I spoke with a leather-merchant in Milazza who was certain that he detected a growing cunning among the Skaldi he hired to protect his caravan."
    I thought of the Skaldic tribesman who had taken me under his wing so long ago, a faded memory of a laughing, mustached giant. There had been no cunning in him, and much kindness. Alcuin sat wide-eyed on his couch. His memories of the Skaldi held only blood, iron and fire.
    "He thought they were gathering information," Delaunay said, tugging his braid restlessly as the wheels of his mind turned and processed. "To what end?"
    "That, I do not know." Gonzago shrugged and nibbled at a canape. "But there is a name which is spoken around the Skaldi campfires in hushed tones: Waldemar, or Waldemar Selig; Waldemar the Blessed who is proof against iron. And last summer, for a fortnight, there was nary a Skaldi to be found in Caerdicca Unitas, and it was rumored that Waldemar Selig summoned a high council of the tribes of Skaldia somewhere in the old Helvetican holdings. I do not know if it is true, but my friend the leather-merchant told me a friend of his who is close to the duchy in Milazza swore that the Duke received an offer of marriage for his eldest daughter from a King Waldemar of Skaldia." Gonzago shrugged again and spread his open hands in an Aragonian gesture. "What can one do with such rumors? My friend said the Duke of Milazza laughed and sent the Skaldi envoy home with seven cartloads of silk and fustian. But I tell you I mistrust this quiet on the Skaldi borders."
    Delaunay tapped his front teeth with the nail of one forefinger. "And meanwhile Baudoin de Trevalion gambols about the fringes of Camlach, skewering starving brigands and garnering acclaim for protecting the realm. You are right, Maestro, this bears watching. If you learn aught in your travels, send me word."
    "You know I will, my dear." Gonzago de Escabares' tone softened, and his brown eyes were kind in his homely face. "Do not think I am not ever mindful of your promise, Antinous."
    I was still puzzling out this last convoluted sentence whe"n Delaunay's sharp gaze fell upon Alcuin and myself. He clapped his hands briskly. "Phedre, Alcuin; to bed with the both of you. The Maestro and I have much to discuss, and none of it needful for your ears."
    It need not be said that we obeyed, but I will add that one of us, at least, went reluctantly.

NINETEEN
    Despite the concerns of Gonzago de Escabares, the only news of note that occurred outside our borders in the following months lay not within Skaldic territories, but in the kingdom of Alba. And the rumor that crossed the waters was this: The Cruarch of Alba was dead, slain, it was said, by his own son, who sought to overturn the old matrilineal rites of succession and seize rulership of Alba for himself.
    The Cruarch's rightful heir, his club-footed nephew, had fled with his mother and three younger sisters to the western shores of Alba, where the Dalriada of Eire, who had a foothold there, gave them asylum.
    No one had ever paid much heed to the regency of Alba