“Yes,” she answered as she rose to follow him to the door. “I would like that, very much.”
Roo almost fled, he was so confused. Outside, the door safely closed between them, he paused and wiped his forehead. He was perspiring and felt hot to his own touch. What is this? he wondered. He decided he needed to consider more fully the consequences of this campaign he had started of winning Helmut Grindle’s daughter.
As the city awoke around him, Roo returned to the office and the seemingly endless work ahead.
Six wagons rolled to the gate and a guard waved Roo to halt. The guard wore the usual tabard of the Prince of Krondor, the yellow outline of an eagle soaring above a peak, contained in a circle of dark blue. The only change Roo noticed was that the grey tabard was now trimmed in royal purple with yellow. For the first time in memory, a Crown Prince, heir to the throne of the Kingdom of the Isles, now ruled the Western Realm.
Roo struggled to remember what that meant; he was vaguely aware that tradition held that the Prince should rule in Krondor until assuming the throne, but that recent history had placed Arutha, father to the King, on the throne of Krondor, but he wasn’t heir to the crown. Roo thought he might ask someone about that, if he remembered.
The guard said, “Your business?”
“Delivery for Sergeant de Loungville” was all Roo had been instructed to say.
At mention of that name, Jadow Shati seemed to materialize out of nowhere, though he merely had been in the shadow of the guardhouse next to the gate. He wore the black tunic of Calis’s special forces, with only the crimson eagle above his heart for marking. “Let them in,” he said in his deep voice.
He grinned at Roo. “They’ll get used to your face, Avery.”
Roo smiled back. “If he got used to yours, mine will be easy.”
Jadow laughed. “And you’re such a handsome fellow, after all.”
Then Roo noticed the sleeve on his old companion’s tunic and said, “You’ve got a third stripe! You’re a sergeant?”
Jadow’s broad smile seemed to widen. “That’s the truth, man. Erik, too.”
“What about de Loungville?” asked Roo as the gates swung wide. He urged his team of mules forward.
“He’s still our lord and master,” said Jadow. “But he’s now called the Major Sergeant, or Sergeant Major; I can never remember which.” As the first wagon with Roo aboard passed, he said, “Erik will tell you. He’s going to oversee the unloading.”
Roo waved and steered his team into the yard. This was not his first delivery to the palace, but it was his biggest. A caravan of trade goods from Kesh and the Vale of Dreams had arrived from the south, and attached to it had been goods marked for the palace, specifically for Knight-Marshal William. It was now a standing order that anything earmarked for Calis’s special force was to be shipped to the Knight-Marshal. The palace brokers who controlled the flow of goods in and out of the harbor and the caravanserais outside the city were notified that all such cargo was to be shipped directly to the palace via wagons owned by Grindle and Avery.
A newly erected warehouse stood alongside the outer wall of the palace, cutting the marshalling yard in half for its entire length. Roo had puzzled over its construction the last few times he had visited the palace, but had said nothing. He pulled his team up before the entrance, where three figures waited.
Erik waved, as did Greylock, once Swordmaster to the Baron of Darkmoor. Next to them stood the Knight-Marshal himself, and behind him squatted his pet, the green-scaled flying lizard, as Roo thought of it.
“Gentlemen,” said Roo as he dismounted the wagon, “where do you want this unloaded?”
Greylock said, “Our men will unload. It’s going in here.” He waved toward the newly finished warehouse.
Erik signaled and a full squad of soldiers in black tunics hurried and untied the lash-down covering the wagon. They lowered the tailgate and began to unload cargo.
Roo said, “Jadow said congratulations are in order.”
Erik shrugged. “We’ve been promoted.”
Greylock put his hand on Roo’s shoulder. “They both need the rank. Our chain of command is beginning to emerge.”
The Knight-Marshal’s pet hissed, and Lord William said, “Hush, Fantus. Rupert has served with us before. Captain Greylock isn’t spilling state secrets to the enemy.”
As if he understood, the creature, a firedrake, Roo now recalled, settled down at the King-Marshal’s boots. He stretched forth his neck and Lord William scratched him behind the eye ridges.
“Captain Greylock?” said Roo. “What is this?”
Greylock shrugged. “It makes things easier in dealing with the normal army command. Our unit is . . . unusual,” he said, glancing at Lord William to see if he was overstepping his authority by talking to Roo. When the Knight-Marshal ignored him, Greylock continued. “I have a lot of things to do, and this way I never have to ask anyone’s permission.”
Lord William smiled and said, “Except mine, of course.”