Scion of Cyador

XXVI

The breakfast room is hot, even though the late-afternoon sun is dropping below the brick walls of the Mirror Lancer compound at Biehl. Despite the heat and still air, Lorn finishes his dinner-a breast of fowl smothered in sawdustlike slivers of quilla. The bread is a dry rye that is not much better than the quilla. The single glass of Fhynyco he allows himself makes the bread and quilla half-palatable.

After he washes and stacks the dishes, he walks slowly into his study, where he sits at the narrow desk and takes out the scroll he has received from his father earlier in the day. He unrolls it and begins to reads it once more, this time more carefully and slowly.

All remains well with us, although we are not quite so active as those younger…Kysia has continued to help in ways we had not anticipated, and I am certain that, whenever you do return to Cyad, she will wish to serve you and Ryalth…

We are pleased to have dinner with your lovely consort often, generally once or twice an eightday, if not more often. She and Jerial have gotten rather close, and at times, even Myryan will join them.

Myryan’s garden prospers, and she often shares her bounty with us, and upon occasion Ciesrt will join us, although he and Vernt are most occupied, now that they are now adepts of the full second level, with the growing and myriad challenges that face those of the Magi’i in these days…Your young friend Tyrsal, although a lower second, is beginning to show a certain promise, if delayed. I am glad to see that, given the attention that the First Magus has showered upon Rustyl, who shares some of the deportment of the lancer officer who continues to write your sister. It is said that an arrangement is close for consorting Rustyl to Ciesrt’s younger sister, Ceyla. The older sister recently consorted with Zubyl…

More lancers are likely to be reassigned from the Accursed Forest in late summer or early fall…if all goes well.

Myryan and Jerial have been pressed into extra time at the infirmary once more, as a result of the chaos-tower failure on the First Star…

Lorn frowns. For his father to mention that chaos-tower failure so openly must mean all of Cyad knows about the failure, and that there were indeed many casualties. There is also the hint that the ward-wall project, whatever it may be, is about to be completed.

Will that have an effect on the barbarians? Will they find out? Or will they mount attacks before lancers can be transferred? Or shift their attacks elsewhere? Lorn glances out through the window at the growing twilight, a twilight that has yet to bring coolness to the still air that enfolds the lancer compound.

After a time, he lifts the scroll once more, frowning, as his eyes drift back up to the lines about Tyrsal and Rustyl. His father never mentions anything quite idly, and that means, for some reason, he must keep Rustyl in mind in the seasons and years ahead.

After he writes his reply, and another scroll to Ryalth, he will take out the glass again, and make a greater effort to determine where the barbarians are gathering forces-if they are-and to draw part of yet another map.

And he will have to plan how to best use the forces of the District Commander…

He rubs his forehead, glancing out into the summer darkness he has not seen creep across the compound. The rest of the summer will be long, and tiring, for he has much to do with the lancers, his screeing of the barbarians, and his maps-and with ensuring all ships that port in Biehl are treated well and fairly. And with occasionally checking on the olive-growers and other traders and factors.

None of these are exciting, nor glamorous. All are necessary, and the energy required leaves little for himself-or for using the glass, if briefly, to view Ryalth.