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accept him as leader of this expedition. The laranzu in particular; although, like all of his kind, he rode unarmed except for a dagger at his side, a small knife such as a woman might wear, he looked as if he had been riding on campaigns such as this since long before Bard was born.
    He wondered if this was Beltran’s apprehension, too, but be soon found that the prince’s displeasure was from quite another cause.
    “Geremy and I pledged one another we would ride together to battle this year, and now he has chosen to remain at the king’s side—”
    “Foster brother,” Bard said seriously, “a soldier hears only the voice of his commander, and his own wishes must be subordinate to that.”
    Prince Beltran’s voice was petulant. “I am sure, if he had told my father of this, Father would have honored our promise and given Geremy to this expedition. After all, it is only a stupid matter of chasing down caravans, not much more important than riding out to capture bandit raiders on the border,” he added; and Bard, frowning, knew suddenly why the king had said firmly to him that he, and not Prince Beltran, was really in command of this expedition; quite obviously, the prince had no notion of the strategic importance of the clingfire caravans!
    If Prince Beltran has no military sense, no wonder my lord the king is eager to train me for command at last; so that if he cannot leave his armies in the hands of his son, he may leave them to his son-in-law… If he has no son fit for a general of all his armies, he will marry his daughter to his own general instead of to a rival outside his borders …
    He tried to make Prince Beltran see something of the importance of his mission, but Beltran was
    sulking, and at last said, “I can see that you want it to be important, Bard, because it makes you feel more important.” And Bard shrugged and let it go.
    By midafternoon they were near to the southern border of Asturias; and during the midafternoon rest to breathe the horses, Bard rode toward the sorcerers, who had stopped a little apart from the rest. This was customary; most fighting men (and Bard was no exception) were wary of leroni .
    He thought King Ardrin must have regarded this mission as important, else he would hardly have sent a man long seasoned in campaign, but would have given them the young and inexperienced Geremy, if
    only to please his son and his foster son. Still, Bard found himself echoing the wish of the prince, that Geremy, whom he knew so well, had been with them, rather than this stranger. He did not know how to talk to a laranzu . Geremy, from the time they were all twelve years old, had had lessons apart, not in swordplay and unarmed combat and dagger fighting like the rest of the king’s fosterlings, but in the occult mastery of the starstones, the blue wizard’s crystals which gave the leroni their powers. Geremy had shared their lessons in military tactics and strategy, in riding and hunting, and had gone with them on fire watch and ridden with them against bandits, but it was clear even then that he was not intended for a soldier, and when he had given up wearing a sword, exchanging it for the dagger of a sorcerer, and saying he needed no weapon but the starstone about his neck, a great gulf had opened between them.
    And now, as he faced the laranzu the king had sent with them, he felt something of the same gulf. Yet the man looked hardened to campaigns, rode like a soldier, and even had a soldierly way of handling his horse. He had thin, hawk-like features and keen, colorless eyes, the gray hardness of tempered steel.
    “I am Bard di Asturien,” he said. “I do not know your name, sir.”
    “ Gareth MacAran, a ves ordras, vai dom …” said the man, saluting briefly.
    “What have you been told about this expedition, Master Gareth?”
    “Only that I was at your orders, sir.” Bard had just enough laran to catch the very faint, almost undetectable emphasis put on your . Inwardly he felt a