Finally, the mage decided that it was simply a matter of his not liking any company very much, not even that of other dweomercraefters. For a moment, he absently wondered if he was deluding himself by allowing himself to come to this conclusion. Then Wanno gathered up the sleeping bundle that was the little prince and headed for his private chamber. As he entered the room, a figure who had been seated on a stool near the door rose to greet him.

“All is done?” It was his apprentice, Halferd, who spoke.

Wanno only briefly turned toward the one who queried thus. To the mage, Halferd was a stripling whom he retained to perform services and instruct. This apprentice was held by many others to be a powerful spell-caster in his own right, but to Wanno he was a mere pupil. Had he gazed at Halferd’s face at this moment, looked into his eyes, perhaps the mage would have reconsidered his estimation; but after no more than a sideways glance at the other man, Wanno placed the child in a crib in a secluded corner of the little bedchamber and laid the magical box at the infant’s feet, covering it with part of a blanket. Only then did he bother to answer Halferd’s question.

“Yes. Both parents are gone away for a time, and there is much to be done if I am to fulfill my oath. First, I must arrange for the nurse who is to have care of the babe.”

“I’ll fetch her for you straight away, Master Wan-no,” Halferd murmured deferentially as he stepped toward the exit from the room.

“No.”

Halferd’s heart sank at that short utterance. Did the crusty old bastard suspect him of something?

“Yes, Master Wanno? Is there something I have neglected?”

“You don’t know who I have decided upon to be the infant’s maid,” the hollow-eyed mage said as he began to fuss over the circle of runic inscriptions chalked on the floor around the cradle where the princeling slept. In fact, Wanno had some time ago made his decision on a guardian for the child, and had made many preparations concerning that subject without Halferd’s knowledge.