She shook her head. “No, it was a precautionary measure,” she replied, “because of that message from Luke. Dalt’s force had not actually been sighted.”

“Does anyone even know where he is?” I asked…

“Not yet,” she answered, “but we’re expecting some intelligence on that soon.” She shrugged. Then, “Perhaps Julian already has it,” she added.

“Why is Julian in command?” I asked between nibbles. “I’d have thought Benedict would take charge of something like this.”

Llewella looked away, glancing at Vialle, who seemed to feel the shifting of focus.

“Benedict and a small force of his men have escorted Random to Kashfa,” Vialle said, softly.

“Kashfa?” I said: “Why would he want to do that? In fact, Dalt usually hangs out around Kashfa. The area could be dangerous right now.”

She smiled faintly.

“That is why he wanted Benedict and his guard for escort,” she said. “They may even be the intelligence-gathering expedition themselves, though that’s not their reason for going right now.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, “why the trip should be necessary at all.”

She took a sip of water.

“A sudden political upheaval,” she replied: “Some general had taken over in the absence of the queen and the crown prince. The general was just assassinated recently, and Random has succeeded in obtaining agreement for placing his own candidate — an older nobleman on the throne.”

“How’d he do that?”

“Everyone with an interest in the matter was even more interested in seeing Kashfa admitted to the Golden Circle of privileged trade status.”

“So Random bought them off to see his own man in charge,” I observed. “Don’t these Golden Circle treaties usually give us the right to move troops through a client kingdom’s territory with very little in the way of preliminaries?”

“Yes,” she said.

I suddenly recalled that tough-looking emissary of the Crown I’d met at Bloody Bill’s, who had paid his tab in Kashfan currency.