Blade did not believe him. It seemed hard not to trust a friend of Dad’s who had been like an uncle to you all your life, but Blade remembered that Barnabas had given them no help at all with the soldiers, even when he knew Derk was not with them, and he said sternly, “I’ll stop when you’re standing up.”
“Cruel brat!” Barnabas groaned, and scrambled out of the bag, shaking and shivering, and got to his feet by climbing up the splintery wall. “That suit you?”
“Walk outside,” said Blade.
Barnabas swayed and got himself through the doorway by pulling on the sides of it with both hands. He leaned against the outside of the hut, moaning. “You don’t understand, Blade. If you only knew how hard Mr. Chesney makes us work, you’d have some sympathy for—”
“I do know,” said Blade, “by now.” He took some of the coldness off, but not all of it. A sort of half chill might help Barnabas to get sober, he hoped. “There are no beds in the sleeping huts and no holes in these latrines,” he said, “and the cookhouse is only half finished. I’ll come and help you in a minute.” He untied the unfortunate horse and led it away toward the river. As he went, he realized that he was feeling rushed and worried again. He was so used to the feeling and so used by now to thinking of more things that could go wrong that he hardly checked in his stride when he came crunching out of the dome and saw a group of cloaked and plumed young warriors waiting beside the three hampers. Wow! he thought. They look smart! And crunched on toward the river with the horse.
“The Emperor of the South to speak with the Wizard Derk!” one of the warriors called out as soon as Blade was near enough.
First things first, Blade thought. Barnabas’s horse was half dead with thirst. Blade took it to the river and saw it start drinking before he turned and said, quite politely, “I’m afraid my father won’t get here until this evening.” By that time the warriors had unfurled the banner of the empire. It flapped on a pole beside the hampers, huge and official and purple and white. Blade thought, Wow! again, as he went toward the hampers. “Excuse me,” he said as politely as he could. “I need to get at a nose bag. The horse is starving. And do any of you happen to have any coffee? The wizard who’s supposed to be building this camp has gone and got drunk.”
They stared at him, nonplussed, but they moved aside from the hampers a little, shiny boots crunching in the shale. Golden breastplates flashed at the corner of Blade’s eye as he hauled out a nose bag. Since nobody seemed to be saying anything, Blade said nothing either. He took the nose bag back to the horse, dragged it out of the river before it drank too much, and hitched it into the nose bag. When it had settled down to eat, he turned around.
The youngest of the warriors, the one wrapped in the large purple cloak, was standing only a yard or so away. Blade and he looked at one another. Shona’s age, Blade thought. He looks rather nice.
“I—er—sent a runner for coffee,” said the warrior.
“Thank you,” Blade said, with true gratitude.
“Not a problem,” said the teenage warrior. “Our encampment’s only a mile away. Much too near really. Your drunk wizard seems to have put yours in the wrong place.”
“I thought something was wrong. It’s a bit late to move it now,” Blade said anxiously.
“I realize,” said the warrior. “But it makes it easier to confer about the battle plans. I don’t want your father to hit my legions too hard. They’re nearly all new men. Most of the veterans got killed in last year’s tours. I’m Titus—Emperor, you know.”
“I’m Blade,” said Blade, and was surprised to find himself shaking hands warmly with the Emperor of the South.
“I liked the way you saw to the horse first,” Titus told him.
“Barnabas must have had it tied up to that hut for days!” Blade said angrily. “I very nearly kicked him. I even sort of did. But he was so drunk he didn’t feel it.”
“I’m not sure I’d dare kick a wizard, even a drunk one,” said the Emperor.
“After this last week or so,” Blade answered, “I didn’t even think about it.” He and the Emperor went and sat on the hampers, while Blade described how the soldiers tried to escape and how Scales arrived in time to stop them (or most of them). The other warriors, after a nod from Titus, sat stiffly on the shale around them. They had had a difficult time, too, Titus said. The Imperial Legions had lost their way and spent most of two days in a marsh.
“And those marsh folk just stood around and laughed!” Titus was saying. “I thought they were supposed to be on our side, but—Oh, you have company.”
Blade looked around to find a small party of horsemen splashing across the river toward them. The tall, gloomy one in front he recognized from the time he and Dad had consulted the White Oracle. King Luther. Definitely. He got up. Everyone around him sprang up, too.
King Luther swung himself down from his tall, gloomy black horse and crunched over the stones toward them. “I wondered if I’d find you here, Titus,” he said genially. He and the Emperor bowed to one another like friends, but like kings with kingdoms, too, Blade saw, watching with interest. Then King Luther turned to him. “And don’t even think of putting the shivers on me this time, boy.” Blade saw Titus swallowing a laugh at this. “Where’s your father?” asked the king. “What’s he thinking of, putting this camp in the wrong place? My army’s not going to have time to get home between battles from here.”
“I’m afraid Barnabas got drunk and probably made a mistake,” Blade explained.
“Then what’s Derk doing trusting that drunk—?” King Luther began.
“Ah, here comes the coffee,” Titus interrupted.
It was in gilded picnic baskets slung on the sides of a horse and followed by a stately majordomo on another horse. There was a whole feast in there, Blade saw, when the majordomo grandly flipped the basket lids up.
“I suggest we all have some lunch,” Titus said graciously.
Blade took a gilded and steaming flask of coffee up to the camp first, where he found Barnabas shakily slogging away at conjuring bunks into the barrack sheds. “I shall have to give up drinking,” he told Blade dismally. “I’ve got the shivers really badly this time. Can’t seem to get warm. Is that coffee? Oh, good!”
Blade took pity on him and reduced the chill spell by half again. But he took care to fetch a chair out from the cookhouse into the open parade ground and make Barnabas sit on it before he handed him the coffee flask. He did not want Barnabas going to sleep again.
Barnabas took the flask and swigged eagerly. He puffed and wiped his mouth and swigged again. “That’s bette