In the past three years, sales of pine and beech wood had increased nearly tenfold. All across the Empire, little girls were growing up wearing crowns of mallows on their heads, playing at being Empress. They would carry wooden horses in their pockets and knight their brothers with sticks they found in the wood. “I am the rising sun of Aros,” they would say. The manufacture of wooden toys, horses in particular, had therefore become an exceedingly profitable business, even when the steady increase in taxes had somewhat lowered the margins.

  The breeding of blue roans, too, had seen exponential growth, with the dark patterned horses eclipsing all others in popularity. To have one in one’s stables was seen as a sign of prestige, and no household of repute was complete without at least one or two. The price of blue dye had risen steeply, due to ever-increasing demand, and blue-dyed fabrics had become so costly that only the wealthiest of merchants could afford it. For a time, blue silk had become so highly coveted that the purchase of a warhorse was more economical than a bolt of the stuff, and even nobles had difficulty in procuring enough to fashion so much as a veil. Blue was, after all, the Empress’s favorite color.

  Every girl from the Ipsan Peninsula to the Zauberwald wanted, in some way or another, to emulate the Empress, and in this way, the Empress had had a significant impact on the Arosian economy simply by virtue of being a woman. It was a fact that was lost on men like the General, men who thought that the only road to prosperity was through conquest, men who thought that an ill-born male heir was preferable to a legitimate female.

  In addition to her other contributions, the Empress’s love of wine meant that more and more land was being devoted to the cultivation of vineyards. Not only did this equate to greater yield, greater variety, and higher profits, but because of the Empress’s devotion to Arosian wine in particular, such varieties were increasing in popularity abroad.

  Mouse stared down into her murky cup of wine, turning it in her hand and watching the sediment rise from the bottom. She lifted the cup to her lips, grimacing at the sour taste of the drink as it coated her teeth. This was not Arosian wine; it was Vejlish, the kind watered down and given to soldiers. It was cheaply made and cheaply purchased, fit for only the lower classes or those riding into battle.

  With Vejle on the brink of civil war, the purchase of any of its exports, wine or otherwise, had been prohibited in Aros. And while there was a chance that this wine had been poured from old stores, purchased before the prohibition, given the General’s disregard for the authority of the crown, Mouse would not be surprised to learn that it had been procured more recently than the law would allow.

  “How have you found the contests, Your Majesty?” Lord Batton asked, stirring Mouse from her thoughts. “Any champions who will succeed to the capital?”

  Mouse smiled, despite the bitter taste left in her mouth by the wine. The better part of the past several days had been spent watching the hastiludes, overseeing the selection of those men who had demonstrated the greatest skill and would be invited to the capital to compete in the coming tournament for the Feast of the Fourteen.

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” she said. “Six for the melee and three for the joust, if I have it right. I believe there are a few soldiers among them, but two are the sons of merchants, and one a smith.”

  Lord Batton raised his eyebrows.

  “A smith?” he echoed. “Extraordinary. Any chance you saw my boy, Henrich? He was in the lists just the other day.”

  Mouse thought back to the man who had been dragged around the yard with his foot caught in the stirrup and another who had nearly been trampled. She thought of Sir Conrad’s mocking remarks about those he referred to as half-lords and hearth sons.

  “No, sir,” Mouse said. “I do not believe I had the privilege.” And with that, she forced down another swallow of wine.

  Mouse looked around the great hall, at the knights and lords gathered there. It was all a game of waiting now. The letter she had dispatched to the Empress five days ago had already been answered; she was not to return to the capital until the barracks had been emptied and all the service records inspected. And moreover, she was to bring back with her not just the missing knights, but General Ralist’s eldest son, Bertram. As the General’s first born and the heir to Pothes Mar, Bertram would be a hostage of the crown, and in addition to keeping his father in line, would have his ideals and proclivities shaped by a greater sense of fealty and patriotism.

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  The downside to this was that Mouse’s request to bring back the General’s second eldest son, Leopold, had been denied. It was with the greatest disappointment and the deepest regret that Mouse had found it incumbent upon her to inform Sir Conrad of this, and worse still was that she herself had been forced to take responsibility for the decision. After all, she could not very well tell him that it was the decree of the Empress and had nothing to do with her wishes.

  The last part of the Empress’s instructions had given Mouse leave to disregard the previous correspondence, the one signed “B.O.L.” Mouse had confessed in her own letter to the Empress that she had not been able to make sense of what was meant by “Adalbert’s scythe, Yndis vale,” but apparently, the correspondence containing them had not been meant for her, but someone else. However, this idea Mouse found somehow even more intriguing than the letter itself; if she were not the intended recipient, had it reached her by mistake, or was it that it had been sent with the design of being intercepted?

  On the whole, Mouse felt as though she had not entirely displeased the Empress, and may have, in fact, actually done some good. But the work of gathering the missing knights was far from over, and Mouse knew that Ralist would make her task no easy one.

  That evening following supper, Mouse found herself once again engaged by the General’s children. They had grown fond of her, it seemed, and she of them, and they led her now to the small dining room where they had previously gathered for breakfast. Inside, the tables had been cleared away and a puppet theater erected.

  Mouse was delighted to learn that Inga would be narrating and Maria reading the part of Queen Asta in the story of Sir Sigfrid and King Ceadda.

  The story began in Ribe, just south of the Zauberwald, where King Ceadda had joined his wife, Asta, to witness the birth of their first child. After the child had been born, the king and his knights began their return to the capital. But it was not long into their journey that the king and his men were set upon and driven apart by a band of Braquish soldiers.

  The king managed to escape into the woods with Sir Sigfrid by his side, where the two men took refuge in an abandoned watch tower. Knowing that the enemy was not far behind them, King Ceadda bid Sir Sigfrid slay him, that he might die at the hands of a noble and steadfast Arosian knight rather than that of his foe. However, Sir Sigfrid refused the command, saying that he had another plan.

  Donning the king’s robes, Sir Sigfrid fastened King Ceadda into his armor and told him to hide in the wood. He then went out of the tower, just as the enemy was approaching, and relinquished himself to their charge. The Braquish soldiers, thinking they had captured the king of Aros, spent the night making merry in their camp, while Sir Sigfrid patiently bided his time.

  Throughout the course of the night, Sir Sigfrid learned that the enemy was planning a siege on the capital, and when the moment was right, he struck, freeing himself using one of his captor’s own swords and making his escape to the Yar, where he plunged himself into the river, cloak and all.

  The Braquish soldiers, seeing this, counted it no loss, for they knew that the man was good as dead. After all, the current of the Yar was so mighty and the robes the man had been wearing so heavy that there could be no chance of his survival.

  But Sir Sigfrid, strengthened by years of wearing heavy plate, managed to keep himself afloat long enough to reach the shores of Hallovie. There, he told the villagers what had passed, and men were sent north to find out the king while others rode with Sir Sigfrid to the capital to warn of the impending siege.

  By the time the Braquish soldiers arrived at the walls of the capital, both King Ceadda and Sir Sigrid were awaiting them, along with an army of ten thousand men. The enemy, surprised to see the king alive and the city so well guarded, lost the will to fight at once, and having lost faith in their general for being so deceived, willingly gave themselves over to the king.

  The story was as much legend as it was truth, and like most Arosian tales, there was more than one way it was said to end.

  In another version of the story, King Ceadda had been found by the Braquish soldiers and killed, and Sir Sigfrid wishing neither to disparage the people or satisfy his enemies, had presented himself as the king. It was a ruse that, with Asta’s blessing, he carried on all his life, becoming Ceadda and taking with him to the grave the secret of his true identity.

  Most people preferred the first ending, but the children had chosen the second. Funny that they should, thought Mouse, as she sat there in someone else’s clothes pretending to be someone she was not.

  That night when she went to sleep, Mouse did not dream of Foilund and Kingfishers' Bridge. She did not dream of the mighty Manau or the house with the half-moon painted on the door. Instead, she dreamed of looming mountains with soaring peaks that reached high into the sky. She dreamed of soldiers hiding in the wood. She dreamed of one man donning another’s robes and watching as he was killed. She dreamed of the moon, bright and yellow, hanging in the sky, a scythe waiting to fall and cut down whatever lay in its path.