When the group arrived at the keep it was a struggle at first to get back into the normal rhythm. In some ways it was made easier by the increased workload that they were now being issued by the masters. Nedric felt as if he was in a pot of water with a tight lid, which was slowly being heated. As they got closer to the exams the pressure was gradually building and Nedric wondered how long it would take before everything exploded.

Even at end-week they didn’t have time to themselves. The quantity of work was such that even if they had the money to go to the village they wouldn’t have had the leisure. Nedric found that the best way to relieve some of that pressure was to spend a little time each day juggling. Although it was immensely frustrating trying to get the balls or clubs going in exactly the new pattern he was trying to learn, the effort took his mind completely off of everything else. Rialto said that he felt exactly the same playing his mandolin.

One small distraction from all the work came a couple of weeks after they had come back from their trip. Bronn found him in his room and asked him to visit Captain Tolbeck. Nedric wasn’t aware that he had done anything wrong so wondered what the Captain would want with him.

“Sit down lad, relax, I just want to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“I want you to tell me everything that happened on your journey. Take your time and don’t leave anything out.”

Nedric started describing his journey and it soon became clear that when the Captain had said he was not to omit anything he wanted a lot of detail. He asked what the taverns were like on the route and he must have visited them many times on his own journeys. He was less interested in the lectures themselves than in the students’ reactions to them. Some of his questions Nedric couldn’t answer as he had not been observing the appropriate person but quite often Nedric was able to answer questions that he had not realised he was capable of answering.

In all the questioning Nedric wasn’t sure what the Captain was after. He seemed to be interested in one person and then another. He asked Nedric to describe Strawn’s fight in detail. He wanted to know what everyone had been doing as they were being shown around the various parts of the boardway. He even wanted to know what the students had been doing in their free time. By the end of his questioning Nedric was feeling wrung out.

When all the questions had finished, Tolbeck changed the conversation around to something that Nedric had completely forgotten, the body that he had found several months before. Thinking about it now made Nedric shiver as he thought again of the look of surprise on the dead man’s face.

“Do you remember that ring we found on that body?”

Nedric thought about it and recalled the strange design; he nodded.

“As we couldn’t find out anything else about the man I got the guards who accompanied you to talk to a friend of mine at Waterfall. He has been everywhere and he recognised the description. It seems that our man was from Nothering.”

Nedric knew about their northern neighbour apart from the lessons on geography and economics, other than that he was lost as the two countries had very little to do with each other. Sutherland had been founded by a group of slaves who had escaped from Nothering many years ago and the two countries had, after a number of fruitless wars, agreed an uneasy truce that had held for half a century.

“What’s a man from Nothering doing in these parts?”

“The better question is, what is a member of the shadow guild doing here?”

“Shadow guild?”

“You’ve no doubt heard all the scare stories in your childhood, behave yourself or the shadow guild will get you!”

“I thought they were imaginary, just intended to keep children in order.”

“Well they are real but they aren’t really scary in a childish way. What do you know about Nothering?”

“Not a lot really. I gather they are a rather religious bunch.”

“Rather religious, a good summation.” Tolbeck smiled and continued, “The country is a theocracy, which means that it is ruled by the priests. They decide everything and everyone lives by church law as written in ‘The Book of the Five’. The shadow guild is the intelligence gathering and enforcement arm of the government. It answers to the priests and they use it to scare the population into doing what they want.”

“So what would one of them be doing here in Asgril? We aren’t in Nothering or subject to the whims of priests.”

“My best guess is that he was here to recruit one of the students to spy for them.”

“What? Why? Who?” Nedric was somewhat dumbfounded and spluttered out questions so that he could have time to think.

“To try and answer your questions, I don’t know who and was hoping that someone might have given themselves away during the trip. As to why, I imagine they want better details on the boardways. We are the only country who has them at the moment and transportation is very important when you are at war.”

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“But we aren’t at war with them at the moment.”

“Mark my words, we will be in a few years. We are due a large conflict soon, they seem to occur every twenty years or so.”

Nedric wasn’t going to argue with the captain, even though there had been peace of sorts between the two countries for his entire life. He had heard plenty of war stories from the old-timers on the estate where he was born. He still didn’t see the point of the shadow guild recruiting a student to spy for them and said so.

“You students have just had a wider exposure to the operation of the boardways than most of the workers. You were given the overview and went into all the major areas, shown most of the new developments and have been trained by us to understand what you were shown. Who would make a better spy?”

Nedric didn’t like to think of any of his companions as traitors to the country. He couldn’t imagine that any of them, even Strawn, being that underhand. “Why are you telling me all this?” he asked.

“You are the one student I know can’t be a spy. If you were you wouldn’t have told me about the body. I’m hoping that if there is a spy then they might give themselves away at some point and you will be around to notice. At the moment I can’t even be sure that there is a spy. Anyway I served under your father and I trust his son to be sensible and watchful.”

Nedric hadn’t thought about his father for a while and the surprise mention distracted him. His memories were somewhat distant as his death in a stupid accident nine years before meant that generally all Nedric could recall was a large but gentle man with a warm laugh. Nedric hadn’t really been aware that his father had even been in the army. He had worked on many things in and around the estate, none of which required military knowledge. He thought that sometime he would have to ask Tolbeck more about him but not today.

“So can I tell anybody anything? I share a room with Rialto and he’s going to ask me what you wanted.”

“As I said before I don’t know if we have a spy here and it is safest not to trust anyone. Use your intelligence and if someone acts suspicious or if you remember anything significant then let me know. Otherwise just go about your life normally.”

Nedric walked back to his room with his thoughts churning. It was easy to dismiss the thought of one of the students giving information to an enemy country and then he considered that over half of them were from merchant backgrounds. Merchants were notorious for selling anything if they thought they could make a profit and not put themselves in too much danger. Rialto was just as bad as the others in that regard, always looking for moneymaking potential.

When he returned to the room he told Rialto that Tolbeck had questioned him about their visit to Elseth and especially about Strawn’s fight. Without actually saying it, he suggested to his friend that the captain wanted an unofficial account of events as well as the account rendered by the masters.

“Do you think that Strawn has learnt his lesson?” Rialto asked.

“No chance, he has too much of a temper and that is always going to get him into trouble.”

“Hopefully when we leave he won’t have anything more to do with us.”

“We can but hope. What do you plan on doing when you graduate?”

“If I graduate you mean.” Rialto sounded less than certain about the possibility. “I guess I’ll probably end up working for my father. I can’t see myself on the boardways and the other real option from here is the military and can you see me as a soldier?”

“About as much chance as me.”

Both boys laughed at the thought of either of them joining the army.

* * *

When he was able to escape the next morning, Nedric went to find Bronn. He met the guard at the front gate and found that he was in extremely good humour. He greeted Nedric warmly and invited him to sit in the guardhouse.

“Hello there, lad, how are you this fine morning?”

The day was grey and looking like rain was imminent.

“What’s so fine about this morning?”

“You remember the village mayor.”

“Small man, thinks a lot of himself.”

“That’s the one, so up himself that his shoulders keep sticking on his bum.”

Nedric had to smile at the description. “What about him?”

“Seems like he has been having a bit of an affair with one of the girls at the keep. Last night his wife found out and you could here the shouting from one end of the village to the other. I’ve never seen him move so fast as when he was dodging the crockery that she was hurling at him. She had a good aim as well, might have made a good guard.”

“So what happened to him?”

“He holed up with one of his cronies at the council, his wife was outside this morning with his clothing and was either throwing it at the building or cutting bits out of it with suggestions of what she was going to do with him when she caught him.”

“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer man.”

“He’s going to be the laughing stock of the town after this and no mistake. I can’t see him staying as mayor when people here about it.”

“What about the girl?”

“Can’t say as I know who that is yet. Least as how the mayor’s wife didn’t name her when she was calling him all the names under the sun. Kept referring to her as ‘that keep strumpet’. I might have to get my Janit to find out which girl it is so there isn’t any trouble up here.”

Nedric was caught off-guard by the casual way that Bronn had mentioned Janit. He didn’t think that Bronn was telling anyone whom he was seeing and if Nedric was to have guessed he wouldn’t have suspected her.

“Janit!” he exclaimed incredulously.

“One of the finest women in the country. She’s a great cook, wicked sense of humour and she owns her own business. I asked her to marry me yesterday and she agreed.”

Nedric had always thought of Janit as an old woman, when he reconsidered, he realised that she and Bronn were about the same age. He guessed that she might be quite attractive seen with an older man’s eyes.

“Congratulations! When is the big day going to be?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to the captain as we thought it might be nice to visit Elseth or somewhere for a few days and I’ll need his permission for any leave.”

“It’s a good city to visit, I’ve just been there and there’s so much to see that I haven’t seen half of it. I’ll probably be going back that way after I graduate, if you’re there when I am look me up.”

“I might have to do that. Anyway what brings you here when you should be studying?”

“Well your captain has put me in a bit of tight situation.”

“What’s all this, tell me all about it.”

Nedric explained to Bronn what Captain Tolbeck had said about the ring. He discussed with the guard the implications, that one of the students might be a spy. “I can’t even talk to Rialto about it. My best friend and I can’t trust him.”

“I don’t see why not, if you can share a room with someone for nearly four years and not know whether they were a spy or not then they will never give themselves away. Trust your instincts, you know him better than anyone else. Anyway, if you are wrong he might do something rash and then we will know for sure.” Bronn’s tone of voice said that he didn’t mean the last bit seriously.

“What happens if we do catch the spy?” Nedric asked.

“Depends on what they plan to do next. If they have no further intentions of passing information we just let the king know and his intelligence service will just keep an eye on the person for a while and then quietly arrest them some time later. If they want to go back to the boardways then we can use them to pass on misleading information. A known spy is one of the most useful things a country can have.”

The bell sounded and Nedric had to hurry off to the first of his lectures. He knew in his own mind that Rialto wasn’t a spy and so he would tell his friend the information about the ring sometime soon. It was a bit of a weight off of his mind. It meant that the two of them could share ideas. Not that they would have much time in the next few weeks as exams approached.