Chapter 16As Urssain had remarked, the blatantly illegal appellation, King’s High Guard, had caused more adverse reaction from the ordinary people of Vakloss than the suspension of the Geadrol itself and, on his re-appearance at the Palace, Dan-Tor had rapidly declared this to be ‘an unfortunate bureaucratic error by a junior official’. The new Guards were a ‘temporary force’ answerable to himself and intended to ‘relieve the High Guards of the Lords from routine duties, to leave them better able to meet the difficulties which have led to the suspension of the Geadrol’. This announcement, though vague, was couched in bland apologetic terms and was sufficient to quieten most of the public unease. The new Guards, he said, were known as Mathidrin, from an old Fyordyn word meaning, ‘Those who
