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Jarand maintained his façade of calm control until he was well out of sight of his older brother, but as his troops headed south towards the Great Western Road, his irritability betrayed his hidden anger. Although he had had the satisfaction of out-manoeuvring his brother, he had still lost control of the encampment that had been providing him with a steady supply of recruits for nearly a year. He turned to Captain Harkell who, as captain of his Royal Guard, rode closely behind him. Harkell’s lip was still split and his jaw on one side and cheek on the other were dappled with bruising. The prince could see a certain rigidity in the captain’s posture and suspected that he was carrying an injury to his ribs from landing against the table the other night. Good, thought Jarand, Serves him
