BEGIN TRANSCRIPT (Cockpit voice recorder):

(Rotor noise in background.)

"Climbing two five to flight level three zero, ground speed 150. GPS check."

"GPS check, uh, okay."

"TCAS clear. Ready to engage INS."

"INS ready, fifty-mile orbit at three zero."

"Okay. How's the datalink to that-that-"

"FLIR/DIMT is mapping fine."

"Right. INS engaged. Racetrack. You boys ready back there?"

"ARMBAND is ready."

"Ready."

"Coming up on way point yankee one in fifty seconds, boys. On my mark, activate translation black box."

"Arming translation circuit… okay, she's ready on your command."

"Mark."

"We have translation."

"Radar altimeter check, please. What's the state of ARMBAND?"

"Sir, we've got two translations left, three hours to bingo time-"

"Tower, mike-mike-papa-four, do you read."

"Two translations, three hours, check. You gentlemen will doubtless be pleased to know that as we've only got fuel for 140 minutes we'll be going home well before then."

"Inlet temperature four. External temperature ten and dropping, was fifteen. Cloud cover was six, now four. Holy shit, the ground-it's completely different-"

"FLIR/DIMT is mapping fine. Uh, INS shows six meter z-axis anomaly. INS red light. INS red light. Looks like he took us with him okay."

"Tower, mike-mike-papa-four, do you read."

"INS reset. INS breaker reset. Damn, we're back to dead reckoning. Speed check."

"Ground speed 146. Altitude three zero nine zero by radar altimeter. Lots of trees down there, whole lotta trees."

"Okay, let's do an INS restart."

"Captain, confirmed, tower does not respond."

"FLIR/DIMT lock on north ridge corresponds to INS map waypoint 195604. Restarting. Restarted. Returning to orbit."

"Tower on crest of ridge via FLIR. Got battlements!"

"Fuel, nine thousand. Throttle back on two, eighty percent. Okay, you've got an hour from my mark."

"Got any candidates on IDAS?"

"Not a whisper. It's dead down there. Not even cell phone traffic. Why am I getting this itchy feeling between my shoulder blades?"

"Time check: three hours twenty-nine minutes to dawn. Altitude four one hundred, ground speed 145, visibility zero, six on FLIR. Stop worrying about MANPADs, number two."

"Roger. Waypoint yankee two coming up, turning on zero two zero."

"I'm still getting nothing, sir. Trying FM."

"Use your judgment."

"Fuel eighty six hundred. Throttle on eighty, inlet temperature three."

"Quiet as the grave. Hey, some traffic on shortwave. Twenty megahertz band, low power. Voice traffic… not English."

"Waypoint yankee three coming up, turning on zero nine zero. Climb to flight level five zero."

"Okay, that's enough. We're in class E airspace on the other side, so let's get out of here. ARMBAND?"

"Ready to roll whenever you call, captain."

"Okay, we're going home. Prepare to translate on my mark-"

END TRANSCRIPT (Cockpit voice recorder)

A week had passed since the bizarre coronation ritual, and it had been a busy period. Miriam found herself at the center of a tornado of activity, with every hour accounted for. There were banquets with lord this and baron that, introductions until her cheeks ached from smiling and her right hand was red from scrubbing: Their kisses left her feeling unclean, compromised. The dressmakers had moved in, altering garments borrowed from some remnants of the royal wardrobe and fitting her for gowns and dresses suitable for a dowager queen-widow and a mother-to-be. Brill had found time, for a couple of hours every day, to bring a bottle of wine and sit with her while she explained the finer points of political and personal alliances; and Gerta engaged her in conversational hochsprache, nervous and halting at first, to polish her speech. (Which, with total immersion in a sea of servants, few of whom spoke English, was beginning to improve.)

Being Helge was becoming easier, she found. Practice had diminished the role to a set of manners and a half-understood language that she could summon up at need, rather than a claustrophobia-inducing caul. Perhaps she was getting used to it, or perhaps her mother's private crusade and promise of mutual support had given her the impulse she needed to make it work. Whatever the cause, the outcome was that whenever she paused to think about her position Miriam was startled by how smoothly her new life had locked in around her, and with how little friction. Perhaps all she'd needed all along was a key to the gilded cage, and the reassurance that people she could trust were minding the door.

It had not been Miriam's idea to put on the gilded robes of state today, to sit on an unpadded chair in a drafty hall and read aloud a variety of prearranged-bloodcurdling and inevitably fatal-sentences on assorted members of the nobility who had been unlucky enough to back the wrong horse. But it had shown up on her timetable for the week-and Brill, Riordan, and her mother had visited en masse to assure her that it was necessary. They'd even hauled in Julius, to provide a façade of Clannish unity. "You need to sit in on the court and pronounce judgment, without us whispering in your ear all the time," Brill explained, "otherwise people will say you're a figurehead."

"But I am a figurehead!" Miriam protested. "Aren't I? I get the message, this is the council's doing. It's just, I don't approve of the death penalty. And this, executing people just because they did what Egon told them to, out of fear-"

"If they think you're a figurehead, they won't fear you," Iris explained, with visibly fraying patience. "And that'll breed trouble. People hereabouts aren't used to enlightened government. You need to stick some heads on spikes, Helge, to make the others keep a low profile. If you won't do it yourself, the council will have to do it for you. And everybody will whisper that it's because you're a weak woman who is just a figurehead."

"There are a number of earls and barons who we definitely cannot trust," Riordan added. "Not to mention a duke or two. They're mortal enemies-they didn't act solely out of fear of Egon's displeasure-and we can't have a duke sitting in judgment over another duke. If you refuse to read their execution order we'll just have to poison them. It gets messy."

"But if I start out by organizing a massacre, isn't that going to raise the stakes later? I thought we were agreed that reinforcing the rule of law was essential…"

"It's not a massacre if they get a fair trial first. So give them a fair trial and fill a gibbet or two with the worst cases, to make an example," Iris suggested. "Then offer clemency to the rest, on onerous terms. It worked for dad."

"Really?" Miriam gave her mother a very old-fashioned look. "Tell me more…"

Which had been the start of a slippery-slope argument. Miriam had fought a rearguard action, but Helge had ultimately conceded the necessity of applying these medieval standards of justice under the circumstances. Which was why she was sitting stiff as a board on a solid wooden throne, listening to advocates argue over a variety of unfortunate nobles, and trying not to fall asleep.

For a man with every reason to believe his fate was to be subjected to peine fort et dure, the Duke of Niejwein was in remarkably high spirits. Or perhaps the reddening of his cheeks and the twinkle in his eye were signs of agitation and contempt. The resemblance he bore to the Iraqi dictator Ali Hassan, who'd been on all the news channels a few weeks ago when the Marines finally got their hands on him, was striking. Whatever the case, when he raised his fettered hands and spat something fast at Miriam she had no problem interpreting his intent.