"No, sir, I do not."

"Just so we cannot expect every functionary of every new power to conform to expectations formed in the days of the old Empire."

"I understand that, sir. I hope I am already taking that into account. What I am talking about is simply a feeling. But it is, if I may term it so, a professional feeling. And it is partly for those, sir, that you employ me." DeWar searched his leader's eyes to see if he was convinced, if he had succeeded in transmitting any of the apprehension he felt. But the Protector's eyes still twinkled, amused more than concerned. DeWar shifted uncomfortably on the stone bench. "Sir," he said, leaning closer, his expression pained. "I was told the other day, by someone whose opinion I know you value, that I am incapable of being other than a bodyguard, that my — every waking moment, even when I am meant to be relaxing, is spent thinking of how better to keep you from harm." He took a deep breath. "My point is that if I live only to shield you from danger and think of nothing else even when I might, how much more must I attend to my anxieties when I am at the very core of my duty, as now?"

UrLeyn regarded him for a moment. "You ask me to trust your mistrust," he said quietly.

"Now the Protector does put it better than I could have."

UrLeyn smiled. "And why would any of the Sea Companies wish me dead in the first place?"

DeWar dropped his voice still further. "Because you are thinking of building a Navy, sir."

"Am I?" UrLeyn asked with seeming surprise.

"Aren't you, sir?"

"Why would anyone think that?"

"You turned over some of the Royal Forests to the people, and then recently introduced the condition that some of the older trees might be thinned.!

"They're dangerous."

"They are healthy, sir, and of the age and shape for ships" timbers. Then there is the Mariners" Refuge in Tyrsk, a naval college in the making, and-"

"Enough. Have I been so indiscreet? Are the Sea Companies" spies so numerous and so perceptive?"

"And you have held talks with Haspidus and Xinkspar about enlisting, I'd imagine, the wealth of one and the skills of the other in the formation of such a Navy."

UrLeyn looked troubled now. "You know about this? You must eavesdrop from a great distance, DeWar."

"I hear nothing that you would not expect me to hear through simple proximity, sir. What I hear, without searching then x out, are rumours. People are not stupid and functionaries have their specialities, sir, their areas of expertise. When an ex-admiral comes to call, one may guess it is not to discuss breeding better pack animals for crossing the Breathless Plains."

"Hmm," UrLeyn said, looking out at the people gathered around them but not seeing them. He nodded. "You can draw the blinds in a brothel, but people still know what you're doing."

"Exactly, sir."

UrLeyn slapped his knee and made to stand. DeWar was on his feet first. "Very well, DeWar, to humour you, we'll meet in the painted chamber. And we'll make the meeting more private even than he has asked for, just me and him. You may eavesdrop. Are you mollified?"

"Sir."

Fleet Captain Oestrile, ambassador of the Kep's Haven Sea Company, dressed in an ornate rendition of a nautical uniform, with long turned-over boots of blue hide, trousers of grey pike-fish skin and a thick, high-collared frock coat of aquamarine edged with gold — all topped by a tricorn hat embellished with angel-bird feathers — strode slowly into the painted chamber in the palace of Vorifyr.

The ambassador walked down a narrow carpet of gold thread which ended at a small stool set a couple of strides from the front of the only other article of furniture which the gleaming wooden floor supported, namely a small dais topped by a plain chair on which sat the Prime Protector, First General and Grand Aedile of the Protectorate of Tassasen, General UrLeyn.

The ambassador took off his hat and executed a small bow to the Protector, who motioned the ambassador to the stool. The ambassador looked at the low stool for a moment, then unbuttoned a couple of buttons at the lower edge of his coat and sat carefully, laying his extravagantly feathered hat to one side. He had no obvious weapons, not even a ceremonial sword, though around his neck was a belt supporting a stout cylinder of polished hide, with a buttoned cap at one end and finished with inscribed gold filigree. The ambassador looked round the walls of the chamber.

The walls were painted in a series of panels depicting the various parts of the old Kingdom of Tassasen: a forest full of game, a dark and towering castle, a bustling city square, a harem, a pattern of fields sectioning a flood plain, and so on. If the subjects were relatively mundane, the artwork was almost definitively so. People who had heard of the painted chamber — which was rarely opened and even more rarely used — and who expected something special, were invariably disappointed. The paintings were, it was generally agreed, rather dull and unexceptional.

"Ambassador Oestrile," the Protector said. He was dressed in his usual style of the long jacket and trousers he had made the fashion. The old Tassasen chain of state, with the crown removed, was his only concession to formality.

"Sire," the fellow said.

UrLeyn thought he saw in the ambassador's manner a little of what DeWar had meant. There was a sort of empty gleam in the young man's gaze. An expression which included such open eyes and such a wide smile in such a young, shiningly smooth face ought not to be quite as disquieting as it somehow contrived to be. The fellow was of average build, his hair was short and dark, though red-powdered after some fashion UrLeyn did not recognise. He sported fine whiskers for one so young. Young. Perhaps that was part of it, thought UrLeyn. Ambassadors tended to be older and fatter. Well, he should not talk of changing times and changing roles and then be himself surprised.

"Your journey?" UrLeyn asked. "I trust it was unexciting?"

"Unexciting?" the young fellow said, seemingly confused. "How so?"

"I meant safe," the Protector said. "Your journey was safe?"

The fellow looked relieved for a moment. 'Ah," he said, smiling broadly and nodding. "Yes. Safe. Our journey was safe. Very safe." He smiled again.

UrLeyn began to wonder if the young fellow was entirely right in the head. Perhaps he was young for an ambassador because he was some doting father's favourite son, and the father was blind to the fact the lad was soft in the brain. He didn't speak Imperial very well, either, but UrLeyn had heard a few strange accents from those who were of the nautical powers.

"Well, ambassador," he said, holding his hands out to each side. "You asked for an audience."

The young man's eyes went wider still. "Yes. An audience." He slowly took the belt from round his neck and then looked down at the polished hide cylinder in his lap. "First of all, sir," he said, "I have a gift for you. From the Fleet Captain Vritten." He looked up expectantly at UrLeyn.

"I confess I have not heard of Fleet Captain Vritten, but continue."

The young fellow cleared his throat. He wiped sweat from his brow. Perhaps, UrLeyn thought, he has a fever. It is a little warm in here, but insufficiently so to make a man sweat like that. The Sea Companies spend much of their time in the tropics so it cannot be that he is unused to heat, sea breezes or not.

The captain undid the buttoned end of the cylinder and withdrew another cylinder, also clad in gold-inscribed hide, though its ends appeared to be gold, or brass, and one end was tapered by a series of shining metal rings. "What I have here, sir," the ambassador said, looking down at the cylinder, which he now held in both hands, "is a seeing-piece. An optiscope, or telescope as such instruments are also known."