"What?" the King exclaimed.

"I take it we must conclude that sadly this attempt did not succeed?" Walen said.

Adlain nodded. "The 'Protector' escaped unharmed."

"What Sea Company?" the King asked, eyes narrowed.

"One that probably does not really exist," Adlain said. "One that several of the others fashioned specifically to make the attempt. A single report has it that the members of the delegation died under torture without revealing anything except their own sad ignorance."

"This is due to all the talk of forming a navy," Walen said, looking at Quience. "It is foolishness, sir."

"Perhaps," the King agreed. "But foolishness we must appear to support for now." He looked at Adlain. "Contact all the ports. Send a message to each of the Companies that enjoy our favour to the effect that any further attempt on UrLeyn's life will meet with our most profound and practical displeasure."

"But sir!" Walen protested.

"UrLeyn continues to enjoy our support," the King said with a smile. "We cannot be seen to oppose him, no matter how much his demise may please us. The world is a changed place and too many people are watching Tassasen to see what happens there. We must trust to Providence that the Regicidal regime fails of its own accord and so convinces others of its wrongness. If we are seen to intervene to bring about its downfall from without we shall only persuade the sceptical that there must have been some threat — and therefore, by their way of thinking, some merit — in the enterprise."

"But sir," Walen said, leaning forward and looking past Quettil so that his old chin was almost on the table, "Providence does not always behave as we have the right to expect. I have had too many opportunities to observe this in my life, sir. Even your dear father, a man without peer in such matters, could be too prone to waiting for Providence to accomplish with most painful slowness what a quick and even merciful act could have achieved in a tenth of the time. Providence does not move with the alacrity and dispatch one might expect or desire, sir. Sometimes Providence needs to be given a nudge in the right direction." He looked defiantly round the others. "Aye, and a sharp nudge, at that."

"I thought older men usually counselled patience," Adlain said.

"Only when that is what is required," Walen told him. "Now it is not."

"Nevertheless," the King said with perfect equanimity. "What will happen to General UrLeyn will happen. I have an interest in this that you may guess at, my dear Duke Walen, but neither you nor anybody else who holds my favour worth the having may anticipate it. Patience can be a means of letting matters mature to a proper state for action, not just a way of letting time slip away."

Walen looked at the King for a good few moments, then seemed to accept what the King had said. "Forgive an old man for whom the furthest scope of patience may lie beyond that of his own grave, your majesty."

"We must hope that will not be so, for I would not wish you such an early death, dear Duke."

Walen looked reasonably mollified at this. Quettil patted his hand, which the older man seemed not so sure about. "The regicide has more to worry about than assassins, in any event," Duke Quettil said.

"Ah," the King said, sitting back with a contented look. "Our eastern problem."

"Rather say UrLeyn's western one, sir." Quettil smiled. "We have heard that he continues to send forces towards Ladenscion. Simalg and Ralboute, two of his best generals, are already in the city of Chaltoxern. They have issued an ultimatum to the barons that they must open the high passes and allow the Protectorate's forces free passage to the inner cities by Jairly's new moon, or suffer the consequences."

"And we have reason to believe that the barons" position might be more robust than UrLeyn believes," the King said, with a sly smile.

"Rather a lot of reasons," Quettil said. "In fact, about…"

he began, but the King held up one hand and made a sort of half-patting, half-waving motion and partially closed his eyes. Quettil glanced round about us and gave a small slow nod.

"Duke Ormin, sir," chamberlain Wiester said. The stooped figure of the Duke Ormin came awkwardly up the path.

He halted by the tall map case, smiling and bowing. "Sir. Ah, Duke Quettil."

"Ormin!" the King said (Quettil gave the most perfunctory of nods). "Good to see you. How is your wife?"

"Much better, sir. A slight fever, no more."

"Sure you don't want Vosill here to take a look at her?"

"Quite sure, sir," Ormin said, raising himself up on his feet to look over the table. 'Ah, Doctor Vosill."

"Sir," the Doctor said to the Duke, bobbing briefly.

"Come and sit with us," the King said. He looked around. Duke Walen, would you — no, no." Duke Walen's face had taken on the look of a man told a poisonous insect has just fallen into his riding boot. "You moved before, didn't you… Adlain, would you make room for the Duke?"

"With pleasure, sir."

"Ah, a most magnificent map," Duke Ormin said as he took his seat.

"Isn't it?" the King said.

"Sir? Your majesty?" the young man to Walen's right piped up.

"Duke Ulresile," the King said.

"Might I go to Ladenscion?" the young Duke asked. He appeared at last to be animated and even excited. When he had expressed his anticipation at seeing the Doctor dressed for a ball he had seemed only to make himself more callow. Now he appeared enthused, his expression passionate. "I and a few friends? We have all the military means and a good number of men. We would put ourselves under the authority of whatever baron you most trust and would gladly fight for the-"

"My good Ulresile," the King said. "Your enthusiasm does you no end of credit, but grateful though I am for the expression of such an ambition, its fulfilment would lead only to my fury and contempt."

"How so, sir?" the young Duke asked, blinking furiously, his face flushing.

"You sit here at my table, Duke Ulresile, you are known to enjoy my favour and to accept my advice and that of Quettil here. Then you go to fight the forces of one I have pledged to support and must, I repeat, be seen to support, at least for now."

"But-"

"You will find in any event, Ulresile," Duke Quettil said, glancing at Quience, "that the King prefers to rely on his paid generals rather than his nobles to command forces of any significance."

The King gave Quettil a controlled smile. "It was the custom of my dear father to trust major battles to those trained from an early age in war and nothing else. My nobles command their lands and their own leisure. They gather harems, improve their palaces, commission great works of art, manipulate the taxes that we all benefit from and oversee the improvement of land and the furbishment of cities. In the new world that exists about us now, that would appear to provide more than enough — indeed perhaps too much — for a man to think about without having to concern himself with the exigencies of war as well."

Duke Ormin gave a small laugh. "King Drasine used to say,’ he said, 'that war is neither science nor art. It is a craft, with elements of both the scientific and the artistic about it, but a craft nevertheless, and best left to craftsmen trained to it."

"But sir!" Duke Ulresile protested.

The King held up one hand to him. "I have no doubt that you and your friends might carry many a battle, all on your own, and be easily the equal of any one of my waged generals, but in winning the day you might lose the year and even jeopardise the reign. Matters are in hand, Ulresile." The King smiled at the young Duke, though he could not see it because he was staring tight-lipped at the table. "However," the King continued, a tone of tolerant amusement in his voice that had Ulresile look up briefly,