""They don't understand."

"You can't expect them to, sir. "They're simple folk, most of 'em. Never

been as far as Eddensea. "They've been hearing about the Khaiem and the

poets and the andat all their lives, but they've never seen 'em. Now

they have the chance."

"Well, it'll help my popularity at the games," Balasar said, his voice

more bitter than he'd intended.

""They don't know the things we do, sir. You can't expect them to think

like us."

"And the High Council? Can I expect it of them? Or are they in chambers

talking about the funny brown man who dresses like a girl?"

Eustin looked down, silent for long enough that Balasar began to regret

his tone.

"All fairness, sir," Eustin said, "the robes do look like a girl's."

It was six years now since he and Eustin and Coal had returned to the

hereditary estate outside Kirinton, half a year since they had recruited

the fallen poet of Nantani, and three weeks since Balasar had received

the expected summons. He'd come to Acton with his best men, the hooks,

the poet, the plans. The High Council had heard him out-the dangers of

the andat, the need to end the supremacy of the Khaiem. That part had

gone quite well. No one seriously disputed that the Khaiem were the

single greatest threat to Galt. It was only when he began to reveal his

plans and how far he had already gone that the audience began to turn

sour on him.

Since then, the Council had met without him. They might have been

debating the plan he had laid out before them, or they might have moved

to other business, leaving him to soak in his own sweat. He and Eustin

and the poet Riaan had lived in the apartments assigned to them. Balasar

had spent his days sitting outside the Council's halls and meeting

chambers, and his nights walking the starlit streets, restless as a

ghost. Each hour that passed was wasted. Every night was one less that

he would have in the autumn when the end of his army was racing against

the snow and cold of the Khaiate North. If the Council's intention had

been to set him on edge, they had done their work.

A flock of birds, black as crows but thinner, burst from the walnut

trees beyond the courtyard, whirled overhead, and settled back where

they had come from. Balasar wove his fingers together on one knee.

"What do we do if they don't move forward?" Eustin asked quietly.

"Convince them."

"And if they can't he convinced?"

"Convince them anyway," Balasar said.

Eustin nodded. Balasar appreciated that the man didn't press the issue.

Eustin had known him long enough to understand that bloodymindedness was

how Balasar moved through the world. From the beginning, he'd been

cursed by a small stature, a shorter reach than his brothers or the boys

with whom he'd trained. He'd gotten used to working himself harder,

training while other boys slept and drank and whored. Where he couldn't

make himself bigger or stronger, he instead became fast and smart and

uncompromising.

When he became a man of arms in the service of Galt, he had been the

smallest in his cohort. And in time, they had named him general. If the

High Council needed to be convinced, then he would by God convince them.

A polite cough came from the archways behind them, and Balasar turned. A

secretary of the Council stood in the shade of the wide colonnade. As

Balasar and Eustin rose, he bowed slightly at the waist.

"General Gice," the secretary said. "The Lord Convocate requests your

presence.

"Good," Balasar said, then turned to Eustin and spoke quickly and low.

"Stay here and keep an eye on our friend. If this goes poorly, we may

need to make good time out of Acton."

Eustin nodded, his face as calm and impassive as if Balasar asked him to

turn against the High Council half the days of any week. Balasar tugged

his vest and sleeves into place, nodded to the secretary, and allowed

himself to be led into the shadows of government.

The path beneath the colonnade led into a maze of hallways as old as

Galt itself. The air seemed ancient, thick and dusty and close with the

breath of men generations dead. The secretary led Balasar up a stone

stairway worn treacherously smooth by a river of footsteps to a wide

door of dark and carved wood. Balasar scratched on it, and a booming

voice called him in.

The meeting room was wide and long, with a glassed-in terrace that

looked out over the city and shelves lining the walls with books and

rolled maps. Low leather couches squatted by an iron fireplace, a low

rosewood table between them with dried fruits and glass flutes ready for

wine. And standing at the terrace's center looking out over the city,

the Lord Convocate, a great gray bear of a man.

Balasar closed the door behind him and walked over to the man's side.

Acton spilled out before them-smoke and grime, broad avenues where steam

wagons chuffed their slow way through the city taking on passengers for

a half-copper a ride laced with lanes so narrow a man's shoulders could

touch the walls on either side. For a moment, Balasar recalled the ruins

in the desert, placing the memory over the view hefore him. Reminding

himself again of the stakes he played for.

"I've been riding herd on the Council since you gave your report. They

aren't happy," the Lord Convocatc said. "The High Council doesn't look

favorably on men of ... what should I call it? Profound initiative? None

of them had any idea you'd gone so far. Not even your father. It was

impolitic."

"I'm not a man of politics."

The Lord Convocate laughed.

"You've led an army on campaign," he said. "If you didn't understand

something of how to manage men, you'd be feeding some Westland tree by now."

Balasar shrugged. It wasn't what he'd meant to do; it was the mo- nment

to come across as controlled, loyal, reliable as stone, and here he was

shrugging like a petulant schoolboy. He forced himself to smile.

"I suppose you're right," he said.

"But you know they would have refused you."

"Know is a strong word. Suspected."

"Feared?"

"perhaps."

"Fourteen cities in a single season. It can't be done, Balasar. Uther

Redcape couldn't have done it."

"tither was fighting in Eddensea," Balasar said. "They have walls around

cities in Eddensea. They have armies. The Khaiem haven't got anything