Finally Jilsomo looked them over and said, "Now we'll address new business." He turned to the Kalif. "Your Reverence has something to say."

The Kalif stood. "Thank you, Mister Chairman, I do indeed." He spoke in something of a monotone, almost a drawl, his eyes running over the House of Nobles. "Some of you, I believe, are aware of a recent criminal insult to the throne, to myself, and to the kalifa, a small book, lewd and cowardly, entitled The Sultan's Bride. Who here is not aware of it? Raise your hand."

No hand was raised.

"Does anyone care to say anything about it?"

Ilthka stood. "What has the book to do with you? The title is The Sultans Bride, not The Kalif's Bride."

"Ilthka, if I took your question seriously, I'd have to conclude you're feebleminded. And whatever I might think of you, I do not think that. The kalifa's unique appearance is too well described, and unusual features of her captivity too closely paralleled, to admit of anything except the deepest and most despicable insult to the throne, to myself, and to her."

He paused for a moment, blowing softly through pursed lips. "Truly, I'm amazed to think that anyone who knows me at all could imagine I wouldn't ferret out who was behind it.

"On the second day we found out who printed it, one Namsu Pasarijiios. He is in prison now, awaiting sentence. So are owners or managers of 212 bookstores that displayed and sold it. I will comment on their sentences now, and get that part of it over with.

"I find no malice in the printer, simply the lack of any morals in matters of profit. Therefore, after communing with Kargh, I have decided to be lenient. He will spend the rest of his life in common prison. As for the booksellers, 212 is far too many for me to examine and pass sentence on. They will be examined by their prelates in ecclesiastic court, and sentenced as deemed appropriate."

Again he paused, a pause no longer than four or five seconds, but pregnant with meaning. "From there we followed certain threads of evidence, and found a man named Elyasar Ranjagethorith, whom we arrested yesterday. He's a young attorney from Meekoris, who's been working on his qualifications for solicitor. Unfortunately, he will never complete them."

The Kalif's gaze moved briefly to Lord Nathiir, whose guts had frozen in his belly.

"I see that Lord Nathiir knows the name. Elyasar had some notoriety in their home province, Meekor State, with the unfortunate result for Elyasar that his face has appeared in the newsfacs here, and the printer remembered.

"Elyasar was the legman for the project, and the key to all the rest. From him we learned who wrote the book: a young author named Klonis Balenthu. Klonis was arrested yesterday evening, here in Ananporu, and confessed everything. Both Elyasar and Klonis I hereby sentence to life at hard labor on the prison planet Shatimvoktos. For their cooperation, however, this is remanded to two years on Shatimvoktos, with the remainder of their life sentence to be served in the common prison at Kharmansok.

"Klonis's wife, a talented young artist, had done the cover. After instrumented questioning, it is clear that she hadn't read the book, but had simply followed her husband's verbal description of what the woman on the cover needed to look like. She has been found not guilty of any wrongdoing.

"That was not the end of it, of course. Using information from Elyasar, we were able to find the source of the account from which the shipping company was paid, information that was only verified late this morning."

There was another pregnant pause, and everyone became aware of uniformed bailiffs filing down the aisle on the right side of the chamber, taking positions near the front. Again the Kalif's eyes moved to Lord Nathiir. "Klonis told us who hired him to write the book. More than that, he gave us a rough story sketch that had been given him to write from. A handwritten story sketch, in a hand whose identity we easily verified. The author of that sketch is also the man who provided the money to pay the shipping company, the man from whom all the arrangements flowed. A man we all know well.

"Sergeant, arrest Lord Nathiir on charges of deepest insult to the Throne, to the Successor of The Prophet, and to the kalifa; and of conspiracy to…"

Nathiir leaped to his feet, shouting imprecations at the Kalif, till a bailiff jerked him from the row of seats and shut off his obscenities with a throat lock. All eyes watched the nobleman's struggles, till he slackened in the bailiff's strong grasp, to glare at his accuser.

The Kalif continued. "This man of ugly and vicious mind, this noble without nobility, has undertaken to cause irreparable grief and harm to myself and even more to my wife. He thought to send us through life with a smear of unearned shame. He intended that, whenever anyone looked at us, or looked away from us, we would imagine a sneer or snicker.

"That was his clear intention. But we are stronger than that, and the people of our empire are wise enough to see where the shame truly dwells… It dwells in you, Nathiir! "

The Kalif stood quiet for a long moment then, and when he continued, his voice was soft. "It was no accident that Kargh caused the kalifa to look like an angel. He made her so, and sent her across three hyperspace years to wed The Prophet's latest successor. Why, we do not know yet. And from whom came the clues that enabled us to find this criminal who so vilely maligned her? Who else but Kargh?

"So, Nathiir, we come to the matter of your sentence. From your sometime friend Gorsu, it would have been impalement. Not simple impalement, with its more or less quick if gruesome death, but impalement on the short stake, carefully done so you would sit in living agony in the center of the square, raised high so all could see. For hours while you died slowly.

"But I am not Gorsu. Nor am I Nathiir. I prefer to be just without cruelty. Nathiir, what would you say in your behalf? Release your grip enough, Sergeant, that his lordship may speak."

For a long moment, Nathiir said nothing. When he did speak, it was in a voice like tearing metal. "Whatever I did, it was less than you deserve! You are false, a false Kalif! You are murderous! You murdered the Kalif before you! You are a tyrant, who would stand there and sentence a noble delegate to death without trial! You are arrogant-you, a military man, imagining we could accept your posturing as the Successor to The Prophet! You are…"

The Kalif's face darkened. It even seemed to swell. He gestured, a chopping motion, and the sergeant cut off the flow of accusations. For a long moment then the Kalif didn't speak, didn't trust himself to. When at last he did, he spoke more loudly than before, though his voice still was calm.

"I will answer Lord Nathiir. I am not a false Kalif. The Prophet said that his successors should be chosen by the apostles he appointed, and in time by the successors of the apostles. In our time, the exarchs are those successors. And the exarchs elected me Kalif by majority vote.

"I did not murder Gorsu. I was chosen by the College to execute him, and it was they who gave me the instrument of execution. Because they had possession of a document written in Gorsu's own hand, in which he claimed to be not the Successor to The Prophet, but his very incarnation. A document in which he proposed to abolish the Diet, to rule as tyrant by his own whim.

"By that time, Gorsu's degenerate behavior, his taste in little girls, his cruelties and mass executions, were a matter of public observation. No libels were necessary to defame him; he defamed himself."

The Kalif looked them over, every eye on him. "I am no tyrant. Unlike Nathiir's friend Gorsu, I have ruled by law, and without abrogating any rights of this Diet. Unlike Gorsu, I have not declared martial law and slaughtered hundreds of my opponents, nor any of them, nor dissolved a Diet even once, let alone three times, to send it home with its rights ignored, its duties unfulfilled.