He wasn't there to promote his invasion or anything else. He'd come this day to face the fire.

It was Lord Agros, not Rothka, who proposed a formal denunciation of him-definitely not an encouraging sign. Agros had been against an invasion all along, but seemingly hadn't been hostile toward the Kalif himself. Now, thought the Kalif, it seemed he was. It was hard to know for sure, though. Agros was motivated far less by emotions than by practicality. Or more accurately, by principles which were limited and distorted by expediency and opportunity.

In the oratory-it was no debate-the points brought up by the House were much like those that Riisav had listed, but phrased and rephrased with greater animosity. And almost no one, nobles or exarchs, seemed prepared to argue with them. Only Roonoa Hamaalo spoke in the Kalif's behalf, pointing out his unwillingness to actually begin the fight, and once the fight began, his reluctance to end it with his challenger's death. Roonoa's words made little difference to what followed, however, merely gave the more hostile something further to fang and claw.

The delegates of the Pastorate had stayed out of it entirely, until their leader's hand went up. Alb Tariil, who was chairing the meeting, recognized him, and Dosu got to his feet.

He waited just long enough to draw their eyes, then began. "Your criticisms," he said, "have a certain validity. One might indeed have hoped for more composure, greater forbearance from the Successor to The Prophet. But no mention has been made of the extreme, the truly astonishing provocation he underwent." The old man looked around him. "Has everyone forgotten that old saw attributed to the wise man, Shamaragoopal? 'It is better to tell a man that his father mates with sheep than to tell him his wife's nose is too wide.' The shocking, indeed the stunning insults to the kalifa, shouted within the hearing of hundreds the other night, were far worse than that. They were public insults unprecedented in their coarseness."

Dosu paused to stare around as if challenging them to gainsay him. " Almost unprecedented. There has been one to equal it. A vile and evil precedent committed by a member, a late member, of the House of Nobles! I refer to the disgusting book of Lord Nathiir's, which also targeted the kalifa, and which served to greatly sensitize the Kalif, make him react more strongly to additional insults."

Again he paused, then shocked them further by shouting with a force incongruous to his aged frame. "An act which shamed the House of Nobles and threatened the very concept of nobility! Something that none of you seemed able or willing to recognize! Let alone publicly lament!"

Once more he paused, his sweeping gaze fierce, his old mouth clamped like the beak of a reef dragon. "All you could think of to do, that earlier time, was attack the Kalif for his unfortunate response. While today-today you've attacked him like a pack of wild dogs! In my youth in the pulpit, if one of my peasants had acted as shamelessly as most of you have, here today, I'd have laid a penance on him to bring tears to his eyes and a groan from his lips. I trust and recommend that your chaplain serve you similarly."

His voice shifted tone and volume, became less loud but scathingly sarcastic. "In case you have failed to notice, in your noble self-righteousness, this Kalif has been forebearing beyond most of his predecessors. Yet when Gorsu perpetrated his atrocities, there was no outpouring of indignation in this chamber, from either College or House. You lacked the courage, most of you who served here then! Your fear of impalement lent caution, if not cowardice, to your lips. But today your sense of justice has been totally inadequate to temper your words. The lesson seems to be that in your noble house, fear is more compelling than justice. Certainly integrity has been a virtual stranger among you today.

"You repay your Kalif's long record of civility with attacks you wouldn't dare make if he were truly what you accuse him of. With one exception, your performance here today has been without principle, without insight, without justice. Your hypocrisy is an embarrassment to the empire!"

Once more he paused, a pause that seemed to stem from tiredness, but when he spoke again, his voice was hard. "The people of every estate, when they hear of your poor display today, will judge you. They will judge you harshly. And who will suffer from it? This nation. This empire. Because their respect for you will have dropped-again. A process that can only go on so long before you are bankrupt with them."

His hand went to the mark of nobility on his own forehead. "I disdain you all!" he finished. "Except for Lord Roonoa. I can only hope that Kargh will open your eyes."

When he sat down, no one said a word for perhaps a long half minute.

Great Kargh but old Dosu's an orator! the Kalif told himself. I had no idea! In a way he was as stunned as the nobles, and not simply by the Elder's eloquence. Historically the Pastorate was-if not jealous of the Prelacy, at least touchy at the Prelacy's seniority, and of their own lack of a vote in the Diet. Too, they'd often proven bristly at the behavior of a Kalif.

As for himself, he'd tried always to treat their delegates with care and respect. It seemed to him that if the Kalif and the College acted as the mind of the Church, the Imperial Assembly of Elders spoke for its soul. And too few nobles, or Kalifs, had appreciated sufficiently the influence the Pastorate had on the people-both gentry and the nobility at large.

Roonoa stood. "I call for a roll-call vote on Lord Agros's proposal," he said.

Thoga seconded. Tariil called their names, one after another. Only six voices answered yea, four of them the delegates from the LRP. Agros voted against his own proposal. Riisav voted nay without hesitating.

The Kalif had intended that when the discussion was over-or perhaps when the vote was over, depending on how the discussion went-he'd apologize for his actions on that misbegotten night. But Dosu's sermon changed his mind. Self-flagellation was rarely a proper act-for a Kalif less than anyone. Certainly this wasn't the time for it.

Then it struck him with a sense of lightness and certainty: The time had come to do something else-something he'd had in mind three years earlier and lost sight of. In fact he was sure of it. It was risky, but what wasn't, in a universe full of surprises. And it would gain him very influential allies.

He'd try it on Jilsomo when they got out of here; see what he'd say.

Forty-seven

The Kalif had gone directly from the Diet to his office, Jilsomo following. When they'd sat down, the Kalif described his plan. His intention would be a better term: there was no plan behind it.

The exarch tried not to stare; to him it was unbelievable that the Kalif could be serious.

"Your Reverence," he said cautiously, "It sounds-unwise."

The Kalif looked troubled. Not angry, not stung, simply troubled. He'd begun to see the flaws himself, even as he described the idea. Jilsomo continued, moving to take advantage of what appeared to be uncertainty.

"Prior to the unfortunate events on The Prophet's Day, you'd made real gains toward the funding of your invasion. You pointed that out to me yourself. Then, when it seemed you'd had a major setback, a critical one, Elder Dosu's speech gained back much of the lost ground for you. Possibly all of it. True?"

Possibly. The Kalif nodded. He thought he could see where Jilsomo was going with this: Continue the successful actions he'd been pursuing before. Continue, then perhaps dicker when it came down to it, offering to accept a lower level of support than he'd heretofore talked about publicly. A level which SUMBAA still considered satisfactory. By next year at this time, preparations might well be for along, new divisions training, new ships under construction. Everyone would have jobs. Attention would be outward, not inward. Two years after that, the fleet would be on its way. It would amount to the birth of a new empire, a new people extroverted from old attitudes, old troubles-old traps. It made excellent sense, it seemed to him; much better than the idea he'd just described. Yet…