"No, it isn't." As his secretary had said, Hajjaj could for once enjoy peering through the glass. Late winter was the time for that in Zuwayza, if ever there was such a time: some years, there wasn't. But, by Zuwayzi standards, this had been a wet winter. The thornbushes were green now. Flowers of all sorts carpeted the usually barren hills and splashed them with crimson and gold and azure.

Had the ley-line caravan halted, Hajjaj would have been able to spy butterflies, moving bits of color. Toads would be croaking and creeping in the wadis, the dry riverbeds, that weren't quite dry now. Had Hajjaj been lucky, he might have spotted a small herd of antelope grazing on greenery whose like they wouldn't see again for months.

He sighed. "It won't last. It never does." With another sigh, he added, "And if that's not a lesson for anyone daft enough to want to be a diplomat, curse me if I know what would be."

The ley-line caravan got into Najran late in the afternoon, gliding up over a last little rise before revealing the almost painfully blue sea ahead. The ley line that ran from Bishah to Najran continued on out into the Bay of Ajlun. If it hadn't, Najran would have had no reason for being. As things were, its harbor was too small and too open to the elements to let it become a great port, or even a moderately important one. It was nondescript, isolated- a perfect home for the Kaunian refugees who'd fled west across the sea from Forthweg.

Their tents, these days, considerably outnumbered the ramshackle houses of the fishermen and boatbuilders and netmakers and the handful of merchants who called Najran home. Without the ley line, the Zuwayzin could never have kept them fed. Pale-skinned men and women in tunics and trousers were more common on the streets than naked, dark brown locals. But the Kaunians had universally adapted the wide-brimmed straw hats the Zuwayzin wore. If they hadn't, their brains would have baked in their skulls.

Hajjaj had thought about putting on tunic and trousers himself when he came to visit the refugees. In the end, he'd decided not to. They were guests in his kingdom, after all, so he didn't feel the need to go against his own usages, as he did when meeting diplomats from other, chillier lands.

A carriage waited for him at the caravan depot: much the largest building in Najran. As he and Qutuz climbed in, he told the driver, "The tent city."

"Aye, your Excellency," the man said, touching the brim of his own big hat. He flicked the reins and clucked to the horses. They were sad, skinny beasts, and didn't seem in a hurry to get anywhere- they would pause to graze whenever they passed anything green and growing.

"Fellow ought to take a whip to them," Qutuz grumbled.

"Never mind," Hajjaj said. "We're not going far, and I'm not in that big a hurry." The truth was, he didn't have the heart to watch the horses beaten.

Blond men and women, a lot of them sunburned despite their hats, greeted the carriage as it approached. Hajjaj heard his own name spoken; some of the people in the growing crowd recognized him from his earlier visit. They started taking off their hats and bowing- not theatrically, as Algarvians would have, but with great sincerity. "Powers above bless you, sir!" someone called to Hajjaj, and a moment later everyone took up the cry.

Irony smote: he'd learned classical Kaunian in Algarve before the Six Years' War. He stood up in the carriage and bowed to the refugees in return. Letting them stay in Zuwayza sometimes felt like the single most worthwhile thing he'd done in the war. Had he given them to the Algarvians, they would surely be dead now.

A couple of blond men pushed their way through the cheering crowd. They, too, bowed to Hajjaj, who returned the courtesy. "Thank you for coming, your Excellency," one of them said. "We're grateful to you once more."

"Which of you is Nemunas, and which Vitols?" Hajjaj asked.

"I'm Vitols," said the man who'd spoken before.

"And I'm Nemunas," the other one added. He was a couple of years older than Vitols, and had a nasty scar on the back of one hand. They'd both been sergeants in King Penda's army before the Algarvians crushed Forthweg. Now they led the Kaunian refugees in Zuwayza.

Vitols pointed to a tent not far away. "We can talk there, if that suits you."

"As good a place as any," Hajjaj said. "This gentlemen with me is my secretary, Qutuz. He knows what we'll be discussing." The Kaunians bowed to Qutuz, too. He bowed back.

In the tent waited tea and wine and cakes. Hajjaj was touched again that the blonds favored him with a Zuwayzi ritual. He and Qutuz sipped and ate and made small talk; as hosts, Vitols and Nemunas were the ones to say when to get down to serious business. Nemunas didn't wait long. "Will you let us sail back to Forthweg, like we asked in our letter?" he said. "Now that there's a magic to let us look like Forthwegians, we can go back there and take proper revenge on the redheads."

He and Vitols leaned toward Hajjaj, waiting on his reply. He didn't leave them waiting long. "No," he said. "I will not permit it. I will not encourage it. If Zuwayzi ships see Kaunians sailing east, they will sink them if they can."

"But- why, your Excellency?" Nemunas sounded astonished. "You know what the Algarvians are doing to our people there. You'd never have let us stay here if you didn't."

"Every word of that is true." Hajjaj clamped his jaws shut tight after he finished speaking. He'd known this would be hard, brutally hard, and it was.

"Well, then," Vitols said, as if he expected the Zuwayzi foreign minister to change his mind on the instant and give his blessing to the Kaunians who wanted to go back to Forthweg and cause trouble for Algarve there.

But Hajjaj did not intend to change his mind. "No," he repeated.

"Why?" Vitols and Nemunas spoke together. Neither sounded as if he believed his ears.

"I will tell you why," Hajjaj replied. "Because, if you go back to your homeland and harass my cobelligerents, you make them more likely to lose the war."

Both Kaunian refugee leaders spoke several pungent phrases of a sort Hajjaj's language master had never taught him. He understood the sentiment if not the precise meaning of those phrases. At last, the Kaunians grew more coherent. "Of course we want to make them lose the war," Vitols said.

"Why wouldn't we?" Nemunas added. "They're murdering us."

"Why won't you let us strike back at them?" Vitols demanded. "Why don't you want them to lose the war? Why don't you curse them the way we curse them?"

"Because if Algarve loses the war, Zuwayza loses the war, too," Hajjaj said. "And if Zuwayza loses the war, King Swemmel is all too likely to serve my people as King Mezentio is serving yours."

"He wouldn't," Vitols said. "You might lose, you might even have to go back under Unkerlanter rule again, but you wouldn't get slaughtered."

"It is possible that you are right," Hajjaj admitted. "On the other hand, it is also possible that you are wrong. Knowing Swemmel, knowing the affront Zuwayza has given him, I must tell you that I do not care to take the chance. The things my cobelligerents have done horrify me. The things my foes could do if they get the chance horrify me more. I am sorry, gentlemen, but you cannot ask me to risk my people for the sake of yours."

Nemunas and Vitols put their heads together for a couple of minutes, muttering in low voices. When they were done, they both bowed to Hajjaj. Vitols spoke for them: "Very well, your Excellency. We understand your reasons. We don't agree, mind, but we understand. We'll obey. We wouldn't endanger your folk after you saved ours."

"I thank you." Hajjaj bowed in return. "I also require that obedience."

"You'll have it," Vitols said, and Nemunas nodded. The meeting ended a few minutes later.