"Dulet and Wendling? Not intimately."

"They recently inherited and formed an alliance. The basic plan was for mutual aid in the event of any attack but Sylvia relies on intuition and Jeanne is basically a gambler. If they ever had to face real pressure they would crack apart." He paused, waiting for her comment, adding, as she remained silent, "A thought, my dear, one to bear in mind. When the giants get hungry we small people must take what steps we can."

Such as exchanging information-but how could she be sure it was genuine? Her own assessment of the two women did not match Prador's; Sylvia operated on a basis of related pressures and Jeanne on minimized risk. If she gambled at all it was with a healthy appreciation of the odds.

She said, "Did you know that Ashen was trying to extend his holdings to the north?" A lie and one she elaborated as he leaned a little closer. "Lobel let it slip," she improvised. "He overheard him talking to Chargel in the baths. A whisper-but you know how tricky the acoustics can be. If true it could mean they are plotting to attack Arment or Barracola."

Or even Rham Kalova himself, a fact obvious but which she didn't mention. The art of a lie lay in its misdirection.

"Ashen," mused Prador. "And Chargel? An unlikely combination but one with all the more potential for danger because of that. Thank you, my dear. Bear in mind what I said about Sylvia and Jeanne."

A smile and he was gone, pressing among the others gathered at the assembly to garner what scraps of information he could. Lies for the most part, diversions, deceptions but a cunning and clever man could make use of them all. Building fabric from what was left unsaid, from what was emphasized and what was contradicted. Was Prador that clever?

If so why wasn't he at the upper table with the Maximus?

Fiona glanced to where Kalova stood with a small circle of intimates and sycophants. A man proud of his victories and confident of his strength; too obviously scornful of those he bested and too indifferent to their anxiety and pain. Correo-how must the man feel at this moment? Grard for whom every moment must be a waking nightmare. Bulem whom Prador hadn't mentioned but who now stood poised on a razor's edge. Herself.

The golden fluid stung her throat as she emptied the glass but still the taste of fear remained.

"My lords and ladies!" Arment's voice cut across the babble in the assembly chamber. "Take your places if you please!"

She was seated lower than before, a fact anticipated but still far from pleasant, and, too, she was conscious of the attitude of her new companions. To see another brought low was always a pleasure to those with small holdings; a consolation to their own limitations. As she waited to be served Fiona kept her eyes on the high table.

Arment was seated next to Kalova; one of the twenty entitled to be at the board presided over by the Maximus himself. The rest were placed in positions of relative importance; Prador was higher than herself as was Myra Lancing, Reed, Lobel even higher than before. Status gained by the holdings he had wrested from her as the price of his aid; the first had been only the beginning. How many others?

She looked around, a stupid gesture, for her own display would give her the facts, but it was copied by others at the low tables. There would have to be twelve dozen at least; the Gross had to be maintained, but how many more? The usual six? Five? Less?

Toying with her meal she wondered what the situation would be if someone should make an error. Should holders be diminished below the Gross a vacancy would exist to be filled by any who chose to challenge a holder. Who would such a one pick? Arment? She studied him where he sat, smiling, a scrap of meat speared on a lifted fork. Nils was young, strong, ruthless in his determination. Helm? Older but with the same basic savagery as the rest. None would be easy and none would be so foolish as to create a vacancy.

"My lady?" An attendant shattered her musing. He stood at her side, a salver of sweet pastry balanced on one hand, serving tongs in the other. Her soiled plate had been deftly removed to be replaced by another. "An eclair, my lady? Honey cake? Chocolate sponge?"

She followed the movement of the tongs, indifferent as to the selection, nodding as the instrument came to rest over a heap of crusted pastry dusted with colored glitters.

"A wise choice, my dear." The man seated on her left nodded his approval. He was twice her age with a mouth like a trap and eyes to match. "Enriched flours, a high-protein filling, a decoration containing essential vitamins. A good foundation for the rest of the assembly."

"But fattening." The woman to Fiona's right added her comment. "Like most nice things. But you can afford it, my dear." Her eyes held envy as they studied the trim figure graced with well-formed curves. "Lynne Oldrant," she said, introducing herself. "And you are Fiona Velen. You've met Cran with his good advice but, for once, it's worth listening to. The only way to bear the Maximus's platitudes is to get half-drunk and then you risk spoiling the rest of the evening." She stabbed at her own confection, lifted a portion, ate, swallowed, shook her head. "Pleasure tonight and sweat tomorrow-but what else is life?"

Wine followed the cakes, new vintages together with potent spirits and, the tables cleared, the assembly waited for the address. As always Kalova chose to stretch the moment, maintaining tension while he raked them with his eyes, enjoying his power to the full even as he assessed what he saw, the resentment he knew existed.

Fiona yawned when he finally rose.

The address, like the meal, the assembly itself was an empty ritual born in the days when real blood had attended real battles and feuds needed to be avoided by the sharing of meat and wine. Hard days in which hard men had fought and won a place on a hard world. Things on which the Maximus touched as he sent his voice to echo from the groined roof, adding comments of his own, the need for peace, the desire for stability and tranquility, his conviction that no personal enmities existed or could exist in the social order.

Lynne Oldrant sighed her relief when he sat.

"Thank God that's over! You there! Some more brandy!" As the attendant obeyed she added, to Fiona, "We must get to know each other better. The baths, tomorrow? I'll need a massage in any case. We can talk and, maybe, make a few plans."

The usual intrigues or something more? Fiona had felt the searching impact of the other's eyes and a shared bath was often the prelude to closer intimacies. Yet to be curt in her refusal would be to arouse enmity and lose a potential advantage.

"I'll have to check," she said. "Could I call you?"

"Of course." Lynne glanced at the high table, at Kalova where he sat. "When's the old fool going to summon the entertainers?"

The noise was the worst part. The light was bad with its blinding, searing intensity but the sound was beyond mere physical irritation. Crouched against the raft Dumarest could feel its battering despite the protective suit, the muffles shielding his ears. A force transmitted through the rock itself to pound at cell and tissue, to threaten the delicate capillaries and membranes. Energy which could rupture the cortex and induce insanity and death.

He had seen it happen on scattered battlefields when mercenaries had fought with savage viciousness but no battle he had ever known could approach the present situation. Now the hills fought the skies with dancing lightning the prelude to the massed volley of multiple cannon, echoes blasting from hill to hill, caught, magnified, sent in pulsing shock waves which ripped stone to acrid powder and fuming vapors. Fury which vented itself and moved on to tear at other hills, crumble other peaks.

Beside him Vardoon lifted a fumbling hand to the helmet, the line linking them with direct communication.