Sir Gjerdrum scowled. "That's not true. It's just that I've got other things to do. Colonel Abaca or General Liakopulos could have sat in on this for me."

Nepanthe noted the Colonel and General among the two dozen or so people she knew only by sight.

Sir Gjerdrum kissed her hand while clicking his heels. They had developed an innocent flirtation when he was younger and less world-wise. He played their old game half-hearted court with a weak suggestion. "Let me treat you to dinner after the little one comes."

Nepanthe raised an eyebrow. What had become of the indefatigably cheerful Gjerdrum of years gone by? Had he been crushed between the millstones of duty? Or was this just a mood?

She glanced around the room. Her friends had all aged, had all grown tired of their responsibilities. Nothing dulls the enthusiasm like the inability to make visible progress, she thought.

She was not unique, then. The same despair-inducing nemesis breathed down the necks of all her friends.

"Where's the King?" she asked. She and Varthlokkur hadn't seen Bragi yet, though they had reached Vorgreberg the previous afternoon.

"I don't know," Gjerdrum mumbled. "You'd think he'd be on time, wouldn't you? After calling us here... He dragged me in all the way from Karlsbad."

Varthlokkur moved to the room's huge fireplace and stared into the prancing flames. He looked troubled. Nepanthe joined him. She wondered why he was so moody lately.

The gathering fell under a pall. Only Michael and Aral remained immune. They chattered like best friends who hadn't seen one another for years.

Mist took a seat near the head of the huge table which filled half the room. Nepanthe studied her. Exile had made of a once savage conspirator a quiet, gentle woman. A knitting bag lay open before her. A small, two-headed, four-armed demon manipulated her needles at an incredible pace. Its legs dangled off the table's side. Occasionally one head would curse the other for making it drop a stitch. Mist would shush gently.

The door opened. A splendidly attired young officer entered. Nepanthe remembered him as Dahl Haas, the son of a mercenary who had followed King Bragi into Kavelin during the civil war. For an instant she wondered if Dahl had had babies who would follow Bragi in their turn.

"Stand by," Haas said. "He's on his way."

Nepanthe moved nearer the door. The King pushed through. His gaze met hers. He winced slightly, then enfolded her in a gentle, uncertain hug. "How are you?" he asked. And, "I'm sorry I couldn't see you last night. This wart of a kingdom don't give me time to catch my breath. Hello, Varthlokkur."

King Bragi was a tall, powerfully built man. He wore the scars of nearly three decades of soldiering. Nepanthe noted grey in the shag at his temples. Time was gnawing at him too.

He whispered, "I'll try to put on a private supper tonight. You'll want to see Fulk." Fulk was his six-month-old son, whom she had never seen.

"How is Inger?"

He gave her an odd look. Her tone must have betrayed her thoughts. She could not get used to his having remarried. His first wife, Elana, who had died during the war, had been her best friend. "Fine. Full of pepper. And Fulk is just like his mother." He moved away, shaking hands, exchanging greetings. Finally finished, he said, "I hope this thing hasn't gotten anybody fired up... I see it hasn't. Just a roll call, anyway, so to speak. I won't really need you for a few days yet. For now, let me just say that we've had word from Derel."

He explained that his personal secretary, Derel Prataxis, was in Throyes, east of the Mountains of M'Hand, negotiating with Lord Hsung, the commander of Shinsan's army of occupation there. In the three years since the cessation of hostilities not one trade caravan had crossed the mountains. The easterners had kept the one commercially viable pass, the Savernake Gap, locked up tight. Now Prataxis reported a dramatic shift in attitude. He expected the negotiations to be brief and their outcome to be favorable.

The discussion was prosaic and dull, and Nepanthe didn't pay much attention till the King asked Sir Gjerdrum for his guess as to why Shinsan would suddenly alter its policy.

"Hsung over there is a hard-liner," the King said. "He wouldn't do anything that would help Kavelin more than it would his own team."

Gjerdrum flashed his scowl. "Maybe the legions are up to strength again. Maybe they want the pass open so they can run spies through."

"That doesn't make sense," Mist countered. "They have the Power. Anyway, if they did have to have an agent physically present, they'd send him in over the smugglers' trails." Her glance flicked to Aral Dantice. "He'd set up a transfer portal so he could bring in any help he needed."

"All right," Bragi said. "Then you give me a reason that does make sense."

"I can't."

Nepanthe became aware of a subtle tension in the room. There were undercurrents here sensed only by a few.

King Bragi stared into infinity. "Why do I feel like you're not telling me everything? Can't you guess out loud?"

Mist stared at her knitting. The imp's needles became silvery blurs. "I don't feel Lord Ko Feng anymore. There may have been a coup." Cautiously, she admitted, "A few old supporters got in touch last summer. They thought there was something in the wind."

Trebilcock snorted. "Something in the wind? Crap! Ko Feng got his butt thrown out. They stripped his titles, his honors, and his immortality. They as much as accused him of treason because he kept his army intact instead of trying to finish us off at Palmisano. A corps commander named Kuo Wen-chin replaced him. Anybody who had anything to do with the Pracchia got swept out along with Feng. All reassigned to Northern and Eastern Armies. What amounts to internal exile. Ko Feng vanished completely. None of the new bunch were involved in the Great Eastern Wars." Trebilcock's glance flicked from Aral Dantice to Mist, as if daring contradiction.

Michael is a strange one, Nepanthe thought. Dantice and Gjerdrum are his best friends, and they say he's weird. Only Varthlokkur seems to understand him.

She wasn't sure what her husband saw in the younger man. She did know he liked Michael, and found him intriguing.

The King asked, "Mist?"

"Michael's connections are better than mine."

Bragi made a slight gesture. Nepanthe caught it. She watched Michael respond with a tiny shrug. The King said, "Varthlokkur, don't you have anything to contribute?"

"I haven't been watching Shinsan. I've been busy."

Nepanthe stared at the tabletop and blushed. She had mixed feelings about her pregnancy. Excitement and eagerness and way too much worry. She was too old... But she had to try, to replace the son she had lost during the war...

"But... " she started, then shut up. It was entirely her husband's business if he wanted his east-watching kept mum. Still, why should he lie?

Varthlokkur said, "I could send the Unborn, of course."

"No. That would just provoke them." Bragi eyed the group. "My best friends. My advisers and boon companions. Why are you such a moody bunch today? Nobody wants to talk, eh? All right. Be that way. So. That's it. Check your contacts, people. I want to know what's happening over east. Those people won't hurt us again. Not while I have any say."

His tone startled Nepanthe. She took a closer look. Yes. There were tears in his eyes. He had an almost fanatic love for Kavelin.

For a moment she envied him. Would that she had something with as much meaning for her.

The ambitions of eastern princes had cost them both. Him his brother. Several of his children. His first wife, who had been her best friend. His best friend, who had been her first husband, Mocker. And whom he had been compelled to kill himself, because poor tangle-witted Mocker had been convinced he had to make a choice between Bragi and his son... "Damn!" she spat, and slammed a fist against the tabletop.