"Possibly. They've been developing an economic base for a century."

"What?"

"A friend of mine did a study of Guild policies and practices. Very interesting when you trace their monies and patterns of commission acceptance. Trouble is, the pattern isn't complete enough to show their goals."

"What do you think? Would it be better to give them a barony or two? One of the nonhereditary titles we created after the war?"

"You could always nationalize later-when you think you can whip them heads up."

"If we pay there won't be much left for emergencies."

"Commission renewal is almost here. There won't be much favorable sentiment in the Thing."

"Ain't much in my heart, either." Ragnarson watched the sun play peekaboo through the leaves. "Hard to convince myself we need them when we haven't had any trouble for seven years. But the army isn't up to anything rough yet."

The real cost of the war had been the near-obliteration of Kavelin's traditional military leadership, the Nordmen nobility. Hundreds had fallen in the rebellion against Fiana. Hundreds had been exiled. Hundreds more had fled the kingdom. There was no lack of will in the men Bragi had recruited since, simply an absence of command tradition. He had made up somewhat by using veterans he had brought to Kavelin back then, forming several sound infantry regiments, but the diplomatically viable military strength of the state still hinged on the Guild presence. Their one regiment commanded more respect than his native seven.

Kavelin had greedy neighbors, and their intentions, what with three national leaderships having changed within the year, remained uncertain.

"If I could just get the Armaments Act through...."

Soon after war's end Fiana had decreed that every free man should provide himself with a sword. Ragnarson's idea. But he had overlooked the cost. Even simple weapons were expensive. Few peasants had the money. Distributing captured arms had helped only a little.

So, for years, he had been pushing legislation which wouldenable his War Ministry to provide weapons.

He wanted the act so he could dispense with the Mercenaries. The Thing wanted rid of the Mercenaries first. An impasse.

Bragi was finding politics a pain in the behind.

Reskird and Haaken returned, then Turran and Valther. Empty-handed. "That kid Trebilcock, and Rolf, got there first," Reskird explained. "Tough old sow anyway."

"Sour grapes?" Bragi chuckled. "Valther, you heard anything from Mocker yet? Or about him?"

Most of a year had passed since he had sent the fat man south. He hadn't heard a word since.

"It's got me worried," Valther admitted. "I made it top priority two months ago, when I heard that Haroun had left his camps. He's gone north. Nobody knows where or why."

"And Mocker?"

"Practically nothing. I've scoured the country clear to Sedlmayr. He never made it there. But one of my men picked up a rumor that he was seen in Uhlmansiek."

"That's a long way from Sedlmayr...."

"I know. And he wasn't alone."

"Who was he with?"

"We don't know. Nearest thing to a description I have is that one of them was a one-eyed man."

"That bothers you?"

"There's a one-eyed man named Wilis Northen, alias Rico, who's been on my list for years. We think he works for El Murid."

"And?"

"Northen disappeared about the right time."

"Oh-oh. You think El Murid's got him? What're the chances?"

"I don't know. It's more hunch than anything."

"So. Let's see. Mocker goes to see Haroun. El Murid's agents intercept him. Question. How did they know?"

"You've got me. That bothers me more than where Mocker is. It could cost us all. I've tried every angle I can think of. I can't find a leak. I put tagged information through everybody who was there when we conned Mocker into going. Result? Nothing."

Ragnarson shook his head. He knew those men. He had bet his life on their loyalties before.

But the word had leaked somehow.

Had Mocker told anybody?

Thus the spy mind works. There had to be a plot, a connection. Coincidence couldn't be accepted.

Habibullah hadn't had the slightest idea of Mocker's mission. He had simply set his agents to kidnap a man, acting on news, which was common talk in the Siluro quarter, that he was traveling to Sedlmayr. Mocker had spread that story himself. The man in black had other resources.

"Keep after it. In fact, get in touch with Haroun's people."

"Excuse me?"

"Haroun has people here. I know a little about your work. I've done some in my time. Admit it. You know them and they know you. Ask them to find out. Or you could go through our friends from Altea. They're in direct contact. Even if you find out they don't know anything, we're ahead. We'd know Mocker didn't reach the camps. Oh. Ask the Marena Dimura. They know what's happening in the hills."

"That's where I got my Uhlmansiek rumor."

The Marena Dimura were the original inhabitants of Ravelin, dwelling there before Ilkazar initiated the wave of migrations which had brought in the other three ethnic groups: the Siluro, Wessons, and Nordmen. The semi-nomadic Marena Dimura tribes kept to the forests and mountains. A fiercely independent people-though they had supported her during the civil war-they refused to recognize Fiana as legitimate monarch of Kavelin. Centuries after the Conquest they still viewed the others as occupying peoples.... They put little effort into altering the situation, though. They took their revenge by stealing chickens and sheep.

It was early spring. The sun rolled west. The afternoon breeze rose. The air grew cooler. Shivering, Bragi announced, "I'm heading back to town. Be damned cold by dark." It would take that long to get home.

Prataxis and Valther joined him. They had work to do.

"You ought to go see your wife sometime," Ragnarson told Valther. "I had a wife who looked like that, I wouldn't go out for groceries."

Valther gave him an odd look. "Elana isn't bad. And you leave her alone all the time."

Guilt ragged Ragnarson's conscience. It was true. His position was opening a gulf between him and Elana. And he hadn't only neglected her. The children, too, were growing up asstrangers. He stopped chiding Valther. The man's marriage was even more successful than Mocker's.

"Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I'll take a couple days off soon as I get the new armaments thing lined up. Maybe dump the kids on Nepanthe and take Elana somewhere. There's some pretty country around Lake Turntine."

"Sounds perfect. And Nepanthe would love having them. She's going crazy, bottled up with Ethrian."

Nepanthe was staying at the Palace. There were no children her son's age at Castle Krief.

"Maybe she should move out to my place?" Ragnarson's family occupied the home of a former rebel, Lord Lindwedel, who had been beheaded during the war. It was so huge that his mob of kids, and servants, and Haaken when he stayed over, couldn't fill it.

"Maybe," Valther murmured. "My place would be better." His wasn't far from Ragnarson's.

The head of an intelligence service doesn't always tell his employer all he knows.