Ian nodded. There were things that a very intelligent local could pick up on; steam engines, for instance, or even the internal combustion type. It was other things, like disease theory or anything involving electricity, that pushed their this-is-magic buttons.

"You know," Kathryn went on, "Kash really is smart. I'm pretty surprised the Assyrians beat him, in the first history."

Ian leaned back on a cushion, feeling benevolently full. "I'm not," he said. "What would you say is his strong point?"

"He's mentally flexible," Kathryn said immediately. "Good at grasping new concepts. Positively enthusiastic about them, in fact."

Ian nodded. "But this isn't an environment where that's much of an advantage, before we came," he pointed out gently. "In fact, it might be a disadvantage. In a really stable society like this, conservatism often works very well. All the best ways to use the things that they have have already been tried."

Colonel Hollard paused with a glass of pomegranate juice halfway to his lips. "You know, that's actually… rather brilliant, Councilor," he said slowly.

Doreen hit him with a pillow. "Don't inflate the Arnstein skull more than necessary, would you? It is a good point though. I've notice they're generally better at recording and systematizing than at innovation."

Kathryn tapped a thoughtful thumb on her chin. "Applies to military matters too, I suppose," she said. "The last big innovation here was when Raupasha's ancestors invented the war chariot, and that was, when… a thousand years ago?"

Arnstein nodded. "More or less. Not many big changes, and they have generations, centuries, to adapt to each one."

The two Hollards looked out at the dredge. "And now we're dumping the whole three millennia of changes on their heads all at once," Kenneth said. "Poor bastards."

"Anyone want the rest of these dried figs?" Doreen said. "No? You're right, Ken. The thing is, it's not even like the last couple of centuries in our history, the eighteenth and nineteenth and twentieth."

"Well, faster," Kathryn said.

"No, not just that. The locals are getting them without the long lead-in that Western civilization had; everything from the Greeks and then Christianity and Aquinian philosophy on through the Renaissance."

Kathryn narrowed her eyes in puzzlement. "What's religion got to do with it?"

Young, and a pragmatist, and a specialist, too, Ian Arnstein thought. He went on, "Quite a lot, actually. Judaism and its Christian heresy were important in implanting the idea that the universe was an orderly place, obedient to a single omnipresent, omnipotent system of laws with no exceptions-it leached the sacred out of the world, putting all the supernatural in one remote place. Call it preparation for the scientific worldview."

Doreen nodded and began repacking the picnic hamper, ignoring the scandalized looks of the royal servants. Their eyes grew even wider as the others pitched in to help.

"That's going to be more explosive here than just learning techniques, in the long run," she said. "I've been talking with their scholars a lot, and with some of them it's like watching a lightbulb go on inside when you give 'em the define-your-terms and why-does-that-follow routines."

Ian Arnstein looked over at the dredgers as they chewed their way through the soil of Kar-Duniash. Symbolic, he thought. Undermining foundations is turning out to be our stock-in-trade.

"I don't understand, man," the blacksmith said.

His shop was cluttered with work, mostly the finer ornamental type of wrought iron in various stages of completion. Walker lounged back against the doorpost; it was hot in there, with two big hearths and three smaller ones. All of them were glowing with coke fires, made from Istrian coal.

Work's kept him in good shape, though, Walker thought. Especially for a man in his fifties, now. His son was a nine-year-old miniature of his father, without the little granny glasses; he'd been proudly pounding on a miniature anvil until the king and his guardsmen arrived.

"I'm retiring you, John," Walker said patiently. He smiled like a wolf at the spurt of fear in the blacksmith's sad russet-colored eyes. Well, he's learned his lesson.

"No, no, nothing nasty," Walker laughed. "I'm just letting you retire. You've taught my people everything you know, and I don't trust you enough to put you in an executive job. So you're history here."

"You're letting us go, man?" the Californian said incredulously.

"Not back to Nantucket, of course. You know too much. Otherwise, yes, anywhere in the kingdom-provided you let me know. Hell, I'll throw in a land grant up in the hills if you want; you always were into that organic gardening horseshit, weren't you? And a pension."

Martins put the hammer down on his twister anvil and drank a dipperful of water from a bucket. "Yeah. Well, thanks, man. I'd like to get out of town, yeah. It ain't the best place in the world to bring up kids."

"Afraid they'll get contaminated, eh?" Walker laughed. He pushed himself upright. "If you get tired of rusticating, you can move back here. I'll even reserve a place in the guard regiment for your little Sam here, if he wants it."

Martins's face tightened in mulish stubbornness. Walker was still laughing as he walked out to the waiting carriage. John-taunting was an old sport. Not his favorite, but he'd miss it, in a way.

"Lord," Ohotolarix said in the bright sun outside. "A runner from the palace. Gla has fallen."

"Good news!" Walker said. That was the last rebel stronghold in Boetia, up by Lake Copais. "That leaves Thessaly, and once we've shown them the error of their ways, we're recovered from my late lamented father-in-law's flying leap."

Ohotolarix shuddered slightly. Walker could see his thoughts: The sacrifice of a chief is powerful magic. Too many others had thought so too, and it had set his plans back a year or more. Still, he wasn't in that much of a hurry.

He climbed into the open-sided carriage and signaled the driver. Iron-shod hooves clattered on the stone pavement, and the vehicle pulled away, with six mounted guards on either side. Walker linked his hands behind his head, blinking up into the cloud-speckled sky, humming.

"Oh, Jesus!" Kenneth Hollard said, feeling an almost irresistible impulse to cover his eyes and scream.

Raupasha was riding a horse around the exercise circle of Ur Base; she looked up and waved at him, smiling brightly. He had expected to see her in the saddle, since he'd given orders that she be allowed to train in riding. He hadn't expected to see her taking her retrained chariot pony over the obstacle course. She was laughing as she cantered, collecting the horse with rein and knees. It leaped, and she shifted her weight easily as it came down, leaning back slightly to steady it.

Oh, thank you, Jesus, Hollard thought, breathing again, as visions of falls and broken necks fled. At least she hadn't tried it with her reins knotted and arms crossed, the way officers and scouts had to.

"Lord Kenn'et!" she said, guiding her mount over to the adobe wall that surrounded the practice yard.

A grinning noncom took her bridle. "Not bad, Princess," he said.

The troops were making something of a mascot of her-the news of who'd killed the king of Assyria had spread quickly, and the story of her rescue was suitably romantic. Her looks don't hurt either, he thought. She was wearing Marine khakis, her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and her cheeks were flushed with fresh air and exercise.

"How is the princess doing?" he asked the Marine instructor.

"Not bad, sir. Good sense of balance, and she knew horses already."

Raupasha nodded as she swung down from the saddle. "Horses…" A pause while she searched for English words. "Horses part of… family."