When His Majesty Ciamo III granted his leave to begin construction of Rosehall in Kingdom Year 377, he was careful to stipulate that the new home of the Convention’s peerage be made entirely of local materials produced within the Republic itself, that it be built by native-born permanent residents whenever possible, and that it not be financed by debts whose terms exceeded ten years. There were no objections to these demands, which was entirely consistent with the prevailing ethos of self-reliance and thrift. Every peer, including orphans, donated wealth or workers as he was able, and the building rose swiftly.

  Rosehall was an ambitious project in more ways than one; it is the largest edifice constructed in Marransheel since the Ravening, much too large for current needs. The central square tower of the royal residence connects via a pair of branching passages to two great rotundae. One of them is built to seat up to two hundred and fifty peers, the maximum imposed on the Teniveccia by Rucio III in the first century. It has never contained even half that number, and at present holds still fewer, many of whom do not hold the territories they claim and represent.

  The second, much larger rotunda has never been used at all, and awaits the day when Siocaea is whole once more, and the Dewrose Republic can be a true republic at last. Until then, it is periodically cleared of dust and cobwebs, so as to be ready for the Citizens’ Assembly on the day the country is reunified. This, too, was a requirement of His Majesty’s, and uncontroversial. The peers of the Convention hold their power in trust, and must look, always and forever, to the future.

  At this precise moment, however, the future they are looking to is at most half an hour away. There are only (Rodrigo counts) sixty-four men on the floor of the upper council chamber, including himself. Timeo, advised by the clerk of the peerage, has just finished his latest round of calculations as the last men trickled in, and decided that the current mixture of orphan and landed peers finally represents a sufficient number of votes to make quorum. Now he is gone to fetch His Majesty and the Speaker, who will arrive with all due ceremony, and the sixty-four men in the chamber have nothing to do but stew in a roiling cauldron of restless masculine energy. All about the room young dandies in fine clothes are arguing, joking, singing songs both tasteful and bawdy, and in one case arm-wrestling across a desk. A handful of older peers, more conscious of their dignity, drowse with their heads on their desks, and a somber assembly of five elder statesmen is already holding a preliminary debate in the chamber’s topmost tier of desks.

  Rodrigo’s seat is in the third semicircular row from the center, surrounded by other orphans from Cafrelon. All eight of the island’s seats are now occupied; it has been speculated that most of the orphan peers were given their token governorships in towns not far from Marransheel so more of them could be available for these emergency sessions. Cooler-headed men who actually own the lands they represent might struggle to arrive in time, if they can be troubled to come in the first place.

  Vayor Meira, on Rodrigo’s left, flicks the release on his scabbard, and his sword leaps up into his hand. There is no point in paying for a fashionable spring-loaded sheath if you don’t also acquire the annoying habit of playing with it when bored or restless. Which he has been doing for the past five minutes, every ten or twenty seconds, swish-swish-click. He speaks just often enough to draw attention to it.

  Caetano Pesco leaves off his restless pacing in the aisle to throw himself into his seat at the end of the row. “What d’you think, lads? Will this push us back another six months?” At thirty-eight, the lord of Hasparri is the oldest of Cafrelon’s peers, and thus the least patient for his teniet.

  Izal Ahrante, on Rodrigo’s right, spits onto the floor. “Who are you fooling? Murregamua doesn’t want to bother with this any more than we do. We’ll spank the little people smartly … then go back to waiting for our friends on the docks.”

  “How much longer is that damned ship going to take, anyhow?” grumbles Tazzo Farian, between Caetano and Vayor. His feet are up on his desk, a posture he would never dare with Timeo, Murregamua, or His Highness in the room. “I can’t even remember how long it’s been now.”

  “Two years, two months,” Izal answers before Rodrigo can. “And they’ve barely started it yet. My cousin’s husband works in that yard, and he says they haven’t done much more than lay down the keel. They can’t make a working engine big enough for something that heavy, apparently.”

  “Then what in the world are all those workers doing?” says Rodrigo. “We can’t be paying them all to sit idle, or to fail to make one engine.”

  “Making little boats,” Izal laughs. “Transports, for our triumphant landing in Hausan.”

  “Before we’ve got the ship that can actually fight?” says Caetano.

  Izal shrugs. “I’m told we have to, to keep our contract in with the yard or the builders or some such. They’d throw out our expensive keel if we didn’t give them something to do. There’s plenty of well-heeled civilians ready to order ships.”

  “The old man’s gone senile,” declares Tazzo, to general, but muted, agreement. Murregamua still enjoys broad support from those of the old generation who survived the Reclamation, and they will start an argument for certain if awakened from their sleep by disrespect for their idol.

  “You’d prefer a land engagement, then?” says Rodrigo quietly. Nobody in the rows above or below looks to be paying attention to their discussion.

  “Is that even a question, sir?” says Vayor Meira. Swish, click, swish swish, click.

  “My brother and I would like to take a jaunt through the forest,” he announces. “Not any time very soon, mind you. It will have to wait until we’ve seen to Eyanna Vogh. But we’ll be bringing my entire retinue along for an escort. We’d appreciate any company you care to bring, as well. As many as you can. The forest can be dangerous, you know.”

  They all look at him. “How far into the forest?” asks Caetano.

  “I thought we’d see how clear the path is. If it’s good and free … maybe to Antantur.”

  Tazzo laughs. “That would be something! But the old man would never allow it.”

  “What if he doesn’t hear of it until it’s already happened?” Rodrigo asks, still keeping his voice low. “He’ll have a harder time declining a land war once it’s started.”

  A sharp look ricochets between them. Izal speaks for the group. “It’s worth considering. If we can round up the men for it quietly.”

  “Which is why I don’t intend to hurry the process. We need to be discreet about who we speak with about this, gentlemen, and move with deliberation.”

  “How is it that we’re hearing this from you now, if you don’t mind my asking?” says Vayor Meira. “I’ve always been under the impression—and please don’t take offense at this, sir, as none is meant— that you were in no particular hurry to take back your teniet.” Swish, click.

  “I am not,” Rodrigo allows. “In light of … the event we’re here to discuss, I think the time has come for more aggressive action. If we can disable the Union, we’ll be better placed to handle the threat from the Boghen. Whatever it really is.”

  All four of their expressions suggest a lively debate is about to start on that point when Lord Timeo Delisarmo BeTira re-enters the room, followed by Lord Neppo Murregamua BeDunano. Tazzo’s feet thump to the floor, and sixty-four peers bound to their feet.

  Rodrigo can still clearly remember asking his father, long ago, why Lord Murregamua did not grow a beard. He might have been fourteen or fifteen at the time, in those last precious years before the Reclamation, when the Veccian of Encelise, like so many others, rode off and did not come back. Rodrigo had taken to attending sessions at his father’s side, to learn the business of a peer, and the first thing he noted about the Speaker was that his was the only clean-shaven face in the hall.

  Father had taken his time thinking of an answer—not because the answer was difficult, but because he and every other man present knew it without words. “In Lord Murregamua’s youth,” he said at last, “it was not the fashion, as now, for a man to grow a beard. It was a different country then, far less safe and civilized. For a man to rise every morning and trim his face perfectly smooth … to do that was to cry defiance against barbarity, to say that one would take the time to acquire needless polish, simply to show that one was not a beast. Now we are safe, and bold warriors all, proud to be men, so we show our beards as a cock shows his comb.”

  “But Lord Murregamua does not?”

  “No. It may be that old men do not change their habits easily, that he thinks of himself as a remnant of the past, or that he wishes to remind us of what used to be. We do not ask.”

  Ten years have passed, and a new generation rise from their seats in Rosehall. Murregamua’s silver-trimmed ebony cane strikes the floor in a sharp clacking rhythm as he marches into the room with his back straight and his head held high. The pupils of his blind eyes are as white as his perfectly coiffed hair. His coat and pants, too, are spotless white over a black vest. But absolutely no white shows on his lip or his square brown jaw.

  Timeo moves quickly and quietly around him, clearing the way and pulling back the chair before the podium. The Speaker takes his place, finds the gavel with his right hand, and raps it once, purely for form—not a man is speaking. It is only a signal that the session has begun.

  The next man through the door is much younger, in his early forties, and lacks his venerable lieutenant’s awesome dignity. The crown of Nunwai—a solid gold band with a tall jewel-studded panel of gold filigree rising from its front—does add a few inches to his height. His clothing is fashionable, his grooming impeccable. But he walks quickly down the aisle with a mincing step, his shoulders too stiff, as though he can feel sixty-five pairs of eyes on him and does not care for it. He has been king since Rodrigo was eighteen, but the shirt under his suit is still mourning black for Rucio XVI, dead last autumn. No other living man knows what it is like to be the rightful King of all Siocaea.

  On reaching the space about the podium he turns and raises his arms, and hats leave heads all about the chamber. All eyes turn, for a moment, to the enormous gilt-entwined crystal hanging above the podium, the symbol of the universal Deity. His Majesty invokes Varna Who keeps the peace, calling down a spirit of unity and goodwill on their meeting.

  It is a substantial prayer, and Rodrigo lets his eyes drop from the crystal to wander briefly around the room. All the windows are stained-glass now, the last clear pane replaced seven months ago. Now one can read the entire history of the continent since the Blemish simply by running one’s eyes around the room from the left of the door on. The miraculous rediscovery of the stone hanging above their heads is depicted in the window to the King’s left. A younger Murregamua can be seen in that picture, and several others. But the mosaic on the floor around the podium is simply an enormous dewrose, and the other rotunda down the hall still has simple clear glass, for a future waiting to happen. All of it is done in a consciously antique style, to lend the weight of ages past to a government that did not exist when Rodrigo was born.

  The session begins with an exhaustive report on the events at Tefeia; Timeo has hauled in a trainload of eyewitnesses, so that all of them can hear with their own ears that a man matching the description of the infamous Hjan Dük—broad shoulders, modest height, red-brown hair, large nose and protuberant lips—poured blood in a jar to brew up monstrosities. By the sixth near-identical account, Rodrigo is beginning to doubt his assumption that it was all a bizarre hoax, and the men around him are restless in their seats. Nervous glances fly about the chamber.

  After the fourteenth sworn statement, Lord Moare Penintello rises from his seat. “I believe you have adequately made your case, Lord Delisarmo. I move that we abrogate, or at least postpone, the remainder of these testimonies.” (Motion seconded and carried by general acclamation. Penintello still holds the floor.) “So. Eyanna Vogh has, somehow, acquired the ability to weaponize the Blemish, or something similar. How? Dük and the Beardogs have always been unusually adept at controlling the turned. Have they gone beyond that, to simply manufacturing demons at will?”

  Tefeia is the seat of Lord Avino Barani’s teniet, though he was not present for the attack. His request to speak next is readily granted. “My man Senri Papale, who made the decision to destroy the railway bridge, has been conducting his own investigation. He wired me this morning. They took one of Vogh’s soldiers alive.”

  Timeo, much piqued, interrupts with a raised hand. “How did this happen? I was under the impression the city had been very thoroughly searched. Certainly I heard no word of any survivors when I was there.”

  “Evidently this boy—he might be sixteen—was separated from his unit in the confusion, and fled the city. He is illiterate, had no map, and ran in the wrong direction. A farmer found him sleeping in his barn yesterday morning, ten miles north of the city. He was half-starved and told all he knew for a good meal. He says that they brought five creatures down the Nistrale, the same five Dük deployed at the start of the attack. The boy claimed to have no idea Dük could make these … animals until he saw him doing it outside the fortress.”

  “She has been keeping it secret from her own men, then,” says Timeo. “As well as from us. For how long, I wonder?”

  “Yes. Senri suggests that she has had the ability to do this all along, and that the supposedly turned men she previously attacked with have always been Dük’s creations.”

  Murregamua levers himself upright. His voice is slow, quiet, and clear: “Sir, I am very much inclined to doubt this hypothesis. Given this same power you propose, and our enemy denied it, we might conquer all Syoshen Vukh inside the year. Until now, Eyanna Vogh has come off worse in every encounter with us. This is her first clear victory during His Majesty’s reign. How is that?”

  “It might be that there are limitations on it, to which we are not privy,” Lord Barani suggests. “Dük is always involved; so long as we are supposing he can do this, who is to say the ability is not limited to his own person somehow? We know how the Blemish spreads, nothing else. We presume it is linked to this … strange aptitude—the deserted train-car reeks of it. Might it be that Dük himself has some native power over it? He is Kerigzanan, a newcomer at Vogh’s court. Who is to say how the Blemish works on northern blood?”

  “You give yourself leave to speculate very freely, sir.” Murregamua’s voice is cold. But he sits down.

  “We find ourselves living in very strange times,” says Barani to the room as a whole. “I do not know how to circumscribe insanity, or to draw limits about the impossible. Does anyone?”

  By the clock on the wall, the ensuing debate lasts forty-eight minutes, give or take the odd second. They discuss every logical possibility, and several others, inside the first twenty, the remainder being given over to displays of temper by some of the Convention’s more fiery personalities. As a vote does not seem to be forthcoming in the near future, Rodrigo again allows his eyes and attention to wander freely about the room. Many people have already vacated their seats in the visitors’ balcony ringing the room, and most of the remainder have their notebooks closed by now. He recognizes all of the faces but one as regulars from the Marransheel dailies, drab little men now getting on in years; the exception, however, is a dark-haired beauty with rosy cheeks. She has the tip of her pen in her mouth, and is staring pensively at the multifaceted crystal dangling before her eyes in its golden cage.

  Rodrigo tries and fails to catch her eye, then nudges Izal. “Hsst. Do you recognize the girl up there?”

  “Hmm?” Izal blinks himself free from reverie, then squints. “No. Should I?”

  “I don’t know. But she’s a lovely sight.”

  Izal stifles a yawn. “I suppose. Please don’t take offense at a friendly warning: if you blather to a journalist to bed her, and embarrass the Convention, we shan’t shelter you from the wrath of Timeo.”

  “I’m not planning to bed her,” Rodrigo reproves him, still under his breath. Though the thought had crossed his mind, for a moment. It has been some time, after all. He made a few brief and embarrassing attempts at gallantry after putting away Ermina’s black. He cannot recall exactly what was going through his head at the time, beyond a perverse sense of obligation—perhaps he feared that he would look deranged to mourn too long, or that he was not being a proper lord if he was not gallivanting after chambermaids and farmers’ daughters.

  Whatever his reason, he soon found that he had lost all skill at the old adolescent game, and tripped endlessly on his tongue. Girl after girl declined his advances with giggles. He finally decided he was too old to be making such a fool of himself, and declared himself done with it. Where that leaves him now, he does not know, but Izal is watching him closely, so he banishes the question from his mind. “There’s nothing nicer to look at, is there?”

  “She and old Yenna Barsi from the Watchlight are the only women here,” Izal notes. “It’s hardly a fair competition.” Izal has a wife at home—and a girl here in the city, devouring a full quarter of his stipend—and thus no reason to care.

  “No, it isn’t.” He pauses. “Damn.”

  “What?” Ordinarily a private conversation this lengthy would draw the ire of Timeo, but someone has just made distasteful insinuations about the true loyalties of certain red-haired peers from the uplands, and Murregamua has risen to rebuke him in his grand old style. All eyes are elsewhere.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Timeo wants me to marry. I just recalled.”

  “I should think you ought to marry,” Izal mutters back. “Why should you be spared from the fiery torment of our general crucible?”

  “Yes, so he told me. Do you know of anyone still free?”

  “Hah. You might fetch an old maid out of some attic, if you keep at it.”

  “What about your sister? You have a sister, don’t you?”

  “Fifteen, and you’ll find her a harder prospect than a lady reporter.”

  “Pardon me, I’d thought her older.”

  “The older one’s wed already, with an infant daughter—and no, you can’t have that one either, if you’re still looking when she’s of age. You really ought to keep more current with these things, man.”

  “Again, I have been told as much already … burn me black, but this business is taking forever.” Up on the balcony, the girl has taken her pen from her mouth, and is leaning on the rail to survey the flower of the Republic man by man. She does not seem impressed by what she sees. He catches her eye with a rapid flicking of his hand, behind the desk where Timeo cannot see. Once he has her attention, he puts the hand slowly to his heart, then his lips.

  The girl leans over farther so he can more clearly see her roll her eyes, then throws herself back in her chair. Izal bleats out his loud stupid goat’s laugh, and they both cringe in their seats before the fatal glare of Lord Timeo Delisarmo BeTira.

  At the end of the forty-eight minutes, it is resolved that the Republic shall start capturing turned specimens for research into their potential military use—details to be decided later, in a more private and select council, for security purposes. Rodrigo ponders whether he might volunteer to collect these specimens, perhaps in Hell’s Park, but there is little chance of his being included in any select council at his age.

  Next item: their imminent reprisal. Everyone sits up straighter, though they have now been in session for more than two hours. The ordinary risk of death or disability on the field of battle is much more pleasant to contemplate than the thought that they have lost an arms race against Boghen renegades. Someone raises the possibility of invasion up the Nistrale or the Groye, but Murregamua and His Majesty are firmly opposed; the headwaters will surely be defended, possibly by the Beardogs themselves. Nobody so much as suggests the Paore, guarded by every cannon Eyanna Vogh possesses. Rodrigo knows from recent experience that they are unlikely to find good roads anywhere, or sufficient supply for a proper army. Yet there must be a firm and decisive response.

  In the last analysis, the answer is simple. Only five river systems are navigable up to the border into Syoshen Vukh. The Paore, Groye, and Nistrale will not do. The Garba and its tributaries are hundreds of miles away in the Wild Range, with whom they keep no relations. That leaves a single possibility.

  “Pasavana is neutral,” someone protests.

  “Neutral with respect to our conflict with the Union,” Timeo corrects him. “They’re hardly in the same position where Eyanna Vogh is concerned. We’re told she raids them mercilessly. What business is it of the Union’s, if Pasavana grants us passage through their territory to punish our common foe?”

  “But would they grant it? Would they not fear that we would decline to leave afterwards?”

  “In which case the Union would infallibly invade to liberate the city, opening a new front in our war,” retorts Timeo, somewhat testily. “The Free City has not kept itself free for fifteen years by being formidable in battle. They have a very firm grasp on the rules of our game.”

  Izal kicks Rodrigo’s foot. “Someone’s interested again. Look up.”

  “Hmm?” The blush has faded from the beauty’s cheeks; her cool reserve vanished, she looms over their assembly like a stormcloud with her notebook clenched closed in her hands. “Why on earth didn’t we clear the balcony?” That should have been done before they started any discussion of troop maneuvers.

  “We did. I don’t see anyone else up there, do you?”

  “No.” The other seats are deserted. Rodrigo decides in an instant. “Look down. Pretend not to see.”

  “Right.”

  The difficult part will be not frightening her off. He waits a moment longer, while Timeo conducts the dispute like a maestro. Then he stretches, and tiptoes past Vayor, Tazzo, and Caetano, as though seeking to answer nature. Plenty of others have done so already, and returned. As soon as he is out of sight from the balcony, he beckons the sergeant-at-arms from the doorway, and explains with a few quick words. The sergeant in turn beckons several constables out of their shadowy alcoves. As soon as they are on their way, Rodrigo proceeds to go answer nature, because it has been a long meeting.

  “A brave attempt,” Izal mutters as Rodrigo returns to his seat, “but your little bird flew right after you got up.”

  She is recklessly inquisitive, then, and hot-blooded, but not entirely stupid. Rodrigo returns his attention to the debate with faint regret for the lost diversion—but it is nearly over. His Majesty Ciamo III has just risen to his feet, and Timeo beside him is calling for a vote: “Shall we ask the Free City for leave to move troops through their territory for limited military operations against the Kingdom of Syoshen Vukh?”

  At least forty hands rise for “aye,” including Rodrigo’s. Many of the others are orphans as well, and so only count for half, but there are more than enough to carry when added to His Majesty’s ten. The bulk of the remainder abstain anyway.

  “Very well,” says His Majesty. “But this is hardly a matter for the telegraph. It is our wish that a plenipotentiary delegation be sent with the utmost dispatch, to negotiate on our behalf. It may be that this shall serve as the foundation-stone for a new continental order of collaboration for the common weal. So we devoutly hope.”

  All around the chamber, men shuffle their feet and exchange puzzled looks. The railroad to Pasavana was an economic necessity; how much more “collaboration” does His Majesty plan with factionalist traitors?

  Timeo hurries to cover the awkward moment. “I propose Lord Avino Barani BeDar as head of this delegation, which will total seven. Does any man object to this?” Silence. The Veccian of Tefeia is as old as His Majesty, and more experienced as a diplomat, in addition to being the injured party in the raid. “That is settled, then. As for his companions, I open the floor for nominations.”

  The ever-obstinate Moare Penintello nominates himself, and receives enough support from his fellow contrarians for the rest to abandon the effort of opposing him. Aitor Ferriz, whose heavily industrialized teniet does regular business with the Free City, is a natural choice to join them; he knows half of Pasavana. Goncharo Tereo, one of the canniest survivors of the Reclamation, has too much military experience to deny. The remaining three are more difficult to choose; there is no question of Timeo or Murrregamua leaving, and many of the most respected peers are absent from this emergency session. The few elders scattered about the room are reluctant to leave their territories for long in such an unsettled time, lest a second incursion take place in their absence.

  Orphans, of course, need have no such fear, but few of them are eager to visit the smoggy slums of Pasavana. Certainly not as the junior members of a deputation with such a limited scope. The four already named will close ranks against them in the unlikely event any decision requires a vote. In fact, it occurs to Rodrigo that he might arrange his trip through Hell’s Park while Timeo is distracted with this business … it is worth considering.

  Grey-haired Neizan Rasallo, who knows he will die before the Republic retakes Cansenila for him, graciously accepts the fifth place. Tesaeo Grignao declines, citing a retainer’s mother’s upcoming funeral. Two others follow suit. There are no more nominations or volunteers. Timeo’s eyes rake them over, considering each in turn, before settling on Rodrigo, who sees catastrophe too late.

  “I nominate Lord Rodrigo Femerrini BeMeserra of Encelise,” Timeo announces loudly.

  “Seconded,” says Izal.

  “Traitor,” Rodrigo growls from the corner of his mouth.

  “What? It’s not as if you were doing anything important right now.”

  “Do you accept the nomination, sir?” says Timeo.

  Rodrigo is searching his mind for an acceptably public-spirited reason to decline, and coming up quite short, when Izal says, “Do it. The trip would do you good.”

  “What? What do I care about Pasavana?”

  “You don’t. But you won’t find a bride in your little town, will you? There are women of station everywhere.”

  Timeo clears his throat. “Sir. Do you accept?”

  He has no excuse. “I accept the nomination.” He is approved unanimously, because they are fast approaching dinnertime. He rises to his feet as soon as they are done. “I nominate Lord Izal Ahrante BeYanchillo of Fet.”

  “I should have seen that coming,” Izal grumbles. “You knew I had a trip planned with Aracelia, you bastard.” Vayor Meira gleefully seconds the nomination, and Izal accepts it before Timeo can ask. The vote is, again, unanimous.

  There are other, lesser matters to settle, involving the repair of Tefeia, and new security arrangements, and so on. All of it is neatly assigned to committees whose members can be summoned to the capital at a later date. Even so, it is nearly sunset when Rodrigo finally leaves the council chamber, and he still has one other thing he would like to attend to before dinner. If only for curiosity’s sake.

  The sergeant-at-arms directs him down the stairs to his basement office, a place Rodrigo has never had cause to go before. “We found her outside the telegraph office, lord. One of the first places we looked—after the train station, the livery stable, and the stagecoach house. Her credentials from the Free City and her newspaper appear to be genuine. If she’s a spy, she arranged for false papers from legitimate sources. Unarmed, nothing incriminating on her person. We haven’t looked through her notebook yet.”

  “Do you know if she managed to send a message before you took her into custody?”

  “She did not, lord. She was apparently greatly flustered, and ran there, arriving quite disheveled. Her appearance alarmed the guards outside the station, who delayed her with questions. I’m told she grew evasive, then haughty, and eventually tried to run past them, so they took her into custody, then remanded her to ours when we came looking. With pleasure, apparently.”

  Rodrigo laughs. “I can imagine.”

  The sergeant’s expression suggest that really, he can’t, but he is already turning the door handle. Inside, the girl is sitting on his desk—not in a chair—with her arms crossed, tapping a furious foot against the floor. Her clothing is surprisingly shabby: a plain black dress, a grey coat, and a navy shawl about her shoulders. Nonetheless there is something in her posture which simply trumpets high birth and the expectation of gentle treatment.

  When the door opens, she turns her head to glower at them. She is younger than he thought, perhaps twenty. Her complexion is olive, overlaid with the same rosy bloom he noted from the chamber floor. Nose and face long, eyes and hair both black and lustrous—a purely Siocene face, or even Rafadian, with no trace of the Boghen in it. Her face is angry, but the anger is cold, contained, and perfectly assured. If she is frightened, she hides it very well. The bright black eyes run over every part of him in a second, weighing and measuring what she sees.

  But she does not deign to speak, so Rodrigo claims the initiative. “You do realize, madam,” he asks her, “that when the sergeant-at-arms clears the balcony, it is not a request but an order, with the force of law behind it?” She looks at him, and says nothing. “Is there a reason you felt entitled to ignore it?”

  “I left my notebook behind by accident, and went back to retrieve it,” she says. She has a strange accent, northern at a guess—he could believe she is from Pasavana. “I didn’t realize that qualified as high treason these days.”

  “Did it occur to you to ask someone to get it for you?”

  “I am used to doing things for myself. A bad habit. Incidentally, I am also a respected citizen of the Free City of Pasavana.”

  “You are a citizen of Siocaea, you mean,” he corrects her gently, “and a resident of Pasavana.”

  “Which you propose to invade without provocation.”

  He very nearly corrects her on that as well, before remembering she has no right to know better. “We have no desire to antagonize the Free City, or any of its residents. At the same time, your wanton violation of our laws puts us in a difficult position, Miss … ?”

  “Toania. Toania Lenlaia BeRunela.” She puts an unmistakable stress on the honor-name at the end. “Writer for The Obelisk, and accredited acquisitions agent for Queen Dupinia’s College.”

  “BeRunela?”

  “Yes. I am a Teniroz. Does that amuse you? What are you laughing at?”

  He cannot explain, and does not wish to. How to speak to this girl, whom he has so lately met, of the power of the Deity, who brought their common ancestors out of the tropic seas on the far side of the world a thousand years ago, and made them the fathers of two nations? And now, when he is most desperately trying to avoid marriage, has dropped a beautiful and apparently eligible aristocratic lady in his lap? She did not correct his “Miss,” and he cannot imagine any husband or fiance would let his woman run about in this mad way. But he is still disinclined to bite at the tender fruit the gods bait their trap with. That honor-name might be a simple lie to earn her gentler treatment, and this is far from a promising start.

  “You will have to forgive me, Miss Lenlaia. In the Dewrose Republic, it would be unusual for women of your station to work for a newspaper. I mean no disrespect to you or your profession. You only surprised me. I am—“

  “Lord Rodrigo Femirrini BeMeserra. Yes, I know.”

  “How? Do you have our entire peerage memorized?” He is fairly certain he was not mentioned or addressed by name before she left the hall.

  “It is my job to be well-informed, Lord Rodrigo. I asked one of my local colleagues on the balcony who you were, after your crude attempt to publicly solicit me.”

  “Solicit?” The sergeant looks discomfited. “Pardon me, I think this must be some sort of—“

  “Do you not remember it, Lord Femirrini? Perhaps you do that sort of thing too frequently for you to recall every offer you make? It was more memorable for me—that being another area where Pasavanans apparently have differing expectations of their lady journalists. We are learning a great deal about each other’s customs today, aren’t we?”

  A familiar voice speaks up from the hallway behind them, in tones as dry as Ghirecci wine. “Now, what’s all this about? Lord Femirrini, could it be that you are bothering this lady?”

  Rodrigo strains several muscles suppressing a grimace, and steps aside so the girl can see her newest visitor better. “Miss Lenlaia, you might recognize Chief Councilor Timeo Delisarmo BeTira. Lord Delisarmo, this young woman was seen on the balcony after the sergeant-at-arms cleared it.”

  “So I have heard. Regrettable. And … which paper is it that you write for, Miss Lenlaia? Or are you merely a very curious citizen?”

  “I write for The Obelisk; my editor ordered me to attend this session, and knows I am here. It has been most enlightening, and not only for insight into the highly informal courtship customs of the Republican aristocracy. Is there any chance I might let him know you are coming? It is difficult to set a table for an entire regiment on short notice, you see.”

  “Oh, we won’t be sending a regiment at first,” says Timeo, copying her tone exactly. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, his leisurely posture a sharp contrast to hers. “It wouldn’t be manners. The initial delegation will be only seven men—including this gentleman here. And no, I really must insist that they be allowed to introduce themselves, with the telegraph of course. We might have let your paper have the honor of announcing our visit, if you’d gone about it through a more regular channel.”

  “Might I at least write a letter to my family? I promised to write after the session, and I wouldn’t like them to worry. They don’t live anywhere near Pasavana.”

  “Be that as it may,” Timeo tells her sadly, “I’m afraid I can’t allow any such communication, for reasons of state security. But we shall have you back home in Pasavana soon enough, where you will of course be free to write to whomever you like.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As I have said, we are sending seven men, not an army. Even with their escorts—and I happen to know that Lord Femirrini in particular is accustomed to traveling with a very small entourage—there will surely be room on the train for one more person.”

  “But—“

  Timeo raises his voice to talk over her. “You see, it is out of the question for us to allow you, as a resident and declared citizen of a factional state, to move freely in our territory after violating our laws. At the same time, we have no wish to be hostile, or to encourage the fears you have expressed. The natural and sensible solution would be for us to escort you home. The train leaves tomorrow morning, Lord Femirrini; she shall be your responsibility when it does. I wish both of you a good day, and a safe trip; now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to.”

  He seems to say it all in one breath; Miss Lenlaia has no chance to interrupt, and he is gone before she can muster any argument.

  Arnu and Dieste arrived on the train while the session was in progress; they accept with equanimity the eight-hour trip to Pasavana on the following day. The need to play jailer to a sharp-tongued girl for the entire time is much more of a surprise, but they have done worse in the way of service.

  She arrives at the station several minutes after they do, escorted by a pair of constables. She is still wearing the same ugly outfit—did she bring no others, or several copies of the same dress? Whatever the case, she retains the same frosty air of implacable dignity she wore yesterday. “Good morning, Lord Femirrini. I trust you will behave yourself like a gentleman for the length of this trip?”

  It was the sort of greeting he expected. “I take it you do not typically travel alone, Miss Lenlaia?”

  “As it happens, I do, thank you. I find it more convenient.”

  “Ah. So you are not usually veiled, and accompanied by a very large, imposing, and heavily-armed man?”

  “No. Who on earth told you such a thing?”

  “Nobody. But if you are used to traveling as you are now, looking as you do, I do not believe you have never encountered admiration from strange men before, or that you do not know how to handle it gracefully. I assume your air of offended delicacy is only a ruse to put me off-balance, and I will not allow it to affect me. My apologies for speaking plainly, but I see no reason why you should keep up such a pointless charade for the entire eight hours.”

  She blushes darker, and seems on the verge of a defensive retort when something behind his back catches her eye. Then she takes several steps back, so quickly that her minders seize her arms. She does not appear to notice them. “What is that, and what is it doing here?”

  Rodrigo glances casually over his shoulder, though he already knows what she has seen. He has been looking forward to this. “Did you not know, Miss Lenlaia? I never travel anywhere without my brother. Your pardon, but I assumed you would have been informed of that. Fernande, could you come here?” He can feel heavy footsteps through the gravel underfoot, and judge his brother’s nearness by the blanching of the girl’s cheeks. “I would like to introduce you to Miss Toania Lenlaia BeRunela.”

  Fernande gives his best bow, one leg extended, the other bent, wings spread wide. Rodrigo looks back to gauge her reaction, in time to spy a very different expression on her face, not haughty but intent and calculating, her eyes flickering between the two of them and his two retainers as she bites her lower lip. As soon as she notices him watching, her face clears, and she returns Fernande’s bow with a regal nod. “Sir Fernande. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.” She holds up a cheap-looking sack. “These men were kind enough to bring my baggage from the hotel. I have no other belongings. Shall we be off?”

  “We can at least board my car. This way, please.” She allows herself to be led into his custom car, and does not startle when she sees the interior. Her self-control is firmly locked in place once more. “We use this carriage whenever Fernande doesn’t care for an extended excursion on foot.”

  She examines the custom hand-turned furniture calmly. “I see peers are treated very well.”

  “My brother is something of a special consideration.” Fernande enters through his own, larger door behind them, and settles in his private compartment.

  “How long has he been afflicted, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Two and a half years. While his body is completely turned, his mind has been perfectly stable for some time. I assure you he is perfectly safe. I would hardly lock myself in a train car with him if I were not sure of that, brotherly affection notwithstanding.”

  “Of course. I can see he has very good manners. I assume he can’t speak?”

  “My brother finds other ways to communicate.”

  “He would have to. As it happens, I have just returned from an excursion through the Protectorate and the Wild Range. It’s remarkable how well the turned acclimate to their condition.”

  “One does what one must.” He pulls back one of the chairs, and she slides gracefully into it. For all her acid tongue, she moves with admirable self-confidence. Once she is seated, he takes his own chair across the table. “May I ask what took you so far from the Free City?”

  “My editors expressed a willingness to pay well for travel stories.”

  “And so you went to the Wild Range by yourself?”

  “As I said, I am used to working and traveling alone.”

  “Ah.” His retainers, having stowed her sack and their own much nicer baggage, take other seats at the table. “Miss Lenlaia: Dieste Panaz BeSudara and Arnu Samge, my senior retainers.” Two more queenly nods. “You were able to get to the Wild Range in spite of the Union blockade?”

  “That is no real difficulty, Lord. The Union will not attack Rafadian ships. I only had to make an extensive detour through Amrafada. Irksome, but no real danger.”

  He cannot decide whether to be amused, impressed, or annoyed by her sangfroid. One would think her an invited guest, not an offender being expelled from the Republic. “And the trip back?”

  “The Protectorate is safe enough. I have enough material for several stories. It was worth a month in transit.”

  “Can you tell me anything of the Wild Range, or shall I have to purchase a copy of your paper once your story breaks?”

  She starts to speak, pauses, looks at him. “The Republic doesn’t maintain any diplomatic contact there, does it?”

  “It would be difficult, given the embargo and the distance. I imagine we have some information, but I personally am not privy to it, nor have I had cause to ask. The Wild Range has done us no harm. We are more concerned with the Union of late, or most recently with Syoshen Vukh.”

  “Understandably. Do you personally credit these accounts from Tefeia, Lord Femerrini?”

  The journalist is back at work. He thinks before he answers. “I believe we would be fools not to investigate every possibility, however extravagant, and the evidence certainly seems compelling. I doubt whether Vogh’s rebels could have plundered that fortress without some kind of extraordinary assistance.”

  “But you are willing to mount an attack on her territory, without knowing the nature of that assistance?”

  “War is a question of calculated risks, Miss Lenlaia. Whatever she is doing, it seems probable that it requires Dük in person. He cannot be everywhere at once.”

  “Calculated risks. You expect some significant benefit from attacking through Pasavana, then.”

  She is speaking quickly, pressing her advantage. But he has spoken with her ilk before. “Pardon me, but before we pursue this subject any further, I believe I asked you a question about the Wild Range. Given our respective positions, I think a frank and fair exchange of information is not an unreasonable expectation for me to have.”

  The whistle blows, and the train grumbles and shudders into motion. “I suppose. To answer your question, then, I found the Wild Range to be surprisingly peaceful and well-governed. The average person hardly ever seems to so much as see a turned man.” Again, she hesitates. “In fact, I would suggest that your Republic has a distinct interest in cultivating friendship with them. They have a significant border with Eyanna Vogh—with a navigable river—and obviously substantial knowledge of the Blemish.”

  “An interesting idea. For the moment, however, we will still be pursuing an agreement with your city’s government.”

  “Certainly. But for the future, you ought to consider it.”

  “I am sure someone has.” She plainly has no notion of military concerns; she might as well suggest routing an invasion through Amrafada.

  “You’re not taking me seriously, Lord Femerrini.”

  “I am not in the habit of taking strategic advice from young, foreign-born lady journalists, Miss Lenlaia. As we will be confined to this compartment for some time, I will happily speak with you on any subject you like, but I would advise you to temper your expectations.”

  “’Foreign-born,’ you say?” She smiles. “Didn’t you tell me yesterday that I am a citizen of Siocaea, not of the Free City?”

  “Very true. It is and always will be our position, and His Majesty’s, that Siocaea is one nation, and ours its legitimate government.”

  “In that case, I think you had better be prepared to accept good advice whenever and wherever you hear it, my lord.”

  “Indeed.” He smothers a sigh. She is surely somewhat discomfited to be locked in a train car with a turned man, but does not show it. And he has it far worse, to be locked in with a reporter.