‘You’re quick,’ he said admiringly.

‘Quick people live longer. Start thinking, gentlemen. We’ve got an exploitable situation here, and it won’t last for very long. How can we use it to our greatest advantage?’

‘We might be able to identify real conspirators instead of dupes, your Majesty,’ Stragen mused. ‘If they do try penetration, they’re going to have to subvert some of our people. Let’s say that we start passing out assorted fairy-tales – this story to some pick-pocket, another to some beggar or whore. Then we sit back to see which of those fraudulent schemes the other side attempts to counter. That will identify the turncoats in our own ranks, and we can squeeze useful names out of them.’

‘Surely we can get something a little better than that,’ she fretted.

‘We’ll work on it, your Majesty,’ Caalador promised. ‘If it’s all right with you, I’d like to follow up on something else as well. We know that Krager’s been busy here in Matherion, but we don’t know how much information about our methods he’s passed on to his friends in other kingdoms. We might as well get what use we can out of our makeshift intelligence service before it becomes totally useless. I’ll pass the word to the criminals down in Arjuna. I’d like to find out one way or the other if that silly scholar at the university has blundered across the real truth or if he’s just weaving a theory out of moonbeams. I think we might all find a complete biography of the fellow known as Scarpa really fascinating reading. If nothing else, whether or not our spies in Arjuna succeed will tell us how much Krager really knows about the scope of our operations. If he thinks it’s only localized, our apparatus hasn’t been too severely compromised.’

‘Go after the others as well,’ Ehlana told him. ‘See what you can find out about Baron Parok, Rebal and Sabre. Let’s try to attach names to Rebal and Sabre at the very least.’

‘We’ll do ‘er jist th’ way yer Majesty commands.’

‘I’d be happier’n a pig in mud iffn y’would, Caalador,’ she replied.

Caalador collapsed in helpless laughter.

‘It’s probably the change in the weather, your Majesty,’ Alean said. ‘It’s definitely getting chillier at night, and the days aren’t nearly as warm as they were just a few weeks ago.’

‘She grew up in Cimmura, Alean,’ Ehlana disagreed, ‘and the weather changes there much more markedly than it does here in Matherion.’

‘It’s a different part of the world though, my Queen,’ Baroness Melidere pointed out. ‘We’re right on the seacoast for one thing. That could be what’s causing the problem. Sometimes children react more strongly to things like that than adults.’

‘You’re both making too much out of it,’ Mirtai told them. ‘All she needs is a tonic. She’s not really sick, she’s just moping around.’

‘But she sleeps all the time,’ Ehlana fretted. ‘She even falls asleep when she’s playing.’

‘She’s probably growing,’ the giantess shrugged. ‘I used to do the same sort of thing when I was a little girl. Growing is very hard work, I guess.’

The object of their discussions lay drowsing on a divan near the window with Rollo loosely clasped in her arms. Rollo had survived two generations of intense affection. He had been dragged about by one hind leg. He had been laid upon, crammed into tight places and ignored at times for weeks on end. A shift in his stuffings had given him a slightly worried expression. Queen Ehlana viewed that as a bad sign. Rollo had never looked worried when he had been her toy. Mmrr, on the other hand, seemed quite content. An owner who didn’t move around very much suited Mmrr right down to the ground. When Princess Danae was dozing, she was not dreaming up ridiculous things to do to her cat. Mmrr secretly felt that any day that did not involve being dressed up in dolls’ clothing was a good day. She lay on her little mistress’s hip with her front paws sedately folded under her chest, her eyes closed and a soft, contented purr coming from her throat. So long as nothing disturbed her naps, Mmrr was perfectly at peace with the world.

The Royal Princess Danae dozed, her mind far more involved with the conversation Flute was holding with Sparhawk and his friends on the Isle of Tega than with her mother’s concern over her health here in Matherion. Danae yawned and nestled down with toy and with cat and drifted off to sleep.

‘Dearest,’ the letter began. ‘We’ve reached Tega, and we’ll be going out into the countryside for a while to see what’s afoot. I’ll be out of touch for a bit, so I thought it might be a good idea to let you know that we’ve arrived safely. Don’t be too concerned if you don’t hear from me for quite some time. I’m not entirely sure how long we’ll be submerged in the population here.

‘The others are growing impatient to get started. There’s no real point to this letter – except to tell you that I love you – but that’s probably the most important point of all, isn’t it? Kiss Danae for me.

‘All my love, Sparhawk.’

‘Oh, that’s nice,’ Ehlana murmured, lowering the note from her husband. They were all sitting in the blue-draped sitting room in the queen’s apartments, and the arrival of Caalador with Sparhawk’s letter had interrupted a serious discussion about what they were going to do about the Interior Ministry.

Caalador, dressed again in sober brown and carrying a grotesque porcelain figurine from twelfth-century Arjuna, was frowning. ‘I think you might want to remind the people at the gates of the compound that they’re supposed to let me in, your Majesty. I had a bit of an argument again.’

‘What’s this?’ Emperor Sarabian asked.

‘Master Caalador’s serving as my “procurer of antiquities”,’ Ehlana explained. ‘It gives him an excuse to come and go without interference. I’ve gathered a whole roomful of assorted bric-a-brac since I’ve arrived here.’

‘That brings us right back to the issue we were discussing before you got here, Caalador,’ Stragen said. Stragen wore black today, and Ehlana privately felt that the color didn’t really suit him. He rose and began to pace up and down, a habit the Queen of Elenia found irritating. ‘The Interior Ministry’s beginning to flex its muscles for some reason. We’re sitting on the Minister himself, so this onset of burliness is probably coming from some underling.’

‘Interior has always liked to throw its weight around,’ Oscagne told them. The Foreign Minister was wearing western-style clothes again, and he looked distinctly uncomfortable in them.

‘I think that reinforces the point I was trying to make earlier, Ehlana,’ Sarabian said. ‘Are you sure we shouldn’t dissolve the Interior Ministry right now?’

‘Absolutely,’ Ehlana replied. ‘We’ve got Kolata buttoned up inside the castle here, and we’ve given the world a perfectly legitimate reason for his presence. He’s still functioning – under our control – and that’s of enormous value to us. We’re playing for time, Sarabian. We’re terribly vulnerable until Tynian and Emban come back from Chyrellos with the Church Knights – or at the very least until all the Atan commanders have been advised that they aren’t supposed to obey the orders of the Interior Ministry any more. We definitely don’t want the Atans fighting on both sides if trouble breaks out.’

‘I guess I hadn’t thought of that,’ he admitted.

‘Not only that, your Majesty,’ Oscagne added gently. ‘It’s entirely possible that Interior would simply ignore a proclamation disbanding them. They have almost total power, you know. Queen Ehlana’s right. We can’t move against them until we’re sure of the Atans.’

Stragen had continued his pacing. ‘Nobody can subvert an entire branch of government,’ he declared. ‘There are just too many people involved, and all it would take would be one honest policeman to expose the entire scheme.’

‘There’s no such thing as an honest policeman, Stragen,’ Caalador said with a cynical laugh. ‘It’s a contradiction in terms.’

‘You know what I mean.’ Stragen shrugged that off. ‘We know that Kolata has dirty hands, but we can’t be sure just how far that disloyalty goes. It could be very widespread, or it could be confined to just a few in the higher councils of the ministry.’

Caalador shook his head. “Tain’t hordly likely, Stragen,’ he disagreed. ‘Y’ gotta have them ez y’ kin trust out thar when y’ start givin’ orders ez runs contrary t’ reg’lar policy. They’s gotta be some in th’ hinterlands ez knows whut’s whut.’

Stragen made a face. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ he complained. ‘Please don’t use that vile dialect when you’re right. It makes me feel inadequate. All right, then. We can be fairly certain that most of the higher-ranking officials in the ministry are involved, but we can’t even guess at how widespread the contamination is. I’d say that finding out gets to be a kind of priority.’

‘Shouldn’t take y’ more’n a couple hunnerd years t’ do thet, Stragen,’ Caalador noted.

‘Not necessarily,’ Baroness Melidere disagreed. She looked at Oscagne. ‘You once said that the Ministry of the Interior’s very fond of paper, your Excellency.’

‘Of course, Baroness. All government agencies adore paper. Paperwork provides full employment for our relatives. Interior goes a little farther, though. Policemen can’t function without files and dossiers. They write everything down.’

‘I rather thought that might be the case. The people over at Interior are all trained as policemen, aren’t they?’

Oscagne nodded.

‘Then they’d all be compulsive about writing reports and filing them, wouldn’t they?’

‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘I don’t see where you’re going with this exactly, Baroness.’

‘Wake up, Oscagne,’ Sarabian said excitedly. ‘I think this wonderful girl’s just solved our problem for us. Someplace over in that rabbit warren at Interior there’s a set of files that contains the names of all the disloyal policemen and secret agents in the Empire. All we have to do is get our hands on that set of files, and we’ll know exactly which people to pick up when the time comes to move.’

‘Except for the fact that they’ll defend those files to the death,’ Ehlana observed. ‘And there’s also the fact that a move against their filing system would be the same as a frontal assault on the ministry itself.’

‘You really know how to burst bubbles, Ehlana,’ the Emperor complained.

‘There might be a way around the queen’s objections, your Majesty,’ Melidere said with a slight frown. ‘Is there a standardized filing system here in Matherion, Minister Oscagne?’

‘Good God, no, Baroness,’ he exclaimed. ‘If we all had the same filing system, anybody at all could walk into our offices and find anything he wanted. We’d never be able to keep any secrets from each other.’

‘I thought that might be the case. Now then, suppose that Queen Ehlana happened to mention to the Emperor – just in passing – that her government had standardized the filing system, and that everybody filed things the same way. Then let’s suppose that the Emperor grew very excited about the idea – the enormous savings in the cost of government and all that. Then, still supposing, he appoints an imperial commission with extraordinary powers to examine everybody’s files with an eye toward that standardization. Wouldn’t that sort of justify a thorough search of the offices at Interior?’

‘It’s got possibilities, my Queen,’ Stragen approved. ‘Something like that would hide what we’re really up to – particularly if we had people tearing up everybody else’s files at the same time.’

Oscagne’s face went absolutely white.

‘I’d sooner take pizen than insult y’, little lady,’ Caalador drawled to the baroness, ‘but yer still a-talkin’ ‘bout a chore which it is that’d taken us a good twenty year ‘er more t’ finish. We got us a hull buildin’ over thar t’ take aport iffn th’ Furrin Minister yere is kee-rect ‘bout how miny tons o’ paper they got over t’ Interior.’

‘We can shorten that a bit, Master Caalador,’ Melidere replied. ‘All we have to do is question Interior Minister Kolata.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Ehlana said sharply. ‘I don’t want him all torn to pieces – at least not until I don’t need him any more.’

‘We wouldn’t be asking him any sensitive questions, your Majesty,’ Melidere said patiently. ‘All we want to know is how his filing system works. That wouldn’t compromise the conspiracy he’s involved in, would it?’

‘I think she’s right, Ehlana,’ Mirtai said. ‘There would almost have to be some sort of trigger – questions about certain subjects – that would make our enemies decide to kill Kolata. They wouldn’t kill him if all we did was ask him about something as ordinary as a filing system, would they?’

‘No,’ the queen agreed. ‘They probably wouldn’t at that.’ Her expression was still doubtful, however.

‘It’s all very clever, Baroness,’ Stragen said, ‘but we’ll be sending Tamul officials into the various ministries to investigate files. How will we know that at least some of them aren’t on the other side?’

‘We wouldn’t, Milord Stragen. That’s why we’ll have to send our own people – the Church Knights – in to review those files.’

‘How would we justify that?’

‘The new filing system would be an Elene invention, Milord. We’re obviously going to have to send Elenes into the various ministries to evaluate the current methods and to instruct the officials on how to convert to the new system.’

‘Now I’ve got you, Baroness,’ he said triumphantly. ‘This is all a fiction. We don’t have a new filing system.’

‘Then invent one, Milord Stragen,’ she suggested sweetly.

Prime Minister Subat was deeply troubled by the suggestion the Chancellor of the Exchequer had just placed before him. The two were alone together in the Prime Minister’s ornate office, a room only slightly less magnificent than one of the imperial audience chambers. ‘You’re out of your mind, Gashon,’ he declared flatly.