Another long silence; then Orsea said, 'You don't actually believe any of this, do you?' He sounded so bewildered, it was almost endearing.
'You were seen meeting with a merchant,' Valens went on, 'shortly after the expedition left the city. You were seen taking delivery of something from her: a basket, or a package. You spoke to her briefly. She had asked for you earlier by name. The witnesses have identified the body as the woman you spoke to. I can have them brought here if you like, or we can wait for the formal hearing. Though I suppose I should tell you,' Valens added with the unquiet ghost of a grin, 'that the hearing'll be a formality, going briskly through the motions. The last thing I need right now is to get bogged down in jurisdictions and immunities and acts of state. So, if you've got anything to say, you'd better say it now.'
A long silence. Orsea was peering at him with his face screwed up, as if it was too dark to see properly.
'This is all complete drivel,' he said eventually. 'For pity's sake, Valens. I haven't got the faintest idea what's going on-nobody ever tells me anything, and why should they? But if this is something to do with you and Veatriz-'
Valens broke eye contact for a moment. 'You're not helping yourself,' he said.
'But…' Orsea nodded, as if acknowledging that the rules had changed halfway through the game. 'All right,' he said. 'Yes, I remember that merchant woman. She turned up in a stupid little chaise-with a red parasol, I think. Anyway, she handed me some potpourri, which Veatriz had ordered from her some time before we left Civitas-'
'Potpourri?' Valens interrupted.
'Yes. You know, bits of minced-up dried flowers, lavender and stuff. You put it in little saucers to make the room smell nice.'
'You're saying she tracked you down in the wilderness, when nobody except me knew where we were headed, just to sell you dried flowers?'
'No, of course not.' As close to anger as Valens had ever seen him. All the more likely, in that case, to be synthetic. 'She was on her way from Calva to White Cross; she happened to stop off at the Loyalty, and heard we were nearby. She'd got this unfilled order for the potpourri stuff, must've had it with her, and I suppose she'd got a tidy mind or something. Look, there was a cavalry officer who saw her arrive. Maybe he overheard what she said to me.'
Valens nodded. 'Captain Vesanio. I've spoken to him. She asked for you by name, and quite by chance you were standing by, only a few yards away. He heard what you said to her, and he saw you take a package from her.'
'Exactly,' Orsea said. 'The dried flowers. I took them, and I gave them to Veatriz. Call her here and ask her yourself. She'll tell you, she ordered it before we left. She probably knows the stupid woman's name and everything.'
Valens smiled. 'Was that meant to be a defense?' he said. 'I guess my attention must've wandered, and I missed it. Seems to me you're just agreeing with what I've told you.'
'But that's what happened.' He could see Orsea starting to go red in the face; please don't let him cry, he thought. 'That's all that happened. Really.'
'Not quite.' Valens' voice was getting softer. 'You came looking for me, with a message. A warning, rather; you warned me that the Mezentines were at the inn and knew where we were. I believed you. We packed up and moved on, straight into the ambush. Yes, I remember that very well.'
'But…' Orsea's eyes were wide. 'The woman said she'd been told where we were by someone at the Loyalty. I thought you ought to know, because if they knew about us at the inn, and the Mezentines were there too, then we were in danger. Which was true,' he added desperately. 'It must have been true, because the Mezentines found us, didn't they?'
'Quite. They knew exactly where we were; after I'd heard your message and acted on it.' Valens shook his head. 'As defenses go,' he said, 'this one's a pretty poor specimen. Disagree with me about something, for crying out loud, even if it's only the color of her hat.'
Orsea didn't say anything. He was staring, his mouth slightly open, like a man who's just seen something he knows is impossible.
'There's the letter,' Valens said wearily. 'It pretty much speaks for itself. There's your own admission that you were seen talking to the bearer of the letter on at least one occasion; also, you admit that you and your wife had had previous dealings with her, before we left Civitas Vadanis. You also admit giving me the message that caused me to lead the expedition to the place where we were attacked.' He frowned. 'All right,' he said, 'you've heard the interpretation I'm putting on these facts we all agree are true. Maybe you could give me yours, and we'll see if it makes better sense.'
Orsea looked round, as if he expected help to arrive. 'I don't know, do I?' he said. 'I suppose-well, I suppose somebody's trying to make it look like I'm a traitor, and I betrayed us all to the Mezentines. But-'
'But who would want to do that?' Valens interrupted. 'Good question. Whoever it was, he was able to procure a letter from an authentic Mezentine official-a pretty high-ranking one at that; so the enemy were in on it as well. Are you going to argue that the Mezentines are plotting to discredit you?'
'I don't know.' Orsea rubbed his face with the palms of his hands, as if he was trying to wake himself up. 'I suppose it's possible, yes.'
'I can't see it myself,' Valens replied gently. 'To be perfectly frank, why on earth would they bother? Well? Can you give me a reason? Can you tell me why you matter to them anymore?'
Silence. 'No,' Orsea said.
'Nor me,' Valens replied. 'Come to think of it, I can't come up with anybody who'd want to frame you for treason, or anything else, except for one person; the only man who's got any sort of motive for trying to get you into trouble, get rid of you.'
Orsea looked at him. 'You.'
'That's right.' Valens acknowledged him with a slight gesture of his left hand. 'Me. I have a motive for getting you out of the way. What I don't have is the influence to get Commissioner Lucao Psellus of the defense committee to write an incriminating letter.' He paused, then added: 'And I don't really see me arranging for the Mezentines to ambush my own convoy, slaughter my people and near as damn it kill me in the process. I'm not the nicest man in the world, but I'm not the most stupid, either. I think I'd have found an easier way of getting shot of you-poison, an accident, all sorts of things spring readily to mind.' A smile flashed across his face. 'So, if it wasn't the Republic and it wasn't me; who else have you been pissing off, Orsea? You're such a mild, inoffensive fellow, always so anxious to do the right thing. Your friend Miel Ducas, maybe? The man you condemned for treason for hiding a letter? We haven't talked about him yet. Do you think the Ducas might be behind all this?'
Orsea breathed in, then out again. 'No,' he said.
'You don't? I'd have considered him myself, but if you say not, I'm happy to be guided by you. So, forget the Ducas; anybody else?' He spread his fingers on the top of the folding table. 'You're really going to have to come up with somebody or something, if you want me to take your denials seriously. Come on, Orsea, help me out. I've been making all the running so far. Suggest something, if only for my sake. Otherwise…' He shrugged. 'Well, what would you do, in my position?'
'I can't.' Orsea was looking straight at him. 'Do you want me to make something up? I can't think of any explanation, any reason. It's just not true, that's all.'
Valens sighed, then shifted in his chair, leaning forward a little.
'The legal position,' he said, in a rather forced tone of voice, 'is complicated. A case could be made for saying that I have no jurisdiction over you, since you are the head of state of a foreign country-one that doesn't exist anymore, but the law can be funny about that sort of thing. If we were to have a proper trial, with lawyers and everything, I can see us getting well and truly laid up on that one. To be honest with you, I haven't got the time or the patience; and something like that, dragging on and on, isn't likely to do my people's morale any good, either. In fact, I'd prefer it if they didn't know that someone I'd trusted had sold us out to the Mezentines. I wouldn't particularly want them to know his motive for doing it-I'm quite satisfied in my mind what that motive was, by the way. I noticed that note of high moral indignation in your friend Psellus' letter-seducing another man's wife, completely unforgivable. For what it's worth, Orsea, I never did anything of the sort. We wrote letters to each other, that's all. Before I came and pulled you both out of Civitas Eremiae, the last time I set eyes on her I was seventeen. Now, maybe what I did was-well, bad manners, let's say, or worse than that, a breach of protocol and
