Inversions

suspicion anybody who claimed they could. They would not be a man, they would be a machine. An animal. Providence, even animals have emotions.' UrLeyn glanced round the others gathered about the table, as though daring any of them to assert such coldness for themselves. 'I can't leave the boy like this. I did try to, as you may recall, and I was called back. Would you have me go and then be worrying about him every day and night? Would you have me there in Ladenscion while my heart was here, taking command but unable to give it my full attention?'

RuLeuin finally seemed to see the wisdom in remaining silent. He pressed his lips together and studied the table top in front of him.

'We are here to discuss what to do about this damned war,' UrLeyn said, gesturing at the map of Tassasen's borders spread out in the centre of the great table. 'The condition of my son keeps me here in Crough but other than that it has no bearing on our meeting. I'll thank you not to mention it again.' He glared at RuLeuin, who still stared tight-upped at the table. 'Now, has anyone anything to say which might actually prove useful?'

'What is to be said, sir?' ZeSpiole said. 'We are told little in this latest news. The war continues. The barons wish to keep what they hold. We are too far from it to be able to contribute much. Unless it is to agree to what the barons propose.

'That is scarcely more helpful,' UrLeyn told the Guard Commander impatiently.

'We can send more troops,' YetAmidous said. 'But I wouldn't advise it. We have few enough left to defend the capital as it is, and the other provinces have been stripped bare already.'

'It is true, sir,' said VilTere, a young provincial commander called to the capital with a company of light cannon. VilTere's father had been an old comrade of UrLeyn's during the war of succession and the Protector had invited him to the meeting. 'If we take too many men to punish the barons we might be seen to encourage others to emulate them by leaving our provinces devoid of policing.'

'If we punish the barons severely enough,' UrLeyn said, 'we might be able to convince these 'others' of the folly of such a course.'

'Indeed, sir,' the provincial commander said. 'But first we must do so, and then they must hear about it.'

'They'll hear about it,' UrLeyn said darkly. 'I have lost all patience with this war. I will accept nothing else than complete victory. No further negotiations will be entered into. I am sending word to Simalg and Ralboute that they must do all they can to capture the barons, and when they do they are to send them here like common thieves, though better guarded. They will be dealt with most severely.'

BiLeth looked stricken. UrLeyn noticed. 'Yes, BiLeth?' he snapped.

The foreign minister looked even more discomfited. 'I…' he began. 'I, well…'

'What, man?' UrLeyn shouted. The tall foreign minister jumped in his seat, his long, thin grey hair flouncing briefly.

'Are you… is the Protector quite… it's just that, sir…'

'Great Providence, BiLeth!' UrLeyn roared. 'You're not going to disagree with me, are you? Finally found a sliver of backbone, have we? Where in the skies of hell did that fall from?'

BiLeth looked grey. 'I do beg the Protector's pardon. I would simply beg to ask him reconsider treating the barons in quite such a fashion,' he said, a desperate, anguished look on his narrow face.

'How the fuck should I treat the bastards?' UrLeyn asked, his voice low but seething with derision. 'They make war on us, they make fools of us, they make widows of our women-folk.' UrLeyn slammed a fist on to the table, making the map of the borderlands flap in the breeze. 'How in the name of all the old gods am I supposed to treat the sons of bitches?'

BiLeth looked as if he was about to cry. Even DeWar felt slightly sorry for him. 'But sir,' the foreign minister said in a small voice, 'several of the barons are related to the Haspidian royal family. There are matters of diplomatic etiquette when dealing with nobility, even if they are rebellious. If we can but prise one away from the others and treat with him well, then perhaps we can bring him to our side. I understand-'

'You understand very little, it would seem, sir,' UrLeyn told him in a voice dripping with scorn. BiLeth seemed to shrink in his seat. 'I'll have no more talk of etiquette,' he said, spitting out the word. 'It has become clear that these scum have been teasing us,' UrLeyn told BiLeth and the others. 'They play the seductress, these proud barons. They act the coquette. They hint that they might succumb to us if we treat them just a little better, that they will be ours if only we flatter them a little more, if only we can find it in our hearts and our pockets to provide them with a few more gifts, a few more tokens of our esteem, why then they will open their gates, then they will help us with their less cooperative friends and all their resistance so far will prove to have been for show, a pretty fight they have been putting up for the sake of their maidenly honour.' UrLeyn hit the table again. 'Well, no! We have been led along for the last time. The next leading will be done by an executioner, when he pulls on the chain of one of these proud barons and brings him to the public square to be tormented like a common murderer and then put up to burn. We'll see how the rest of them respond to that!'

YetAmidous slapped the table with the flat of his hand and stood up out of his seat. 'Well said, sir! That's the spirit!'

ZeSpiole watched BiLeth shrink further in his seat, and exchanged looks with RuLeuin, who looked down. ZeSpiole pursed his lips and studied the map on the table. The others gathered round the table — lesser generals, advisors and aides — busied themselves in a variety of other ways, but none looked directly at the Protector or said anything in contradiction.

UrLeyn gazed round at their faces with a look of mocking admonition. 'What, is there nobody else to take my foreign minister's side?' he asked, waving one hand at the subsiding form that was BiLeth. 'Is he to remain alone and unseconded in his campaign?'

Nobody said anything. 'ZeSpiole?' UrLeyn said.

The Guard Commander looked up. 'Sir?'

'Do you think I am right? Should I refuse to entertain any further advances from our rebellious barons?'

ZeSpiole took a deep breath. 'I think we might profitably threaten the barons with what you have mentioned, sir.

'And, if we take one, carry it out, yes?'

ZeSpiole studied the great fan of window on the wall opposite, where glass and semi-precious stones shone with sunlight. 'I can appreciate the prospect of seeing one of the barons so humbled, sir. And as you say, there are enough widows in this city who would cheer his screams sufficient to drown them out.'

'You see no intemperateness in such a course, sir?' UrLeyn asked reasonably. 'No rashness, no cruel impetuousness which might rebound on us?'

'That would be a possibility, perhaps,' ZeSpiole said, with a flicker of uncertainty.

'A 'possibility', 'perhaps'?' UrLeyn said in a voice that mocked the Guard Commander's. 'But we must do better than that, Commander! This is an important matter. One that needs our gravest consideration. We cannot make light of it, can we? Or perhaps not. Perhaps you disagree. Do you disagree, Commander?'

'I agree that we must think hard about what we are going to do, sir,' ZeSpiole said, his voice and manner serious.

'Good, Commander,' UrLeyn said with what appeared to be sincerity. 'I am glad we have extracted a hint of decision from you.' He looked round everybody else. 'Are there any other views I should hear from any of you?' Heads went down all around the table.

DeWar began to be thankful that the Protector had not thought to turn round and ask him his opinion. Indeed he still worried that he might. He suspected nothing he could say would make the General happy.

'Sir?' said VilTere. All eyes turned to the young provincial commander. DeWar hoped he wasn't going to say something stupid.

UrLeyn glared. 'What, sir?'

'Sir, I was, sadly, too young to be a soldier during the war of succession, but T have heard from many a commander whose opinion I respect and who served under you that your judgment has always proved sure and your decisions far-sighted. They told me that even when they doubted your decree, they trusted you, and that trust was vindicated. They would not be where they are, and we would not be here today' — at this the young commander looked round the others — 'were it otherwise.'

The other faces round the table searched UrLeyn's for a response before they reacted.

UrLeyn nodded slowly. 'Perhaps I should take it ill,' he said, 'that it is our most junior and most recently