Warlord

although the Chancellor's robed bureaucrats sat in appalled silence. Tzetzas's head turned, and the movement reminded Raj of a carnosauroid he had seen in the Governor's menagerie, one moment death-still, the next snapping an insect out of the air. Then the Chancellor relaxed, smiling thinly as Barholm joined in the bellow of mirth.

I would not like to be the man who said that, Raj thought. There was an old joke about a fangmouth biting Tzetzas; rumor had it that the poison reptile died in convulsions.

observe Center said.

* * *

— and a young officer jerked erect in bed; Raj recognized the room, or rather its pattern. Company commander's quarters in an East Residence barracks, although the sleeping woman was decidedly non-regulation. The officer's face was fluid with sleep; he reached out to touch the holstered pistol hanging from the headboard by unconscious reflex.

'Heysos? That you?' he mumbled.

'Nao' a voice said, as the door swung open and a masked man in dark clothing stepped through. The naked soldier had just enough time to clear the heavy dragoon pistol from its holster before the shotgun blast caught him in the face, flinging his body back and much of his head across the wall behind him.

The woman screamed twice; the assassin stepped to within a meter of her before he fired the other barrel.

* * *

Tzetzas spread his hands. 'And in any case. . military affairs are outside my area of expertise; I would not care to speculate on the chances of success. The dangers to the eastern frontier, however, are, one would think, obvious. We lost several provinces to the Colony when the last expedition was destroyed.'

Thump. All eyes swung back to Barholm, as he brought the stylized keyboard down on the arm of the Chair. The diamond and padparascha sapphire symbols on its surface glittered, matching the autocrat's robes.

'Thanks to Brigadier Whitehall here,' Barholm bit out, 'the Colony is without a Settler. Ali and Akbar are still settling who's to be master-'

observe Center said.

* * *

— and dark men in doghair robes waited behind an alabaster planter filled with rose bushes, the blossoms plate-sized disks of crimson and yellow. A figure in long robe and cloth-of-gold turban came striding along the pathway beyond, where fountains tinkled among delicate tilework; behind him walked guards, black giants naked to the waist with long curved blades resting unsheathed on their shoulders. The planter overturned and those behind it leapt forward, curved daggers raised, shrieking. Their screams of rage turned to fear as swords hissed and rifles from the snipers on the rooftop opposite spat puffs of white. .

— and stocky grizzled Tewfik stood in the open flap of a field-commander's tent, dressed as ever in the plain scarlet burnoose and spired helmet of the Colonial Regulars, with the Seal of Solomon on his black leather eyepatch. His left hand was clenched on the hilt of his scimitar until the knuckles showed white, but there was unshakable calm in his voice, and in the face that watched the soldiers drilling. Behind him a man in civilian robe and ha'aik waited by the map table, looking uneasily at the officers who stood around him with their arms crossed. From his expression, he was fully conscious that they would be delighted by an order to take him out-and shoot him as soon as he cleared the rug.

'My regrets to my noble brother the emir Ali,' Tewfik ground out, 'and my message to him is as my previous message-please, we both know it was read by other than its intended recipient-to my noble brother the emir Akbar; the peace of Allah upon them both. No troops can be spared for. . missions in the capital. Not now, or until the council of the ulemma has chosen another Settler to lead the faithful.'

The civilian hesitated, then bowed. 'Peace be upon you, sa'yid,' he murmured, and slipped past to his waiting borzhoi.

'And upon you, peace, you viper,' Tewfik muttered, when the messenger had gone. Then he wheeled, cutting off the officers with a glare and a chopping motion of his hand. 'And there will be peace. Either of my brothers will rule well enough-but for me to reach for power would mean civil war; you know the Law.' The Commander of the Faithful must be perfect in body. 'It will be as God wills; and all things are accomplished according to the will of God.'

'Inshallah,' the officers murmured.

* * *

'— and Tewfik's disqualified, praise the Spirit for that.' Raj nodded in unconscious agreement; Tewfik was far and away the most able of old Jamal's legitimate sons, but he was missing an eye, lost in the Zanj Wars a decade ago, and by Colonial law that disqualified him.

'Indeed, Your Supremacy,' Tzetzas said; his voice had a softly reasonable tone that made you want to agree immediately, for fear of seeming shrill or irrational. 'For a year or so the Colony will be weakened. But the conquest of the Southern Territories would take decades.'

'We certainly can't afford to strip the eastern territories,' Fiydel Klostermann said; he was Master of Soldiers these days, an administrative command and as close to a Chief of Staff as the Civil Government had. 'Which we'd need to do. The Squadron can field a hundred thousand men; granted they're equipped with blunderbusses, and they've no artillery to speak of, that's still two hundred battalions of fighting men.' The Civil Government kept a quarter of a million men under arms, but most of those were immobile garrison infantry.

Admiral Tiburcyo Gharderini spoke up; he was a nervous looking little man with gray-shot black hair, in the black-and-gold uniform of the Civil Government's navy. Naval officers often came from the City itself, and from merchant families, unlike the Army, which was dominated by the landed gentry. You could see his consciousness of his own social insignificance as he glanced around at the others.

'Well. . we do have the steam rams and gunboats,' he said. 'We've managed to keep the Squadron corsairs at a distance, this last generation.'

'Mostly,' a cavalry commander said dryly. Gharderini flushed darkly.

'But that's a different matter from attacking Port Murchison,' the sailor went on doggedly; that was the capital of the Territories. 'We don't have enough fleet units to spare to guard a convoy that size, we don't have coaling stations close enough, and we're just too undermanned and underfunded. Begging Your Excellency's pardon,' he finished rapidly, with a bob in the direction of the Chancellor.

Barholm was tapping the keyboard-scepter on the arm of the Chair with ominous patience.

A younger officer sprang up. Raj recognized him: Anhelino Dalhouse, commander of the 17th Valley Cuirassiers. Exceedingly wealthy and well-born and without much combat experience, unless you counted putting down the odd peon uprising.

'We sit here quibbling like a lot of old women!' he burst out, the points of his mustache quivering. 'What are we, fighting men or duennas at a coming-out ball for our maiden sisters? The Squadron heretics sit on our lands, collecting our revenues and persecuting our people and our church. What more needs to be said?'

The Supreme Reverend Syssup-Hierarch rose, fingering the circuit amulet on his chest. 'More than persecuting!' he said angrily. 'Your Supremacy, you are guardian of the Church's flock in every land-the Squadron beasts stable their riding dogs in our churches, or worse, convert them to their heretical worship of the Spirit of Man of This Earth'-most of the audience grasped their amulets and murmured a prayer-'and they rob and plunder and enslave our communicants who refuse to follow their beastly superstition. Their Admiral forbids the appointment of Syssups to guide the dioceses of the Territories; Syssups-Missionary I have appointed have been burned alive, priests mutilated, Renunciate Sisters gang-raped. The Spirit of Man of the Stars demands we act! Endfile.'

'Endfile,' the others murmured piously, touching their amulets. At least there's one sincere voice, Raj thought

Barholm nodded, pleased.

Klostermann cleared his throat and spoke: 'All respect and reverence to Holy Church and Its Supreme Reverend Syssup-Hierarch, but we've been receiving reports of atrocities for the century or more the Squadron has