The Reformer

wrapped mantle of a Councillor, with the broad purple stripe along the edge.

'I heard the summation of your speech. Most impressive, most impressive-a Confederate advocate couldn't have done it any better. I can see that giving you the run of my library was a sound decision, yes, sound.'

'My gratitude is eternal, my lord,' Adrian said. He glanced around. 'If I might beg a minute of your time?'

'Well. . I suppose.'

'Alone, my lord. It's a very sensitive matter.'

The plump beak-nosed features changed. He suspects you know something, Raj cautioned. He's remembering that you're Esmond's brother.

In the privacy of his mind Adrian nodded. And I'd be dead inside the hour if he confirms his suspicion, he thought. Or even if he doesn't. Now to show myself useful.

'As you may know, my lord, I've been putting together some notes for a history,' he said. Redvers' face relaxed slightly; that was a traditional hobby for lawyers. 'And I've come across some information in the most ancient chronicles that may be of importance to the State. Naturally, I didn't presume to judge such matters myself, but thought first of you-my patron, a citizen of standing and influence, one competent to judge such matters.'

'My boy, I'm glad you show such wisdom and maturity,' Redvers said softly. 'To others may be given the art of speaking, of shaping marble so that it seems to live-but to the Confederacy alone is given the mandate of the Gods to rule, to spare the humble and subdue the proud,' he said.

That would be more impressive if I didn't know you were quoting, Adrian thought, the words dry under the hammer of his pulse. They reached one of the inset niches along the walls, this one holding a small chryselephantine statue of the God of War, flourishing an archaic spear, heroically nude, with his foot on a dead Southron barbarian.

'I have found a series of formulae known to a select few among the ancients,' Adrian began. 'Knowledge long since lost.'

Redvers nodded; it was well-known to educated men that before the Age of Iron had been an Age of Gold, whose glories were forgotten.

'With devices based on these formulae, an army would be invincible-it could sweep aside forces many times its size. And the formulae are quite simple; within three months-' Six months, but let's not get too realistic '-given the resources and artificers needed, a force could be so equipped as to sweep the Western Isles, or the Southron barbarians. . a great boon to the State, and of course undying fame and glory to the commander.'

Redvers stood stock-still, his eyes hooded. 'And you've come to your patron with this knowledge. Very proper, my boy; very proper.'

He's going to buy it, Raj said, his mental voice almost as dispassionate as Center's.

probability of agreement 92 % ±5, Center added.

* * *

'What on earth is the Emerald babbling about?' one of the nobles said pettishly. 'Invincible weapons. . what does he mean? A better catapult, something of that nature?'

The Redvers family was wealthy enough that their townhouse gardens had a secluded nook like this out of sight and most hearing from the main house. Adrian would much rather have conducted the trial somewhere outside the city. . but Center had decided that Redvers was becoming quite dangerously impatient.

The stretch of lawn ahead of them held an oak tree and a circle of scarecrowlike dummies, each hung with the mail tunic and helmet of a Confed soldier. In front of them rested a simple jar, stoppered with a clay disk that was pierced for a wick of cotton that Adrian had soaked in the solution that Center showed him. .

He shuddered at the vision, one from Raj's memories. A vision of what the explosion of a shell or bomb could do to men's bodies.

'The jar contains my mixture, my lords,' Adrian said. 'Surrounding it-'

'Get on with it, Emerald! We're not apothecaries, you know.'

'Yes, my lord. If my lords will step behind this barricade. .'

Adrian walked towards the jar, blinking at the bright sunlight, a lighted oil lamp in his hand. He held it by the loop at one end and touched the flame to the wick with the other. It started to sputter and fume with evil-smelling blue smoke, and he turned and walked-it was an effort not to run, but the nobles must be impressed-towards the thick pine logs of the barricade.

'See here,' one said as he ducked gratefully behind the thick wood. 'How are we supposed to see whatever- it-is if we're huddling behind here?'

He started to rise. Adrian clamped a hand on his shoulder and pulled him down again; sheer surprise helped him, since the Confederation nobleman couldn't imagine that an Emerald would lay hands on him.

'You-'

BWAAAAMMP.

The sound was louder than thunder, louder than anything Adrian had ever heard, loud enough to stab pain into his ears. He'd been expecting it. The other men there had not. Esmond's sword flashed out in a movement too fast to see except as a blur. One or two of the Confederate nobles threw themselves down with their hands over their ears; another turned and ran for the villa, tripping on a chair leg and lying sobbing and beating his hands against the ground. Most of them simply stood and stared at each other. Audsley, the ex-general, gathered himself, shook back his shoulders to settle his mantle, and walked around the edge of the barricade.

He stopped, staring at the forward part of the logs. Holes had been gouged into them; he ran his little finger into one, and pulled it back with a jerk.

'That's hot,' he said. 'What is it?'

'A ball of lead, like a sling-bullet, my lord,' Adrian said. 'Hurled by the daemonic force of the ancient formula's mixture. And that is a hundred feet from the bursting. If a man was closer. .'

He smiled and spread his hands. Audsley and the others moved towards the place where the jar had rested. A knee-deep hole had been gouged in the soft black dirt, and bits of sod flung all over this corner of the garden. The front of the oak tree gleamed cream-white, the bark scarred and blasted away. Bits and pieces of the armor on the scarecrow stakes were scattered about; one helmet was embedded in the tree itself, three inches of the plume holder driven into the living wood. Audsley examined a mail shirt, putting a gingerly finger through a hole in the iron links.

'Well. .' he said.

'Consider, my lord, catapults throwing dozens of such vessels into a tight formation of infantry,' Adrian urged. 'Still more into cavalry.'

'Yes, I do see,' Audsley said. A grin stole across his lined, weathered face. 'Redvers, I thought you were wasting our time, but you weren't. Brilliant, man-brilliant!'

The nobles gathered around Wilder Redvers, slapping him on the back and laughing like men reprieved from death. . which might well be what they were. Adrian turned, feeling the pressure of eyes on his back. Esmond was standing by the barricade, looking at the havoc the bomb had wrought and then at the sword still clenched in his hand.

* * *

'What exactly am I supposed to be doing out here?' Esmond asked, looking back over his shoulder. 'You've got your infernal machines to tinker with, but I should be back in the city.'

'Don't worry,' Adrian said. 'She's a lot safer with you gone than she is with you there.'

Esmond nodded gloomily. 'The question remains.'

They were two days travel out of Vanbert's outskirts, and an hour's travel down a gravelled road that turned off the military highway west of the city. They'd been travelling on Redvers land that whole hour; past slave villages, wine presses, an alum mine, past fields where the yellow grain was mostly reaped and stooked, past pastures and orchards where green fruit swelled. . and now they were turning into the paved laneway that led up to the villa of Wilder Redvers, one of many he owned. It was a handsome building, a simple rectangular block with a