Plots and counter-plots.  Masks and disguises.  The shadow in the night and the swift glitter of a blade.  Well, they are all a part of Kregen, just as much as the pomp and grandeur, the armies, the brilliance of nobility and the shining of courage.

There was the matter of Renko the Murais.

Where I rode I noticed that the members of my choice band, those fighting men who were veterans now although so short a time ago being simple tradesmen or farmers, had strengthened their number by mustering more of the old comrades.  They formed a powerful little mounted squadron riding at my back.  And, with them, rode a formed and formidable body of upwards of fifty Pachaks.  While welcoming this, I was puzzled.  I mentioned the matter to Nath as we rode forward along the gutted Avenue of Hope and out into the virtually untouched Kyro of Taniths.  This kyro was a particular pride of Vondium, being graceful in architecture, bright with color, a perfect place to take one's ease after the strife and turmoil of the day.  The luxurious and headily perfumed trees and bushes growing in a profusion of beauty like a woman's hair and trailing splendor along the tessellated walks and cool colonnades always offered a welcome and a surcease.  A man could expand his lungs here, and yet relax, safe and with the feeling he had come home.  I smiled at Nath as I asked him, and he merely answered with a casual comment that, by Vox, a man needed friends at his back.

With this sentiment I agreed.  I did not press the matter.  In truth, the thought that ferocious and loyal fighting men rode with me, keeping a weather eye open against assassins, stikitches dropping on us from any direction, was mightily comforting.

Each man of this impromptu bodyguard wore a tiny tuft of yellow and red feathers in his helmet, a brave show of color, highly evocative.

The business with the schools happily concluded and an old friend, Anko the Chisel, proving only too happy to place the entire resources of what was left of his workshops at our disposal, the matter of the desks was attended to.  With them, also, grave details of ink and pens, of paper and tablets, and the correct clothes the youngsters should wear had all to be attended to with the same strict punctilio I might give to the decisions over the number of shafts an archer should carry in his quiver when we marched out, and how many with the regimental wagons, or the best method of ensuring next season's crop, or of how I might receive a deputation from a province seeking alliance.  The work of empire is made up of details, great and small, and who is to mediate between them?

So, with the schools, and a faulty aqueduct to be seen to, and repairs to the walls where battering engines had breached them, and a swift and summary decision between a man and his brother over the rightful possession of a shop their father kept, he now being dead and nothing decided, I at last turned my zorca's head in the direction of the palace and a meal and the inquisition into Renko the Murais.

Well, the meal was a splendid affair, and I shall not spend time on such gourmet delights.  Enevon Ob-Eye, Nath, Barty, the responsible officials and whoever else thought they had a hand in the affair all assembled in a relatively undamaged chamber where once music had flowed to delight lazy afternoons.  The charred triangles of harps still stood in the corners, and the twisted remnants of many of the exotic musical instruments of Kregen had been hastily swept away into an alcove under the windows.  I sat at a long table, with the dignitaries flanking me, and the condemned men were led in under guard.

I knew Renko the Murais.  It was the same Renko who had fought with us as a Freedom Fighter in Valka I treated him as I treated the other Miserable wights, showing no special favor.

"Have the charges and the findings read out."

This was done with due solemnity.