She hadn't thought so, though. It wasn't that difficult to measure a man's character, and Deo rang true.

"Uncle," he said now, crossing the gleaming floor toward the tall shape that had entered through doors of blood-oak wood.

Her eyes went to this new figure. Tall, solid but not stocky, red hair much longer and fuller than Deo's, the same shade but shot through with a goldish blond. He wore a beard over features far craggier than those Deo had. The beard had grey in it. The blue eyes were stonier. But these two looked very much like relatives.

Radstac watched as the two men—at least two ten winters apart in age, probably more—came together and spoke. She couldn't hear the words, but the rich sounds emanating from the older man made patterns that were almost tangible, dipping, rising, like music ...

One had to travel to the Isthmus to get fresh mansid leaves of such quality.

Eventually they turned and came toward her. The bearded one led. He wore a long lounging coat, sumptuous fabric, unsashed, its tails brushing the floor. Soft silent black shoes on his feet. The whites of his fierce blue eyes were reddened, but he didn't reveal his fatigue in his gait or the set of his coarse—and decidedly handsome—face.

"Na Niroki Cultat," Deo said, behind, formally, "Premier of the Noble State of—"

"I'm guessing she's deduced that by now, Nephew." Cultat halted. His hands folded themselves at his back. He looked at her, closely, briefly, then shifted his gaze past, to the panoramic window.

She had surrendered her weapons before being admitted to this chamber, including her glove. Deo had told her to do so, and she was working for him: There were also quite a few guards on the premises.

This Cultat was a fighter. She didn't need any mansid-inspired clarity to see that. Deo had dueling scars on his arms. She would wager that his uncle had them as well— and that whoever had put them there hadn't had an easy time of it.

"What do you think of our city?" He had a voice comfortable at command, but this was just a question, an honest one.

"Attractive. Clean. Prosperous."

"Better cities back home, I'd guess. Home"—a thoughtful hum rumbled briefly in his throat—"I daresay ... Republic of Dilloqi. Yes?"

Her colorless eyes widened. She hadn't told Deo the specifics of her origins.

"Thought so. I went south once, before my University days. To the Southsoil, with a pair of comrades more reckless and fearless and asinine even than I. I abandoned my duties, my family. We rode to the city of Ichuloo. We were there for Modyah Te Mody's abdication of her rule. Heard the criers in the streets. All three of us grotesquely drunk. Stumbled our way to the palace to see. I vomited out my guts on the way. Saw the soldiers turning back the crowds. Screaming, hysterics, violence—"

"A dark episode in Ichuloo's history," Radstac said, trying to equate this poised premier with the rash young idiot he was sketching for her.

"Indeed. Was a beautiful city, though." His gaze was still past her, through the glass. "What do you think of our people here?"

"As a people... blind fools. Individually is another matter."

"Yes. It's always that way, isn't it? When my two friends and I rode back, my father put me in a cell. He had a legal order for it. I'd reneged on my duties, you see, though to me at that age everything that was ever asked of me was a vast imposition. I was a premier's son, and I wanted, essentially, to be thoroughly indulged until the time came for me to assume my father's place. The burden of the premier's

post is often lifted from a parent's back and set on that of its child. But it is not always so. The Noble Ministry has the power to block an ascendancy, and with me, they would very likely have done so, but I was too obtuse to really see that. My days in that cell my father put me in, though—and there were quite some many days—along with my time at the University ... well, it all served me. I learned. I grew."

He drew a slow breath, not lost in his thoughts, not rambling out loud.

"The game of it, then ... how to make these people of Petgrad see reality. How?"

"I have come up against that quandary myself since arriving here," she said. In the tiny squiggly veins of his eyes she read the code of this man, this premier, this highest authority—literally—in the city. Atop his tower, gazing down on his domain. Yet he did not seem aloof. He cared for his people; yes, that was plain. But he saw them clearly, and he was troubled.

As leader of a city-state that lay in the path of the Felk, he should be troubled, Radstac thought.

"You expected us to be arming for war," Cultat said. "Adding numbers to our military. Grabbing up every mercenary and every farmer with an axe claiming to be a mercenary that came within reach."

Radstac said simply, "Yes."

"We do have an army, and it is maintained. At a cost the people grouse about. We've made a reputation for ourselves, you see. Petgrad, a powerful city, well-defended, a stable leadership structure. We don't lose our wars. When we're intruded upon, we set things right—successfully, decisively."

His jaw shifted beneath his beard. "In fact, no one has made a successful move against us in over a hundredwinter. You see the fatal snare of that, I'm sure."

"I do. Of course." She caught sight of Deo still lingering behind Cultat. Not nervously, though the premier's presence, even in this casual dress, was quite forceful. He must seem a titan garbed in the doubtlessly grand raiment of his office, she thought. Or wearing armor, a sword in his fist.

"My word alone isn't enough to build up and mobilize the army," he continued. "It requires a mandate of the people, endorsement by the Ministry. But first we of Petgrad must admit that we are no longer the strongest.

"Uncle." Deo stepped forward. He was wearing a sort of uniform tonight, a simple and elegant ensemble, red and gold, near the colors of Cultat's hair.

"I've seen to it my children learned proper behavior with less fuss than what I went through. Perhaps their offspring will have an even easier time of it. You, Deo, though ... my elder sister was quite fond of you. Rightly so. She turned you out as she saw fit. Didn't want you anywhere near being a possible successor to our father. Just as she herself refused to her death to be a candidate for premier. Do you regret that?"

"Of course not, Uncle." He smiled his warm, winsome smile.

"Naturally," Cultat pronounced. "I've regaled you often enough, in agonizing detail, with tales of what this post entails. And you're so finely suited for the role you play. Handsome noble. Philanthropist. Benefactor of the arts. Make a few speeches, sweep the Ministry's daughters off their feet at state functions. The people adore you. Sensible people stay away from onerous tasks—at least those chores that others are willing to shoulder. Gods pity me, I was willing to accept mine."

'To all our good fortune," Deo said.

Cultat gazed levelly now at his nephew, somberness joining the secret fatigue he carried in his eyes. "And now there's a task for you." His rich voice was low, soft.

"One I'm willing and ready to take on."

Cultat's head dipped in a slow nod. "She's to be the one, then?"

Radstac waited, as she had waited these past several days. She watched the two men.

"Yes, Uncle," Deo answered. "You gave me leave to make my own choice."

"I'm aware of that." Something hard moved under his voice. Family they were, she thought, but this matter was serious, whatever it was, and these weren't frivolous men. "I know that even the most libidinous rascal wouldn't make such a choice on the basis of someone's performance as a bed partner."

Cultat looked at her once more, closely, still a few paces away; yet it seemed the potent heat of him brushed her scarred face. "You'd better hire her, then," the Premier said.