Captain Philious sat behind the desk while two aides stood at one side, holding folders full of papers which required his signature. Both of them were young women in specialist versions of the usual smart palace staff uniform, tight fitting with a deep-cut neckline that extended down to the navel. Philious might be approaching middle age, but at seventy-seven he still enjoyed all the physical pleasure the flesh could provide. Thankfully his distinguished bloodline hadn’t let him down: the Captains remained blessed with a high resistance to illness, giving them a lifespan that usually got to see them comfortably into a second century. Unless their heirs grew impatient. That particular misfortune had befallen several ancestors during the last three thousand years. And Philious was under no illusions about his own son, Aothori.

‘Sir?’ his permanent secretary ’pathed from her office outside. ‘Trevene is here to see you.’

Philious looked up from the stack of papers he’d already signed. ‘That’s a wonderful excuse to stop. Ask him to come in, please.’ He put his ornate fountain pen back into the gold holder. ‘We’ll finish these later, thank you.’

One of the aides picked up the signed papers. Both smiled at him, and walked the length of the room to the double doors at the far end. Philious watched them go contentedly.

Trevene came in just before they reached the doors. A man approaching a hundred and twenty, whose receding jet-black hair revealed a skull of olive skin that shone in the study’s thick sunbeams. He wore a simple grey suit, as unobtrusive as men of his profession always were. It was as if he had a natural fuzz, obscuring him from notice. Thin features were becoming creased as age dried his skin, while small silver-framed glasses perched on a long nose.

‘Do sit,’ Philious said, as he always did. Trevene was technically family, a second cousin – he had to be, only family could be trusted to run the Captain’s police.

‘Sir,’ Trevene bowed slightly as he reached the desk. As always, he stood.

‘So how are we doing with Jasmine Avenue?’ In three months it would be the centenary of the Jasmine Avenue rebellion, the last serious civil disturbance on Bienvenido – an unfortunate year for his grandfather, where a disappointing crop coincided with a demographic surge. It had been put down swiftly, of course. Possibly too swiftly. There were a number of deaths, and a lot more sentenced to the Pidrui mines. A year later, the martyrs’ names had been carved on the avenue’s walls. The borough council had swiftly removed them, repairing the wall, and then a year later they’d reappeared. Removed. Replaced. Removed. And so it went on for decades, despite sheriffs guarding the avenue at anniversary time. The families of the dead were quite tenacious. It had become a ritual, annoyingly keeping the cause alive.

‘There’s a lot of talk about commemorating the rebellion at the university, sir.’

‘Oh, there’s always talk there. Damn students.’

‘Yes, sir. Not students of good family, obviously. But provincials and middle classes may be a slight problem. They’re unusually persistent.’

Philious raised an eyebrow. ‘The radicals are organizing?’

A note of uncertainty coloured Trevene’s thoughts. ‘Not the radicals. This is something milder – an expanding seam of discontent, if you like. There is no defined leadership, which is peculiar. Yet my assets in the halls of residence report that some kind of loose organization is forming. Nothing formal, nothing official, there’s no name for what they are, but someone or something has stirred them up. They have developed a common purpose and support each other.’

‘By definition an organization has to be organized. Someone must be behind this.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But you can’t find them?’

‘If they exist, they are elusive.’

Philious leaned back in his chair, far more amused than worried. ‘They’re outsmarting you? A bunch of students?’

‘Inquiries are being made. If there is a leader, they will be exposed and neutralized.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. What about the rest of the city?’

‘The Shanties are full of talk, sir, of course. But it is just another grumble to the content chorus. No one else is remotely interested.’

‘The Shanties,’ Philious said in disapproval. It seemed as if every problem his Captaincy faced originated in the Shanties. That same demographic quirk which had seen the sharp population rise hadn’t been matched by increased economic activity. Now every city and town on Bienvenido had Shanties on its outskirts – squalid shacks full of the jobless who couldn’t afford the rent for a tenement, or to send their children to school. The only thing they were any good at doing, it seemed, was breeding.

Experts from the Treasury and banks constantly claimed that the economy would grow to accommodate them. Philious wasn’t so sure. It was a hundred years since they first appeared, and every time he passed a Shanty on the way out of the city, it was larger than before.

‘A suggestion, sir: Jasmine Avenue is old; it’s my belief that the road surface needs repairing. If the cobbles were pulled up ready to be relaid, the whole avenue would have to be closed off. And it’s a long, wide avenue. The work would likely take months.’

Philious smiled. He did so like Trevene. The man was constantly five steps ahead of anyone else, and brutality was always a last resort. ‘Excellent. Have a word with the borough’s mayor. Let’s see; the Skylords will be here in two days, so shall we say work begins the day after, while everyone’s still too hungover to question anything?’

‘I’ll see to it, sir.’ Trevene adjusted his spectacles. ‘There is one other issue, sir.’

‘Yes?’ Philious asked wearily.

‘There’s been another girl, sir. It would appear the First Officer’s foibles got the better of him again.’

‘Oh great Giu, what happened?’

‘The hospital says she will live. But she wasn’t a working girl like his usuals. This one was from a middle-class family in Siegen, attending the university here. Her parents have arrived, and naturally they’re somewhat distressed. They’ve retained Howells as their lawyer.’

‘Oh crudding Uracus.’

‘Quite, sir. It may be hard to get his suit dismissed in court without an executive order. And I understand the Hilltop Eye pamphlet has acquired the story. It won’t reflect well on the Captaincy. Your reputation must remain unsullied.’

‘Right. Send someone from the Treasury’s legal department round to see the family. Pay them off. Whatever it costs.’

‘Yes, sir. And the First Officer?’

Philious pressed his teeth together and took a breath. ‘I’ll speak with him.’

5

It was the day the Skylords were due to arrive – eighteen months to the day since Slvasta had arrived in Varlan. As customary, the mayor had declared it a public holiday. The city was packed with departer families, coming to witness the fabulous ceremony, which signalled the start of their friends and relatives receiving guidance to Giu.

By midmorning the streets leading down to the city’s long waterfront were packed. Many people had eschewed their guesthouses and hotels to camp out along the quayside that ran the length of the city. The psychic sensation that filled the aether above Varlan was one of anticipation and delight.

Slvasta walked along Walton Boulevard, the wide central thoroughfare that led all the way from Bromwell Park to the sprawling Captain’s Palace that lay at the centre of the government district – block after block dominated by grandiose ten-storey buildings. Today, the scuttling drab-suited officials that usually swarmed the roads and alleys and intersections were all absent, at home with their families or preparing for the evening’s festivities. Even the carts and carriages were fewer, though the flow of cyclists was as thick as ever.