Would the word “invasion” startle you? That’s all that the famous coup really was, you realize – an excuse for the Elene Church to invade Tamuli, and quite obviously it’s been with the Emperor’s full cooperation.’
‘Why would the Emperor conspire with the Elenes to topple his own government?’
‘I can think of any number of reasons. Maybe this so-called queen threatened to deny him her favors. Most probably, though, she’s been spinning fairy-tales for him, telling him about the joys of absolute power. That’s a common fiction in Eosia. Elene rulers like to pretend that they’re the ones who make all the decisions in their kingdoms rather than permitting the government to do it for them. We both know how ridiculous that idea is. A king – or in our case, the Emperor – only has one function. He’s a symbol of government, nothing more. He serves as a focus for the love and loyalty of the people. The imperial government’s been engaged in a selective-breeding program for the past thousand years. The Emperor’s Tamul wife – the one who produces the heir to the throne – is always selected for her stupidity. We don’t need intelligent emperors, only docile ones. Somehow Sarabian slipped past us. If you’d ever really taken the trouble to pay attention to him, you’d have discovered that he’s frighteningly intelligent. Kolata blundered there. Sarabian should have been killed long before he ascended the throne. Our revered Emperor’s beginning to hunger for real power, I’m afraid. Normally, we could deal with that, but we can’t get at him to kill him as long as he’s inside that blasted fortress.’
‘You weave a convincing story, Gashon,’ the Prime Minister conceded with a troubled frown. ‘I knew it was a blunder to invite that Sparhawk savage to come to Matherion.’
‘We all did, Subat, and you’ll recall who it was who overrode all our objections.’
‘Oscagne,’ Subat spat.
‘Precisely. Is it beginning to fit together for you now?’
‘Did you devise all of this by yourself, Gashon? It’s a little elaborate for a man who spends all his time counting pennies.’
‘Actually, it was Teovin, the Director of the Secret Police, who brought it to my attention. He provided me with a great deal of very concrete evidence. I’ve summarized it for you here. Interior has spies everywhere, you know. Nothing happens in the Empire that doesn’t generate a report for those famous files of theirs. Now, Pondia Subat, what does our esteemed Prime Minister propose to do about the fact that our Emperor’s being held prisoner – willingly or unwillingly – not a hundred paces from where we sit? You’re the titular head of government, Subat. You’re the one who has to make these decisions. Oh, and while you’re at it, you might want to give some thought to how we’re going to prevent the Church Knights from sweeping across the continent, marching into Matherion and forcing everyone to bow down to their ridiculous God – and butchering the entire government in the process.’
‘They’re trying to stall, your Majesties,’ Stragen reported. ‘When supper-time comes, they escort us to the door, push us outside, and lock the door behind us. The building stays locked for the rest of the night – although there are always plenty of lights moving around in there after dark. When we go back the next morning, everything’s been rearranged. The files migrate from room to room like ducks in the autumn. I wouldn’t actually swear to it, but I think they move walls as well. We found a room just this morning that I don’t really think was there last night.’
‘I’ll send in Engessa’s Atans,’ Sarabian said darkly. ‘We’ll chase everybody out and then tear the building apart brick by brick.’
‘No,’ Ehlana said, shaking her head. ‘If we make an overt move against the Ministry of the Interior, every policeman in the Empire will scurry down a rabbit-hole.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Let’s start to do inconvenient things to the other ministries as well. Don’t make it obvious that we’re concentrating all of our attention on the Ministry of the Interior.’
‘How can you possibly make things any worse than they already are, your Majesty?’ Oscagne asked in a broken voice. ‘You’ve disrupted centuries of work as it is.’
‘Can anyone think of anything?’ Sarabian asked, looking around.
‘May I speak, your Majesty?’ Alean asked in a small, timid-sounding voice.
‘Of course, dear,’ Ehlana smiled.
‘I hope you’ll all forgive my presumption,’ Alean apologized. ‘I can’t even read, so I don’t really know what files are, but aren’t we sort of letting on that we’re rearranging them?’
‘That’s what we’re telling everybody,’ Mirtai replied.
‘As I said, I can’t read, but I do know a bit about rearranging cupboards and such things. This is a little like that, isn’t it?’
‘Close enough,’ Stragen replied.
‘Well, then, when you’re rearranging a cupboard, you take everything out and spread it on the floor. Then you put all the things you want in the top drawer in one pile, the things you want in the second drawer in another, and so on. Couldn’t we do that with these files?’
‘It’s a nice i-dee, little dorlin’,’ Caalador drawled, ‘but they ain’t e-nuff floors in the hull buildin’ fer spreadin’ out all them there files.’
‘There are lots of lawns around the outside, though, aren’t there?’ Alean kept her eyes downcast as she spoke. ‘Couldn’t we just take all the files from every government building outside and spread them around on the lawns. We could tell the people who work in the buildings that we want to sort through them and put them in the proper order. They couldn’t really object, and you can’t lock the door to a lawn at night, or move things around when there are seven-foot-tall Atans standing guard over them. I know I’m just a silly servant girl, but that’s the way I’d do it.’
Oscagne was staring at her in absolute horror.
The soil on the western side of the Isle of Tega was thin and rocky, and since there was plenty of fertile ground farther inland, the citizens of the Republic had made no effort to cultivate here. Tough, scrubby bushes rustled stiffly in the onshore breeze as Sparhawk and his friends rode along a rocky trail leading to the coast.
‘The breeze helps,’ Talen observed gratefully. ‘At least it blows away that stink.’
‘You complain too much,’ Flute told him. The little girl rode with Sephrenia as she had since they had first encountered her. She nestled in her older sister’s arms with her dark eyes brooding. She straightened suddenly as the sound of surf pounding on the western shore of the Isle reached them. ‘This is far enough for right now, gentlemen,’ she told them. ‘Let’s have some supper and wait for it to get dark.’
‘Is that a good idea?’ Bevier asked her. ‘The ground’s been getting rougher the farther west we come, and the sound of that surf seems to have rocks mixed up in it. This might not be a good place to be blundering around in the dark.’
‘I can lead you safely to the beach, Bevier,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want you gentlemen to get too good a look at our ship. There are certain ideas involved in her construction that you don’t need to know. That’s one of the promises I had to make during those negotiations
