legitimate reason for his presence. He’s still functioning – under
our control – and that’s of enormous value to us. We’re playing
for time, Sarabian. We’re terribly vulnerable until Tynian and
Emban come back from Chyrellos with the Church Knights – or
at the very least until all the Atan commanders have been
advised that they aren’t supposed to obey the orders of the
Interior Ministry any more. We definitely don’t want the Atans
fighting on both sides if trouble breaks out.’
“I guess I hadn’t thought of that,’ he admitted.
‘Not only that, your Majesty,’ Oscagne added gently. “It’s
entirely possible that Interior would simply ignore a proclanation
disbanding them. They have almost total power, you
know. Queen Ehlana’s right. We can’t move against them until
we’re sure of the Atans.’
Stragen had continued his pacing. ‘Nobody can subvert an
entire branch of government,’ he declared. ‘There are just too
many people involved, and all it would take would be one
honest policeman to expose the entire scheme.’
‘There’s no such thing as an honest policeman, Stragen,’ Caalador
said with a cynical laugh. “It’s a contradiction in terms.’
‘You know what I mean.’ Stragen shrugged that off. ‘We know
that Kolata has dirty hands, but we can’t be sure just how far
that disloyalty goes. It could be very widespread, or it could be
confined to just a few in the higher councils of the ministry.’
Caalador shook his head. “Tain’t hardly likely, Stragen,’ he
disagreed. ‘Y gotta have them oz y’ kin trust out that when y’
start givin’ orders oz runs contrary t’ reg’lar policy. They’s gotta
be some in th’ hinterlands oz knows whut’s whut.’
Stragen made a face. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ he complained.
‘Please don’t use that vile dialect when you’re right. It
makes me feel inadequate. All right, then. We can be fairly certain
that most of the higher-ranking officials in the ministry are
involved, but we can’t even guess at how widespread the contamination
is. I’d say that finding out gets to be a kind of
priority.’
‘Shouldn’t take y’ more’n a couple hunnerd years t’ do thet,
Stragen,’ Caalador noted.
‘Not necessarily,’ Baroness Melidere disagreed. She looked at
Oscagne. ‘You once said that the Ministry of the Interior’s very
fond of paper, your Excellency.’
‘Of course, Baroness. All government agencies adore paper.
Paperwork provides full employment for our relatives. Interior
goes a little farther, though. Policemen can’t function without
files and dossiers. They write everything down.’
“I rather thought that might be the case. The people over at
Interior are all trained as policemen, aren’t they?’
Oscagne nodded.
‘Then they’d all be compulsive about writing reports and filing
them, wouldn’t they?’
“I suppose so,’ he said. “I don’t see where you’re going with
this exactly, Baroness.’
‘Wake up, Oscagne,’ Sarabian said excitedly. “I think this
wonderful girl’s just solved our problem for us. Someplace over
in that rabbit warren at Interior there’s a set of files that contains
the names of all the disloyal policemen and secret agents in the
Empire. All we have to do is get our hands on that set of files,
and we’ll know exactly which people to pick up when the time
comes to move.’
‘Except for the fact that they’ll defend those files to the death,’
Ehlana observed. ‘And there’s also the fact that a move against
their filing system would be the same as a frontal assault on the
ministry itself.’
‘You really know how to burst bubbles, Ehlana,’ the Emperor
complained.
‘There might be a way around the queen’s objections, your
Majesty,’ Melidere said ‘with a slight frown. ‘is there a standardized
filing system here in Matherion, Minister Oscagne?’
‘Good God, no, Baroness,’ he exclaimed. ‘if we all had the
same filing system, anybody at all could walk into our offices
and find anything he wanted. We’d never be able to keep any
secrets from each other.’
“I thought that might be the case. now then, suppose that
Queen Ehlana happened to mention to the Emperor – just in
passing – that her government had standardized the filing
system, and that everybody filed things the same way. Then
let’s suppose that the Emperor grew very excited about the idea
the enormous savings in the cost of government and all that.
Then, still supposing, he appoints an imperial commission with
extraordinary powers to examine everybody’s files with an eye
toward that standardization. Wouldn’t that sort of justify a
thorough search of the offices at Interior?’
“It’s got possibilities, my Queen,’ Stragen approved. ‘Something
like that would hide what we’re really up to – particularly
if we had people tearing up everybody else’s files at the same
time.’
Oscagne’s face went absolutely white.
‘i’d sooner take pizen than insult y’, little lady,’ Caalador
drawled to the Baroness, ‘but yet still a-talkin”bout a chore
which it is that’d taken us a good twenty year ‘er more t’ finish.
We got us a hull buildin’ over that t’ take aport iffn th’ Furrin
Minister yore is koo-rect ’bout how many tons o’ paper they got
over t’ Interior.’
‘We can shorten that a bit, Master Caalador,’ Melidere replied.
‘All we have to do is question Interior Minister Kolata.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Ehlana said sharply. “I don’t want him all
torn to pieces – at least not until I don’t need him any more.’
‘We wouldn’t be asking him any sensitive questions, your
Majesty,’ Melidere said patiently. ‘All we want to know is how
his filing system works. That wouldn’t compromise the conspiracy
he’s involved in, would it?’
“I think she’s right, Ehlana,’ Mirtai said. ‘There would almost
have to be some sort of trigger – questions about certain subjects
that would make our enemies decide to kill Kolata. They
wouldn’t kill him if all we did was ask him about something as
ordinary as a filing system, would they?’
‘No,’ the queen agreed. ‘They probably wouldn’t at that.’ Her
expression was still doubtful, however.
“It’s all very clever, Baroness,’ Stragen said, ‘but we’ll be sending
Tamul officials into the various ministries to investigate files.
How will we know that at least some of them aren’t on the other
side?’
‘We wouldn’t, Milord Stragen. That’s why we’ll have to send
our own people – the Church Knights – in to review those
files.’
‘How would we justify that?’
‘The new filing system would be an Elene invention, Milord.
We’re obviously going to have to send Elenes into the various
ministErs to evaluate the current methods and to instruct the
officials on how to convert to the new system.’
‘Now I’ve got you, Baroness,’ he said triumphantly. ‘This is
all a fiction. We don’t have a new filing system.’
‘Then invent one, Milord Stragen,’ she suggested sweetly.
Prime Minister Subat was deeply troubled by the suggestion the
Chancellor of the Exchequer had just placed before him. The
two were alone together in the Prime Minister’s ornate office, a
room only slightly less magnificent than one of the imperial
audience chambers. ‘You’re out of your mind, Gashon,’ he
declared flatly.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Gashon was a bloodless, corpselike
man with sunken cheeks and no more than a few wispy
strands of hair protruding from his lumpy scalp. ‘Look at it more
closely, Pondia Subat,’ he said in his hollow, rusty-sounding
voice. “It’s only a theory, but it does explain many things that
are otherwise incomprehensible.’
‘They wouldn’t have dared,’ Subat scoffed.
“Try to lift your mind out of the fourteenth century, Subat,’
Gashon snapped. ‘You’re the Prime Minister, not the keeper of
antiquities. The world is changing all around you. You can’t just
sit still with your eyes firmly fixed on the past and hope to
survive.’
“I don’t like you very much, Gashon.’
‘i’m not terribly fond of you either, Subat. Let me go through
it for you again. Try to stay awake this time.’
‘How dare you?’
“I dare because I’d sort of like to keep my head where it is.”
First off: the Elenes of Eosia are absolute barbarians. Can we
agree on that at least?’
‘All right.’
‘They haven’t caused us much trouble in the past because
they were too busy fighting among themselves about religion,
and because they had Otha of Zemoch to worry about. Would
it surprise you too much if I told you that Otha’s dead and that
the Rendorish insurgency’s been almost completely crushed?
“I have my own sources of information, Gashon.’
‘Have you ever considered listening to what they tell you?
Now then, there was open warfare in the streets of Chyrellos
preceding the elevation of this Dolmant to the Archprelacy. I’d
say that’s a fair indication of the fact that he’s not universally
loved. The best way I know of for a shaky ruler to consolidate
his position is to contrive a foreign adventure, and the only real
foreign ground for the Elenes of the Eosian Continent is Daresia
the Tamul Empire. That’s us, in case you hadn’t noticed,