Maia

"But my immediate worry," went on Kembri, without waiting for Durakkon to answer him, "is the prospect of campaigning on the Valderra and in Suba while we still know so little about what may be being brewed up in Urtah without the old High Baron's knowledge. He himself only wants peace and quiet, of course. As long as he's alive, he'll go on preventing the Urtans from flying at our throats for being the villains who gave away Suba. But if he dies- and I'm told now that he may die at any time-what's going to happen then? The heir's Eud-Ecachlon-a slow fellow; not many ideas of his own-but he hates Fornis like poison and who's to blame him, seeing she made him look a complete fool over that betrothal? He could easily be influenced into coming out against us. I don't want to start crossing the Valderra into Suba with Karnat in front of me and then find Urtah up in arms at my back."

He looked at Sencho, but the High Counselor said nothing.

"Then there's the bastard," continued Kembri. "I mean Bayub-Otal, the High Baron's son by the Suban dancing-girl. He'd been promised the rule of Suba on his father's death, so he's the most embittered Urtan of the lot. I've often wonderd about having him killed off, but that certainly would lose us the old High Baron's support for good and all. Even if it could be made to look like an accident- and I doubt it could-he'd never believe it: we can't risk it. But Bayub-Otal's up to something on his own account, or else I'm much mistaken. I'd like to know what it is. Sencho, you'd better hit on some way of finding out for us. After all, he's spending Melekril here in the city."

Sencho, however, did not respond to this as positively as the Lord General had been hoping. The High Counselor

resented being told by Kembri or anyone else how to run his secret intelligence network or where he should put his spies, and had always been firm that he did not act on the orders of the Lord General or of any other Leopard leader. This obstinacy and independence, he was shrewd enough to realize, was ultimately his only safety in dealing with his fellow-conspirators-Fornis, Han-Glat and Kembri. As long as reliable information about threats of sedition could reach them only through him and as long as they did not know how much he knew or where his agents were working, they could not afford to get rid of him.

He began speaking in general terms about Kembri's contention that to reconquer Suba would be good for the Leopards' standing throughout the empire. Ending disaffection, he pointed out, was more than a matter of recapturing an unproductive area of marshland and water-ways and making a present of it to Fornis: while as for Uriah, it was not really this relatively stable, prosperous and civilized province which gave the deepest cause for anxiety, but rather the more inaccessible fringes of the empire: remote, tribal areas, where his spies and agents were unavoidably fewer and whence information took longer to reach him.

"You mean Chalcon, don't you?" said Durakkon.

Sencho nodded, and went on to speak of his uneasiness about that isolated area of foothills and forest where the marches of northern Yelda joined those of southern Ton-ilda. This was the outlying region-wild country a good three days' journey or more from Thettit-in which, after the Leopards' seizure of power, Senda-na-Say's nephew Enka-Mordet had been suffered to settle on the last remaining family estate. The High Counselor, whose cunning included an instinctive and often startlingly penetrating ability to sniff out concealed enemies (the strongest reason for the fear in which he was held), felt an intuitive certainty that something dangerously against the Leopard interest was hatching there.

"What, then?" asked Durakkon, forgetting for a moment to conceal his contempt. "Are you sure you're not just assuming that Enka-Mordet's the sort of man you were yourself eight years ago?"

Sencho ignored this. It was well understood between him and Kembri that provided they refrained from openly quarreling with Durakkon or sneering at his intermittent,

futile attempts to assert his nominal authority, they could always, ultimately, dominate or prevail over him, since he lacked self-confidence and was dependent upon them to maintain his position.

Chalcon, continued the High Counselor, might not at this moment seem so great a cause for anxiety as Urtah. Yet as far as Santil-ke-Erketlis, its most influential baron, was concerned, he himself felt more-or-less certain, despite the lack of any specific evidence, that something was being secretly cooked up against Bekla. There had been furtive comings and goings of messengers-too many to be attributable to mere fanning and husbandry-between Erketlis and Enka-Mordet; while both were retaining in their households more young, able-bodied men than any normal estate-owner required during Melekril.