In war everybody is a prisoner, the historian Henennemores had written.
Esdan had thanked his new captors for liberating him, but he knew where, at the moment, he stood. It was still Yaramera.
But there was some relief in seeing his room again, sitting down in the one-armed chair by the window to look out at the early sunlight, the long shadows of trees across the lawns and terraces.
None of the housepeople came out as usual to go about their work or take a break from it. Nobody came to his room. The morning wore on. He did what exercises of the tanhai he could do with his foot as it was. He sat aware, dozed off, woke up, tried to sit aware, sat restless, anxious, working over words: A special mission of the Advance Army of World Liberation.
The Legitimate Government called the enemy army "insurgent forces" or "rebel hordes" on the holonews. It had started out calling itself the Army of the Liberation, nothing about World Liberation; but he had been cut off from any coherent contact with the freedom fighters ever since the Uprising, and cut off from all information of any kind since the Embassy was sealed—except for information from other worlds light-years away, of course, there'd been no end of that, the ansible was full of it, but of what was going on two streets away, nothing, not a word. In the Embassy he'd been ignorant, useless, helpless, passive. Exactly as he was here. Since the war began he'd been, as Henennemores had said, a prisoner. Along with everybody else on Werel. A prisoner in the cause of liberty.
He feared that he would come to accept his helplessness, that it would persuade his soul. He must remember what this war was about. But let the liberation come soon, he thought, come set me free!
In the middle of the afternoon the young zadyo brought him a plate of cold food, obviously scraps of leftovers they'd found in the kitchens, and a bottle of beer. He ate and drank gratefully. But it was clear that they had not released the housepeople. Or had killed them. He would not let his mind stay on that.