'The people like you, Stenwold.'

'But the Assembly loathes the sight of me,' Stenwold pointed out. 'I remind them of how they were wrong.' It was a point of pride with him.

'Yes, but the people like you. Everyone out on the street there remembers how you won the war. They fought alongside you. They watched you go out and send the Wasp army packing. People – I'm talking about that majority without political aspirations – respect you. That's one reason why I'm going to be seen shaking hands with you in as many places as possible.'

'Why should I prostitute myself like that?'

Drillen's grin resurfaced. 'Because I make sure that you get what you want. I was almost the only person backing your Vekken initiative, when you put it forward, but I wrestled enough support to push it through. You're not as detached as you pretend, old soldier. You don't give a fig for power, but there are things you want done, and for that you need people like me. Which is convenient, because people like me need people like you in order to defeat people like Helmess Broiler.'

Stenwold scowled, but he had no argument to hand that could refute the other man's logic.

'I need to trump Broiler's atlas if I'm to get enough lots cast in my direction to secure the Speaker's podium,' Drillen explained. 'Now, I could just match him, map for map, but I have no guarantee that my fraudulent cartography would be any better than his, so I rather thought I might produce something genuinely scholarly, just for the fun of it.'

'That is not the thing the political future of the city will hang on,' Stenwold told him.

'Believe me, stranger things have been known. Our cousins, our kinsmen, our estranged family of Khanaphes… I have planted a few seeds of rumour already. People are already beginning to talk about it. I will raise some pertinent questions at the Assembly, and you…'