“You see, don’t you?" his new acquaintance said flatly. They were alone at the booth. Nerone had lingered to precipitously drain whatever khav had been left unfinished in the rush for the doors and had then followed the others out into the autumn sunshine and the breeze.

“I think I do,” Adreano said, working it out. “Sandre wins by losing.

“By losing a battle he never really cared about,” the other amended, a keenness in his grey eyes. “I doubt the clergy ever mattered to him at all. They weren’t his enemy. However subtle Alberico may be, the fact is that he won this province and Tregea and Ferraut and Certando because of his army and his sorcery, and he holds the Eastern Palm only through those things. Sandre d’Astibar ruled this city and its province for twenty-five years through half a dozen rebellions and assassination attempts that I’ve heard of. He did it with only a handful of sometimes loyal troops, with his family, and with a guile that was legendary even then. What would you say to the suggestion that he refused to let the priests and priestesses into his death-room last night simply to induce Alberico to seize that as a face-saving condition today?

Adreano didn’t know what he would say. What he did know was that he was feeling a zest, an exitement, that left him left him unsure whether what he wanted just then was a sword in his hand or a quill and ink to write down the words that were starting to tumble about inside him.

"What do you think will happen," he asked, with a deference that would have astonished his friends.

"I'm not sure," the other said frankly. "But I have a growing suspicion that the Festival of Vines this year may see the beginning of something none of us could have expected."

He looked for a moment as if he would say more than that, but did not.