I felt my anger rise to think of tree-dwelling blacks conquering the proud stonecarvers of Drew or the backwater religious folk of Allison. Hadn't we just conquered Cramer, and taught them the true place of blacks in the world by enslaving them? "Why are we sending embassies instead of armies?" I asked angrily.

"Am I a fool?" Father asked in return. "If I wanted mindless bigotry I could call a moot and listen to the nobility."

I found it at once encouraging and painful that he expected me to think like the Mueller and not like some common soldier who had no responsibility. So I answered him truly now. "If they have hard metal, it means that they've found something that the Offworld will buy. We don't know how much metal they'have; we don't know what they're selling. Therefore my embassy is not to make a treaty, but rather to find out what they have to sell and what the Ambassador is paying for it."

"Very good," Father said. "Dinte, you may go."

"If these are affairs of the kingdom," Dinte said, "shouldn't I be here to hear them?"

Father didn't answer. Dinte got up and left. And then Father waved a hand at the Turd, who also left the room, waggling her hips insolently.

"Lanik," Father said when we were alone, "Lanik, I wish to God there were something I could do." His eyes filled with tears and I realized with some surprise that Father cared enough to grieve for me. But not really for me, I thought. For his precious empire, which Dinte could not possibly hold together.

"Lanik, never in the three thousand years of Mueller has there been a mind like yours, in a body like yours, a man truly fit to lead men. And now the body is ruined. Will the mind still serve me? Will the man still love his father?"

"Man? If you saw me on the street you'd want to take me to your bed!"