The meeting had deteriorated over an hour ago with Glarien stomping out of the hall. It dissolved shortly after that and among the last Erwin made his excuses and left together with Harbend. Arthur wasn't entirely happy with that. Harbend's English was excellent only making it that much easier for Erwin to milk him, hungry as he must be for information as well as the mere presence of anyone able to communicate with him. Well, that went both ways, Arthur guessed. Harbend wasn't one to let go of an equal opportunity. Admiral Radovic didn't belong to the exclusive group of traders who were the only Federation citizens normally allowed to travel here. That was changing now, of course. Arthur Wallman had been change incarnate for over twenty years by now, and he'd already seen the signs. Signs he needed to verify now that the three remaining ministers had agreed on a course of action to lessen the disaster brought upon the farmers in Vimarin.

"You've been silent," Tenanrild said.

"You've been confident," Arthur replied.

"Been laying down rails since shortly after you left for Braka."

Definitely not stupid. Minds like greased lightning bolts all of them. Greedy or not, they're anything but stupid. Arthur sighed. Nothing like the toads back home, but this council is running an empire, not bribing voters for another five-year term of hiding forgotten promises.

"From Roadbreak?" he asked.

"Should be able to cover most of an eightdays worth of caravan crawling in a day with the new rail coaches."

"No trains?"

"Engines not strong enough. You have better machines." She clipped her sentences in a peculiar way which had Arthur guessing she might not have been born in Keen. That didn't stop her from being to the point.

"The sky ship I saw landing?"

"New schedule. Lands every eightday."

Bloody hell! That explains the extra guests at Two Worlds. "So you've tripled your import?"

"Think so. Would be more, but your ministry of transportation isn't very efficient."

Arthur laughed. You have the guts to complain about our shipping capacity! A miner would need half a year from belt to Gate. We could have racked up shipping to full capacity the moment news of my arrival hit the holos and most of the sun barges would still be on their way here. He didn't say any of it though. Explaining space travel would take too much time, and he suspected someone who relied on horses wouldn't understand it anyway. "Well, I guess building new sky ships any faster would be difficult for us," he said instead.

"Don't need to build more. Fly more often instead."

Olvar de Saiden barked a laugh. "This is a long way from home, eh?"

Maybe they would understand after all, Arthur admitted glumly. "Yes, we could do that, of course." He studied Tenanrild. Small for an Otherworlder and slightly shrunken from age with a greying haircut distinctly shorter than was the fashion. Definitely not born here, he decided.

"I'm sure ships will arrive more often here in the future."

"Will do so," Tenanrild said. "Admiral of yours promised daily landings in less than a year."

Daily! You poor bastards! Might as well sign the death sentence now rather than wait. Another twenty years and your world is gone forever. "That's a... dramatic... increase from now," Arthur drawled, too stunned to say anything else.

"Change is inevitable," Olvar agreed. "Your limited presence has proved that. We can't stop change, but we may influence the direction it takes."

"What are you talking about? You'll end up with more Federation citizens than you could possibly imagine."

"Maybe, maybe not. Chach will stabilize sooner or later, and with a kingdom embracing the use of battle mages just south of the Narrow Sea we'll need the edge your technology gives us to stave of whatever they might plan after some self-appointed king has their aristocracy firmly in his grip."

Arthur stared at Olvar, aghast at what he had just heard.

"He's right, you know," Makarin, who had been silently listening, shot in. "We've always had better crops than they. Mostly a cause of better farming, but they'd never believe that." She looked tired. "Gods, we got rid of titled landowners less than a lifeyear ago. Worthless parasites! Our fields yield almost half again what they do in the protectorates."

"Protectorates?"

"Client states, mostly out of easy reach from the highways," Olvar explained. "They pay taxes and refrain from raising armies. We make sure about that! Otherwise they do as they like. Most kept their counts and dukes."

"But I don't..."

"Makarin's still right, though. For all their archaic practices the protectorates still grow more food than any fief in Chach. Raise more cattle as well," Olvar continued as if Arthur hadn't been there. In a way he might as well not have been. The faces around him told a story of long arguments and hard won experiences. They must have mulled over the situation countless times, and with raiders sinking their ships a difficult situation had turned into a dangerous and bleak future indeed.

"But you control the highways?"

"Idiot!" Tenanrild barked. "Merchant fleet lies on the bottom of the sea. Wharfs in Hasselden destroyed. Expect us to swim?"

Arthur blanched at the remainder that for all his education he still didn't fully grasp the differences between the Terran Federation and Keen.

"Not the most polished way to express the truth, but the truth nonetheless," Makarin said. "Now, this is where you come in."

"Me?"

"Yes, you're a taleweaver."

"Darkness, what's that got to do with anything?"

"You misunderstand. You're an outworlder taleweaver. We'll need more than metal. With your words luring your own people here we'll have a strong outworlder presence deterring any would be invader, or at least exterminating them, should need be."

Arthur stared at her. Pretty face and ugly mind, he thought. "And that's Olvar speaking with a female voice, I take it," he said.

"No, that's me speaking. I'm no one's proxy, thank you very much! I make sure our crops end up where it's needed. Olvar," she smiled at the huge man, "merely takes care of the vermin."

Olvar raised his glass of wine in salute. "She has a way with words, don't you agree?"

"I won't do it," Arthur protested. He hadn't come here to become a tool in a political game.

"But you already have. Mairild confirms that Admiral Radovic has already admitted as much. Called you a gherin spawned nuisance he did." Olvar emptied his glass and winked at Arthur.

Bloody hell! He would at that, Arthur admitted. No lost love between me and the military. Never been, never will be. "What did I do this time?" he probed.

"What did you..." Olvar shoved his empty glass out of reach of his bear paws and roared with laughter slamming the table hard enough with both hands that bowls and glasses bounced and were overturned, spilling wine, bread and fruit in an unholy mess that reached the edge and splashed onto the floor. "Darkness man, what haven't you done?"

Arthur stared at Olvar in bewilderment. "I left Verd with the caravan, but that hardly warrants..."

"Not so fast," Olvar interrupted, still shaking with near hysterical laughter. "Should we start with when you arrived here with your credentials falsified, or when you and Master de Garak turned a hundred years of merchant traditions on ends?"

Arthur nodded acceptance. Those subterfuges had been vital means enabling him to vanish from the capital before he was forced to return back home.

Olvar quenched his laugh and the grin was replaced by a grim expression he shared with both Makarin and Tenanrild. "But you know that, so maybe I should start with the renegade outworlders who landed here bent on a manhunt, burning and killing everything on their way to the Roadhouse, or maybe you'd prefer the tale of the official outworlder extraction team in walking armour we fooled. At least they only inflicted burning and killing on raiders, good riddance."

As Olvar finally started describing what had happened during Arthur's absence he could only listen in horror to tales of mindless destruction following in his wake.

It was close to midnight when Arthur, drained of any emotion, finished listening to and telling in return what had happened since autumn. When he left the imperial castle what had once been a fragmented puzzle was now a clear and horrible picture of events since his arrival here. And a nagging suspicion haunting him the last five years finally turned into knowledge. Somewhere, close to Belgera, Christina Ulfsdotir led her thugs on a murdering rampage, just as she had murdered his family. Strangely enough he felt no hatred, no despair, not even a dark longing. There would be a time for reckoning. He could hate then. Now he needed to sleep.