“Not that I know—”

“Do I usually make a habit of attending parties given by someone like Alastor Dorrance in the middle of nowhere?”

“I suppose not. . . .”

“Then you might exercise your intelligence to wonder why you are here with me now.”

“Gatehouse ahead, sir,” interrupted the bodyguard as the car rounded a sweeping corner and slowed down. “Recognition signal is correct.”

Edward and Nicholas leaned forward to look through the open partition and the windscreen beyond. A few hundred yards in front, a squat stone gatehouse lurked just off the road, with its two wooden gates swung back. Two slate gray Heddon-Hare roadsters were parked, one on either side of the gate, with several mackintosh-clad, weapon-toting men standing around them. One of the men waved a yellow flag in a series of complicated movements that Edward clearly understood and Nicholas presumed meant all was well.

“Proceed!” snapped the Chief Minister. Their car slowed more, the driver shifting down through the gears with practiced double-clutching. The mackintosh-clad men saluted as the car swung off the road and through the gate, dropping their salute as the rest of the motorcade followed. Six motorcycle policemen were immediately behind, then another two cars identical to the one that carried Nicholas and his uncle, then another half dozen police motorcyclists, and finally four trucks that were carrying a company of fully armed soldiery. Corolini’s attempted putsch had failed, and there had surprisingly been no further trouble from the Our Country Party since, but the government continued to be nervous about the safety of the nation’s Chief Minister.

“So, what is going on?” asked Nicholas. “Why are you here? And why am I here? Is there something you want me to do?”

“At last, a glimmer of thought. Have you ever wondered what Alastor Dorrance actually does, other than come to Corvere three or four times a year and exercise his eccentricities in public?”

“Isn’t that enough?” asked Nick with a shudder. He remembered the newspaper stories from the last time Dorrance had been in the city, only a few weeks before. He’d hosted a picnic on Holyoak Hill for every apprentice in Corvere and supplied them with fatty roast beef, copious amounts of beer, and a particularly cheap and nasty red wine, with predictable results.

“Dorrance’s eccentricities are all show,” said Edward. “Misdirection. He is in fact the head of Department Thirteen. Dorrance Hall is the Department’s main research facility.”

“But Department Thirteen is just a made-up thing, for the moving pictures. It doesn’t really exist . . . um . . . does it?”

“Officially, no. In actuality, yes. Every state has need of spies. Department Thirteen trains and manages ours, and carries out various tasks ill suited to the more regular branches of government. It is watched over quite carefully, I assure you.”

“But what has that got to do with me?”

“Department Thirteen observes all our neighbors very successfully, and has detailed files on everyone and everything important within those countries. With one notable exception. The Old Kingdom.”