“Oh, I’m sure.” Calcanish tried his dish, and his eyes slitted in pleasure. Aminata enjoyed that expression, very superficially. He had what sailors might call, at the height of drunken articulation, a fuckable face. “Well, as I understand it, Cairdine Farrier is in favor with the Emperor, and everyone says this Baru Cormorant is Farrier’s new protégé.…”

“I’ve heard that, yes, but do you know exactly what they might want? In the…” She kissed her fingertip in thought. “The grand sense?”

Calcanish laughed. “Of course I do! Whenever he has an idea, the bastard writes a book.”

She laughed, too. “That’s true, he does, doesn’t he?”

“He’s laid it all out. He wants to walk us up to the very edge of war, to the moment when everyone’s clawing around for any other choice. When war seems inevitable, Farrier will leap onto the stage and reveal some digusting secret that turns the Oriati against each other—”

“Like what?”

“Does it matter? As the Oriati turn on each other, Farrier will offer his support to the pro-Falcrest faction; that is, Kindalana’s faction. Money. Roads. Development of their territory. Schools and ideas. Ships, even—I shouldn’t expect our navy to escape his control. He’ll do to Oriati Mbo exactly what he’s done to Sousward and Aurdwynn and all the rest.” Calcanish bit his fork too hard. A ferocious pain screwed up his face, a pain very much like hate. “Of course his protégés will take the blame for his crimes. He always uses them up, drives them mad, and casts them aside. I expect he already has his Baru woman luring the warhawk admirals to the drowning-stone—”

Aminata choked on a chicken bone. She tried to cough it out in polite silence. Calcanish was not deceived: in an instant he was at her side, arms round her, pulling hard into her gut. She spat the bone into her napkin.

“You mean,” she rasped, “Baru’s trying to purge the navy?”

“Are you all right?”

“She’s on a mission to cause, and then destroy, a navy mutiny?”

“Well, I imagine so.” He touched her throat solicitously, probing for lumps, his fingers precise and strong. “Farrier would need the navy under his control.”

Yes. He would need to be rid of the women Aminata admired most.

Oh, Baru, no. Was that why she had written a letter to Aminata? To invite her into the honeypot?

Aminata threw her whiskey down her bone-cut throat. It made terrible sense. Baru had already betrayed the navy once. Why stop there? Why not help arrange a purge? If she did it in service of the Emperor, who could blame her? And she could get rid of Ormsment, who probably had a grudge against her for Welthony Harbor.…