“I do not,” Governor Love said, calmly. Baru saw the way he clasped his hands in decision. He was a quick thinker, canny under pressure. She would need to win him over. “I understand nothing. I know nothing of a mutiny, and I have only acted to honor my diplomatic obligations. The Kyprists of Kyprananoke are loyal allies of the Emperor and Its Republic. I want that on record, please. You, there, will you record that? Thank you.”

Something hammered at Juris Ormsment’s bones. A rhythm like a war drum, calling her to violence. Baru could see it, and it made her want to hide.

The traitor-admiral saluted Shao Lune, calmly and elegantly. “Thank you for carrying out your duties, Staff Captain. You’ve briefed Baru on my riddle. That saves me a little work.” Her eyes came back to Baru. “Yes. It’s the riddle about the ministers and the antidote. Three ministers taste poison; one lowly secretary has a dose of antidote. Each minister demands the antidote, threatening the secretary with blackmail, sterility, or violence. The riddle is, whose power wins? Which threat compels the secretary to obey? I’m very curious, Baru, for your answer.”

Baru had actually come up with a very good answer: the only correct answer, she thought, the pithing needle which pierced the riddle and found the truth within.

The entire riddle was an Imperial trap. It put the question of power upon the actors trapped in the poisoned dinner: it set them against each other, these ministers and secretaries, and asked which of them held the “true” power. And so it concealed the agency which had arranged for these ministers to be poisoned in a room with one bottle of antidote. It distracted responsibility from the one who had arranged the scenario of the riddle.

Power was not the province of those who made choices. Power was the ability to set the context in which choices were made.

“May I taste the whiskey?” she asked. “I’ve heard prisoners ask for City Fire as their last request.”

Ormsment looked at the priceless bottle in her hand. She thought for a moment. Then she hawked and spat down the neck of the bottle, and the Grendlake City Fire was ruined.

“Fuck you,” she said, and offered the bottle.

Tau-indi sighed in disappointment.

“What a waste,” Baru said.

“Like the death of good sailors.”

“No,” Baru said, moved to viciousness, “the whiskey never vowed to die for the Republic—”