“Tut-tut. No second-guessing at this stage of the game.”

The King appeared. He scanned the map. “It’s been two days,” he said. “All this courier traffic has to leave traces. How long before somebody starts adding things up?”

“I know! I know!” Mist snapped. “Pretty soon we’ll have to assume they know. Damn the man! Lord Kuo, I mean. Why doesn’t he move?”

“He hasn’t got them where he wants them yet,” Bragi observed laconically. He considered the map again. “But if he waits much longer, there won’t be anything left for you to take over.”

“Compare the size of the cancer with the whole,” she snarled. Then, “Lord Ch’ien. The time. If he hasn’t moved within fifty hours, I’ll do so myself.”

“In the dark?” the King asked.

“If I have to. I won’t be able to trust my people much longer than that. By then if one defected they’d all stampede.” Wearily, she added, “It would take ten years to put it all together again.”

Aral seated himself beside her while she was talking. He said something meant to be soothing. He tried to take her hand. In front of Lord Ch’ien. She pulled away.

It was time to put paid to this nonsense. She shouldn’t have started it. Fool. Man-weak fool. She’d lost the Tervola once because of Valther. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

She ignored Aral’s look of pain.

Lord Ch’ien hadn’t caught the byplay, she saw, but Bragi had. He was nodding to himself. She felt her cheeks reddening. He didn’t comment, though. He said, “It’s late. I’m going to get some sleep.”

She watched him speak with his captains before leaving. Their continuous presence irked her. They had eyes like hawks. She had to keep them in mind every instant. Damn this having to depend on outsiders!

Her irritation mounted as the hours passed. Her men, too, were tense. They couldn’t speak without snapping at one another. The conspiracy was about to shake itself apart. And still time twisted the springs of tension tighter.

The night churned slowly onward. The red stain of Matayangan invasion seeped across the table. Confused messengers arrived from the far east, their reports only further obscuring the situation there.

“Lord Ch’ien.”

“Princess?”

She tapped the map with the pointer. “Do we dare move while this is happening?”

Lord Ch’ien eyed the east briefly. “I think we can discount it. For the moment. Our people there will keep those forces uninvolved.” The weariness edging his voice made it more husky and hollow than normal. Mist shuddered.

Lord Ch’ien volunteered, “Western Army will be the real worry. I’ve heard that Lord Hsung has an agent in the palace here. By now everybody in this squalid village knows something is happening. The stupidest spy would have sent a message mentioning it.”

“Time. The invincible enemy. Are we going to manage it, old friend? Or will time do us in?”