"Oh, DeWar, Perrund said with an unladylike snort. "What nonsense! That is not style, it's fault! If you play like that it's like fighting with one hand tied behind your back…" She looked down ruefully at the arm in the red sling. "Or one hand wasted," she added, then held up her good hand to him as he went to protest. "Now just you never mind that. Attend to my point. You cannot stop being a bodyguard even when playing a silly game to pass the time with an old concubine while your master dallies with a younger one. You must admit it and be proud — secretly or not, it's equal to me — or I shall be quite thoroughly upset. Now, speak and tell me I'm right."
DeWar sat back, holding both hands out wide in a gesture of defeat. "My lady," he said, "it is just as you say."
Perrund laughed. "Don't give in so easily. Argue."
"I can't. You're right. I am only glad that you think my obsession might be commendable. But it is just as you say. My job is my life, and I am never off-duty. And I never will be until I am dismissed, I fail in my job, or — Providence consign such an eventuality to the distant future — the Protector dies a natural death."
Perrund looked down at the board. "In a ripe old age,
as you say," she agreed before looking up at him again. "And do you still feel you're missing something which might prevent such a natural end?"
DeWar looked awkward. He picked up the Protector piece again and, as though addressing it, in a low voice said, "His life is in more danger than anybody here seems to think. Certainly it is in more danger than he appears to believe." He looked up at the lady Perrund, a small, hesitant smile on his face. "Or am I being too obsessive again?"
"I don't know," Perrund said, sitting closer and dropping her voice too, "why you seem so sure that people want him dead."
"Of course people want him dead," DeWar said. "He had the courage to commit regicide, the temerity to create a new way of governing. The Kings and Dukes who opposed the Protector from the start found him a more skilled politician and far better field commander than they'd expected. With great skill and a little luck he prevailed, and the acclamation of the newly enfranchised in Tassasen has made it difficult for anybody else in the old Kingdom or indeed anywhere in the old Empire to oppose him directly."
"There must be a 'but' or a 'however' about to make its appearance here," Perrund said. "I can tell it."
"Indeed. But there are those who have greeted UrLeyn's coming to power with every possible expression of enthusiasm and who have gone out of their way to support him in most public ways, yet who secretly know that their own existence — or at the very least their own supremacy is threatened by his continued rule. They are the ones I'm worried about, and they must have made their plans for our Protector. The first few attempts at assassination failed, but not by much. And only your bravery stopped the most determined.of them, lady," DeWar said.
Perrund looked away, and her good hand went to touch the withered one. "Yes," she said. "I did tell your predecessor that as I had stepped in to perform his job he ought to do the decent thing and attempt to fulfil mine one day, but he just laughed."
DeWar smiled. "Commander ZeSpiole tells that story himself, still."
"Hmm. Well, perhaps as Commander of the Palace Guard, ZeSpiole does such a good job keeping would-be assassins away from the palace that none ever achieve the sort of proximity that might call for your services."
"Perhaps, but either way they will be back," DeWar said quietly. "I almost wish they had been back by now. The absence of conventional assassins makes me all the more convinced there is some very special assassin here, just waiting for the right time to strike."
Perrund looked troubled, even sad, the man thought. "But come, DeWar," she said, "is this not too gloomily contrary? Perhaps there are no attempts on the Protector's life because no one of moment any longer wishes him dead. Why assume the most depressing explanation? Can you never be, if not relaxed, then content?"
DeWar took a deep breath and then released it. He replaced the Protector piece. "These are not times when people in my profession can relax."
"They say the old days were always better. Do you think so, DeWar?"
"No, lady, I do not." He gazed into her eyes. "I think a lot of nonsense is talked about the old days."
"But, DeWar, they were days of legends, days of heroes!" Perrund said, her expression indicating she was not being entirely serious. "Everything was better, everybody says so!"
"Some of us prefer history to legends, lady," DeWar said heavily, "and sometimes everybody can be wrong."
"Can they?"
"Indeed. Once everybody thought the world was flat."
"Many still do," Perrund said, raising one brow. "Few peasants want to think they might fall out of their fields,
and a lot of us who know the truth find it hard to accept."
"Nevertheless, it is the case." DeWar smiled. "It can be proved."
Perrund smiled too. "With sticks in the ground?"
"And shadows, and mathematics."
Perrund gave a quick, sideways nod. It was a mannerism that seemed to acknowledge and dismiss at the same time. "What a very certain, if rather dismal world you seem to live in, DeWar."
"It is the same world that everyone inhabits, if they but knew, my lady. It's just that only some of us have our eyes open."
Perrund drew in a breath. "Oh! Well, those of us still stumbling around with our eyes tightly shut had best be grateful to people like you then, I should think."
"I'd have thought that you at least, my lady, would have no need of a sighted guide."
"I am just a crippled, ill-educated concubine, DeWar. A poor orphan who might have met a terrible fate if I had not caught the eye of the Protector." She made her withered arm move by flexing her left shoulder towards him. "Sadly I later caught a blow as well as a glance, but I am as glad of one as the other." She paused and DeWar drew a breath to speak, but then she nodded down at the board and said, "Are you going to move, or not?"
DeWar sighed and gestured at the board. "Is there any point, if I am so deficient an adversary?"
"You must play, and play to win even if you know you will probably lose," Perrund told him. "Otherwise you should not have agreed to begin the game in the first place."
"You changed the nature of the game when you informed me of my weakness."
"Ah no, the game was always the same, DeWar," Perrund said, sitting suddenly forward, her eyes seeming to flash as she added with a degree of relish, "I merely opened your eyes to it."
DeWar laughed. "Indeed you did, my lady." He sat forward and went to move his Protector piece, then sat back again and with a despairing gesture said, "No. I concede, my lady. You have won."
There was some commotion amongst the group of concubines nearest to the doors which led into the rest of the harem. In his high pulpit, the chief eunuch Stike wobbled to his feet and bowed to the small figure bustling into the long chamber.
"DeWar!" the Protector UrLeyn called, hauling his jacket on over his shoulders as he strode towards them. "And Perrund! My dear! My darling!"
Perrund stood suddenly, and DeWar watched her face come alive again, the eyes widening, her expression softening and her face blossoming into the most dazzling smile as UrLeyn approached. DeWar stood too, the faintest of hurt expressions vanishing from his face, to be replaced by a relieved smile and a look of professional seriousness.
3. THE DOCTOR