The Shining Ones (21 page)

‘Please, Khalad, don’t try to be clever. Just get to the point.’

‘Yes, my Lord. If that’s west, then why’s the sun going down over there?’ He turned and pointed off toward the left, where an angry orange glow stained the clouds.

Sparhawk blinked, and then he muttered an oath. ‘Let’s go talk to Vanion,’ he said, and led the way back across the camp to where the Pandion Preceptor was speaking with Sephrenia.

‘We’ve got a problem,’ Sparhawk told them. ‘We made a wrong turn somewhere today.’

‘Are you still riding that tired horse, Khalad?’ Vanion’s tone was irritable. His conversation with Sephrenia had obviously not been going well.

‘Our young friend here just pointed something out to me,’ Sparhawk said, ‘…speaking slowly, of course, because of my limited understanding. He says that unless somebody’s moved the sun, we’ve been riding north all day.’

‘That’s impossible.’

Sparhawk turned and pointed toward the ugly orange
glow on the horizon. ‘That’s
not
the direction we came from, Vanion.’

Vanion stared at the horizon for a moment, and then he started to swear.

‘You wouldn’t listen to me, would you?’ Sephrenia accused. ‘
Now
will you believe me when I tell you that the Delphae will deceive you at every turn?’

‘It was our
own
mistake, Sephrenia – well, mine, anyway. We can’t just automatically blame the Delphae for everything that goes wrong.’

‘I’ve known you since you were a boy, Vanion, and you’ve never made this kind of mistake before. I’ve seen you find your way on a dark night in the middle of a snowstorm.’

‘I must have confused a couple of landmarks and taken my bearings on the wrong one.’ Vanion grimaced. ‘Thanks for being so polite about it, Khalad – and so patient. We could have ridden on until we ran into the polar ice. I tend to get pig-headed sometimes.’

Sephrenia smiled fondly at him. ‘I much prefer to speak of your singleness of purpose, dear one,’ she told him.

‘It means the same thing, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, but it sounds nicer.’

‘Set out some markers, Khalad,’ Vanion instructed. He looked around. There aren’t any sticks lying around, so pile up heaps of rock and mark them with scraps of colored cloth. Let’s get an absolute reference on the position of the sun this evening so that we don’t make the same mistake again tomorrow morning.’

‘I’ll take care of it, my Lord.’

‘They’re back,’ Kalten said, roughly shaking Sparhawk awake.

‘Who’s back?’ Sparhawk sat up.

‘Your glowing friends. They want to talk with you again.’

Sparhawk rose to his feet and followed his friend to the edge of the camp.

‘I was standing watch,’ Kalten said quietly, ‘and they just appeared out of nowhere. Itagne’s stories are entertaining enough, but I don’t think they’re all that accurate. The Shining Ones don’t shine all the time. They crept up on me in the dark, and they didn’t start to glow until they were in place.’

‘Are they still staying back a ways?’

Kalten nodded. ‘They’re keeping their distance. There’s no way we could rush them.’

There was no fog this time, and there were only two of the Shining Ones standing about twenty yards from the picketed horses. The eerie glow emanating from them still blurred their features, however.

‘Thy peril increases, Anakha,’ that same hollow, echoing voice declared. ‘Thine enemies are seeking thee up and down in the land.’

‘We haven’t seen anyone, neighbor.’

‘It is the unseen enemy which is most perilous. It is with their minds that thine enemies seek thee. We urge thee to accept our offer of sanctuary. It may soon be too late.’

‘I wouldn’t offend you for the world, neighbor, but we’ve only got your word for this unseen danger, and I think you may be exaggerating a bit. You said that Bhelliom’s directing my steps, and Bhelliom has unlimited power. I’ve tested that myself a few times. Thanks for your concern, but I still think I can take care of myself and my friends.’ He paused a moment and then plunged ahead on an impulse. ‘Why don’t we just cut across all this polite chit-chat? You’ve already admitted to a certain self-interest here. Why don’t you come right out and tell me what you want and what you’re
prepared to offer in exchange? That might give us a basis for negotiation.’

‘Your charm’s positively blinding, Sparhawk,’ Kalten muttered.

‘We will consider thy proposal, Anakha.’ The echoing voice was cold.

‘Do that. Oh, one other thing, neighbor. Stop tampering with our direction. Deceit and trickery at the outset always seem to get negotiations off on the wrong foot.’

The glowing Delphae did not respond, but receded back into the desert and slipped out of sight.

‘Then you
do
believe me, don’t you, Sparhawk?’ Sephrenia said from just behind the two knights. ‘You realize how unprincipled and dishonest those creatures are.’

‘Let’s just say that I’m keeping an open mind on the subject, little mother. You were absolutely right about what you said earlier, though. We could blindfold Vanion, spin him around in circles for a day or so, and he’d still come out pointing due north.’ He looked around. ‘Is everybody awake? I think we’d better start considering options.’

They returned to the place where their beds were laid out on the hard, uncomfortable gravel. ‘You’re really very clever, Sparhawk,’ Bevier said. ‘The fact that our visitors didn’t deny that accusation you pulled out of the air suggests that Sephrenia’s been right about them all along. They
have
been misdirecting us.’

‘That doesn’t alter the fact that the Cyrgai are out there,’ Ulath reminded him, ‘and the Cyrgai are definitely our enemies. We may not know what the Delphae are really up to, but they ran off the Cyrgai for us last night, and that sort of inclines me to like them.’

‘Could that have been some sort of collusion?’ Berit asked.

‘That’s very unlikely,’ Itagne said. ‘The Cyrgai
traditionally have a sublime belief that they’re the crown of creation. They’d never agree to any ruse that put them in a subservient position – not even for the sake of appearances. It’s just not in their racial make-up.’

‘He’s right,’ Sephrenia agreed, ‘and even though I hate to admit it, an alliance of that sort would be totally out of character for the Delphae as well. There could be no common ground between them and the Cyrgai. I don’t know what the Delphae are doing in this business, but they have their own agenda. They wouldn’t be cat’s paws for anyone else.’

‘Wonderful,’ Talen said sardonically, ‘now we’ve got
two
enemies to worry about.’

‘Why worry at all?’ Kalten shrugged. ‘Bhelliom can put us down on the outskirts of Matherion in the space between two heartbeats. Why don’t we just go away and leave the Cyrgai and the Delphae here in this wasteland to resolve their differences without us?’

‘No,’ Sephrenia said.

‘Why not?’

‘Because the Delphae have misdirected us already. We
don’t
want to go to Delphaeus.’

‘They’re not going to be able to fool the Bhelliom, Sephrenia,’ Vanion disagreed. ‘They might have been able to confuse
me,
but Bhelliom’s an entirely different matter.’

‘I don’t think we can take that chance, dear one. The Delphae want something from Sparhawk, and it’s obviously going to involve Bhelliom. Let’s not deliver them both into Delphaeic hands. I know that it’s tedious and dangerous, but let’s keep our feet on the ground. Bhelliom moves through a vast emptiness. If the Delphae can deceive it, we could come out of that emptiness almost any place.’

‘What’s an eclogue?’ Talen asked. They were riding toward what they hoped was the east the following morning, and Itagne was continuing his rambling discourse on Delphaeic literature.

‘It’s a sort of primitive drama,’ he replied. ‘It usually involves a meeting between two shepherds. They stand around discussing philosophy in bad verse.’

‘I’ve known a few sheep-herders,’ Khalad said, ‘and philosophy wasn’t their usual topic of conversation. They’re far more interested in women.’

‘There’s some of that involved in eclogues as well, but it’s so idealized that it’s hardly recognizable.’ Itagne tugged thoughtfully at one earlobe. ‘I think it’s some sort of disease,’ he mused. ‘The more civilized people become, the more they romanticize the simple bucolic life and ignore the dirt and grinding toil involved. Our sillier poets grow all weepy-eyed about shepherds – and shepherdesses, of course. It wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without the shepherdesses. The aristocracy periodically becomes enamored of the pastoral tradition, and they go to great lengths to act out their fantasies. Emperor Sarabian’s father even went so far as to have an idealized sheep-farm built down near Saranth. He and his court used to go there in the summer-time and spend months pretending to watch over flocks of badly over-fed sheep. Their rude smocks and kirtles were made of velvet and satin, and they’d sit around all moony-eyed composing bad verse and ignoring the fact that their sheep were wandering off in all directions.’ He leaned back in his saddle. ‘Pastoral literature doesn’t really hurt anything. It’s silly and grossly oversentimental, and the poets who become addicted to it tend to be a bit heavy-handed when they ladle on the moral lessons. That’s always been the problem with literature – finding a justification for it. It really doesn’t serve any practical purpose, you know.’

‘Except that life without it would be sterile and empty,’ Bevier asserted.

‘It would indeed, Sir Bevier,’ Itagne agreed. ‘Anyway, Delphaeic literature – which probably doesn’t have anything at all to do with the real Delphae – grew up around these ridiculous literary conventions, but after several centuries of that nonsense, the potentials of the pastoral tradition had been pretty much exhausted, so our poets began to wander afield – like untended sheep, if I may extend the metaphor. Sometime during the last century, they began to posit the notion that the Delphae practice a non-Styric form of magic. That
really
upsets my Styric colleagues at the university.’ Itagne looked back over his shoulder to make sure that Sephrenia, who still rode in the rear with Berit, was out of earshot. ‘Many people find something fundamentally irritating about Styrics. The pudding of smug superiority and accusatory self-pity doesn’t cook up very well, and the favorite form of Styric-baiting on the university campus is to mention “Delphaeic magic” to a Styric and then watch him go up in flames.’

‘Can you think of anything at all that might explain Sephrenia’s reaction to the Delphae?’ Vanion asked with troubled eyes. ‘I’ve never seen her behave this way before.’

‘I really don’t know Lady Sephrenia that well, Lord Vanion, but her explosion the first time I mentioned Delphaeic literature provides some clues. There’s a very brief passage in “Xadane” that hints that the Delphae were allied with the Styrics during the war that was supposed to have exterminated the Cyrgai. The passage was clearly based on a very obscure section in a seventhcentury historical text. There’s mention of a betrayal and not much more. Evidently, when their war with the Cyrgai began, the Styrics contacted the Delphae and tricked them into mounting an attack on the Cyrgai from
the east. They promised aid and all manner of other inducements, but when the Cyrgai counter-attacked and began to over-run the Delphae, the Styrics chose to renege on their promises. The Delphae were almost exterminated. The Styrics have been wriggling and squirming for eons trying to justify that blatant breach of faith. There are many people in the world who don’t like Styrics, and they’ve used that betrayal as a vehicle for their bigotry. Styrics quite understandably don’t care much for the literature.’ He looked pensively out across the featureless desert. ‘One of the less attractive aspects of human nature is our tendency to hate the people we haven’t treated very well. That’s much easier than accepting guilt. If we can convince ourselves that the people we betrayed or enslaved were sub-human monsters in the first place, then our guilt isn’t nearly as black as we secretly know that it is. Humans are very, very good at shifting blame and avoiding guilt. We
do
like to keep a good opinion of ourselves, don’t we?’

‘I think it would take more than that to set Sephrenia off,’ Vanion said dubiously. ‘She’s too sensible to catch on fire just because somebody says unflattering things about Styrics. She’s spent several hundred years in the Elene kingdoms of Eosia, and anti-Styric prejudice there goes far beyond literary insults.’ He sighed. ‘If she’d only
talk
to me about it. I can’t get anything coherent out of her, though. All she does is splutter wild denunciations. I don’t understand at all.’

Sparhawk, however, had at least some slight inkling of what was happening. Aphrael had hinted that Sephrenia was going to encounter something extraordinarily painful, and it was growing increasingly obvious that the Delphae would be the cause of her pain. Aphrael had said that Sephrenia’s suffering would be necessary as a prelude to some kind of growth. Itagne, who really didn’t know any of them that well, may have
hit upon something very relevant. Sephrenia was Styric to her fingertips, and the acceptance of racial guilt for an eons-old misbehavior would cause her the exact kind of pain Aphrael had so sorrowfully described. Sephrenia, however, would not be the only one who would suffer. Vanion had said that Sephrenia’s problems were also his. Unfortunately, the same held true of her pain.

Sparhawk rode on across the desolate waste, his thoughts as bleak as the surroundings.

Kring looked pensively out across the lawn. ‘It came on me like a madness, Atan Engessa,’ he told his towering friend. ‘From the moment I first saw her, I couldn’t think of anything else.’ The two were standing in the shadows near the Ministry of the Interior.

‘You are fortunate, friend Kring,’ Engessa replied in his deep, soft voice. ‘Most men’s lives are never touched by such love.’

Kring smiled a bit wryly. ‘I’m sure my life would be much easier if it hadn’t touched mine.’

‘Do you regret it?’

‘Not for a moment. I’d thought that my life was full. I was the Domi of my people and I’d assumed that my mother would find me a suitable wife in due time, as is customary and proper. I’d have married and fathered sons, and that would have satisfied the requirements. Then I saw Mirtai, and I realized how empty my life had been before.’ He rubbed one hand over his shaved scalp. ‘My people will have a great deal of trouble with her, I’m afraid. She’s like no other woman we’ve ever encountered. It wouldn’t be so difficult if I weren’t the Domi.’

‘She might not have accepted you if you hadn’t been, friend Kring. Mirtai is a proud woman. She was meant to be the wife of a ruler.’

‘I know. I wouldn’t have dared to approach her if I hadn’t been Domi. There’ll be trouble, though. I can see that coming. She’s a stranger, and she’s not at all like Peloi women. Status is very important to our women, and Mirtai’s of a different race, she’s taller than even
the tallest of the Peloi men, and she’s more beautiful than any other woman I’ve ever seen. Just by themselves, those things would shrivel the hearts of Peloi women. You saw how Tikume’s wife Vida looked at her, didn’t you?’

Engessa nodded.

‘The women of
my
people will hate her all the more because I am
their
Domi. She will be Doma, the Domi’s wife, and she’ll have first place among the women. To make matters even worse, she’ll be one of the wealthiest of all the Peloi.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’ve done quite well. My herds have increased, and I’ve stolen much. All my wealth will belong to her. She’ll own vast herds of sheep and cattle. The horse herds will still be mine, though.’

‘Is that the Peloi custom?’

‘Oh, yes. Sheep and cattle are food, so they belong to the women. The women also own the tents and the beds and the wagons. The gold we get from the king for Zemoch ears is owned by all the people in common, so about the only thing we Peloi men own are our weapons and our horses. When you get right down to it, the women own everything, and we spend our lives protecting their possessions.’

‘You have a strange society, friend Kring.’

Kring shrugged. ‘A man shouldn’t have his mind all cluttered with possessions. It distracts him when the time comes for fighting.’

‘There’s wisdom there, my friend. Who holds your possessions until you marry?’

‘My mother. She’s a sensible woman, and having a daughter like Mirtai will increase her status enormously. She has a great deal of authority among the Peloi women, and I’m hoping she’ll be able to keep matters under control – at least among my sisters.’ He laughed.
‘I’m going to enjoy watching the faces of my sisters when I introduce them to Mirtai and they have to bow to her. I’m not really fond of them. They all pray for my death every night.’

‘Your own
sisters?’
Engessa sounded shocked.

‘Of course. If I die before I’m married, everything I’ve won becomes the property of my mother, and my sisters will inherit all of it. They already think of themselves as women of property. They’ve turned down perfectly acceptable suitors because of their pride of position and the wealth they think they’ll inherit. I’ve been too busy making war to think much about marriage, and every year that passed made my sisters feel that their ownership of the herds was that much more secure.’ He grinned. ‘Mirtai’s sudden appearance is going to upset them terribly, I’m afraid. One of the customs of our people obliges a bride-to-be to spend two months in the tent of her betrothed’s mother – learning all the little things she’ll need to know about him after they’re married. During that period my mother and Mirtai will
also
select husbands for all my sisters. It’s not a good idea to have too many women in one tent. That will
really
upset my sisters. I expect they’ll try to murder Mirtai. I’ll warn them against it, of course,’ he added piously. ‘I
am
their brother, after all. But I’m sure they won’t listen – at least not until after Mirtai’s killed a few of them. I’ve got too many sisters anyway.’

‘How many?’ Engessa asked him.

‘Eight. Their status will change drastically once I marry. Right now they’re all heiresses. After my wedding, they’ll be possessionless spinsters, dependent on Mirtai for every crust of bread they eat. I think they’ll bitterly regret all the suitors they’ve refused at that point. Is that somebody creeping through the shadows over by the wall?’

Engessa looked toward the Interior Ministry. ‘It seems
to be,’ he replied. ‘Let’s go ask him his business. We don’t really want anybody going inside that building while Atana Mirtai and the thieves are in there.’

‘Right,’ Kring agreed. He loosened his saber in its sheath, and the oddly mismatched pair moved silently across the lawn to intercept the furtive shadow near the wall.

‘How far is it from here to Tega, Sarabian?’ Ehlana asked, looking up from Sparhawk’s letter. ‘In a direct line, I mean?’

Sarabian had removed his doublet, and he really looked quite dashing in his tight-fitting hose and full-sleeved linen shirt. He had tied back his shoulder-length black hair, and he was practicing lunges with his rapier, aiming at a golden bracelet hanging from the ceiling on a long string. ‘About a hundred and fifty leagues, wouldn’t you say, Oscagne?’ he replied, contorting his body into
en garde
position. He lunged and caught the rim of the bracelet with the point of his rapier, sending the bracelet spinning and swinging on the string. ‘Blast!’ he muttered.

‘Perhaps closer to a hundred and seventy-five, your Majesty,’ Oscagne corrected.

‘Could it
really
be raining there?’ Ehlana asked. ‘The weather’s been beautiful here. A hundred and seventy-five leagues isn’t really all that far, and Sparhawk says right here that it’s been raining on Tega for the past week.’

‘Who can say what the weather’s going to do?’ Sarabian lunged again, and his rapier passed smoothly through the bracelet.

‘Well thrust,’ Ehlana said a bit absently.

‘Thank you, your Majesty.’ Sarabian bowed, flourishing his rapier. ‘This is really fun, you know that?’ He crouched melodramatically. ‘Have at you, dog!’ He
lunged at the bracelet again, missing by several inches. ‘Blast.’

‘Alean, dear,’ Ehlana said to her maid, ‘would you go see if the sailor who brought this letter is still on the premises?’

‘At once, my Queen.’

Sarabian looked inquiringly at his hostess.

‘The sailor just came from Tega. I think I’d like to hear
his
views on the weather there.’

‘Surely you don’t think your husband would lie to your Majesty, do you?’ Oscagne protested.

‘Why not? I’d lie to
him
if there was a valid political reason for it.’

‘
Ehlana!’
Sarabian sounded profoundly shocked. ‘I thought you loved Sparhawk.’

‘What on earth has that got to do with it? Of course I love him. I’ve loved him since I was about Danae’s age, but love and politics are two entirely different things, and they should never be mixed. Sparhawk’s up to something, Sarabian, and your excellent foreign minister here probably knows what it is.’

‘Me?’ Oscagne protested mildly.

‘Yes, you. Mermaids, Oscagne?
Mermaids?
You didn’t
really
think I’d swallow that story, did you? I’m just a bit disappointed in you, actually. Was that the best you could come up with?’

‘I was a bit pressed for time, your Majesty,’ he apologized with a slightly embarrassed look. ‘Prince Sparhawk was in a hurry to leave. Was it the weather that gave us away?’

‘Partly,’ she replied. She held up the letter. ‘My beloved outsmarted himself, though. I’ve seen his letters before. The notion of “felicity of style” has never occurred to Sparhawk. His letters usually read as if he’d written them with his broadsword. This one – and all the others from Tega – have been polished until they
glisten. I’m touched that he went to all the trouble, but I don’t believe one word of them. Now then, where is he? And what’s he really up to?’

‘He wouldn’t say, your Majesty. All he told me was that he needed some excuse to be away from Matherion for several weeks.’

She smiled sweetly at him. ‘That’s all right, Oscagne,’ she said. ‘I’ll find out for myself. It’s more fun that way anyhow.’

‘It’s a big building,’ Stragen reported the following morning. ‘It’s going to take time to go over it inch by inch.’ He, Caalador and Mirtai had just returned from their night of unsuccessful burglary.

‘Have you made much progress?’ Sarabian asked.

‘We’ve covered the top two floors, your Majesty,’ Caalador replied. ‘We’ll start on the third floor tonight.’ Caalador was sprawled in a chair with a weary look on his face. Like his two companions, he was still dressed in tight-fitting black clothing. He stretched and yawned. ‘God, I’m tired,’ he said. ‘I’m getting too old for this.’

Stragen unrolled a time-yellowed set of drawings. ‘I
still
think that the answer’s right here,’ he said. ‘Instead of opening doors and poking under desks, we should be matching dimensions against these drawings.’

‘Yer still a-thankin’ there’s sekert passages an’ cornsealed rooms in thar, ain’t ya, Stragen?’ Caalador drawled, yawning again. ‘That doesn’t speak too well for your taste in literature, old boy.’

Sarabian gave him a puzzled look.

‘Thalesians are addicted to bad ghost stories, your Majesty,’ Caalador explained.

‘It gives the copying-houses in Emsat something to do now that they’ve exhausted the body of real literature.’ Stragen shrugged. ‘We’ve got a whole sub-genre of highly popular books spewing out of grubby garrets on
back streets – lurid narratives which all take place in cemeteries or in haunted houses on dark and stormy nights. The whores of Emsat absolutely adore them. I rather expect the policemen at Interior share that taste. After all, a policeman’s sort of like a whore, isn’t he?’

‘I didn’t exactly follow that,’ Mirtai said, ‘and I’m not really sure I want to. There’s probably something disgusting involved in your thinking, Stragen. Caalador,
will
you stop yawning like that. Your face looks like an open barn-door.’

‘I’m sleepy, little dorlin’. You two bin a-keepin’ me up past muh bedtime.’

‘Then go to bed. You make my jaws ache when you gape at me like that.’

‘You should
all
get some sleep,’ Ehlana told them. ‘You’re the official royal burglars now, and Sarabian and I would be absolutely mortified if you were to fall asleep in mid-burgle.’

‘Are we ready to be practical about this?’ Caalador asked, rising to his feet. ‘I can have two dozen professionals here by this evening, and we’ll have all the secrets of the Interior Ministry in our hands by tomorrow morning.’

‘And Interior will know that we have them by tomorrow afternoon,’ Stragen added. ‘Our impromptu spy network isn’t really all that secure, Caalador. We haven’t had enough time to weed out all the people Krager’s probably subverted.’

‘There’s no real rush here, gentlemen,’ Ehlana told them. ‘Even if we
do
find the documents the policemen at Interior are hiding, we won’t be able to do a thing about them until my wandering husband finds his way home again.’

‘Why are you so positive that Sparhawk’s deceiving you, Ehlana?’ Sarabian asked her.

‘It’s consistent with his character. Sparhawk’s
devoted his entire life to protecting me. It’s rather sweet, even though it
is
bloody hindering awkward at times. He still thinks of me as a little girl – although I’ve demonstrated to him that I’m not on any number of occasions. He’s out there doing something dangerous, and he doesn’t want me to worry. All he really had to do was tell me what he was planning and then lay out the reasons why he thought it was necessary. I know it’s hard for you men to believe, but women are rational too – and far more practical than you are.’

‘You’re a hard woman, Ehlana,’ Sarabian accused.

‘No, I’m a realist. Sparhawk does what he thinks he has to no matter what I say, and I’ve learned to accept that. The point I’m trying to make is that no matter what we dig out of the walls of the Interior Ministry, there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it while Sparhawk and the others are out there wandering around the countryside. We’re going to disband Interior and throw about a quarter of the Empire’s policemen in prison. Then we’re going to place all of Tamuli under martial law with the Atans enforcing our decrees. The Daresian Continent’s going to look like an ant-hill that’s just been run over by a cavalry charge. I don’t know what Sparhawk’s doing, so I don’t know what kind of impact that chaos is going to have on him. I am
not
going to let you put him in any more danger than I think he’s already in.’

‘Do you know something, Ehlana?’ Sarabian said. ‘You’re even more protective of Sparhawk than he is of you.’

‘Of course I am. That’s what marriage is all about.’

‘None of mine are,’ he sighed.

‘That’s because you’ve got too many wives, Sarabian. Your affection’s dispersed. Your wives each return only as much love as you give them.’

‘I’ve found that it’s safer that way.’

‘But dull, my friend, and sort of boring. Being consumed with a burning passion that only has a single object is very exciting. It’s sort of like living in a volcano.’

‘What an exhausting prospect,’ he shuddered.

‘Fun, though,’ she smiled.

Baroness Melidere had retired early, pleading a painful headache. It was not that she found her duties as Ehlana’s lady-in-waiting onerous, but rather that she had an important decision to make; and she knew that the longer she put it off, the more difficult it would be. To put it rather bluntly, the Baroness had reached the point where she was going to have to decide what she was going to do about Stragen.