My Hayeel, Your third letter and the book came today. Mother and Naneela loved it, and hope that the princess has not sold out yet. Naneela would like the entire set, and I've just had a note from mother saying that two of her friends are very interested in their own copies of the book, and they expect that anything the princess wishes to send this way will sell very well at about six thousand imperials (assuming the page count is the same). Does that count as sufficient profit margin? Don't (temporarily) impoverish yourself, my Hayeel. While the captain I send this letter with might plan to return to Wahleet before winter, I sent some servants to ask around and his fellow-captains are openly calling him a fool that he plans to make another run in both directions this late in the year, so don't be tempted to send anything with him.

  My Hayeel, I hope this letter reaches you, but if not, I'll tell you myself.

  You write that all you have belongs to me. Do not think that your title comes with no income, nor your role as ambassador, nor that the medicines you sell are from me. The corpse claimed that he had your permission to withdraw your salary for your travel and I believe it is this money that he spent on the medicines. Certainly he did not draw on his own salary. But my Hayeel, I also see from your account that you have only ever sought living expenses in all your time in the civil service. I expect you were told when you started training that the service would cover expenses but there was no salary for trainees, but were you never told you have had a salary from the moment you finished training? I rejoice that the corpse did not know your account was so untouched, or he might have robbed you of more than he did. I hope to travel to see you, my Hayeel, and I will be bringing with me some things that I hope you will be able to make a good profit from. But I will also be bringing a small portion of your wealth. I do this mainly, I think, so that you do not feel you must depend on me. You may choose to depend on me, (though first on God!) but that is different, your choice must not be based upon finances. Especially since you have no staff except your sister, and the state-appointed collector of taxes who draws his income and expenses from your duchy. I have quite a few, and I do not have seventy years of unspent income sitting in my account either. Perhaps one day father or I might even need a loan from you. A thing you may also decide freely, noble Duchess, is to write to the academy on Tesk, and assure them that academician Teng has the support of His Imperial

  majesty, and you may if you choose also assure them of your own support, as probably the wealthiest duchesses of the empire. Perhaps more significant is the support of princess Naneela, who has long enjoyed tinkering with, as you write, metals, acids, and glass tubes. You forgot the wires, there are lots. She is, I think, rightly proud of her latest experiment, and I will be bringing one of her magic boxes of wires and tubes with me. She was fascinated with Teng's results which she thinks shows some kind of reflection happening from the atmosphere, and so I am under strict instructions to try to talk to her on a regular basis. She said ideally every hour, night and day, but I think she was joking. I hope she was, anyway. The team she works with at the Imperial Research Centre do not have the power of the Tesk sender, but they have much better 'listeners' than Teng brought with him, and my clever sister made a thing that lets her mix her voice with the radio signal, so that the listener can hear speech. She promises to show it working from the palace to the research centre tonight, as long as it does not break or get wet. Why does she send one with me on a ship, then? Apparently it is so she can tell you all about my bad habits, when I arrive, and so that she knows I get there without drowning. I think that my parents would not let me risk a sea-voyage to come to meet you if it were not for her and for the prophesy, but amazingly, they have agreed. Assuming, that is, we find a captain with an excellent reputation who doesn't have much of a pre-planned cargo, and doesn't mind playing ferry to a possibly sea-sick prince, body-guard, and team of technicians going to Tesk. My staff are at the port every day, annoying the harbour master and fervently praying that they don't get chosen to come. One of them has asked my permission to have time off to get married in three weeks time (i.e. hopefully after I've left). I asked him who to, and he replied 'I'll find someone, highness, just don't ask me to go on the ship!' I reminded him I make it a policy to talk to prospective spouses, before granting leave and he promised he'd look harder.

  What else can I tell you that I might guess you don't know? Let me think. As a duchess from outside the central zone, it is not socially necessary for you to have a lady in waiting, but you certainly may have any number of them if you find that useful. Some duchesses ask a friend to act as their lady in waiting when they visit the central zone, and rejoice at ending the pretence when they come to visit mother. Oh — you may not know it, but the royal family live in the region known as the heart of the empire, which is not at all in the central zone. It is perhaps a safer version of the outer zones.

  Your domain has ten counts or countesses in it, who derive much of their income from the main trade of your duchy other than agriculture: carpets. You know that Repink carpets are among the best quality, don't you? As duchess you may enact laws in your domain, as long as they do not contradict any national laws. The rule is that a social change agreed to by those residents it directly affects is not a social change. Thus, for instance, if the slave owners and slaves in your domain requested a ban on slavery, then you could enact a law that forbade the sale of slaves and said any slave in your domain could claim their freedom after being there ten days (the time limit meaning that you're not interrupting transit). There are not many slave owners in your domain, so that might actually be possible. The barons employ free workers who, as expert craftsmen, receive a good wage, and most of the land of your domain is owned by small land-owners. The reason for that is one of your forefathers listened to the one or two large land-owners in the domain who feared that some of their poor neighbours would be tempted to sell up to their barons, and enacted a law that forbade large land-owners from merging tax records, and made them liable for their employee's taxes as well as their own. On hearing that their duchess had been reduced to slavery, (and not believing her guilt) the few people of your domain who owned slaves were horrified at the thought that they or a descendant might accidentally own her or one of her children, and freed their slaves, and thus it became the action of a social outcast to own slaves in Repink duchy. There are some, of course. I visited your ancestral home last week. One small portion of it is occupied by the tax collector and his family, the rest didn't look especially habitable from the outside (broken windows, and a partly collapsed roof), so I don't really have any suggestions what you might want to do with it. You could obviously have it repaired if you wished, or leave the decision to whoever is duchess after you. In the event that we do marry, my Hayeel, as I believe the prophesy says we must eventually, there is a very very long-standing tradition that someone with a title who marries a higher noble leaves half their financial wealth with the title. Exactly half, plus, to the children of the new title-holder, one coin that is best suited to your new financial status per child living at the time of the marriage (you may of course give corresponding gifts to any born later). Considering half your current wealth, well, where are no coins I know that have the weight of a brick, so if we marry, tradition says your sister's children will have to be satisfied with a golden five-hundred. I am glad, my Hayeel, that I am not short of money nor interested in gaining more of it through a marriage, and so I do not feel that my feelings for you will in any way be influenced by the size of your bank account. I will, though, be very disappointed if it changes you. My head says it might, my heart refuses to believe it of you.

  The prophesy is clear, though I don't know or understand why it is so clear, why does us marrying matter to the fate of the world? Surely God's plans are not so fragile? Nor do I like the threat that is implied in the prophecy, that something will happen to father and I will inherit his throne before the cloud poses a threat. The prophecy gives rise to many strange fears in me, Hayeel. Why should I think to reject you? Did the corpse in an outburst of anger somehow cripple you or mar the beauty I saw? Do you have an incredibly irritating voice? No one has said you do. Or should I let a conversation with someone some months ago reassure me, as he expressed his thoughts that it would be unkind to raise someone born into slavery to the nobility, where there was the risk of back-talk, subtle or unsubtle insults and disdain from other nobles or indeed from servants. Is it that unholy thought that the prophecy is supposed to protect me from? I hope it would not affect me one bit.

  Just a few weeks, (perhaps of sea sickness), and we can talk of hopes, fears (what fears we rightly have!) and dreams. Is it right to have dreams as we face possible extinction? Should we decide to try to avoid bringing children into the world until the danger is past? How will the danger pass? And when? If Teng is correct it will last our most of our lifetimes, will it not? I think it would be presuming on God's grace to wait forty-five years and then expect any heirs!

  How I long to have the comfort of actually talking to you about these thoughts and fears, hearing you laughing at them, and then praying about them together. My sister is a good one for laughing at my fears, but she has her own. It is not easy for her, I think. She does not really fit in to the research community, because she is employer and princess. She does not fit into the nobility's social expectations because — I guess somewhat like Esmetherelda — she does not fit their expectations of a princess. I have often wondered if it would be different if she was on Tesk, but having seen her work compared to that on Tesk, it seems to me as an ignorant outsider that her work is so far ahead of that on Tesk that it would be an insult to ask her to go there. Teng spoke about the researchers on Tesk getting side-tracked. Probably that is so. My sister's modification to the sender was considered by some a side-track, so much so that she had to bully them financially before they would try it.

  I remember hearing her talking about it at the time, and thinking that if I were her I would have said that God had laid it on my heart that this was important, she felt so certain that it must be tried. They listened only when she threatened to withdraw her funding if they did not at least try, a step that caused her much pain and broke relationships. She would have done it, but it would have made her weep. Hopefully, now that they see it working, and understand the need to collaborate with Tesk, those relationships will heal. One of the worst things for her was that the man she had felt closest to was one of the most hard-line in opposing her. She had admired his dedication, but she found in this incident that his dedication was stubbornness, so that relationship will probably never return to how it was looking previously. Perhaps this is also God's grace at work, as he's never shown any faith, as far as I know.

  Salay

  My prince, plans change. Most of the contingent from Tesk leave today, they are just packing their bags, and will miss the wedding. A few are staying a few more days. Yanesa, daughter of the priestess will travel at the same time as her mother and the other prisoners, and with her will go pastor Alek, who is also count Ralek of Renet, his daughter Ada, and princess Velania who is also countess of Vansk and baroness of Sesith. Apparently having multiple titles is not unusual around here. They all came for a wedding, but instead witnessed the first nobles of Tesk taking vows to defend their country from the doom-guard in a long long time. They return knowing there will be bloodshed, and hoping it will be all on the side of the followers of that evil cult.

  I realise that I've no idea if you know how I'm familiar with dum-semb. Did my late husband-in-name write about what we faced on the way here? Have the soldiers returned and made their report? My training was the same as that of most — The treaty of all nations was mentioned as unique — hence its name — and it was said that in the outer provinces there were still outbreaks of the religion it proscribed. But I did not know the marks or the features of the religion. There, my husband-in-name did very will, my prince. He warned me, prepared me, educated me about the cult, as we crossed the mountains. It was not just, something to talk about, but it was one of the few areas that he knew more of than I. Early in his career he had been posted in an outer province, and had to learn for that posting, and he knew we would be passing an area known for the evil. His preparation was not in vain. As we rounded a hill towards one village, I forget its name, we caught the sound of a scream cut off, coming from a secluded valley, off the road. My husband-in-name did his duty and ordered the soldiers to investigate, warning them that it might just be someone disciplining a slave, but it might be a human sacrifice. It was the latter. The victim had been a slave, and a priest of evil had just completed the initiation of two acolytes. The priest was a local judge, the acolytes a senior administrator and a lawyer. My husband-in-name showed me and the soldiers the tattoos that marked the priest, that he had spoken of, those of the acolytes were still bleeding.

  As the only woman present, I had the task of checking all the women of the village. Another ten male acolytes and a female novice were found, and executed. So it was that I recognised the two spots on the shoulder of the priestess of Tesk, and so it was that I listened to her thoughts as she was telling her daughter what a fool she was for telling her to get out of politics. Politics had not corrupted her, she was busily corrupting it. Her daughter guessed, that the stories her mother had told her might have something to do with what she'd done, but her guess was far enough off that had I not seen the tattoo marks and been there, she might have been able to laugh it off as she'd planned.

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  But I was there, and I had seen enough in her thoughts to accuse her of being part of dum-semb. Her thoughts confirmed it. So do not think entirely unkindly about the man called my late husband-in-name, my prince. He prepared me well to unmask this evil.

  Even now, the war-flags and signals of Caneth are sending their warning to the borders of Tew: Tesk army and politics overrun with doom-guard religion, and overland messengers will follow, carrying letters to the young queen. The new high council have asked for a week. Three days to prepare people, one day of rest, when the intention is that churches will for once preach a clear message about rejecting evil and lies, and accepting grace. On the next day, nobles will issue warrants requiring army officers to present themselves to the high council, the prisoners ought to arrive and their trials begin.

  Three days after, the. navies of Caneth, the Isles and hopefully Tew will demand a report from the high council, and begin a bombardment, destroying the military headquarters and parliament and if they do not receive it. Tesk's harbour has no defences, nor naval vessels. A strange state for an island, but Tesk did not dare to pick a fight with the Isles, and in any case, it does not have the wood to build a navy, metals for guns or money to buy either. Why, you might ask, did it not face invasion or military take-over?

  The propaganda on Tesk said that it was because of their strong army. The reality is that (a) no one in their right mind would want to try, since it has nothing much of value except the academy, and (b) he Isles saw it as a rebellious child who would come to its senses eventually as long as they didn't provoke it, and the other nations knew that picking a fight with Tesk meant picking a fight with their piratical protectors. I don't think I explained that 'piratical' term last time I said that, did I?

  Hal explained it to me like this: the Isles rely on trade. In the event of an armed conflict, the law of the Isles says that enemy shipping — particularly merchant shipping — can be, no should be intercepted at sea to ensure that the populace of the Isles do not suffer. So if, say, Tew warships start shooting at Isles ships then it becomes the civic duty of every merchant ship of the Isles to look around for Tew merchantmen and if the Tew merchants are feeling friendly then they can swap their cargo for barrels of eels or wine, or whatever else the Isles ship wants to trade, but if the Tew merchant wants to keep their cargo, or for some reason the Isles ship accidentally left home with no trade goods, or has already traded them, then it becomes the duty of the Isles ship to assess whether they can force the Tew ship to stop, with their cannons if necessary, and then relieve them of whatever cargo they might happen to have. Maybe even relieving them of their ship too. The enemy sailors are said to have been be treated well the last time this happened, but I wonder if that was all of them or only the ones who accepted the invitation to a new home on one of the Isles.

  Esme explained it like this: The captains of the Isles are a group of civilised pirates who know that it upsets the neighbours if you go robbing their ships at cannon-point, so most of the time they pretend that they're honest traders. Going along with this pretence is good policy, because if you don't then things might turn nasty for your ships. But, she pointed out, while most navies include practice in stop and search procedures, only the Isles gunners regularly practice shooting down masts and blowing rudders off, while singing songs about buried treasure and making the enemy walk the plank. Hal replies that they're just folk songs. 'About being pirates,' she replies, and Hal gives her courtly bow, kisses her hand and pretends to pull a coin from behind her ear, matching the actions of a courtly pirate in a children's story.

  The sea-going peoples of the Isles are not pirates, my prince, because pirates are thieves and murderers who count life as of no value. As I've written, the people of the Isles are strong believers, who value life, know the risks of going to sea without checking on the weather, and try to avoid risks. But they have a reputation of fighting skill that does them very little harm and some good, and they play to it when it suits them. Not all people on the isles go to sea. The marshlander fishermen actually make up the majority of the population, and when the winter storms pass the population huddle in their homes, tell tales of storms and pirates and the evils of the doom-guard, sing songs, praise God, and pray for any sailors desperate or foolish enough to be at sea during the bad weather.

  Bad weather approaches our planet, my prince, can the aliens somehow give us shelter?

  your Hayeel

  “Testing, testing,” the radio crackled into life.

  “Don't touch that,” the centre's director said, as the technician reached for the transmit key.

  “Sir?” the technician asked, surprised.

  “This is a distraction, the worst sort of distraction, one that will suck more and more of our research efforts away from the goal.”

  “But I must respond, sir! A demonstration to the emperor!”

  “A failed demonstration will kill off the distraction and we can return to the plans.”

  “Testing testing,” the princess's voice repeated, “You're supposed to reply to me, Kahlel or whoever's taken over from him.”

  The technician, Kahlel, turned to face the director. “Honourable Sir, if I do not reply, then the princess will be shamed.” His hand reached behind him for the transmit switch.

  “And if you do, then you will never work here again.”

  Kahlel pressed the switch, “I will not bring shame upon the princess, sir, I will reply.”

  “You will be dismissed, the disciplinary report will show that as a result of gross insubordination you brought your meal to the desk and through incompetence you destroyed the test equipment a second time.”

  “I have brought no food to this laboratory, sir. You have the pan of soup, as you did last time.” Kahlel said calmly.

  “I don't want to lose you, Kahlel, you're a good worker, you just lose sight of the big picture. Don't let her title or her eyelashes blind you to the fact that now we have an accurate receiver we should be working on increasing the transmit efficiency.”

  “Sir, with respect, the plan calls for us to continue to enhance receiver efficacy until we can hear the atmospheric interference from distant thunderstorms, or demonstrate that we can communicate long range. Since the cracks we hear are from Tesk, it is not yet time to make that switch, and the long-range communication is exactly served by the test equipment at the palace.”

  “That snivelling interfering princess couldn't have said it better herself,” the director snarled and threw the steaming soup.

  “No!” Kahlel said, and tried to protect the equipment.

  “I hope for your sake the equipment survives, ex-director,” The emperor's voice said from the radio, just before there was a loud bang as the soup hit the high voltage capacitor. Kahlel, ignoring his scalds, disconnected the power.

  The guards who'd been posted outside the door, and had been looking through the crack between the doors at the sound of voices, finally entered, weapons drawn.

  “Arrest this man!” the ex-director said, in pompous bravado.

  “He broke it!” Kahlel said, trying to stop the soup getting further into the radio, “He threw the soup and broke it! In the middle of a demonstration to the emperor! He threw soup at it! Arrest him, guards. Me too if you must. The emperor demanded the equipment survive and removed him from his post, and he broke it. You saw me come in with empty hands, didn't you? He brought the soup and broke the radio.”

  “Get cleaned up, Kahlel, and put cold water on your burns. We saw it.”

  My Hayeel, the demonstration was... not what we'd planned. The now-former director of the research lab has taken his protest against Naneela as far as he could and further, throwing soup at one of the test radios. I'd love to have you listening in to Naneela's thoughts. A technician who she'd thought had ruined an earlier experiment of hers with some soup (actually the director again) has turned into the saviour of the day, getting some rather nasty burns as he tried to save the equipment, and he obviously gets the point of what she wanted. I can't ask her what she thinks, because she's gone to tell his parents that he's going to be spending the night in a spare room here in the heart of the empire so that she can change the dressings on his wounds. She feels responsible, apparently, since she told the guards to stay outside the door for fear that they might break something if they went into the laboratory.

  He was looking a bit shocked the last time I saw him. Maybe the fact that she prayed for him helped there, as well as the royal nursing. I don't think he knew she had any faith. She knew he does, because she got asked if he ought to be removed from his post after he'd been found at an underground church meeting.

  But I saw that the equipment works, I saw her using it, and tweaking the knobs to make the conversation we were listening to clearer. So, maybe I'll be able to ask her some appropriate questions about her patient if I'm not too sea sick.

  I'm running away with my thoughts, I know, but is it really possible that God engineered that in answer to my prayers about her future? Does the future of our planet depend on them gazing lovingly into each others eyes and finding inspiration there for their work? Am I allowed to hope that gazing into your eyes becomes a favourite hobby of mine, or is it far far too soon for much silly thoughts? Am I just falling in love with the idea of being in love? Salay

  “Before we start more serious topics...” the empress said the Kahlel's mother, “were either you or your husband originally from the central zone?”

  “Urm, no.” the confused woman answered. She wasn't sure why she was here, let alone why the empress was talking to her like a human being.

  “Excellent!” the empress seemed to relax.

  “There'd have been a problem?”

  “You live there, do you really need me to tell you what's wrong with the central zone? Spot any servants or ladies in waiting or any of that... prestige thinking around here? Feel free to sit on a log. Central zone people worry too much about social hierarchies and such things.”

  “True.” Kahlel's mother felt safe saying.

  “So, so far it looks like Naneela thinks of Kahlel as a friend who got hurt protecting her experiment and her reputation, and she wants to make it up to him. But if this does turn more romantic then... would you have any objections? Because we don't. I don't know if the central zone families have worked it out yet, but the royal family try to avoid marrying into the central zone; that was the only thing that might have worried me.”

  “His conviction for being at the underground church...”

  “Should have cost him his job according to the central-zone administrator. Naneela had the pleasure of pointing out that the research centre is not administratively part of the central zone. I trust the fellowship is still meeting, and is easier to find for enquirers?”

  “The pastor had an anonymous letter pointing out that the membership was now known to the authorities, could easily be followed, and if they moved they'd be raided again, whereas if they didn't move, they'd only get raided once a year or so, the fines were a lot less, and as it was an administrative penalty, not a criminal one, it wouldn't cost anyone their job. It... seemed good advice.”

  “If he's still got it you can tell him Naneela wrote it. I normally write them, but Naneela wanted to do that one.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “The problem with underground churches was that they were so secretive some of them ended up hiding their faith. The overlooked churches were breaking the law, but the grand vizier and his predecessors knew the law was not popular here.”

  “We were told this wasn't the central zone, but...”

  “Since the empress from Tesk, the emperor has had faith in Jesus. I was a little terrified when I got summoned here after I got caught in a raid, but the late-emperor thought that a baroness willing to risk getting caught at an overlooked church was just the person to introduce to his son. Salay won't be looking at your daughter that way though, he's very much thinking of someone else.”

  “Who's not from the central zone either?”

  “She grew up in Wahleet, near the port, which isn't the sort if central zone we're avoiding. Her father was from Tesk, and she's currently Salay's ambassador in Caneth.”

  “I don't even know where that is, your majesty.”

  “Closest country on the mainland to Tesk.”

  “With all due respect, that seems a strange place to send someone you're in love with.”

  Empress Hayeela laughed, “It's very complicated. Do you know much about your son's work?”

  “Urm, something about sending messages. What's wrong with letters?”

  “Sit down. I have something to tell you about the importance of the work your son and my daughter.”

  “Nervous?” Hayeel asked Esme.

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “True, but your honourable father has found a good husband for you. Enjoy today.”

  “Because tomorrow we die?”

  “No, because tomorrow has its own problems. Especially on Tesk. Now, you do not need this as medicine, Esmetherelda, but it is a tradition to give it to a bride on her wedding day. Really it is from Taheela, but she's avoiding Hal still, so I have to give it. Don't tell anyone please, it's highly inappropriate.”

  “An aphrodisiac flower? Why? Just in case?”

  “No. Making the medicine from it takes ages anyway. It is a reminder that sometimes things don't go as well as hoped, but that if you have patience and talk to your friends then maybe they can offer help and advice or at least prayer. Even about intimate things.”

  “Thank Taheela for me. I might be too busy when we get back.”

  “Probably. I think I hear your father coming.”

  “Your turn will come, Hayeel, I'm sure of it. And I'll be praying for your handsome prince to be as good a match for you as mine seems to be for me.”

  “In six weeks or so I might start finding out.”

  “Hey, you're supposed to be stopping me from getting nervous, not the other way round. He sounds lovely from his letters, Hayeel. Leave the problems to tomorrow.”

  “Come on Esme!” her father called, “you've got a peace treaty to confirm.”