resented being told by Kembri or anyone else how to run his secret intelligence network or where he should put his spies, and had always been firm that he did not act on the orders of the Lord General or of any other Leopard leader. This obstinacy and independence, he was shrewd enough to realize, was ultimately his only safety in dealing with his fellow-conspirators-Fornis, Han-Glat and Kembri. As long as reliable information about threats of sedition could reach them only through him and as long as they did not know how much he knew or where his agents were working, they could not afford to get rid of him.
He began speaking in general terms about Kembri's contention that to reconquer Suba would be good for the Leopards' standing throughout the empire. Ending disaffection, he pointed out, was more than a matter of recapturing an unproductive area of marshland and water-ways and making a present of it to Fornis: while as for Uriah, it was not really this relatively stable, prosperous and civilized province which gave the deepest cause for anxiety, but rather the more inaccessible fringes of the empire: remote, tribal areas, where his spies and agents were unavoidably fewer and whence information took longer to reach him.
"You mean Chalcon, don't you?" said Durakkon.
Sencho nodded, and went on to speak of his uneasiness about that isolated area of foothills and forest where the marches of northern Yelda joined those of southern Ton-ilda. This was the outlying region-wild country a good three days' journey or more from Thettit-in which, after the Leopards' seizure of power, Senda-na-Say's nephew Enka-Mordet had been suffered to settle on the last remaining family estate. The High Counselor, whose cunning included an instinctive and often startlingly penetrating ability to sniff out concealed enemies (the strongest reason for the fear in which he was held), felt an intuitive certainty that something dangerously against the Leopard interest was hatching there.
"What, then?" asked Durakkon, forgetting for a moment to conceal his contempt. "Are you sure you're not just assuming that Enka-Mordet's the sort of man you were yourself eight years ago?"
Sencho ignored this. It was well understood between him and Kembri that provided they refrained from openly quarreling with Durakkon or sneering at his intermittent,
futile attempts to assert his nominal authority, they could always, ultimately, dominate or prevail over him, since he lacked self-confidence and was dependent upon them to maintain his position.
Chalcon, continued the High Counselor, might not at this moment seem so great a cause for anxiety as Urtah. Yet as far as Santil-ke-Erketlis, its most influential baron, was concerned, he himself felt more-or-less certain, despite the lack of any specific evidence, that something was being secretly cooked up against Bekla. There had been furtive comings and goings of messengers-too many to be attributable to mere fanning and husbandry-between Erketlis and Enka-Mordet; while both were retaining in their households more young, able-bodied men than any normal estate-owner required during Melekril.
"Well, if we're going to take punitive action in Chalcon," said Kembri, "it ought to be now, immediately, in spite of the rains; awkward as that'll be. In the first place no one will be expecting it, and secondly it can be done and over before my Suba campaign begins next spring. The last thing we want is trouble on the Valderra and in Chalcon at one and the same time."
"But this jumping to conclusions is unjust," said Du-rakkon. "Santil-ke-Erketlis-you've got nothing definite against the man, and if you kill him you'll only stir up the whole of Chalcon against us, just when there are no men to spare from the Valderra front. Young SantiFs father and mine were close friends," he added inconsequently.
To be sure, replied the High Counselor: he had never suggested killing Erketlis. He was entirely in agreement that the objections were too strong. Nevertheless, he and the Lord General were both convinced that something- a lesser stroke-ought to be executed in Chalcon, with the object of frightening those heldril who were coming together round Erketlis and of showing them that Bekla, distant though it might be, was well-informed about disaffection and not prepared to let it go unpunished. To take such action during the rains would make the effect more telling.
"Action?" queried Durakkon. "You do mean killing, then?"
Sencho shrugged. What else? On every count, the most suitable man of whom to make an example was Enka-Mordet.
"Enka-Mordet," said Kembri. "Yes, he's the right man to put out of the way. We should probably have done it before, but this is a good occasion none the less. He's the only remaining close relative of Senda-na-Say, and that means there's always a danger of some heldro bunch making use of him as a figurehead to mount a revolt. We know he's talked rebellion on and off, but never quite enough for us to arrest him: enough to show the way he feels, though. And now Sencho's found out that he's hatching something or other with Erketlis."
"Which may be nothing at all," said Durakkon. "Mere suspicion. If-"
"The real thing," went on Kembri, cutting him short, "is this: when we kill Enka-Mordet, it'll have a salutary effect on every heldro in the province who has a hand in whatever he and Erketlis are up to. Chalcon won't rise on account of Enka-Mordet, though it probably would on account of Erketlis. He's never been a man of that sort of weight. We shall hit them just hard enough to make them think, and no harder."
The discussion continued for almost an hour, at the end of which, predictably, Durakkon had been prevailed upon reluctantly to agree. As to means, Sencho was reassuring about the practicability of a swift blow. Two hundred reliable men from, say, the Belishban force at present quartered in Bekla should be sufficient for the task. None but the baron and his wife, his two grown sons and a daughter of sixteen need actually be put to death. There were, however, one or two relatively minor matters connected with obtaining further information. If Kembri had no objection, he would himself have a private word with one of the tryzatts before the Belishbans left.
"All right, so we make an example of this man and his family," said Kembri at length. "But that still doesn't mean we don't need to find out a lot more about Erketlis and whatever it is he has in mind. As long as we don't know what it is, we can't forestall it; and all we know at the moment is that messengers keep coming and going to his place from Enka-Mordet and one or two more. Aren't there any of his servants in your pay, Sencho?"
The High Counselor replied that he had always been wary of trying to bribe servants native to a remote area; nothing was easier for such people than to tell their master what was afoot and then go on giving the briber false
intelligence. In the case of a man like Santil-ke-Erketlis, trying to bribe his house-servants, most of whom felt themselves virtually members of the family, would simply be asking for trouble, while to plant a stranger in the place would be next to impossible. Even supposing that they were to make use of bribed servants, there was little chance of such people learning anything of a matter which at this stage was probably known only to a few men of rank. Ideally, they needed to get at the messengers; yet to waylay them would be useless, for this would only give the game away.
"Then-?" Kembri put more fuel on the brazier with his own hands and refilled Sencho's goblet.
There was one device, said Sencho, which he himself thought worth trying. He reminded Kembri of the gang of young robbers on the Herl-Dari highway who had been dealt with by the army some four years before. He might remember that they had made use of a girl as a decoy.
Kembri frowned. "But you can't put just any girl on a job like seducing messengers. She'd have to have a lot more than looks. Looks would be essential, of course, but on top of that she'd need to have all her wits about her; to be sharp enough to ask the right questions without being suspected and understand the gist of anything she managed to get hold of. I doubt we could find anyone capable of it."