Hyrlis heard Ferbin out, asking one or two questions along the way. At the end he nodded. “You have my sincere sympathies, prince. I am even sorrier at the manner of your father’s passing than at the fact of it. Nerieth was a warrior and both expected and deserved a warrior’s death. What you’ve described is a murder both cowardly and cruel.”
“Thank you, Hyrlis,” Ferbin said. He looked down, sniffing loudly.
Hyrlis did not seem to notice. He was staring at his wine glass. “I remember tyl Loesp,” he said. He was silent for some moments, then shook his head. “If he harboured such treachery then, he fooled me too.” He looked to one side again. “And do you watch there?” he asked quietly. This time there was definitely nobody present for him to be talking to; the four darkly camouflaged guards had been dismissed when they’d entered Hyrlis’ private quarters and the servants had, just minutes earlier, been told to stay outside the dining chamber until summoned. “Is that part of the entertainment?” Hyrlis said in the same quiet voice. “Is the King’s murder recorded?” He looked back to Ferbin and Holse. Choubris tried to exchange looks with Ferbin, but the other man was staring glassy-eyed at their host again.
Holse wasn’t having it. “Excuse me, sir,” he said to Hyrlis.
From the corner of his eye he could see Ferbin trying to attract his attention. Well, the hell with it. “Might I ask who you’re talking to when you do that?”
“Holse!” Ferbin hissed. He smiled insincerely at Hyrlis. “My servant is impertinent, sir.”
“No, he is inquisitive, prince,” Hyrlis said with a small smile. “In a sense, Holse, I do not know,” he said gently. “And it is just possible that I am addressing nobody at all. However, I strongly suspect that I am talking to quite a number of people.”
Holse frowned. He looked hard in the direction Hyrlis had directed his latest aside.
Hyrlis smiled and waved one hand through the air, as though dispelling smoke. “They are not physically present, Holse. They are — or, I suppose I must allow — they might be watching at a very considerable remove, via spybots, edust, nanoware — whatever you want to call it.”
“I might call it any or all, sir, I’m none the wiser at those words.”
“Holse, if you can’t conduct yourself like a gentleman,” Ferbin said firmly, “you’ll eat with the other servants.” Ferbin looked at Hyrlis. “I may have been too indulgent with him, sir. I apologise on his behalf and my own.”
“No apology required, prince,” Hyrlis said smoothly. “And this is my table, not yours. I’d have Holse here for what you call his impertinence in any event. I am surrounded by too many people unwilling to call me on anything at all; a dissident voice is welcome.”
Ferbin sat back, insulted.
“I believe that I am watched, Holse,” Hyrlis said, “by devices too small to be seen with the human eye, even ones like mine, which are quite keen, if not as keen as they once were.”
“Enemy spies, sir?” Holse asked. He glanced at Ferbin, who looked away ostentatiously.
“No, Holse,” Hyrlis said. “Spies sent by my own people.”
Holse nodded, though with a deep frown.
Hyrlis looked at Ferbin. “Prince, your own matter is of course of far greater importance; however, I think I ought to digress a little here, to explain myself and my situation.”
Ferbin gave a curt nod.
“When I was… with you, amongst you, on the Eighth — advising your father, Ferbin…” Hyrlis said, glancing to the prince but generally addressing both men, “I was employed — at the behest of the Nariscene — by the Culture, the mongrel pan-human and machine civilisation which is one of what you term the Optimae, those civilisations in the first rank of the unSublimed, non-elder groupings. I was an agent for the part of the Culture called Contact, which deals with… foreign affairs, you might say. Contact is charged with discovering and interacting with other civilisations which are not yet part of the galactic community. I was not then with the more rarefied intelligence and espionage part of Contact coyly called Special Circumstances, though I know that SC thought at the time the specific part of Contact I represented was, arguably, encroaching on their territory.” Hyrlis smiled thinly. “Even galaxy-spanning anarchist Utopias of stupefying full-spectrum civilisational power have turf wars within their unacknowledged militaries.”
Hyrlis sighed. “I did, later, become part of Special Circumstances, a decision I look back on now with more regret than pride.” His smile did, indeed, look sad. “When you leave the Culture — and people do, all the time — you are made aware of certain responsibilities you are deemed to have, should you venture into the kind of civilisation that Contact might be interested in.
“I was missioned to do what I did by Contact, which had modelled the situation on the Eighth exhaustively, so that, when I passed on some strategic plan to King Hausk, or suggested sabots and rifling to the royal armourers, it was with a very good and highly reliable idea of what the effects would be. In theory, a reasonably well-read Culture citizen could do the same with no control, no back-up and no idea what they were really doing. Or, worse, with a very good idea; they might want to be king, or emperor, or whatever, and their knowledge would give them a chance of succeeding.” Hyrlis waved one hand. “It’s an exaggerated concern, in my opinion; knowledge in the Culture is cheap beyond measuring, however the ruthlessness required to use that knowledge proficiently in a less forgiving society is almost unheard of.
“Nevertheless, the result is that when you leave the Culture to come to a place like this, or the Eighth, you are watched. Devices are sent to spy on you and make sure you’re not getting up to any mischief.”
“And if a person does get up to mischief, sir?” Holse asked.
“Why, they stop you, Mr Holse. They use the devices they’ve sent to spy, or they send people or other devices to undo what you’ve done, and, as a last resort, they kidnap you and bring you back, to be told off.” Hyrlis shrugged. “When you leave SC, as I did, further precautions are taken: they take away some of the gifts they originally gave you. Certain abilities are reduced or removed altogether so that you have fewer advantages over the locals. And the surveillance is more intense, though even less noticeable.” Hyrlis looked to the side once more. “I trust my even-handedness is appreciated, here. I am generous to a fault.” He looked back at the two men. “I understand most people like to pretend that such oversight doesn’t exist, that it isn’t happening to them; I take a different view. I address those I know must be watching me. So, now you know. And, I hope, understand. Were you worried I was mad?”
“Not at all!” Ferbin protested immediately, as Holse said, “It did occur, sir, as you’d expect.”
Hyrlis smiled. He swirled some wine around in his glass and watched himself doing so. “Oh, I may well be mad; mad to be here, mad to be still involved with the business of war, but at least in this I am not mad; I know I am watched, and I will let those who watch me know that I know.”
“We do,” Ferbin said, glancing at Holse, “understand.”
“Good,” Hyrlis said casually. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table and clasping his hands under his chin. “Now, back to you. You have come a very long way, prince. I assume to see me?”
“Indeed, that I have.”
“And with more intended than simply bringing me the news that my old friend Nerieth has been murdered, honoured though I am to hear from a real person rather than a news service.”
“Indeed,” Ferbin said, and pulled himself up in his seat as best he could. “I seek your help, good Hyrlis.”
“I see.” Hyrlis nodded, looking thoughtful.