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soul. “Why else? Now, we’re a small community and provincial, but firmly settled in the rule of law. Anthony Carr can’t seize my property or arrest me. However, I won’t make the head of government my enemy; he’d have too many small means to hurt me.”
    “You’re sending me back.” I braced myself for the inevitable.
    “Of course not!” He threw down his napkin, and his voice sharpened. “You think your precious planters are the only ones with honor? Didn’t I say you could stay?”
    I found myself nodding hurriedly, wanting to do anything to seem agreeable. I was beginning to suspect that Mr Dakko didn’t suffer fools gladly, though I wasn’t sure what that meant. It was a phrase Dad had used, now and again.
    “So, joeyboy. Tell me what’s going on between you two, and why.”
    I wiped oatmeal from my lip. “Anth bullies me.”
    “How?”
    Haltingly, I explained. It wasn’t chores—we all had our work to do, and Dad and I had talked that out years ago. A Carr earned his keep. It was some of his other requirements, his insistence that—
    Mr Dakko waved it away. “He talks to you about matters of state?”
    “Sometimes.” It was all I intended to say. Kev’s father had no right to pry into—
    “Why’d he have you provoke the Bishop?”
    “What?” My voice shot into the upper registers. Blushing, I brought it down.
    “That pantomime at his reception everyone’s talking about. What was the purpose?”
    “Scanlen called me a—”
    “What was the Stadholder’s strategy in arranging a public discourtesy? Either tell me, or leave my house.”
    “I—he didn’t—but—” I stopped, drew deep breath. Then another, from sheer wonder. “You think Anthony put me up to it!”
    “Of course. No joeykid would take it on himself to skirt excommunication, endure a training farm, risk his family’s properties over—” He took in my expression, and his jaw dropped. “Good Lord.” He leaned across the table, raised my chin. “Look me in the eye. Right now!”
    I did, as long as I could manage.
    At long last, a chuckle. “I’ll have to tell Benny and Dr Zayre we were wrong. We simply assumed …” He stood, thrust hands in pockets, strolled to the window. “Unbelievable.”
    Mother would be home, in a chaise longue, curled in a warm sweater and reveries. Perhaps, if I woke her, she’d be in one of her gentler moods. “Mr Dakko?”
    Nothing.
    “Sir!”
    Something in my tone caught his attention. He raised an eyebrow.
    “What have I done? What’s the mess I made worse? Should I leave, so you and Kev won’t get hurt?”
    He held up a placating palm. “No need to go.” His tone was kind. “Not yet.”
    A strangled sound. To my horror, I realized I’d sobbed aloud. “I don’t know what I … I don’t understand. Tell me what’s going on.”
    Again, a chuckle. “I’d intended to question you. ” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Dry your eyes. It’s time to be off.”
    I looked about. “I thought you were giving me work.”
    A note of surprise. “Not here.” He ushered me to the door.
    It was a crisp day, and he seemed in no hurry to drive to his office. We detoured through the spacious park, where a few young parents sat in the sun, watching their joeykids run about.
    “Since your father got in that row with the Patriarchs …”
    “Huh?” It would have annoyed Anthony no end. I tried again. “Excuse me?”
    “A decade ago, during the third revolution.”
    I tried to look like I was following, but my face betrayed me.
    “Your father. Derek. When he took us independent, we—”
    “Mr Dakko, I …” It was almost shameful to admit. “I don’t always pay attention when they tell me important stuff. Could you start at the beginning?”
    “Hope Nation. Where we live. It was once a U.N. colony.”
    It was how he might talk to a village idiot, but I’d asked for it. “In those days a colonial Governor ran our affairs. We had no real say. You studied