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bounced her, but I think it comforted both of them.
         “I was able to cure Genna,” she said, more to the air than to me, “because Genna was afflicted.  A physical ill had been forced on her body, which I could find and attack.
         “Glennen brings this on himself from grief and loss.  I could heal the damage done to his body from the strong drink, but it would just make him better able to harm himself.  It’s a thing in his mind that is broken, an idea that he can’t rid himself of, that in the drink he can find a clarity or an ease from the grief and pain, or at least a way to step away from it.”
         I nodded.  That sounded like a good summation of alcoholism to me.  And they had to decide to get better on their own, or they had to give in to it, one or the other.  Until then, you could dry them out a thousand times and they would just go right back to what they were doing, because they didn’t see anything wrong with it.
         “But we still have to deal with the drunken monarch,” she concluded.  Lee finished and Shela shifted her to her shoulder for burping.  If I behaved myself then sometimes I got to do it – Shela knew no Master when it came to her child.
         “Maybe not,” I said.  “If you have known a real alcoholic, then you know the problem has a way of fixing itself.”
         “You mean the yellow sickness, which takes their insides and destroys them, colors their eyes and breaks the veins in their nose, until they die.”
         I nodded.
         “Do you really want to let your liege lord die?” she asked me.
         I thought about it.  I owed my title to Glennen.  He had fostered me in Eldador and named me ‘heir.’  His faith in me had made me strong.  I had killed for this man, and risked everything, for his wife, his friendship, and his faith in me.
         My god wanted him dead.  He wanted me to replace him. 
         I couldn’t just let him die.
         I couldn’t stop him, either.  I tried watering his drink, but he simply drank more.
         I dutifully sat in court as Heir and spoke frequently with those Oligarchs here as well as mine in Thera.  The month of Eveave progressed on, as time will. 
         “We are the emissary of Trenbon,” the Uman said, one of a party of five who had petitioned to plead their case before the Eldadorian court.
         This should be interesting.
         I allowed them to approach the throne, dressed in the royal livery of the House Aurelias, of the Silent Isle.  Each wore an eagle on his breast.
         “We petition for reparations, for the actions of your subject, Duke Rancor Mordetur, against Trenbon, for his illegal invasion of the Silent Isle, his violation of the moratorium on violence against the persons of the Fovean High Council, and for the damages done to Outpost IX, both in loss of property and in loss of life.”
         Neither the Uman language nor that of Man had a word for ‘cajones,’ but if they had, I would have used it.
         “We see no justification for reparations,” I said, instead, “on the grounds of self-defense.”
         “Self defense?” the Uman seemed incredulous.
         “Thera was attacked first,” I stated.
         “You have presented no proof of this,” the Uman insisted.
         “Of an attack on Thera?” I said.  “I have the body of a dead queen, the word of the Duchess of Thera, numerous Wolf Soldiers and testimony from members of the Free Legion.”
         “Irrelevant,” he sniffed.  “And, as you must know, un-presented to the Fovean High Council.”
         I looked at the Oligarchs.  The one I had come to know as ‘One’ nodded.  Under the Fovean High Council’s charter, evidence wasn’t evidence until proxy delivered it, as I had done for the Great Dwarven Nation, and debated by the members.
         I had emissaries to the Fovean High Council, but only the monarch, not the