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least trying.
    ‘Play?’
he asked blankly.
    ‘Haven’t
you heard? At the Rover on Sheldon Street?’ Her smile was genuine, though a
sadness shone through it. ‘They call it The Shell Crack’d or something like that. It’s about goings on in this city when the siege was
under way. It’s all people leaping into each other’s beds and arguing.’
    ‘There’s
a play about the war and it’s a farce ?’ said
Stenwold, quite thrown off course from what he was originally going to say.
    ‘Yes,
but you’re in it too. You’re the serious bit in the fourth act, like they
always include,’ Che told him. ‘When you went out to confront the Wasp army and
got them to surrender and go away—’
    ‘It
wasn’t like that—’
    ‘Tell
that to the playwrights. Tell that to the audience. You’re a hero, Uncle Sten.’
Her shoulders shook briefly with mirth, for a moment like the Che he knew from
before it all. Then another layer of solemnity enveloped her and she said,
‘Your man from Paroxinal came back today.’
    ‘Oh?’
and he was serious at that news, too.
    ‘He said
he’d report fully to you, for what it was worth, but nothing.’
    ‘He
found nothing, or they’d tell him nothing?’
    ‘Nothing
either way. Nothing at all. He found no trace of her.’
    For a
moment they just looked at one another, chained together by an equal guilt,
until Stenwold bared his teeth in annoyance and looked away.
    ‘Damn
the girl!’ he said. ‘Why—?’
    ‘You
know why,’ Che interrupted him flatly.
    ‘Oh, I
know what sparked it, but why go off—?’
    ‘You
know why,’ she repeated firmly, and he had no answer to that, because he did
know.
    Feeling
weary to his bones he pulled the desk chair out and reversed it, sitting so he
could rest his arms on the carved back. He heard it creak at the unaccustomed
strain. I’ll be as fat as Drillen, one of these days. ‘Che, I’ve had a thought about … something for you.’
    She sat
very still, waiting warily. It was not the first time he had tried to find
things for her to do. She knew he meant well, but he did not understand that
her current problems could not simply be left behind.
    ‘Che …
you did some good diplomatic work during the war.’
    That
took her by surprise. ‘When?’
    ‘In
Myna, for example.’
    ‘Sten,
they nearly killed me there as a traitor.’
    He
smiled slightly at that. ‘Same here … and with death, it’s all about the
“nearly”. The way I hear it, you finally got their rebellion inspired to the
point where they could throw off the Empire.’
    ‘It
wasn’t like that,’ hearing in her voice an echo of his own words.
    ‘Tell
that to my agents. Tell that to the Mynans. Che …’ Staring at his hands as he
always did when he sought inspiration. ‘You need something to do …’ One hand
rose, quickly, to cut off her objection. ‘I know , I
know it won’t stitch the wound, and it won’t make everything better, just to be
doing something, but you need time to heal, and at the moment it’s just you and
the wound, and nothing else. I have a job I need doing, and you need something
to do – and you’re good at it.’ When she just stared at him he continued, ‘I
need an ambassador. An official ambassador representing Collegium, bearing the
seal of the Assembly and everything.’
    For a
moment she continued to stare, then she laughed at him incredulously. ‘You
can’t be serious.’
    ‘Why
not? You’ve already proven your worth: in Myna, in Solarno, in Sarn. This isn’t
just Uncle Sten finding jobs for his family. You’ve shown you’re more than
equal to the task, and—’
    ‘And it
would give me something to do,’ she finished sourly. ‘And where, pray?’ A
thought struck her. ‘The Commonweal?’
    ‘Not the
Commonweal,’ he said. ‘We’re being … very careful there. They’re a strange lot,
up north. They don’t really seem to understand yet why ambassadors are
necessary. We may even have to buy into their