The post takes a week to get there. Trenmor, my friend, is abroad at the moment, but the staff know me well—they’ll obey me without question—and you’ll be completely safe up there, where no bird flies. Even if you wanted to, you wouldn’t be able to leave until I came for you with the car.”

“Good, good, my boy. Take me wherever you wish. Just don’t let me see my wife, and above all, don’t let her see me! And make sure you never get married.”

The car turned round and set off in the opposite direction, away from the city. Soon the Count was fast asleep. He woke again only when they reached the mansion. There Sandoval handed him over to the household staff and took his leave, promising to return once the skies over the marital home had cleared. Antas thanked him profusely for his services, and Sandoval hurried back to the capital.

 

It was late evening when he arrived in Lara. There were far fewer people than usual on the streets, but he noticed a lot of soldiers. The storm that had overtaken his car on the road had now died down, but dark clouds continued to race across the sky.

“It’s the same up there,” he thought, studying them with his painter’s eye. “The sky is as restless as I am. Well, not many artists get the chance to play a role in major historical events. Perhaps only Rubens … ”

The car squealed to a halt outside a large, unlit building and he leapt out. “The Barrel-makers Joint Stock Trading Company,” proclaimed a rather tasteless sign.

“Even the notices in this country need a revolution,” he muttered to himself.

He applied his weight to a bell.

A narrow section of the vast door opened, and someone peered out cautiously.

“The barrels from Docasillades,” he announced, with significant emphasis.

“Come in—we’re checking the staves,” a voice replied, and Sandoval entered.

“Good evening, Partan,” he said to the doorman, who was wearing a leather coat and bandolier. “The eighteenth?”

“Upstairs in the balancing room.”

He made his way rapidly up the poorly lit stairwell and arrived at a door. In gold lettering on a black plaque he read the word ‘Accounts’. Inside, a group of about ten men were sitting on benches around the walls. They were oddly dressed, with the sort of intense faces you see only in times of historic upheaval. “Who are they? And what might they be in civilian life?” he wondered. The majority had strange bulges in their clothing, caused by ill-concealed pistols. They seemed to know who he was and simply stared at him without interest. A young man got up from a table at the far end of the room and came rapidly over to him.

“Well, at least you got here, Sandoval. We’ve been waiting a long time. Come this way.”

Sandoval followed him into the next room.

It was small and almost completely empty apart from an oddly shaped telephone—one of the stages along the secret line. Beside it sat two men, smoking.

The first, with his black suit, gold-rimmed spectacles and impossibly narrow face, was Dr Delorme. Sandoval knew him well, and went across to him. The other man he had never seen before. He was extremely tall, with an austere, intelligent face; his hair, which was unusually straight for an Alturian, was slicked down flat against his head.

“Sandoval,” Delorme introduced him to the stranger.

The man clicked his heels, held out his hand, but did not give his name. Then he drew back into a dimly lit corner of the room.

“Well?” asked Delorme.

“I spent fifty taller,” Sandoval replied.