‘Well now, yer Queenship,’ Caalador was saying, ‘I don’t know ez I’d stort a-dancin’ in the streets jist yet. Them fellers over t’ Interior’s bin a-doin’ ever’thang but a-nailin’ th’ doors shet t’ keep us from a-puttin’ our hands on this yere pertic’ler set o’ files, an’ now they turns up sorta unexpected-like amongst a hull buncha others – which I’d swear a oath to that I already looked over ’bout four er five times my own self. Don’t that smell jist a bit like a dead fish t’ you?’
‘What did he say?’ Emperor Sarabian asked.
‘He’s suspicious,’ Ehlana translated. ‘He thinks that our discovery of these files was too easy. He may just have a point.’
They had gathered again in the royal apartment in what was by now generally called ‘Ehlana’s Castle’ to discuss the surprising discovery of a hitherto missing set of personnel files. The files themselves were stacked in heaps upon the tables and the floor of the main sitting room.
‘Do you always have to complicate things, Master Caalador?’ The Emperor’s expression was slightly pained. As he habitually did now, Sarabian was wearing western-style clothes. Ehlana felt that this morning’s choice of a black velvet doublet and pearl-grey hose was not a happy one. Black velvet made Sarabian’s bronze-tinted skin look sallow and unhealthy.
‘I’m a professional swindler, your Majesty,’ Caalador replied, dropping the dialect. ‘I’ve learned that when something seems too good to be true, it probably is.’
Stragen was looking into one of the files. ‘What an amazing thing,’ he said. ‘Someone in the Ministry of the Interior seems to have discovered the secret of eternal youth.’
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