Although the day was bright outside, little light could seep through the leaded panes and what little light there was had been cut off by heavily looped curtains. There were candles down the long table and in brackets on the walls. In the marble fireplace at the high end of the room a small flame smouldered under the stone cupids; before it three men were standing, with goes of brandy in their hands. Baron Brunivar was recognizable by his description—tall, with a mane of white hair and a firm-set mouth that made one think of the word “nobility” without reference to civil condition. He was talking with a short, round man who looked as jolly as he could possibly be and a dark, grave-faced lord who held a kitten in his arm till the little thing struggled to be set down, whereupon it played round his feet, catching for the shoe-laces. In spite of his solemnity, this would be Florestan, the Laughing Chancellor; he was known to favor cats. In a moment he looked around and signed to Tuolén the head butler, who rapped a little silver bell on the table. All the men from various corners of the room gathered. Three of them were episcopals in their violet robes with flowers of office. Florestan quietly waited till all were at rest, his visage in calm lines (but Rodvard could see just enough of his eyes to catch an intimation that this might be a grim business). He tapped the bell once more. “My lords, if you were ignorant of this convocation’s purpose, you had not been summoned; therefore, let us leave all preliminaries and turn straight to the matter of Her Majesty’s finance.” Pause. The apple-faced man said; “What’s there to say of it?” “That it is a very dangerous thing to have the court in poverty when we are threatened with this question of the succession.” The faces along the table watched him attentively, all set in varying degrees of stubbornness, and as the kitten scratched at the leg of his chair, he reached down to pet it. “My lords, this has now grown so grave that we can dissolve our troubles only by measures never taken before; all the old means eaten up. Yet we still want money to pay Her Majesty’s army, which is not only a disgraceful thing but also a perilous. Those who should protect us may become our persecutors.” The little round man’s smile was jolly as before, his voice not; “Your Grace, a bug close to the eye may look as big as a lion. Is there proof of true disaffection?” A man with silver-streaked hair and the breast-star of a general on his silk nodded gloomily. “I bear such proof. This brawl among the Red Archers of Veierelden has been given a light appearance; but my men have looked into it, and it runs deeper than you think. Namely, they were shouting for the restoration of Pavinius to the succession. We hanged one of his emissaries, a Mayern man.” “Pah,” said the round man. “Since he was exiled every ruction has been a shout for his return. They do not mean it.”