Gwenlyn smiled at him. It was a very nice smile.
"She could tell that things had gone wrong with the ship," she observed, "because of the way you felt. But I've forbidden her ever to tell when someone lies to me or anything like that. I don't want to know people's feelings when they want to hide them."
"Fine!" said Bors. "I feel better." Standing so close to Gwenlyn, he also felt light-headed.
She smiled at him again, as if she understood.
"We'll head for Glamis now," she said. "The situation there should have changed a great deal because of what you've done."
"It would be my kind of luck," said Bors half joking, "for it to have changed for the worse."
It had.
Chapter 9
"The decision," said King Humphrey the Eighth, stubbornly, "is exactly what I have said. In full war council it has been agreed that the fleet, through a new use of missiles, is a stronger fighting force than ever before. This was evidenced in the late battle and no one questions it. But it is also agreed that we remain hopelessly outnumbered. We are in a position where we simply cannot fight! For us to have fought would probably have been forgiven if we had been wiped out in the recent battle—preferably with only slight loss to the Mekinese. We offered battle expecting exactly that. Unfortunately, we annihilated the fleet that was to have occupied Kandar. In consequence we have had to pretend that we were destroyed along with them. And if we are discovered to be alive, and certainly if we offer to fight, Kandar will be exterminated as a living world, to punish us and as a warning to future victims of the Mekinese."