Spring winds blew softly through the garden and stirred the trees to rustling. There was a deep smell of green life about them; a bird was singing somewhere in the twilight, and the ancient promise of summer stirred in the blood.
Flandry tried to relax in the fragrant evening, but he was too tense—his nerves were drawn into quivering wires and he had grown thin and hollow-eyed. So too had Gunli, but it seemed only to heighten her loveliness; it had more than a hint of the utterly alien and remote now.
"Well, the spaceship is off," said the man. His voice was weary. "Aethagir shouldn't have any trouble getting to Ifri, and he's a clever lad—he'll find a way to deliver my letter to Admiral Walton." He scowled, and a nervous tic began over his left eye. "But the timing is so desperately close. If our forces strike too soon, or too late, it can be ruinous."
"I don't worry about that, Dominic," said Gunli. "You know how to arrange these things."
"I've never handled an empire before, my beautiful. The next several days will be touch and go. And that's why I want you to leave Scotha now. Take a ship and some trusty guards and go to Alagan or Gimli or some other out-of-the-way planet." He smiled with one corner of his mouth. "It would be a bitter victory if you died in it, Gunli."
Her voice was haunted. "I should die. I've betrayed my lord—I am dishonored—"
"You've saved your people—your own southerners, and ultimately all Scotha."
"But the broken oaths—" She began to weep, quietly and hopelessly.
"An oath is only a means to an end. Don't let the means override the end."