He had had, on the whole, a successful life, and since he had just made his final confession, he was conscious of it as a whole, a story nearly complete, the defining moments as clear as if they had been painted by a fine artist. This and this he had done well, and that and that he had done less well. On occasion, the grace of the Almighty had protected him from the consequences of his own errors, and on other occasions he had taken the blame for what was not his fault. Not in God's eyes, of course, but in the eyes of the Benignity. All this was to be expected, and he regretted none of it, for regrets were useless. It had been a life of human shape and human content, and he was glad of it.

If regret had been part of his mental furniture, he might have regretted-he almost regretted-this last necessity. It was not his fault that the Familias Regnant had fallen into the hands of Hobart Conselline, and that he had been forced-he had seen no alternative-to order the man's execution.

It would have taken supernatural ability to foresee all that had happened to bring Conselline to power, and to shape him into someone who could be so dangerous, and offer so little maneuvering room to the Benignity. And no one expected supernatural ability of a Chairman.

Only that if he failed, he must pay the price.

Those in the Benignity were in his power, absolutely: if the Chairman ordered that a potato farmer must die for the good of the whole, then the potato farmer would die, in the manner and time prescribed, and this was as it should be. He might pity the potato farmer, and the potato farmer's wife and squalling brats, but he would order that death without a qualm, and without a qualm it would occur. This was not even cruelty. Death ended every life; death healed the sick and the badly injured; death opened the gates to endless life.

But outside the Benignity . . . the rules changed. To compete, to convert, even to invade-that was allowable. To corrupt, and to have secret agents providing information and forwarding the interests of the Benignity-that was inevitable. But to call for the assassination of a foreign king-whatever the foreigners called their heads of state, and they called them many foolish things-that was proof that a Chairman had failed. Had not seen trouble coming, had not managed affairs in another way, had not done-by means of stealth or influence or intimidation-what needed to be done.

Still, no tool, no method, was forbidden. God in His wisdom knew that emergencies happened. If, to protect the Benignity, a foreign king must die, then the Chairman could so order, and so it would occur.

So also would occur the death of that Chairman, who had shown himself to lack the qualities of a Chairman. Whether he was stupid, or old and tired, or misled by advisors, did not matter: he had failed his people, and he must pay the price. Not unexpectedly, not cruelly, but surely and certainly and with all due ceremony.

Some Chairmen never had to make that decision, and it was the accumulation of errors which brought them to their final confession. He had expected it would be so with him, as his years advanced, until he'd realized, too late, what Hobart Conselline's leadership of the Familias Regnant would lead to. In the instant he'd seen it, he'd also seen his own folly, his own blindness: he could have recognized it years before. Whether that would have changed events or not, he could not know, nor did it matter. He had blundered; he had done what he could to fix it, but it was not enough.

No guards were in the room today. He had made his last confession, and his heart was as light and sunny as the spring breeze.

When he heard the door, he turned. Some had chosen not to look, but he had never been afraid of the man who would kill him, only of the man who would let him fail his people.

The Master of Swords stood by his desk, formally dressed, and carrying the dark blade they did not use for fencing.

"You know my reasons," the Chairman said, without meeting his eyes. It was impolite to look into the eyes; it could be intepreted as pleading.

"Yes."

"I have made my confession," the Chairman said.

"Yes." The Master of Swords stepped to one side, and raised his blade

"Fiat-"

"Nox." The Master of Swords swung, and the blade that had taken the life of sixteen Chairmen sliced through skin and sinew and bone as easily as a hot knife through butter. Blood spurted as the head thumped onto the desk and rolled, but blood was nothing new in this place, and the servants knew how to clean it up.

"In nomine Patrem," the Master said, saluting his Master. He wiped the blade with a square of scarlet silk, and laid that silk over the Chairman's head. "Requiescat in pacem."

Then, as he was, naked blade in hand, with flecks of Pietro Alberto Rossa-Votari's blood on his cloak, he strode out of the office, through the anteroom-where the secretary was now already calling for servants, and would soon be notifying the family-down the hall, and into the Boardroom, where the Board had been waiting for the Chairman to appear and open the meeting.

"The Chairman has made his last confession," he said, without preamble. Faces paled, but no one spoke. "The Board will elect a new Chairman," he said. Anxious looks back and forth, and at him.

Some of these men had never been through the election of a Chairman; Rossa-Votari had held that office for eighteen years. The Swordmaster stood by the door, with nothing more to say, as the low murmurs started, as they looked at him and away and back and away . . . it was nothing to him what they did, and nothing they said would he ever repeat, but they would not leave this room alive until one of them had been elected Chairman by acclamation.

R.S.S. ROSA GLORIA.

The ship had been in downtransit only a couple of hours when the captain called Barin and Esmay into his office.

"I have messages from your families," the captain said. He didn't wait for their response. "They say they have more important things to worry about than you two. They're not happy with you, and they don't approve, but in the present emergency, they're not doing anything except talking about it. To each other."

"To each other?"

"Yes. Admiral Serrano and General Suiza both signed this-" he handed over the hardcopy. "Actually, all the Admirals Serrano and Generals Suiza-I don't know what you thought you'd accomplish by running off together, but you seem to have unified a substantial number of high-ranking officers in at least one thing-you're in trouble."

"But we're married," Barin said.

"It's worth it," Esmay said.

"It better be," the captain said. "Because when everything settles down and there are no wars, mutinies, invasions, terrorist attacks, pirates, or other distractions, your families are going to come down on you like one planet hitting another."

This was, Esmay thought, a fairly accurate description of the probable interaction of Serranos and Suizas anyway, with the exception of themselves.

"Now get out of here, and go back to being the frustratingly competent officers you both are."

They did not scamper away in glee, because officers did not scamper.

"When everything settles down, eh?" Barin said, grinning. "That'll be the day."

"If they wait that long," Esmay said, thinking of her father and uncle talking to Barin's

grandmother and great-uncle. If they didn't kill each other right off-and the combined message

suggested they hadn't-what a dangerous combination that was, to have running around the universe!

"They'll get used to it," Barin said. "We aren't half as bad as we could have been-suppose I'd married Casea?"

Esmay gave him a look, and almost burst into laughter. A trail of suppressed giggles followed them down the passage to their tiny-but adequate for the immediate purpose-cabin.

The End