The last line of the secretary was finished and he waited as if the next sentence would decide something definitive.
The Emperor sat at the end of the table long after the Archivist had left. The privacy wards hummed down a degree or so from their normal tone, tired sounding after a morning of holding all those secrets.
Down below in the capital the cart wheels rattled on along the cobbles, people chatted to one another and went about their daily business with no inkling whatsoever that the center was buying the Empire's edges a ten-day reprieve.
"Bring in the two marshals," the emperor said. "And the Master of Tithes. But no tower envoys and no archivists. I want the military and the grain. Nothing that reports to the White Spire."
The secretary quickly left the room, returning several minutes later with the two marshals and the Master of Tithes of the grain all looking rather nervous and all wearing guarded expressions on their faces.
The emperor did not invite them to sit.
