Alistair spent the entire day before the meeting making certain that people saw him.
He sat through a morning lecture at the Caelmari scholarly society and asked one dull question about grain tithes, which made a learned old man very happy.
"You have the instinct of a record-keeper," the old man told him, holding his sleeve. "Most men your age only ask me about the war."
"The war is already written down," Alistair replied. "Tithes are not, and that is where the lying tends to happen."
The old man laughed as if it were the wittiest thing said all season.
Following that, Alistair took the midday meal at the Auber salon and let three people bore him thoroughly, agreeing with all of them, including the two who disagreed with each other.
He sat in the small chapel again and bought ink for journals he does not keep, and everywhere he went he was watched, and everywhere he went he was exactly the man Aldous Blackwood suspected he might not be.
