Refraining from something so uncouth as would that we did, even with the wine warming her cheeks and having once or twice despaired of the days when the tilt of her eyebrow or moue of her lips might have decided a man's fate more directly (the cost of that time never far behind in memory, how she has to stiffen her spine every time she steps upon the stairs of this tower), Petrana instead observes mildly, “We do not. Historically, more often than not, we have allowed them to cool their heels, and given them a stern talking to, and a second opportunity. Some have used this more wisely than others.”

She includes her own remorseless self among this number, and the fact that she is drinking wine in a division head's office talking shop speaks for itself. It is not an accident that she maintained her proximity to power, for all that she had released her grip of it.

“Nevertheless,” with a sigh, “you are right enough it can't stand. I had ambitions during my tenure to formalize procedures in the event of acting division heads indisposed—as we unfortunately nearly all were, at one point, though Scoutmaster Ashara did an admirable job in a difficult situation. It did not, I regret, come to much; I did not at the time consider the matter of procedures should we be at odds.”

Though she finds the idea of how close she might have come to handwriting her own fate another way briefly, mildly amusing.

“It's a delicate matter. To handle it without losing the confidence of the rank and file, moreso. A united front still must be presented, or else it will be exploited.”