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Once they were out of earshot, General Vatran said, "Well, you tried."

"I know." Rathar kicked at the ground. It was icy; he almost fell when his booted foot slid more than he'd expected. "I wish he would have listened. Sometimes he does."

"But not today," Vatran said.

"No, not today." Rathar kicked again, more carefully this time. "But we're the ones who'll have to pay the price because he didn't."

"Hard to imagine how we could pay a price much bigger than we're paying now," Vatran said, which also held its share of truth and more.

Broadsheets summoned the people of Herborn to the parade route. Unkerlanter soldiers with megaphones also ordered them out of their homes- those who still had homes standing, at any rate. Watching the men and women coming up to line the street, Rathar wondered how many, not so long before, had waved gold-and-green flags and cheered then-King Raniero. More than a few: of that he was certain. The smart ones would already have burnt those, and whatever else gold and green they owned. If Swemmel's inspectors found such things, it would go hard on whoever had them.

Rathar's own place was on the reviewing stand, at his sovereign's side. It stood not far from the ducal palace, on the edge of Herborn's central square. That square was smaller than Cottbus', but large enough and to spare. Grelzers lined the square, too, though guards kept them well away from the reviewing stand.

King Swemmel imperiously raised his arm. "Let us begin!" he cried.

A band began the triumphal parade. Horns and drums blared out the Unkerlanter national hymn. Rathar wondered if the musicians would follow that with the hymn of the Duchy of Grelz, but they didn't. Maybe Swemmel didn't want the folk of Herborn thinking about being Grelzers at all, whether inhabitants of a separate duchy or of a separate kingdom. Maybe he just wanted them to think of themselves as belonging to the kingdom of Unkerlant- and maybe he was shrewd to want them to think of themselves so.

Instead of the hymn for the Duchy of Grelz, the band played a medley of patriotic songs that had grown popular in these parts since the Algarvians overran the region. Somebody, Rathar remembered, had said they were written by a local peasant or irregular or something of the sort. He wondered if that was true. It struck him as being too pat for plausibility, and so likelier a tale that came from Cottbus. Swemmel was shrewd enough to come up with something like that, and paid plenty of writers to come up with such things for him.

After the musicians came a regiment of behemoths, their armor clattering upon them, their heavy strides shaking the ground- the timbers of the reviewing stand vibrated beneath Rathar's feet. Nothing could have been better calculated to overawe folk who still had doubts about whom they wanted to rule over them. What the locals wanted didn't count for much, of course. King Swemmel had returned, and did not intend to be dislodged again.