Night Watch

or deep pinks, appeared to be going red out of embarrassment or a desire to blend in.
    Lord Winder was entirely surrounded by reds, leaving the few remaining whites out in the cold. He looked the way all the Patricians tended to look after a certain time in office—unpleasantly plump, with the pink jowliness of a man of normal build who had too much rich food. He was sweating slightly in this quite cool room, and his eyes swiveled this way and that, looking for the flaws, the clues, the angles.
    At last Madam reached the buffet, where Doctor Follett was helping himself to the deviled eggs and Miss Rosemary Palm was debating with herself as to whether the future should contain strange pastry things with a green filling that hinted mysteriously of prawn.
    “And how are we doing, do we think?” said Doctor Follett, apparently to a swan carved out of ice.
    “We are doing well,” Madam told a basket of fruit. “There’s four, however, that are still proving awkward.”
    “I know them,” said the doctor. “They’ll fall into place, trust me. What else can they do? We’re used to this game here. We know that if you complain too loudly when you lose, you might not be asked to play again. But I shall station some stout friends near them, just in case their resolve needs a little…bolstering.”
    “He is suspicious,” said Miss Palm.
    “When isn’t he?” said Doctor Follett. “Go and talk to him.”
    “Where is our new best friend, Doctor?” said Madam.
    “Mr. Snapcase is dining quietly but visibly, in impeccable company, some way away.”
    They turned when the double doors opened. So did several of the other guests, and then turned back hastily. But it was only a servant, who hurried over to Madam and whispered something. She indicated the two military commanders, and the man went to hover anxiously beside them. There was a brief exchange and then, without even a bow toward Lord Winder, all three men went out.
    “I shall just go and see to the arrangements,” said Madam and, without in any sense following the men, headed toward the doors.
    When she stepped into the hall, the two servants waiting by the cake stopped lounging and snapped to attention, and a guard who’d been patrolling the corridor gave her a quick glance of interrogation.
    “Now, madam?” said one of the servants.
    “What? Oh. No! Just wait.” She glided over to where the commanders were in animated conversation with a couple of junior officers, and took Lord Venturi’s arm.
    “Oh dear, Charles, are you leaving us so soon?”
    Lord Venturi didn’t think of wondering how she knew his first name. The champagne had been plentiful, and he saw no reason at the moment why any attractive woman of a certain age shouldn’t know his name.
    “Oh, there are one or two pockets of resistance left,” he said. “Nothing to concern you, Madam.”
    “Bloody big pocket,” murmured Lord Selachii into his mustache.
    “They destroyed Big Mary, sir,” said the luckless messenger. “And they—”
    “Major Mountjoy-Standfast can’t outthink a bunch of gormless watchmen and civilians and some veterans with garden forks?” said Lord Venturi, who had no idea of how much damage a garden fork could do if hurled straight down from an elevation of twenty feet.
    “That’s just it, sir, they are veterans and they know all—”
    “And the civilians? Unarmed civilians?” said Venturi.
    The messenger, who was a sub-lieutenant and very nervous, couldn’t find the right words to explain that “unarmed civilian” was stretching a point when it was a two-hundred-pound slaughterhouse man with a long hook in one hand and a flensing knife in the other. Young men who’d joined up for the uniform and a bed all to themselves do not expect that kind of treatment.
    “Permission to speak freely, sir?” he tried.
    “Very well!”
    “The men haven’t got the heart for it, sir. They’d kill a Klatchian in a wink, sir, but…well, some of the old soldiers are from the regiment, sir, and they’re shouting down all kinds of stuff. A lot of the men come from down there, and it’s not good for them. And what some of the old ladies shout, sir, well, I’ve never heard such language. Dolly Sisters was bad enough, sir, but this is a bit too much. Sorry, sir.”
    Their lordships looked out of the window. There was half a regiment in the Palace grounds, men who’d had nothing to do for several days but stand guard.
    “Some backbone and a quick thrust,” said