This morning I am early for my rendezvous. That’s not usual for me, but then today is hardly a normal day. This is the day when, one way or another, our long resistance to Bartazan and his oppression comes to an end. Three years of hiding, raids in the night, the occasional fleeting success and more frequent crushing setback. I think I’m allowed to be a little early.

        We meet, of course, in the Waterside Tavern. We’re all regular patrons of Panduletta’s establishment: no spy of Corrando’s could get a foothold in here. We’re as safe in these familiar surroundings as anywhere.
        Allara comes in and quickly sits down. She is dressed as stylishly as ever, and carries herself with the understated poise of an Elector’s daughter, but these days her heart is not in couture. She gives me a quick smile but I can’t meet her eyes. She looks tired, I think, although I can’t imagine I’m much better myself. Inisse’s capture has obviously hit her hard. Of all of us, he was the one who knew from experience what Bartazan’s dungeons were like, and his fear at the thought of capture was palpable. It’s not just Inisse, of course, it’s the cumulative effect: Koopendrall, Dandret, Florio. One by one Corrando’s constables have picked us off, sometimes overtly, sometimes not. Is it any wonder we become informants and collaborators? I grimace – best not to dwell on this.
        “Are you ready?” asks Allara. “Do you really think this will work?”
        I laugh nervously. “The odds are hardly on our side. But what have we got to lose?”
        Allara runs her finger round the rim of her mug. I notice her normally immaculate nails have been bitten back. “Ask Inisse what we have to lose,” she said quietly. “Things are bad now – but imagine what they look like from inside the dungeons. We don’t have to do this, you know.”
        I shut my eyes and lean my head back. Why does she have to be like this? Why does she have to give me a choice? If we don’t do it, we both stay free: there are no informers, no captures, no consciences. How tempting it is to put it all off for another day. I am ready, prepared for today as the day of the final betrayal. I don’t know whether I could do it a second time.
        “We don’t really have a choice, Allara,” I say. “We may not have to do it today, but sooner or later we do. And you know, it might just work. We owe it to the others.”
Allara shrugs. This was her chance to escape, and she missed it. Somehow I can tell she knows it. Her blue eyes are dull. She knocks back her drink. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

        It’s been three years since Bartazan came to power. It should never have happened, of course, and there’s no shortage of people to blame. The Garganet, Ascalon, seems to be most people’s choice; and of course, if he hadn’t won the Margariad, Medina would have won the Election and not Bartazan. I confess I blamed him myself. Things are never that simple, though. Larien told me about the Election night, the mob baying outside the Elector’s Banquet, intimidating who knows how many of them into voting for Bartazan. And if I’m honest, I’m hardly blameless myself. I was the one who ran into exile after Bartazan killed Padizan, and even when Larien came to Garganet and told me how bad things were, instead of coming back to Paladria, I just hid in Taratanallos. The truth is, we’re all to blame, all of us who let Bartazan stay in power, not just the informants but the ones who look down when the Constables drag someone away, who subscribe to the grotesque fiction that things are normal in Paladria.
        It’s not as if there hasn’t been opposition to Bartazan. By the time I came back, there was a strong and capable group, ready to fight. Men like Florio and Inisse were competent and ruthless; Koopendrall and Dandret were able to supply enough money to keep us in safe houses, to buy silence – for a time at least. Allara’s poise, looks and breeding could get us access to just about anywhere, loosen any man’s tongue. But one by one Corrando’s agents have picked us off. Our group – ‘Conscience of Paladria’ – was the only one of any real capacity, and since Florio and then Inisse were taken, only two of us are left. And for us it’s do or die, with the emphasis, I rather suspect, on die.

        The Peremptor is always heavily reliant on his Captain of Constables to maintain his rule, and Bartazan is no exception. Corrando, who seamlessly shifted his allegiance from Medina to Bartazan, is ruthless, amoral, duplicitous – and most of all extremely capable. His Constables may terrorise the city, but Corrando’s best work is done in the dark, in secret. Our first assassination attempt on Bartazan, failed when Koopendrall died on the eve of the plot. Poisoned oysters? Koopendrall never ate shellfish. Whatever we planned, Corrando seemed to know about it. Nobody ever mentioned infiltrators, but it was around that time that we started to look after our own safe houses, so that no one of us could betray the whereabouts of any other. Trust is a luxury no-one can afford in Bartazan’s Paladria.

        “Carnazan!” Allara’s voice is low but insistent. “Are we going to sit here all day?”
I start from my reverie. On this day of betrayals – the final betrayal, the one which will destroy us – it’s hardly surprising I’m thinking about previous instances. But I will need to be alert today; there will be plenty of time for reflection once the Conscience of Paladria is broken.
        “We’ve a while until the inspection,” I say. “The last thing we want is Corrando’s men picking us up on the waterfront.” Nevertheless I get up. Does it really matter at what point we’re captured?
        Allara gets quickly to her feet too. She’s keen to get it over with, keen to hustle us to destruction.

        We walk up into the hills. I have been there once this morning, to light the brazier: it would ironic if the whole thing failed because I couldn’t get the fire started. I take in the sound of the sea lapping against the waterfront for what must surely be the last time: I’m not going to be coming back once this is over. I wonder whether Corrando will pick us up this early, but we hardly see anyone as we walk from the waterfront into the foothills. The few people we do see look straight ahead, minding their own business. No-one wants to be seen as informant, or to call attention to their own conduct. Guilty and innocent alike keep their own counsel. This is the Paladria Bartazan has built.
        As we lengthen our stride into the hills, the sight of the brazier smoking raises my spirits, and the folded fabric, the ropes. I forget the context, the hopelessness. Before I got involved in all this, before Bartazan perverted everything that was good in Paladria, innovation was my passion. Larien always used to laugh at how enraptured I became in my speculations. “No-one will ever float above the ground in one of your contraptions,” she’d say. “It’s delusion.”
        She was wrong, of course. I remember the day I built the prototype and sent Yarrew and Maddiran aloft in it: at best a partial success, but it flew. Larien was there of course, and Ascalon… what innocent days… how naïve I was. Larien was always wiser, but not wise enough. She took up with Drallenkoop, and Ascalon, neither of whom did her any good. She’s safest back in Taratanallos, but I miss her.
        Allara is setting the canopy up as I pause for thought. I rush over to help her; normally she’d make some ironic remark about how long it’s taken me to help her, but not today. She’s subdued, as if she knows what I’m thinking. Unlikely – we’ve never been that close. The only one she was really close to was Florio, and when he was captured the fight seemed to go out of her. Until this one last push…
        Slowly the canopy begins to inflate and the balloon takes on its full rotundity. Only the two guide ropes are holding it on the ground. I check the cross-bow next to me; it’s small and antiquated, some shoddy cast-off I picked up in Taratanallos, but it’s primed and ready. I’m a good enough shot, and it’s a big enough target. That part, at least, will go right…
        I shake my head; I can’t believe I’m thinking like this. Of course it won’t go right: Corrando’s men will be on the scene long before there’s any danger of the shot being fired. That’s the whole point of him having informants.

        Perched on the hillside we have a perfect view of Urmalest, Bartazan’s private barracks and now, of course, the headquarters of Corrando’s secret police. Corrando’s offices are blocked from our view by the adjacent storehouse – which of course is the idea. I remember when I had the idea, when I still thought we could change things, and that we weren’t just acting out some impotent fantasy. It was just before Inisse was captured – less than two weeks ago, if you can believe that.

        “We’re going about it all wrong,” I said to Inisse, as we sat on this self-same hillside, away from eavesdroppers and informers. “Our whole strategy has been based around killing Bartazan.”
        Allara lounged on her blanket, her blonde hair blowing across her face. She looked across at me. “That’s the whole point of the conspiracy,” she said. “What else are we going to do? Sing songs and wave placards?”
        Inisse scratched his beard. “Allara has a point. What else can we do but kill Bartazan? He’s not going to stop voluntarily, and he’s already ‘postponed’ the next Election.”
        I sighed. “The fact is, Bartazan is so well protected that we can’t get near him. We’ve tried to stab him, we’ve tried to poison him, we’ve even tried to sink his galley. Every attempt has either been thwarted on the day, or someone’s been captured before we’ve even made the attempt.”
        “So we just give up and go home?” said Allara with some scorn.
        “No indeed. Let me ask you this: how does Bartazan maintain his power? Did he come and arrest Florio in his bed? Does he quell the demonstrations himself?”
        “Of course not. He has people to get their hands dirty for him.”
        “Exactly!” I exclaimed. “And one person in particular.”
        “Corrando,” said Inisse quietly. “Get Corrando, and Bartazan loses his right hand.”
        I looked up into the cool blue sky and smile. “Just so. And here’s how we’re going to do it.”
        Allara sat straight up on her blanket. Whatever her faults as a revolutionary – and these were significant – no-one could fault her posture. Inisse too was trim and alert. He may not have had a personal grudge against Corrando as he did against Bartazan, but he was no fool.
        “Look down into the Urmalest,” I said. “You can almost see Corrando’s offices from here.”
        “So?” said Allara. “You can scarcely expect to get inside the barracks. He’s safer there than just about anywhere else.”
        “Wrong!” I cried, my enthusiasm carrying me forward. “You’ve seen the lighter-than-air inflatables I’ve been working with. We can use one of those.”
        Inisse laughed aloud, his normally cool eyes alive. “So we fly over the wall, alight and strike Corrando down. Not your most practical idea, Carnazan.”
        “Of course not,” I said. For all Inisse’s reliability, he is not a creative thinker.