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lose. The Bank wants peace, naturally. The nobility’s saying that now’s the best possible time to finish them off, like we should’ve done seven years ago.” He shivered a little, and spread his hands in a hopeless gesture. “It’s not like we’re exactly a model of political and social stability right now. I really don’t know what to make of it, and neither does anyone else. It’s a mess. But if there’s anything we can do to help, anything at all – well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
    Suidas didn’t think anything was obvious, but he held his tongue. “I’m not sure,” he said. “If it’s as bad over there as you say …”
    “The job pays twenty-five thousand nomismata.”
    That shut him up like a slap across the face. The chairman looked at him and smiled. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, “but I get the impression you could use the money.”
    “Yes.”
    The chairman nodded slowly. “You’ll do it, then.”
    Twenty-five thousand nomismata. “Yes.”
    “Splendid.” The chairman frowned and looked away. “I’m so glad you agreed. If you’d refused, I was authorised to use blackmail and entrapment, or in the last resort we’d have framed you for a murder or something of the sort. I know,” he added quickly, as Suidas opened his mouth and no words came out. “These people I’m dealing with, they’re – well, you wouldn’t think it was possible, not in a civilised society. God only knows what they’d be capable of, and I’m in absolutely no hurry to find out. But I guess, with so much at stake …” He shook his head. “I promise you’ll get the money. It’ll be paid into an account in your name at the Bank on the day you leave here for Permia. As soon as you get home, you’ll be authorised to draw on it. Or, if – well, if things don’t go so well, you can leave it as a bequest in your will. You have my personal guarantee it’ll be honoured.”
    Suidas looked at him. “This is insane,” he said. “I’m a professional fencer, not a—”
    “I know,” the chairman said.
    The Bank’s decision to repossess the Golden Spire temple and convert it into their headquarters led, needless to say, to a furious response from both the Studium and the public at large. The Bank’s response was that the move was entirely reasonable and logical. They urgently needed larger premises; that wasn’t in dispute. Twelve years ago the Studium had borrowed the sum of seven million nomismata, to pay its war tax and fit out three privateer regiments. The privateers, far from returning a substantial profit from battlefield spoils and the plunder of captured enemy towns, had been wiped out in their first serious engagement. Furthermore, the war loan stock the Studium received from the Treasury in return for its tax payments had been downgraded to junk status following the Great Crash. There was, therefore, no realistic prospect of the Studium repaying its loan in the middle or long term. The Bank had tried to be realistic and had agreed to annual interest-only payments for twenty years. Five of these payments had not been made, which meant the compromise agreement was null and void. The only security available to the Bank was the Studium’s realty, and they held mortgages on nine of the great City temples. They’d had all nine independently valued. The Golden Spire was worth five million, but the Bank was prepared to accept it in full and final settlement. Since they needed offices rather than a very large chapel, they had no option but to convert the building. However, they were only too happy to undertake to do so in as sympathetic a manner as reasonably possible. The internal fabric would remain substantially unchanged except for the addition of new partitions. None of the frescoes, reliefs and mosaics for which the Golden Spire was famous throughout the civilised world would be damaged or altered in any way, and the public would be given access to them on five designated open days