The only question is whether or not Princess Irys would see through the deception.

Come to think of it the G4 might just want to get rid Prince Daivyn and then have Princess Irys married off to some one suitable to gain control of Corisand. Such an attempt would have to completely misread her Character though, as Merlin said keeping the poison out your your cup would be impossible.

But since David Weber posted it on the Bar, you can discuss what it means.

Unfortunately, my snerk collar prevents me from taking part. [Wink]

So, Drak, I assume this will be posted as a snippet sometime prior to publication, right? We can go ahead and speculate about it without snerking, right? Oh, good! (I have seen this on the Weber Forum’s snippets).

Is there any reason, other than disguise, for the Silkiahan accent? Such an interesting choice. Lying between Siddermark and Dohlar and Desnair.

And Tarot, being on Charis’ left flank as it were, is prime real estate for imperial expansion.

But Silkiah is a good place to intercept a party traveling from Delfarahk to the Temple lands.

DW has my mind boggling.

@19

http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=73&subjectID=4

Perhaps a bit far fetched and then again perhaps not.

Having a little trouble with the standard English reference for the name Ahbraim Zhevons.

Despite so many people’s knee-jerk assumption that the word niggardly has anything to do with the so-called “N word”, it actually doesn’t. Check out the definition and etymology of the word and its root word for yourself:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/niggardly
nig·gard·ly
–adjective
1. reluctant to give or spend; stingy; miserly.
2. meanly or ungenerously small or scanty: a niggardly tip to a waiter.
–adverb
3. in the manner of a niggard.
Origin:
1520–30; niggard + -ly

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/niggard?db=luna
nig·gard
–noun
1. an excessively parsimonious, miserly, or stingy person.
–adjective
2. niggardly; miserly; stingy.
Origin:
1325–75; ME nyggard, equiv. to nig niggard (< Scand; cf. dial. Sw nygg; akin to OE hneaw stingy) + -ard

The word in recognizable form goes back to Middle English days back before the US was even settled. It predates by centuries the derogatory slang term for a member of the negro race.

So there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the Federation to have needed to remove it from the language.

RH

While we’re waiting for Eric to get back to his computer, I thought I’d just go ahead and give you guys this. I’m not saying anything about the point in the book it comes from.

——————————————————

King Gorjah woke up rather abruptly.

A hand suddenly clamped over one’s mouth in the middle of the night tended to have that effect. Especially upon a king whose bedchamber was at the top of the central keep of an old-fashioned castle well provided with guardsmen.

His eyes flew open, and he started to struggle, only to stop almost instantly. There were two reasons for that. One was that the hand over his mouth might as well have been a gentle, hand-shaped steel clamp. The other was that he’d just become aware of the tip of what seemed to be an exceedingly sharp dagger pressed against the base of his throat.

The night, he decided, was going rapidly from bad to worse.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d be calm, Your Majesty,” a tenor voice he’d never heard before in his life said. “If I’d only wanted to cut your throat, I wouldn’t have bothered to wake you up first.”

The calm voice sounded almost insanely reasonable, like that of a man simply pointing out that thunderclouds often meant rain.

Gorjha could just make out the silhouette of a man’s head against the dim glow of the bedchamber’s gauzy, moonstruck drapes, and he felt a stab of gratitude that Rholynd was having a fretful night and Maiyl had insisted on having her own bed made up in the nursery tonight. At the time, he’d thought it was charmingly sweet of her to want to personally oversee the nurses; at the moment, he was deeply grateful that at least his wife and son were somewhere else.

“On the other hand,” the voice went on pleasantly, “I’m quite sure that if, for some reason, I decided I did want to cut your throat, I could do it long before any of your guardsmen could respond to any shout on your part. If I decided to take my hand off of your mouth, so the two of us could speak as one civilized man to another, do you think you could bear that in mind? The bit about my being able to kill you before anyone else gets here, I mean?”

Gorjha decided the owner of the voice must be mad. Still, he was very much in favor of anything which left him with his throat uncut, and so he nodded firmly.

“Excellent!”

The hand left his mouth, and the man to whom it belonged bowed slightly. Gorjha’s eyes were able to pick out a little more detail now, and he realized the intruder in his bedchamber was considerably taller and broader in the shoulders than he himself. He also appeared to be clean-shaven, and he spoke with what Gorjah now recognized as a Silkiahan accent.

“I apologize for my . . . unconventional methods, Your Majesty. I really do need to speak to you, though, and I’m of the opinion that neither of us would like your guardsmen, your courtiers, or — especially — Vicar Zhaspahr to become aware of the fact that we have.”

Gorjha’s stomach seemed to congeal. He couldn’t be certain in the dimness, but it looked to him as if his visitor had smiled.

“The thing is, Your Majesty,” the Silkiahan continued chattily, “I thought it might be a good idea for me to give a little nudge to your correspondence with Earl Gray Harbor. You may not be aware that by this time Their Majesties will have arrived back in Tellesberg, but I imagine that probably means the somewhat desultory pace of that correspondence will be picking up in the next few five-days.”

Gorjha felt as if someone had just punched him. No one in Tranjyr — no one, with the exception of Sir Ryk Fharmyn — knew about the cautious notes which had passed back and forth between him and the Empire of Charis’ first councilor. He hadn’t mentioned them even to Baron Stonekeep! So how did whoever this was –?

“I . . . don’t know what you’re talking about,” he managed to get out. Even to his own ears, though, it sounded like an automatic, instinctive denial with very little relationship to the truth.

“Your Majesty!” the Silkiahan chided, and actually clicked his tongue at the king. “You know perfectly well what I’m referring to,” he continued scoldingly. “I’m afraid we don’t have time to stand around all night while you deny it, though. And, no, Sir Ryk isn’t how I found out about it.”

The casual reference to Fharmyn was the final blow. Obviously whoever this lunatic was, he knew everything.

“All right,” Gorjha sighed. “Of course I know what you’re talking about. But who the Shan-wei are you, and what are you doing in my bedchamber?!”

“Much better, Your Majesty,” the other man said in an approving tone. “As for introductions, my name is Ahbraim Zhevons. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but you can think of me as a close friend of Merlin Athrawes. I’m sure you’re familiar with that name.”