Reap The East Wind

3 Year 1016 afe

Gathering of the Mighty

T HE WOMAN FOLLOWED her husband through a corridor in Castle Krief, the Royal Palace in Vorgreberg, the capital of Kavelin, one of the Lesser Kingdoms. Her steps were plodding, rolling. An unkind person would have called her walk a waddle. She was very pregnant. And very distracted. She caught herself falling behind, hurried to catch up. Her husband paused, a slight frown crinkling his brow. "Nepanthe, what's the matter?"

"What? Oh, nothing."

"Nothing? I don't believe it. You've been brooding since we got here. You've been dragging around puckered up like a mouth full of crabapple." He raised her chin, peered into downcast brown eyes. "Come on."

Nepanthe was in her forties. A lot of hard years lay behind her, yet her long raven hair showed only traces of grey. Her figure wasn't the wisp it had been at nineteen, but neither had lumpiness conquered all. Her face did not record all the tragedies that had dogged her life. Only her eyes betrayed the melancholy caged within.

Those eyes were old, sad windows, aged by sorrow and pain the way glass is purpled by the endless assault of the sun. They said they would never sparkle again. They would believe in no good fortune, for luck and happiness were but pitfalls and taunts cast in one's face by a malign fate. She had lost her zest for life. She was marking time, waiting for the big sleep, and knew it would be an age arriving. Her husband, the arch-sorcerer Varthlokkur, had learned to hold Death at bay. He was over four centuries old. "Come on," he said in his gentle, coaxing voice. "What is it?"

"Varth... I just don't like this place. It brings back so much that I want to forget. I can't help it... Vorgreberg is accursed. Nothing good ever happens here." She met his stare. A shadow of fear brushed her face.

"I won't stay a minute longer than I need to."

"Bragi will keep you... " She ground her teeth on words too harsh for the situation, "why did you come?" She heard the whine in her voice and was disgusted with herself.

He accepted the question at face value. "I don't know. We'll find out in a few minutes. But Bragi wouldn't have called me if it wasn't important."

That wing of fear stroked her face again. "Important to whom? Varth, don't let him get you involved. He's accursed too." She had begged and begged her first husband, just like this, and he hadn't listened. And so he had died, and left her alone...

Varthlokkur smiled. "I wouldn't call him accursed. Things just happen around him."

"I would. They're bad things. Killing things. Varth... I don't want the baby born here. I lost two brothers, a husband, and my son here. I couldn't stand it if... "

His thin fingers teased through her hair. She stared at the floor. His arms slid around her and he held her a moment. "There'll be no more of that. No more pain. I promise." And, "We won't stay long. Come on. Buck up. You'll get to see a lot of old friends."

"All right." She tried to smile. It felt like a death grimace tearing at her face. "I'll be brave." I'm good at being brave, she thought. I've spent my whole life bravely bearing up. Then she snorted. I'm also a little long on self-pity.

Varthlokkur drew ahead again. She watched him walk. His tall, lean frame was more rigidly erect than usual. His shoulders did not dip or bob but glided in a constant, unyielding relationship to the floor. He was all tensed up. Something was gnawing him too. King Bragi's summons worried him more than he would admit.

Gods! Don't let this be the start of another of those horrible things that devour everything I love. He's all I have left.

What could it be? Shinsan again? The peace had lasted three years now. The Great Eastern Wars seemed to be over. The Dread Empire appeared to be appeased. The memories began yammering in the shadowed reaches of her mind, besieging her in earnest. She battled them till tears came. The recollections would not be driven back into their tombs. Too many dear ones had gone into the darkness before her. Too many memorial ghosts haunted her. She had nothing left. Nothing but this man, whom she could not wholly love or trust. This man and the life developing within her.

Her own life she held of little consequence. A wasteland lay behind her. The future looked as barren. She would live for the child, as she had lived for her son before.

Varthlokkur paused a few steps short of a smartly uniformed Palace Guard. Impatience peeped through his customarily neutral expression. He sensed the past rising inside her. He always knew, and always belittled her preoccupation.

She screwed up her courage and asked the question that irritated him most. "Varth, are you sure that Ethrian is gone? Isn't there any chance at all? I just don't feel like he's dead." Someday his answer might satisfy her.

His jaw tightened. He glanced at the Guard, controlled himself. "No, dear, I don't think so. I would've found him by now." He whirled, stamped to the door the Guard protected. The soldier snapped it open, clicked his heels as the wizard passed. He nodded amiably to Nepanthe.

She responded with a distracted nod. Was he someone she should remember? But she had known so many soldiers. How could she recall just one?

And then she was inside, bumping against the faces of her past like a swimmer bumping about in cold water crowded with chunks of ice. She did not know which way to dodge, which memory she most wanted to evade.

Two men in their late twenties were nearest her, their heads together as if their conversation portended conspiracy. Michael Trebilcock and Aral Dantice were their names. Once they had trailed her across half a continent in a noble, vain attempt to free her from the minions of the Dread Empire. Such quixotic youths they had been. "Aral. Michael. How lovely to see you again." The romance had fled the two, she saw. They were starry-eyed boys no longer. They had the hard eyes of men who had seen too much. The war changed us all, Nepanthe thought.

Dantice was short, wide, dark of hair. He looked as though he belonged behind a pitchfork in a stable. He responded with a delighted smile and effusive greeting.

His companion was taller, slimmer, bone-pale, and more reserved. His eyes were cold and remote. Rumor said he had become Kavelin's chief spy. Nepanthe's brother Valther had held that post till his death at the battle of Palmisano. She searched Michael's face.

She saw not one spark of humor there. The man was all business these days, all self-confidence, competence, and lack of acquaintance with fear. Exactly the kind of man Bragi would choose...

"Darling, you look marvelous!" A woman surrounded her in a swarm of arms. "A little peaked, maybe, but pregnancy becomes you."

Nepanthe returned the hug absently. "You're looking well yourself, Mist." Mist, who had been her brother's wife, a sorceress he had lured forth from the east and converted to the western cause.

"Pooh! I'm an old hag."

Aral Dantice chuckled. "The ladies I know should be so ugly."

And Varthlokkur, with an arm around Trebilcock's shoulder, snorted. "You've added false modesty to your sins, Princess?"

Mist stepped back. "Plain Chatelaine now, I'm afraid. The King sent me to fortress Maisak. You see what I'm worth when there's no fighting?"

"It is the most important castle in the kingdom."

Nepanthe stared at this woman whom her brother had worshipped, who had borne his children, who had been ruler of the Dread Empire before Valther entered her life. She never seemed quite real. More a fairy tale princess than one of the age's most savage and powerful wielders of magic.

Aral put Nepanthe's thoughts into words by observing, "She hasn't changed a bit. Still the most beautiful and dangerous woman alive."

Mist blushed.

How did she manage that? Nepanthe wondered. Aral had said nothing but the truth. Mist knew that. And she was no simpering little courtesan. She was centuries old, honed sharp and tempered hard by the intrigue and struggle for survival round the pinnacles of Dread Empire power. Her blush had to be contrived.

"How are your children?" Nepanthe asked.

"Growing up too fast. Every time I see them they're two inches taller. I'll tell them you're here. They'll be excited. You were always their favorite."

A gloomy, quiet man chewing the stem of an empty pipe shook Varthlokkur's hand. He greeted Nepanthe with a nod and a mumbled, "Nice to see you again."

"Hello, Cham. Business any better?"

Cham Mundwiller, commercial magnate, was a longtime supporter of the King. "Not really. There's only so much I can do while the Gap is closed." He wandered away, became engrossed in the coats of arms gracing the far wall.

Nepanthe turned to a younger man in military dress. "Gjerdrum. How are you? You look glum."

Aral said, "He's sore as a hornet's sting. His knighthood and appointment as commander of the army have gone to his head."

Sir Gjerdrum scowled. "That's not true. It's just that I've got other things to do. Colonel Abaca or General Liakopulos could have sat in on this for me."

Nepanthe noted the Colonel and General among the two dozen or so people she knew only by sight.

Sir Gjerdrum kissed her hand while clicking his heels. They had developed an innocent flirtation when he was younger and less world-wise. He played their old game half-hearted court with a weak suggestion. "Let me treat you to dinner after the little one comes."

Nepanthe raised an eyebrow. What had become of the indefatigably cheerful Gjerdrum of years gone by? Had he been crushed between the millstones of duty? Or was this just a mood?

She glanced around the room. Her friends had all aged, had all grown tired of their responsibilities. Nothing dulls the enthusiasm like the inability to make visible progress, she thought.

She was not unique, then. The same despair-inducing nemesis breathed down the necks of all her friends.

"Where's the King?" she asked. She and Varthlokkur hadn't seen Bragi yet, though they had reached Vorgreberg the previous afternoon.

"I don't know," Gjerdrum mumbled. "You'd think he'd be on time, wouldn't you? After calling us here... He dragged me in all the way from Karlsbad."

Varthlokkur moved to the room's huge fireplace and stared into the prancing flames. He looked troubled. Nepanthe joined him. She wondered why he was so moody lately.

The gathering fell under a pall. Only Michael and Aral remained immune. They chattered like best friends who hadn't seen one another for years.

Mist took a seat near the head of the huge table which filled half the room. Nepanthe studied her. Exile had made of a once savage conspirator a quiet, gentle woman. A knitting bag lay open before her. A small, two-headed, four-armed demon manipulated her needles at an incredible pace. Its legs dangled off the table's side. Occasionally one head would curse the other for making it drop a stitch. Mist would shush gently.

The door opened. A splendidly attired young officer entered. Nepanthe remembered him as Dahl Haas, the son of a mercenary who had followed King Bragi into Kavelin during the civil war. For an instant she wondered if Dahl had had babies who would follow Bragi in their turn.

"Stand by," Haas said. "He's on his way."

Nepanthe moved nearer the door. The King pushed through. His gaze met hers. He winced slightly, then enfolded her in a gentle, uncertain hug. "How are you?" he asked. And, "I'm sorry I couldn't see you last night. This wart of a kingdom don't give me time to catch my breath. Hello, Varthlokkur."

King Bragi was a tall, powerfully built man. He wore the scars of nearly three decades of soldiering. Nepanthe noted grey in the shag at his temples. Time was gnawing at him too.

He whispered, "I'll try to put on a private supper tonight. You'll want to see Fulk." Fulk was his six-month-old son, whom she had never seen.

"How is Inger?"

He gave her an odd look. Her tone must have betrayed her thoughts. She could not get used to his having remarried. His first wife, Elana, who had died during the war, had been her best friend. "Fine. Full of pepper. And Fulk is just like his mother." He moved away, shaking hands, exchanging greetings. Finally finished, he said, "I hope this thing hasn't gotten anybody fired up... I see it hasn't. Just a roll call, anyway, so to speak. I won't really need you for a few days yet. For now, let me just say that we've had word from Derel."

He explained that his personal secretary, Derel Prataxis, was in Throyes, east of the Mountains of M'Hand, negotiating with Lord Hsung, the commander of Shinsan's army of occupation there. In the three years since the cessation of hostilities not one trade caravan had crossed the mountains. The easterners had kept the one commercially viable pass, the Savernake Gap, locked up tight. Now Prataxis reported a dramatic shift in attitude. He expected the negotiations to be brief and their outcome to be favorable.

The discussion was prosaic and dull, and Nepanthe didn't pay much attention till the King asked Sir Gjerdrum for his guess as to why Shinsan would suddenly alter its policy.

"Hsung over there is a hard-liner," the King said. "He wouldn't do anything that would help Kavelin more than it would his own team."

Gjerdrum flashed his scowl. "Maybe the legions are up to strength again. Maybe they want the pass open so they can run spies through."

"That doesn't make sense," Mist countered. "They have the Power. Anyway, if they did have to have an agent physically present, they'd send him in over the smugglers' trails." Her glance flicked to Aral Dantice. "He'd set up a transfer portal so he could bring in any help he needed."

"All right," Bragi said. "Then you give me a reason that does make sense."

"I can't."

Nepanthe became aware of a subtle tension in the room. There were undercurrents here sensed only by a few.

King Bragi stared into infinity. "Why do I feel like you're not telling me everything? Can't you guess out loud?"

Mist stared at her knitting. The imp's needles became silvery blurs. "I don't feel Lord Ko Feng anymore. There may have been a coup." Cautiously, she admitted, "A few old supporters got in touch last summer. They thought there was something in the wind."

Trebilcock snorted. "Something in the wind? Crap! Ko Feng got his butt thrown out. They stripped his titles, his honors, and his immortality. They as much as accused him of treason because he kept his army intact instead of trying to finish us off at Palmisano. A corps commander named Kuo Wen-chin replaced him. Anybody who had anything to do with the Pracchia got swept out along with Feng. All reassigned to Northern and Eastern Armies. What amounts to internal exile. Ko Feng vanished completely. None of the new bunch were involved in the Great Eastern Wars." Trebilcock's glance flicked from Aral Dantice to Mist, as if daring contradiction.

Michael is a strange one, Nepanthe thought. Dantice and Gjerdrum are his best friends, and they say he's weird. Only Varthlokkur seems to understand him.

She wasn't sure what her husband saw in the younger man. She did know he liked Michael, and found him intriguing.

The King asked, "Mist?"

"Michael's connections are better than mine."

Bragi made a slight gesture. Nepanthe caught it. She watched Michael respond with a tiny shrug. The King said, "Varthlokkur, don't you have anything to contribute?"

"I haven't been watching Shinsan. I've been busy."

Nepanthe stared at the tabletop and blushed. She had mixed feelings about her pregnancy. Excitement and eagerness and way too much worry. She was too old... But she had to try, to replace the son she had lost during the war...

"But... " she started, then shut up. It was entirely her husband's business if he wanted his east-watching kept mum. Still, why should he lie?

Varthlokkur said, "I could send the Unborn, of course."

"No. That would just provoke them." Bragi eyed the group. "My best friends. My advisers and boon companions. Why are you such a moody bunch today? Nobody wants to talk, eh? All right. Be that way. So. That's it. Check your contacts, people. I want to know what's happening over east. Those people won't hurt us again. Not while I have any say."

His tone startled Nepanthe. She took a closer look. Yes. There were tears in his eyes. He had an almost fanatic love for Kavelin.

For a moment she envied him. Would that she had something with as much meaning for her.

The ambitions of eastern princes had cost them both. Him his brother. Several of his children. His first wife, who had been her best friend. His best friend, who had been her first husband, Mocker. And whom he had been compelled to kill himself, because poor tangle-witted Mocker had been convinced he had to make a choice between Bragi and his son... "Damn!" she spat, and slammed a fist against the tabletop.

Everyone turned. She winced. Softly, she apologized. She didn't explain.

It was not just the past which compelled her now. Something about this nonevent of a meeting argued portent, cried out about bad times coming. The restless armies of the night were stirring. An ill fate was marshalling fresh forces. Dark clouds gnawed the horizon. The air had begun to crackle with foreboding.

King Bragi was crossing a courtyard, headed for the stables, when he spied Varthlokkur pacing the east ramparts. The wizard was engrossed in the distance. The King altered course.

He approached the wizard from behind, settled himself between two merlons. "Care to talk about it?"

Varthlokkur spun. His response so startled the King, he nearly flung himself backward off the wall. Varthlokkur seized one flailing hand. "Don't sneak around like that."

"Like what? Who was sneaking? I walked up and sat down. What the hell is wrong with you?"

The wizard grumbled, "Nothing concrete. Not yet. Something in the east. Without the stink of Shinsan. But I could be wrong."

"Any tie-in with Hsung's change of heart?"

"The world consists of patterns. Mostly, we misread them. In Hsung's case, though, he really wants peace. The question is why."

"You didn't say that before."

"Nepanthe."

"Think I missed something there."

"The years have robbed her of too much. Her brothers. Mocker and Ethrian. Even Elana. I don't want to crucify her on a false hope."

"You're not making a lot of sense."

"It's Ethrian. He might be alive."

"What? Where?" This was staggering news. His godson alive? He owed that boy an incalculable debt.

"Easy," the wizard said. "I don't know anything for sure. It's a touch of a feeling I get lately. Something one hell of a long way off that has his aura. It's like catching one sniff of fresh bread while you're walking down the street, then trying to find the baker. The only resource I haven't tried is the Unborn. I won't unless there's another overpowering excuse to send him that way anyway."

The King sneered his disgust. The thing called the Unborn was a monster which should never have been created. "He's in the east, then."

"If it's him. The far east."

"Prisoner of Shinsan?"

"Lord Chin took him."

"Chin is dead."

"Just thinking out loud. Lord Chin and the Fadema took him. We've assumed they delivered him to the Pracchia, who used him to twist Mocker's arm. But maybe they didn't have him after all."

"They had him. You couldn't bluff Mocker. You ought to know that. They did some fancy convincing to make him attack me."

The wizard peered into the misty east. He did not reply, though he could have admonished the King about romanticizing his one-time friend, or about listening too closely to the guilt he bore.

The King mused, "We never had proof that Ethrian died."

The wizard was proud that he had no scales over his eyes, yet he did have his blind spots. The man Bragi had slain, and whose wife the wizard had later married, had been his son. Sometimes that fact got in the way.

Bragi shifted ground. "Was there anything else?"

"Anything else?"

"Your claim to be preoccupied was unconvincing."

Varthlokkur shifted his attention from the distance to the man. His basilisk eyes crinkled. "You grow bolder with age. I recall a younger Bragi shaking at the mere mention of my name."

"He didn't realize that even the mighty are vulnerable. He hadn't seen the dread ones in their moments of weakness."

Varthlokkur chuckled. "Well said. Don't take the notion too much to heart, though. The Tervola won't give you a decade to find the chinks in their armor."

Bragi stood. "I'll try this conversation when you're feeling more pellucid. Maybe you'll deal some straight answers."

Varthlokkur faced the east. His eyes lost focus. "We will speak later, then," he said.

Bragi frowned, not understanding. The wizard had changed languages. He shrugged, left the man to his mysteries.

The road called Lieneke Lane drew its name from the civil war which brought mercenary captain Bragi Ragnarson into Kavelin. Ragnarson had destroyed then Queen Fiana's enemies. A key victory had occurred near the town of Lieneke.

The road meandered amongst the homes of the wealthy. A lone, rain-soaked rider pursued it westward. A park appeared at his right hand. To his left the homes grew larger and wealthier. He glanced at one. The survivors of the King's family by his first marriage lived there, neither in penury nor in ostentation nor fame. The horseman averted his face. He left the lane just a few houses beyond the King's.

A footman braved the drizzle, took his animal. "The lady just arrived, Mr. Dantice. She said to wait in the library. Bette will be there to serve you."

"Thank you." Aral scampered across the porch. He shed his rain cloak and left it with the doorman. Ambling toward the library, he watched for Mist's children. Usually they were too much in evidence, and too filled with curiosity. He did not see them today, though, and wondered if Mist had moved them elsewhere. Despite the best coaching, little tongues would wag.

"Good morning, sir," the maid said.

"Good morning, Bette. Could you bring me something light? Butter, bread, and preserves, say? I haven't yet eaten."

"The cook has a nice grouse, sir."

"I don't think so. I shouldn't be here long enough."

"Very well, sir. Tea?"

"Anything hot. This rain will give us all the rheumatism."

Dantice prowled nervously after the woman departed. So many books! They represented so much wealth and knowledge they intimidated him. He had no formal education. His limited literacy skills he had garnered from his father, who had troubled to learn only because he was too mean to hire clerks.

Aral was sensitive about his ignorance. His contacts with the court had shown him the value of literacy. His association with Mist had underscored it. She had opened his eyes to uncounted new ideas...

Aral Dantice called himself a realist. He did not believe in the free lunch. His peculiar romanticism lay askew from that of his acquaintances. His relationship with Mist was an alliance of convenience. They were one another's willing tools... so he told himself when he worried.

So why this untamed interest in matters neither commercial nor political? Why did she take time to teach him when the lessons were so elementary they had to be excruciatingly boring? When his long-run value was severely limited and localized? Why did he?... It had come at him from his blind side. It had jumped and mauled him, and had left him with feelings and visions that were new to him. And he was frightened. This was not the right time. And Mist was not the right woman.

She was old. She had been old when his grandfather was a babe. Maybe she had been old when Varthlokkur was a pup, and the wizard had stalked the world for four long centuries. And she was a princess of the Dread Empire. No cosmetic could hide that fact, no term of exile change it. The cruel blood of tyrants coursed her veins. Even now she barkened to its roar.

But she was the most desirable woman alive. When her melting eyes poured fire on a man, he couldn't help but become their slave. Only some gonadless creature out of the same devil's jungle that spawned her could ignore her.

He wondered, perhaps for the hundredth time, just what went on behind her perfect mask of a face. The male thaumaturges of the Dread Empire concealed themselves behind hideous beast dominoes. She hid behind beauty.

He scanned all the titles and finally selected the book he chose each time he came here. Bette brought bread and butter and tea. He sipped and nibbled while studying meticulously prepared, hand-pressed woodcuts of the architectural wonders of the age.

He had seen the real structures during the war. The representations were woefully inadequate. "Damn!" he swore softly. "There's got to be a better way."

Michael claimed there were painters in Hellin Daimiel who could portray people perfectly. Why didn't they try place portraiture?

"Aral?" Her voice was soft. Its edges tinkled like tiny silver bells. Her beauty punished ugliness for existing. He rose, gulped.

"Sit down, Aral." She took a chair beside him. He imagined he felt the heat of her burning across the foot of air separating them. "That book again. Why?"

He swallowed. "The technical challenge. There has to be a better way to illustrate." Did his voice sound like a frog's croak? How could she do this to him? He wasn't a kid anymore.

"Did you talk to Michael?"

"We went riding. He didn't say much. He was even more cryptic than usual. I did get the feeling he was trying to warn me off."

"How so? You think he knows?"

"I couldn't tell. He must suspect something. But he isn't sure. Not yet. He kept changing the subject to landscaping and betting on Captures." He thought, I'm talking too fast, and probably too much. He knew he wasn't in love. Not really. It was all in the glands. But it was powerful. She destroyed reason by inflaming the urge to mate.

"He knows more than he told the King, Aral. That was obvious. He knew too much about Lord Ko Feng and Lord Kuo not to have known more. He has a good contact east of the mountains. Possibly somebody who's caught wind of us. You'd better have your smuggler friends find out who it is."

"Do we have to do it this way? Mike could help a lot if we let him in."

"He could get us killed, too. I don't trust him, Aral. He's too much his own creature. He doesn't form loyalties, he makes temporary alliances. He's the kind who can change horses without a qualm. I don't think it'll be long before the King is sorry he hasn't kept Michael on a shorter rein."

"Yeah. The riots in Throyes. He admitted he was involved. And he's under orders not to irritate Lord Hsung. The King wants trade reopened bad."

"What about Cham Mundwiller? Is he still sitting the fence? We don't have to have backing from Sedlmayr, but I'd feel better if we did. They could finance another battalion, and that would make my friends a lot more comfortable."

"He's playing it cagey. He wants to be covered both ways. He's got the Michael shakes. He's never gone against the King before."

Mist gnawed a cuticle. "Go on."

"That damned Mike! He's like a ghost anymore. You never know where he is or what he's doing, or even if the guy next to you is maybe working for him. I spend half my time looking over my shoulder. Hell, Mike is just plain bad for business. And now that damned wizard is back, and he and Mike have always been thick. What Mike can't find out for himself Varthlokkur will dig out for him. All he has to do is ask. I don't mind telling you they've got me spooked."

"Has Cham asked for anything?"

"No."

"Don't offer. Let him come around his own way. I don't want to do business with people who have to be bribed. Other people can bribe them too. He'll just have to settle for secure trade."

Dantice nodded. "Far as I'm concerned, trade is the whole point of the exercise." Once a less belligerent, more commercially oriented regime was established in Shinsan, the riches would flow in rivers. All Kavelin could fill dippers in the stream—the way it had been before the Great Eastern Wars.

Aral believed in what he was doing. He was a patriot. His conscience was healthy. He'd had a bad moment when he learned Prataxis was making headway with Lord Hsung, but Mist had calmed him, and had assured him that Hsung was playing diplomatic games, that he had no intention of relaxing his stranglehold on the trade routes.

"What is happening in Shinsan?" he asked. "The wizard had something on his mind."

"I really don't know. They're restructuring army commands and shuffling legions. Lord Kuo's people give the orders. They don't explain. My friends can't tell me much."

"Or won't?"

"I've thought of that, too. There's always a chance they're working the other way, or both ways. I'm considering bypassing them. I have other resources."

Aral shuddered. He had seen some of those resources during the war. She was one of the great wielders of the Power, a fact emotion tended to obscure.

"I'd better get back. When I'm away too long the whole shop goes to pot."

She touched his hand lightly. Her eyes misted. "You're sweet, Aral. You're not quite real. Valther was that way too." She sounded wistful.

If only he were a tad more bold. It had been four years since Palmisano and her husband's death. She should be ready.

Aral took his leave. He tried to distract himself with debate on how to bet the day's Captures matches.