Privv waited for the inevitable outcome. When the uproar subsided, the leader of the Castellans would end the debate without a vote and scurry off to a panic-stricken meeting with his party officers to try to find some way of extricating himself from this problem without the retreat being too public or too humiliating.
Toom Drommel sat with his arms folded, quietly smiling to himself, and Privv observed him intently. He had misjudged this man. He had always regarded him as another bigoted pain in the neck, but there was obviously much more to him than met the eye. He had judged the Castellans’ complacency and political carelessness to a nicety and had done them no small amount of harm with his brief statement. He had also done his own party a great deal of good. As he watched the man, sit
