Chapter 33

June 19, 1940

I was faced with a bit of a dilemma in choosing the location for my interview by Miss Caldwell. On the one hand, I needed to choose a spot that would impress. Not that I thought I could overawe the reporter. She was from a wealthy background in America, and probably grew up in more opulent surroundings than I'd ever seen. Still, a properly chosen setting could stand as a silent rebuttal to everything that she'd written about her visit to the sticks.

On the other hand, I didn't want to portray myself like some medieval lord, living in the lap of luxury while the people scrabbled to make a living. Or, more to the point, I didn't want to make it easy for her to portray me that way. I already received regular denunciations as a militaristic tyrant, the last thing that I needed was to complete the image of a tin pot dictator by cultivating an aura of hedonism.

In the end, I settled on hosting her in the chancellor's suite in the stadium in München, the day before the Americans were set to host their quarterfinal match. The suite was brand new and nicely appointed, and also carried a certain air of exclusivity. However, those nice decorations were hardly any sort of decadent excess, and it was expected that a country would spend some money on any location meant to host foreign visitors.

I arrived early with a small stack of newspapers under my arm. Opening the door to the suite, I stepped into a room that could have been a reception area at a high end hotel. A few small tables had been scattered throughout the room, each accompanied by a pair of chairs. In the center of the room was a coffee table, surrounded by a couch and arm chairs. The extra furniture had all been removed for the first game of the World Cup so that we could fit as many people as possible into the suite, but the room had now been restored to a more normal configuration.

I dropped the pile of papers on the coffee table and settled in on the couch to the sound of crinkling leather. Once I was in a comfortable reading posture, I reached out and grabbed the first paper and opened it to the front page, displaying the logo of the New Amstreldam Observer. Elya had gotten hold of the American printings of Miss Caldwell's articles. I naturally wouldn't go into my interview without reviewing the work that she had already done.

After reading the article, I could see how Elya had been fooled. Miss Caldwell had played it pretty straight. The unobservant reader could easily be fooled into thinking it was a sincere paean to Germanian greatness. I usually associated dry wit with the Albish, but the Americans were after all their cousins, however distant.

The article only gave itself away in the little details. For example, she described the excitement of driving a mile a minute in the People's Car without mentioning that it took almost a minute to get up to that speed. Not to mention that such a rush could only be maintained with the pedal to the metal. Less subtly, the repeated praise for her meals would set off red flags with anybody familiar with Germanian cuisine.

The most obvious tells, though, came from the clever use of photographs in juxtaposition with the text. She wrote a whole paragraph about the marvel of Germanian technology, only to accompany it with a photo of a group of men fresh off a farmer's field staring at a tiny television set like a bunch of slack jawed yokels. My favorite touch was that the picture of the author and her borrowed People's Car was set next to an advertisement for a Ford V-8 that would thoroughly trounce our bug by any measure.

I set the paper down and considered my approach to the upcoming interview. For all that I had been in the public eye for some time, I hadn't spent much time interacting directly with the press. When I had something that I wanted to say to the public, I could just requisition some time on the radio. Most of the time when the government was going to explain something in detail by way of a conversation with a reporter, it would be handled by one of my underlings. Sure, I gave the occasional press conference, but I'd never sat down for an extended one on one interview before.

I had to consider the nature of my interlocutor. Millicent Caldwell came from old money. She would have been trained from the time she could walk on how to rub shoulders with the rich and powerful. How to judge truth from lie, how to tell friend from foe, how to hide a knife behind a gentle smile and turn normal people into useful tools. Her ability to rise to the top in the cutthroat American media market was testament to her abilities.

I did find it a bit strange that somebody from her background would sully her hands with the work of a reporter. Perhaps some farsighted family member had seen the increasing reach of mass media and had asked Miss Caldwell to step forward and harness its power directly, more efficiently than could be managed from the usual sort of political influence and backroom dealings. Perhaps Miss Caldwell had acted of her own initiative, seizing this form of power on her own when her family hesitated to hand over their more traditional means of influence.

Fortunately, I had no need to puzzle out such mysteries. I simply had to present myself in such a way that Miss Caldwell would find it to her benefit to portray me in a positive light.

I had established some safeguards. I would be recording our interview on a civilian orb. Miss Caldwell would receive a copy, while I would keep the original. In the event that I felt she had reported my words dishonestly or left out vital context, I could issue a correction. I couldn't put much trust in that threat, though, as her article would be spread nationwide with ease, while I would have a hard time getting any corrections heard by the American public.

I took a deep breath and shook out my arms to dispel the tension. Ultimately, I was going to have to rely on my grasp of modern reporting techniques, the use of signaling theory, and my ability to read people.

As much as I admired the artistry of her work, I couldn't simply stand by while an entire country laughed up its sleeves at Germania. I knew that it was too much to hope to turn Miss Caldwell into a sincere fan of our country. If nothing else, she had built up her own brand by now as a satirist. By making a personal appeal, though, taking a ribbing in good fun, I hoped to earn some good will. If nothing else, writing about me would be a distraction from exploring the countryside for fresh material.

A knock on the door meant that the moment had come. I stood and activated the recording spell.

"Come in."

Elya opened the door, escorting a slender brunette with her hair cut in a short bob. Millicent Caldwell was pretty, just as her photographs suggested. Meeting her in person, I could see that she had a certain energy about her, what Americans would call 'moxie.' She also stood an irritating two inches taller than I did.

Once Miss Caldwell was inside, Elya gave me a cheerful nod and stepped out, closing the door behind her.

"I trust you had a pleasant journey, Miss Caldwell," I said, speaking in her native Albish. As a last resort, I could always claim that some unfortunate statement had been a result of a mistranslation. "We have water and fruit juice, if you would care for a refreshment.

"No. Yes. I mean, I don't need anything, and I had a great trip," she said, tripping over her words. "Uh, Chancellor, ma'am."

She seemed nervous. Not something that I expected to pick up on from such an experienced socialite. On the other hand, I didn't know exactly how forceful Elya had been in dragging her to this interview. She had been writing a rather insulting series of articles, so maybe she was expecting me to browbeat her in the guise of an interview. Or worse, depending on what sort of rumors she may have heard about me.

This could be bad. As meek as she may appear at the moment, she could always strike back with a fury once she was safely back in America, pen in hand.

I mustered my friendliest smile and extended my hand. "Please, just Tanya is fine."

"Tanya. Ah, all right. Call me Milly, then," she said, shaking my hand. She finally looked away from me and glanced around the room. "Gosh, this is nice. Are all the suites like this?"

I hummed noncommittally, turning to lead her back into the room to buy time to think. The luxury box was an innovation, but it was just a basic adaptation of the opera box to a new setting. Why would she lead with such a banal question? Did she want to paint the suite as decadent excess? A foolish boondoggle? She might also just be testing the waters with something innocuous. Or trying to lull me into a false sense of security.

Well, in any event, honesty was the best policy. I hopped onto one of the bar stools once we reached the front of the room and turned back to face her, leaning back against the bar.

"The other suites are smaller, but the design is the same. It has proven quite popular with local businessmen," I said. "We're already charging more than we would for the same area of normal seating, and I expect the price to go up in the future."

"Oh. Oh!" she said, then fished her notebook and a pen from an inner pocket. "And, what do you plan to do with these stadiums in the future, Chan-uh, Tanya?"

I smiled. If she was looking to pad out her word count with some easy questions, I'd be happy to deliver easy answers. I'd just have to watch out for any sudden fastballs hidden among the soft pitches.

"Naturally, we hope to find a long term tenant," I said. "Ideally from a newly created professional league."

She nodded. "Right, the soccer clubs here are all amateur operations."

"There is a strong amateur tradition, but I believe the change to a professional footing is inevitable," I said. "There's just too much money involved. A team operating out of this stadium could pay its players good wages and still earn substantial profits, even just off the ticket revenue."

I had just finished having this discussion in a suite much like this one over in Berun during Germania's final game in the group stages. The men from the national football organization had been quite stubborn in the run up to the World Cup, but seeing the size of the crowds moved them, as did a frank discussion of the gate receipts. I was hoping that we could start professional matches in the coming fall. After all, the teams already existed, so it was simply a matter of reorganization.

Miss Caldwell nodded along as I spoke, before cocking her head and plastering a puzzled look on her face. "What other revenue would there be, besides the tickets?"

"Well, there's some money in the food and drink sales, but the real fortune is to be made off television," I said. "Even now, far more people are watching each game on the television than at the stadium. You can't charge them for it, of course, but advertisers will pay for access to that kind of market. Even more so in the future. Televisions get cheaper every year. It won't be too long until there will be a set in every household. You could have millions of people watching each game."

"That would really be something," Miss Caldwell said, giving me such a deadpan earnest look that it took me a moment to realize that I had embarrassed myself.

What was I doing, trying to impress an American with the possibilities of television? Next I ought to go tell General Lergen about the great new military tactic I just invented, the flanking counterattack.

I coughed and cleared my throat, calming myself down before trying to change the subject. "Yes, well, we'll see. Now, Milly, please feel free to ask me about whatever you like. It doesn't need to be related to the World Cup."

She perked up at that and took a step forward, taking the bar stool next to mine. Once she sat down, she leaned forward, her eyes bright.

"Can you tell me," she asked, "how did you feel when you became the first woman elected to lead a country?"

"Surprised," I said. I had, after all, done my best to derail my party's momentum before the time came to vote.

"Do you think that voters were reluctant to vote for a woman?" she asked.

I shifted slightly in my seat. I was, of course, happy to answer questions about the past. It was all a matter of public record, anyways. I was less comfortable with the idea that I was some kind of feminist pioneer. I could get past the hypocrisy, but I refused to allow Being X to twist my mental self image by twisting my body. I might have to suffer through monthly reminders of my current physical gender, but I had spent my truly formative years as a man. I wouldn't be worn down that easily.

I decided to stick with a dispassionate analysis of the election results. I had long since studied what had gone wrong when I tried to lose support.

"Not really," I said. "Voters wanted change more than anything else, and I had been promising change for years. When there's only one store in town, people aren't too picky about the proprietor."

"Well," she said, "what would you say to a young girl who wants to follow in your footsteps?"

"Don't," I replied, on reflex. I saw her eyebrows raise in surprise as she readied a follow up question. As I should have expected, she had picked up on my discomfort and was digging for a juicy story. I had to regain control of the conversation.

"That is," I continued, "I was a famous soldier and then went into politics. But, you shouldn't become a soldier because you want to be famous. Soldiers like that get themselves killed, and often drag their comrades down with them."

Certainly, beating such foolish notions out of new recruits had occupied far too much of my precious time during the war. It would be much better all around if those sorts of idiots found a more suitable line of work. Even if this article was going to be read mostly in the Unified States, the last thing I wanted was an American military full of glory hounds.

I sighed and looked down, spotting the light reflecting off of the Silver Wings Assault Badge that I still wore pinned to my jacket. Such a small thing, and yet it had cast a shadow over my whole career. It was only natural that somebody watching my career from a distance would see it as a useful tool to chase after.

"It always comes back to this," I said, fiddling with the medal. "But, you know, it's not the kind of thing anybody sane would try to earn. I certainly didn't."

"What happened?" she asked, indulging my desire to reminisce despite the fact that the report describing the events of that day was a public record.

"I was on my own, acting as an artillery spotter. Then an enemy company popped out of nowhere, attacking my sector," I said. "It was twelve against one, but if I retreated then they would have had a free shot at our artillery."

Caught between a firing squad if I fled and a whole enemy company if I fought. Leaving aside Mary Sue, it was the most personal danger I'd ever faced. I'd been stuck with a single core orb back then, too. Still better than the Entente had, but not as much of a gap compared to later on.

"I won't bore you with the details," I continued, "but I should have died."

I rubbed my thumb against the medal, lost in thought. I still wondered, sometimes, if Being X had started putting his thumb on the scale that far back. My plan of putting up a brief resistance before taking myself out of the fight with a survivable injury was my own work, I was pretty sure. Being X had never shown that kind of subtlety. No matter what the plan, though, surviving my first fight after being so badly outnumbered seemed a little unlikely.

Not to mention the fact that I was awarded such a prestigious medal afterwards. I hadn't even wiped out the whole company. I couldn't rule out Being X having put the fix in, just for the sake of raising my profile and keeping me stationed on the front lines.

"I really should have died," I said, shaking my head. "Ah, sorry for being so maudlin."

"Not at all," Miss Caldwell replied. "So you wouldn't recommend that anybody join the army?"

"I wouldn't say that," I said, well ingrained reflexes kicking in. I could never endorse such an unpatriotic sentiment. "Just, go into it with realistic expectations. The food is bad, the sleeping conditions are terrible, and a lot of people will try to kill you."

I'd thought I could secure better conditions for myself by joining the military voluntarily and getting onto the right career track. I'd been armed with wisdom beyond my years and knowledge from decades in the future. In the end, though, I had seen a steady diet of trenches, artillery, and dogfights throughout most of the war. If that was the best that I could manage with all of my advantages, the average enlistee didn't stand a chance.

"So," she said, "what would you recommend to all the little girls out there who see you as a role model?"

"Find something you like doing that helps the people around you," I said. The basic principle of capitalism was to earn the highest wage possible by creating value for consumers. "And keep an eye out for opportunities. Don't try to be me. Be you."

She nodded, staying silent for a moment to write down some notes to herself. Once she finished, she flipped through her notebook, looking for something.

"Changing the subject," she said, "some have called you the most eligible bachelorette in Europe. Can we expect to hear about a Mr. Degurechaff any time soon?"

I should have expected that she wouldn't let me stay in my comfort zone of old war stories for too long. Fortunately, I had long been prepared for this line of inquiry, even if it hadn't come up as often as I had expected over the last few years.

"Ah, I don't think I can claim that title," I began. Fortunately, men had always found me more intimidating than attractive, something that was only magnified at the prospect of taking on a first lady sort of role. It wasn't like I was attached to a significant inheritance, either. Point made, I circled back to my stock answer. "Besides, with the duties of the Chancellor keeping me busy, I don't have time for romance."

"You don't have your eye on anybody?" she asked, sounding disappointed.

A flash of brown hair and a gentle smile appeared in my mind's eye, but I shook my head. Even when I'd wanted to get kicked out of office, I had never wanted to do it by dragging Visha through the mud. "I'm afraid not."

She nodded, still writing away in her notebook. "What do you think of the bias cut dress? It's just starting to catch on in America. You have such a wonderful figure for fashion."

I did my best to maintain a placid expression in order to mask the fact that I had no idea what she was talking about. "Honestly, I don't pay much attention to that kind of thing."

If she wanted to portray me as unfeminine, I wouldn't mind at all. Though I never felt truly comfortable appearing ignorant, I didn't particularly feel the need to defend my pride as a woman.

"I suppose you're more used to setting trends than following them," she said. "I have to ask: what's the story behind your dress?"

I relaxed, happy to be back on more comfortable ground. After years of boring dinner parties, I had a well polished arsenal of banal anecdotes. Miss Caldwell certainly knew the answer to her question, but perhaps she just wanted to be able to give the American public the story from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

"You've probably heard that when I started, I only had the one dress," I said. She nodded. "That's not true. One of the other girls at the orphanage outgrew hers, so I had two."

That other girl was fifteen at the time. The dress still fit me, too.

"Those two dresses and my uniform jacket were the only dress clothes that I had, so that was what I wore," I continued. "At that point, I was being paid to give speeches promoting the party. It was only later that I decided that joining full time would be the best way I could serve the country."

Even in hindsight, I thought that it had been a perfectly good plan. By harnessing the votes of the violent malcontents, I would have had a steady job while a group of potentially dangerous revolutionaries would be stuck on the political fringe, powerless. It wasn't my fault that the idiots in charge churned out so many malcontents that I had to take over.

"Well, I wasn't being paid much, but I was being paid. I saved and saved, and finally I was very excited to buy a new set of clothes. Tailored pants, a wool overcoat, even a new hat. I thought I looked sharp," I said. I still couldn't help but feel a bit wistful over the pants. "I went to the beer hall in my new outfit and told everybody I was there to talk about the Germanian Workers' Party. You know what they said?"

I let the rhetorical question linger for a moment before I continued. "They said to get off the stage and go find the girl with the dress."

"What did you do?"

"What could I do?" I asked, then shrugged. "I went and changed clothes."

I'd actually spent ten minutes arguing with the drunkard before I realized that I faced a choice between gratuitous violence and a change in outfit. Since Dressler wasn't paying me to beat up potential supporters, it wasn't much of a choice. That was one of the little details that had been polished out of the anecdote over the years.

"You've been stuck ever since," she said. I suppose to a rich socialite keeping the same basic look for years on end was a fate worse than death.

"I do have other clothes," I said. "Honestly, as a work uniform, it's not so bad. It's comfortable enough to wear for hours on end and the jacket makes it practical in cooler weather."

"Hmm," she said, "you do spend most of your time at work, as you said. But that can't be everything. What do you do for fun?"

"I enjoy flying," I said. "Lately I've been getting in a bit of aerial lacrosse when I have the time."

"Goodness," she said, "isn't that horribly dangerous?"

I laughed for a moment, until I realized that she was serious. "An aerial mage with his shields up is difficult to hurt. You'll see a lot more injuries at a football game than you will from aerial lacrosse."

Aerial lacrosse players were required to have their defensive shells up at all time. The key safety rule, though, was that you weren't allowed to shield off access to the ball. That meant that the level of violence needed to steal possession was much lower than the level of violence needed to hurt the other player.

"Is that so?"

I nodded. "Anything you could do to really hurt each other would be blatantly against the rules."

I could see how you might be able to sneak a mage blade past the referee in the run of play. In a game where every other player was recording the game action, though, the truth would inevitably come out. Since mage blades were absolutely forbidden, it would be hard to defend such behavior as anything but blatant assault.

To be fair, it wouldn't be absolutely impossible to harm someone without breaking the rules. If you could lure them into a dive, hit them hard enough to take out their defensive screen, let the ground break their personal shell, then catch them on the rebound with a reinforced body part to a vulnerable area, that would probably do it. Again, though, it would be hard to play that off as an accident.

"The game is a useful tool for new mages to learn the basics of positioning and leverage for melee combat," I continued, "but hardened veterans can lose their edge if they spend too much time on it. After all, you're practicing getting close and then not trying to kill each other."

"I see," she said.

"Of course," I said, "I don't have to worry about that kind of thing any more. I'm only an amateur mage these days."

I'd had to write out some extended explanations regarding my report on the Type-99 for the development team. Apparently during my time off I'd lost the knack of producing a clear, concise report. Just one more sign that time passes everybody by, eventually. Other than that correspondence, and our recreational lacrosse games, I only interacted with aerial mages in a loose, supervisory fashion.

"You do enjoy playing aerial lacrosse, though?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. It's good fun," I said. "I also think it's a good thing to show people that mages are more than just human-shaped weapons systems."

"What do you mean?"

"The modern magical orb is an amazing device. It could be used for so many things. We could be exploring beneath the oceans, or above the atmosphere. It could even revolutionize something mundane, like construction. A lot of the finishing work on these stadiums was done by aerial mages at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods," I said, shaking my head. "But instead we focus almost all of our efforts on better ways to kill each other."

It worried me, sometimes, that if I ever retired then I would still be on some list somewhere as a national asset to be conscripted in the case of war. If I stayed on as a back bencher, I figured I would be safe. Modern politicians were courteous enough not to draft each other, for the most part. But if I wanted to leave politics altogether for some other venture, I'd always have that worry. Living as a powerless back bencher would be comfortable, most likely, but I was honest enough with myself to realize that I would chafe at the inability to do anything productive. I was just rational enough to prize safety over happiness, as I always had.

Enabling mages to become sports stars would be the first step away from that fear. The real prize would be to set up some kind of industry that required class A mages to operate and that was vital to the interests of the state. Then there would be a safe harbor from the draft to run to if the drums of war began to beat once more. Unfortunately, in the magical arena I didn't have any future knowledge to draw from, so I couldn't simply drop the perfect idea for a new line of magical work in the ear of a convenient entrepreneur.

"I'm not sure I've heard anybody call mages human-shaped weapons systems before."

"Certainly, those who worked with aerial mages in the military treated us as soldiers like any other," I allowed, "but sometimes I wondered if the Empire's rulers saw us like pilots or like airplanes."

Enough time had passed for the emotion to dull, but I still felt an echo of the old anger that had flared up back when I first researched the Empire's legal system after I tested positive for magical ability. As much as I had always appreciated the Empire's rational approach to most problems, I was naturally upset when that rationality trampled over my own human rights.

"The Empire had universal conscription, of course, but there were exceptions. Not just medical invalids, but also men who worked in vital industries were exempt from the draft," I continued, warming to the subject. "But not mages. Mages were subject to conscription, each and every one. What else is that but a law stating that there's nothing a mage can do for the country that's more valuable than taking up a rifle and going off to war?"

"Mages are a unique force on the battlefield, though, aren't they?"

That was the stubborn point at the heart of the matter. It's nice to be useful, but it's dangerous to be indispensable.

"Of course. And of course it's an important job, we need to be able to defend ourselves, but," I said, struggling a bit to put my thoughts into words, "a great carpenter can build you a house. A great baker can create a fine meal. A great soldier, though, only helps you keep what you have. And it's something to be grateful for, yes, but isn't it a pity that we spend so much and work so hard, just to stay in the same place? It's money and effort that can't be used for anything else."

War was a waste. Two nations spent money and lives in a zero sum competition, every bit of their spending making their combined net utility drop. Even preparing for war was a waste. I spent money so my neighbor couldn't invade me, my neighbor spent money so I couldn't invade him, and in the end we'd both spent money for nothing.

The pull of an arms race was almost impossible to resist. And that was without Being X dancing around, fanning the flames. I had done my best to prepare a reasonable defense for Germania without getting sucked into the endless pit of wasteful spending, but compared to a modern, civilized country in the modern, peaceful world, we were still shoveling pallets of cash into a pointless war machine. Even if Being X had never done anything else to mess with me, I would hate him for putting me through such a farce.

"Hmm," Miss Caldwell said, humming in apparent agreement while jotting down some notes. "Considering your record, I'm surprised that you have such a negative view of war."

I stared at her, jarred out of my complacency. Reviewing my last few answers, I was struck by the sudden urge to go back in time and slap off my own stupid mouth.

In my defense, Miss Caldwell had done an excellent job of setting me up. After putting me on the back foot with some uncomfortable questions, she had changed gears and let me switch to more comfortable ground. As I relaxed, she kept me talking without putting me back on my guard, leading to the dangerous situation where I had spoken my true feelings.

I told the truth! To a reporter! I should be ashamed to call myself a politician.

My opinions about warfare were based on my own personal philosophy and the experience of history that nobody else in this world had enjoyed. While I was confident that my opinions were largely obvious common sense, true and right, stating them publicly was still a horrible mistake.

In this era of appeasement, the only rational stance for a nation to take was of barely-restrained belligerence. If your neighbors feared that you might invade then they would knuckle under and give in to your demands. That was the entire reason for my success at the second conference of Londinium. We never would have gotten half so much if the world hadn't been convinced that Germania was poised to launch a reckless and stupid invasion of the Francois Republic.

A rational, peace-loving nation was just begging to be on the other side of the appeasement equation. Instead of neighbors buying you off, you would have neighbors coming around to shake you down.

The consequences inside of Germania would be even worse. The people had been hopping mad and eager for a rematch ever since the end of the Great War. While I didn't mind shedding some support to the ultra-militarists, I didn't want them to take so many voters that they could boot me out and launch a war.

Even short of that, I had to worry about my credibility. As long as the people thought I was as eager for war as they were, then they would naturally trust me when I told them any particular occasion for war was a bad idea. If they thought I was some kind of peace-loving hippie, then they would suspect I was lying to them when I lied to them. An unacceptable state of affairs.

How was I going to fix this? It was too late to claim I didn't understand Albish. I could wipe the recording, but Miss Caldwell could easily reconstruct the key portions of the interview from memory. I could take her into custody to prevent her from writing an article, but it was well known that I was meeting her for an interview. She was traveling with the retired General Morrow, so I could hardly expect any kind of trumped up arrest to hold her for long. Perhaps Elya could arrange something.

No! What was I thinking? I wasn't Being X, lashing out in violence and blaming other people for my own mistakes. I had to address this in a calm, reasonable fashion.

Besides, Elya would arrest me herself if I did something like that to destroy her overblown belief in me as a benevolent, virtuous leader. No, I would have to draw on my future knowledge, which offered a variety of tools for a politician who had accidentally shared their true feelings.

After a moment's thought, I settled on a simple three step process.

I heaved a long, theatrical sigh. "I don't think anyone who's spent time in a trench is fond of war."

The first step was to repeat the problematic statement, but change it to suit my purposes. Now, instead of condemning war as a waste and soldiers as useless, I was simply describing how carrying on a war was unpleasant for soldiers. A much more reasonable sentiment.

Next, I needed to provide context. In other words, I needed to make it clear that my words shouldn't be interpreted according to their simple and obvious meaning, but rather through an esoteric lens that made me look better.

"War always carries a heavy cost. Any nation that goes to war faces a heavy financial burden, and more importantly faces the loss of precious human life," I continued. "Each time a soldier is killed, his whole future dies with him. Decades of contribution to society, gone just like that."

It wasn't that I was a coward who was afraid of war. I was simply a prudent person who weighed the costs and benefits before taking action. Now, to bring it home.

"War is a terrible thing. However," I said. It was a good word, 'however.' If you needed an inconvenient promise, statement, or policy position to disappear, there was nothing better than to repeat it and then follow up with a 'however.' "However, there are worse things than war. To have others steal the fruit of our labor, to suffer impositions on our vital freedoms, to be humiliated on the international stage, naturally all of these things must be resisted by any means necessary. Up to and including the use of force."

No matter what sort of peace loving statement you might have thought you heard me say, I was still ready and willing to declare war any time I felt like it. I only needed the tiniest glimmer of an excuse to unleash the national war machine in a fit of pique. The fact that I had been in office for years now and never declared war was only a result of my good mood over that time period, not any kind of fundamental reluctance to shed blood.

That was the message my supporters wanted to hear.

Miss Caldwell nodded quietly and continued to take notes. I could only hope that I had wiped away any unduly pacifist impression that I had given her earlier. Rather than give an indication one way or the other, she chose to engage me in a discussion of the hats coming out of Berun's boutiques over the last few months. As expected, she was playing her cards close to her chest. I didn't have any choice but to play along.

In the end, I had probably just given her enough ammunition to slant her story any way she liked. It was frustrating, but what was done was done. There was no shame in losing a battle of wits against a savvy opponent.

Fortunately, her article would be written in a foreign language for a foreign newspaper. Most of my voters would be inclined to dismiss anything negative that foreigners wrote about me out of hand, if they even heard about the story in the first place. As for the Americans, no matter how widely her article might be printed, the American consumer would only pay attention to stories that had something to do with his own interests. The personal opinions of a foreign leader would hardly catch his eye.

It would have been nice if my personal intervention had burnished the image of the World Cup in the American eye, but at least I had learned a valuable lesson in the dangers of overconfidence. If my efforts had resulted in creating more work for Visha rather than less, well, it wouldn't be the first time. I was lucky that she was such a patient woman.