Ekaterin's directors

He nodded and we continued with our normal work in the accord we had felt for so many years. I would miss him badly for his own sake, I thought, and even more because I would no longer have, through him, constant news of and contact with Judith. The days seemed to gallop towards his birthday and my spirits grew heavy as his lightened.
Oliver's problems were no longer the day-to-day communi¬ques at lunch. The dissenting director had conceded that even blue-chip certainties weren't always proof against well-planned malice and no longer grumbled about my part in things, particu¬larly since the day that Henry in his mild-steel voice made observations about defending the bank's money beyond the call of duty.
And beyond the call of common sense, Val murmured in my ear. Thank goodness.
Oliver's plight had been extensively aired by Alee in What's Going On Where It Shouldn't, thanks to comprehensive leaks from one of ; to wit, me.
Some of the regular newspapers had danced round the sub¬ject, since with Shane still awaiting trial the business of poison¬ing mares was subjudice. Alec's paper, with its usual disrespect for secrecy, had managed to let everyone in the bloodstock industry know that Sandcastle himself was a rock-solid invest¬ment, and that any foals already born perfect would not be carrying any damaging genes.
As for the mares covered this year, the paper continued, there is a lottery as to whether they will produce deformed foals. Breeders are advised to let their mares go to term, because there is a roughly fifty percent chance that the foal will be perfect. Breeders of mares who produce deformed or imperfect foals will, we understand, have their stallion fees refunded and ex¬penses reimbursed.