This week in the saga

The last week opens with smoke on the tower itself — a fire on an upper floor, quickly out; the king thanks the firemen and turns back to his wars, an omen no one reads. The trade war with the great eastern power escalates by the hour and he shrugs at the danger: already down five hundred billion, he says, you can't lose. Half a world away a chemical attack kills women and children, and he names the tyrant an animal who will pay a big price. Then the morning of the ninth: he tweets about tariffs and cars, absorbed and unaware — while at dawn federal agents carry sealed boxes from the office, home, and hotel room of his private fixer. For the first time the investigation has reached inside the castle walls. The king does not yet know. Volume Two ends.