ALMARIA VELLA — The kingdom awoke yesterday to another notch upon the fuel board and another dispatch from the eastern reaches of the Inland Sea, and yet, by the close of a long Thursday in the capital, the prevailing note sounded from the colonnades of Almaria Vella was neither alarm nor indecision but that particular Almarian composure which has, in harder weathers than this, carried the realm through.

At the centre of the day's intelligence stood Don Héctor Cordoba, whose counsel, conveyed to ministers and to this paper alike, was of a piece with his counsel of the week prior: patience, proportion, and a refusal to be hurried into measures that a calmer fortnight would regret. "The markets, like the sea, have their tides," the patriarch is understood to have remarked to associates gathered at his residence in the old quarter of Cordoba. "One does not dredge the harbour at the peak of the swell."

The immediate occasion was the warning issued by the National Petroleum Cooperative that pump prices may climb a further twelve to fifteen centimes per litre before month's end, the consequence of renewed tensions about a strategic maritime strait through which no small portion of the Inland Sea's trade must pass. The Ministry of Commerce, under Minister Dolors Puigcercós, convened an emergency session on Thursday; the Council of State is understood to be weighing the measured release of strategic reserves, with an eye to the summer tourist season and to the hauliers who move the kingdom's goods from Sant Joan to the Bloc del Puerto.

His Majesty King Juan received the Prime Minister and the Minister of Commerce in a working audience at midday, a meeting described by palace sources as 'attentive and unhurried.' The Crown, as ever, does not make policy; but the Crown's preference for deliberation over theatre was, those present suggested, unmistakable. It is a preference that the Cordoba house has long shared, and one which ordinary Almarians, pressed at the pump though they are, appear on the whole to share as well.

Abroad, the Foreign Affairs Secretariat's statement of 'deep concern' regarding the escalating conflict to the east was reinforced on Thursday evening by Cardenal Marín, who, at a charity reception in Cordoba's old quarter, called upon all parties to honour humanitarian corridors and to permit the passage of medical supplies. The small Almarian contingent stationed with the multilateral observer mission has been placed upon heightened readiness, a precaution and not, the Royal Defence Staff is at pains to stress, a prelude.

Against this sober backdrop the Leader of the Opposition, Renko, has resumed the note he sounded earlier in the week, charging the government and, by implication, the house of Cordoba with a complacency she styles costly. The charge is registered. It is also, upon examination, difficult to reconcile with the cushion afforded by the kingdom's coastal storage stations, the discipline of the Cooperative, and the measured tone maintained throughout by ministers whose first duty is not to the morning's headlines but to the household budget of next winter.

Don Rafael Montoya-Alcántara, speaking for the Nationalists, urged 'restraint and restoration' from his party's headquarters; the Cardenal's pastoral letter to the faithful, issued the day before, spoke in kindred terms of unity and prudence. From three quarters of the Almarian public square, then, one hears the same counsel, variously phrased.

What comes next is a matter of days rather than weeks. The Council of State is expected to return a recommendation upon reserves before the Chamber rises for the feast; the Foreign Secretariat will report again upon the eastern conflict on Monday. Until then, Almarians are asked, in the patriarch's phrase, to keep a steady hand upon the tiller.