“We have. I spoke to them myself, just this afternoon. An odd pair. My slum-divers tell me they’re local criminals with a reputation for daring murders. They had a factor, one Willem Schimel, who found work for them. Master Schimel was last seen just before the arrow hit me. Living or dead, he’s no longer to be found. That’s all we know.”
Not true. Piper Hecht had been sixth on the assassins’ list, bearing one of the smaller bounties. The killers had been late getting into position. The more lucrative targets, the Imperial sisters and members of the Council Advisory, had passed the ambush site before they settled in.
The killers had no idea why any of the targets was wanted dead. They had not cared. Great wealth would have been theirs had they been able to clear the list. Schimel had been confident in the trustworthiness of his contact. The assassins had been confident of their ability to vanish in the chaos following such dramatically important murders. But they had not moved fast enough.
Hecht kept all that to himself.
The Empress did not look like a woman already past due to deliver. Though extra attendees hovered, midwives lurked in a room nearby and healers waited in another, on a moment’s call. About to say something, Katrin started violently. “Oh! He kicked! I really felt that one. It won’t be long now.”
Hecht considered the faces nearest Katrin. Each was a study in absence of expression. Those women were determined to do nothing to trigger Katrin’s displeasure.
The donning of masks was so careful and so universal that Hecht knew the growing suspicion of the capital was, in fact, the truth.
The Empress was not pregnant.
She thought she was pregnant. She believed she was pregnant. She wanted to be pregnant so badly that she showed most of the signs. She was convinced she was about to produce a son. After which, no doubt, she expected Jaime to return and be her one true love.
“Excuse me, Captain-General.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” She liked that. It suggested high religious standing in addition to Imperial status.
“You and I, each in our way, are denied our potential by our bodies. You have a prognosis for your situation?” She was intently watchful. Looking for evidence of tainting by the Night.
He was used to that. Everyone held that secret reservation. Everyone. He might never be free of that, nor ever become comfortable with it.
Honesty was his only recourse. She knew whatever Brother Rolf knew. “Guardedly optimistic. I’m told I’ll be good as new, someday. If I don’t try to do too much before I’m ready. I don’t think I will. My staff are masters at nagging me.”
“Will you be ready in time for spring campaigning?”
Ensued an extended discussion of what had to be done before the Empress could launch her expedition to purge the Holy Lands of the Praman infestation. Katrin let formality slide while military business was on the table. She and her sister both impressed Hecht with their knowledge — Helspeth even more than Katrin.
The Princess Apparent flashed a grin. “We had to be the sons the Ferocious Little Hans always wanted.”
Katrin agreed. “We grew up looking over his shoulders. Living this stuff. Being mascots around the headquarters. The warlords all thought it was cute when we were five or six.”
“Then she started to fill out and it suddenly became scandalous.”
Katrin bobbed her head. “It’s get-even time.” She waved a hand. “Enough of that. General, I’m impressed by what you’ve accomplished, given the limited time and cooperation you’ve had. And your wound, of course.”
“Your Grace, I did the hardest part when I built my staff. They’re talented men. Though sometimes a little rough dealing with what they call friction.”
“That would be?”
“The lack of cooperation. Politics, I guess. People trying to pull them this way or that, trying to get them to do this or that. They’re used to being left alone to make the clockwork run.”
Not strictly true. But here in the Empire “friction” could become more of a problem than when they had been Patriarchals.
“We can’t stop that completely. It bleeds off surplus energies. When it becomes a serious impediment, tell me. As Empress I have ways to make it stop. I can ask what they think my father would have done with them. If they can’t take that hint I can refer them to Ferris Renfrow.”
Hecht wanted to ask about Renfrow, who had not been seen for quite a while. But the Empress started, groaned, rubbed her belly. “I need to come up with a fancy title for you. Captain-General was good but it’s thoroughly attached to the Patriarchy. Your fault.” She did not ask for suggestions. “Back to friction. I considered easing that by handing off one of my duchies. If you were a duke you wouldn’t have to put up with as much. But what we find out about your family doesn’t stand you in good stead. Even my allies among the Electors wouldn’t tolerate that dramatic an elevation.”
Hecht was startled. Even shocked. And, from Helspeth’s smug look he concluded that the Princess Apparent might have come up with the ennoblement suggestion.
“I’m flattered beyond my capacity to express, Your Grace, that such an honor should even occur to you. I wish my father could have heard you say it.” Grade Drocker or the imaginary Rother Hecht.
“I can knight you. That would help. But I’ve decided that I’ll build my crusade outside the Church and nobility. If we can make that work. I know several priests who can preach a cause in the mode of Aaron.”
The woman was smarter than he had thought. Much smarter.
He had to forget her sex. Helspeth’s, too. He feared the younger sister was brighter than the elder. And more deviously clever.
Definitely the Daughters of the Ferocious Little Hans.
“As you will, so shall it be.”
The Empress started, then seemed pleased by the unusual formula. “If you’re right — and I see no flaw in what you presented — we have a year and a half to get my Electors and nobility tamed.”
“There are a lot of smart, talented nobles who will make outstanding warlords. They’re bred to it. They grow up being trained to it.” That ought to play well with the husbands of the Empress’s attendants.
“Had they the capacity of seeing themselves for what they’re supposed to be.” Katrin offered no definition herself. Her attitude was unmistakable: deep, abiding contempt for a class of men determinedly seditionist and obstructionist. “The whining arrogance …”
“Your Grace. I’m none too strong yet. My wound still pains me a great deal, and …”
“Yes. Of course. As you told the Grand Admiral and the Grand Duke when you decided you had nothing more to say to them.”
Hecht began to feel truly uncomfortable. Katrin, for sure, had become the hard-ass son of Johannes. When she was not being crazy.
The Empress barked instructions at her women. Their languor ended. They scurried. Piper Hecht found himself being chivvied into the quiet room he had shared with the Imperial sisters before.
The Empress said, “I don’t really have anything to say here. But I want those women to think I do. There’ll be coffee in a minute.” She grunted, settled into the biggest chair, rested both hands on her belly. Helspeth got behind her, began kneading her neck and shoulders. While making daring eye contact with the former Captain-General.
Katrin said, “I find myself mortally frightened, General. First, that this pregnancy won’t turn out any better than my last one did, and that if it does go well for the baby, giving birth will be the death of me.”
Hecht had nothing to say. Helspeth’s mugging warned him not to say it.
This would be sensitive ground.
One of Katrin’s women brought the coffee service. She did not stay. The door closed. The Empress gestured. Helspeth took what looked like a funerary urn off a marble side table. She removed the lid, turned the urn over. Drops of darkness fell like a rain of heavy honey. Neither sister explained. The Princess Apparent placed the urn on its side on the floor. Katrin poured coffee.
The drops of darkness did what they were supposed to do, then crawled into the urn like fat black slugs.
The Empress said, “They didn’t sneak anything in this time. Enjoy, General.”
Helspeth managed a lingering touch when she brought Hecht’s coffee. She looked like a woman under sentence of death, with her big day not far off.
Minutes passed in silence. The Empress had something on her mind. She got to it at last. “I’m going into seclusion till the child comes. For a month, at least. Possibly several.”
Hecht tensed up. The Empress had a reason to use the quiet room after all. And he feared that he was not going to like what he would hear.
Katrin said, “Instead of saddling you with some overblown title, why don’t we go for understated but to the point? Something like plain Commander? Or, for a little more punch, Empress’s Commander?”
The Princess Apparent suggested, “How about Lord High Commander of All Commanders?”
“You’re being a smart aleck, Ellie.”
“Sorry. Commander of the Crusaders, then. Or Commander of the Righteous.”
“You don’t sound sorry. I don’t believe you’re sorry. For your penance I’m putting you in charge till my confinement is over. Hush! You need a taste of how awful this role is. Commander of the Righteous. Helspeth’s job will be formidable. Give her the backing she needs to succeed. Keep your men in the city instead of sending them to Hochwasser. I’ll write formal orders. The nobles will whine. It isn’t customary. Ignore them. You understand?”
“Of course, Your Grace.” While reflecting that, sanity aside, the Empress was very clever. She had been working toward this the first time she tried to hire him. She now had a potent counterweight to the Electors, the Council Advisory, and anyone else who wanted to take advantage of a weak girl.
Helspeth protested. “I don’t want …”
“So you’ve insisted since Mushin died, Ellie. Again and again. I never believed you. I’m not sure I do now. But I insist on you. Commander of the Righteous. Become the shadow of the Princess Apparent. Make sure she doesn’t get carried away.”
Hecht did his best to bow. Somewhat impractical for a man in a wheeled chair. Nevertheless, he held it. Keeping his face hidden lest it betray his wild thoughts. “As you will, Your Grace, so shall it be.”
“Excellent. That’s what I’d like to hear from all my officers. Ellie! Stop shaking. The doom that you dread is upon you. I’ve executed the legal instruments already. Orchard Vale should be rehearsing the Grand Duke in the facts of life as we speak.”
Orchard Vale would be one of Katrin’s more obscure secretaries, a priest from the local bishop’s retinue. That Bishop, Brion of Urenge, new to the job, was dedicated to the Brothen Patriarchy. He had spent time in exile while Johannes was Emperor. “When you leave this room, Ellie, you’re going to be the It.”
Hecht watched Helspeth wrestle with herself. Saw that she thought she was being cruelly used. Was being forced into a place where nothing she did would be right. And saw that Katrin was wickedly pleased by having put her there.
The other daughter of the Ferocious Little Hans, the one so often accused of being too much like her father, saw no way out. “As you will it, sister, so shall it be, till you’re able to resume your duties.”
Hecht’s mind raced through lists of things that needed doing. Of opportunities a smart man would take care to avoid. And sniffing round Katrin’s undeclared assumption that the Commander of the Righteous should let no conspiracy against her take root while she was away.
Katrin kept growing ever more pleased with herself.
***
“Everything has changed,” Hecht told his staff, who had been gathered and waiting. He explained.
Titus said, “The military part shouldn’t be hard. We have enough people here. Add the fact that, more than anything, the Grail Empire runs on inertia. The Empress being offstage for a while shouldn’t give anybody time enough to get up to much mischief.”
“Our job is to make sure. To that end, I want to see Algres Drear. And Ferris Renfrow, if anybody can find him.”
“He’s been scarce for months, boss. Which isn’t unusual, I take it. They have a saying here: ‘Comes the day, comes the man.’ Meaning somebody will rise to the occasion, whatever it might be. It’s a sort of nickname for Ferris Renfrow. If there’s a need, he turns up.”
Hecht grunted. That was not what he wanted to hear. He preferred to see Ferris Renfrow when he wanted to see Ferris Renfrow.
Titus asked, “Commander of the Righteous? Really?”
“I didn’t pick it.”
***
The Princess Apparent’s regency was not the harsh trial she expected, nor the debilitating strain Commander Hecht anticipated. The old men of the Empire showed an uncharacteristic restraint. Titus Consent reported an abiding anxiety, an undirected dread, abroad in the Empire. No one could identify a specific cause. Everyone seemed willing to wait and see and stand united if the unknown birthed some bleak certainty.
Winter neutralized all external threats, except possibly from the north. North centered every sense of foreboding.
One change obvious to the dullest mind and dimmest eye was a sharp increase in incidents involving the malice of minor Instrumentalities.
***
“We’re like a couple of mastiffs sizing each other up,” Titus told Hecht. Speaking of the nobility round Alten Weinberg. He and the Commander of the Righteous, Hagan Brokke, Drago Prosek, and Clej Sedlakova were enjoying a dinner honoring Buhle Smolens, who had arrived that afternoon with thirty-two disgruntled fellow former Patriarchals. Hecht was still weak but could walk around for short periods.
Consent continued, “Their noses are all bent out of shape but our legend is so big they mean to be very careful making things right.”
“Right?” That was Smolens, hands resting on his full belly. Hecht’s former number two was laconic by nature, seldom having much to say. Tonight, though, he wanted to get caught up. To manage that he had to talk and ask.
Hecht observed and wondered.
And wondered about himself as well. He had developed a strong strain of paranoia, lately.
Smolens had turned into a mass of contradictions. He had gained weight, yet still gave the impression of being gaunt. His face had become more round. He had lost hair. He had stopped wearing the thin, well-trimmed beard he had affected for years.
And he had the shakes.
Not obviously. Not all the time. And in no obvious connection to what was going on around him. But the tremors were there. They came and went, seldom lasting more than a few seconds.
Everyone noticed. No one mentioned it. But Smolens understood that the tremors were no secret.
“All right,” Smolens said. He took a deep breath, tried to relax. “You’re all suspicious because I quit the Patriarchals when I’ve been on Krois’s payroll since I was a sprout. Most of you probably think I’m here to spy.”
Consent admitted, “The thought had occurred to me.”
Hecht said, “Pinkus Ghort is rough around the edges but he isn’t hard to work for.”
“It isn’t the Captain-General,” Smolens replied. “Are we secure here? Or do you care what might be listening?”
“I’ll stop you if you hit something I don’t want the world to know.”
“All right. You’re correct. The Captain-General isn’t hard to work for. Easier than you, mostly. His expectations aren’t as high. He’s not the problem. That would be the people collecting around him. Against his will. Witchfinders and really spooky Society thugs. Going underground didn’t improve those people. And, lately, several sorcerer types have shown up. Not Special Office people. They don’t even pretend to be agents of God. They go around greeting each other, ‘Surrender to the Will of the Night.’ Yet they came with patents from Serenity. He’ll tame the Connec if he has to have the Adversary do it for him. I couldn’t take the strain.”
“And Pinkus?”
br /> “The Captain-General chooses to quell his conscience with fortified spirits. Which makes the villains unhappy but they can’t do anything. The troops stay loyal to Ghort because the Society brothers make themselves so obnoxious.”
Hecht wished the Ninth Unknown were around to eavesdrop. Or, better, Principaté Delari. Muniero Delari was the natural foil to Bronte Doneto.
Maybe the roots of their encounter in the catacombs had begun to show.
Consent muttered something like, “Give a man the power to excuse himself and his true heart will always shine through.”
Smolens said, “I decided to leave after I overheard some Society brothers making plans for next spring. I tried to tell the Captain-General. He didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t stay after that.”
“We’ll discuss the details in private,” Hecht said. “Welcome back.”
“You do have a job for me?”
“I told you I did. Just not the job you had. That’s been split between Hagan, Clej, and Titus. Hagan got the hard part. You’ll be my provost of the city. We have too many soldiers and not enough to keep them out of trouble. We haven’t had any serious problems yet. It can’t stay that way. I want to head off trouble before it starts. Pick five big bruiser noncoms to help. I expect firmness, fairness, finesse, and no favoritism to our men over the locals. Nor the other way around. Take no crap. You answer only to me. I answer only to the Empress.” For the benefit of eavesdroppers. “If you do find yourself downwind of somebody wearing some really big pants, let me know. The Empress is hungry for excuses to throw a leash on some of these people.”
***
The Commander of the Righteous was as uncomfortable as he could recall ever being, though the Princess Apparent was trying to make it easy. She had women with her. Impropriety would be impossible. They faced one another across a table crafted of some rare, dark wood polished smooth. He took comfort from its protection.
He had come prepared for an extended, serious exchange concerning the business of Katrin’s crusade. Cost estimates. A proposal for sending quartermaster scouts, come summer, to explore possible routes. A suggestion that diplomatic missions get busy negotiating rights of passage. The Eastern Empire would be crucial. Katrin’s army would have to travel overland. It would be too large for the available shipping. Though shipping would have to be contracted in order to supply the army with what it could not carry or buy along the way. Acquisition of materials to fill those supporting holds had to start soon because it would take a long time to collect it all and move it to the handiest seaports.