“I didn’t recognize him when we were together. I debated him on reincarnation and the Wheel. Briefly. He got huffy, then angry.”
“I’d better waken Raymone. This might be important.”
“Perhaps. I have a question for you, child.” He was sure Socia could not consider him a throwaway. “Is my journey something that really does need doing?”
Socia’s response would not have pleased her husband. “The fate of the Connec won’t be riding on you. It’s a calculated propaganda move meant to give the Duke and his supporters heart.”
***
Brother Ermelio had an outstanding nose for danger. Count Raymone’s men could not find him. They got nothing sensible from the old Seeker couple who had given him a place to sleep. He was just gone.
Bernardin Amberchelle could not believe that Brother Ermelio had gotten out of Antieux. He kept the search going.
Agents of Direcia did find Brother Candle one night, being insufficiently alert while returning from a Seeker convocation.
***
A journey that had taken months, heading east, lasted a lazy sixteen days going the other direction. With a strong escort and a seat aboard a cart Brother Candle was safe and was obligated to exercise only as much as he liked. The cart, though, threatened to beat him to death on the crude roads. He walked most of the time. And complained like an old woman whenever his escort took a shortcut.
There were hints of impending spring as the party approached the queen city of the Connec. Brother Candle did not notice. He was shaky following a skirmish with lean, ragged Arnhander soldiers.
The camps and engines Regard had spent fortunes to build had all been destroyed or captured. Some of the engines now served in Khaurene’s defense. Patrols protected citizens outside, as they undid the damage the invaders had wrought. The laborers included the occasional Arnhander who had surrendered rather than go on suffering the fury of winter.
News of the old man’s coming outpaced his party’s progress. Deliberately so.
He and his companions entered Khaurene through the Castreresone Gate. The soldiers on guard were militia. They asked few questions. They were nervous about a situation developing behind them, up the hill.
Moments later a riot engulfed the Perfect and his party.
It seemed Khaurenese devoted to Duke Tormond, to Connecten independence, to the departed Viscesment Patriarchy, or who just plain loathed the Brothen Church had joined forces to hunt down fellow citizens suspected of being in cahoots with King Regard, the Society, or Serenity. An old sport finding new life, near as any sense could be wrung out of the confusion.
At the height of that confusion Brother Candle became separated from his escort.
25. Alten Weinberg: Bleak Spring
Helspeth appeared grimmer than ever. The Commander of the Righteous asked, “What is it?” He had been summoned to confer in the morning rather than awaiting the usual time in the evening.
“My sister.”
Helspeth was so pale Hecht leapt to a conclusion. “What happened?” There had been a lot of activity at Winterhall lately. Imperial Electors had visited. Members of the Council Advisory had visited. Only Ferris Renfrow had not been seen. And the Commander of the Righteous had not been consulted.
Hecht had put his men on alert quietly. His falcons were charged, manned, and sighted in. Key points were under observation. There would be no deadly surprise.
Helspeth replied, “Nothing’s happened. But this week everyone who’s anyone …”
“Yes?”
“They all agree. It’s time. Something’s got to be done.”
Hecht began to get it.
She stated it. “The Empire is paralyzed. I can’t make commitment decisions even though things happening in Arnhand might affect us.”
King Regard, under fierce pressure from his mother, intended a massive new invasion of the Connec. The Maysalean Heresy would be the excuse. Annexation of the Connec and the taking of titles in reward to the Arnhander nobility would be the real goal.
The Captain-General of Patriarchal forces would invade at the same time, supported by levies from the Patriarchal States. And the jackals of the Society would follow along.
All predictable without spies or the random report from Heris, via pendant.
Hecht was tired of that. He would prefer an occasional visit. But something ate up all her time.
“Are you going to take over?”
“No!” Horrified by the suggestion. “Katrin is Empress till God calls her home. Sainted Eis! Not even the Grand Admiral suggested anything like that. Don’t ever say that again.”
“It was an inquiry, Princess, not a policy suggestion.” He did not check the audience to which Helspeth played. “I had to make sure that I needn’t call my men out to protect my employer’s rights.”
“Nobody is thinking that way, Commander. Nobody!”
“All right. I’m listening.”
“Nobody! Even Brothe’s steadfast enemies are more interested in keeping the peace than pushing their own agendas. Probably because of you. But everyone agrees that things aren’t moving forward.”
He admitted, “I’m nose against a wall myself.”
“So. Katrin has to be pushed.”
Hecht raised an inquiring eyebrow.
“We’ll make her have her baby.” Stated in a tremulous voice. “Or not.” Because only the Empress herself believed in the Imperial pregnancy anymore.
“I see.”
“We’ve collected the most skilled midwives …”
“Don’t give me details. Give me instructions.”
“There aren’t any. Except to stand by to keep order.”
Hecht nodded, not pleased.
Each day Hecht’s force became more of an Imperial bodyguard, in every mind but his own. Most people seemed comfortable with the notion. It promised an alternative to chaos.
***
Hecht was with his staff when word came two afternoons later. The Empress had been delivered of a male child. The news stunned Hecht, his staff, and, he was sure, all Alten Weinberg.
“How did they manage?” Titus demanded, cynicism kicking in. “Did they ring in an orphan?”
Clej Sedlakova said, “No way. Even the suspicion would poison the succession. There would’ve been a platoon of unimpeachable witnesses.”
A vigorous discussion began, driven by worry about future employment. It lasted only minutes. A second message arrived.
Katrin’s son had been born dead. She had carried a dead baby all this time. It had developed only to about the sixth month.
“Is that possible?” Hecht asked. “Can a woman carry a dead fetus for half a year?” He had no idea how all that worked.
Nor did any of his staff, though Buhle Smolens opined, “She could if there was sorcery involved.”
Sorcery, or the suspicion thereof, soon animated rumor. Some wicked power had stilled the future Emperor in the womb. He would have been greater than his grandfather had he lived. Further wickedness had been worked by spelling the Empress so the death would go undiscovered for months. The finger-pointing began.
The potential villain had a hundred identities. Hecht was on the list, but well down it. At its head, despite Brothe’s romance with the Empress, was the Patriarch. The logic indicting Serenity was convoluted.
If it was not the Patriarch, then surely it must be the Collegium.
Hecht wondered if Katrin had, indeed, been touched by the Night. He seemed alone in his curiosity, though.
***
The Princess Apparent managed a meeting with just one witness present. The woman was not formally presented but Hecht knew she was the notorious Lady Delta va Kelgerberg. Such a profligate was unlikely to broadcast the indiscretions of her friend.
That birthed an excitement so intense it distracted him almost completely.
Helspeth was painfully aware, too, but fought through. “How is your health? Is your wound still a problem?”
“I’m b
etter. Some. I can’t go riding. I can’t indulge in work that requires physical effort.”
Helspeth glared. The va Kelgerberg woman flashed a knowing smirk. “Why do you ask?” An out for the Princess.
“I want an honor guard. Yourself leading. For the funeral.”
“Funeral?”
“For Katrin’s baby.”
“There’s a baby?” He blurted it, surprised.
“Of course. Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“I thought …”
Helspeth leaned in to whisper, “There is an infant. Katrin has been holding it and crying for two days. We’ll take it away soon. Even in this weather it will putrefy. It will lie in state tonight. Tomorrow we’ll inter it with my father and brother. The lighting will be bad. Katrin won’t look so awful with the shadows around her. I hope she’ll have her hysteria controlled. Come dawn we’ll close the casket. You and your men will guard it and Katrin during the night, then take the casket down to the crypt. Katrin’s favorite churchmen will handle the rites and prayers. Then Katrin can get back to ruling the Empire.”
“I see. Of course. I’ll play my part.” Never being sure what was real and what was playacting.
All the appurtenances of a state funeral — for a stillborn child. But without them the Empress might be lost.
Hecht had a hundred questions. He dared ask none. The va Kelgerberg woman might have no part in the plot. If there was a plot.
Helspeth saw his confusion. “Someday. As pillow talk.” Boldness on which she almost strangled.
***
The Commander of the Righteous stationed himself at the end of the tiny gold casket. He wondered where it had come from on short notice. Titus, beautifully turned out, stood at the other end and gently urged people to keep moving.
It would not do to have the little corpse examined too closely.
So Hecht felt.
He thought it looked nothing like the Empress. It was as dusky as King Jaime. He thought it looked nearer full term than six months, too. Though in the available light it was hard to tell, and he was no expert.
Katrin occupied a light throne behind and overlooking the casket. No reason had been given. It was not customary. But she was Empress. She could do what she wanted. She had cried a lot. Then she had fallen asleep.
She slept well, except for one brief crying jag and a short absence to relieve herself. She did not reclaim her place among the living till after the viewing ended. Hecht’s picked men were about to close the casket.
“Wait, Commander. I want one last look.”
Hecht signed his men to step back. Katrin rose with difficulty. Hecht asked, “Do you require assistance, Your Grace?”
“No. But I’ve decided not to look. I just slept for the first time. I should let go now, not torment myself any further. Close it. Take it away. Priests! Do your duty.”
Hecht performed the stiff, shallow bow expected of a senior officer. “As you command, Your Grace.” And wondered how Katrin would have reacted to seeing her infant in the light of day.
***
The funeral was appropriately somber. Hecht saw nothing to suggest that anyone considered this playacting for the benefit of the Empress. These people really believed.
“Maybe I’ve gotten too cynical,” he murmured to Titus Consent. “I was sure this was all set up so the Empress could save face. Yet, near as I can tell, everybody believes it but me.”
“Sometimes the unlikely can be true, too. And villains don’t have to be black-hearted all the time.”
“Yet I hear no conviction.”
“What I think doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.” Hecht brooded. In time, he decided that only Katrin’s conviction mattered, but she was not alone in her conviction.
If Helspeth and others had worked a scheme, its outcome was good for Empress and Empire.
***
The Empress who had lost a son was a new Empress: harder, more focused, and less tolerant than the Empress who had gone into confinement. This Empress meant to slay her pain by working herself to exhaustion. And she meant to carry Alten Weinberg along with her.
The Unbeliever had better beware. A furious storm was gathering.
Hecht’s weary staff cornered him one evening. Clej Sedlakova said, “I’ve been elected to speak for everyone.”
“Can you hurry? I have a meeting with the Empress.”
“The woman is eating you alive.” Someone snickered. These were soldiers. “She’s devouring all of us. We need a leader here. We need a decision maker. If you want to spend all your time dancing attendance, leaving us to work ourselves numb best-guessing what we’re supposed to do … Well, you need to delegate somebody to be in charge if you aren’t going to be yourself.”
Surprised, Hecht had to admit that the one-armed man was right. For nineteen days he had spent most of his waking time with the Empress. And not just preparing for her crusade. She insisted. He had become her emotional crutch. He tolerated it because it gave him a chance to see Princess Helspeth, often in circumstances less chaperoned than when he had conferred with her every evening.
They had moments to talk and — more or less — flirt.
Two days ago Katrin had asked, clumsily, “Did you two manage to dampen your ardor for one another while I was confined?”
Helspeth had reddened and sputtered. Hecht had done nothing. He was in no position to contradict the Empress, nor to argue with her outside the realm of war planning.
“Ah. You didn’t. Ellie is still valuable on the marriage market. But she is getting past her bloom. How droll. How sad for you both.” There was a cruel edge to her laughter.
Katrin was going through changes. Hecht feared she would turn into one of those tyrants who practiced their worst cruelties on those nearest them.
Katrin said, “You two don’t hide what you’re thinking. You look at each other like ferrets in season. But, never mind. As you will. So long as it doesn’t sabotage Imperial policy.”
A small cruelty, there. After suggesting that Helspeth might be on the marriage block again.
Hecht did not speak into the silence. Nor did Helspeth.
Katrin tired of waiting. “I’m pleased with what you’ve done, Commander. Especially during my confinement. I’m also pleased with your efforts, Ellie.”
Hecht smelled a “but.” “Thank you, Your Grace. It was a strain. I’m sure it will be less so now that we have you back to guide us.”
“You have requests and reservations?”
“Nothing new, Your Grace. It’s all in the reports. Excepting recent difficulties having to do with me overworking my staff. If you like, I’ll have my recommendations separated out of the body of the reports so you can review them without the distraction of drayage censuses, blanket and tent inventories, and the like. A messenger could have that here in the morning.”
“Yes. Do that.” Said in a way implying that she had not had that in mind.
The Empress had moments where her mind slipped its moorings. When she went away somewhere. She never explained, never acknowledged that anything had happened. Perforce, those in her presence shared the pretense.
“As you command, so shall it be.”
“In all things?”
Uncertain of his ground, Hecht went for cautious honesty. “Almost all things. There is my higher obligation to God. I won’t sell my soul. I won’t surrender to the Will of the Night, though I love you as a man must love his greatest earthly lord.”
“An answer Mother Church and all her swarming little priests would applaud. Good enough. Suppose I were to order you to carry my sister into one of these private chambers and spend the rest of the night making her fantasies come true?”
That edge of cruelty was back in Katrin’s voice, stronger than before. Time to be very careful.
“Much as I might, as a man, wish for such a night, I think that the situation, as you present it, would come near asking me to sell my soul.”
The dev
il left its place behind Katrin’s eyes. The urge to be cruel evaporated. “Very well. If I can’t help, I can’t. You two will just have to manage it by bumbling and sneaking. Go, now, Commander of the Righteous.” A hint of mockery there? “I want that report right away.”
***
The Empress seemed to lose interest. Hecht’s meetings with her came further and further apart as winter headed toward spring. He was not alone in enjoying less of her time. She was withdrawing. Her periods of distraction grew longer and more frequent. There were rumors of physical complications left over from her delivery.
There was talk of erratic behavior, though Hecht never faced it during his visits. He did see the harsh consequences suffered by some who managed to displease their Empress.
The same period saw the Princess Apparent growing ever more frightened. She told Hecht, “She’s worse than she was when she sent me off to die in exile. It’s only a matter of time before she turns on me. On all of us, eventually. Nothing we do will change that.”
Hecht wished he could reassure her. But the Empress he saw in meetings was not the Empress others saw when he was not around. There was plenty of smoke to give that fire away.
“Piper, she’s clever at covering it, but my sister is quite mad.”
“Maybe. You should be less melodramatic, though. The walls have ears.” Katrin kept setting up situations where they might think they were alone. But someone was watching. Possibly Katrin herself.
There were ugly whispers about the Empress ordering persons from the court to couple while she watched.
That, Hecht suspected, was enemy talk. Somebody wanted to paint Katrin in a repulsive array of colors. But caution would not hurt.
Helspeth whispered, “We need an exorcist. Something dark got into Katrin that night. It’s taking over.”
“Which night?”
“When she had the baby. Don’t be an idiot.”
“The night she … But … I thought …”
“What?”
“That you took a dead baby and made the whole business up. To stop her self-delusion.”
“You really did?”
“Of course I did. That’s what a lot of people think. While admiring how well all of you in the conspiracy have held your tongues.”