His dread was misplaced. Anna had tamed the boy. She cleaned and polished and dressed Pella till he whimpered. She had him convinced that the end of the world would taste sweeter than what would come down if he embarrassed the Captain-General.
His final assignment was to stick with Vali and explain that she was mute. Vali was expected to bow and curtsy at appropriate moments.
“You stop fussing, Piper,” Anna told Hecht in the coach. They’ll be fine. Worry about yourself. What do you have to do?”
Hecht had only a vague notion of his part in the ceremony.
“How come they’s all them soldiers?” Pella wanted to know as they neared the Delari family’s city residence. It was modest by the standards of the Principatè’s class. Contingents from the Brotherhood of War, the City Regiment, and Hecht’s own small in-town Patriarchal guards company filled the street.
Most wore formal parade costume. But a few remained in mufti, there for trouble instead of show.
“In case the Deves try to keep Titus from converting.”
They won’t commit murder over it,” Anna said. “One more time. What do you do?”
Until only a short time ago Hecht had had no idea how a conversion ceremony went. It was similar to a child’s confirmation.
He rehearsed it aloud as the coach came to a stop.
Anna said, “You’ve got it.” She told the children, “He’s never done this before.”
Hecht grunted. “Where I come from they baptize babies when they’re born because so many die. And conversions usually happen at sword’s point, blessed by the nearest sober priest.”
Pella said, “I don’t think I’d like Duarnenia, sir.”
“Me neither. That’s why I left. Watch that puddle. Those shoes cost a fortune.”
“Piper!”
“I can’t help it, honey. I grew up poor.”
Anna’s schooling proved adequate. Principatè Delari, as Consent’s sponsor, required nothing of Hecht but a ritual attest to the excellent character of the candidate.
There was little pomp and circumstance. A few questions and responses, a “Who presents this man?” and the remarks about what a good fellow he was, followed by a ritual laying on of hands by the Bruglioni and Arniena Principatès, then Bronte Doneto, and Titus Consent became an Episcopal Chaldarean of considerable stature.
Consent seemed appropriately excited. Hecht did note that Noë and the children did not go through the ceremony. Though, as Consent’s wife, Noë would be whatever Titus decided. The children were not old enough for baptism and confirmation, the way those were handled locally.
Hecht shook Consent’s hand. “I admire your courage, Lieutenant.” He presented the customary baptismal gift of a coin. For children that was usually, a small silver piece. Hecht turned over a gold solidus, or five-ducat piece, which bore the bust and crest of a long-dead, obscure Patriarch named Boniface. The senior military men, including Colonel Smolens, Clej Sedlakova, Hagan Brokke, and members of their staffs, were equally generous. Consent had to start a new life. His situation would be difficult. His skills were crucial.
Despite his background, Consent was well liked.
“Thank you, sir. Courage isn’t as important as knowing what you want, though.”
Principatè Delari was more generous than Piper Hecht. After amenities, the old man said, “If I can borrow you for a moment, Piper, I need a word in private.”
“Or course, sir. If you’ll excuse me, Lieutenant?”
This time the official rank and title sank in. Hecht watched Consent’s face light up. He had been welcomed to the tribe he had chosen over his old.
“Sir?”
“When we’re in private.”
The Principatè led the way upstairs, away from the public rooms. Hecht had deemed those austere, even by his own standards. The private quarters were more so.
Here Principatè Muniero Delari had no congress with decadence or sinful luxury. Hecht considered a man who chose to live that way one worthy of respect. But only here. His Chiaro Palace apartment lacked no comfort desired by his boy.
Delari took Hecht into a room with four unpainted plaster walls, furnished with one rude table, three rude chairs, and two clay lamps burning cheap, unscented oil. Hecht’s amulet tingled.
Delari sat, said, “I’ve examined the matter of Rudenes Schneidel. He is in Viscesment.” Delari pulled a cord. A bell tinkled somewhere, muted.
“You have? So soon? How?”
“I’m a member of the Collegium, Piper. And not one of the hacks. There is some basis to the rumors about us. Which, I’m pleased to see, are the subject of public disparagament lately.”
“Oh.”
“Occasionally, I worry about your powers of observation, Piper. I fear that my son overestimated you.”
“I worry about that, too. I never understood why he chose to mentor me. So, did you find out anything useful about Schneidel?”
“Very little. But enough to caution you against sending someone after him. Unless there’s someone you want to dispose of without taking the blame.”
A woman came in. Hecht had seen her downstairs, looking vaguely out of place. She was tall, faded blond, and worn down by life. She brought coffee and cups. Hecht pulled the aroma into his lungs.
Coffee was his biggest vice. “Ah. The best Ambonypsgan beans.” He sighed. “You’re much too good to me, sir.”
“Quite possibly true. Time will tell. This is my granddaughter. Brewing good coffee is one of her special talents.”
Hecht exchanged nods with the woman as she presented a cup.
Delari continued. “The sorcerer has set up shop not far from the Palace of Kings. But there’s no obvious connection with Immaculate. He may want it thought that there’s a hidden connection. He seems to have much too exalted an estimate of himself. A fault he may be granted the opportunity to regret.”
“Thank you,” Hecht told the woman. The beverage was rare and rich. Frowning, he eyed her more closely. Had he seen her before? There was something remotely familiar there. Then he concentrated on Delari.
The Principatè said, “Rudenes Schneidel can’t possibly have any feud with you personally. He may have wanted to eliminate the Captain-General. My own feeling is, the attack was meant to frame Immaculate.”
Delari frowned as he spoke, possibly questioning his own reasoning. At the same time, he again seemed disappointed in Piper Hecht.
“A stretch, sir. That would mean he knew how things would go before they happened.”
“It is a stretch, isn’t it?”
“Did you find out anything else?”
“No. Rudenes Schneidel is an accomplished sorcerer. He has no trouble covering himself.”
The woman refilled Hecht’s cup, then left. Hecht said, “She doesn’t look much like her father.”
“You knew him only as a dying cripple. And none of Grade’s children took after him. She’s the image of her mother.”
“How many kids did he have?”
“Four. Two sons, two daughters. All on the wrong side of the blanket. While he was overseas. By a woman he freed from Praman captivity. She’d been captured by pirates as a child and purchased by a merchant in Aselin who treated her badly. Grade was in the field for the first time. The Brotherhood and the Gisela Frakier had taken Aselin by surprise. Grade saved the woman from the Frakier when he recognized her rusty Old Brothen. She came from a family of education and standing.”
Though key words had been butchered in transition from Peqaad to Firaldian, Hecht understood the Principatè. Gisela was a transliteration of a tribal name. Frakier, roundabout, came from a phrase meaning “beloved traitor.” In common usage in the Holy Lands, Frakier were Pramans who allied themselves with the crusaders.
“I apologize if I’ve made you uncomfortable, sir.”
“You haven’t. I’m at peace with all that. I’m guilty of the same indiscretion. I did do a better job of seeing my son to his maturity. I never had to leave him behind beca
use of my martial obligations.”
“You didn’t want him to be a soldier.”
“Nor a priest. But he was of age. He chose. When he created a family he did the best he could. But three of the four were lost.”
Hecht could think of no appropriate response. That was the way of the world. As the world had been, always.
Harsh. Cruel. Unforgiving. Merciless. That was the world Piper Hecht knew. Happiness and pleasure were fleeting. Each moment had to be seized. The positive constants he had known were the brotherhood of the Sha-lug and the loyalties soldiers shared. Which, with limited success, he had been trying to recapture in exile.
“You seem troubled, Piper.”
“My faith has been shaken lately, sir. I’m troubled in spirit”
“What more can you ask than what you have?”
“I don’t know. That’s part of the problem. A higher purpose? I owned one, once.”
Principatè Delari looked disappointed yet again. “We’d better get back downstairs. Leave the cup. Heris will take’t are of it.”
“Who was that woman you kept staring at?” Anna demanded as they left Delari’s house.
“Delari’s granddaughter. Drocker was her father. He wanted me to see her for some reason. Maybe to show how he takes care of family. Drocker kind of adopted me. I kept thinking I’d seen her before. I was trying to remember where.”
He was not concentrating, though. There was something not right. He beckoned a soldier from the City Regiment. “Where did the rest of the men go?” He saw none of his own guards, nor anyone from the Brotherhood of War.
“Sir. Armed men were spotted up that way. Where the coaches would pass. Maybe setting an ambush.
So the Brothers and the Patriarchals decided to ambush them back.”
A distant tumult began on cue, metal rattling on metal. Anna heard it, too. She dropped her nag immediately. “There may be problems bigger than my insecurities.”
“Huh?” Piper Hecht was not a man who caught things unspoken by women. Till Anna he had spent very little time around them.
“Let’s get the children home. By a different route.”
This was something Hecht did understand. “No. We’ll go the way we know what the situation is.
Somebody may want people to go another direction.”
“You’re the expert.” She began harrying the children into the coach.
The kids were excited. Hecht thought that Vali might break down and talk. But Pella would not shut up long enough for anyone else to get a word in edgewise.
Hecht had the coach stop at the scene of ambush. A young officer hurried over.
“We got them all, Captain-General.”
“Indeed? Any prisoners, Mr. Studio?”
“Uh … No, sir. The Brotherhood guys killed everything that moved. They were seriously angry.”
Hecht sighed. “Claim some of the bodies. Maybe somebody interesting will come looking for their dead.”
At a glance, in the poor light, he saw nothing unusual about the bodies. “We might yet come up with a clue about who to hunt.” Damnit, prisoners should have been taken! “And see that any wounds get taken care of right away.”
Hecht’s amulet gave him a series of tweaks, none of any weight. Things of the Night were about, drawn by pain and fierce emotion. As he was about to climb back into his coach, he asked, “Was this a diversion or the main attraction?”
‘The Brothers say this was it.”
“Interesting. Drive on,” he told the coachman, then considered his improvised family. Vali was pale as paper. She stared at him fixedly. Pella, suddenly, was as quiet as Vali. Anna had grabbed hold of his arm, so tight it hurt. “I had a good time. Really. Everyone treated me better than I expected.”
She started shivering. The night was not that cool.
“Maybe because the only married man who brought his wife was Titus.” Other than Consent’s whelps, Vali and Pella had been the only children, too. They had milked all the spoiling possible from celebrants in their cups, Pella selling the tragedy of the poor little mute girl. “Why wouldn’t they fawn over you?
They’re all goats. And you were the most beautiful woman there. I’d have been worried about leaving you alone with the Principatè. Poor little Armand.”
“Piper!” But Anna liked it. She had seized the day, shipping a cargo of fine wine. “Where did you and the old man disappear to? Or is that too secret for girls?”
“We had coffee. Fresh roasted Ambonypsgan. Maybe he didn’t want to share with the whole mob.”
Hecht shuddered suddenly.
“What?”
“Creepy feeling. Like something we might not want to meet just started following us around.”
“The women in the square talk like that happens all the time. A lot of people won’t go out after dark anymore.”
Not an entirely remarkable state of affairs. Brothe was dangerous at the best of times. A glance outside revealed nothing unusual. The street was empty except for one man in tattered brown who staggered along without showing any interest in the coach.
Piper Hecht and Anna Mozilla moved in distinct circles when they were apart. His life was all studies of companies and regiments and how to feed, arm, pay, transport, and keep happy the troops who formed them. He had to outthink the ambitious warlords of the Grail Empire, his employer’s lesser enemies, and Sublime himself. The latter was his biggest headache. He never saw the man. There was little reason to his decisions, which were subject to whimsical shifts. Too many, like letters of marque granted to Haiden Backe, originated deep inside a circle of cronies so intimate that even Sublime’s cousin, Bronte Doneto, seldom knew what would happen next.
Hecht said, “I get the feeling that I keep disappointing Principatè Delari. But I can’t figure out how.”
“You’ll have to tell me more than you have. Unless it involves your super-secret Collegium business.”
He described recent visits with Muniero Delari. Anna asked questions. Good questions.
“Obviously, there’s more than a big map down there. Just having it buried like that, all secret, means you have to think that it’s a powerful magic artifact. Or will be when they finish it. It sounds like they’re still building it.”
“We’re home. Let me look around first.” He still had that sense of a presence close by. Though his amulet remained dormant. “You kids need to get right to bed.” That would not be a hard sell. Vali was groggy, all reserves exhausted, and would have to be carried. Pella was dragging.
Hecht saw nothing unusual. He paid the coachman, adding a generous gratuity. The man fawned. Times were hard.
The coach team clip-clopped away, on damp cobblestones. A light sprinkle had begun. Hecht entered the house last, backing in, like a rearguard covering a desperate retreat. There was no light outside once the coach and its lamps turned a corner, the driver in a hurry to get away.
Hecht made sure of the locks and shutters while Anna put the children to bed. Vali had to be carried.
In bed, still nervously alert, Hecht remarked, “What you said about the Principatè’s map. That’s why I love you. I never thought of that.” Could his blindness be the cause of Principatè Delari’s disappointment?
“Talk to me about that ambush, Piper. Were they after you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What did you and the old man talk about? When you were having coffee.”
“Rudenes Schneidel.”
“Does he think you know something you’re not telling?” Plainly, she thought he was holding out on her.
“Honey, I never heard of Rudenes Schneidel till a couple weeks ago.”
“So maybe he never heard of Piper Hecht, either. Or you might know each other by different names.
There’s a lot of that going around.”
Worth reflection, Hecht thought.
He was about to say he knew no one from Artecipea, nor had he heard of the High Athaphile or Artecipea before hearing that Schneidel
called them home. He stopped as his mouth opened. He had had a thought about Vali. Which should have occurred to him long ago. One that meant a visit with the newest Episcopal Chaldarean before Consent’s information sources dried up.
Anna continued. “There’s been some fibbing about where people really come from, too. But forget that.
It’s time to find out if I drank too much to enjoy anything else.”
The nightmare was so real it remained convincing after Hecht awakened. Anna demanded, “What was it?
You’re shaking.”
“Nightmare. Haven’t had it for a long time.”
“The one about your mother?”
Hecht frowned. He did not believe Anna was psychic. She made no such claims. But she surprised him sometimes.
“It started there. Same as always.” The same as memories he had had when he had cried himself to sleep in the Vibrant Spring School, back when they took the new slave boy in. He doubted he would recognize his mother today, even as she had been then, if she walked up and boxed his ears.
“Must be awful, being little and having no family.”
“You make your own family there. Or you don’t survive. That’s the whole point.” The Sha-lug schools produced hard men who disdained anyone who was not Sha-lug.
Piper Hecht feared he had softened during his sojourn amongst the Infidel, but his core remained adamantine Sha-lug. The Sha-lug were still his brothers, his family.
“It started out?”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. Then it turned dark. There was a monster I couldn’t see but I knew what it was. If I could catch it I could kill it. But I couldn’t catch it. It kept doing awful things to people I cared about.
And getting closer and closer to ambushing me. Meaning I wasn’t really the hunter.”
“That’s ugly, Piper, but it sounds like standard dream fare.”
Hecht grunted. He agreed. But … “It had more than a dream flavor. Like my mind was trying to create images it could understand.”
“Think you can lay down and go back to sleep?”
“Probably not. But I’ll try.”
Sleep came more swiftly than he expected, though that sense of the nearness of horror never went all the way away.