They barely qualified as ghosts of the gods they had been.
Brother Candle said, “Very well. I’ll get my things and chivvy the girl.”
“I’ve spoken to her already.”
“Excellent. We might get out of here before sunrise.”
It was midnight. Socia Rault and Brother Candle, accompanied by Bernardin Amberchelle and his associates, eased out a sally port in Castreresone’s north end. They had waited half an hour for their turn.
A human river was headed out.
Those Brother Candle made out by feeble moonlight were Seekers and other minorities. Those who had most to lose if Castreresone fell.
They made less than a mile before the clouds masked the moon permanently. The chill breeze picked up, growing colder. The darkness became oppressive.
A mile farther on the path rounded a hill. The darkness deepened. The fugitives now moved in a slow shuffle, feeling the way. There was talk of torches. Nobody had one. Then someone with a clear head observed that a torch would attract enemy pickets. Who were out there somewhere. Who would cheerfully rob and murder them all. The Patriarchal city levies did most of the scouring of the countryside.
The Captain-General did little to restrain their greed.
It stood to reason that if they killed everyone who resisted soon enough few Connectens would show any inclination to fight.
This darkness was not friendly. It hid them but also blinded them. The path wound between rolling hills.
Eventually, it split. The right-hand path led to the old Imperial highway, which could be followed easily even in darkness. Bernardin Amberchelle had hoped to be on it a dozen miles west of the White City by first light.
That did not happen.
First light came. They had not found the old road yet.
There were delays, not only because of the darkness.
Things moved in the night, pacing them. Things that stank. Things that laughed foully. Things that raced across the path, triggering screams, apparently just for the hell of scaring people.
Brother Candle’s band never reached the Imperial road. Word came that it was occupied by Patriarchals moving west to keep an eye on Queen Isabeth. They thought she might do something when she heard about the new assault on the Burg.
The band joined the rest of the fugitives, heading back to find another way. Snow began to fall.
***
“NO REST FOR THE WICKED,” THE PERFECT MUTTERED TO Socia. He had had no intention of joining the Queen’s camp. He had gone there only because the road ran past Mohela ande Larges.
And because the Navayans would make a nice block in the path of any pursuit. He followed the man who had recognized him among the refugees. “Michael Carhart, why must you do this to me?” He was amazed that the Devedian philosopher would be found outside Khaurene.
Carhart chuckled. “Relax. Isabeth just wants to talk about Castreresone. She’s harmless.”
“So is an adder. To those wise enough not to sup with serpents.”
Michael Carhart did not like that. “Watch your tongue, old friend. The nobility have no patience for that sort of jest these days.”
“Yes. I recall those times when the jongleurs roamed freely, like wild chickens, cackling that seditious nonsense to anyone who would listen.”
“Make light if you like. But you know what I mean. Take care.”
Brother Candle did understand. The mighty were not happy. They wanted someone else to hurt.
There were more familiar faces in the great hall of Mohela ande Larges, the little castle Isabeth had appropriated. She was accompanied by a half-dozen darkly handsome men, none of them her husband.
King Peter must trust them indeed. Or the several women in shadow behind Isabeth were harsh enough chaperones to provoke Peter’s absolute confidence.
Michael Carhart joined others whose presence startled Brother Candle: Hanak el-Mira and Bishop Clayto. Friends. Or as much so as could be amongst men of such diverse backgrounds. Only Bries LeCroes was missing.
What had become of LeCroes? He should ask. He had heard no final disposition of the poisoner’s case.
The handsome men said nothing. They stared at the Perfect Master with a feigned indifference bordering on disdain. The Navayan nobility were dedicated Brothen Episcopals, their faith tempered by worldly convenience. King Peter had more allies among Direcia’s Pramans than among rival Episcopal princes.
The Queen was courteous. “Be seated, Master. Your companions will be cared for. I understand they’re rather ragged.”
Brother Candle inclined his head. “Socia Rault and I have spent months staying ahead of Arnhanders, Grolsachers, revenant demons, and now the Usurper Patriarch’s Captain-General.”
“Tell me what you’ve seen since last our paths crossed.”
Brother Candle did so. In detail. Duke Tormond’s little sister was more patient than the child he remembered. The handsome men became restless long before he finished. She did not.
Isabeth observed, “The Night would seem to be more active in the east. We hear a thousand rumors from that direction but almost nothing from farther west.”
“The things stirring are Instrumentalities associated with conflict and chaos. Peace seems to have settled in everywhere but around Antieux and Castreresone.”
Isabeth nodded. Having known the child, Brother Candle found it hard to believe the rowdy storm of flying limbs had matured into someone regal. He wondered about her son. Where was the baby Prince?
Was he well? Domestic gossip got little attention these days.
Isabeth asked, “Is Castreresone truly in danger?”
“Imminent.”
“But those walls …”
‘The walls are magnificent. The people behind them are the weakness. Half still believe there’s no real danger. The Captain-General does what he wants, when he wants, where he wants. And those people won’t do what they must to resist effectively. Their strategy is to wait for you and your brother to rescue them.” He spent a few minutes cataloging the shortcomings of Castreresone’s leading men. “Berto Bertrand drives himself to exhaustion but has no luck getting anyone to listen.”
“God is a cruel practical joker. He could have left us Roger Shale for another half year.”
Brother Candle did not respond. Their views of God need not clash just now.
Isabeth said, ‘The situation sounds bad. Count Alplicova.” One of the handsome men stepped forward.
“You know, in general, my thinking, and that of the King, in regard to our Connecten dependencies.”
The handsome man bowed slightly. “I do, Your Majesty.”
Brother Candle detected a hint of romantic worship. There would be nothing to it. Direcians, always at war and of necessity less relaxed than their Connecten cousins, did not indulge in the courtly love games promoted elsewhere by jongleurs.
The Perfect Master reflected. Count Alplicova. Could there be more than one? Diagres Alplicova was called Sword of the Unbeliever by the warlords of al-Halambra. His blade hammered out King Peter’s great victories. Why was he here when there were Praman castles to conquer in Direcia?
“Your Majesty.” Daringly, speaking unbidden. Though the Perfect often flouted such rules. “The gentleman you’ve named shouldn’t be named aloud — if he’s the gentleman famed for that name.” He reminded Isabeth of the invisible intruder in Castreresone.
Isabeth replied, “I understand your concern. But we’ve made no secret of our cousin’s presence. My husband believes it will give us additional leverage. As to your invisible man, you give the lie to his existence yourself when you report the successful attacks on the Laur bridgeworks. You were the victim of a practical joke.”
“Oh, he was. But not by me.”
The voice seemed to come from amongst the smoke-blackened beams overhead.
Laughter followed. The Queen and her people began muttering about sorcery.
“Oh, yes. Sorcery in the highest. But not nearly so foul as that
coming off the island of Artecipea.”
Count Alplicova, Brother Candle noted, had shown no superstitious response. He and his companions studied the shadows while moving to control the exits.
Queen Isabeth yelped. She stared aghast at something in her lap.
The men surged toward her. Blades rang as they cleared scabbards.
Sidelong, Brother Candle caught a glimpse of someone in brown sliding out of the room. The man tossed him a mocking salute. And was not there when the Perfect turned for a better look.
He had seen that man before, in the streets of Castreresone and on its wall, among the watchers. “He just left.” He described the man.
The others were not interested. They were focused on Isabeth.
The thing in her lap was a hand. With rock salt crusted on it.
“It’s the ring,” Brother Candle said. ‘The ring is the message.”
“Explain,” Count Alplicova said. With no stress in his voice.
The man had a reputation for being unshakable.
‘The invisible man in Castreresone slipped a similar ring to Count Raymone’s fiancee. Men from Artecipea were there at the time. They reacted as though they’d just gotten news of a disastrous defeat.”
Isabeth recovered. “This hand isn’t human.”
It was an odd bluish black. The fingers were overly long, with less bluntly shaped nails. The flesh under the nails was yellow. The nails themselves were cracked and broken.
The Direcians were not convinced. One said, “The Pramans bring strange breeds of men across the Escarp Gebr al Thar.”
Isabeth said, “It looks like an ape’s hand.”
Brother Candle asked, “Does it matter? It’s more likely the hand of a demon incarnated. The invisible man is getting away.” He described the man he had seen. “I’ve seen him before, always at the edge of crowds.”
A frantic search enjoyed no success whatsoever.
Once Isabeth exhausted Brother Candle’s store of information, she told him, “We don’t want you whispering any Maysalean nonsense in the camp. Take your charge to Khaurene. I’ll give you letters to my brother. He’ll see to your care. Nag him. His people are being murdered in the name of a God that most of them disdain.”
He smiled gently. Isabeth’s faith would not fill a thimble. Even leaned toward his own. But she could not show that to her husband’s men. Politics trumped faith. As always.
Brother Candle observed every royal formality. Peter’s men watched with faces of stone, fiercely disapproving.
The Perfect departed sure that he had missed something important. An argument started before he left the room. Some of the Navayans were concerned about the invisible man. Those who did not think it was all trickery by the devil-worshiping heretic.
The heretic left with letters to his Duke and a handful of silver to get him and his ward through the forty miles to Khaurene.
His small camp was in a turmoil when he arrived.
Socia babbled, “The Queen’s men arrested Bernardin’s foreign friends! They dragged them into the castle! They would’ve taken Bernardin, too, if one of them didn’t recognize him from somewhere before.
What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. We can ask Bernardin. After we’re on the road to Khaurene. Which is where we’ve been ordered to go.”
“Khaurene?” the girl whined. “Right now? We can’t stay for even one day?”
“She wants us gone. From the looks of things back that way, it might be a good idea to give her what she wants.”
Smoke rose to the east. Dark dots moved on the face of a distant hill.
The Captain-General was moving more troops closer.
Socia stared. She lost color. “You think …” She could not articulate her fear.
“No. Antieux won’t fall till they’ve eaten each other. Until the last man left, Raymone Garete, goes down.
Taking a dozen Patriarchals with him.”
That was what she wanted to hear. And it might be true. Unless Raymone fell victim to treachery.
Socia started to say something. She let out a yelp of outrage instead. “Somebody just grabbed my bottom!”
From the edge of his eye Brother Candle saw that old man in brown. Grinning, the man saluted him, turned, and became invisible.
The days became more terrifying than the nights. Every town and castle had been taken by the enemy.
But the people themselves had not gone over. They would hide small parties from the invaders and the Night. But by day Brother Candle’s band had to move. They covered little ground. Patriarchal soldiers and Society hounds were everywhere, patrolling every road. They broke up into smaller and smaller parties, till Brother Candle was accompanied only by Socia Rault and Bernardin Amberchelle.
The invaders changed behavior suddenly after abandoning Mohela ande Larges and suffering a severe reverse at the hands of Queen Isabeth’s men. Travel became easier.
The Perfect surrendered to the girl’s impatience. And had the opportunity to regret that before day’s end.
17. A New Dawn and a New Night
Each day the staff selected two promising prisoners. The Captain-General took time to interview them while Madouc and his lifeguards hovered. “Titus. I’m suspicious.”
“Sir? About what?”
“These prisoners. Are they being chosen to tell me what I want to hear?”
“You need more bad news? Or more defiance?”
“Never mind. How much longer will this take?”
“This being?”
“Castreresone.”
“That’s up to them. Isn’t it? If you’re determined to limit casualties and damage.” The staff insisted that the White City could be taken whenever the Captain-General ordered it. But thousands would die and the city itself might be destroyed.
“I’m not in a hurry. Yet.”
“You could offer terms. Sublime isn’t here.”
“Still no respect for our master?”
“Not in our lifetime.”
“Don’t be too public about it. Society types are everywhere. Popping up faster than these Connectens can murder them.”
“I have trouble remembering that the rest of the world runs different than our little slice here.”
“Don’t. You have a family. Where’s Bechter? I haven’t seen him for days.” Bechter was always underfoot when that was inconvenient.
“Making the rounds of the siege works. He has experience from the Holy Lands.”
“Have you recruited any solid sources? Anywhere?”
Consent shook his head. Looked vaguely defeated. “The Devedian and Dainshau communities won’t talk. They’re getting out. Going to Terliaga, Platadura, anywhere where the Society won’t be able to follow.”
Hecht was baffled. Peter of Navaya, Lion of the Chaldarean Reconquest, openly accepted Unbelievers into his dependencies. And insisted that they be treated well.
Consent said, “Peter saw what you accomplished in Calzir.”
“If so, he saw in it an affirmation of policies he had in place. He had a lot of Pramans with him in the Calziran Crusade. Now he’s recruiting in Shippen and Calzir. And getting a good turnout.” He heard that two thousand Pramans from Shippen had been ferried to Artecipea to further Peter’s ambitions there.
Hecht felt a little thrill of apprehension. Bone and the company were on that island.
“I see Bechter. You still want him?”
“Yes.”
Lifeguards orbiting him, Hecht moved a dozen yards, to gain a different perspective on the barbican protecting Castreresone’s main gate, doing its job now as a mountain of rubble. Work gangs hauled the rubble off for use as ammunition.
Only the more ferocious of the expanding community of Society hangers-on dared complain about the Captain-General’s efforts to reduce the White City. And they did. He tempered their fury by offering them weapons and the privilege of leading the assault wave. No takers so far.
“Captain-General, you wanted to
see me?”
“Sergeant. Yes. I’ve been wondering. The man in brown. Seen him lately?”
“Not in weeks, sir. Is it important?”
“No. I just hadn’t seen him either, myself.”
“Have you ever figured him out?”
“No. I do think I know who he is, now. Or was.”
“Was, sir?”
“He might be a ghost.” Or a minor ascendant. A notion Hecht was not ready to loose into the public domain.
Bechter frowned. That failed to conform to his Brotherhood vision of how the world should work.
“Yet another conflict between what we want to be true and what we have to suffer,” Hecht said. Those conflicts tormented everyone but the Patriarchal Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy, these days. Faith had begun to creak under the strain.
The Society thought God was testing faith by dealing contradictory evidence.
Piper Hecht wondered why God — anybody’s God — would bother. The God of the World ought not to be so petty.
Bechter said, “Prosek is back.”
“Tell me.”
“He was just coming in when I heard you wanted me. I just had time to say hello. And make sure he didn’t attract attention.”
“I thought he was dead.” There had been little communication with Plemenza. That little had not been optimistic. The falcons had been destroyed, their crews injured, and Prosek lost. The pass was open but the fate of the monster remained uncertain. It might be lying up somewhere, recovering.
Princess Helspeth’s having opened the pass had generated a political storm inside the Grail Empire.
Hecht suffered troubled nights.
“I need to see him as soon as he’s able.”
Gervase Saluda and the Principatè from Aparion, with minimal courtesy, demanded an audience. After lurking in the background for weeks, acting as Collegium spies. Hecht expected an argument about access to Drago Prosek.
The Principatès surprised him.
Saluda, never warm since he had assumed the Bruglioni seat in the Collegium, said, “We’ve received a suggestion from Brothe that it may be time to be a little more aggressive toward Castreresone.”
Not subtle, Gervase Saluda, hinting that Sublime had grown impatient. “Really? I think he’d let me know directly if he was. He hasn’t been shy about that yet.”