Consent was not offended. “That will come eventually anyway, Captain-General. The Elders are beginning to question the benefit of continuing an alliance put together for the Calziran Crusade. Nor does the Patriarch see any need to keep on getting along with Deves or Dainshaus.”
“Shortsighted of him.”
“Indeed. Our moneylenders are the main financiers of his adventures. The Seven won’t lend Sublime a copper for a crusade against the Connec. We don’t have that many people there. The Seven think it will be easier and cheaper to protect them by just fixing it so the Patriarch can’t afford to hire soldiers.
“I think they have blinders on. Sublime isn’t worried about money. Not nearly so much as he should be.
He has something going, under the sheets. But the Elders won’t hear that. Apparently, the Elect is supposed to be seen but not heard.”
Hecht was lost. “You mean it? This conversion?”
“Of course. I don’t want to be anything special. I just want to take care of my family and do my job.
Which is perfect for me. I love it and I’m good at it.”
“I’m confused.”
“I’m sorry. My fault for not being clear. You have no idea how stressful this is. This is the biggest thing I’m ever likely to face.”
“Tabill Talab. How will he respond? His father …”
“Is one of the Seven. Yes. That does worry me. But you’re going to lose him before long, anyway.”
Not good, Hecht thought. Not good at all. The Devedian connection had made him look good.
Honed by three decades lived in a city and land that had been old in the wiles of conspiracy before the beginning of time, Hecht started sniffing for a whiff of what Consent was really up to.
They resumed moving because Titus was too nervous to stand still.
An arrow, presumably from a longbow, removed Hecht’s hat. The shaft came from amongst the monuments. It missed Consent by a scant inch, too. It ricocheted off the pavements into the cold brown of the Teragi River. By-standers yelled and scattered. Ten thousand pigeons took wing in a flapping roar.
“You see where that came from?” Hecht demanded.
“No.” They crouched at the pediments of a small memorial arch. Consent held a dagger with a long, slim blade. Hecht had not realized that the Deve carried any weapon. He carried a short sword himself, more emblematic of his office than useful in a fight. “Only generally, that way. Because of where it went.”
“Yeah. Who’s Galinis Andul?” Hecht tapped the inscription beside his head, so ancient that it was almost illegible.
Startled, Consent said, “The man who designed the arch. Those guys grabbed the chance to make their names last. The memorial proclamation is up top. This one looks like it predates the Old Empire.
Meaning it was moved here by Arember the Hairy.”
Hecht wanted to ease Consent’s tension, not listen to a lecture. “Work from cover to cover and flank him from the left. I’ll move in from the right.”
He did not expect to find the sniper. There had been no second shaft. Not that a lone archer could expect to take out a distant target who was alert.
And the would-be assassin was gone. No one had seen an archer. There was no physical evidence. A sorcerer of exceptional weight might have found a trail. Hecht did not have one handy.
His amulet had not warned him. The assassin would be nothing but a skilled archer.
“It was a pretty good shot,” Hecht admitted. “At least a hundred fifty yards. On a breezy day. From in here where the wind would swirl.”
“Yes.” There was no admiration in Consent’s tone. “Who was he after? Or would it matter, as long as he got someone from Central Staff?”
“Sure you want to convert?”
“Yes.”
“If there’s a plot, wouldn’t Deves be more likely to ferret it out?”
“No. The underworld doesn’t intersect with the Devedian.”
“That archer wouldn’t belong to the underworld. He’s a soldier after fast money.” Nor did he swallow Consent’s protest. Thieves had a cautiously close relationship with the men who purchased the goods they appropriated in their struggle to redistribute Brothen wealth. But Hecht seldom challenged known falsehoods. People became defensive. They clammed up. He believed in paying rope out and watching.
Consent would understand. He and Talab did the watching.
Hecht said, “We’re accomplishing nothing.” He brushed his left forearm. Yes. The amulet was there.
Which reaffirmed that there was no sorcery active nearby.
Someone was keeping track of him somehow, though.
Hecht and Pinkus Ghort were at the waterfront, waiting to board Lumberer. Hecht asked, “What are you into on the side, Pinkus?”
“Huh?”
“If I didn’t have your word for this being a fast coaster I’d suspect her of being a smuggler.” The crewmen looked shifty.
“I’m not involved in anything. But do note that smuggling and trading are a matter of viewpoint.”
“No doubt every smuggler ever born makes that argument. And princes send them to the galleys anyway.”
“You’re probably right. You always are. So what? They’re handy people to know. What the hell is this?”
A couple of black crow Brotherhood types were headed their way, on horseback, in a hurry. They slowed to an easier pace when they saw that Hecht and Ghort had not yet shoved off.
“Seems like everybody knows where to find me, these days.”
“You told Bechter?”
“I did.”
Hecht did not recognize either rider. A handsome man with salt-and-pepper hair and beard dismounted.
“Captain-General?”
“Me.”
“I bring messages.” He presented a large leather courier’s wallet. It bore no seal. “And our wishes for your success. Prayers will be offered.”
“Thank you. Do keep us in your prayers.” A formula he was just now learning to use automatically.
“And the Brotherhood in yours.” The man bowed his head slightly, in the manner of those who grew up inside the Grail Empire.
“And so shall it be.” Hecht returned the nod. He took the Brotherhood deadly serious. They were scarce in Firaldia but wielded power beyond their numbers.
There were few checks on the Brotherhood. They accepted none. They did not hesitate to enforce their prejudices.
“How and where to deliver that is all in here.” The Brother handed Hecht another smaller case, then returned to his mount.
Hecht considered the anonymous courier’s wallet. He began rubbing his left wrist.
Ghort muttered, “There’s a Special Office thug if I ever saw one. He don’t even try to cover the smell.”
“You’re right.”
“So’s the other one.”
The Special Office was a sub-cult inside the warrior order made up of sorcerers sworn to destroy the Instrumentalities of the Night. Using the Instrumentalities as their principal tool.
“So what did he bring you, Pipe?”
“Let’s wait till we’re moving.”
“Gotcha.” Ghort stared after the two riders in black. “I think I know who the other one was.”
“Uhm?”
“Parthen Lorica. The Witchfinder.”
Hecht started. Parthen Lorica? Not possible. Parthen Lorica was dead. “I don’t think so. Unless there’s more than one Parthen Lorica. Him and Bugo Armiene died in our hospital camp at al-Khazen. Special Office guys came in and snatched the bodies.”
“I missed all that. I heard, but not the names. But them two was definitely Special Office. And that one was definitely a Witchfinder. So. Hey. Time to go.” A smuggler — or coastal trader — beckoned them.
Two others began casting off.
Hecht hoisted his bag to his shoulder. “I wonder what they really wanted.”
“To give you a courier packet. Unless they were looking for witches.” In the context of the Special Office a witch w
ould be anybody who consorted with the Instrumentalities of the Night absent the blessing of the Church.
That troubled Hecht. It was vague. The Special Office could make anyone fit. Even the most devout Episcopal Chaldareans bought small charms and invocations against the malice of the Night.
“What you got?” Ghort asked as Lumberer cleared the mouth of the Teragi, after creeping past dredges valiantly trying to keep the channel navigable. The craft rode the evening ebb tide. Lights in Remaleon-Teragi shone to their left. Hecht was, at last, allowing himself to examine the contents of the anonymous courier wallet by the light of a storm lantern. A crewman stood by lest the landlubbers did something stupid and set the ship on fire.
Fire was the fiercest terror of sailors.
“What’ve we got, Pipe?”
“Other than this letter telling me to take the big packet to somebody named Montes Alina, who’ll be using the name Beomond, and how to find the guy, there’s nothing here.”
“Turning us into mail carriers, eh?”
“Possibly.” Paranoia suggested the possibility that the packet would finger him for another assassin.
The Special Office owed him some pain. But they should not know that. He hoped they did not know that.
Ghort said, “That’s right. They got their fanatic asses roasted and kicked out up there, a couple years ago. That’s where Drocker got himself all crippled.”
“Yes. Something about them trying to wipe out the Sonsan Deves.”
“You ask me, they were just gonna rob them. But the damned Unbelievers had the balls to fight back.”
“So then the ruling families got their tails all twisted because that would cost them their clerical class.”
“Yep. Ran the Brotherhood out of town. Too late, the way I heard. The Deves packed up and left.”
Hecht knew that story from the inside.
Only Anna Mozilla and a few Deves knew.
“We should be careful,” Ghort said. “Till we know who wants to kill you.”
“I plan on that. I’m going to hang around just long enough to steal enough to set myself up with a commercial farm. So Anna and I can spend our old age raising grapes and making babies.” He was half serious. He did not expect to return to Dreanger while er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen remained the power behind Gordimer the Lion, who was the power behind the Kaif.
That Lumberer did not always operate inside the law was borne out by the skills of her crew. After crossing the bar they turned north and sailed on into the night, navigating by the light of a quarter moon.
In often treacherous seas. There were a million little islands out there. More shoals appeared regularly as sea levels fell.
Near as Hecht could tell, more permanent ice lingering in the high mountain regions meant less water in the rivers feeding into the Mother Sea.
There were dredges working the channel of the Sawn River, up to Sonsa. Lumberer had a shallow draft and, of course, rode in on a flood tide. That was basic, common sense seamanship, old as the trade itself.
Hecht was surprised by Sonsa’s quays. Today’s highest high water was three feet lower than at his last arrival.
He said, “I want out of Sonsa as fast as possible. So we deliver the courier case and scoot.” Though he had no reason to think anyone would recognize him now.
“I’m with you. This place is so quiet, it’s creepy.”
The waterfront was unnaturally sedate. Two dozen large ships tied up at the family quays looked like they had not moved in a long time. The rigging on some had gone ragged.
“The place is dying,” Hecht said. He slung his bag, stepped up to the quay from Lumberer’s rail, using a main stay for leverage.
A dozen men and boys surrounded him. Each tried to out-shout the others. All offered to help carry his possessions, to guide him wherever he wanted to go, to take him to a willing sister or daughter. There had been none of this desperation last time Hecht came through.
“This is worse than back home,” Ghort murmured. “Except around where the squatters are. You.” Ghort grabbed a little weasel with a swift, bright smile, maybe eight or nine. “Where we headed, Matt?”
At the moment Piper Hecht was Mathis Schlink from Schonthal and Ghort was Buck Fantil.
“It’s a great name,” he had told Hecht aboard Lumberer. “I always wished I had one of them names like Dirk or Steele or Rock. Pinkus Ghort. My momma ought to be spanked. What the hell kind of name is Pinkus Ghort?”
“You tell me,” Hecht had responded. “You made it up.”
“You want to know the sick, sad truth, my friend? I didn’t. It really is the one my momma hung on me.
Though nobody never believes me when I tell them.”
Hecht remained firmly established in that class. He was sure that Pinkus Ghort would be wanted in more than one principality farther north, under other names.
About the boy, he asked, “What are you doing, Buck?”
“You know your way around this dump? I don’t. Besides, the kid reminds me of me in my better days.
What’s your handle, Shorty?”
“Pella, Your Honor. Pella Versulius.”
Pella’s competitors laughed. One advised, “Don’t turn your back on the little turd, Outlander. He’ll steal the hair off your ass.”
“He’s got shorter legs than me. I can run him down and break his neck.”
Hecht caught a flicker of admiration from the urchin. “We need to come to a place called the House of the Ten Gallons in Karagos Middle Street. You know where that is?”
The boy lied easily and glibly. “Absolutely, Your Honors. My own mam was born in Cuttlebone Close an’ that’s practically next door. Just follow me, Your Honors.”
Ghort murmured, “As long as he’s out front my butt hairs are safe.”
“I’d still keep an eye on our back trail. And not follow him into any place that’s narrow or dark.”
“You don’t need to teach me how to dance. I told you, I used to be this kid. Watch how he gets just far ahead enough so we can’t hear him ask people how to get to Karagos Middle Street.”
“And how they eyeball us before they decide to help him fleece us.”
“Yeah. You feel like there ain’t much love for foreigners going on here?”
There was anger under Sonsa’s thick despair. The waterfront was moribund. Many of its warehouses appeared abandoned.
Hecht shuddered suddenly.
“What?”
“I don’t know. I got one of those feelings like you get when some night creature is watching you.”
The truth, though, was that the boy had led him past a site where two friends had been killed by sorcery during his previous visit.
“Yeah? What did you think of the kid’s name?”
“Sounds a little classical.”
“A little, huh? He insulted us, you know.”
“How so?”
“Basically, he told us we’re too damned unlettered to recognize the name of the poet who wrote TheLay of Ihrian.”
“You know what? He’s right. In my case.”
“You are ignorant and unlettered up there in the Grand Marshes, aren’t you?”
“I never denied it. That’s why I left.”
‘There’s a damned lie if I ever heard one. Nobody runs away from home on account of … Anyways, if I was honest, I’d admit that the only reason I know is because life around Doneto’s dump is so damned dull there that there ain’t nothing else to do but read. Because you got me hooked on that shit when we was locked up in Plemenza.”
“You don’t need to make excuses. Reading isn’t a bad thing.”
“Now you sound like the Principatè. Hey! Kid! Pellapront. How’s Alma?”
The boy froze in place, eyes big. He stared at Ghort, bewildered. “Your Honor?”
“Never mind. Go on. And stay on the paved streets. I don’t care if it is longer that way.” To Hecht, he said, “The Lay of Ihrian is this long-ass comic poem about a guy who goes on a tour of
the Holy Lands.
But only in his dreams. Guided by a ghost who lies about his name all the time.”
“I can see where you’d be amused by that.” Hecht eyed his surroundings uneasily. This was a different Sonsa. Too many surly men stood around doing nothing. Blaming their ill fortune on anybody but themselves.
“Ain’t we all? Anyway, all the names the ghost gives are names of gods that had something to do with the Wells of Ihrian. Very blasphemous. Toward the end, this guy — whose name in the story is the same as the name of the poet — he gets into a big romp with a whore who turns out to be his sister, Alma. It’s pretty funny. But The Lay of Ihrian was banned by the Church. Though nobody probably pays any attention except in Brothe. Principatè Doneto says there’s probably only four or five copies in the city but the story is famous up north. Like around here, I guess.”
“I think we’re close.”
“Keep an eye out. This could be the tricky part.”
Pella let them catch up. “That’s Karagos Middle Street up ahead, Your Honors. Cutting across. But I never heard of no House of the Ten Gallons.”
Ask around,” Hecht suggested.
Yes, Your Honors. Right away. What did you mean about Alma, Your Honor?” he asked Ghort.
Nothing, really. There’s a poem with a Pellapront Versulius in it. He has a sister named Alma.”
The boy gulped some air.
“Shit,” Ghort said. “You got a sister named Alma?”
Pella nodded. He was a gaunt little thing, small for his age. His eyes seemed exaggeratedly large.
“Find out about the house,” Hecht urged.
“That’s spooky,” Ghort said when the boy was out of earshot.
“It is unusual,” Hecht conceded. “But not a mystery we need to solve.”
“No. Hey. Somebody knows where the place is.”
“Good. It’s late. We need to get off the street.”
Pella came back. “Your Honors didn’t have it right. It’s the House of the Ten Galleons.”
“That makes more sense. Here.”
“My sister would make you a better deal.”
Hecht recalled the boy offering his sister on the quayside. “Another tie to the poem. I take it the House of the Ten Galleons is a sporting house.”
Pella nodded, not conceding the possibility that his charges would be unaware of that fact.