The general’s smile was distinctly unpleasant now, and Cahnyr felt himself smiling back.
“Give us those numbers under the Duke’s command, and that bastard Kaitswyrth’ll never know what hit him, Your Eminence. Earl High Mount’ll go north, around the marshes, send a column for Marylys, and take his main body straight for Aivahnstyn. At the same time, Duke Eastshare’ll go south and flank Tyrath hard enough to pin Kaitswyrth’s right. And while they do that, Your Eminence, happen the Army of the Daivyn will smash right through the bastards’ front and the three of us’ll do to the Army of Glacierheart what Duke Eastshare and Earl High Mount did to the Army of Shiloh.”
The Chisholmian sat back in his chair, his eyes hard and bright.
“Happen even that rat bastard Clyntahn’ll start to get the message once we’ve chopped another quarter million Temple Boys into sausage. And if it should happen he doesn’t, well—” he shrugged “—there’s always what’s about to happen to Wyrshym to make it plain enough even for him!”
.XIV.
Mistress Marzho’s Fine Milliners, City of Zion, The Temple Lands
The bell mounted over the glass-paned door at the inner end of the air break vestibule jangled and a cold eddy swirled around the shop’s interior.
Zhorzhet Styvynsyn paused in her conversation with Alahnah Bahrns and tried very hard not to frown. The shop’s hours of operation were clearly posted, and customers who arrived ten minutes before closing on an icy April evening were not her favorite people. Any serious shopper should have known better than to arrive so late in the day, anyway. Not even the first-quality kraken oil for which Mistress Marzho’s Fine Milliners paid exorbitantly was adequate to properly illuminate the shop’s goods once darkness had set in, and darkness set in early in Zion in April. Besides, Zhorzhet had been looking forward to retreating to the snug apartment above the shop which she rented from her employer and curling up in front of her modest fire with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate.
At least I’m not going to have to hike three or four blocks to get home the way Alahnah is, she reminded herself, dutifully transforming her incipient frown into a smile.
From the look in the younger woman’s eyes, Alahnah had been thinking about that walk herself, and Zhorzhet touched her lightly on the shoulder.
“I’ll take care of it,” she said. “Go find your coat and head home.”
“Oh, thank you, Zhorzhet!” Alahnah said fervently.
She scurried off obediently, and Zhorzhet walked around a rack of expensive steel thistle silk towards the door.
The man who waited patiently for her wasn’t one of their regular customers. Not surprisingly; regulars knew better than to come calling this late! He was a very tall man, however—well over six feet, she estimated—with gray eyes and a full beard. He’d removed his slash lizard fur hat to reveal a head of well-groomed fair hair, although his hairline was receding noticeably. He was well dressed, if not quite to the standards of Mistress Marzho’s more upper-crust clientele, and she smiled as pleasantly as she could.
“Welcome to Mistress Marzho’s, Sir,” she said, extending one well-manicured hand in greeting. “How may we serve you?”
The customer took her hand and, to her surprise—and amusement—brushed his lips across its back. Then he straightened and beamed at her.
“You must be Zhorzhet.” His voice was on the deep side, his accent that of a well-educated man, and she felt her smile turning more genuine as his left hand patted the hand he’d just kissed. “Actually,” he continued, “a friend of mine asked me to stop by and pick up one of her purchases for her.”
“I’ll be happy to assist you with that, Sir,” Zhorzhet said. “You understand, however, that I can’t simply release one of our customer’s purchases to you unless we’ve been authorized to do so.”
“Of course—of course!” He smiled even more broadly and patted her hand again. “My name is Murphai, Zhozuah Murphai. I’m sure you’ll find my cousin listed me in her account information with you.”
“I’m sure she did,” Zhorzhet agreed. “Could you give me her name, please?”
“Of course,” he said again. “It’s Bahnyta Tohmpsyn.”
Zhorzhet’s smile froze. She started to snatch her hand out of his grasp in sheer reflex, but she couldn’t. It was as if her fingers were locked into a gentle but inescapable steel trap, and he patted it again, more gently, almost soothingly.
“I’ll … have to check with Mistress Marzho,” she heard herself say, and he nodded.
“I think that would be a very good idea,” he told her, and the gentle steel trap released her. “I’ll wait right here.”
* * *
Marzho Alysyn, the proprietress of Mistress Marzho’s Fine Milliners, was in her mid-fifties. She was dark-haired, brown-eyed, and very tall—within an inch or two of six feet, at least—and thin. She was not quite in the very first echelon of Zion’s milliners, but she came close. Her exquisitely designed and executed hats had adorned the heads of the wives of dozens of bishops, archbishops, and even a handful of vicars over the years, and she was also one of the city’s leading dressmakers. She carried herself with the pride and confidence befitting someone of her accomplishments, and her serene, regal smile looked almost—almost—natural as she extended her own hand to the man standing in her shop.
“Zhorzhet tells me you’re here to collect a package for Bahnyta Tohmpsyn, Master … Murphai?”
“Indeed.” Murphai bowed over her hand as he had over Zhorzhet’s, but he made no attempt to retain possession of it when she gently withdrew it. “She’s quite eager for me to retrieve it.”
“I see.” She regarded him for a moment, then shrugged ever so slightly. “I’ve checked our files, and I see that there’s a balance due on Mistress Tohmpsyn’s account,” she said apologetically.
“She told me there would be.” Murphai reached into the capacious pocket of his heavy fur coat and withdrew a glass object that gurgled. “She asked me to give you this,” he said, looking directly into Marzho’s eyes.
He held it out, and Marzho’s nostrils flared as she recognized the bottle of Seijin Kohdy’s Special Blend.
* * *
“I’m sure you can understand why all of this makes me more than a little … nervous,” Marzho Alysyn said twenty minutes later.
Zhozuah Murphai sat at the polished wooden table in the modest dining area of Marzho’s apartment above the shop. She and Zhorzhet Styvynsyn sat on the other side, watching him with worried eyes while the teapot heated on her kitchen stove, and Murphai nodded soberly.
“I can’t think of a single reason in the world why it shouldn’t make you nervous,” he said frankly. He reached out and ran an index finger down the whiskey bottle sitting in the center of the table, and his bearded lips flickered with a small smile. “I have to admit, though, it’s an ingenious recognition sign.”
“I always thought so,” Marzho agreed. “Of course, I never really expected to see it.”
Those worried eyes searched his face, and his wooden chair creaked as he leaned back in it.
“I can well understand that. To be honest, Arbalest made it quite clear to me that she’d never really expected for anyone else to use it, either. She does believe in contingency plans, though, doesn’t she?”
And this one was very clever, he reflected.
According to his diary, Seijin Kohdy had named his hikousen “Bonita,” which eight centuries of evolving dialects had transformed into “Bahnyta,” and his closest mortal companion had been Kynyth Tompsyn. Bahnyta wasn’t an unheard-of name in the Temple Lands, but it was rare—it was much more common to Dohlar or northern Desnair than anywhere else on the planet—which helped reduce the possibility of someone with that full name turning up in Marzho’s shop as an actual customer. And while Seijin Kohdy’s Special Blend had a modest following in Zion, it wasn’t a very widely known or favored brand.
Marzho nodded emphatic agreement with his comment, and her expression was a
trifle less wary, although Zhorzhet’s didn’t change. Not surprisingly, Murphai thought. Both of them belonged to Helm Cleaver, the covert action organization Aivah Pahrsahn had established decades earlier, but Marzho—Sister Marzho, to be more precise—was also a Sister of Saint Kohdy, which Zhorzhet was not. In fact, Zhorzhet had never heard of the Sisters of Saint Kohdy. She did recognize that any member of Helm Cleaver whose codename began with the letter “A” stood at or very near the apex of the organization, however. Marzho’s codename was “Bracelet,” and Zhorzhet’s own codename was “Castanet.” Her ability to place the source of Murphai’s knowledge and authorization probably helped some, but she seemed to sense that there were even more levels of complexity about her than she’d expected. In some ways, he would have preferred for her not to be present, but she’d already met Murphai and already knew he was here on Helm Cleaver’s business. She was also the senior member of Sister Marzho’s cell, and if his visit resulted in any action by that cell, she’d have to know about it in the end, anyway.
“So Arbalest sent you personally?” Marzho asked after a moment.
“Yes,” Murphai confirmed. “I’m not actually a member of your … organization, but I represent a group which shares your goals.”
“Does that ‘group’ have a name we’re allowed to know?”
“I’d prefer to simply say that we wish you every success and have no intention of putting any members of Helm Cleaver at avoidable risk,” he said. Then he paused for a moment, as if thinking, before he shrugged. “On the other hand, Arbalest tells me she trusts you and Mistress Styvynsyn completely. Since that’s the case, I can at least tell you that I share certain abilities with someone you’ve probably heard of by the name of Merlin.”
Both women straightened in their chairs, eyes going wide.
“You’re … you’re a seijin?!” Marzho said after a moment.
“According to Arbalest, I’m as much a seijin as Saint Kohdy himself,” Murphai told her. “As Merlin, I’m less inclined to claim that title for myself, but Arbalest tells me that’s usually the case for seijins during their own lifetimes, and given how long, intensely, and … intimately”—he met Marzho’s eyes once again—“she’s studied the subject, I’m prepared to take her word for it.”
“I can understand why you might be.” Marzho’s eyes had narrowed once more as she came back on balance. “But I imagine you won’t be surprised if that raises almost as many questions in my mind as it answers.”
“I seem to have that effect on people,” Murphai said dryly.
“I don’t doubt it.” Marzho’s tone was almost as dry as his own, then she twitched her shoulders. “Your bona fides are about as well established as they could possibly be, Seijin Zhozuah. Even if they weren’t, I’m inclined to doubt the Inquisition would have come up with something this … bizarre as a means of infiltrating us. For that matter, if they know enough to provide you with the recognition signs, they’ve already learned more than enough to arrest all of us without all sorts of folderol. So, with that out of the way, what is it Arbalest wants us to do for you?”
“I need you to put me in contact with Barcor,” he said.
Zhorzhet’s anxiety clicked up perhaps half a notch, but Marzho only nodded, as if she’d expected his response. And she probably had, he thought. Nynian Rychtair hadn’t chosen the head of her Zion organization at random, and Marzho Alysyn was a very, very smart woman.
Ahrloh Mahkbyth, codename “Barcor,” was an ex-Temple Guardsman. He’d served loyally and with pride for almost fifteen years before retiring with a full and generous pension in the wake of a terrible personal tragedy. His nine-year-old son and unborn daughter had been killed in the same hit-and-run Zion traffic accident which had crippled his wife, and the Guard had fully understood his need to devote himself to her care.
What Sergeant Mahkbyth hadn’t known at the time, however, was that the sporting carriage which destroyed his family had been driven by a distant relative of Vicar Stauntyn Waimyan. The young man had failed to stop partly because he’d been so far gone in drink he hadn’t realized he’d actually killed the boy and partly because he hadn’t much cared, anyway. His only concern had been how to evade responsibility, and his groom—who never should have let him drive in his state—had moved quickly to hush up the scandal. He’d gotten the carriage safely into the family carriage house and immediately contacted the vicar … who’d promptly called upon a friend in the Order of Schueler.
A very highly placed friend by the name of Wyllym Rayno.
Because the family of a Temple Guardsman had been involved, the investigation, as Vicar Stauntyn had known it must, had come under the auspices of the Office of Inquisition … whose agents inquisitor had quickly determined what had actually happened. But the recently installed Grand Inquisitor had suppressed the report. Zhaspahr Clyntahn had already begun building his secret files, and it was unlikely Stauntyn Waimyan had even begun to suspect—then—just how much the “minor favor” he’d requested from Clyntahn would cost him over the years.
Unfortunately for the Group of Four, the Mahkbyth deaths had been one of the many cases of corruption within the vicarate which had drawn the attention of Samyl Wylsynn’s circle of Reformists. There’d been no hope of reopening the investigation by that time, but Ahnzhelyk Phonda in her persona as Arbalest had used that information to recruit Sergeant Mahkbyth for Helm Cleaver six months after his wife’s eventual death.
“I can do that,” Marzho said after a moment. “It will take me a day or two to arrange it, though.”
“In that case,” Murphai said with a smile, “I suppose I’d better order a hat to come back and pick up when it’s ready.”
.XV.
Camp Chihiro, Traymos, Tarikah Province, and Charisian Embassy, Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark
She was cold.
She was always cold. In fact, she’d come to believe her memories of anything except cold were only dreams. Then again, dreams were all she truly had.
Her name was Stefyny Mahlard, and she was ten years old. On a planet which had once been known as Earth, she would have been only nine, and in her heart, she knew she would never see another birthday. Her older brother Rehgnyld and her mother Rose had already died; Rose on the nightmare trek from Sarkyn and Rehgnyld when he’d been foolish enough to attack the camp guard who’d sent Stefyny sprawling with the brutal, backhanded cuff which had cost her three teeth and broken her nose.
She remembered that day. Remembered the day her father Greyghor had done the hardest thing a father could possibly have done and watched, his arms around his sobbing daughter and younger son as his eldest child was murdered before his eyes. He’d turned Stefyny’s bloodied, broken face against his filthy coat, holding her with implacable strength to keep her from looking, and his face had been carved from Tairohn granite.
Stefyny didn’t understand about heresies and blasphemy, or about jihads. She only knew her world had been destroyed, that she was always cold, that she was always hungry, and that her father grew thinner by the day as he passed half of his own inadequate food to his two surviving children. No, she knew one more thing: the Church in which she’d been raised, which had taught her to love God and the Archangels, to love her family, had decided she and everyone she’d ever known were unclean and evil.
And that she was going to die.
It wasn’t something a ten-year-old was supposed to know, but the past few months had taught her many things a ten-year-old wasn’t supposed to know. They’d taught her to be terrified of anyone in a purple cassock, anyone in the purple tunics and red trousers of the Army of God. They’d taught her to hide behind the larger bodies of adults, hands clamped over her mouth, eyes huge when the camp guards drove the inmates out of their pitiful barracks with clubs and fists and whips and selected someone who would never be seen again.
Now she trudged through the snow, shivering under the multiple layers of too-thin clothing wrapped about her small, emaciated body, dragging the
bucket in both hands, and tried to ignore her hollow, aching starvation. No one had ever explained to her that children were more vulnerable to hypothermia than adults, but the adults shivering around her knew it. And so, whenever someone died in one of the barracks—and God knew that happened all too often—and the bodies were stripped before the guards were notified, their clothing was distributed first to the children. It was little enough, but amidst the horror their lives had become, the inmates of Camp Chihiro clung to their own humanity. They would shiver, they would freeze, they would lose fingers and toes to frostbite, but whatever extra clothing, whatever scraps of food they could find, would go first to the children, then to the weak, and only last to the strong.
Greyghor Mahlard was no longer among the strong, and so he lay on his pallet in the barracks, watched over by eight-year-old Sebahstean with his pinched, frightened face, and hollow eyes, while Stefyny clutched all the courage within her and walked straight towards the kill line.
She knew what it was. They’d all been told when they first arrived, and anyone who might not have paid attention had seen it demonstrated since. It was marked with whitewashed wooden posts, although there were no rails or fence. Fences weren’t needed with the rifle-armed troops in the guard towers under orders to shoot anyone who stepped across it. They’d done that just the day before yesterday. Stefyny had no idea what the man who’d tried to cross the kill line had thought he was doing, and no one had asked. They’d simply dragged his body away afterward and dropped it into one of the long trenches waiting among the other unmarked graves outside the camp’s perimeter.