Lord of the Silent Kingdom (36 page)

He sighed. He would not be able to keep much from Anna, anymore. Titus Consent had had to leave the Devedian quarter. He had moved in not far away. Noë and Anna vere getting chummy.

Neither woman had an extended family to give her support.

Anna had become uncomfortably domestic. She was older than Hecht. Maybe the adventure had gone out of her.

She did have plenty of domestic adventure left.

Lying in the post-prandial glow, half asleep, Hecht tried to get the coronation out of his head. It was stuck like a song that would not go away. Like the latest love song from some Connecten jongleur.

Princess Helspeth had stared at him throughout the ceremony. It was so obvious that several people asked about it. He explained that he had saved her life at al-Khazen.

He hoped he was more subtle than she.

The girl fascinated him.

But it was only a fancy. Helspeth Ege was Princess Apparent of the New Brothen Empire. He was a sword in the pay of her father’s favorite enemy.

The Imperial party still had not left Brothe. But the Captain-General had seen nothing of those people since the ceremonies.

Nor would he have had time.

Sublime wanted to send an army through Ormienden into the End of Connec. He had more backing than Hecht had thought possible. Many supporters, disappointed by the Calziran Crusade, were willing to throw more wealth down another rathole hoping they could fatten up in the Connec.

Titus’s reports made it sound as though there would be little left to take. Bad things were happening out there.

Sublime still had received only a quarter of the money promised by Anne of Menand. As much more was supposed to have disappeared in transit. And there were rumors that Anne was financing Arnhander incursions to the Connec using the rest of Sublime’s bribe as security for loans for her own warmaking.

Brothen moneylenders had become reluctant to deal with the Patriarchy.

Sleep came. Helspeth haunted his dreams. She did so every night. He had gotten no chance to speak with her. Then, or since. The Imperial party would leave soon. The Empress Katrin wanted to cross the Jago Mountains while the passes were in their best possible state.

Anna rolled over and buried her face in his chest. Her hot breath wakened him. “Can’t you relax?” she murmured. “Can’t you just push it all out of your head for one night?”

He could not. When not obsessing about Helspeth Ege he worried about Principatè Delari, Osa Stile, recruiting troubles, the next assassination attempt, and what had become of al-Azer er-Selim. He wanted a long talk with his onetime Master of Ghosts. But Az had not revealed himself again.

He had not had news from Bo Biogna yet, either. No one had seen Bo for a long time.

Piper Hecht was worried.

Dangers circled like impatient vultures.

“I’m trying, darling. Truly, I am, But …”

Sleep finally returned. Almost that suddenly.

Pella and Vali made breakfast. And did a creditable job. They brought it in to Hecht and Anna, still lying entangled. Neither child was troubled. Privacy was not that common.

Hecht was not comfortable with the situation although, intellectually, he knew that here in the west, even among nobles, whole families slept in the same room, often in the same bed. The usual business between men and women proceeded anyway.

Hecht asked, “Has our little girl said anything yet?”

“No. But her motives have changed. It isn’t about hiding anymore. Now she’s just being stubborn.” Anna leaned in to whisper, “I heard her talking to Pella. She didn’t know I was in the next room.”

“She’ll come around.” After a few minutes lying there, fed, enjoying the holding and being held, Hecht said, “They’re good kids.”

“Amazingly so, considering their backgrounds. Yes.”

“Aren’t we all? Pella ever show signs of homesickness? Does Vali?”

“Pella? Not that I’ve ever seen.”

“He knows when he’s got it good.”

“He mentioned his sister once.”

“The prostitute?”

“He’s asked if he can read the book that has him and her in it. I don’t know what he means.”

Hecht explained. “Bronte Doneto has a copy. According to Pinkus. Who claims to have read it. I doubt that Doneto would let us see it. It’s banned in the Patriarchal States. It pokes fun at the Church. Supposedly.”

“You haven’t found out anything about Vali?”

“Only that her real name can’t be Vali Dumaine. Titus can’t find Dumaines anywhere who are missing a daughter. Nor are there any girls named Vali missing anywhere, at least at a level where there would be any notoriety.”

“So she’s just a clever con artist.”

“Probably. But I still have trouble swallowing the coincidence of her being a prisoner in a sporting house that fronts for the Witchfinder side of the Special Office. For a Brotherhood cabal set on scuttling Sublime’s deal with the secret mistress of Arnhand.”

“If you didn’t have to be here, if you could just retire and go live your own life, where would you go? What would you do?”

Anna was tense, suddenly. His answer mattered. She was not just chattering in bed. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.” Dreanger’s call was fading, even ignoring its unfriendly attitude since he had been on this side of the Mother Sea. “I do tell people I want to get rich enough to buy one of those big latifundia farming operations, but I don’t mean it. Farming is too much work. Even for owners.”

“You ever done any farming?”

“No.”

“Then definitely don’t start. The farmer is at the mercy of everything and everyone. Bugs. Rodents.

Moneylenders. Weather. Disease. Peace. War. The whims of God and Man. If it wasn’t for forced tenancy, the people who do all the real work would quit.”

“Voice of experience?”

“I had the great good fortune to have good skin, big eyes, a pretty face, and excellent tits when I was young. Those bought me out of the rustic life.”

Hecht knew little about Anna’s life before he met her. He never tempted fortune by prying. She seldom shared what she had survived or seen before she opened her door that night in Sonsa. That simple act marked the start of new lives for both of them.

He said only, “Uhm?”

“You should’ve seen me when I was sixteen, Piper. I can’t believe any girl ever looked that good.”

“I’m sorry I missed you. Though I can’t imagine you being more desirable than you are right now.”

“You do have a knack for slinging the bull, Piper Hecht. And a woman of my years does need to hear that sort of thing occasionally.” She grabbed. “Is this thing interested in another adventure?”

Anna Mozilla made it entirely impossible for Piper Hecht to remember that there were children in the next room.

Pella and Vali were young but not ignorant of the way of men and women. In fact, but for Hecht rescuing her, Vali would by now have had considerable direct knowledge.

Young girls were very marketable.

Boys were, too, though to a smaller pool of eager consumers.

Hecht was half-awake, thinking about Principatè Muniero Delari. He had not seen the old man for weeks. Delari was preoccupied with refurbishing his underground world. While striving to avoid exposure to the machinations of Principatè Doneto.

Anna snuggled closer, murmuring, “We should probably think about getting up.”

Hecht had just finished dressing when the world seemed to end.

Hecht wakened aboard a litter. The air was thick with smoke and the stench of spent firepowder. Men from the City Regiment carried the litter’s four corners. They wore the padded leather shirts and hard leather caps of the new militia patrol, the constabulari. They jogged up the steps of a church. Other constabularii jostled them, carrying other litters.

As the City Regiment dwindled it was being replaced by unpaid citizens performing duties defined by laws newly promulgated by the city senate and approved by the Church and Brothe’s leading families. All able-bodied were now obligated to work a shift of fire watch and street patrol once each ten days, inside their native quarter, the shifts set by the crafts guilds and neighborhood social associations.

Although called quarters, there were nine military districts in Brothe. The patrols had had a dramatic effect on crime.

Hecht wondered where Pinkus Ghort had found the model. The Eastern Empire?

The constabularii lowered the litter. They eased Hecht onto a pallet. One called, “Father Capricio! This one might be important.” Then they were gone, back for another customer.

Hecht stared at the high ceiling. Angels had been painted between supporting beams. A priest dropped to one knee beside him. “Ah. You’re conscious.” His cassock was that of one of the healing orders.

“Can you tell me how badly you’re hurt?”

“Concussion. I think there was an explosion.”

“A huge one. A dozen buildings were damaged.”

“Anna. The kids …” He tried to get up.

“Lie still. The constabulari will deal with it. Injured women and children would be here already. One of the deacons or altar boys can help you look. If you don’t need me?”

“I don’t know if I do. I’m having trouble feeling things.”

“I don’t see anything external. And I do have seriously wounded people here.”

“Go.”

Where
had
Ghort harvested his three-branched militia idea? Every Patriarchal city now had to organize a militia. The Captain-General’s idea. Pinkus Ghort, overseeing the Brothen militia, built the local force to his own standards, dividing it into the constabulari, the guardi, and the equestri. The guardi manned permanent watch stations on the city wall and manned the several gates. They came from a more prosperous class than the constabulari. Already, some were pooling resources to hire individuals to fulfill their obligations for them. All of those hirelings were veterans of the City Regiment. And now, more than ever, beholden to the man who found them their jobs, Colonel Pinkus Ghort.

The third group was drawn from the richest families. The equestrian order. The men who could afford horses. Mimicking antiquity.

That puffed wealthy egos. Though there was resistance to actually going into the field.

The Brothen militia, as were those being organized in all the other Patriarchal cities, was expected to make some of its number available for service outside the home city.

Since ancient times the overlord had had the right to call out the entire male population. In the developing system a militiaman could expect to do forty days of active field service about once every six years.

Even the least enthusiastic cities would tolerate a ten percent callup. Or, Hecht hoped, they would contribute money. That would let him hire experienced troops from amongst the refugees.

One of Anna’s neighbors, a widow named Urgent, found him. “There you are. Anna is beside herself.

You should treat her better.”

“You could be right. Is she hurt? Are the children all right?”

“They’re fine. The girl is covered with blood but it was just a nosebleed.”

“Good. Would you tell them where you found me?”

“Why don’t you?”

“Madam, I’m here for a reason. Not because I need a nap.” The Urgent woman was the busybody sort.

Nevertheless, she nodded once, sharply, and went away. He passed out moments later, while trying to get up.

“Pinkus?”

“The one and only. How come you’re loafing around in here?” Ghort settled cross-legged, part of him on Hecht’s pallet and part on that of a man who had arrived while Hecht was unconscious. The other man would not mind. He was dead.

“Last time I tried to get up I passed out.”

“What I heard. I’ll have a couple guys hang around. In case they try again.”

“What?”

Ghort reflected. “That’s right. You wouldn’t know.”

“Know what?”

“The big boom. We think it was meant for you. Only it went off early.”

“Uhm?”

“All right. From the beginning. There was a donkey cart loaded with kegs of firepowder. Made a hell of a bang. It was supposed to go off in front of Anna’s house.”

Impossible that he should be so lucky, Hecht thought. He suspected that Ghort agreed. Ghort said, “We caught two men. Which is how we know what was supposed to happen. We’ll backtrack it. From them and from the source of the firepowder.”

“Sounds like you got it all under control.”

“I think so. Tell me something, Pipe.”

“What’s that?”

“How come people keep trying to waste your ass? You might be the fucking Captain-General but it still don’t make sense that somebody keeps coming after you.”

“Pinkus, I wish I knew. If I did, you can bet your mother’s reputation I’d be on top of it. But I don’t have a clue. It can’t be the past catching up. I don’t have that interesting a past.”

“Freaky.”

“Absolutely. This scares me more than if I did know why. Because then I’d know who. Are you
sure
somebody was after me?”

“As sure as I can be of anything. And they were so eager that they didn’t care how many people got hurt as long as they killed you.”

“You have prisoners who were involved, I’d be thrilled to visit with them myself. Or, if you don’t have anything special in mind for them, turn them over to Principatè Delari.”

“I might be able to arrange that.”

“Good. Help me get up, here.”

Earth-turning dizziness overwhelmed him before he could get his feet under him. “I’m not ready. Put me back down.”

Hecht slipped into unconsciousness again.

He wakened. His head was pounding. He thought Anna must be responsible. He worried about the concussion … No Anna. No Pella or Vali. Nor anyone else who was part of his current life. But on the pallet formerly occupied by the dead man was a face from another life.

“Az?”

Al-Azer er-Selim, Master of Ghosts. Almost unrecognizable in western clothing, wearing no facial hair.

His eyes gave him away. Those eyes had looked into the heart of the Night, yet remained amused by the folly rampant in Man and all of God’s creation.

“Captain.” Softly. Breathlessly.

“What are you doing?”

“I haven’t been able to see you any other way. You seem to be avoiding us.”