Working God's Mischief (57 page)

“And the Queen.”

Kedle eyed the smaller man. “I've seen you before.”

“I doubt that, ma'am.” His nerves worsened, though. He was lying.

She sniffed out the cleverest lies easily, these days. This man was, suddenly, desperate to be away from her.

The other interposed himself smoothly. “I would be Colonel Ghort,” he said, while the little man slipped away, studying his surroundings with ferocious care.

“All right. I remember who he is. Or was, maybe.” The little fellow had been a Brothen spy in Antieux, pretending to be a Seeker from Firaldia. He had been bold enough to engage in a doctrinal debate with Brother Candle before vanishing so completely that he might never have existed.

“He's a good man.”

She shook her head, unsure that she had her facts right, then focused on Ghort. Pinkus Ghort. Sometimes Colonel Ghort. Lately, Captain-General of the Patriarchal armies Ghort. “I appreciate the offer of assistance. Being Khaurenese I would have no trouble accepting. The Good God knows we could use a hand. But these are the Vindicated, mostly from Antieux. Chances are they would consider you a gift from God.”

“Oh, sigh. I had nothing to do with the Antieux massacre.”

“You're older than I am, and more experienced. You have to know that you being guilty, or not guilty, means about as much to them as it did to Bronte Doneto, whatever hat he wore whenever.”

Ghort managed a grin. “You're probably right. It's an awful old world, chock full of human beings, and human beings are such unreasonable, irrational beasts. Worse than the gods themselves. All right. I tried to forge some solidarity. Now I'll go somewhere where I won't be so much of an object of temptation.”

Kedle thought she
felt
the snicker of an invisible, amused entity. Hope? There must be news.

Ghort said, “Come visit me. My guys don't hold any grudges.”

More amusement.

Kedle watched the man amble off. “What the hell was that?”

“You vamp.” Grandfather Arcot wore a big, scar-distorted grin. “Let's talk about it after we're done here.” He was making no headway with the tent.

“Yeah. All right. I'm coming. It's just … That was so damned odd. I can't figure what he wanted.”

The very air whispered,
Perhaps he noted that you are a woman and recalled that he is a man.
The same air slithered under the edges of the tent and lifted it up.

“There we go!” Grandfather Arcot declared. “That's what I wanted to see. So. You're curious, go on and visit him. You lads! Lend a hand, you don't want to sleep in the rain.”

The Arnhander boys from Arngrere put their buckets aside.

The Widow continued to stare after the Captain-General. Hope continued to envelop her in silent amusement. Pinkus Ghort was still officially Captain-General, was he not?

What was his game?

What, for that matter, was he doing in the Holy Lands?

Maybe she
would
go visit, just to unravel that mystery.

*   *   *

Brother Candle wakened from the deepest, most satisfying, most refreshing sleep he had enjoyed since leaving Antieux. Lady Hope, faintly radiant, was shaking him. She had been in his dreams … and was here now in actuality …

She grinned wickedly. “What a wicked old devil you are, thinking like that! Too bad. We don't have time. The enemy approaches.”

Groggily, he stumbled to Kedle's tent. A dozen Vindicated had crowded in already, few more alert than he was. None paid the Instrumentality any heed.

Kedle was not sleepy. She was excited. Flushed. Breathing fast. “We're all here, now. These are the facts. Pramans have been gathering in the hills to the east. They're mostly regional, modestly armed, but led by professionals from Lucidia. They don't know us. They just see a chance to grab some plunder.”

Brother Candle asked, “What about the others camped around here?”

Kedle did not answer the question he thought he had asked. “I sent the boys … They're on their own. We'll get hit first, anyhow. We're closest to the hills.”

This must be what that old man at the hospice had meant when he said they should post sentries. Local opportunists—not necessarily Praman—considered pilgrims a resource best exploited while still muddled from travel.

“These raiders have done this before. They have the impudence to sell the captured arms in Kagure or Grove.” Ominously, “Healthy captives get sold to slavers and sent east. The rest…”

She did not have to explain.

“We have been warned.” She did not explain that, either. The Vindicated no longer asked. “We have a few hours to prepare. Let's make a statement they'll hear from one end of the Holy Lands to the other. These dogmatic snakes need to know that the Vindicated have come.”

Brother Candle shivered at her intensity.

“I want toddlers in Shamramdi, Begshtar, Mezket, Souied ed Dreida, even Jezdad, to wake up screaming at night because they think the Vindicated are coming. I want Indala himself pissing down his leg.”

Hope chided, “That's a bit of an overreach, darling.”

The men chuckled.

“I want it. I don't expect to get it. We'll start by making the camp look unprepared. Pickets should be drowsing. We'll offer an obvious, safe path to the command tent, where they can lop the head off the dragon before it knows that it's in trouble.”

The boys from Arngrere oozed into the tent. The bolder of the two gave a nod and thumbs-up despite all the eyes upon him.

 

38. The Holy Lands: Reconnaissance by Combat

Piper Hecht opened his eyes after allowing them momentary relief from the sun's brilliance. He sat on a hilltop, behind a cluttered table, overlooking Shartelle and its harbors from the northeast. There were breaches in the mighty wall. Starving defenders strove to fill them before any crusader attack. The Righteous, however, were content to wait.

Hecht's main strength had gone away, to overrun Praman cities along the coast and explore the approaches to Vantrad. He expected to fight at least one major battle getting there. The Pramans dared not fail to try to stop him. Not to fight would constitute acknowledgement that God had chosen to stand with the Enterprise.

The misnamed White Sea was a brilliant azure. Allied warships patrolled beyond Shartelle's harbors. They showed the colors of Aparion, Dateon, and the Eastern Empire. Jackals all, they were eager to feast on the Righteous's kill.

“She always overdoes it, doesn't she?” Lord Arnmigal grumped. Hourli had just brought news from east of Triamolin. “The economic impact will be severe, especially in agriculture. She killed four hundred eighty men with just a handful of followers.”

“It was a clever ambush by hardened butchers. And Aldi helped. She could have cleaned up a force five times the size of that one.”

Hecht sighed. He did not like having killers out there who were not his to control.

Hourli said, “She wanted to announce her presence.”

“Damned if she didn't. Everyone will know the Widow now.” He shut his eyes again. The reflection off the sea was not pleasant. “Will it have any strategic impact?”

“Timid souls will stay out of her way. Indala? How would you expect him to react?”

“He'll fuss, but what can he do? He's locked up. And he doesn't let emotion push him into making deadly mistakes.”

“Members of his family were among those who organized the raid. Any survivors will be some of the prisoners the Widow is sending us.”

“There were survivors?” That was a surprise, the Widow being so bloodthirsty.

“About a dozen. Three Lucidians, one Dreangerean, the rest local shakes. She wanted to kill them all. One of the other commanders talked her into sending them to us.”

“What is that boy doing?”

Pella, halfway down to the nearest siege works, was easy to spot. He favored flamboyant local Chaldarean costume these days. He wanted to be noticed. Hecht hoped he would not regret the conceit.

Wife departed the tent that gave respite from the sun, a pleasure Hecht exploited often. He had forgotten how fierce that orb could be, here.

The Instrumentality murmured to Hourli. Hourli leaned down, told Lord Arnmigal, “Your son has found a city militia captain who will open a gate in exchange for the safety of his family and property.”

“Excellent.” He was not surprised. Shartelle had been stubborn but most of its people recognized that the end was near. Every relief effort had been crushed. No more would come. Pramans elsewhere were desperate to protect their own homes.

Their God had averted His face.

A traitor, if known, would suffer the hatred of his fellows but his treachery would save lives because Heris had extracted that promise from her brother.

“That's good,” Lord Arnmigal said again. “Let him know that I approve. He has full authority to make the arrangements. Suggest that it should happen at night so fewer people get hurt.”

*   *   *

Explosions happened in succession in a barracks, a communal kitchen, and during late prayer services. There were casualties by the score and general panic, all far from the sally port the traitor opened. The Righteous poured in unnoticed despite the inevitable confusion and noise.

Few of Shartelle's defenders resisted. Most said their prayers and chose to believe the invaders' promise to spare them. Those who did choose to fight on fled into the big stone box of the citadel. Most of those belonged to the Lucidian garrison Indala had installed before the arrival of the Righteous. They were among the Great Shake's most faithful soldiers.

All Shartelle but the citadel fell before noon. There were problems of indiscipline but those did not persist. The Shining Ones intervened.

Shartelle became a Chaldarean city for the first time in centuries, at less cost than its people had any right to hope.

The Lucidians in the citadel offered to yield their arms and leave the city. The Commander refused. From them he wanted only unconditional surrender. They refused.

Hecht had masons brick up the entrances. The Lucidians could stew in their pride. The Shining Ones kept harm from touching the masons, but, otherwise, stayed out of the light.

“I don't want the whole world thinking they need to get rid of me the way we got rid of those revenants in the Connec,” Hecht told Pella when the boy wondered why they did not just turn the Shining Ones loose.

“They would clean up. Of course they would. But no one out there would consider them as anything but devils. The Church wouldn't admit that they exist if the Choosers snatched the Patriarch's robe over his head and spanked his bare ass in front of ten thousand witnesses.”

“Getting a little cynical, there, aren't you, Pop?”

“Getting? I've been like this since I was younger than you are.” He flashed back on the boyhood of someone named Else Tage, then wrestled identity confusion, trying to understand why he had become the implacable enemy of everything that had meant so much to that boy.

Pella broke the mood. “Spanking the Patriarch would be popular. But the Shining Ones need to do things to make people
want
to believe in them again. Right? That's why they hooked up with us. Helping us helped them get to the Wells of Ihrian, so they could be the kind of gods who actually show up when somebody yells for help, not the kind that are only convoluted intellectual exercises for priests to quarrel over. ‘God answers all prayers' is a copout. He doesn't have to exist…”

The boy stopped. Such talk was not likely to find favor with the religiously driven.

Hecht stared. What the hell was this? Somewhere, somehow, the kid had gotten his brain engaged. That was scary.

“Pella, you make me nervous when you think about things besides firepowder formulary and falcon deployments.”

“Great. I like that. Where is the Empress, now? Getting close?” The answer to that was, much too close.

Lord Arnmigal became an anxious adolescent whenever he considered Helspeth's approach.

He was so eager to see her that he almost danced when he thought about it. His people kept finding him frozen in thought.

That seldom caused comment anymore. It seemed to be another phase, like the massive need for sleep that had gone its way, now, having grown ever less debilitating as the Righteous moved south.

Hecht himself paid little attention. His focus remained on the mundane and daily.

He told Pella, “She'll be here in a few days. Barring disaster.” What made him add that?

Determined Pramans had tried to ambush her repeatedly. Sheaf and Wife had become full-time lifeguards, replacing Ferris Renfrow and Asgrimmur Grimmsson, who had then been ordered back to Alten Weinberg to help Algres Drear keep the Imperial peace.

Stupid, stupid tribesmen! Were they blind? Did they not understand that success against the Grail Empress meant disaster would come down like the deluge? Could they not understand that they were
begging
for the extermination of whole tribes?

They could not see that. Of course not. Only Lord Arnmigal did, along with the Instrumentalities who would deliver the genocide.

Much as he anticipated Helspeth's advent, so did Hecht dread it. Having his lover in camp, with no privacy to be had … They would do something stupid. It was sure to happen.

He reddened, remembering Katrin. That humiliation returned.

*   *   *

Almost the first thing Helspeth said, following the ceremony attendant on her arrival, was, “I brought that candle you like, Lord Arnmigal.”

Hecht's eyes widened. He had forgotten the time candle. Last he had seen it, it had been in his quarters in the Still-Patter house. He recalled several instances when it would have been handy to have.

“Thank you so much, Majesty. That was thoughtful of you.”

“And selfish.” Lady Hilda had accompanied her empress, clearly without enthusiasm. She wanted nothing to do with this rude end of the world but she was entertained at the moment. “Perhaps you could take that candle along and pray together tonight.”