ammunition since. Except by faithfully serving each employer instead of being his secret agent.”
“Will he find anything?”
“I doubt it. I never stayed anywhere long. As soon as I got up a stake, I headed farther south. Well, wait. I did steal a sack of turnips once, right after I started. Some bullies took my knife and cheese…” He stopped. Madouc was astonished, hearing him open up. “Where is Bo? I know exactly what he was up to.”
“Hard times?” Hecht asked when Biogna came in. Bo was never a big man. The rags he wore hung loose. Hecht recalled them when Biogna filled them out.
“Yeah, Pipe. How’s it going?”
“You’ve lost weight.”
“Been going some cold, harsh places.”
“So I hear. You know you got Madouc’s guys all flustered.”
“I just wanted to see Joe. I heard he was here with you.”
“I thought so. I sent for him. You’ll understand if we don’t give you the run of the place. These others don’t know you like I do.”
Biogna’s gaze turned furtive for a moment.
Hecht asked, “You run into anything interesting up north? Like wild riders with animal skulls braided into their hair?”
“Nothing that outrageous. Just the Night being busier than it used to. You’d better carry some charms if you need to go out after dark. It gets worse the farther north you go.”
“Find out anything interesting about me?”
Biogna grimaced. “You didn’t stay anywhere long. Hardly anybody remembers you. But there’s always good things about you in the records.”
“I wanted to get to Brothe. I worked when I needed money. When I ran into you guys was the first time I let myself get distracted from my goal.”
“Paid off, though. For all of us. Especially you and Ghort.”
His good humor abandoned Hecht briefly. It had not worked out for most of the men of their little band. They were buried near Antieux.
“Yeah,” Biogna said. “For them as survived that nonsense. And Plemenza, afterward. We ain’t doing so bad. Hey! I met your brother.”
Hecht could not have been more startled if Biogna had pulled a knife. “What?”
“Your brother. Tindeman. You mentioned him a couple times.”
“But he’s dead.”
“Looked pretty healthy to me. Gone gray in the hair, though. And he’s got a nasty purple scar across his face that makes it hard for him to talk. But he’s alive and kicking. He’s an artillery engineer in Grumbrag.”
Hecht was too surprised to improvise. How could the Ninth Unknown have placed live people to support his backstory?
“You seem overwhelmed,” Biogna observed.
“I am. I’ve never been so surprised. I always thought I was the only one left. The fighting was really awful that year. Almost everyone on the Grail Order side was killed. Even if the Sheard were broken.”
Hecht was saved the need to dissemble further by the arrival of Bo’s friend, Just Plain Joe.
Joe was a big, slow, dull man with a genius for managing animals. Though he was a private soldier-Joe wanted no more responsibility-Hecht considered him one of his dozen key men. Joe knew animals. The Patriarchal army could not operate without countless animals if he wanted it to remain an effective, modern force.
Joe had cleaned up. Which explained why it had taken him so long.
Hecht said, “Look who’s here.”
“Yeah. They told me. Hey, Bo. Hey! You don’t want to get too close. I didn’t get that clean.”
“Look at me, Joe. Do I look like I’m ready for parade?”
Hecht called for food and refreshments. His lifeguards watched, carefully blank, while one of the more powerful men in the Episcopal world relaxed with a stable hand and a would-be trespasser.
Hecht had formed strong bonds with these men, Pinkus Ghort, and others who had not survived. Their variable fortunes since had not broken that bond. Even when they worked at cross-purposes.
Carava de Bos appeared. “I’m loath to interrupt, sir. But you have to see the Empress in just two hours. You need to eat and dress.”
“Thanks. Joe, Bo, duty calls. You guys enjoy yourself. Cederig.” Speaking to one of the lifeguards. “Mr. Biogna can stay as long as he likes. But he’s to go nowhere except here and the stables.”
Biogna would want to say hello to Joe’s tutelary mule, Pig Iron. Pig Iron had been with Joe since the beginning.
Hecht considered that mule a sort of philosophical signpost. The beast had an attitude toward the world. It served him well.
Hecht considered himself stubborn and nasty, too. Though he had yet to take a bite out of any of his friends.
Cloven Februaren twisted into existence while Hecht was dressing. Without help. He insisted on dressing himself, as much as he could, despite the status he had attained. It was almost as good as having a slave whisper in his ear.
The old man said, “I overheard your friend’s report. About finding your brother Tindeman in Grumbrag. I’m not guilty of that. My contributions to your backstory consist of false entries on minor payrolls. Did Begonia say anything he couldn’t have gotten from what you’ve told him about your past?”
“Yes. That someone I made up is alive and kicking in a city halfway between here and the permanent ice.”
“You think he told the truth?”
“Bo? I don’t know. He’s a clever little weasel. He could be running a game suggested by Bronte Doneto. To see my reaction. Only, I’d be more inclined to suspect Ferris Renfrow.”
“You’ve told the same tales so often you believe them yourself-unless you stop to think. You had Muno doubting facts about which there was no question, you lied with such conviction.”
Piper Hecht was not one hundred percent convinced that his “true” origins had not been sold to him the same way.
“True, I suppose. And Renfrow has spies everywhere.”
“Or he’d like us to think he does.”
“Maybe not so many as when Johannes was alive, but plenty. He’s thoroughly dedicated to the Grail Empire.”
“I’ll try to see this Tindeman Hecht.”
“I have to call somebody to help me with these last few laces. Some things I just can’t manage alone.”
“I can take a hint.”
For the after-dark walk to Winterhall, the Ege manse in Alten Weinberg, Madouc insisted on a guard that included both Kait Rhuk’s falcon teams, their weapons charged with godshot. Every man carried a brace of primed hand falcons and a burning slow match. Madouc absolutely expected an attack. An enemy would get no better chance.
Madouc thought not only about guarding his principal but about what potential assassins really hoped to accomplish.
Assassinations, in Madouc’s estimation, were highly symbolic, meant to make a mighty declaration. If he could guess what that might be, he should be able to guess when and where a killer would strike.
And he was not wrong. Though tonight’s would-be killer was but one starving, deranged spearman who charged out of the darkness, shrieking, intent on throwing his weapon.
“What did he say?” Hecht asked after the man had been rendered unconscious, tied, and turned over to local troops drawn by the bark of a hasty hand falcon.
“Something about Castreresone. We did something there that he didn’t like.”
