Titus said, “There was a letter from Buhle Smolens. He’s on his way. The weather will slow him. One of my agents says he had a real knock-down, drag-out with Captain-General Ghort when he resigned.”
“That’s not good.” Could it have been staged?
“Ghort took it personally. He wouldn’t listen to excuses about not being able to work for Serenity.”
“Again, not good.”
“Considering the loss rate among veterans he’s suffering, no. Those men have been to the Connec before. They don’t want to go back. The Connec doesn’t deserve what Serenity wants to deliver.”
Hecht managed a nod and grunt.
“Your friend might be in over his head.”
“And that wouldn’t be good for him, Serenity, the Church, or the Connec.” Hecht could imagine a frustrated Ghort and Serenity deliberately unleashing a massacre like the inadvertent bloodbath at Antieux during the earliest Patriarchal incursion into the Connec.
“Nothing good will happen in the Connec, Piper. King Regard has left an investing force outside Khaurene. They don’t have the numbers for a siege but they’re tearing up the countryside and making Khaurenese life difficult. And that has the Direcian kings and princes pissed off. King Peter has told King Regard and the Patriarch both to back off or face grim consequences. He’s already negotiated truces with the surviving Praman princes. Who are only too happy to buy time to recover from the disaster at Los Naves de los Fantas. The Direcian Principat?s are getting loud in the Collegium, too. Where Serenity has lost most of his support. The Principat?s have decided that they made a huge mistake, electing Bronte Doneto.”
“Interesting times. All right. I’m going back to bed. Much as it gripes me to admit it, I need somebody to take care of me till I recover.”
“The progress has been back long enough for the prostitutes to have gotten caught up.”
“Titus.”
“Sorry. It’s the company I keep.”
“You told me Pinkus Ghort was still in Viscesment. That’s his kind of joke.”
“You should’ve let Pella come along. It would be perfect work for him.”
Hecht growled softly. He did not want to think about family. “Have you located Algres Drear?”
“Yes. He’s willing to talk whenever you’re recovered.”
“Do you remember why I wanted to see him?”
“You didn’t say. Is there a problem?”
“I’ve lost some memories. Nothing much. Little details from the last few days before it happened.”
“You do remember who Drear is?”
He did. “That’s still in there.”
“Then your answer should be involved with who he is.”
“Politics, maybe. He knows the players and the secret rules. He could be an informal adviser.”
“If he was willing.”
“There is that.” But that was not it, he was sure.
The Empress insisted on seeing her hired general before she went into seclusion. Hecht had himself carried to the audience in a sedan chair, then entered the presence in a wheeled chair pushed by Terens Ernest, one of Titus Consent’s clerks. Ernest had become Piper Hecht’s keeper. Who would, undoubtedly, monitor and report the boss’s every breath.
Many staffers were not yet comfortable about his return to life.
Hecht had used his pendant, one-handed, to warn Heris that he would no longer be alone nights. When Ernest was not hovering another of Consent’s minions was.
Isolated, bored, he spent a lot of time toying with the pendant. Too much. Heris’s responses became curt, irritated.
His left arm and shoulder were bound in bandages and splints which made him look worse off than he was. Though that was bad enough. He was tired of the pain.
The show might not have much impact. Brother Rolf Hasty, lately, had become the most popular healer in Alten Weinberg. Everybody wanted to quiz him about the new general’s health.
Arrangements had been made to let Ernest help Hecht with his ceremonial obligations. The Empress was in a flexible mood. She had chosen to interview him in the same venue, Winterhall, where first she had asked him to come over to the Empire. As then, there were few witnesses, though more than before.
The Princess Apparent sat to her sister’s right and below, slouched but quietly attentive. Her truce with Katrin continued. An heir was on his way. Katrin did not feel threatened.
Helspeth met Hecht’s gaze boldly.
First thing the Empress asked, after the formalities, was, “Have you found the men who attacked you?” She wore a thin smile. She knew the answer, of course.
“We have. I spoke to them myself, just this afternoon. An odd pair. My slum-divers tell me they’re local criminals with a reputation for daring murders. They had a factor, one Willem Schimel, who found work for them. Master Schimel was last seen just before the arrow hit me. Living or dead, he’s no longer to be found. That’s all we know.”
Not true. Piper Hecht had been sixth on the assassins’ list, bearing one of the smaller bounties. The killers had been late getting into position. The more lucrative targets, the Imperial sisters and members of the Council Advisory, had passed the ambush site before they settled in.
The killers had no idea why any of the targets was wanted dead. They had not cared. Great wealth would have been theirs had they been able to clear the list. Schimel had been confident in the trustworthiness of his contact. The assassins had been confident of their ability to vanish in the chaos following such dramatically important murders. But they had not moved fast enough.
Hecht kept all that to himself.
The Empress did not look like a woman already past due to deliver. Though extra attendees hovered, midwives lurked in a room nearby and healers waited in another, on a moment’s call. About to say something, Katrin started violently. “Oh! He kicked! I really felt that one. It won’t be long now.”
Hecht considered the faces nearest Katrin. Each was a study in absence of expression. Those women were determined to do nothing to trigger Katrin’s displeasure.
The donning of masks was so careful and so universal that Hecht knew the growing suspicion of the capital was, in fact, the truth.
The Empress was not pregnant.
She thought she was pregnant. She believed she was pregnant. She wanted to be pregnant so badly that she showed most of the signs. She was convinced she was about to produce a son. After which, no doubt, she expected Jaime to return and be her one true love.
“Excuse me, Captain-General.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” She liked that. It suggested high religious standing in addition to Imperial status.
“You and I, each in our way, are denied our potential by our bodies. You have a prognosis for your situation?” She was intently watchful. Looking for evidence of tainting by the Night.
He was used to that. Everyone held that secret reservation. Everyone. He might never be free of that, nor ever become comfortable with it.
Honesty was his only recourse. She knew whatever Brother Rolf knew. “Guardedly optimistic. I’m told I’ll be good as new, someday. If I don’t try to do too much before I’m ready. I don’t think I will. My staff are masters at nagging me.”
“Will you be ready in time for spring campaigning?”
Ensued an extended discussion of what had to be done before the Empress could launch her expedition to purge the Holy Lands of the Praman infestation. Katrin let formality slide while military business was on the table. She and her sister both impressed Hecht with their knowledge-Helspeth even more than Katrin.
The Princess Apparent flashed a grin. “We had to be the sons the Ferocious Little Hans always wanted.”
Katrin agreed. “We grew up looking over his shoulders. Living this stuff. Being mascots around the headquarters. The warlords all thought it was cute when we were five or six.”
