Titus said, “The military part shouldn’t be hard. We have enough people here. Add the fact that, more than anything, the Grail Empire runs on inertia. The Empress being offstage for a while shouldn’t give anybody time enough to get up to much mischief.”
“Our job is to make sure. To that end, I want to see Algres Drear. And Ferris Renfrow, if anybody can find him.”
“He’s been scarce for months, boss. Which isn’t unusual, I take it. They have a saying here: ‘Comes the day, comes the man.’ Meaning somebody will rise to the occasion, whatever it might be. It’s a sort of nickname for Ferris Renfrow. If there’s a need, he turns up.”
Hecht grunted. That was not what he wanted to hear. He preferred to see Ferris Renfrow when he wanted to see Ferris Renfrow.
Titus asked, “Commander of the Righteous? Really?”
“I didn’t pick it.”
The Princess Apparent’s regency was not the harsh trial she expected, nor the debilitating strain Commander Hecht anticipated. The old men of the Empire showed an uncharacteristic restraint. Titus Consent reported an abiding anxiety, an undirected dread, abroad in the Empire. No one could identify a specific cause. Everyone seemed willing to wait and see and stand united if the unknown birthed some bleak certainty.
Winter neutralized all external threats, except possibly from the north. North centered every sense of foreboding.
One change obvious to the dullest mind and dimmest eye was a sharp increase in incidents involving the malice of minor Instrumentalities.
“We’re like a couple of mastiffs sizing each other up,” Titus told Hecht. Speaking of the nobility round Alten Weinberg. He and the Commander of the Righteous, Hagan Brokke, Drago Prosek, and Clej Sedlakova were enjoying a dinner honoring Buhle Smolens, who had arrived that afternoon with thirty-two disgruntled fellow former Patriarchals. Hecht was still weak but could walk around for short periods.
Consent continued, “Their noses are all bent out of shape but our legend is so big they mean to be very careful making things right.”
“Right?” That was Smolens, hands resting on his full belly. Hecht’s former number two was laconic by nature, seldom having much to say. Tonight, though, he wanted to get caught up. To manage that he had to talk and ask.
Hecht observed and wondered.
And wondered about himself as well. He had developed a strong strain of paranoia, lately.
Smolens had turned into a mass of contradictions. He had gained weight, yet still gave the impression of being gaunt. His face had become more round. He had lost hair. He had stopped wearing the thin, well-trimmed beard he had affected for years.
And he had the shakes.
Not obviously. Not all the time. And in no obvious connection to what was going on around him. But the tremors were there. They came and went, seldom lasting more than a few seconds.
Everyone noticed. No one mentioned it. But Smolens understood that the tremors were no secret.
“All right,” Smolens said. He took a deep breath, tried to relax. “You’re all suspicious because I quit the Patriarchals when I’ve been on Krois’s payroll since I was a sprout. Most of you probably think I’m here to spy.”
Consent admitted, “The thought had occurred to me.”
Hecht said, “Pinkus Ghort is rough around the edges but he isn’t hard to work for.”
“It isn’t the Captain-General,” Smolens replied. “Are we secure here? Or do you care what might be listening?”
“I’ll stop you if you hit something I don’t want the world to know.”
“All right. You’re correct. The Captain-General isn’t hard to work for. Easier than you, mostly. His expectations aren’t as high. He’s not the problem. That would be the people collecting around him. Against his will. Witchfinders and really spooky Society thugs. Going underground didn’t improve those people. And, lately, several sorcerer types have shown up. Not Special Office people. They don’t even pretend to be agents of God. They go around greeting each other, ‘Surrender to the Will of the Night.’ Yet they came with patents from Serenity. He’ll tame the Connec if he has to have the Adversary do it for him. I couldn’t take the strain.”
“And Pinkus?”
“The Captain-General chooses to quell his conscience with fortified spirits. Which makes the villains unhappy but they can’t do anything. The troops stay loyal to Ghort because the Society brothers make themselves so obnoxious.”
Hecht wished the Ninth Unknown were around to eavesdrop. Or, better, Principat? Delari. Muniero Delari was the natural foil to Bronte Doneto.
Maybe the roots of their encounter in the catacombs had begun to show.
Consent muttered something like, “Give a man the power to excuse himself and his true heart will always shine through.”
Smolens said, “I decided to leave after I overheard some Society brothers making plans for next spring. I tried to tell the Captain-General. He didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t stay after that.”
“We’ll discuss the details in private,” Hecht said. “Welcome back.”
“You do have a job for me?”
“I told you I did. Just not the job you had. That’s been split between Hagan, Clej, and Titus. Hagan got the hard part. You’ll be my provost of the city. We have too many soldiers and not enough to keep them out of trouble. We haven’t had any serious problems yet. It can’t stay that way. I want to head off trouble before it starts. Pick five big bruiser noncoms to help. I expect firmness, fairness, finesse, and no favoritism to our men over the locals. Nor the other way around. Take no crap. You answer only to me. I answer only to the Empress.” For the benefit of eavesdroppers. “If you do find yourself downwind of somebody wearing some really big pants, let me know. The Empress is hungry for excuses to throw a leash on some of these people.”
The Commander of the Righteous was as uncomfortable as he could recall ever being, though the Princess Apparent was trying to make it easy. She had women with her. Impropriety would be impossible. They faced one another across a table crafted of some rare, dark wood polished smooth. He took comfort from its protection.
He had come prepared for an extended, serious exchange concerning the business of Katrin’s crusade. Cost estimates. A proposal for sending quartermaster scouts, come summer, to explore possible routes. A suggestion that diplomatic missions get busy negotiating rights of passage. The Eastern Empire would be crucial. Katrin’s army would have to travel overland. It would be too large for the available shipping. Though shipping would have to be contracted in order to supply the army with what it could not carry or buy along the way. Acquisition of materials to fill those supporting holds had to start soon because it would take a long time to collect it all and move it to the handiest seaports.
And so forth.
This kind of warfare was not a pickup game.
Throat tight, Hecht said, “We need to hammer out some way to enforce good behavior. We can’t have dukes and barons and their contingents dropping out to plunder along the way. Monestacheus Deleanu isn’t the weakling that Anastarchios was.”
Monestacheus was the current Eastern Emperor. Anastarchios had been Emperor eighty years ago, when last a Crusader army had gone to the Holy Lands overland.
That crusade had become an exercise in chaos. Too many proud kings. Too many desperate poor. No firmly established command, no detailed preparation, and no overall plan.
Born in shining idealism, the crusade lapsed into ugly adolescence before its tail departed the Grail Empire. The wealthy lords out front bought up local surpluses as they moved. The poor coming along behind had to forage. Which led to plundering. The slow progress, just a few miles a day, left a swath of devastation thirty miles wide. Once into the Eastern Empire it left whole cities destitute or destroyed. Cities home to good Chaldareans who also wanted the Holy Lands torn from the grasp of the cruel Unbeliever.
