The Princess Apparent said, “We expect you to make things work better than they did back then.” Her voice was strained. Her hands would not stay still, except when she realized what she was doing and forced them. But that never lasted. “I hear you’ve found Algres Drear.”
Drear had not been hidden.
“Yes. I brought him along. I want you to take him back as chief bodyguard. I’d feel more comfortable with Drear between you and harm.” Having the Braunsknecht close to Helspeth would place indebted eyes near the seat of power, too. Drear owed Hecht.
“I don’t know about chief bodyguard. But I do owe Captain Drear. I ruined his career.”
“You did, didn’t you?”
Flash of anger, quickly shoved aside. “I’m not that girl anymore. Still willful, though. But not ready to drag others down with me.”
“Glad to hear it. The welfare of millions depends…”
“Yes.” Sharp look. Estimation. Calculation. Leaning forward. In a voice meant for no other ears, “Things aren’t going well for my sister.”
Hecht sensed fear. Sparked by his remark about the millions. “How so?”
“I’m not sure. It’s being hushed up. Most of her attendants aren’t allowed out of the Quill Tower. Those who are won’t say anything. And they look grimmer every day. One thing’s certain. The baby hasn’t come. That wouldn’t be kept secret.”
“I see.”
“My sister can get ugly when she’s upset. Which explains the moods of her people. They’ll feel the sharp edge of her rage first.” Helspeth told the story of her winter exile. “If it hadn’t been for Ferris Renfrow I’d have died of hunger or exposure. And not because of Katrin’s malice. Not entirely. Malice put me out there. But when she wasn’t angry anymore she just forgot me.” In an even softer voice, “My sister isn’t sane, Commander. And she’ll get worse every time she’s disappointed.”
Hecht glanced around, turning too quickly. His wound presented him with shooting pain.
“Are you all right?” Frightened concern.
“I moved too much, too fast. They tell me pain is a good teacher. I’m not sure. If I’m not hurting I’m not paying attention. How much do you trust these women?” She had, after all, been keeping her voice down.
“They’d overlook an indiscretion.” Said with timorous challenge. “But nothing political. They all have husbands and lovers.”
As he forced pain-born tension out of his muscles Hecht felt Helspeth’s real meaning. Her women would not retail gossip but matters political were fair game? Strange, these people.
Helspeth said, “I can’t find Ferris Renfrow.”
“Nor can I. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“Wonder? Not so much. If you grow up here you’re used to Ferris Renfrow, the unpredictable apparition. It frustrated Father no end. But Renfrow was never missing when it really counted.”
Hecht saw Heris seldom and the Ninth Unknown never, these days. He did communicate, via pendant, often. They had nothing to report about Ferris Renfrow, either. They said they were working on it.
Hecht felt starved for information.
He had access to more and better intelligence than anyone, possibly saving Renfrow, but remained painfully aware that there was much that he did not know.
Intelligence was like opium. The more you tasted, the more you wanted. The craving could not be satisfied.
The session never slipped the bonds of propriety. But it did go on. Helspeth always had another question. Hecht began doling out bits of thinking he had not yet shared with Titus, also to prolong their encounter. Before they did part, Helspeth suggested that they make an evening briefing part of their schedules. So that, when Katrin returned, she would find her crusade developing perfectly.
Hecht’s men worked long days. They drilled. They performed weapons exercises. They performed fatigue duties. They helped clear snow from thoroughfares. They were involved in restoration of the city fortifications and a study of its arsenals and emergency stores. The latter, as in so many cities not recently threatened, existed mainly in wishful thinking. Shortages had sparked several scandals already. No names of consequence surfaced, naturally, so punishments were draconian.
Mostly, the Commander wanted his men seen. Wanted everyone aware of them constantly. He wanted potential villains conscious that a new factor had to be reckoned with and that factor was beholden to the Ege sisters.
He did not want to be lord of a praetorian guard. The politics of the Grail Empire, however, pressed him into the role of Imperial shield and hound.
He accepted that because he wanted to lead the next crusade. Which, if the Empress had her way, would be the biggest ever.
Katrin meant to buy her way into Heaven.
Loyalties blanketed Hecht in layers. He was several people, the created become most real. He forgot Else Tage completely for long stretches, as Else Tage had forgotten Gisors. Duarnenia and a childhood with Rother and Tindeman Hecht usually seemed more real. He rehearsed that past every day. And each time he talked about his boyhood new details accreted.
Alten Weinberg enjoyed a quiet winter. Weather in the Jagos was terrible. Not so in the capital. People remained content to mark time. Men of standing told Hecht that Alten Weinberg had not been so quiet since the heyday of Johannes’s power. A popular effect. But that could change when Katrin came out of seclusion.
Helspeth’s ladies were not as tight-lipped as she predicted. The heightening tension between the Princess Apparent and the Commander of the Righteous was the object of considerable delicious speculation. Nothing had happened yet, but, oh, what about tomorrow?
Privately, several Electors petitioned their God to make it happen-publicly enough to compel official notice.
The instruments establishing the Ege line as the Imperial succession just might be overturned if the Princess Apparent got caught in something sordid with a base-born, foreign-born soldier of fortune.
Crueler realities, filthy of tooth and claw, prowled the shadows of tomorrow. The first would come shambling out long before the first thaw.
22. The Chosen: The Wounded God
From the nethermost orient to the eastern shore of the Shallow Sea a grand migration was under way, though the families, clans, and decimated tribes braved the heart of winter. The Windwalker was hurt and distracted, somewhere far away. There might never be another chance to escape.
Few were welcomed. Resources were strained everywhere. Often there was fighting more bitter than when the Chosen were war slaves of the winter lord.
The empire of Tsistimed the Golden was an exception. Refugees were welcomed where willing to become subjects, so great had been the Empire’s losses fighting the Windwalker.
Tsistimed seethed continuously. Those near him feared he would suffer some final outrage and succumb to fatal apoplexy. The Ghargarliceans were pushing back. They had recaptured several cities where the nomads had demolished the walls. The kaifate of Qasr al-Zed remained defiant, scorning all ambassadors and executing merchants and traders caught scouting.
Never had Tsistimed known such difficulties. He railed against his commanders like a spoiled child, till the more thoughtful began to wonder if it was not time to decide which son ought to succeed.
Winter, though, was time to rest and recover. Tsistimed himself had to wait out the season. He came to terms with reality.
He had been through this before, early on, on a smaller scale. Time and patience were the remedies. He could await a new generation of warriors. Meantime, former enemies could fill the holes in the ranks. Most of his warriors had ancestors who had been his enemies.
