their marriage. The child was willful and ferocious. A Seeker whose sole adherence to doctrine was to equality of the sexes.
“He never could. The challenge was what attracted him in the first place.”
Brother Candle agreed.
Count Raymone saw himself mirrored in his wife… O wicked dread!
“You don’t think they might get into a competition? Trying to show each other who’s more bloodthirsty?”
Amberchelle’s face darkened. “Brother, there’s some of that already. There was news last week about her taking the castle at Suralert Ford. Among the captives were a distant cousin of Anne of Menand and a viscount who was popular in Salpeno. There was a bishop, several priests, and a dozen members of the Society. She beheaded the knights and nobles, no exceptions. She burned the churchmen. She applied the torches personally. But the common soldiers she disarmed and paroled.”
Brother Candle closed his eyes and shook his head. “Socia, Socia. Bernardin, I knew she had the taint, but not that bad.”
“Brother, she promised them safe-conduct to win their surrender. Then went back on it. She said God doesn’t expect us to keep faith with agents of the Adversary.”
True enough. Church people claimed that all the time. “Didn’t the Society execute ‘heretics’ when they captured that same castle?”
“They did. Two Seeker students. Two. Who were confused about what to do if they were captured. The garrison surrendered without a fight.”
Brother Candle learned that Socia had, improbably, taken the Suralert stronghold with thirty-six men. Only three suffered injuries. The defenders had numbered eighty-four. They had had supplies enough for two months. Socia executed twenty-two prisoners. A twenty-third, Bishop Morcant Farfog, decided to change sides…
“Farfog? Morcant Farfog? The Farfog who was with Haiden Backe when he attacked Caron ande Lette? Who took command of the mercenaries after Backe was killed? The Morcant Farfog who had several wicked titles under several wicked Patriarchs and the Arnhander Crown?”
“Uh… Yes. Interesting turn, eh? He turned coat and made speeches denouncing the wickedness of the Society. His other option was the stake.”
“Ah. Yes. St. Morcant the Martyr. I knew him well. And good for him. But, just one problem, Bernardin. Morcant Farfog was an Archbishop. And he was murdered in Castreresone way back when the Captain-General occupied the city.”
“Uh-oh, then. I must’ve got it wrong. Or Socia did. Hey! Maybe it was that other famous Arnhander asshole Bishop, Austen Rinpoch?.”
“The hunchback? Didn’t he get killed somewhere along the way, too?”
“No. He was the one, I’m pretty sure. My mistake. I can’t tell one Arnhander Church dick from another. It had to be Rinpoch? the special idiot. Anne’s favorite idiot. She kept trusting him with missions. He kept screwing them up. I heard she’s started nagging Serenity about making new seats in the Collegium so she can pay off her clerical lapdogs.”
“The Patriarch can’t expand the Collegium. Only the Principat?s can do that. And that won’t happen. The Firaldians have too thin a majority. One that won’t hold up if Serenity comes at cross-purposes with the Empire.”
“Then let’s hope our new shepherd of souls offends the Empress.”
“Let us hope.” A chill had shaken Brother Candle. He was no student of Church history but did recall that more than one Patriarch had tried to reshape the communal attitude of the Collegium by eliminating Principat?s of insufficiently sympathetic attitude in order to replace them with men whose views were more compatible.
Because Bernardin Amberchelle wanted the world to think the Perfect was a prisoner Brother Candle became, in practice, a loosely confined prisoner. He had freedom of movement inside Antieux’s citadel but was not allowed out.
Three times Bernardin reported taking prisoners who admitted having been sent to recover the treasures the Perfect had carried away from Khaurene. That hunt had grown vigorous, now.
Socia Rault turned up one morning as Brother Candle was breaking his fast. Nine days had passed since Bernardin found him. She had cleaned up but it remained obvious that she was not long off the road. She held a finger to her lips, tapped her ear, swept her hand round to indicate the plentiful shadows.
Brother Candle was not sensitive to the Night but had felt the chills and creepiness supposedly associated with the presence of lurking Instrumentalities. Did he care what they overheard? Those interested in him ought to know everything worthwhile already.
Socia produced a doeskin sack a good foot deep. She shoved a hand inside, winced, then flung a scatter of something all round. It rattled like pea gravel against the walls of the cell. Socia licked bloody spots on her fingers.
Whatevers from the handful rolled back toward Brother Candle. They did look like bits of dark gravel. Then they opened like sow bugs uncurling, took a moment to get oriented, considering him and Socia first. Then they headed for the shadows, fast.
“Not rolly-polies,” he said. Sow bugs had no speed at all.
“No. I’m not sure what they are. I bought them from a pagan witch out in the hills. Don’t mention them to Raymone. They work better than any charm.” She counted on her fingers as she talked, dropped the doeskin sack at a hundred beats. The creatures began to crawl back inside it. “We can talk, now. They ate everything spying on you.”
Brother Candle did not understand, had no idea. “You’ll have to explain someday. Though I’m not sure I want to know.”
“It isn’t just the Old Gods wanting to come back. Little things are stirring, too. They didn’t interest the Captain-General. He was after big revenants.” Then, “Is it true? Duke Tormond adopted Raymone? He sent Raymone everything he needs to become the next Duke?”
“It’s true. All wrapped up in a legal package so neat that the only way to break it is to voluntarily, publicly, choose eternal damnation.”
“Meaning a lot of people are going to be unhappy.”
“A lot of people are thoroughly unhappy already, child. Ask Bernardin. He’s already run into squads of agents sent to get me before I turned the baubles over. Expect a flood of immigrants now that my whereabouts are known.”
“Bernardin and I will enjoy the hunt.”
The old man shuddered. Socia was almost a daughter. He loved her like his own. But the more he heard about Socia today the more troubled he became.
She was possessed of a soul both dark and cruel. Her husband’s enemies had cause for dread.
Winter was cruel in the Connec. Even the old folks admitted that its like had not been seen before. There were ices floes in the Dechear. At Viscesment citizen crews worked for weeks to keep the ice from damaging that city’s precious bridges.
The cold forced an end to all campaigning. Even Count Raymone Garete’s hardiest fighters abandoned the field once they started losing fingers and toes.
The Arnhanders harassing the Khaurenesaine suffered the worst, though winter was less harsh in the west. They had failed to show the season adequate respect when they wasted the countryside. Depriving the enemy meant depriving oneself. Food, fuel, and fodder had to be dragged in from far away. Other than in the few overcrowded castles shelter was hard to come by. Huddling for warmth elsewhere could turn fatal. Well-fed and well-clothed Navayans or Khaurenese almost always attacked when smoke gave a gathering away. They tried to recapture the castles whenever it looked like they could manage cheaply.
Despite all, King Regard kept a force in the field. He stayed in the End of Connec himself. Which occasioned humor on both sides.
There would be an invader army on hand when spring came. The Arnhanders believed the campaign would go their way once the weather turned. Then Khaurene would pay the butcher’s bill.
