After hearing a brief account of Else's stay in Runch, Titus Consent asked, 'What would your problem have to do with Deves?'
Stewpo waved that aside. 'Sounds like you'd better hope your god outhustles theirs, Sha-lug. Though I wonder why they'd remember your particular incident. It was trivial. Why should they watch for some itinerant crusader to turn up in Brothe? Keep your hair short, run a strong bluff, and be a good soldier.'
Else, Stewpo, and Titus Consent talked for an hour, mainly about the execrable state of the Bruglioni accounts, dub to incompetent manipulation.
Consent suspected somebody had been bribed to cover up a large debt owed the Bruglioni.
Consent added, 'There is an obvious, clumsy scheme meant to disguise the fact that the rural family aren't paying the central treasury as much as they should.'
'Really? Do you have anything I can take to Paludan?'
Titus Consent handed Else a sheaf of papers. 'Four copies. I know you consider me just a kid. Listen to me, anyway. There's a lot of money involved in these swindles. That report will be dangerous to somebody. That's why you get multiple copies. That's why I'm telling you to watch your back.”
Polo barged in, startling everyone. He paid no attention to the Deves. 'Sir. Captain. There's a messenger. They want you at the Castella. Something's happened.'
'Any idea what?'
'No. But the messenger was sure it isn't good news.'
'All right.' Else told Consent, 'Thank you, Titus. Stay in touch. I'll have another job for you soon. It'll pay better.'
Sergeant Bechter had becomeElse's guide to the Castella dollas Pontellas. 'You didn't have to run, Captain. The others will take their time.'
'What's happening? I got the message secondhand. Polo made it sound earthshaking.'
'That may be. I don't know. The way it's being handled suggests there's been a serious defeat somewhere, though.'
'Does that make sense? Where is any fighting going on? In Direcia?'
'You'll just have to wait. Like the rest of us.'
'But I'm a special guy,' Else protested, borrowing from Pinkus Ghort's manual of personal style.
'Blood and turnips, Brother Hecht. I couldn't tell you if I loved you. Nobody told me.'
'Probably because they can't trust you to keep marginal types like me in the dark with the mushrooms.'
'Sergeant Unreliable. That's what they call me. Go ahead. Take advantage.'
'Huh?'
'Isn't the food the real reason you charged right over? Because the first arrivals get all the best?'
Else laughed, but confessed, 'I came in a hurry because I thought it would be expected of me.'
'The men involved here take a relaxed attitude toward things professional soldiers hold dear. Notably, punctuality and discipline.'
No startling revelation, that. The local nonprofessionals tended to think of war as a sport. Despite evidence left by the late pirate raid.
Else's respect for the masters of the Five Families and Collegium, was failing. Paludan Bruglioni was not unique in his mental and moral malaise. He did fill up on the best food.
A new face accompanied Grade Drocker when the sorcerer arrived, limping. Drocker seated himself, straining against his pain. His companion faced the assembly. 'I'm Voltor Wilbe. From the Special Office at the Father House. Will you all please stand?'
Else was not surprised. Chaldareans prayed before, during, and after everything they did collectively.
Wilbe said, 'Follow me in the Rite of Abjuration.'
Startled murmurs.
Else worried. What was a Rite of Abjuration?
One of the Emperor's generals demanded, 'What the hell is that?'
Irked, Wilbe explained, 'The Rite of Abjuration. Created by the Special Office. It lets good Chaldareans formally renounce the Great Adversary and the Tyranny of the Night.'
The general snorted his contempt.
The Rite of Abjuration was a responsorial. Voltor Wilbe chanted. His audience repeated his chant, renouncing everything to do with the Adversary and all things of the Night.
When Wilbe chanted, 'I renounce the Tyranny of the Night. I renounce the Instrumentalities of the Night,' responses were almost nonexistent. The clerics said nothing at all. Wilbe was nonplussed.
Wrong crowd, Else thought. Even Grade Drocker failed to participate. By common standards God Himself was in Instrumentality of the Night.
'Pardon me,' Wilbe said. 'I got carried away. I just want to banish any dark spirits.'
'They're gone,' Drocker growled. 'Get on with it.'
'Yes, sir. Gentlemen, there's been a sea battle. It took place in the strait between Penalt and Dole Hemoc.' Wilbe seemed to expect his audience to know the geography. 'It involved the fleet bound here from Staklirhod. It was an accidental encounter that became a running battle that lasted several days and involved ships from Sonsa, Dateon, Vantrad, Triamolin, the Eastern Empire, and our own warships at the end. Initially, the enemy was a Lucidian fleet carrying troops to Calzir.'
'Silence!' Grade Drocker bellowed into chatter beginning to interfere with Wilbe's report. “This will affect our planning.' Drocker's outburst had a potent impact. Even members of the Collegium shut up.
Voltor Wilbe detailed a battle that had been a long time in the making.
Naval commanders in the Eastern Empire and Crusader states of Vantrad and Triamolin began to suspect the Lucidians of preparing a naval adventure over a year ago. Ships, troops, and supplies were collecting in several ports. There was speculation about an attempt to invade Staklirhod. Scout ships prowled the Lucidian coast. Sea skirmishes ensued. The Lucidians wanted their intentions kept veiled.
The mercantile republics sent warships to protect their merchantmen and properties when the Calzirans started raiding. Which remained untouched by Calzirans, who focused on the Church.
But Pramans on the scores of small islands in the eastern Mother Sea tried to take advantage of the confusion farther west. They began attacking Chaldarean shipping. The mercantile republics objected.
Else understood before Wilbe explained. There was an inevitability at work. The Lucidian fleet, once it sailed, carried five thousand veteran soldiers, with horses and equipment, weapons and supplies, all destined for al-Healta in Calzir.
So. Lucidia started getting ready to help Calzir long before the Calziran rabble began assaulting the Episcopal Church.
Principatй Donel Madisetti ran out of patience. 'What does that have to do with us? Where does the Brotherhood come in?'
'Your Grace, the Brotherhood fleet became involved because it turned up in the wrong place at the wrong time.'
A pickup gang of Chaldarean warships, mostly small but fast, began harassing the Lucidians as soon as they put to sea. The Brotherhood fleet got involved because the mess outbound from Lucidia got in their way when they were trying to sneak through to Brothe without being noticed. The Lucidians were trying to sneak, too.
The circus sounded like insanity under oars — coupled with the kind of coincidence the Instrumentalities of the Night conjured for their own amusement.
The appearance of the Brotherhood force doomed the Lucidians. Tide and current carried their older, weaker, smaller ships toward the Chaldareans.
But tide and current carried the Chaldareans as well, around the cape of Dole Hemoc, into the path of a Dreangeriean fleet also intent on sneaking through those islands. It, too, was carrying aid to Calzir.
The Instrumentalities of the Night just kept compounding the joke.
Only two Brotherhood ships escaped. Brother Wllbe was aboard one of those. The Praman survivors sailed on to Calzir. Wilbe said, 'We shadowed them. They made landfall near al-Stikla, on the east coast of Calzir. The Lucidians disembarked there. The Dreangereans and some Lucidians went on to al-Healta. We couldn't determine
