prevailed. They decided to defend the passes through the Brown Mountains instead of invading Navaya until Peter's allies went home.'
Ferris Renfrow glanced round, found his audience content to listen. 'The Almanohides thought they had the advantage.
But a Chaldarean shepherd knew a way through the mountains that the Pramans hadn't found. We got through, behind, defeating numerous Praman bands before Sabuta abd al-Qadr al-Margrebi gathered his forces near a village known, in Direcian, as the Baths of the Spirits. There are healing hot springs there, of which King Jaime is taking full advantage. Each spring is an extremely feeble well of power. Kaif Sabuta's personal guard attached themselves by chains and shackles to posts driven deep into the ground all round their master's tent. So they couldn't run away if things turned out the way our side hoped.
'That was all for show. They didn't think their god would turn his face away. I expect they're asking him about that now.
'The Chaldarean victory was overwhelming. King Peter was the great hero. With King Jaime playing a smaller but still very big role.'
Helspeth said, 'So, once again Peter of Navaya is made stronger.'
Renfrow said, 'Some think he must be especially beloved of God. Each time he responds to the will of the Patriarch, his fortunes soar.'
Helspeth kept her opinions behind her teeth. Not needing Renfrow's warning glance.
Katrin would not tolerate criticism of the Patriarchy. Although Boniface VII was doing bizarre things, like making overtures to Viscesment, canceling the charter of the Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy, trying to open the Collegium to a broader range of prelates, and, especially, striving to revitalize the Church in its role as Protector of the Small. Meaning taking up its ancient obligation to shield the poor and the weak from the Tyranny of the Night. Boniface was making himself unpopular by absolutely insisting that Mother Church do all those good things that, supposedly, Mother Church had been created to do.
Every new Patriarch offered surprises. This one was the terror of all clerics of standing: an honest, God- fearing pontiff.
Because Katrin was not interested, Helspeth asked questions. 'What's he done to make secular people unhappy?'
'He's about to send the Patriarchal army back to the Connec. But this time to hunt down the Instrumentalities running loose there.'
'Instead of heretics?'
'It could be open season on dualists, too. But only if the troops want to bother. They call the Captain-General the Godslayer, these days. And that's what he'll be doing. Destroying things freed by the Artecipean pagans. Instead of just binding them.'
Helspeth understood, tactically. Having witnessed the destruction of an Instrumentality.
The Captain-General's falconeers had, supposedly, refined and honed their methods dramatically since the encounter in the Jagos. Still… 'How can the Church afford that? I saw the ammunition they use. It's expensive.'
'The Deves of Brothe, who are allied with the Captain-General for reasons only they understand, have developed munitions that include only a twentieth of the silver needed when you attacked the monster in the Jagos.'
'But…' She did note the use of «attacked» in preference to anything more absolute and final.
'Yes. You're right. It will be expensive to wage war on the Night, even so. Boniface will finance this campaign by the means used to fund the original crusades in the east. Every church, every monastery, every nunnery, every living, every instrument of the Church that produces revenue, will have to forward another tenth to Brothe to finance the scouring of the Connec. If that works, the compulsory donation could become a permanent weapon in the struggle against the Night.'
'That's sure to cause him trouble.'
'The Special Office will be thrilled.'
'Are we going to trade in the Society for the Witchfinders?'
'Possibly.' Renfrow shrugged. 'Boniface's reign will be characterized by an inflexible adherence to canon law. He'll root out corruption wherever it's found. He's issued a bull saying the Church must put its house in order. That it must be beyond reproach when it makes demands of the secular realm. He might well loose the Captain-General on any bishop who remains obstinate.'
'A great wind of reform, eh?'
'As Aaron declaimed on the steps of the Home Temple. It could be. Unfortunately, Boniface is older than the moon. He was a compromise, chosen to take up space while the factions agree on a younger man. A more flexible, more amenable man.'
'Boniface won't live long enough to reform the Church?'
'That would require an immortal. Your Highness? Katrin? You haven't said a word.'
'Jaime is all right?'
'He'll recover. Expect him here before winter closes the passes. His journey may be slow and painful but he's eager. You shan't have to endure virginity many months more. And now I must take my leave, sweet ladies. I'm an old man. I've come a long, hard way to bring the news. I need rest.'
Katrin made a faint gesture, giving Renfrow permission to leave.
Helspeth surveyed those of the court who remained. They had closed in in order to listen. A few, old men of the Council Advisory, were not pleased. Not that they had hoped for a Chaldarean defeat. But they had hoped that King Jaime would embarrass himself somehow. This Imperial marriage, however much they had been part of making the arrangements, would only reduce their influence over Katrin.
Plotting. Always plotting. Helspeth fumed. And wondered how her father had controlled them.
Their natures must have compelled them to play the same games when Johannes was Emperor. Therefore, perhaps, one nickname: Ferocious Little Hans.
They did respect power. When it was employed.
Katrin employed her power inconsistently. She had trouble keeping her mind made up, except in the matters of Jaime of Castauriga and her allegiance to the Brothen Patriarchy.
Helspeth wondered what Katrin would do if Boniface tried to take over Imperial holdings in Firaldia. Lothar had come near war over Clearenza. Would have gone to war if he had lived. Katrin had accepted the Clearenza situation, urging that city's Duke to be more obedient to Mother Church.
Sublime's cronies did make sure the Duke's loans got repaid.
The change in Katrin was dramatic. It infected the court, then Alten Weinberg as a whole, though hundreds of families still waited anxiously for word of those they had sent to Direcia.
Helspeth hoped to manage a private conversation with Ferris Renfrow. That did not happen. The spymaster slept twelve hours, ate a huge meal in the palace kitchen, then vanished. The gate guards did not see him go. Nor had any seen him arrive, either.
Helspeth worried about that often over the next six days, though without real passion. Ferris Renfrew had been an unpredictable enigma all her life. And all her father's life before her, insofar as she knew.
Church bells began ringing the sixth afternoon after Renfoew disappeared. The racket puzzled Helspeth. It was not a holy day, a feast day, a church day, or time for a call to prayer. Then it struck her.
News of the victory had come. Officially so, by courier. Each parish was proclaiming the celebration, as had been the order since war in Direcia became unavoidable.
Helspeth calculated distances and how hard the couriers must have ridden. They would have done relays, changing horses frequently, pausing just long enough to tell local bishops to spread the glad news in their dioceses.
So how did Ferris Renfrew manage to arrive six days early, rank, ragged, and bleeding? As though he had stepped through a doorway directly from the battlefield into a courtyard in the Imperial palace?
Something surpassing strange was afoot. And much as she wanted to know what that was, Helspeth did not discuss it with anyone. She might have stumbled over something no one else had yet noticed. No one ever accused Ferris Renfoew of having anything but an eerie mundane knack for slipping around unnoticed.
