She had asked Renfrow who he was. The better question might have been, what was he?
22. The End of Connec: The Master's Release
The interminable months in the misery of the Altai ground souls into spiritual dust. Winter isolated Corpseour for three entire months. It was a winter beyond the prior imaginings of anyone trapped there. The sole focus of the colony became keeping warm. Those who had stocked the fortress had done well with food and water and weapons, but they had failed to foresee the fuel demands of an unnatural winter.
Rationing was necessary. Fuel had to be reserved for cooking.
The refugees did everything to soften winter's bite. But up there, in a narrow, draughty edifice built beam-on to the prevailing wind, it was impossible to hide from the cold. Nor was it possible to leave. Worsening weather closed the path to Corpseour. Those who tried it inevitably lost their footing. Several fell to their deaths.
The dark running joke was that they could thank the Light that the Instrumentalities of the Night haunting the Connec would not trouble Corpseour. Those were smart enough not to climb into that icy hell.
'Lessons learned,' Brother Candle muttered. 'Next spring they'll bring up mortar for chinking, and firewood, too.' He was talking to no one in particular but was cuddled up with Socia, the Archimbaults, and half a dozen others, buried under a communal spread of blankets, trying to keep warm. It was not bad for him. He was in the middle, holding Kedle's baby, they being the weakest of the group. The baby was not doing well. Brother Candle feared it would not survive. Kedle was not producing enough milk. If the baby did make it, it would always be a weak child.
Kedle knew. Kedle cried a lot, despite knowing that she would always be sheltered by the Archimbault tribe and Seeker community.
There had been no news about Soames.
The worst weather finally broke. A warm southern wind came. Ice began to melt. Brother Candle risked going to the battlements, being careful of his footing. Meltwater only made that more treacherous in shady places.
One glance told him it was warmer down by the lake. Warmer and less windy. People were harvesting ice. They would store it in caves, carrying a little winter into the summer. Birds drifted and soared at several levels between Corpseour and Albodiges. One species seemed unusual. The Perfect supposed it had come from the north, fleeing the permanent ice.
Cold came and went several times before spring achieved ascendance. And news came through.
It was a new world. There was a new Patriarch in Brothe. The Captain-General and his army had gone. A new war was taking shape in Direcia. This one posed a mortal threat far beyond those Chaldarean kingdoms in the direct path of the Almanohides.
The Maysalean Heresy had not been forgotten-the Society was making its notes and accusations-but in the larger picture the dualists had become insignificant. Had become annoying blowflies because wolves were running the borders.
Socia was put out. 'We went through all that up there for nothing!' And Kedle backed her up, almost viciously.
'Indeed?' Brother Candle responded. 'And which of you girls was prescient enough to foresee all those changes?'
'Bah!' Socia snorted. Knowing the argument could not be won.
'We make the best decisions we can using the information we have. In time to come you'll realize that one never has enough information to make the perfect decision. You do the best you can, and hope. Or, like Duke Tormond, you try to wait till you
'Grr!' Socia said. 'And then it's too late. I get it. But I sure as hell don't have to like it. What're we gonna do now?'
'Go back to Khaurene. Help these folk reclaim their places there.' The Society must have tried to seize the properties of Seekers who had not stayed to protect them.
But, Brother Candle soon learned, the Society's influence in Khaurene had guttered and gone. Known members had paid dearly for the successes of the Patriarchal forces in the fighting outside Khaurene. Brothen Episcopal churches had been looted and their priests driven out. Members of those parishes had banded together to protect themselves. They called themselves the Scarlet Cross. They wore black robes with red crosses sewn on when they roamed the streets.
Chaldareans who supported the resurgent Bellicose in Viscesment wore pale robes with black, blue, or even purple crosses sewn on. Some younger, more spirited Seekers had adopted white robes with a yellow cross for their vigilance bands.
A seamstress told Brother Candle that the militias chose the cross because that was the most efficient way of making a symbol using costly colored cloth. Other shapes left waste material.
Khaurene had changed dramatically. It had become abidingly factional. Street brawls happened almost every day. Duke Tormond made ineffectual efforts to stifle them with insufficient resources.
Socia sneered, 'I thought all the fools got wiped out in that battle last fall.'
Brother Candle said, 'Human nature being human nature, the fools were the more likely survivors. And, pray, don't say that in front of Kedle.'
Still no news of the Archimbault daughter's spouse. His battalion had been overrun by the Captain-General's handful of heavy cavalry. Most survivors did not want to talk. Which suggested that they might have had their backs to the enemy by then. No one who would talk knew what had become of Soames.
Socia said, 'He'll turn up if he survived. He looked forward to becoming a parasite. If you ask me.'
Brother Candle's estimate of the man had been somewhat higher. But not much. He wondered what Raulet had hoped to gain from the match. 'Not kind, girl.'
'But true. All right. All right. I'll be a good Seeker and look on the bright side. We won't have to stay with that foul baker again.' Spoken with Madam Scarre standing scarcely two yards away.
Brother Candle sighed. The child was hopeless. But, after all this time, she was almost a daughter. Or even a chaste young wife. He had difficulty imagining life without her. But that day was coming. He had to take her back to Antieux.
Khaurene was a sizable city but word got around. The summons to Metrelieux reached the Master his third afternoon back in the city.
Socia refused to go up the hill with him. She had no faith in the good behavior of the local gentry, probably because her own nature was wholly predatory.
Unfamiliar men guarded the gate of the ancient fortress. Younger than their predecessors, they might actually have offered a moment of resistance. An unfamiliar chamberlain greeted Brother Candle. Inside, the Perfect saw unfamiliar faces everywhere, mostly strangers dressed in Direcian styles. He wondered why they were here when so critical a campaign was taking shape in their homeland.
Securing somewhere to run to if the worst happened?
The chamberlain led him to a hall he had visited several times before. This was well stocked with familiar faces. 'All the usual miscreants, I see,' he said as he arrived.
'Welcome, Charde,' Duke Tormond said, coming to meet him. With his usual overestimation of the warmth of their relationship. Tormond had aged horribly. He would not last much longer. Which might explain the Navayans another way. Was Isabeth somewhere handy, ready to step in?
Then the Direcians would be here to enforce her claim to succeed Tormond, despite the law?
The Duke continued. 'Not all the usual gang. Sir Eardale perished in his ill-starred battle. He just had to fight. And Tember Sirht isn't with us anymore. He took his people into exile in Terliaga.'
Duke Tormond seemed resigned to the Terliagan Littoral's defection. The man seemed resigned, in fact, to anything.
The effort to poison him had been a waste of ambition. When you came right down to it.
'You wanted to see me?' Brother Candle asked after he shed the Duke's embrace.
Bishop Clayto told him, 'We need your wisdom. Great things will soon happen in Direcia. The backwash may drown us.'
