The Chiaro Palace had been built at the height of the Old Brothen Empire, when the frontiers were a thousand miles away and whole legions quartered in the city, capable of suppressing disorder instantly. There had been no need to make the Palace defensible. A bastion of bureaucracy, it remained untouched during even the ferocious Imperial civil wars.
Whoever crowned himself Emperor needed the tax rolls and a means of extorting money from the citizenry.
The mob poured into the Closed Ground. Brothens had been accustomed to do so for two score generations. These pilgrims were drunk. Some carried torches. Weapons were makeshift, cudgels, bricks, tools, knives, and, rarely, a rusty keepsake military sword purloined by an ancestor.
'Looks like mainly refugees,' Titus Consent told Hecht. 'I've heard several languages already that aren't native to Firaldia.
'They don't seem eager for a confrontation, though.'
Some sobering up was taking place out there.
Someone whose job it was to stir trouble threw a stone. Hecht told his staff, 'I don't want anyone doing anything unless they actually break in. They'll go home if they just stand around long enough for their heads to start hurting.'
Voices exhorted the mob. It was not necessary to understand to get the gist.
Hecht said, 'They'll be too tired and hungover to become
Captain-General Piper Hecht's Patriarchal soldiers were combat veterans. He was able to cherry-pick the very best available. Having seen the elephant up close and smelled her foul breath, his men were not eager for a bloodletting contest.
The Palace guards did not suffer a comparable level of basic sense.
'That damned fool will get us all killed,' Colonel Smolens said, indicating a guard officer who was headed out with three uniformed footmen.
'Must think the livery makes him invulnerable,' Hecht said. 'Principate Doneto, how about you… Where did he go?' Doneto, Madisetti, and the others had vanished. 'Doneto could have ordered him back.' He could not. He might be Captain-General but there were a thousand exceptions to his being in charge.
Titus Consent observed, 'They might deal with him too fast to get the mob fired up. Here! What are you doing?'
Hecht had started to go out. Consent's outburst stopped him.
A waving torch had revealed two familiar faces. One belonged to Pinkus Ghort's man Bo Biogna. Biogna would be right at home in a seditious mob, identifying ringleaders. It was the man next to Bo whose appearance froze Hecht's heart.
He was a little older, a little grayer, showed a hitherto unsuspected bald spot, and was less enthusiastically bearded, but there was no doubt. Hecht would know Bone anywhere, if all that was left was his skeleton. Bo and Bone. Bone and his bones. What the hell was Bone doing on this side of the Mother Sea? Let alone being here, in the front rank of a mob quickly losing all enthusiasm for an assault on the beating heart of western religion?
Hagid.
There must be a connection.
Bone, known by no other name insofar as Hecht knew, had been the leading sergeant in the special company commanded by the Sha-lug captain, Else Tage.
'Sir?'
'Bechter. There you are.'
Sergeant Bechter had been forced to take a long way around. Accompanying him were the newly minted Bruglioni Principate, Gervase Saluda, and old Hugo Mongoz. Principate Mongoz appeared to be having a good day. Hecht told Saluda, 'Congratulations. Finally.' Paludan Bruglioni, the chieftain of the Bruglioni family, had nominated Saluda long ago, after Principate Divino Bruglioni had been discovered dead on the battlefield outside al-Khazan, scant hours before the conclusion of the Calziran Crusade.
There had been fierce opposition to Saluda. The man had not been inside a church since his christening. He had no supernatural talents. He was a strong personality. He was dedicated to the Bruglioni family fortunes. And, from Hecht's point of view, he was dangerously smart. He had held the Bruglioni together for the last ten years.
'The right always triumphs,' Saluda replied, in a sarcastic tone. He was amoral, and cynical in the extreme.
'Pardon me. We have a situation here.'
More than one, possibly. Osa Stile materialized back in the shadows, behind the soldiers. The catamite tried to get Hecht's attention.
Studying the crowd again, Hecht could not find Bone or Bo Biogna. The mob was dispersing, the provocateurs first to go. Those who stayed were content to taunt the Palace guards.
Hecht shuddered suddenly.
'Sergeant Bechter.'
'Sir?'
'To the left, there. In the second rank. Behind the guy with the huge beard. Wearing brown.'
'Got him, sir. That's the man I've been talking about. And I got the chill a minute ago.'
'Cloven Februaren,' Hugo Mongoz said, peering between Hecht and Bechter, hanging on to their shoulders, leaning forward and squinting. 'That would be Cloven Februaren. No doubt about it. The Ninth Unknown himself.'
Only Hecht understood. 'The Ninth Unknown, Your Grace? But he's been dead for fifty years.'
'Yes,' the old man said, musingly. 'He should have been. So you'd think.' Mongoz looked resentful for a moment, then a shadow stirred behind his eyes. He slumped, his grip weakening. Hecht and Bechter caught his arms. He turned panicky, suddenly lost.
Gervase Saluda said, 'Let me take him, Captain-General. Biggio. A hand, if you will.'
The quick change was a dramatic reminder of human frailty. Hecht said, 'Sergeant Bechter. Where's the man in brown?' Ninth Unknown or mundane rioter, he was gone.
Hecht nodded to Osa Stile, to let the catamite know he had been seen. He was being ignored only because of the more pressing situation.
It would be important, though. Osa did not appear in public without his protector.
The new Bruglioni Principate, about to depart with Principate Mongoz, said, 'I need a few minutes in private when you get time, Captain-General. A family matter. Of some importance to Paludan.'
'Of course. Sergeant Bechter can work out something that fits our schedules.' In the Name of God, the All- Knowing and Merciful! What was this? He could not have imagined himself saying that a year ago. 'Bechter?'
'I understand, sir.'
Hecht moved to check the situation in the Closed Ground. 'That idiot will talk himself into thinking he's a hero.'
The mob was a third of what it had been. The deadenders had a tail-between-the-knees look and were hanging on mostly because they did not want to desert the friends with whom they had come.
Hecht remarked, 'The professional agitators have taken off. Nothing but inertia keeping it going now. It's over unless somebody suffers a last-second stroke of idiocy. People. Gather round. Let's make
Colonel Smolens asked, 'You won't be here?'
'I won't. I have another problem that needs immediate attention.'
'Sir?'
He did not explain. 'Once those morons clear out take the troops to the hippodrome to help Colonel Ghort.'
'Yes, sir.'
Hecht glanced around. The Mongoz party had gone. He was the senior man present. He could do what he wanted.
He wanted to find the catamite.
