Lord of the Silent Kingdom (42 page)

“Ouch!”

“Cleverer. That stung me, too. And here’s the problem. He’ll know the instant it comes off. And he’ll know where. That offers us a strategic opportunity to switch it out in the right place, at the right time, and panic someone.”

“Sir, I don’t feel like being clever. I feel like cutting throats to get a message out. Leave my people alone.”

“I understand your anger. Your frustration. How many of my family have I seen victimized? But people who behave that way aren’t often persuaded. They haven’t yet gotten the message when you start shoveling dirt into their faces.”

“I’m in a mood to fill a big hole.” “If we must, we will. There’s one more thing. The ring.”

“Uh … Ring?”

“The ring accidentally given you by Principatè Bruglioni. The ring of forgetfulness. Where is it?”

Wow. He had forgotten it. That quickly. “I gave it to Principatè Delari to study. Why?”

“It’s of no consequence right now. But it could be, someday. If it’s the ring I think it is.”

“Grinling?”

“Excuse me?”

“A ferociously nasty and treacherous magical ring in northern mythology. Shares some characteristics with this one.”

“Not that ring. Which probably does exist. Buried under the ice, one hopes. That sort of artifact can be crafted only with the connivance of the Instrumentalities of the Night. But it exists independently afterward. If Grinling, or any number of mystic swords, hammers, lassos, runespears, and whatnot, failed to get folded up inside the pocket reality forged by the rebel soultaken, we’ll have to deal with them as soon as they seduce a suitably foul character.” Hecht stared.

“All real, remember. There is no God but God. And ten thousand other beings equally wicked.”

Sarcastically.

“Your Grace!”

“Spend another century on this vale. Or just one decade inside the Construct. You’ll see this world through new eyes.

If you retain any religious inclinations at all, it’ll be to buy into the dualist heresies of the Maysaleans and their theological cousins.”

“I know nothing about the Maysalean Heresy, Your Grace. But I’m sure it won’t be long before I get to see some heretics up close.”

“It won’t be long, no. Get that ring back. And keep it close.”

Groggy, drained, Hecht went down to the street. One of his lifeguards helped him mount the horse they had brought. The sergeant in charge glowered but did not chide him for wandering off yesterday.

The Castella was in a ferment. Hecht did not notice. Colonel Smolens observed, “You seem distracted.”

“Uh. To put it mildly.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“It’s family.”

“Woman trouble.” Buhle Smolens had off days related to conflicts with his wife.

“Yeah.” That was good enough. “What’s on the table?”

“Rumors running hot and heavy this morning.”

“Worse than usual?”

“Way. And Consent says Dominagua, Stiluri, Vangelis, and some others mean to try to slide out from under their obligations if we call up their field contingents.”

“We knew there’d be problems with Dromedan and the Patriarchal States in Ormienden. The heretics have a strong influence there. Brother Sedlakova. Good morning.”

Clej Sedlakova observed, “Convenient as the dualists are, blame really comes from a deep disinclination to do the Patriarch’s bidding.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning they think Sublime is out of his head. Meaning the Maysalean Heresy doesn’t bother them enough to make them kill their cousins and neighbors over it.”

Titus Consent invited himself into the conversation. “The Patriarch
is
the problem. In any choice you can count on him to pick the stupider option.”

“Excuse me?” Bronte Doneto snapped. “What did you say?”

How had Doneto managed to sneak up? Hecht said, “The man stated a plain fact, Your Grace.

Reporting what people in the Patriarchal States are thinking. And elsewhere, as well, I expect.”

Sedlakova’s credentials as an Episcopal Chaldarean were beyond challenge. “There are hundreds of bishops and princes who pray daily that God will call His infallible servant home, Your Grace. That’s truth. It won’t go away if we just wish hard enough.”

The Principatè scowled but dropped it. He was not blind to his cousin’s ever-expanding unpopularity.

“Captain-General, I need you to come with me.”

Two of Hecht’s bodyguards had followed him into the planning center. They were not about to let him get away again. They closed in. Hecht said, “We can trust His Grace.” And what good could they do if that were untrue?

Doneto started walking. Hecht followed. The Principatè asked, “Are they all so disdainful of my cousin?

Are you?”

“They are, in the main. I try to reserve judgment. I’ve seen the man only a few times, never to talk to.”

“Not that you know. Keep up. There isn’t much time.”

“I’m still suffering the effects of that explosion.”

Doneto went into regions of the Castella Hecht had not seen before. Down and into passageways obviously seldom used: cold, damp, creepy, and lighted only by clay lamps carried by the visitors.

Doneto said, “This isn’t pleasant down here. I always expect to bump into a minotaur or some other monster out of the old myths.”

“It’s the kind of place where I’d expect to meet all the Instrumentalities of the Night,” Hecht puffed.

“Where are we going?”

“Krois.”

Hecht said no more. He made sure he could see Principatè Doneto all the time. Not that he expected anything. Not here and now.

Underground. Again. This time under the Teragi. Imagining all that water overhead dampened his spirit.

“Oppressive, isn’t it?” Doneto asked as he started up a long stairway. It curved away to the right, opposite the direction customary inside fortresses. Meaning the architects had been thinking about retreat downward rather than up.

Hecht’s thoughts seldom wandered from his calling. He could not look at a hill and appreciate it as a hill.

His mind instantly began working out how to both defend and assault that particular piece of ground. The same with any building, inside or out. And this one, so safe on its island, was vulnerable through its escape routes.

He did not mention that.

There were sentries. Two Patriarchal lifeguards posted at the archway where the stairwell debouched in a hidden alcove. Hecht did not disdain Sublime’s protectors as soldiers. They had performed well when the Calziran pirates attacked the Mother City.

They expected Principatè Doneto. They greeted him by name but did not let him past without examination. The Captain-General suffered an even closer search. Meanwhile, additional lifeguards arrived, summoned in no obvious way.

Hecht carried one weapon, a sixteen-inch blade. The Patriarchals did not take it. As he and Doneto followed an escort onward, Hecht asked, “What was the point of that?”

“To make sure we aren’t smuggling some Night-inspired piece of mischief in.”

Hecht scratched his left wrist. They had missed his amulet.

Er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen was skilled indeed.

Hecht was startled. Honario Benedocto, using the reign name Sublime V, appeared to be suffering from a wasting disease. He was pale, sweating, and shaky. His clothing appeared unchanged for days. He smelled bad. He was barely recognizable as Honario Benedocto. And his hangers-on did not appear to care.

Hecht had seen the man seyeral times, even exchanging a few words informally. This man was a shadow of the one he recalled.

Was he dying?

Hecht went to his knees, touched his head to the cold stone floor. Doneto had rehearsed him. The forms were little different from those one showed before the Kaif of al-Minphet. Doneto repeated it all, in a more restrained style.

The Patriarch’s cronies circled like flies round a cow patty. The Captain-General did not recognize any of them.

“Get up,” Sublime barked. “I’m not having a good day. I don’t want to waste time on frivolities.”

The flies stopped circling, startled.

Hecht rose but kept his head bowed. “At your service, Father.”

“Can you do it?”

“Do what, Your Worship?”

“Scour the End of Connec. Rid me of this heretical pestilence calling themselves Seekers After Light. I’m in torment. I’m in hell on earth. I can’t sleep. I can’t keep food down. These cackling old hens stall and delay and put me off … It’s time God’s Will was done.” The little man shuddered, as though stricken by a sudden chill.

Hecht signed himself, eyes still downcast. “God’s Will be done.”

Sublime half stumbled backward. He settled into a massive chair that seemed to swallow him. The awe of his position did not illuminate him whatsoever.

After a half minute of silence, Sublime shouted, “All of you! Leave us! I wish to consult the Captain-General privately.”

Sublime’s cronies and handlers and Principatè Doneto alike protested.

“You will leave us!” Screeching like a whore cheated of her fee.

The hangers-on went, Bronte Doneto last. Giving Hecht his hardest scowl.

Sublime observed, “They hate to leave me alone.”

Hecht nodded. That was obvious.

“They’re afraid an unapproved thought might creep from your mind to mine.”

“Your Worship?”

“Forget my title. I’m Honario Benedocto for the next few minutes. Tell me what you really think about the crusade against the Connecten heretics. Your Patriarch is about to preach it.”

Right. He was going to shoot the bull with this man like they were private soldiers at a campfire dissecting the shortcomings of those who made decisions for them. He had been through this before. The friendship would wither the instant he said one word honestly.

“I think it’s risky. I haven’t gotten any solid intelligence out of the Connec. What little I do get suggests a stronger local strain of nationalism than outsiders perceive.”

“Meaning?”

“That even the most devout adherents of the Church don’t like outside meddlers. Due mainly to a plague of incompetent, corrupt, foreign bishops.”

Honario Benedocto scowled fiercely. The air was filled with noise that he did not want to hear. He heard his judgment being questioned.

Hecht said, “When the command comes I’ll do everything I can to turn the Maysalean Heresy into an odd memory. But you have to understand that Connectens are stubborn people. They’re fiercely resentful of foreign intrusion. My spies say Connectens of every philosophical camp are fighting the refugees and Arnhander freebooters plaguing the province right now.”

“I hear the same. While my legates are treated with scorn and dishonor. I don’t understand it.”

“Your Worship, only your advisers ever see you. The lies of your enemies take root because Chaldarean folk never see you. They don’t know the real Sublime.”

Hecht spouted nonsense in order to avoid being critical. Leaving the Patriarch with room to assume that all shortcomings had to be someone else’s fault.

Hecht had no interest in giving Sublime tools that would make him a more realistic leader. In an actual campaign in the Connec he would be only as successful as he must to continue directing the Patriarchal armed forces. If Sublime survived to proclaim it, Hecht wanted to be in command when the crusade against Dreanger and the Holy Lands began.

“Can you expunge the Maysalean Heresy, Captain-General?” Sublime asked again.

“I will. It’ll be difficult, though. King Peter found pagans still active on Shippen during the Calziran Crusade. After a thousand years of Chaldarean and Praman rule.”

The Patriarch considered him in silence so long Hecht began to grow nervous. “May God forgive me,”

Sublime said. “But if they resist, kill them all. Without exception. God will know his own.”

“Is this the time we’ve awaited? Are you directing me to act?”

“The wait is over. I have decided. I have no more patience with the Connec. Rid it of heresy. Bring the rebellious Episcopals to heel. I’ll arm you with all the warrants, documents, and powers you require.”

“As you command, Your Worship, so shall it be done. But the tool I need most desperately is spec
ie.
”

“Come here, Captain-General. Pray with me.”

Hecht followed instructions. And wondered what the Sha-lug would think, could they see him kneeling beside the Adversary’s very viceroy in the Realm of War.

As he mumbled the rote formulas he focused on what needed doing before he took Sublime’s army into the field.

Crash preparation consumed twenty-two days. Hecht got little sleep. And enjoyed more disappointments than successes. Despite Patriarchal promises.

There was little crusade enthusiasm outside Krois.

“You had a private audience?” Pinkus Ghort asked. Ghort was underfoot all the time, now. He had been appointed commander of the field brigade Brothe would contribute to the Patriarchal army. Principatè Doneto insisted.

“I sure did. We prayed together, shared a meal, talked and talked and talked.”

“What did you think? What’s he really like?”

“He’s crazy.” They were outside and alone. He could speak freely. Within limits. “It was like being with three people who live inside the same body. He’s inconstant. Excited for a while, then depressed.

Convinced he wants a complete blood-bath of a war — till he decides thinking it’s all a horrible idea foisted on him by his cronies. Only he won’t name names.”

“What I figured. Fits the rumors. Guess what? Bronte Doneto invited himself along.”

Unsurprised, Hecht asked, “Think he misses the Connec?”

“Could be. He had such a wonderful time last time he went.”

“I’m not thrilled.” An impossible and stupid war was bad enough. Having the Patriarch’s cousin perched on his shoulder could only make it worse.

Particularly if, as Principatè Delari believed, that cousin was up to his nostrils in some grand scheme of his own.

Hecht scratched his left wrist and wondered how deeply Pinkus was involved in Principatè Doneto’s machinations.

12. Plemenza: The Plot to Clear the Jagos

Inspired letters and personal pleas to Katrin, before the Empress finally left Brothe, won Helspeth permission to go home to Plemenza instead of having to recross the Jagos to Alten Weinberg, where Katrin could keep her under thumb. Helspeth was determined to be the best younger princess she could.