Lord of the Silent Kingdom (76 page)

From crusty and bellicose, Socia turned concerned. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, child. It’s just age slowing me down.”

She eyed him suspiciously. She had been his companion long enough to follow the weakening of his flesh.

“I’m just tired.” But he knew a hint of fear. His fiercest will could not push him forward at as fast a pace as he could make just last summer. He thought his decline had begun during that terrible passage from Castreresone to Khaurene. The miserable sojourn in Corpseour had not helped.

He despised his own weakness. Not his physical failing. That came to every man fortunate enough to grow old. No. He detested the fear that slipped foul tendrils through the armor of his faith. Death should not be dreaded. Death was no revenant creeping through the night, spreading corruption. Death was the doorway to the Light.

“I just need to get my feet back on the Path.”

Socia understood that side of him, however weak her own faith.

Someone riding, who had passed them heading east, must have recognized Brother Candle. Socia’s surprise did not materialize as planned. As they began the last mile downhill, Antieux’s gate spilled a covey of horsemen. The Perfect recognized Bernardin Amberchelle almost immediately, then several Rault brothers and Count Raymone. “Looks like they mean to run us off before we can pollute their city.”

“Smartass.” Tearful, Socia began to run.

There was no run left in Brother Candle’s old corpse. He trudged on, considering the countryside around him. A determined effort at restoration was under way. It appeared amazingly successful. The siege must not have been as harsh as rumor insisted. Or …

Or Count Raymone had done something extraordinary. And what that was became obvious after a study of the people in the fields and on the hillsides.

Raymone was using forced labor to restore his county. He must have rounded up all the Grolsachers he could find.

The Perfect would learn later, that not just refugees had been forced into the labor gangs. Prisoners of war, criminals, captured bandits, and members of the Society were slaving out there, being used up with grim indifference to their humanity. And Count Raymone’s logic was hard to refute. Those were the people responsible for the damage to the Connec. Let them die undoing the evil they had wrought.

The reunion was well under way when Brother Candle caught up to Socia, who was pummeling her brothers severely in her excitement. Of them, only Booth seemed the worse for wear. He had suffered a fierce wound to the left side of his head. Part of his ear was gone. The scar itself remained puffy and purplish. It was one of those that might take a decade to subside into normal scar tissue. The Perfect noted that Booth’s left eye did not track, either. But the youngest Rault was wearing one huge grin.

Count Raymone came to Brother Candle. “I don’t know how to thank you, Master. I didn’t mean for Socia to become your whole life. You kept faith through hardships I can’t begin to imagine. Till yesterday I feared you were lost. Bernardin has been keeping my spirits up since he came back from captivity. He was more confident of you than I was. I’m sorry.”

The warrior enveloped the old man in his powerful arms. “I owe you, Master. I don’t have much anymore, but anything I have is yours. For the asking.”

“Peace, then.”

“Master?”

“Make peace with the new Patriarch.”

“I am at peace with him. And shall ever be. So long as he stays in Brothe. If he comes to Antieux to tell us what to do, then it’s him who breaks that peace.”

Brother Candle abandoned the argument. For the moment. There would be a better time. A time when reason might practice its subtle sedition against prejudice.

Count Raymone said, “Socia tells me that you’re eager to get back to the intellectual harbor of Perfect companions. But I hope you’ll stay for the wedding.”

“I can do that. Unless war comes. I’m done with war.”

Count Raymone’s conviction that that was silly shone through. Then he grinned. “Done. If it looks like we can’t get along with somebody, I’ll slap your skinny ass on a donkey, point it west, and give it a whack on the rump.”

Brother Candle considered the possibility that, even now, his outlook was too naive. If he lived much longer he would see more war. The Arnhanders would be back. They sensed the weakness and rot in the Connec. The province’s hope was not Tormond, never Duke Tormond, nor even Count Raymone Garete. Count Raymone did not have the resources. Hope lay beyond the Verses Mountains, in Direcia.

In Peter of Navaya.

“All right. Who could resist that offer?”

The wedding came off perfectly, within the month. Two newlyweds could not have been more thrilled with one another. And Socia won the hearts of the obdurate people of Antieux with her fierce talk.

Following the wedding Count Raymone sent Bernardin Amberchelle and a hundred men to take the Rault brothers home. Caron ande Lette was in the hands of Grolsacher squatters. The expedition did not go well. The squatters were more numerous than expected. And the Night haunted the land. It was no longer a place for a man who had not surrendered to the will of the Night.

When the tattered survivors returned to Antieux Count Raymone decided, “I’ll send word to the Captain-General. He can muck out that cesspool for us.”

Brother Candle stayed in Antieux way longer than he planned. Worldly things had a definite hold. He was reluctant to leave companionship he had enjoyed so long. As though Socia had become the family he had put aside to walk the path to Perfection.

But he could not stall forever. The Seekers of the west needed leadership and encouragement. And he needed his refreshment of the soul.

“Raymone,” he said reluctantly, accepting the lead of a pack donkey the Count had nicknamed Socia for its stubbornness, “I’ve decided how you can repay me. Other than with this tragic beast, who will no doubt be taken by bandits before I’m out of sight of the wall.”

“Not while you wear the pilgrim’s robe, Master. They’re superstitious, living out there with the Night so close. They won’t trouble you.”

“Yes. Only the Church will dare. Eh?”

“As you say. What boon would you have of me?”

“Peace being impractical, protection for those who follow the Path.”

Count Raymone lowered his face as though to a king. “So shall it be, Master. So long as I have breath.”

Socia, standing by quietly, reluctant to speak because she feared she would burst into tears, repeated the formula. “So shall it be, Master. So long as I have breath. And an arm to raise a spear.” Which remark sparked an immediate squabble between powerful personalities.

Smiling in spite of his sorrow at parting, Brother Candle tugged the donkey’s lead and took a step down the road to his future. First destination, Khaurene. After that, somewhere to reclaim Perfection. In essence, out of history, having shaped the minds of several people who would sculpt it with sharp steel.

23. Dreanger: At al-Qarn, in the Palace of the Kings

The old house slave, Gamel, strained under the weight of the burden he carried across the polished serpentine floor of the vast hall where Gordimer the Lion was holding the autumn assizes. Er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen was present, evidently having an interest in some case due to come before the Grand Marshal. Likewise, Kaif Karim Kaseem al-Bakr, who dozed on a chair nearby. He was there for a case with religious implications.

The slave had little time left in this hard vale. Decades ago he had been a fierce young Sha-lug. Time, luck, and an amazing knack for healing had conspired to rob him of a battlefield death. Sha-lug who grew old despite the endless wars had to earn their keep managing the work of the Palace.

Gamel was well known to Gordimer. Gamel had taught him the lance when he was a pup. The Marshal concluded the case at hand by ordering the defendant strangled for defiling the daughter of his sister.

Sentence was carried out on the spot. Gordimer then ordered the daughter stoned. Both corpses to be thrown to the crocodiles.

Then he sent two lifeguards to help the old man.

“Forget all that, Gamel. Your life has earned you the right to stand in the presence of the Marshal.”

Though not, perhaps, in that of the Kaif. If the Kaif were anything but an extension of the will of the Sha-lug, and awake. “What is this?”

It had to be critical if the old slave came here, now, during the height of the assizes.

“This box was given to me to bring to you. I was told it had to be delivered immediately.”

“And what is it?”

“I don’t know. But it’s been dripping cold water.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“General Nassim. Nassim Alizarin.”

“The Mountain? He’s here? In al-Qarn? Er-Rashal. I thought Nassim was dead.”

Shaken, the court sorcerer replied, “I was sure he was no longer among the living.”

“Let’s see what it is. You two. Bring that box here. Open it.”

Er-Rashal faded into himself while the lifeguards carried out instructions. Suddenly, he snapped, “Don’t open that!” An instant too late.

“What do we have?” Gordimer demanded. He glowered at the scores of supplicants and defendants, all of whom leaned toward the scene.

“A head. In melted ice.” The lifeguard lifted a severed head from the box by its hair. His companion retrieved a wooden tube about six inches long and an inch in diameter, covered with wax. He handed that to the Marshal.

Gordimer twisted an end off the cold tube, fished out a piece of paper. He asked er-Rashal, “What’s the matter?” The sorcerer stared at the head. “You’ve turned gray.” The Lion unrolled the paper. And read aloud, “‘To my lord the Grand Marshal of the Sha-lug, Gordimer, called the Lion, and to the sorcerer er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen. Greetings. A gift. All that remains of the pagan sorcerer Rudenes Schneidel, by whose order my son Hagid was murdered. He was the first to pay. His partners in wickedness will follow.

“‘Nassim Alizarin, once a friend.

“‘In recollection of friendship, O Lion. A courtesy. Be warned. The storm from the north is rising. I have seen it with mine own eyes, and it is of your own construction. Nor even the Almighty Himself shall stand before it.’”

Gordimer the Lion closed his eyes. This was the voice of prophecy. Half a minute later, he said, “Clear the hall. The assizes will resume tomorrow morning.” He roamed his own mind till the hall fell quiet.

He opened his eyes. Er-Rashal was no longer present. The Kaif still slept. Gamel had retired. He addressed the lifeguard still holding the head by its hair. “Glaid. What do you make of this?”

“That General Nassim disappeared because he heard his son was murdered. But Hagid was supposedly among those Sha-lug lost in Calzir.”

“Where he was not supposed to have been.”

The lifeguard nodded. “There are evil rumors about what happened over there. About Sha-lug who were abandoned, denied the chance to board ships carrying survivors of the disaster away from Calzir.”

“Is that so? I haven’t heard anything like that. Sidiki. You look like you’re about to explode. If only you dared. Dare.”

“There is much that you do not hear, sitting here in the Palace, O Lion.” Sidiki carefully avoided the least implication of criticism, though the lifeguard complement were scandalized by the behavior of the Marshal in recent years and even those nearest him thought he had ordered those Sha-lug abandoned to the mercy of the Infidel because of their connection with Else Tage, the once-popular band leader whom Gordimer feared for no reason anyone could fathom.

In the end, the lifeguards, and those Sha-lug who spent much time around the Palace of the Kings, chose to blame all misfortune on the sorcerer er-Rashal el-Dhulquarnen.

“Enlighten me.”

24. Brothe: At the End of the Day

After a week of loafing Piper Hecht started half days at the Castella. Nothing official had come out of Krois. But rumors ran hot and fierce. There would be another invasion of the Connec. For sure. To war against the Night. So staff work did go forward.

Ships were at sea, collecting the troops from Artecipea. Titus Consent made sure those men knew that it was Piper Hecht’s fault they were coming home. The Captain-General and Boniface VII had an understanding. The Patriarchy’s soldiers would be treated well, henceforth. With a big
or else!
implied.

Pinkus Ghort visited Anna’s house briefly. After losing to her at chess, he told Hecht, “Take care how forward you are about your soldiers, Pipe. You got people in the Collegium putting you on their shit lists just because you’re in a strong place.”

Hecht had seen the signs. Wherever three or more people got together somebody developed a need to drag somebody else down.

He was about to snap defiantly, arrogantly, but caught himself.

“What?” Ghort asked. “You don’t believe me?”

“No. I do. I’m having trouble believing me.”

Ghort gave Hecht that look he reserved for times when he had no clue what Hecht was talking about.

Hecht asked, “One of them wouldn’t be your boss, would it?”

“One of them would. He’s developed a hard-on for you.”

“He always had one. I wouldn’t be his running dog.”

“He figures you owe him.”

“Really? Because he got us out of Plemenza?”

“Yeah. And some other stuff.”

“Despite the fact that he wouldn’t be alive if I hadn’t wakened him in the Ownvidian Knot.”

“I won’t make excuses for the man, Pipe. I’m just saying. I tell you this, he’s gonna push for enforcement of the quartering restrictions.”

Which Hecht had anticipated. Bronte Doneto being consul or not, the city senators would have gotten to that. Maybe just not as soon. No one not part of the Church hierarchy wanted the Patriarch’s soldiers stationed in the city.

“I think we’re in compliance already.” By sleight of hand. By means of a deal with the Brotherhood of War whereby the Brotherhood claimed those of Hecht’s men quartered in the Castella.

“Not with the spirit of the law. You could have five thousand armed veterans here inside four days. And a hell of a lot more handy once the rest get over from Artecipea.”