Lord of the Silent Kingdom (77 page)

“And that’s a bad thing with the troubles you’re having here?”

“Hey, Pipe, I’m not trying to pick a fight. I’m just saying. And I’m wondering. What’s your pal Principatè Delari been up to? We haven’t seen hide nor hair in a rat’s age.”

“I don’t know. Why?” Hecht smiled at Vali and Bit’s daughter, Lila. The kids kept finding excuses to wander through. They were both curious and hoped that Ghort had brought treats. He did that sometimes.

Lila had recovered physically from the attack that had injured her and killed her mother but she was not yet over it inside. Though older and bigger, she had become Vali’s timid shadow. She seemed to have put her harsh early years aside, Anna described her as well mannered and industrious around the house, but remote. She was more bookish than Pella. And could bring Vali out of her shell.

Hecht had overheard the girls talking himself. Chattering, even, almost like kids who had enjoyed a normal childhood.

“Doneto is really interested,” Ghort said. “They aren’t good buddies. Were almost enemies back around the time the hippodrome fell down. But they patched it up somehow. They tolerate each other, now.”

“The way Delari tells it, it was all a misunderstanding. Too many people talking when they should have been listening ended up with them squabbling when they were both trying to get the same job done.

Which was to destroy the monster that was murdering people.”

Ghort frowned.

Anna said, “I don’t think they got it, Piper.”

“What? Of course they did. Principatè Delari …” He stopped. He could not explain.

“Then the monster’s little brother came round to take over the family business.”

Ghort was as taken aback as Hecht. “Anna?”

“The murders started up again. Like before.”

Hecht watched color drain from Ghort’s features. “Pipe. You said Delari dealt with it.”

“That’s what he told me.”

“Did he produce a body?”

“Not for my benefit. And I wasn’t interested in seeing one. I was dodging assassins and getting ready for a war.”

“You need to find him and see what he thinks.”

“Your boss is a consul. And a pretty potent sorcerer.”

“You’re right. It would be his job. But you still might want to consult Delari.”

“I will. We’re supposed to have supper at his town house tomorrow night. I assume he’ll be there.”

“All right. When are you heading back to the Connec?”

“I haven’t been told. It’s all still rumors. Boniface … I have an abiding suspicion that the bureaucracy around the Patriarch is so dense and so tangled that even though the Patriarch is God’s dictator on earth he has to hack his way through a jungle before he can work His will.”

“You ask me, it’s just a bunch of assholes being obstructionist. He ought to have you clean them out.

There’s people at Krois belonging to families that have been underfoot there for fifteen generations. All of them take bribes from anybody with a piece of silver.”

A conversation about corruption in high places got the attention of all the kids, and Anna, too. Before Hecht could caution Ghort about little pitchers, someone knocked on the front door.

Anna told Pella, “See who that is.”

It was Titus Consent, Noë, and their brood.

Hecht said, “Titus, I completely forgot. Let me see the baby.” He had not yet met Avran.

Noë passed the infant over, but hovered. In case he decided to take a bite.

“No doubt who was this one’s daddy. Look at those eyes. Already calculating.” Hecht passed the baby back. His mother proceeded round the room, giving everyone the same opportunity. Except for Pinkus Ghort. Noë Consent was seriously nervous about Pinkus Ghort. Ghort was too outgoing. She was a mouse, the most timid woman Hecht had ever met. Only a powerful pride drove her here.

Hecht said, “Pinkus, I completely forgot about Titus. We have business at the foundry.”

Ghort faked a scowl and said, “I can tell when I’m not wanted.”

Anna offered, “You can stay and play chess.”

“Sure. I love getting my head kicked in.”

“Shame on you, Pinkus Ghort. You win sometimes.” Anna indicated the children. “And none of these miscreants can survive ten moves.” Because they were children and could see no point to the game.

Though when she focused Vali could be a deadly opponent.

“I’ve got work of my own that I let slide so I could come down here to talk my best buddy into keeping on being careful.”

Titus said, “Noë could play you, Anna. She holds her own against me.”

Consent’s wife turned bright red. She murmured some sort of demurement and refused to meet the eyes of anyone but her baby.

Still insisting that Hecht remain cautious, Ghort let himself out. “Best buddy?” Consent asked.

“Not quite hyperbole. We’ve been friends a long time,” Hecht said. “Unfortunately, we find ourselves with different employers. I hope we never butt heads.”

“We should get moving.” Consent started to say something to his wife. Hyperactive toddler Sharone had vanished with Vali and Lila in hot pursuit. The baby was working his magic on Anna. Pella stared over Anna’s left shoulder, fascinated.

Hecht said, “Pella, come on with us.”

Anna shot him a startled, questioning look.

“He’s old enough.”

Having the lifeguards along frustrated Hecht. But they would not go away. Titus said, “Resign yourself.

You’re the most important man in Brothe. After Boniface VII. Bodyguards are the price you pay.”

Hecht vented his irritation with rambling nonsense about how Duarnenians never had to suffer this kind of crap. Pella walked alongside, nodding as though he agreed with every word.

Their destination was the workshop and foundry of the people who now manufactured all the firepowder and firepowder weapons for the Patriarchal army, a consortium of leading Devedian families.

Ironic, Hecht thought. If that was the proper word. Unbelievers manufactured the weapons and munitions by which the Chaldarean Patriarchy would enforce its will upon the Faithful.

“The Faithful?” Titus asked. “Mainly things of the Night will be affected by what these people make. You want to whip up on an Imperial town or one of the petty duchies, you’ll need to do it the old way.”

Hecht did not argue. But Titus was only mostly right. Drago Prosek and Kait Rhuk had a hundred ideas about how firepowder weaponry could change the ways wars were fought. Few involved the Instrumentalities of the Night.

Prosek and Rhuk, with a couple more falcon specialists, were there already when Hecht, Pella, and Consent reached the Krulik and Sneigon Special Manufactory. Consent told Hecht, “We’ve consolidated firepowder and falcon production here. These people are wonderfully cooperative in helping work out new ways to kill people. And things.”

“Especially things,” Shimeon Krulik told Hecht soon afterward. “You understand, we Devedians aren’t overwhelmed by a compulsion to make life easier for Brothen Episcopal Chaldareans.”

“Of course. But we have common interests.”

“Indeed. Crippling the Instrumentalities of the Night.”

Hecht nodded. Not sure of that at all.

Shimeon Krulik handed Hecht, Pella, and Titus off to a Moslei Sneigon. Sneigon was in charge of production and testing. He was a bent little man who would have been right at home in an ethnic joke.

But he was brilliant when it came to knowing what was going on inside his business.

“We’ve cut costs and improved effectiveness by nearly a hundred times this year, Captain-General.

Look. We drip molten iron through these star forms. It comes out cooled just enough so each dribble is a rough arrow shape two inches long. That falls into water. The sudden steam expands and distorts the dart’s surfaces.”

Sneigon produced a severely irregular iron dart just under two inches long. “We pack these in fine sand treated with a vegetable gum inside these wooden forms that are the same diameter as your falcons. The shock and heat of the exploding firepowder breaks up the charge.”

Sneigon showed them workers dipping the tips of the little arrows in molten silver. “We produce the darts fast. The bottleneck is silver application. Quantity doesn’t seem to matter with the silver. As long as it’s there. One tiny bit on the tip is enough.”

“We can save a lot on silver, then?”

“Fortunes. Given time, I think we’ll work out how to use a hundredth of the silver we’re using now. You’ll be spending way more for the iron, the firepowder, and, especially, the falcons themselves.”

Hecht was amused by how well Pella managed to fake an understanding of the discussion.

Hecht was fascinated by everything at Krulik and Sneigon. These people were determined to produce new and ever more amazing weapons for deployment in the struggle against the Tyranny of the Night.

The darts amazed him. Their battering by steam dramatically expanded their surface area, which meant that more iron would be brought into contact with whatever Instrumentality the missile hit.

Hecht said, “I understand what you’re doing. But these darts won’t go far, or fast. And the reason firepowder weapons work is, the shot moves too fast for the Instrumentalities to get out of the way.”

“Smart man,” Sneigon said. “And right. These charges are for when you’re up close, smelling their bad breath and seeing the whites of their eyes. Which we figure would be most encounters. We’re looking at a variety of other projectiles for longer ranges.”

“Very good,” Hecht said. “How are we coming with the firepowder?”

“Substantial improvements there, too,” Sneigon told him. “We’ve developed three distinct formulations suitable for several different tasks.” He grinned a big white grin behind his black forest of a beard. “You leave these boys free of worries about where their next meal is coming from, then hand them a big intellectual challenge, they end up going after it fifteen hours a day. Besides, it’s fun, making all the stinks and bangs.”

Hecht looked sideways at Titus Consent. Consent shrugged. “Curse of the breed.”

“You stereotyping your own people?”

“Not mine anymore. Except by blood.”

“Sorry.”

“Mr. Sneigon,” Titus said. “You were there when my uncle committed suicide?”

“I was, young Titus.” Sneigon turned grim. “That was a dark day. It made no sense. He started babbling about the ravens of wickedness coming home to roost … Really! Those were almost his exact words.”

“Bizarre. But I believe you. Now here’s the thing. Seven elders have committed suicide since the end of the Calziran Crusade. None of them were the sort we’d consider likely candidates. Four were men who fled Sonsa after the riots there. Some time ago, when I was especially rattled by the suicides, the Captain-General asked me if they were all rich. And if they were, how did they get that way? A silly question, I thought then. But now I’m thinking he was more profound than he knew. I don’t have the resources in the community that I did before I converted, but I was still able to work out that the men from Sonsa and at least two from Brothe knew each other when they were young. It looks like they were involved in something that made their fortunes. And that might be something they don’t want anyone to find out about.”

Moslei Sneigon and Titus Consent looked one another in the eye. Seconds clicked away. Sneigon broke eye contact to glance at Hecht. “There was a rumor, a long time ago. That they made their fortunes slave-raiding. One quick summer, making fast raids where nobody expected slavers, disguised as Praman pirates.” He glanced at Hecht again. Hecht had close contacts inside the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood hated pirates almost more than they hated Pramans.

Hecht said, “That’s interesting. I heard something similar from Principatè Delari. His illegitimate son, Grade Drocker, had a secret family tucked away in a harbor town over in the Eastern Empire. They got carried off in that kind of slave raid. Drocker spent the rest of his life hunting the slavers, using all the power of the Brotherhood. He died distraught because he never got all the men responsible for his despair.”

Sneigon and Consent both were taken aback.

Hecht said, “So Delari says. He didn’t understand. I don’t, either. But Drocker definitely was a driven man. Obsessed with revenge. So I’m told. I never really saw it myself.”

Consent said, “All these men died after Drocker did.”

Sneigon suggested, “Delari might have …”

Hecht interrupted. “Might not have. Unless he could manage it from over there in the Connec.”

Consent trampled Hecht. “That’s right, Moslei. You can’t blame Delari.”

“You think those men would even know what a conscience was? And I’d dispute you, Titus. Three of the suicides probably weren’t involved in the old-time slave-raiding thing. But they might have known. They were all friends.”

Hecht asked, “Why are we worrying about it? Why aren’t we worrying about going forward? None of this means anything to us, now.”

Was Cloven Februaren carrying out Grade Drocker’s revenge? He
was
sure Muniero Delari was not.

“And, whatever else,” Consent said, “we can’t get around the fact that those men did take their own lives.

In front of witnesses, every one.”

Moslei Sneigon made a noise Hecht put halfway between a cat’s purr and a dog’s growl. Disappointment without disagreement.

Sneigon demonstrated several more experimental notions. Hecht smiled and nodded and pretended enthusiasm. His smiles never reached his eyes. He knew that Krulik and Sneigon would reserve the best weaponry for defense of the Devedian quarter. Which, Titus Consent later assured him, was suspicion entirely misplaced. He needed to get beyond his traditional prejudice. Krulik and Sneigon were getting filthy rich producing godkiller weaponry. According to Consent, chances were good that it had not occurred to them to hold anything back. They were interested only in the profits of the moment.

Hecht did not divorce his traditional prejudice.

“If it wasn’t for you I don’t think I’d spend time in this cesspit city,” Hecht murmured. He lay on his back in the dark, Anna’s head and left hand on his chest. A hot tear hit his skin. “I’m just a soldier. But everybody thinks they’ve got to get something from me.”