Surrender to the Will of the Night (40 page)

Hecht managed a nod and grunt.

“Your friend might be in over his head.”

“And that wouldn’t be good for him, Serenity, the Church, or the Connec.” Hecht could imagine a frustrated Ghort and Serenity deliberately unleashing a massacre like the inadvertent bloodbath at Antieux during the earliest Patriarchal incursion into the Connec.

“Nothing good will happen in the Connec, Piper. King Regard has left an investing force outside Khaurene. They don’t have the numbers for a siege but they’re tearing up the countryside and making Khaurenese life difficult. And that has the Direcian kings and princes pissed off. King Peter has told King Regard and the Patriarch both to back off or face grim consequences. He’s already negotiated truces with the surviving Praman princes. Who are only too happy to buy time to recover from the disaster at Los Naves de los Fantas. The Direcian Principatés are getting loud in the Collegium, too. Where Serenity has lost most of his support. The Principatés have decided that they made a huge mistake, electing Bronte Doneto.”

“Interesting times. All right. I’m going back to bed. Much as it gripes me to admit it, I need somebody to take care of me till I recover.”

“The progress has been back long enough for the prostitutes to have gotten caught up.”

“Titus.”

“Sorry. It’s the company I keep.”

“You told me Pinkus Ghort was still in Viscesment. That’s his kind of joke.”

“You should’ve let Pella come along. It would be perfect work for him.”

Hecht growled softly. He did not want to think about family. “Have you located Algres Drear?”

“Yes. He’s willing to talk whenever you’re recovered.”

“Do you remember why I wanted to see him?”

“You didn’t say. Is there a problem?”

“I’ve lost some memories. Nothing much. Little details from the last few days before it happened.”

“You do remember who Drear is?”

He did. “That’s still in there.”

“Then your answer should be involved with who he is.”

“Politics, maybe. He knows the players and the secret rules. He could be an informal adviser.”

“If he was willing.”

“There is that.” But that was not it, he was sure.

***

The Empress insisted on seeing her hired general before she went into seclusion. Hecht had himself carried to the audience in a sedan chair, then entered the presence in a wheeled chair pushed by Terens Ernest, one of Titus Consent’s clerks. Ernest had become Piper Hecht’s keeper. Who would, undoubtedly, monitor and report the boss’s every breath.

Many staffers were not yet comfortable about his return to life.

Hecht had used his pendant, one-handed, to warn Heris that he would no longer be alone nights. When Ernest was not hovering another of Consent’s minions was.

Isolated, bored, he spent a lot of time toying with the pendant. Too much. Heris’s responses became curt, irritated.

His left arm and shoulder were bound in bandages and splints which made him look worse off than he was. Though that was bad enough. He was tired of the pain.

The show might not have much impact. Brother Rolf Hasty, lately, had become the most popular healer in Alten Weinberg. Everybody wanted to quiz him about the new general’s health.

Arrangements had been made to let Ernest help Hecht with his ceremonial obligations. The Empress was in a flexible mood. She had chosen to interview him in the same venue, Winterhall, where first she had asked him to come over to the Empire. As then, there were few witnesses, though more than before.

The Princess Apparent sat to her sister’s right and below, slouched but quietly attentive. Her truce with Katrin continued. An heir was on his way. Katrin did not feel threatened.

Helspeth met Hecht’s gaze boldly.

First thing the Empress asked, after the formalities, was, “Have you found the men who attacked you?” She wore a thin smile. She knew the answer, of course.

“We have. I spoke to them myself, just this afternoon. An odd pair. My slum-divers tell me they’re local criminals with a reputation for daring murders. They had a factor, one Willem Schimel, who found work for them. Master Schimel was last seen just before the arrow hit me. Living or dead, he’s no longer to be found. That’s all we know.”

Not true. Piper Hecht had been sixth on the assassins’ list, bearing one of the smaller bounties. The killers had been late getting into position. The more lucrative targets, the Imperial sisters and members of the Council Advisory, had passed the ambush site before they settled in.

The killers had no idea why any of the targets was wanted dead. They had not cared. Great wealth would have been theirs had they been able to clear the list. Schimel had been confident in the trustworthiness of his contact. The assassins had been confident of their ability to vanish in the chaos following such dramatically important murders. But they had not moved fast enough.

Hecht kept all that to himself.

The Empress did not look like a woman already past due to deliver. Though extra attendees hovered, midwives lurked in a room nearby and healers waited in another, on a moment’s call. About to say something, Katrin started violently. “Oh! He kicked! I really felt that one. It won’t be long now.”

Hecht considered the faces nearest Katrin. Each was a study in absence of expression. Those women were determined to do nothing to trigger Katrin’s displeasure.

The donning of masks was so careful and so universal that Hecht knew the growing suspicion of the capital was, in fact, the truth.

The Empress was not pregnant.

She thought she was pregnant. She believed she was pregnant. She wanted to be pregnant so badly that she showed most of the signs. She was convinced she was about to produce a son. After which, no doubt, she expected Jaime to return and be her one true love.

“Excuse me, Captain-General.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” She liked that. It suggested high religious standing in addition to Imperial status.

“You and I, each in our way, are denied our potential by our bodies. You have a prognosis for your situation?” She was intently watchful. Looking for evidence of tainting by the Night.

He was used to that. Everyone held that secret reservation.
Everyone
. He might never be free of that, nor ever become comfortable with it.

Honesty was his only recourse. She knew whatever Brother Rolf knew. “Guardedly optimistic. I’m told I’ll be good as new, someday. If I don’t try to do too much before I’m ready. I don’t think I will. My staff are masters at nagging me.”

“Will you be ready in time for spring campaigning?”

Ensued an extended discussion of what had to be done before the Empress could launch her expedition to purge the Holy Lands of the Praman infestation. Katrin let formality slide while military business was on the table. She and her sister both impressed Hecht with their knowledge — Helspeth even more than Katrin.

The Princess Apparent flashed a grin. “We had to be the sons the Ferocious Little Hans always wanted.”

Katrin agreed. “We grew up looking over his shoulders. Living this stuff. Being mascots around the headquarters. The warlords all thought it was cute when we were five or six.”

“Then she started to fill out and it suddenly became scandalous.”

Katrin bobbed her head. “It’s get-even time.” She waved a hand. “Enough of that. General, I’m impressed by what you’ve accomplished, given the limited time and cooperation you’ve had. And your wound, of course.”

“Your Grace, I did the hardest part when I built my staff. They’re talented men. Though sometimes a little rough dealing with what they call friction.”

“That would be?”

“The lack of cooperation. Politics, I guess. People trying to pull them this way or that, trying to get them to do this or that. They’re used to being left alone to make the clockwork run.”

Not strictly true. But here in the Empire “friction” could become more of a problem than when they had been Patriarchals.

“We can’t stop that completely. It bleeds off surplus energies. When it becomes a serious impediment, tell me. As Empress I have ways to make it stop. I can ask what they think my father would have done with them. If they can’t take that hint I can refer them to Ferris Renfrow.”

Hecht wanted to ask about Renfrow, who had not been seen for quite a while. But the Empress started, groaned, rubbed her belly. “I need to come up with a fancy title for you. Captain-General was good but it’s thoroughly attached to the Patriarchy. Your fault.” She did not ask for suggestions. “Back to friction. I considered easing that by handing off one of my duchies. If you were a duke you wouldn’t have to put up with as much. But what we find out about your family doesn’t stand you in good stead. Even my allies among the Electors wouldn’t tolerate that dramatic an elevation.”

Hecht was startled. Even shocked. And, from Helspeth’s smug look he concluded that the Princess Apparent might have come up with the ennoblement suggestion.

“I’m flattered beyond my capacity to express, Your Grace, that such an honor should even occur to you. I wish my father could have heard you say it.” Grade Drocker or the imaginary Rother Hecht.

“I can knight you. That would help. But I’ve decided that I’ll build my crusade outside the Church and nobility. If we can make that work. I know several priests who can preach a cause in the mode of Aaron.”

The woman was smarter than he had thought. Much smarter.

He had to forget her sex. Helspeth’s, too. He feared the younger sister was brighter than the elder. And more deviously clever.

Definitely the Daughters of the Ferocious Little Hans.

“As you will, so shall it be.”

The Empress started, then seemed pleased by the unusual formula. “If you’re right — and I see no flaw in what you presented — we have a year and a half to get my Electors and nobility tamed.”

“There are a lot of smart, talented nobles who will make outstanding warlords. They’re bred to it. They grow up being trained to it.” That ought to play well with the husbands of the Empress’s attendants.

“Had they the capacity of seeing themselves for what they’re supposed to be.” Katrin offered no definition herself. Her attitude was unmistakable: deep, abiding contempt for a class of men determinedly seditionist and obstructionist. “The whining arrogance …”

“Your Grace. I’m none too strong yet. My wound still pains me a great deal, and …”

“Yes. Of course. As you told the Grand Admiral and the Grand Duke when you decided you had nothing more to say to them.”

Hecht began to feel truly uncomfortable. Katrin, for sure, had become the hard-ass son of Johannes. When she was not being crazy.

The Empress barked instructions at her women. Their languor ended. They scurried. Piper Hecht found himself being chivvied into the quiet room he had shared with the Imperial sisters before.

The Empress said, “I don’t really have anything to say here. But I want those women to think I do. There’ll be coffee in a minute.” She grunted, settled into the biggest chair, rested both hands on her belly. Helspeth got behind her, began kneading her neck and shoulders. While making daring eye contact with the former Captain-General.

Katrin said, “I find myself mortally frightened, General. First, that this pregnancy won’t turn out any better than my last one did, and that if it does go well for the baby, giving birth will be the death of me.”

Hecht had nothing to say. Helspeth’s mugging warned him not to say it.

This would be sensitive ground.

One of Katrin’s women brought the coffee service. She did not stay. The door closed. The Empress gestured. Helspeth took what looked like a funerary urn off a marble side table. She removed the lid, turned the urn over. Drops of darkness fell like a rain of heavy honey. Neither sister explained. The Princess Apparent placed the urn on its side on the floor. Katrin poured coffee.

The drops of darkness did what they were supposed to do, then crawled into the urn like fat black slugs.

The Empress said, “They didn’t sneak anything in this time. Enjoy, General.”

Helspeth managed a lingering touch when she brought Hecht’s coffee. She looked like a woman under sentence of death, with her big day not far off.

Minutes passed in silence. The Empress had something on her mind. She got to it at last. “I’m going into seclusion till the child comes. For a month, at least. Possibly several.”

Hecht tensed up. The Empress had a reason to use the quiet room after all. And he feared that he was not going to like what he would hear.

Katrin said, “Instead of saddling you with some overblown title, why don’t we go for understated but to the point? Something like plain Commander? Or, for a little more punch, Empress’s Commander?”

The Princess Apparent suggested, “How about Lord High Commander of All Commanders?”

“You’re being a smart aleck, Ellie.”

“Sorry. Commander of the Crusaders, then. Or Commander of the Righteous.”

“You don’t sound sorry. I don’t believe you’re sorry. For your penance I’m putting you in charge till my confinement is over. Hush! You need a taste of how awful this role is. Commander of the Righteous. Helspeth’s job will be formidable. Give her the backing she needs to succeed. Keep your men in the city instead of sending them to Hochwasser. I’ll write formal orders. The nobles will whine. It isn’t customary. Ignore them. You understand?”

“Of course, Your Grace.” While reflecting that, sanity aside, the Empress was very clever. She had been working toward this the first time she tried to hire him. She now had a potent counterweight to the Electors, the Council Advisory, and anyone else who wanted to take advantage of a weak girl.

Helspeth protested. “I don’t want …”

“So you’ve insisted since Mushin died, Ellie. Again and again. I never believed you. I’m not sure I do now. But I insist on you. Commander of the Righteous. Become the shadow of the Princess Apparent. Make sure she doesn’t get carried away.”

Hecht did his best to bow. Somewhat impractical for a man in a wheeled chair. Nevertheless, he held it. Keeping his face hidden lest it betray his wild thoughts. “As you will, Your Grace, so shall it be.”