Her visit did not go unnoticed. Time also changed for anyone who got too close. It was impossible to remain unseen by someone breathing in your face. Sometimes she had to get close to get past.
Her adventure would birth a fear that the Night was up to something involving a ringer for the Grail Empress.
The Night, the Shining Ones, of course, would have managed without attracting as much attention. They did not have to travel through the space between.
Piper Hecht sensed an unseen presence. So did Pella. The boy thought the quiet visitor might be his aunt or one of his sisters.
Hecht thought one of the more shy Old Ones wanted to talk. For a moment he hoped it would be Aldi. Then he caught a glimpse that Pella, from his angle, did not.
His son would not understand a late-night visit from that woman and was too old to fool with yak about a secret emergency.
Helspeth did not reveal herself otherwise. She recognized the absurdity. She went away feeling sad, frustrated, and foolish.
* * *
Lord Arnmigal found the Empress inside St. Eules, not kneeling before the altar but seated discreetly on a bench in shadow in back. She was crying quietly. “I hoped you’d come here.” And, a moment later, “After so long.” Another moment. “It’s getting harder to give my lifeguards the slip.”
She finally lifted her gaze. What light there was glistened off her tears. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. Did it cause any trouble?”
“There will be questions tomorrow but so many surround me now that they won’t bother pressing it.”
She scooted over. He settled beside her. She said, “None of the priests are awake. They don’t do night prayers here.”
“Antasts are more relaxed than we are.”
Helspeth slipped her hand into his. “Aaron was more relaxed, too. His Church was more like the Maysalean thing than the Episcopal.”
“Uhm. We should light the candle anyway if we’re going to be here. There’s no guarantee we’ll stay alone, otherwise.”
“God knows, I hate this. But we can’t do anything else. Unless I want to become another Anne of Menand. Or Clothilde, rutting with whom I want, where I want, whenever I want.”
Hecht let go her hand while she fired the time candle, then slid the hand across her shoulder. She leaned against him, seeming much smaller than the Empress Helspeth Ege. He said, “We choose to let the world define love for us.”
Helspeth sighed.
Hecht was not in the grip of any physical need tonight, nor was she. The moment felt almost exactly right, except for Helspeth suffering those little moments when she trembled as though feeling a chill. Each such moment ended with her trying to burrow closer.
In time, she confessed, “I am with child.” She said it in a tiny voice, into his chest, to his heart, but never did he mistake what she said, nor was he completely surprised.
His mind did race. It had to have happened before he left Alten Weinberg. Had to have for her to be so certain now. It would not be long before it began to show. Not long before it became the scandal of the decade. “I’m sorry, beloved. I am so sorry. I have ruined you.”
She did not disagree.
He promised, “I will not fail you. I will do whatever needs to be done.”
“I know. I know. I’ve had a long time to worry. A long time to lose a lot of sleep. A long time to dread all the ways you might respond to the news. I imagined some ugly possibilities. But, right now, you sound like I hoped you would.”
Hecht sighed. She was not wholly pleased because he accepted the Will of God without demur? “I’m not surprised. It’s not something that I expected to happen but I have considered the possibility. There were so many times when we just gave ourselves up to the flame.”
“I can still save the Enterprise. I can still make sure that Katrin is remembered for what she bequeathed the world.”
“What?”
“I can name Algres Drear as the father.”
“You will not.”
“The court will accept that. He was always close. They gossiped about him. And he won’t deny it.”
“That will not happen. I will not have Drear ruined for my sake.”
“Piper, I can’t play the virgin birth card. That only works when it happens two thousand years ago.”
For a moment an exultant Katrin shone in his mind’s eye, overjoyed. Wherever her soul resided, it would be jubilant if it was aware. This would be God’s judgment …
Hecht was startled. People really did put those kinds of black, petty motives into the hearts of their gods. But why would God-or any god-concern Himself, or Herself, with such trivia? There was a universe to be managed. Even gods as small as the Shining Ones cared little about what mortals did to one another in their beds unless they were part of the action.
“Piper, I can’t stand it when you just wander off inside yourself like that!” Helspeth’s hard voice dragged him back, shaky. “Why would you do that?” she demanded. “You make me feel … Stop it. Just stop it!”
It had been a long time. He had been another man with another name, with another woman in a dramatically different culture, where no man was much exposed to his woman while she carried a child, but he did recall that there could be emotional storms, often from no apparent cause. “I don’t do it intentionally. I don’t know I’m doing it. And I don’t know why I do it. It started after that assassination attempt that almost succeeded. The old man who turns up out of nowhere thinks it’s because I came so close to dying that I left my body briefly, then never got a firm grip on it again after I came back.”
Cloven Februaren had, indeed, so speculated but he did not believe it. Neither did Hecht. There would be another answer.
Helspeth did not want to quarrel. She leaned in again, pressing close. “What are we going to do?”
He had no idea beyond letting the tide of tomorrow come and go, coping as it surged. “There are no challenges we can’t handle. You’ve already shown that you’re strong enough to face anything.”
“I hope you’re right. But it’s going to be difficult.”
Oh, it would be, on levels both personal and political.
He held Helspeth as tightly as she held him.
* * *
Hourli asked, “Have you formed any plans?”
Hecht was startled. The Shining Ones, even Hourli, seldom just dropped in, especially while he was in bed. “About what?” It sounded like she meant something specific. There were a thousand considerations in search of a plan.
“You know your lover’s situation, now. She finally found the courage to tell you.”
“You knew?”
“We knew seconds after it quickened. You’re never alone. Fastthal and Sprenghul stay on you like those idiot ravens used to stay on Ordnan’s shoulders. I wonder what ever became of them?”
“Asgrimmur probably knows.” Becoming distracted that easily. “Damn! And damn again. I hope you found us entertaining.”
“Only in a somewhat poignant sense. You did show enthusiasm.”
He refused to ask what she meant. He had a notion that he would not understand her explanation. “Damn for the third time. Now that will be in the back of my head every time I’m alone with…”
“Middle-worlders are never alone. There are watchers always.”
He offered a skeptical look in response.
“All right. Often may fit better than always. But liaisons remain secret only because the Night doesn’t find them worth gossiping about.”
“Was there a point to you showing up before I’ve gotten my feet on the floor?”
“I do want to know if there is a plan.”
“Really?”
“Truly. We should know what part you want us to play so we can prepare ourselves.”
He began readying himself to face the day, noting, without paying intimate heed, that the morning felt like those times when he was with Helspeth and the time candle was burning.