“Yes. I’m starting to get my family back.”
“Want to jump down to Brothe?”
“No.” Grimly. “But the offer is comforting. Plus, I had a long, rambling, sometimes incoherent letter from Pinkus today. I think his drinking is getting worse.”
“And what did that Grolsacher fraud really want?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe just a friend. He’s not happy about being a glorified city watchman.”
“He could be back in Grolsach trying to mill rocks into flour.”
“He knows that. In one of his more coherent passages he said that. But we get spoiled. We always want more than what we’ve got.”
“Little brother, you have been hanging out with the wrong crowd. Plenty of people, like me, are ecstatic with what they’ve got. We wake up every morning thanking God for our lives and the good days we’re having.”
Hecht grunted. He had not had many bad days once he grew up. Heris had had several dark decades. Maybe those times made her appreciate today more.
“I get it, Heris. I think. Pinkus, though … He’ll be a malcontent even if he gets into heaven.”
“I’ll buy that.”
“I think what he really wanted to know was, could I find a place for him in the Enterprise.”
“The Enterprise?”
“Churchspeak. Wordplaying. We don’t call crusades crusades anymore. Officially, it’s ‘an Enterprise of Peace and Faith.’”
Heris snickered.
“What?”
“You sounded like one of those pompous clowns from the Collegium.”
“Jobs do shape the man.”
“Right again. But I didn’t come to help you handle your worries. I need a little family reinforcement myself. I’ve just killed three of the worst old-time gods, for Aaron’s sake! Killed them! Nobody else in the entire history of the world ever did anything like that. And I can’t even get my own brother to tell me I did good.”
“Sorry. You did good. Really. But people aren’t made to build up, we’re made to tear down.”
“The Designer might not want to find Himself on the business end of my falcons, then.”
Hecht had been outside of everything while Heris finished the Great Old Ones. “How many falcons did I lose, darling sister? How much godshot did I spend? My troops will be whining for godshot in the Holy Lands.”
“Piper, we’ll get them back. All but three or four. Six at the most.”
“Six?”
“There were failures. Some turned themselves into scrap.”
“Krulik and Sneigon falcons? That’s hard to credit.”
“Credit as you will. You weren’t there. You have no idea what it took to kill those things.”
“I don’t. The cost is, plainly, acceptable. You’re here.”
“But?”
“One has a wish to hear details so one can assess and apprehend the full cost and product of one’s investment.”
Heris laughed. “Wishful thinking, little brother. It cost you some obsolete falcons that your Deves already replaced with better weapons. Right? So take it up with those goons Rhuk and Prosek. You told them to give me what I needed. They picked the weapons and powder. Some of which did nothing but sputter.”
Rhuk and Prosek must have cleared their inventories of the powder and weapons they trusted least. His fault. He had not given them any good reasons why powder and falcons had to be turned over to people they did not know.
“Was anybody hurt?”
“Some of the Shining Ones got their fingers burned. They aren’t made to handle high-density godshot. I’m going home now, Piper. I’m tired. I want to lay down in a real bed, in a place where I don’t have to sleep with one eye open, and not move for a week. Grandfather should have some of the townhouse restored by now.”
“Wait! Let me send a letter to Anna.”
“Don’t dawdle.” She read over his shoulder as he wrote. “She won’t go for that, no matter how much she misses you. She won’t come out of her house for love nor money.”
“Just deliver the letter. You never know.”
“I will. No problem.” She turned sideways and disappeared.
In a moment Hecht was back in bed, drifting off, but expecting a daughter or Cloven Februaren to burn his chance to get any sleep.
That did not happen.
* * *
The people of Alten Weinberg often complained about the length and harshness of their winters. To an outsider from a warmer clime the cold and gloom did seem a persistent divine punishment. A man from Duarnenia, however, dared not see them as anything but blustery and refreshingly brief.
Being Commander of the Righteous meant there was always a need to go out on Enterprise business. Hecht resented those demands on his time. There were things he wanted to do, things he needed to do, before spring arrived. Time wasted cajoling and schmoozing was time not spent preparing.
Heavy snows suggested the chance of a late spring and heavier spring melt, which would mean bad floods. The Bleune could turn particularly unfriendly. Hochwasser might be affected. Downstream, the river could carve new channels and create new navigational hazards. He meant to barge his heavy stores and equipment down the Bleune to the Negrine Sea, where it would be put aboard deepwater ships for transport south to coastal ports still in Chaldarean hands.
* * *
A message came with Hecht’s breakfast. The Empress wanted a word. Time stated. He should bring his associate Hourli.
Rivademar Vircondelet reported immediately when summoned. Hecht asked, “You saw this note from the Empress?”
“Yes, sir. Until there is no one left who wants to kill you we’ll vet everything.”
“There are still some of those?”
“We can’t get them all. You have a knack for making more.” There was a wistful edge to Vircondelet’s voice.
“You’re easier to get along with than Madouc was. But never mind that. Have you seen Hourli?”
“Not for five days, at least.”
“Really? That recently? Because I never see her. Or any of them.”
“They wander in and out all the time, usually with something interesting.”
“Like what? I haven’t seen anything in the dailies.”
“When I said interesting I meant it’s always some fairy tale. Something they couldn’t possibly know because it happened last night in Camaghara, Direcia, or Salpeno.”
Hecht invested in a long, deep breath, which he held for a count of eight. He repeated the process. “From now on the fairy tales will head the briefings. They will be treated like words fallen from the lips of Aaron. Go back to your section. Resurrect every detail of those reports. I want them waiting when I get back from the palace. Understood? Is anything I said unclear?”
Face colorless, Vircondelet replied, “You are crystalline, sir.”
Hecht waited for a caveat, a condition, or a question. Vircondelet restrained himself. “Good. Pass the word to the lifeguards. They’ll need to walk me over.”
* * *
Hecht joined Lady Hilda and the Empress inside the latter’s newly expanded, reengineered, and again refurbished quiet room. There was space, now, for thirty people. Lady Hilda poured coffee, flirted mildly. He asked Helspeth, “Am I the first one here?”
“You are. That’s deliberate. I want you to know that the Throne has acquired the Chapel of Saint Miniver, Martyr.”
Hecht could not help looking baffled. “Congratulations? But … I don’t know the place. Or the saint.”
“Miniver was the first Chaldarean missionary to the pagans in these parts. The chapel is behind the palace, on the site where Miniver was martyred.”
Lady Hilda said, “There was a famine. He was the most useless body around. They sacrificed him to appease their gods.”
“Did it work?”
Shrug. “We still know Miniver. Nobody remembers them.”
“All right. But I’m still not illuminated.”
“The chapel can be accessed from the back of the palace by means of a postern. One of the early Johanneses was a devotee of Miniver. He liked to visit the chapel secretly, probably for more than religious reasons. Lady Hilda has started performing her night devotions there.”