Working God's Mischief (25 page)

But Katrin was between him and God, now. He had been profoundly lucky, there.

Those watching Helspeth were, no doubt, circling in hopes that something damning would happen right now, tonight.

“Anything that happens will touch more lives than yours and mine.”

“And if nothing happens, that will diminish lives as well.”

“We have to make choices, dearest. Amongst them are, who has to suffer the hurt caused by the attraction between us. Us, by denying ourselves? Or those who…?”

“Stop. I can do no more of this now. Go back to your demons. Catch Anselin. Let me get my heart under control. We'll talk Imperial business later.” Helspeth had recovered.

“As you wish.”

A dozen palace denizens contrived to be close by when the Empress and new Grand Duke emerged from the quiet room. Each felt a letdown. Scandal had been avoided. The couple looked like they wanted to fight.

*   *   *

Hecht found Lila waiting at the Still-Patter mansion. She had brought Vali. He groaned.

Lila was quick to have her feelings hurt.

“Sorry, girls. It's been a hard day. I was looking forward to bed. What is it?”

“Nothing important. This was Vali's first long transition. We thought we'd see how you're doing. There isn't any real news except that Brothe has calmed down.”

Vali said, “And a lot of priests are yammering about there being something wrong with the churches. Some say it's because God is turning away since the Church allowed a layman to overthrow an elected Patriarch.”

“Wasn't the first time that happened.” Hecht sighed. “It might be heresy but I suspect that God could not care less about the Patriarchy.”

“We can go away if you want,” Lila said.

“No.” He needed contact with reality. “I don't see you often enough. You remind me of what I have when I'm not Commander of the Righteous.”

Both girls were pleased.

Vali said, “We saw Pella on the way. Him and that dwarf are only about forty miles from here, now.”

“Dwarf?” Startled.

“Oh. No. Not like Iron Eyes. That Armand creature.”

“The freak,” Lila opined.

“Girls. Armand can't help being Armand.”

“Yes, he can,” Lila said. “People have choices. Maybe limited, like ours in that place where you found us. But nobody has to embrace their own humiliation. Armand is a freak because he does. You'll see. He gets here, he'll find himself a keeper who'll treat him like shit.”

Vali said, “That's why he split with grandpa Muniero. Grandpa treated him too good.”

“May be, but I don't care. Tell me how Anna is.”

Neither girl seemed eager to address that. Vali finally said, “She's just Anna Mozilla while Piper Hecht is away. She goes along in kind of a daze.”

Lila said, “She's doing better now that she's back in her own house.”

Another twinge of conscience. But they had worked that out at the beginning.

Anna did not expect him to be faithful. She was a mistress, not a wife, and he was a man. But she would surely suffer from anything as public as a liaison with the Grail Empress.

“When you get back I want you to remind her that I think of her all the time.”

“We could take you.”

“That won't happen, girls.”

“Fraidy cat,” Vali said.

“Absolutely. Now scoot on out of here.”

They went, but not before needling him with observations between themselves about how attractive some of the younger officers were, especially that Carava de Bos.

De Bos had a definite reputation.

*   *   *

Piper Hecht did not participate in Helspeth's coronation, even as a witness. He and his key staffers avoided the end of the political season by joining the expedition to Hovacol. Pella accompanied him.

Asked politely by a purported ambassador—Hourlr in mortal guise—King Stain refused to surrender Anselin. He summoned his host.

Perceived bullying by the Grail Empire guaranteed an excellent response despite Stain's recent lack of intimacy with rational thinking. More than five hundred horse and a thousand foot awaited the Righteous in a sound foreslope position behind a stream spanned by a wooden bridge eight feet wide.

The consensus of Hecht's staff was, “Oh, shit! What have we gotten into here?”

Kait Rhuk suggested, “Roll the falcons up to the riverbank. Take them under fire. That will make them come at us.”

Drago Prosek nodded. “I'm considering starting with half charges so they have time to watch the shot come in.”

And Rhuk: “Keep the falcons near the bridge so we can concentrate fire when they charge.”

“All good thinking,” Hecht said. He glanced at the sky. “We have two hours of light left. Pity that ridge is behind us. It wasn't, the sun would come down in their eyes. Vircondelet. Break out twenty men. Start making camp. We'll stay here tonight.” That should buoy their confidence. He checked the shadow of that ridge. It was creeping eastward.

The men set to work siting falcons and raising berms to protect their crews. Stain's men first seemed puzzled, then uneasy. The invaders were behaving strangely. They should have turned back once they saw what awaited them. But the Righteous were, all workmanlike, preparing to become unpleasant.

Hecht summoned Kait Rhuk. “Kait, did you put my kid on a crew?” Pella loved the smoke and thunder.

“Over there. Last on the left. He's the powder boy.”

“All right. Good.” He sighed. Powder boy was a dangerous job. On the other hand, Rhuk had sent him to the weapon farthest from the bridge.

The shadow of the ridge passed the Righteous. Hecht tightened his cinch, mounted up. “Be back in a minute.”

He crossed the wooden bridge and headed for the waiting army. Some looked like veterans. Their arms and equipment were better than he expected. King Stain might know what he was doing.

Hecht stayed behind the line of shadow, halted beyond bowshot. The men ahead did not know what to make of him. Had he come to parlay?

Hecht did not know himself. Intuition moved him.

The shadow began to claim the men of Hovacol.

Hecht raised his right hand high. “Now.”

Thunder rattled off the hills. A pair of horrors twice man-size swept out of the shade behind the Righteous, hurtled toward King Stain. Their shrieks melted spines.

Hecht felt himself being pulled in the ferocious psychic wake of Fastthal and Sprenghul, the Choosers of the Slain, this time come before the fight, spreading terror. Those men up ahead would not recognize them but would imbibe the dread surrounding them.

The animals were more frightened than the men. The formation began to crumble.

The Choosers came round again, sweeping in from the ends of the Hovacol line. That fell apart. Only King Stain stood his ground.

Hecht lowered his hand. He was confused. How had he caused all that?

Brokke, Sedlakova, and Consent joined him. Behind and below, the Righteous crossed the bridge.

Consent, eyeing bewildered stragglers ahead, blurted, “What the hell just happened?”

“What do you mean?”

Brokke said, “Something happened to you up here, Boss. And it was damned scary.”

Consent said, “You turned into a pillar of shadow. You had lightning in your hair.”

“I did not. Stop messing with me.”

Sedlakova said, “Boss, you ain't going to bullshit nobody about this. Everybody saw it. On both sides.”

A makeshift lifeguard assembled around Stain, up the slope. The King of Hovacol was not short on courage.

Hecht was inclined to argue. “I don't remember it that way.” He did not remember at all. “Clej, go up there and make sure they don't have a surprise waiting across the ridge. Catch me a straggler. I want to know what
they
think just happened.”

He had an elusive recollection of the Choosers. Startled, he looked around, saw nothing remarkable—except the attitudes of his companions.

“Hagen, go on and finish making camp. Let the creek be our moat. We'll move on tomorrow. Drago. Kait. They're not here? Remind me to tell them to watch their powder. It might rain.”

There were but a few wisps of cloud, set ablaze by the sun beyond the western ridge.

Hecht's companions looked him askance again, probably more because he wanted to caution Rhuk and Prosek than because he was predicting the weather. Those two needed no advice in their chosen field.

Hecht said, “Gentlemen, the rest is yours. I'm going to lie down.”

*   *   *

Hecht was loosening his boots when Pella slipped into the tent. “You all right, Dad?”

“Just worn out.”

“What happened?”

“I don't know. I wish people would stop asking.”

“Are you scared?”

He was. He did not like not being in complete control. “I'm just tired. I just need to lie down.”

“All right. I can take a hint.”

Hecht fell asleep concerned that he was pushing people away by keeping his thoughts and feelings to himself.

*   *   *

King Stain's troops did not go home. They maneuvered. They tried to draw the Righteous into traps. They performed well but got no chance to take advantage of their numbers.

The Commander of the Righteous intuited their every move. The Choosers did not reappear. They were not needed. A vigorous cantata from the falcons discouraged every ambush.

Cholate was King Stain's seat. The walled town sat on a short hill in a tight bend of the Vilde River. That hill rose just thirty feet at its highest. The Vilde was fifty feet wide, deep, and slow, a fine natural moat round the northern third of the town. Once, probably in antiquity, a canal had been dug round the other side. It had not been kept up. Today it was boggy ground backed by a wall that had not been maintained, either. Crude palisades had been thrown up in gaps where the stonework had collapsed or been plundered for building materials. The population and country alike were stunned by the appearance of invaders. Enemies visiting Cholate seemed vastly improbable.

A plain fronted Cholate outside the bog, with heavy forest in the near distance, to the right and down the Vilde. When the Righteous arrived the locals were salvaging what crops they could. King Stain's army stood ready for battle between them and the invaders.

“Same tactics,” Hecht told his officers. “Get as close as you can, then dig in.”

Brokke asked, “You're not going to attack?”

“I'm going to be flexible. They have the numbers. If we have to fight I want them to come to the falcons. Through pits, trenches, caltrops, tangles, and whatever else they give us time to prepare.”

Local soil was easy to shift. There was plenty of timber nearby. The Righteous trenched and raised ramparts. They made the ground bristle with sharpened stakes meant to break up and channel a mounted attack.

King Stain did nothing to hamper the work.

Titus Consent said, “They can't decide what to do.”

Hecht replied, “They've never seen anything like us. And they don't want to be part of another Shades.”

“Then they should try maneuvering. The falcons don't get around so fast. And we only have so many.”

“Excellent thinking. Stain should find a way to come at us so our falcons don't negate his numbers. Instead, he's waiting for us to come to him.”

“That would work if we took the bait.”

“We won't. Drago.” Prosek was passing. “Once we're ready to receive an attack I want you to begin bombarding their formation.”

Prosek grinned. “Any special targets?”

“Equal opportunity, top to bottom and left to right. They're rattled already. Let's make them think even more. And be ready for a charge.”

Absent the grin, Prosek asked, “Should I have godshot loaded or standing by?”

“Standing by. Wait. Charge one falcon. Let's make that doctrine. One weapon always ready for the improbable.”

Prosek nodded. So did Consent. Neither appeared comfortable with the word “improbable.”

Nobody was comfortable around Hecht anymore.

Falcon fire provoked anger but no aggressive reaction. At extreme range the weapons did little damage. Hecht expanded his earthworks till they shielded the Righteous on all sides. His officers worried that he might let them be surrounded.

There was no ridge behind the Righteous. No shadow to roll across the land. But Hecht had positioned himself so the sun would set behind him.

He gathered his officers. “Got a volunteer to carry the olive branch over to those people?”

Silence.

“Somebody needs to go. You don't want me to do it again.”

These men were more worried about Lord Arnmigal than they were about Stain of Hovacol.

“I'll take it, Dad.”

Startled, Hecht asked, “Can you ride? You'll have to ride.” Which seemed the stupidest question possible, though an approach on foot would insult members of the cavalier class.

“Just put me on a good-looking horse.”

“Forget that,” Clej Sedlakova said. “Send the one-armed man, Boss.” Pella used a hand to conceal a smirk. The sneak.

“The one-armed man's gesture is appreciated but the job calls for someone who can carry a banner and steer a horse at the same time.”

To which Pella said, “I'll carry the banner. Or the olive branch. He can do the talking.”

“All right. Clej, remind them that Anselin is all we're interested in. They hand him over, we go away. They don't, we take him. But say it politely.”

Hecht ground his teeth as Pella and Sedlakova rode off. Hagen Brokke muttered something about the boy growing up.

The encounter was brief. The locals were not demonstratively antagonistic. Sedlakova headed back. Pella lagged a moment. Hecht grumbled, “I hope he didn't just say something obnoxious.”

Sedlakova did not bring good news. “The interpreter says everybody but the King is willing to give Anselin up but Stain has been more strange than usual, lately, and refuses to cooperate.”