Working God's Mischief (46 page)

Both girls made faces, then turned sideways.

Anna said, “You really do presume.”

“Not at all. Let's go into the kitchen. I'll show you how they prepare roast chicken in Alten Weinberg.”

“I don't have a chicken to roast.”

“Damn! And the kids aren't home. Whatever will we do?”

*   *   *

“How many people knew I was here?” Hecht demanded of Titus Consent. “How is it possible that, the morning after we arrive, I have a request from Addam Hauf for an interview?”

Titus was pale, frightened by Hecht's rage. “I don't know! But lots of people would know as soon as we turned up. Noë and the boys. Anna. Your girls. Muniero Delari and the people at his house. And anyone watching any of our houses.”

“Enough. You're right. It doesn't have to be malice.” He suppressed his anger. “Definitely not your fault. The Brotherhood didn't send the invitation to you.”

“What will you do?”

“Ignore it. I don't have time. Even though I do owe Hauf for looking after Anna during the troubles.”

“You might put your ear to the ground for a few minutes.”

“What's happened?” Instantly sure that something bad must have.

“Not what you're thinking. Mostly foolishness. Like Pinkus Ghort talking Charity into sending an all-Brothen battalion to the Holy Lands.”

“He did that? And, Charity?”

“Your friend Saluda finally picked a reign name. The news from Arnhand tipped him.”

“That silly ass Pinkus. He didn't want to be left out so he worked his way around me.”

“I expect he'll be waiting when we get there. Him and a clutter of others who took the sea route because you wouldn't let them come with you.”

“He's gone already?”

“Four days ago. With three hundred forty veteran infantrymen, fifty-four horses, plus carts, wagons, and five falcons.” Titus named Ghort's leading lieutenants. They were men Hecht knew.

“How can you know all this? I'd bet you haven't been out of bed twenty minutes since we got here.”

“Your opinion of my prowess is welcome but too generous. You're right. I haven't been out of the house. But I was your spymaster for a while. Mrs. Spymaster doesn't get noticed when she's out. She hears a lot.”

“I understand.” He could not picture timid Noë deliberately eavesdropping. Nor was he comfortable with Noë knowing so much about her husband's business.

“Change of subject, Titus. Am I arrogant? Am I a controlling know-it-all?”

“You want an honest answer, Boss? Or the one you're going to like?”

“I think that says it all, right there.”

“Not entirely. You're on your way but you aren't there yet. You still listen. You take advice occasionally. But are you controlling? Absolutely. In a huge way, and getting worse every day.”

Hecht stifled his emotional response. “Go on.”

“When we started out you picked people you thought could do jobs, gave them those jobs, then got out of the way and let them do their jobs. You don't do that anymore. You're always leaning over somebody's shoulder.”

There was a reason for …

Exactly the reason he had heard from every out-of-touch senior officer who ever annoyed him by butting in to micromanage.

“Boss?”

“Give me a minute, Titus. I just suffered a bleak epiphany.” He reflected for another fifteen seconds. “I've turned into what I loathed when I was a junior officer.”

“The old veterans say you're not that bad. Yet. If that's any consolation.”

“It's not, but it's noted. Could it just naturally evolve as we advance and get older? A squad is a team. The squad leader is first among equals, the experienced guy who makes good decisions fast. The next level is like that but four or five times bigger. Once you scale it up a couple more steps, though, you're where you don't know everybody. The mutual trusts begin to break down.”

“Boss?”

“Musing out loud. Working out why these problems are inevitable. There's a tipping point somewhere. On the down-below side you trust nobody in charge because they obviously have no idea what the man at the point of the sword is facing. On the up side you can't trust any of those lazy fools down there to do what you need to get done.”

“Interesting,” Consent said. “I would think that a thoughtful man who didn't start at the top by right of birth would reach that tipping point later.”

Hecht grunted, alarmed that he was not the ideal commander that he knew he would become back when he led the band that brought the mummies out of Andesqueluz.

Consent said, “Unlike any commander before you, you have the added ego-feeding burden of the Shining Ones.”

That took time to sink in. He was not taking full advantage of the Old Ones? No. Of course he was not.

Hecht told Consent, “Titus, I'm slipping but I haven't surrendered to the Will of the Night. Not yet.” He thought for twenty seconds. “I could be so much more—of what I'm not sure—if I made better use of the Shining Ones. I bet they mock me when they're with each other.”

“Boss, they don't think that way. They're eternals. That kind of thinking is petty. Meaning mortal.”

“All right.” Hecht thought the Old Ones could be more petty than most humans, considering the myths and folklore surrounding them.

He and Titus were in Anna's drawing room. Anna was in the kitchen. Otherwise, they were alone. Unless … Hecht was tempted to summon the Choosers, just to see if they would come.

Titus said, “Much as I have enjoyed it, this visit wasn't a good idea.”

“Titus?”

“The Master of the Commandery knows you're here. He knows you didn't ride in or sneak in on foot. He'll have Special Office help to pry.”

Possibly. But Titus was not taking into account a mundane person's disinclination to believe in the things of the Night, in any practical sense.

Hecht said, “The Special Office has kept a low profile for years.”

“Had to after they got caught doing what they were doing.”

“Those were rogue Brothers.”

Titus nodded. “Of course. Only a handful understood that they were doing the Adversary's work. The rest just did what they were told.”

Hecht had fallen out of touch with all that. The Brotherhood of War and Special Office had been only marginally involved in his campaigns as Captain-General. They had only a small presence in the Grail Empire. God's warriors there belonged to the Knights of the Grail Order. The Grail Order carried God's wrath to the pagans of the east.

“Why are we worrying about this, Titus?”

“
We
aren't. You are, because Addam Hauf has shown that he may have supernatural resources.”

“Right.”

Hecht had options. He could send one of the girls to spy. Or he could send the Choosers. He would do that only in extremity. Hauf was not his enemy.

“You look nostalgic.”

Hecht started. His thoughts had drifted to Helspeth.

“Now you look like you got caught with your pants down.”

“Titus!”

“Just reporting what I see, Boss.”

“Addam Hauf. Advise me. Should I see him?”

“He thinks his reason for seeing you is important enough to give away the fact that he has a supernatural connection.”

“I wonder what that could be.”

“He's sure to let you know. Isn't he?”

“Titus, you are, truly, a pain in the ass at times.”

“We don't have a slave to whisper in your ear so I have to remind you that you're only a man. So far.”

“So far?”

“That dimwit Asgrimmur managed to ascend. In a non-pagan land, in a non-pagan time. Look at the connections you have.”

That was not a fate that appealed to Piper Hecht, Else Tage, or Lord Arnmigal. He was no pagan, however much he consorted with pagan Instrumentalities. Right now he owned no god at all, saving Helspeth Ege.

Anna broke his reverie by appearing with tea and a light lunch. She was so cheerful Hecht's guilt became self-loathing. “Principaté Delari is hosting a reception for us tonight. Titus, bring Noë and your children. The girls will be there. They dote on your boys. Piper, you can see Addam Hauf there. He can visit Principaté Delari without causing comment.”

“Anna, once again you show me why I count on you. You think and create while I fuss, worry, and waste time.”

“I do what I can.”

Her response surprised him. Her tone was just short of sullen.

Titus felt it, too. He finished his tea. “Will the Principaté send a coach?”

Anna brightened slightly. “He will. Be here before the seventh hour. We'll ride over together.” She gave Hecht a hard look.

Did she know about Helspeth?

No. Her attitude had to be a reflection of his own. “Titus, we'll see you then.”

“All right. How will you get your invitation to the Master of the Commandery?”

“I'll think of something.”

*   *   *

Titus was gone. Hecht felt oddly distraught. He could not articulate his malaise.

His loathing for Piper Hecht grew.

As Anna cleared lunch's leavings, he said, “I get the feeling you aren't happy with me. What did I do? Or not do? And what can I do about it?”

She startled him by stepping close and pulling him into a gentle embrace. “There isn't anything you can do, Piper. The problem is mine. My wishes have outstripped my expectations, and those exceed the most generous whims of reality.”

Hecht had to admit, secretly, that he had no idea how the female mind worked.

Titus might be right. This visit might have been a mistake. Maybe he was supposed to leave this part of his life behind.

He could not. Abandoning Anna would mean abandoning Lila and Vali, too. It would mean turning his back on the Ninth and Eleventh Unknowns. It would mean leaving Heris behind. It would mean giving up the only family he ever had.

Heris, surely, would tell him to go to hell, even if the others tried to be understanding.

“Piper?”

“Anna, coming here may not have been the best thing to do.”

“Piper!”

“I was almost at peace with being separated. Now I'll be in torment all over again.” He
would
miss Anna. Anna Mozilla was the personification of home and hearth, always back there behind him, wherever he went. Anna Mozilla was the sure retreat, always waiting.

He was a selfish man. “But I'll get through it again. It's only one more year. Then there'll be no more crusades.”

“So you'll just walk away from being a Grand Duke?”

“It isn't a real title. Well, it is, but without the powers and responsibilities. I get to use the revenues to pay for the Enterprise. If I don't walk away afterward Katrin's family will probably kill me.”

“People haven't had much luck doing that, have they?”

“It only takes once. What do you think of Addam Hauf?”

“A true gentleman. That's unusual in a member of the Brotherhood. But he is merciless toward God's enemies.”

*   *   *

Muniero Delari's coach was crowded by two couples and three children. Only three? The Consent spawn seemed like several more.

Noë Consent was radiant. Quiet and shy, she never called attention to herself. Hecht was surprised that she had become such a beauty. He told Anna, “Coming back was definitely right for Titus.”

“It was right for us, too. Whatever you think.”

That was wise old earth goddess Anna Mozilla talking. She was an Instrumentality in her own right, to Piper Hecht.

“I bow to your feminine wisdom.”

“There is no need for ridicule.”

He turned on Titus. “Mr. Consent. You're an old married man. Can't you keep your hands to yourself?”

Noë turned beet red but Titus said, “I could, but why waste time? I have to compress a year's worth into a two-day window.” Unrepentant. And far from being as publicly demonstrative as Hecht's challenge suggested. Three children were underfoot, after all.

Actually, they were more present than underfoot. Only the infant was not hanging out a window, awed by the city as seen from a carriage.

Anna said, “I believe that was, in the lexicon of the soldiering trade, a diversion. Worry not, Piper. It worked. We're here, now.”

True. Muniero Delari's man Turking opened the door. He put a portable step in place, then began handing the ladies down.

Anna went first. She left Hecht with a look that told him he was not as clever as he thought.

Principaté Delari himself came out to greet his guests. Hecht got the feeling his grandfather was putting on a show. He looked around for the target audience. Was Delari using him in some political scheme?

Heris and Cloven Februaren came outside, too.

Hecht felt a sudden chill. He turned. The light of an almost full moon revealed a dark silhouette atop one of the Old Empire triumphal columns that dotted Brothe. Most of those had lost the figures that topped them. This was one such.

The figure there now spread fifteen-foot wings.

“Message received.” His dire guardians were with him.

The Ninth Unknown, he noted, had missed nothing.

Muniero Delari enveloped Anna in a huge hug. “So wonderful to see you, dear woman. You have become a stranger.”

“An anchorite, of sorts,” Anna admitted. “It's age, I think. Most days it doesn't seem worth the trouble to leave the house.”

Hecht detected a note of melancholy.

He started to shake the Principaté's hand but the old man swept him into an embrace. He held that for a moment, then turned to the house with Hecht and Anna to either side. “I'm hearing amazing things about you, Piper. Amazing things. Let's get inside, away from the bugs.”

Vali and Lila waited inside. So did Hourli and Ferris Renfrow, engaged in idle chatter.