Lord of the Silent Kingdom (11 page)

The Durandanti rider had stumbled into the Knight of Wands, paler than ever, deeply frightened. With a big bruise on his forehead. Ghort observed, “That’s a man what ain’t used to being out in the country after dark.”

“Sshh. Let’s don’t make him stop thinking we’re headed for Plemenza.”

The one-eyed man braced Hamil. Hamil could not show him coin or anything else of value.

“You robbed him?” Ghort asked.

“Sure did. Didn’t want him thinking we’re honest folks on a mission.”

“Good for you. There he goes.”

With help from the one-eyed man, who shoved the pallid Sonsan back into the darkness. Hamil protested all the way, invoking Don Alsano Durandanti.

“Think One-eye just made a booboo?” Ghort asked.

“Depends on how much the Don backs his troops. Uh-oh. Here’s real trouble.”

“What?”

“That dark corner over there. There’s a guy in there. He wasn’t there when we moved over here. I didn’t see him slide in. He’s wearing a pilgrim’s robe. Catch him when the scullery boy throws the next load of wood on the fire.”

Silent minutes passed. The boy who had been caulking earlier brought firewood to beat back the chill of the night. The fire flared briefly.

“Well,” Ghort murmured, “was I a betting man, an’ I been known to lay one down now an’ then, I’d put money on that fellow being Ferris Renfrow’s ugly twin.”

“Maybe his evil twin?”

“I’d say Renfrow is the evil twin. Interesting, though. You think he’s involved?”

“My guess? Only obliquely, if at all.” Ferris Renfrow and his masters in the Grail Empire had no cause to murder the Patriarch’s Captain-General. “I’d guess it’s coincidental. This would be a natural gathering place for conspirators.”

Ferris Renfrow did as they did. Sat in the shadows and watched. Hecht and Ghort picked out three men they felt deserved closer scrutiny.

Time rolled on. And on. Ghort muttered, “I wish that asshole would give up and go to bed. It was a long fuckin’ day. I need some shuteye.”

“Uhm.” Renfrow seemed to be paying them no heed. Hecht did not believe he was unaware of them.

Their shadows were deeper than his, though.

Hecht began to feel the weariness, too.

“What’re you doing, Pipe?”

“Going to see what he does when he recognizes me.”

“Is that smart?”

Hecht shrugged. He crossed the room, stepping over and around sleeping men and men who had enjoyed too much of the heavy, dark, foul beer brewed by the Knight of Wands. Renfrow appeared disinterested at first, then started and swore, “Eis’s bloody ass boils! What the hell are you doing here?”

Hecht settled beside the Imperial. “The very question I asked myself about you.”

“I’m here on my lord’s business.”

“And I as well. With an added touch of the personal.”

Renfrow contained his shock. “You’re outside your home territories.”

“Outside the Emperor’s, too. Might be Sonsan.”

“The Counts of Aloya, theoretically. But they haven’t been seen since you and I were pups. Nobody’s moved in because that would be more trouble than leaving the territory to rot.”

Which would lead to banditry and chaos, eventually. Of course.

“I’ve had a long day. I just wanted you to know I’m here.” Hecht headed for his quarters before Renfrow could respond. Ghort stayed where he was.

“He left right after you did,” Ghort reported. “He looked like he’d had a major shock. I don’t think he recognized me.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. Who’s always around when I’m somewhere?”

“Go teach granny to suck eggs. Put the kids on him. He won’t expect them.”

Hecht nodded. “Warn them. So he doesn’t see the connection right away.”

Ferris Renfrow did not turn up next morning. Hecht asked a few questions but soon stopped. Questions about fellow guests were not well received. He assumed questions about himself would find equally small favor.

Renfrow did not reappear till the ownership opened the evening pot.

Prepared meals could be had any time but cost extra. Budget-minded guests lived out of the bottomless porridge and goulash pots. The ingredients of the latter varied according to what leftovers from custom cookery were available. One had to beware small bones.

Renfrow drew a portion and retreated into the same shadows as the night before.

Hecht had assumed his place in his own dark clot a half hour earlier. His day had been unproductive. The children had discovered nothing — though they did feed his suspicions of the men he and Ghort had tagged as probable villains. They were from farther north or west, by their accents. They had horses stabled behind the inn. The stable boys had been paid to keep their tack ready for instant use. They prayed a lot. Pella considered that the most damning thing about them.

Hecht told Pella to arrange for some of that tack to disappear.

The suspects did not seem unusually wary.

Sometime during their second morning there the Knight of Wands began to buzz. A Grolsacher mercenary force, supposedly armed with letters of marque from Sublime V, had come to a bad end in the Connec. Only a handful survived — by running faster than Count Raymone Garete could chase. One survivor was a dastardly coward of a bishop, Morcant Farfog of Strang. The band’s captain, Haiden Backe, had been among the first to fall. Prisoners willingly betrayed the Patriarch’s role in their bad behavior. Documentary evidence had been thin in the Grolsachers’ camp, however. The actual letters of marque had vanished. Of course, they were extremely valuable instruments.

Ghort whispered, “Your boss is a raving madman, Pipe. What the hell was he thinking? That Raymone Garete was one of the guys who made the Calziran Crusade work. What kind of gratitude is that?”

“Typical gratitude. The gratitude of kings. Sublime has never been out of Brothe. He’s never been outside his tiny little clique of family and associates. He only hears what they think he wants to hear. He honestly believes that most of the world thinks just like he does. That they’re longing for a champion who’ll lead them into the fray. He thinks big things will go his way because little things have ever since he was in diapers. He’s absolutely convinced of his divine right and of Patriarchal Infallibility. I don’t think there’s any way to scrape the scales off his eyes. I’ve tried. Though I never get close enough to actually talk to him.”

“People like that mostly end up prematurely dead.”

“Now we know why Sublime and his gang weren’t worried about money.”

“Plundering the heretics was always part of his plan.”

“It won’t work out any better in the Connec than it did in Calzir. There’s a lot of wealth there. That country has been peaceful for so long. But most of the wealth will get destroyed or disappear during the getting.”

“Shit,” Ghort murmured. “This news is gonna get back to Brothe before we do. Our asses are gonna be in a sling when they can’t find us.”

Hecht thought so, too. There would be a lot of running in circles, screaming and shouting, once this news reached the Mother City. Though it should not have much practical impact. “We might’ve made a bad career move, sneaking off.”

“Maybe this guy will give us a job.” He meant Ferris Renfrow, who was headed their way.

Renfrow said, “You’ve heard the news from the Connec.”

Hecht nodded.

“You should know that while the results delight me, neither the Emperor nor I contributed to Haiden Backe’s embarrassment.”

“That makes it all right, then.”

Renfrew grinned. Hecht had not seen that before. “Sublime … No. Mustn’t show disrespect to the Father of the Church. But I have to wonder about a man who’d hire Grolsachers — and Backe in particular — after all the disasters involving those people the last ten years. It’ll be a fearsome hard winter in Grolsach, for sure.”

Ghort said, “He hired Haiden Backe because he couldn’t find anybody else stupid enough. Never minding Sublime’s genius. Grolsach is terrible. Not so bad to be from, though, on account of nobody expects a lot from you.” More to himself, Ghort muttered, “Any Grolsacher tries to change their luck, he screws up and it just gets worse.”

“Spoken like a man who knows whereof he speaks.”

“Smart guys get out and find work somewhere else. Which helps them and Grolsach both because then there’s fewer mouths to fill.”

“If the smartest people emigrate, what does that say about those who don’t?”

Ghort shrugged. He did not know Ferris Renfrow. He did know the man’s reputation. The Imperial fancied himself the cleverest man around. And liked to show it in pointless debates.

Renfrow turned to Hecht. “You’ve got a couple of kids you’re towing around. How come?”

“Cover. Plus, somebody has a soft streak.” He nodded at Ghort. “Says one of them reminds him of him.”

“Ugly kid?”

“First shot. They have their uses. Eyes and ears. Though the smaller boy is a mute.”

“You came from Sonsa.” Not a question.

Hecht nodded. Renfrow knew.

“What’s going on there?”

“We weren’t there long.”

But long enough to collect a couple of street urchins, Renfrow said with his calculating gray eyes.

Ghort said, “The dump’s a ghost town. I expected more people and more business. Guess they ain’t never recovered from the Deve uprising.”

“Perhaps.”

Hecht knew Renfrow wanted to keep talking, but every question he asked revealed information as well.

Which was why, in turn, Hecht did not ask about Vali Dumaine.

If anyone did know that story, Renfrow would.

So Hecht asked, “How much support will Lothar give the Duke of Clearenza?”

Renfrow chuckled. “What will the Patriarch do in response to fon Dreasser coming to his senses?”

Hecht smiled back.

Renfrow saw something that interested him. Startled and disturbed him, perhaps. For a flickering instant.

“He wouldn’t have delusions of …”

“Plenty,” Ghort said. “Illusions, too. He’s loony as a band of rock apes on fermented fruit.”

What did that mean? Hecht said, “We wouldn’t be here if he was serious about that, would we?”

Renfrow grunted, headed out the front door.

A man went out after him. Hecht said, “That would be the man he hoped we wouldn’t notice.”

Ghort agreed. “Yes. And now I’m curious. Because that was Lyse Tanner.”

“Don’t know the name.”

“He’s from Santerin. One of the ones who ran out after their last succession squabble. He tried to get a commission from the Patriarch. His brother is a bishop. He didn’t get the job.”

“So he went to work for the Emperor?”

“He was probably on Renfrow’s payroll first. Let’s keep an eye on him. See who his associates are. If he brought any. Think Renfrow knows we caught it?”

“He won’t assume we didn’t, I expect.”

“Pipe, I’m getting a little anxious. Things are going on around us. And we ain’t got a clue what they are.”

“That’s the story of my life. I’d be worried if I thought I was getting on top of everything.”

Hecht and Ghort were eating supper with the children when the deserters arrived. “That’s them,” Ghort whispered. He handed his bowl down to Vali, who pushed it under the bench. She was more relaxed but had not yet spoken. Ghort stared at the floor, letting the shadows disguise him.

Hecht whispered, “Pella. The men who just came in. Go outside and wait for them to come back out.

Keep track. Don’t be obvious.” He glanced over. Ferris Renfrow had not yet crept into his evening shadow.

The children headed out the back way, Pella blathering about outhouses. Nobody paid attention. The brats had become furniture already.

“And now?” Ghort asked.

“And now I wish I’d had Pella go eavesdrop.” The newcomers had begun by questioning the one-eyed man. If he had a name Hecht had yet to hear it. One-eye indicated one of the men Hecht had picked out earlier. The newcomers interrupted his before meal prayer.

The seated man was not pleased.

Hecht said, “He didn’t want them to find him in here.”

Ghort asked, “You dug out anything that you haven’t told me yet?”

“They pray a lot. That one told the redhead serving girl that he’s a priest. From Ormienden. He didn’t say from where.” Sublime’s backers in parts of Ormienden were savage fanatics. Immaculate’s were less determined but more numerous.

“Your basic godshouter is a shifty weasel, whatever his spiritual poison. But that guy and his pals look a little more so than usual.”

Hecht thought so himself. But he had found no way to learn more about them.

“Here comes another one.” Another supposed priest. “There’s one more, right?”

The newcomer seemed nervous. The deserters paid no attention.

Ghort related what he imagined was happening. “My boys want their money. They’re anxious to get on down the road. The paymaster is saying, relax. Don’t attract attention. Anyway, it wouldn’t be smart to get back out there on the road. There’s some bad Night things prowling around north of here.”

Which was true. A blood-drained corpse had been found only miles away just that morning.

“My boys don’t care. They’ve worked themselves into a lather, worrying about how awful their lives will get if Iron Bottom Ghort ever gets hold of them.”

“I’d be nervous myself.”

“You’d have reason … Uh-oh.”

“What?”

‘The prayer brothers just sold them some snake oil. The money is hidden outside. The stable, probably.

Some kind of crap like that. They’re going to let the priests take them outside.” The deserters and their interlocutors rose.

“Can they be that stupid?”

“They signed on to set you up.”

“There is that.” That seemed more like overweening optimism, though. “Let’s don’t let them get too far ahead.”

Ghort muttered, “Shit. Timing. Here’s your Imperial pal.”

Ferris Renfrow drifted into his habitual shadow. What had passed between him and Lyse Tanner? Why was he still hanging around? Did he have regular connections at the Knight of Wands?

“They are going out back. The stable or the outhouses.”

“Or the woods behind, if they’re up to any real wickedness.” He thought Renfrow showed a flicker of interest in the four men. Then glanced from them to him.