by Glen Cook
She should be a terror to the Grand Duke's faction.
Unless she failed to win the allegiance of Ferris Renfrow.
Katrin did not like Renfrow. Helspeth did not know what Renfrow's feelings might be. Ferris Renfrow never revealed himself.
Sometimes Helspeth thought Renfrow was like the Night: a fact of existence. A force of nature. Part of the weather. Always to be reckoned in any strategy.
Ferris Renfrow might be the most important man in the Grail Empire.
And no one knew where he was.
Helspeth Ege stared at the back of the Grand Duke's head, willing him to fall down dead.
As so often happened, the object of her anger failed to respond to her will.
The universe was stubborn that way.
The Emperor dismissed his sisters with the direction that they claim their new possessions immediately. He assigned a small company of Braunsknechts, the Imperial lifeguards, to each. Helspeth thanked God for small favors.
Her captain would be Algres Drear, long close to her father and well known to her. Johannes had entrusted Drear not only with his life but with special missions outside the competence of Ferris Renfrow. Drear was intimately familiar with Plemenza.
Even so, Helspeth wished she could sit down with Renfrow. Renfrow would restore her courage and confidence.
Helsepth tried to talk to Katrin as they returned to their quarters. Katrin refused to speak. Katrin had changed. Katrin was no longer her friend.
Katrin was afraid.
Katrin was a heartbeat away from the throne of the Grail Empire. Katrin was caught in the eye of a growing cyclone of intrigue. Everyone wanted to manipulate or control her. She trusted no one. Not even the little sister who might someday want to replace her.
Where, oh where, was Ferris Renfrow when Johannes Blackboots's girls were in desperate need?
4. Winds of Despair
Brother Candle followed Count Raymone Garete from Caron ande Lette down to Antieux. The Count gave him no choice. He was suspicious of the Perfect Master. He was suspicious of Maysaleans in general, though he had Seekers After Light in his own family. The Count was not a warrior of faith, he was a devout Connecten nationalist who refused to permit outsider mischief in his motherland.
Count Raymone's determination animated Antieux as well. Despite disasters wrought by a succession of corrupt Brothen Episcopal bishops and two invading armies, the city was busy, defiant, and increasingly prosperous. Much of the destruction wrought by the more successful siege had been undone. The cathedral remained as the invaders had left it, ruined by fire, with a thousand dead women, children, old people, and innocents entombed inside. Count Raymone had decreed that the cathedral would become a monument, "Sanctified to the Usurper Patriarch by the blood of those he claimed are his flock."
That massacre would undermine the Church in the Connec for centuries to come.
No one who had not been there ever fully understood how deeply the massacre scarred the survivors.
It was burned black on their emotional bones. And on Count Raymone more than most because he had been unable to prevent it.
He had powerful support throughout the End of Connec.
Duke Tormond failed to understand how much the hearts ol the people of Antieux had been darkened.
Brother Candle said, "I've known Tormond since we were boys. He's not a bad man. He means well. He's just disconnected from everyday reality. Despite his daily opportunities and a suite of advisers." Brother Candle became one of those whenever he visited Khaurene.
Count Raymone snapped, "He's a fool. As well meaning is Aaron of Chaldar himself, possibly, but a blind fool."
The discussion of the Duke's capacities had been occasioned by a letter ordering Count Raymone to appear beforet the Duke to explain his bad behavior. There had been complaints from Sublime V and Bishop Morcant Farfog of Strang.
Brother Candle did not argue. "Sometimes Tormond does act like a man with a sorcerous caul across his eyes."
"I believe it. I'm not going. He wants me, he can send Dunn to arrest me." Sir Eardale Dunn was Duke Tormond's military chieftain, a refugee from Santerin who had not returned when the latest shift in succession fortunes there had made that possible. "I'm sitting right here."
"You sure you want to do that?" Brother Candle meant defying the Duke.
Count Raymone answered a different question. "You're right. I need to get back into the field. My spy in Salpeno says Anne of Menand has started trying to raise another invasion force. She hasn't gotten much support. Yet. Because of the confusion in Salpeno, Santerin is pressing its claims all along the marches. Too many nobles are protecting their own towns and castles to come steal ours."
Brother Candle nodded. He had visited Arnhand last spring. And remained healthy only because local Seekers warned him whenever the Church sent men to arrest him. "True. And they still send their third and fourth sons, and too much treasure, to the Crusader states in the Holy Lands."
Past crusaders had carved a half-dozen small kingdoms and principalities out of the Holy Lands. Those always needed more men and money to keep going. They were not natural entities and were under continuous pressure from the neighboring Praman kaifates.
In Arnhand the crusades were considered a religious obligation. Knights and nobles from elsewhere did try to make an armed pilgrimage once during life, but Arnhanders often went with no intention of returning.
"You need to think in longer terms, young man." Brother Candle was old and respected. He would be given the opportunity to speak. Getting Raymone to listen would be the real challenge. "You have to consider what consequences your choices might visit on you and Antieux both tomorrow and far into the future. Right now, just as a mental exercise, forecast for me some possible consequences of you refusing to see the Duke."
The question did slither into Count Raymone's mind. It began to turn over clods of wishful thinking.
Brother Candle said, "Suppose Anne of Menand assembles another gang of adventurers and, by some misfortune, she recruits a competent captain. Perhaps someone honed on the harsh battlefields of the Holy Lands. Say Antieux is besieged and that Captain is smart enough to expect competent resistance."
"Enough! I get your point, old man. If I refuse the Duke, he could refuse me later." That would not set a precedent. All feudal rights and obligations ran both directions. "Considering that's a situation where he might actually do something. I must be getting old." Count Raymone was on the cusp of thirty. "I have to admit you're probably right."
When Brother Candle departed, dismissed, Count Raymone sent for the Rault family. He had dragged them back to Antieux, too. Brother Candle suspected he had taken a fancy to Socia.
Brock Rault had been included in the Duke's summons.
"This is where I leave you," Brother Candle told his traveling companions. Count Raymone scowled, ever suspicious. The Perfect feared the Count's dark outlook was opening.
Brock Rault grinned. He was excited. This was his first visit to Khaurene. "See you at the castle, Brother." Then his face darkened, too. He liked to point out that Raymone Garete had reason to be suspicious. His city had been attacked. More than once. He had been attacked himself. The Brothen Church kept sending priests to foment trouble in his territories. Hanging them did not dissuade others from coming. And, more than once, he had caught someone close to him conspiring with Sublime's agents.
Brother Candle watched the column wend deeper into the city, destination Metrelieux, castle of the Dukes of Khaurene.
Brother Candle went to the home of Raulet Archimbault, a leader in Khaurene's Seeker community. His eyes watered. He was surrounded by tanneries. Archimbault was a leader in that community, too.
The tanner's daughter, Kedle, admitted him.
"You've certainly grown, child."
She reddened, lowered her gaze. He remembered her bolder, holding her own when Seekers After Light gathered.
"I didn't mean to upset you."
He did not
understand that he was a demigod to Kedle. The Perfect were rare, even here in the heartland of the Maysalean Heresy. Brother Candle thought of himself only as a wandering teacher.
"We didn't know you were coming."
"I had no way to send word."
"You're always welcome, Master."
"Brother Candle. Just Brother Candle. Or Teacher, if you must. Ah. I sense a but. You're here instead of at the tanning shed. I expected your little brother. He can't possibly be working yet. Can he?"
"Yes, he can. I'm not working because we're getting ready for the wedding."
"Whose wedding?"
"Mine."
"But you're just… Well."
"Time does pass, Teacher."
The child always did have a philosophical bent.
"Evidently faster when you're not around to keep an eye on it."
"Well, come in, Master. We'll manage something."
The Maysalean Heresy retained a concept of communal responsibility that had been forgotten by the Brothen Episcopal Church. The same philosophy had animated the Founders but faded as the Brothen rite of the Chaldarean creed aged and became increasingly hierarchical, reflecting the culture around it. When the Old Empire collapsed the Church assumed most of the old Imperial palaces, dignities, and trappings. The Old Empire's ghost lived on-inside the Church bureaucracy.
Kedle's wedding took place on time. Asked to speak, Brother Candle did so briefly, his themes optimism, spiritual vigilance, and tolerance. Afterward, he arranged to spend his nights in rotation between several Seeker families. He did not want to add to the strain on the Archimbaults. The Maysaleans of Khaurene were eager for the status conferred by having him as a houseguest.
Days passed. He heard nothing from Metrelieux.
Evening meetings continued to be held at the Archimbault establishment. Only they had room to accommodate those who turned out to see the Perfect Master.
Ten minutes into the first gathering, Brother Candle knew that Khaurene's Maysalean community had changed.
People were afraid. They had no confidence in the future.
Maysaleans should not fear tomorrow. Tomorrow would come. There was no need to dread it, however harsh.
"What's happened?" Brother Candle asked. "Have you all lost faith?"
Kedle Archimbault stepped in when her elders failed to explain. "The trouble is the Duke, Master."
"Brother," he corrected automatically.
"The Duke is old. And tired. And weak. He's done nothing to keep the Connec from falling apart. His orders seldom make sense and usually make things worse. No one outside Khaurene pays much attention anymore. He won't enforce his will."
Similar complaints could be heard everywhere. The lesser nobility no longer feared their Duke, nor had much confidence in his protection.
Raulet Archimbault found his tongue. "That's the surface of it, Master. There's also the uncertainty caused by the Duke's bad health and lack of a designated successor."
That was a huge point. Brother Candle hoped Tormond's sister would succeed.
It did not matter what religion you were, nor what class. The passing of Tormond IV would have a profound impact. Because someone would replace him. And that someone's religious views would be crucial. The struggle for the souls of the Connec grew more heated daily.
"Gangs roam the streets," Amis Hainteau said. "Brothen Episcopals, whipped up by monks from the Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy. The Duke does nothing. Chaldareans sworn to Viscesment outnumber the Brothen thugs but hardly ever fight back. The gangs mostly attack Seekers. And Deves and Dainshaus when they find them."
"They looted the Praman church last month," Kedle kicked in. "The only one in Khaurene. They tried to burn it, too. Twenty-two people were killed."
Her mother, with fat arms folded across her chest, said, "And the Duke did nothing. Again. He ignored it entirely."
Brother Candle was baffled. How could the situation have deteriorated so?
Archimbault said, "We're about two outrages short of civil war."
Someone mentioned priests being murdered. Somebody had begun picking off priests who favored Sublime or any of his works.
Someone observed, "War is unavoidable. The Brothens intend to force it."
That fit the common prejudice, Brother Candle was sure. "I should see Duke Tormond soon. I'll prick his conscience." He had little real hope of that, though. The man seemed blind to everything, trapped in a world spun from his own wishful thinking.
Agents of the Brothen Church causing chaos? Why? They were a minority in Khaurene. And across the End of Connec. The border counts whose faith more closely aligned them with Sublime than Immaculate had defected to Navaya, the Santerin dukedom of Tramaine, or Arnhand, already. Navaya's influence continued to wax along the Terliagan Littoral. King Peter did not permit disorder in his realm. Order was what people wanted most.
"We wish you all grace and good fortune, Master," Archimbault said. "But we'll continue to prepare for the worst."
Madam Archimbault said, "My cousin Lettie's son Milias is a varlet at Metrelieux. He sees the Duke all the time. He thinks Tormond is demented. The way really old people get."
Amis Hainteau said, "It isn't badly behaved Brothen Episcopals or the Duke's apathy that worries me. It's the Night I'm scared of."
Brother Candle asked, "There's more bad news?"
Raulet Archimbault nodded. "The Night has begun to stir. It started with mischief. That turned to malice. And now it's getting dangerous to go out after sunset."
"There have been murders." Kedle's manner made it sound like wholesale butchery started up with every sundown.
'Two," her father said. "Blamed on the Night because there wasn't any more obvious explanation."
"Only two," Kedle admitted. "But they were awful. The people were torn to pieces. And parts were missing."
Grim. But ordinary little men, tradesmen, artisans, shopkeepers, were capable of such evil. There were monsters behind a lot of smiling eyes. Quite possibly some of the agents of the Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy.
Brother Candle promised, "I'll find out what's being done."
"Ain't nothing being done!" someone grumbled. An angry murmur followed.
"That may be," Brother Candle said. "But Tormond and I have known each other since childhood. Sometimes he listens lo me when nobody else can get his attention."
Prayers for his success broke out immediately.
Metrelieux, home of the Dukes of Khaurene, stood on a bluff overlooking a bend in the Vierses River. Brother Candle had been in and out many times in his three score plus years. Each time he approached it he thought the place seemed that much nearer surrendering to the seduction of gravity. The old gates would not close anymore. And the same few guards were on duty, now, daily less capable of offering any real resistance to an incursion. No one was there to meet him. He made his way to the privy audience, where he found a dozen others also waiting.
Count Raymone asked, "You take a look at the outside of this place, Brother? The disease has gotten to the stone itself."
Time's bite was even more obvious here inside.
The Raults had not visited before. All they saw was old. Socia Rault was angry and exasperated. She had received strict instructions to hold her tongue, both from her brothers and Count Raymone. The Count had enjoyed Socia's company for several days now and had learned to dread the bite of her sarcasm.
She was too young to be concerned by considerations of consequence.
Count Raymone had developed an interest, in part, Brother Candle suspected, because Socia made it ever more clear that she could not be won through flattery and romantic ballads.
The Count was a fair lutist and managed a workmanlike baritone. For a poet and composer, though, he made an outstanding soldier and indifferent administrator.
Still, he tried, demonstrating the same ferocious determination he had shown in dealing both with Haiden Backe and those Arnhanders he
had butchered during the Black Mountain Massacre.
Socia did appreciate his effort. She understood determination. She was determined herself.
Or just bone stubborn if you consulted her brothers.
Brother Candle socialized and observed for half an hour before Tormond's chief herald, Bicot Hodier, materialized, embarrassed. "My apologies, Master. I didn't think you'd arrive on time. Come with me, please."
Hodier led Brother Candle to a small, chilly sitting room with no proper furnishings and no refreshments. It was unpleasant and lonely, not unlike the anchorite's cell it resembled. Moisture collected on the cold walls, then dribbled down to puddle on the floor. The chill was too deep for mold or mildew.
He waited an hour, pacing more than sitting on the room's one damp stone bench. Shivering. His patience waned, a weakness he had not suffered since his ascension to Perfect status.
"Is it getting to you, too, Brother?"
He turned, confessing with a nod, though unsure what «it» might be. "Sir Eardale?" He pronounced it "Ey-air-da-lay," which was nearer the Santerin than most managed.
"Yes. And you want to know why me and why this."
Brother Candle exercised his nod again. Sir Eardale Dunn was not the man he expected to see. Dunn was Duke Tormond's top soldier and adviser. The Perfect Master wondered why he did not return to Santerin. He must like his life here, despite Duke Tormond's tendency to ignore his advice.
Sir Eardale said, "This room is proof against sorcery. The stone came from the Holy Lands, quarried near one of the veils of power. You waited so long because I wanted to make sure nobody noticed me."
"I see." Though he did not.
"No, you don't. Not yet. But I'll explain."
"Please do."
"Something bad is happening here. The Duke hasn't been himself. Not for a long time. Lately, though, he's been getting worse. It's like a wasting disease of the spirit."
"He isn't young anymore." Tormond was just weeks older ihan Brother Candle.