by Glen Cook
Else shook his head. It was impossible. The boy he remembered would be twenty years old by now.
ELSE ON THE HILLSIDE, AMONGST THE VINES. HE STARED DOWN AT ANTIEUX but not see it. He was thinking about that boy. That boy complicated matters.
Antlike comings and goings marked a postern gate on the river side of the city. People went down to the water, then climbed back to the gate. They had been doing so for generations. The path was paved.
Kids from the city were out swimming, in defiance of the besiegers. Else paid them no mind, though something told him he ought to.
What was the catamite’s name? He had heard it mentioned. Serifs’s relationship with the boy was another reason Connectens loathed their bishop.
A dozen men under a flag of truce left the main gate of Antieux.
Else returned to his company.
It took an hour for the deputation to reach the manor house. By then speculation and rumor were rife. The more thoughtful soldiers, having considered the height and thickness of Antieux’s walls, hoped that those men meant to bend their knees to the Church. So there would be no need for fighting.
The lord whose demesne centered upon Antieux was Count Raymone Garete. Count Raymone was a stranger in his own land. He preferred the Duke’s court at Khaurene. At Khaurene there were a thousand intrigues to entice a handsome young nobleman. Nevertheless, perchance, Count Raymone was home for the siege and now headed this delegation. He carried no weapons. His head was bare.
From confrontations in the east, Else understood this to mean that the Count intended to submit. Later, it came out that the leading men of Antieux had decided to yield to most of the Patriarch’s demands. They would submit to the will of the Brothen Patriarchs. They would ban the Maysalean heresy and exile any Seekers After Light who refused to renounce their false doctrine. They would expel those Episcopal priests determined to maintain their allegiance to Immaculate II.
Bishop Serifs, stinking of brandy, rudely interrupted the Count before he could say more than a few words. “Just close your mouth, boy. I’ll tell you what you’re going to do.” He produced a scroll. “These persons are to be arrested immediately and bound over for trial before a tribunal of Holy Father Church.”
Coldly, Count Raymone responded, “The Church does not try laypersons. That is the logical and obvious corollary to the Church’s insistence that secular courts have no right to try ecclesiastical persons.”
That remark shattered Serifs’s civility and self-control. He began raging about grievances so petty that everyone forced to witness his outburst was appalled.
Count Raymone interjected, “What does that have to do with the works of the Church? Or with its rights?”
Four of the men accompanying the Count were Episcopal priests. Three of those were supporters of Sublime V. Until today they had remained unswerving in their support of Serifs simply because Sublime had assigned him.
One priest said, “It isn’t the peoples’ responsibility to harvest your grapes, Bishop.”
A second suggested, “Perhaps if you sent the boy to a proper orphanage those things wouldn’t be written on the cathedral walls.”
The people of Antieux put on airs about their main church. It was large and grand but not a true cathedral, yet they applauded that bit of Serifs’s hubris. Even if most people who lived in Antieux were Seekers After Light or Episcopals who recognized Immaculate II as the True Patriarch.
Grade Drocker appeared at the peak of the bishop’s diatribe. He was angry but did not interfere. He consulted Brotherhood henchmen who had seen the whole show. He sighed, glared, shook his head, but did not intervene.
He was content to let Sublime’s pet idiot make a complete ass of himself. And Serifs piled up the reasons why he ought to be reduced to itinerant brother status and sent to convert the pagans of the Grand Marshes, such a mission being a common fate for truly bad priests.
Count Raymone said, “We came here to submit, in the name of peace, despite our experience of the Brothen Church and its people. Our efforts have been rejected and reviled. Hear me, all of you who serve the Adversary, and especially the usurper Honario Benedocto: Antieux rejects you completely and utterly. Let the Lord Our God look down upon this abomination of a bishop and understand why. Let him examine each of our hearts. Then let Him proclaim where the right of the matter lies.”
Obliquely, Count Raymone had declared war. And had placed the outcome in the hands of God.
As Raymone and his companions returned to Antieux, a hundred minds were hard at work already trying to determine how best to guide the hand of God toward a favorable conclusion. Even Bishop Serifs himself did not fail to notice that all three pro-Brothen priests returned to the city.
Else Tage thought that God must spend a lot of time being amazed by the words men put into His mouth.
“THEY DIDN’T MEAN IT WHEN THEY MADE THEIR OFFER,” ELSE TOLD HIS troops. “They were pretending in hopes that we would go away. Raymone Garete’s family are almost all heretics.” He regurgitated the official position recently articulated by Grade Drocker. He intended to parrot the sorcerer as long as he remained caught in his current role.
He needed time to digest what the folk of Antieux had just tried to do.
No Sha-lug would have yielded an inch, religiously, in similar circumstances. But you would not expect unbelievers to do the same, simply because they were wrong.
Bo Biogna expressed a common sentiment. “Sounds like the smart thing to do, you ask me.”
“Oh?”
“There ain’t twenty guys in this crowd who give a fuck if they worship rocks or snakes down there, Cap. An’ most of them is probably thieves like that fuckin’ buzzard bishop.”
Else nodded. What Bo said was, largely, true.
He glimpsed the pretty blond boy in a second-story window, watching Garete’s party withdraw. Else studied him until he realized he was being watched.
“The idiot bishop’s play toy,” Pinkus Ghort said, following Else’s gaze.
“Yeah.”
“You up for some close-order training? My guys against yours?”
“If you keep your rat-face Berger away from my Pico and Justi.”
“You afraid he’ll hurt them?”
“No. I worry about what Just Plain Joe might do if he figures Berger is bullying them.”
“Good point. I’ve never seen nobody as strong as that Joe. Now what the fuck is going on down there?”
A big clatter and uproar was developing beside the river.
“Ah, damn!” Else swore. “I knew this was going to happen. This is why I make my guys get their water on this side of the hill.”
Water for the camp came up from the river. The manor’s cisterns could not sustain an army. Not even a pathetic little mob like this.
Water carriers from the camp had gotten into it with city youths who were swimming. There were more of the latter than of the former. The situation was a nightmare that found a way to be born.
Younger soldiers camped farther downhill whooped and ran to help the water carriers. Ghort said, “Ah, shit. Here we go.”
Else said, “Bo, go tell our guys I want them to fall in here, right now.”
Ghort asked, “You’re not going to get into this, are you?”
“No. I’ll take them on a march so they don’t get into it.”
“I’d better get mine going, too. Or half of them will end up dead due to their own stupidity.”
The situation developed too fast, and with a mad inevitability. More mercenaries raced downhill. More young men came out of the city. Their meeting became a big street brawl beneath the city wall. Count Raymone Garete was still on the far side of Antieux so was unable to stanch the stupidity of his city’s youngsters. In the vineyards overlooking the town the Patriarch’s authorized Brotherhood officers failed to take notice. They were all inside the manor house, pouting and avoiding the weather.
Else finally figured out what he had missed about the situation down th
ere. While the town boys frolicked in the river and traded insults with the besiegers, hundreds of people were carrying water into the city.
Antieux’s cisterns were not ready for a siege.
Initially, neither side brought weapons to the fray. But it was not long before the mercenaries seized that advantage.
It took only a few killings to panic the people of Antieux.
The mercenaries pressed forward. A seething mob fought around the postern gate, trying to get inside. People inside did not shut the gate. They put up no resistance when the mercenaries began pouring in. Archers on the walls sent a few shafts down, to no effect. The flood would not be stemmed.
Else could not stop his own company from rushing down there once talk of plunder started. Only Bo Biogna, Just Plain Joe, and Pig Iron, of course, controlled themselves and stayed back.
Of Ghort’s company only Ghort himself failed to surrender to the reek of blood on the wind.
Redfearn Bechter finally came charging out of the manor house, demanding, “What the hell is going on? Where did everybody go?” There were not thirty men left in camp.
“Our boys have gotten into Antieux,” Else told him. “I imagine they’re murdering everyone in sight.”
“Who told them to do that?”
“The Patriarch and Bishop Serifs seemed pretty clear on the no mercy stuff.”
“How long has this been going on? Why didn’t somebody come tell us?”
Ghort observed, “Us riffraff aren’t allowed in the house. Unless somebody comes out and invites us. I assume because we might track mud and pig shit all over the parquetry.”
The city was not far enough away for the screaming to go unheard.
“You don’t need to be a wiseass, Ghort.” Bechter hurried back into the house. Soon all the Brothers came outside. Then the bishop materialized. And flew into a rage that worsened dramatically when no one paid any attention to his orders. He knocked one of the Brotherhood soldiers down. Before he could do anything more obnoxious, Grade Drocker arrived.
The sorcerer’s fell stare calmed the bishop. In a moment Serifs announced his intention of finding a horse so he could get over to his city in a hurry. He had properties in Antieux. Somebody had to protect them.
Drocker spotted Else and Ghort. “You. With the attitude. What happened?”
Ghort did as he was told. He explained.
Drocker asked, “Why are you still here?”
“I was told to make war on enemies of the Church, not to murder no women and children. Whether I’m there or here won’t make no difference. You’ve seen this stuff before. These things are like fires that have to burn themselves out. If I stay here—and I ain’t got orders to go nowhere else—I won’t stain my soul with no more sins than it’s got on it already.”
“And you? Hecht?”
“I agree with Pinkus.”
Drocker grunted. “From what I see, you who stayed are men who have seen this beast before. As have I. But I must show my face over there, even so.” That face was in such a state that no expression could be read there. He did seem to be inviting comment, however.
Else did nothing to attract any more attention.
Drocker said, “You men stay here. Protect the Principate. And the bishop’s property. If that’s your inclination. I’ll try to salvage Antieux. But I fear that God has turned His back.”
The moment Drocker was out of earshot, Ghort asked, “Where you figure on heading when we’re done here, Pipe?”
“Uh? I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. Why?”
“I’m thinking there’s a good chance we might be out of work tomorrow morning. We might even be running for our lives.”
“What?”
“There’s a big slaughter going on over there right now. Because them people did something really stupid. And then they panicked. But there’s a lot more of them than there are of our guys. Who are just overgrown kids who don’t really know what the fuck they’re doing.”
“You think they’ll get themselves killed?”
“I think there’s a good chance. I also think that, no matter how it turns out, what’s happening is going to decide how the Patriarchy and the Connec get along from now on. Meantime, let’s go protect Doneto.”
“When did he get promoted? First I heard of him, he was just a bishop who had one foot in the Collegium door. But the sorcerer keeps calling him Principate.” Which was the top title in the Church, after Patriarch. It came from an Old Brothen word meaning prince.
“Drocker came from Brothe. My guess is, Sublime gave him the title figuring it was a freebie because Doneto was going to croak in a few days, anyway.”
“You’re a cynical bastard.”
“Absolutely.”
DROCKER WENT TO ANTIEUX’S MAIN GATE FIRST. HIS PARTY WERE REFUSED entry. The city’s defenders were active there. Pesky archers compelled the Brotherhood soldiers to work their way around to the open postern. They followed the path Bishop Serifs had been forced to take a short while earlier.
Horror reigned inside the city. The invaders suffered wherever they encountered serious resistance. But the defenders were equally inexperienced, were scattered, panicky, and without credible leadership where the actual bloodletting was happening.
Hundreds of dead and dying littered the streets. The butchery was worthy of a historical epic. One of those where the gutters ran swollen with torrents of blood.
The greatest horror occurred in Bishop Serifs’s own cathedral, where more than a thousand of Antieux’s population, Episcopal and Maysalean alike, tried to find sanctuary.
The invaders broke down the cathedral doors and brought the slaughter into the house of the God whose work they were supposed to be doing.
The madness continued elsewhere as well, growing instead of subsiding. The invaders broke up into small bands and raced through the streets in search of easy victims and loot.
Bishop Serifs reached the cathedral while the killing there was still in progress. He made himself beloved of the people of the Connec, of all faiths, everywhere, when he broke down in a foaming-mouth rage over the damage being done to “his” property.
THERE WERE FEW LIVING PEOPLE INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL WHEN GRADE Drocker arrived. Bishop Serifs was among them, though his fat body bore witness that he had been punished severely by someone. His survival was a miracle. Maybe his God did love him.
Fighting continued but began to run out of impetus. The invaders were tending their wounds, looting, or were just too exhausted to go on.
Grade Drocker chose to exercise his right as commander. He sent Brotherhood soldiers out to remind the mercenaries that the distribution of booty was entirely at the discretion of the army commander.
Not the brightest move. He was surrounded by a city inundated in lawlessness. His only protection was a handful of men who did not think highly of him or the Special Office.
Several messengers were assaulted. But the truly awful response of the mercenaries was, in places, a decision to destroy everything if they could not take what they wanted for themselves. They started setting fires.
THE LEGATE DID NOT SEEM SURPRISED TO SEE ELSE, GHORT, AND THEIR companions when they bullied their way past his remaining two bodyguards. He murmured something.
“Drocker told us to guard you,” Ghort said. “The way things are going, it looks like you might need some protecting.”
Doneto mumbled a question. He was drugged, obviously. Even so, his mind was working. He wanted to know what was going on.
Else said, “You explain it, Pinkus. I’m going to look the place over, see if we can defend it.”
He knew the answer already. Thirty men, a mule, two nervous bodyguards, and a smattering of terrified servants who were disappearing fast would not be able to hold out. This house had not been built with defense in mind.
He wanted to find that boy. The catamite should be a treasure trove of information.
The house was vast. And richly appointed. And falling apart. And
empty.
Empty. That struck home. A place this big needed a staff of dozens. But Else saw no one at all above the ground floor. Serifs was too miserly to employ an adequate staff.
Else found the bishop’s personal quarters. The concentration of comfort and wealth there was astonishing.
Candles burned there already, though it was not yet dark. They were beeswax candles, too. The most expensive kind. They did not dispel the darkness completely. There were curious little twitchings in the corners that revealed an uncomfortable truth. Bishop Serifs had some small communion with the Instrumentalities of the Night.
They were not big enough or powerful enough to be threatening, but they were there. The Instrumentalities of the Night were always there. The wise man never forgot that, not for a moment.
Else made no noise as he drifted through the apartment until he found a room where a small, slim form stood framed by a window, watching Antieux burn.
“Osa.”
The boy jumped as though slapped. He spun, looked for somewhere to run.
“There’s no way out.”
The boy eyed him more closely. “Captain Tage.”
“Piper Hecht is the name.”
“What’re you doing here in the Connec?”
“The Lion sent me to spy on the Chaldareans. What’s your story? You were eleven and top boy in the Vibrant Spring school last time I saw you. That was eight years ago. But you’re still eleven.”
“The Lion sent me, too. After I spent half a year in er-Rashal’s hands. My body won’t ever look any older than it does now.”
Else nodded. The Osa Stile he remembered was extremely bright and totally fearless, though he did not know the boy well and did not give it a second thought when he disappeared from the Vibrant Spring barracks. That happened.
“And you’re supposed to do what?”
“Create chaos and dissension so the Chaldareans can’t put together another crusade. I’ve been doing pretty well.”