"But Morcant Farfog's murder..."

"Will cause a lot of trouble. How much depends on our next Patriarch."

Hagan Brokke reclaimed his honor in a series of fierce little engagements that stripped Queen Isabeth and Duke Tormond of their mercenary strength. His light cavalry hara.s.sed Isabeth's Direcians continuously, deliberately targeting one knight or n.o.ble at a time. Because they were who they were, each death or capture would have a significant impact in Direcia.

The Queen of Navaya withdrew to the shadow of her brother's capital city.

From elation about events in the west Piper Hecht fell into a depression over news from the east. Count Raymone Garete had resumed his stubborn defiance, with a more punishing daily cost now that Bronte Doneto had gone. Piper Hecht reviewed the whys and wherefores. What strange, small change had reanimated the Count's stubborn insolence?

"Those prisoners Brokke brought in," t.i.tus Consent said. "Some got away, probably with help, while we were running in circles because of Farfog's murder."

Hecht scowled. He grumbled a question about who he needed to have stoned or drowned.

"That would be a waste of time and emotion. Focus on those who didn't get away. Bernardin Amberch.e.l.le, for example."

"Tell me."

"Count Raymone's cousin. The man we thought he wanted back when he showed a willingness to talk. But he's gone back to being stubborn while Amberch.e.l.le is still down in the prison pens."

"Uhm? What changed?"

'The old man and the girl who came with Amberch.e.l.le," Consent said. "I'd bet she's the fiancee we've heard about. An upcountry girl who stole Raymone's heart. Socia something. Who is supposedly chaperoned by the Grand Masterest of all Maysalean Perfect Masters."

"And that would be the grayhair." The Captain-General did not finish. "You exult over little triumphs while big defeats sneak up."

Patriarchal crusaders now owned the eastern half of the End of Connec-excepting only Antieux. They threatened Khaurene from three directions. Lesser forces, featuring impa.s.sioned Society brethren determined to see Archbishop Farfog's great vision fulfilled, had begun probing the Altai, discovering the incredible mountaintop fortresses of the Maysalean heretics. And snow choked much of the rural world, not only in the Connec but in Tramaine, Ormienden, Grolsach, Arnhand, and even much of Firaldia. The Grail Empire was blanketed. Artecipea saw heavy, temporarily incapacitating snows for the first time since antiquity. The war there dwindled into the doldrums of winter. As did wars all round the Mother Sea.

Wherever snow fell there arose dreadful rumors of Kharoulke the Windwalker, the G.o.d before G.o.ds from the age before antiquity. Kharoulke the Windwalker, before whom the great modern Instrumentalities must quail. But Kharoulke needed deep snow, deep ice, before he could supplant the gentler Instrumentalities of the present. Kharoulke needed millennial cold before he could rise above the vague lost deities who had supplanted his kind-before being shoved aside by the powers of today. Those vague lost deities beloved of secret cults devoted to resurrecting the lost lord Instrumentalities of antiquity.

18. Interlude at Runjan in the Reigenwald

The Marquesa va Runjan's sister the Empress insisted that she take up her rights in that remote town in the heart of the Empire's wildest, most remote hill country. Helspeth could not refuse.

The fury of the Council Advisory, of the Imperial court, of the Church, and especially of Empress Katrin herself could be described only as beyond reason. n.o.body told the Princess Apparent how she had rendered herself criminal by opening that sealed mountain pa.s.s.

Almost no one would speak to her, let alone explain. She was a pariah and it might be catching. She was a prisoner now, in all but name, confined to the crumbling hilltop tower overlooking Runjan. The village, in its prime, had produced barely enough turnips, cabbage, and grain to sustain itself, with a small charcoal-burning industry taking advantage of the surrounding forest. Runjan was no longer in its prime. The iron industry had shrunk since Hansel's death, there being less demand for weapons metal. If the smelters were closed there was little demand for charcoal.

The tower had not been occupied since the last lord of Runjan pa.s.sed on, childless, leaving the fief to his beloved Hansel. Its shutters were gone or broken. The drop gate could not be closed. Someone had taken the chain. There was no resident staff.

Helspeth came with a party of eight. Two were cruel old women who hated her. They were determined to punish her. Nothing Helspeth did could ingratiate her. Not that she tried to win them over. She had to work to mask her loathing.

The rest of the party were all one family. Harmer Schmitt. His wife Greta. Their daughter Grunhilde and three sons: Hansel, Fulk, and Fritz. The boys were named for Harmer's favorite emperors, the girl for Greta's great-aunt. Grunhilde was sixteen. And not attractive. The boys were sixteen, fourteen, and nine. Hansel was Grunhilde's twin. Not identical, of course, but every bit as homely as his sister.

The Schmitts were quietly sympathetic toward the Princess Apparent but dared not show it. It was a flawed sympathy, anyway, based more in dislike of the harpies a.s.signed to be Helspeth's warders: the Dowager Grafina Ilse-Janna fon Wistrcz, the harridan mother of the Graf fon Wistrcz, and Dame Karelina fon Tyre, spouse of the Grand Admiral. Neither woman ever liked Helspeth. Both hated her now. It was her fault they had to chaperone her here in her rustic h.e.l.l. The women hated one another as well, and had done so for fifty years. Both were petty and spiteful and had been chosen because they could be counted on to take it out on Helspeth.

Each had her own small household follow her. Just people enough to maintain her in reduced misery. The Schmitts were supposed to maintain Helspeth but often worked for her keepers instead. They put in long hours but failed to make the tower fit for human habitation. Then the heavy snows came. Never warm, never properly fed, Helspeth became gaunt, subject to fits of the shakes and prolonged periods of withdrawal.

She did not expect to see the coming spring.

She wrote letters to the Empress but they came out almost illegible. Not that there was any point to pleading. There was no one to carry the letters away. Even had she been able to get them past Tooth and Fang, as she thought of those horrid old women.

She had felt alone and been afraid in Plemenza. But in Plemenza she had had Algres Drear. She had no bodyguards here, nor any patient ear to bend. Captain Drear had been sent east, to a garrison ever threatened by pagan savages. The other Braunsknechts had been scattered elsewhere. And the girl who was the author of their distress still did not grasp what she had done to earn such draconian retribution.

Ferris Renfrow arrived during a snowstorm. He did nothing to conceal his horror. Saying little, he went out again. He returned with the entire population of Runjan. He started giving orders.

Dame Karelina challenged him. "This isn't any business of yours!" Voice heavy with scorn. Though her own antecedents were questionable.

Renfrow stared into her eyes. She wavered, but only momentarily. She was the wife of the Grand Admiral.

Renfrow said, "Pick up a tool and help. Or go away. If you insist on being part of the problem you'll be corrected with the rest of the problem."

Dowager Grafina fon Wistrcz got hold of the Dame's arm and dragged her away. Still within earshot, Ilse-Janna snarled, "Don't cross Ferris Renfrow! Ever! No good comes to anyone who does that! No telling why he's here. But he will go away."

Renfrow said, "He'll go away. But he won't forget what he's seen."

The villagers got a blazing fire going. Greta Schmitt brought a blanket. She placed it around Helspeth's shoulders, settled the girl close to the fire.

Renfrow stalked around, tossing off orders. Villagers went to work improving and weatherproofing. A single hour's work provided a dramatic improvement.

"Schmitt. Show me the account books." He knew exactly where the harridans would be vulnerable.

Warmth penetrated Helspeth deeply enough for her shakes to subside into an intermittent problem. She surfaced in the present reality for moments at a time. She recognized Ferris Renfrow. And experienced a flood of joy and hope so profound that she plunged into unstoppable crying.

"Schmitt's woman. Stay close to the Princess."

Elsewhere, Dame fon Tyre tried to bully her own small household into evicting Ferris Renfrow from the tower. She refused to hear warnings from the Dowager Grafina. Her people did not. They knew the Renfrow reputation. That had been dark and deadly since long before the accession of Emperor Johannes.

The Grand Admiral's wife had lived fifty-eight sheltered years. She had known little but her own indulgences until Empress Katrin, in a moment of high pique, rid herself of an annoyance by ordering the woman to Runjan to babysit her sister. Making Runjan a cauldron of rustic exile.

In one day's time Renfrow's will made the ground floor of the tower over into what it should have become with Helspeth's arrival. Helspeth stopped shaking before the villagers went away. She regained her composure. Softly voiced, she told Renfrow, "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Princess. You are the heir of empire. What they were doing is unconscionable." He said no more. Helspeth began to understand how deep her danger had been. And might be once Renfrow went away again.

Renfrow told her, "You won't be comfortable, here. You can't be the Helspeth Ege you were before your brother died. But no one will try to make you die by natural causes anymore, either."

Helspeth lost control of her bladder.

Renfrow told her, "I promised your father."

She pulled the blanket around her again and stared into the flames, wanting to go away again. Hansel Schmitt brought more wood. He seemed obsequious. The way people do who want not to be noticed by someone held in high terror.

"Helspeth. Listen. You must must pay attention. Your life could depend on you actually hearing me." pay attention. Your life could depend on you actually hearing me."

Greta Schmitt brought hot broth. Helspeth responded to the aroma with more enthusiasm than she did Ferris Renfrow's voice. Renfrow said, "I'll take some of that myself."

The Schmitt woman's lips tightened and lost color but she held Ferris Renfrow in no less high terror than did her son. When she brought the broth for Renfrow he slipped her a small purse. "Tell no one. Use it on the Princess's behalf. And keep a close account. You may keep a fourth for yourself." He looked her straight in the eye. "Tell no one. Not either of those hags. Not your husband. Not the Princess herself. Understand?" Greta nodded.

In a voice barely audible, Helspeth told Renfrow, "I'm listening. Thank you. For coming."

"I repay my debts. And I do what serves the Empire. Letting the heir to the ermine be murdered by neglect is not in that interest." that interest."

Helspeth eased her grip on her blanket. The ache went out of her fingers almost immediately. The fire had begun to have an effect. At last.

"Listen closely. Your life will improve going forward. But you must not attract attention. Be pliant. Do as you're told. Offer no offense, however unreasonable the dons at Alten Weinberg become. Be your sister's strongest supporter, regardless of your private opinion. Her reign won't be one of the memorable ones. Unless she surrenders to the Council Advisory or she goes completely mad. Which could happen."

She murmured, "Greta put something in the broth."

"Are you listening?"

"I'm listening."

"Good. I'm hoping you've learned something. The lesson being that a princess's actions directly impact many other people."

Tears slid from the corners of Helspeth's eyes as Renfrow reviewed the current situation of her Braunsknecht lifeguards and Lady Hilda Daedal, whose husband had required her to go into a convent. "This doesn't make sense. I didn't do anything wrong."

"Why are you here, then?"

"But..."

"You knew you'd irritate people in Alten Weinberg. Admit it. You could've saved everyone misery by staying in Plemenza while your hired men dealt with the monster. They would've censured you for employing foreigners but you'd still be there. However, you wanted to tweak their noses. In fact, you scared h.e.l.l out of powerful people who saw way too much Johannes Blackboots in Hansel's youngest daughter."

"I know, Ferris. I know. I've thought about that so much."

"On the good news side, you won't be marrying anytime soon. If that's a positive."

"I'm not going to get married, ever."

Renfrow smiled. "As may be. But one more reason you're in bad odor is, your adventure cheapened you as marriage bait. Every court in the Chaldarean world was interested. Your portrait was making a progression from capital to capital. You were quickening hearts. Then word went out that you'd gone off into the wilderness for a month with a band of common soldiers."

Helspeth sighed and drew her blanket around her tighter. Renfrow was getting excited. She had not recovered enough to handle the pressure.

He eased up. "There is a humorous side. One court remained interested. Jaime of Castauriga himself came all the way to Alten Weinberg to meet you personally. Castauriga being under heavy pressure from Navaya, he's in desperate need of allies. When he presented himself to Katrin it was, for her, love at first sight. Despite the age difference."

Helspeth's brain began to move again. "And he wouldn't mind being the consort of the Empress of the Grail Empire."

"Especially after she has a few children."

"When will they marry?"

"Springtime. Ironically, after the Remayne Pa.s.s opens."

Helspeth sighed. "Have the crones heard?"

"They'll be told. The news will ease your situation. And the wedding should mark the end of your exile. Unless you do something else to frighten the councilors."

"I still don't understand all that."

"Certain people have elevated themselves dramatically by orbiting your sister closely, Princess. Most of them Brothen Episcopals. They know the majority inside the Empire are strongly indisposed toward the Brothen Patriarchy. When you show the initiative you did, even bringing in specialist operators, you remind them that you're Johannes's daughter. The Princess Apparent who could step in and change their world."

Helspeth began to get a glimmer. "But I'm not interested, in any of that." She made a soft, squeaky noise as the Captain-General popped into mind.

"Yes?"

"Just a random thought. It startled me."

"I see. Tell me. Have you heard anything I've been saying?"

"Yes." Sigh.

"Katrin's marriage isn't set in stone. Negotiations are still going on. Jaime is making demands that no one on our end will meet."

"So I'm not off the hook?"

"Not till Katrin gives birth to a male heir who survives long enough to have sons of his own."

"G.o.d help me."

"As I said, it should get easier once I speak to your keepers. Then easier still after Katrin weds. That should end your rustication. Behave and you could be back in Plemenza before winter comes round again. In Alten Weinberg at the least."

Sadly, feeling shame, she asked, "And my Braunsknechts?"