Else sat quietly. He waited.

"But from now on you're going to be an agent of the Grail Empire, too. It shouldn't be long before the Emperor releases Princ.i.p.ate Doneto. It looks like the Patriarch will give up trying to wait us out. Things aren't going well for him. He needs Doneto's support in the Collegium.

"I understand that the Princ.i.p.ate plans to keep all of you as part of his lifeguard. With you near him the Emperor could have someone close to one of the men closest to the Patriarch."

Else said nothing.

"Well?"

"And if I decline?"

"Then you'll never leave the Dimmel Palace. You'll never do your Dreangerean masters a lick of good."

Else grunted, unsurprised.

"So you won't forget us as soon as you get out of here, we'll have you sign a contract. We'll give it to the Princ.i.p.ate if you fail us."

Else grunted again. "Tell me about the pay. I won't do it just because you twist my arm."

"You want to get out of here?"

"I told you I'd be your foreigner so I can get out. Once I'm out, I need to make a living."

"The Princ.i.p.ate will be ..."

"He'll pay me for working for him. There has to be balance. The workman must be given his due." Was he being too clever? Although common to most religions, that notion was a p.r.o.nounced favorite of the Maysalean Heresy.

Osa Stile said, "Don't be such a d.a.m.ned skinflint, Renfrow. It isn't your money."

They argued. Was that for show? Was Osa Stile diverting Renfrow from thoughts of Dreanger, Gordimer, and the Sha-lug?

Had he been able, Else would have slipped away. He muttered, "Being a prisoner does limit one's choices."

Ferris Renfrow turned to Else. "Tage. I'm finished with you. For now. You know where we stand. I'll see you again. Be prepared to sign on with the Grail Emperor. You'll be paid well." Renfrow rang a bell.

ELSE MADE SURE NO ONE COULD EAVESDROP. HE TOLD Princ.i.p.ate Doneto, "They're trying to force me to spy for them against you and the Church."

"Tell me."

Else left out little but Renfrow's insistence that he be Else Tage.

"Here's what we'll do. You go ahead and agree. I'll get you a job outside my own household. Cooperate. Build their trust. And someday we'll use that."

"Of course." That was his own plan. Better to let Doneto verbalize it, though. Part of that development of trust thing.

Doneto said, "Go tell tales. I'm sure the others have had offers from that devil Renfrow, too. And service to the Emperor would be attractive to a certain sort."

"Renfrow?" Else asked.

"Ferris Renfrow is the man trying to enlist you. He's one of Johannes's favorites. Baseborn but one of the most powerful men in the Grail Empire despite that."

Else joined Pinkus Ghort, Just Plain Joe, and Bo Biogna. They were working on a cheese and a salami and did not have much mouth to spare. Biogna did ask, "You feeling better now, Piper"

"Some. I don't think they drugged me this time. I'm hungry. Give me some of that cheese." In the nature of things, the salami would be mostly pork. "And give me one of those sausages you're trying to hide, Pinkus." That would be pork, too. But it would be juicy and tasty and about the only thing he would miss when this captivity came to an end.

Scowling, Ghort asked, "What was all that with the Princ.i.p.ate?"

"I was holding him up. The Imperials want to recruit me for a campaign to establish the Emperor's rights in cities that are supposed to belong to him. Bo. Joe. Did you guys tell them something to make me look good? They seem to think they can trust me with my own battalion."

"s.h.i.t." Ghort did not sound happy. "And I was thinking about giving you another sausage."

"What?"

"I'm jealous. They didn't offer me nothing that good. And I did every bit as good a job as you did."

"Better. I've only got three of my guys still in one piece. And the only one of them worth two dead flies is a mule."

"But a real special mule," Bo Biogna said.

"Hey!" Joe growled. "Don't go making fun."

Ghort said, "Calm down, Joe. We all know that Pig Iron is the best man."

Else asked, "So what did they want from you, Pinkus?" He wondered if Ghort would tell the same story twice.

"Mainly, to stick with the Princ.i.p.ate and report back what the Church is up to. Same thing they probably asked everybody to do."

"They didn't ask me," Joe said. "They never asked me much of anything, neither time."

"Me, neither," Biogna grumbled. "Story of my life. I'd a done it. Double pay. An' I got no use for neither side, so let me get f.u.c.kin' rich sellin' them both out to each other."

Else told him, "They probably realized that, Bo. You were probably too eager."

"Yeah. I ain't so bright sometimes."

During the day all of the captives enjoyed a few minutes with the inquisitors. Six of the first twelve men to go did not return. Imperial people came for their possessions. As always, those refused to talk.

"Something's going on," Ghort declared, compelled to state the obvious.

Else grunted. "And they haven't pulled in you, me, Bo, Joe, or the Princ.i.p.ate yet."

"Don't forget Pig Iron."

"I haven't. But they have. You notice, they never question him."

"We ought to complain."

"You go first."

Just Plain Joe was the next soldier taken. He wad back ten minutes later, grinning from ear to ear. "I done it, Pipe. I guv 'em nine kinds a h.e.l.l on account of they don't respect Pig Iron the way they do the rest of the troops."

"Good for you, Joe," Ghort said. "I'm gonna do that myself. Pipe, I figure we're about to get out of here. That's the only way all this makes sense. The guys not coming back are the ones going over to Johannes."

Only Bronte Doneto himself remained to be called again when Else was taken for the last time.

ELSE TWITCHED AND SHRUGGED, UNCOMFORTABLE AND ITCHY in badly fitted formal clothing. He wore it in order to escort Bronte Doneto to an audience with the Grail Emperor.

Pinkus Ghort kept reminding him, "I told you so."

Princ.i.p.ate Doneto was not pleased. Ghort and Else were his only supporting cast. He felt he deserved an entourage. He was a Prince of the Church. He was a cousin of the Patriarch. He had Patriarchs among his ancestors, despite Church policies concerning clerical celibacy.

"We should've brought Pig Iron," Ghort said. "We could've dressed him as ugly as us, no problem."

Else scratched and fidgeted. "Pig Iron would've been more comfortable than I am. And wouldn't feel half as ridiculous."

Doneto grinned, but that flash of polished teeth vanished immediately. The Prince of the Church took over. The Princ.i.p.ate scowled, impatient with this familiar humor.

The Counts of Plemenza had been wealthy. Recollections of that wealth remained, though the Truncella themselves were out of the Dimmel Palace and lived on only in circ.u.mstances so reduced that they could afford staffs of fewer than forty servants.

The antechamber where the three waited boasted silk-upholstered furniture, oil portraits of past Truncella greats, busts that appeared to have survived from antiquity, and a tapestry from the last century portraying a confrontation between Chaldarean crusaders and Praman warriors.

Noting Else's interest, the Princ.i.p.ate reported, "That would be the Battle of the Well of Remembrance. I had an ancestor die in that battle."

"Ah!" A closer examination of the banners portrayed helped.

Sha-lug remembered it as the Battle of the Four Armies, an abomination in which Praman fought Praman, with the Arnhanders aiding the weaker side. At the time the Kaifate of Qasr al-Zed and the Kaifate of al-Minphet were struggling for control of the eastern approaches to the Wells of Ihrian. The Lucidians had help from the Crusader states. The Sha-lug were supported by swarms of Ishoti tribal auxiliaries out of Peqaa.

The battle did not take place near the Well of Remembrance. The westerners named it for the Well because both sides were hurrying to grab it before the other could get there. An unplanned encounter battle took place on the eastern edge of the Plain of Judgment. Thanks to the insanely fanatic Ishoti the situation devolved into chaos. Each side brought more and more swords up to support those already engaged. The epic slaughter swept back and forth until the mercurial Ishoti suddenly lost their taste for blood and ran away.

The battle, by whatever name, was the bloodiest of the long contest for control of the Holy Lands. And the least decisive. It changed nothing.

A year later the Sha-lug and crusaders joined forces to evict the Lucidians from those few territories they had captured after the Battle of the Four Armies.

In the Holy Lands alliances were as fluid as imagination, treachery, and shortsightedness could write them.

Pinkus Ghort said, "Pipe's folks were still pagan when that cl.u.s.ter f.u.c.k went down."

A majordomo type materialized. "His Imperial Majesty will see you now." He bowed slightly to the Princ.i.p.ate.

"Show time." Ghort began to adjust his clothing. He and Else followed the Princ.i.p.ate, two steps behind, flanked out to either side.

The audience hall was unimpressive. It was a room fifteen feet by twenty-something. The only furniture was one heavy wooden chair. That was occupied by a dark, ugly little man. He was dressed as though he planned to ride to the hunt once he got this unpleasant ch.o.r.e out of the way. This was Hansel, Johannes Blackboots, the Grail Emperor, Elector of Kretien, and terror of Sublime V's cohorts.

The Emperor wore black boots. Of course.

Else pegged him immediately as a man determined to live up to the reputation awarded him by rumor. He liked being the Ferocious Little Hans.

At least twenty people crowded the room, mostly men with shields and spears. They lined the walls. A handful of unarmed people surrounded the Emperor. Three of those appeared to be Johannes's children. Two were attractive young women. The third was a thin, pallid boy. The men posed nearest Johannes would be his closest advisers.

Those deserved close study. Particularly the one who was not Ferris Renfrow. But Else could not concentrate. His attention had been arrested by the woman who must be the Emperor's younger daughter, Helspeth.

Strangely, the impact seemed mutual and electric.

Else forced himself to focus. Critical things could happen. A prince of the Church was engaged with the most powerful lord in the west. The future might be shaped here. That ugly little man, Johannes Ege, troubled men as self-confident as Sublime V. Else's next few years would find him-he hoped-intimately involved in the affairs of the Church and all these men.

His attention stole back to Helspeth.

Helspeth was young enough to get away with considering him frankly.

Helspeth Ege was taller than her father by a hand. She was thin by prevailing standards, in Firaldia and Dreanger both. The most desirable women were expected to be more substantial, more rounded. Helspeth was too slight even by the standards of her own people. In the Grail Empire, particularly in the north, women were supposed to have hips and muscles, possibly so they could give birth while pulling a plow.

Helspeth's features suggested exotic ancestry. Her eyes were large and dark. Her hair was almost an oriental black. It fell straight, in a single heavy braid that hung down past her waist. Her mouth was wide and her lips prominent, almost puffy. Her nose, though, was small and pointed. She looked like she might have freckles. The light was not good enough to say for sure, nor to reveal the exact color of her eyes.

Except for the ugly, she seemed very much her father's daughter. Which meant that her older sister Katrin must take after her mother.

Other than being tall and slim, the sisters shared little in appearance. Katrin's hair was blond almost to the point of being white. Her eyes were small, narrow, and appeared to be an icy blue. That hinted at a mean streak. Her mouth was a severe slash, almost lipless and definitely colorless. At a glance, Else guessed that Katrin Ege did not like the world very much and suspected that on close acquaintance that feeling might be reflected right back. Katrin's clothing suggested an austere, inflexible personality. It was of a quality consistent with her station but plain, White, and a very pale, washed-out, misty sort of bluish-green. She could pa.s.s as one of the more exotic strains of Episcopal nuns.

Katrin's gaze swept across Else once, like a moving beam of winter. Then it went away. And stayed away.

Not so Helspeth's interest. Helspeth kept trying to concentrate on her father but her gaze refused to shun Else for long.

He noted, further, that the younger sister was more blessed with b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Seemed to be, anyway. Imperial style did not contrive to flatter women in that arena.

Else could not work out why the girl had such an impact. And she was, really, just a girl. And he was a married man with familial obligations.

And Helspeth Ege was the daughter of an emperor.

The atmosphere in this realm of Unbelievers must have stricken him with a brain fever. He had no business even noticing the woman except as an accoutrement of the Grail Emperor's court.

Bronte Doneto's interview with Emperor Johannes went as those things could be expected to. Plat.i.tudes were exchanged. Not one forthright word was spoken.

Doneto nearly lost control when he learned that the Patriarch had not yet committed to his ransom. "Sublime agrees in princ.i.p.al," Johannes said. "But he just doesn't want to turn loose any money. If he does, his effort to force the Connec to bend the knee will be crippled. Which is the point of the exercise from where I sit."

Hansel ended the diplomatic hot air just that simply. He continued, "I had you brought up from the underworld because my agents tell me Sublime is ready to face reality. That he's pulling the ransom together. Which isn't going as well as he hoped. Most Devedian moneylenders won't do business with a man who says he wants to exterminate them. Odd. Plus, a lot of people in Brothe aren't eager to have you back."

Else concentrated. Personalities and conflicts were of paramount interest. If Collegium members could be bribed, say, it might be possible to avoid war altogether.

The Sha-lug sang the glories of war and worked hard at preparing themselves for it, but, because they knew it intimately, they were not at all averse to pursuing alternatives.

Bronte Doneto said, "Any man who achieves any stature through his own efforts acc.u.mulates enemies. Envy is the most common human failing. You must be familiar with this yourself."

"Indeed I am. You could say that the envy of the Church is at the root of my conflict with the Patriarch."

The Grail Emperor was having fun. He had Sublime V by the short hairs. "So I'm bringing you upstairs, as my guest, until those who love you buy your vote back."

Doneto held his tongue. With obvious difficulty.

Else studied Johannes and his advisers. The Emperor was more than just short and ugly. His frame was twisted slightly. He had a small hump. It was easy to see why someone might not take him seriously. Possibly the other Imperial Electors had counted on his deformities to get him out of the way sooner than later.