Hansel's features were more p.r.o.nouncedly oriental that Helspeth's. One of the invading tribes that pulled the Old Empire down must have camped near the Ege family tree.

Johannes had made himself the most powerful Grail Emperor yet. If an equally powerful personality had not resided in Brothe, the Empire might have engulfed the hundred states of Firaldia. The Patriarchy might have become an extension of the Grail Emperor's power.

Interesting times. Two mighty men. Both wanted to be lord of the world, king of kings. Excellent for the sons of al-Prama-until one subdued the other. While they fought, men like Indala al-Sul Halaladin and Gordimer the Lion might purge the Holy Lands of crusader states.

Which would fire the contest between the kaifates of Qasr al-Zed and al-Minphet. And waken the inscrutable ambitions of the Rhun emperors. And, at a remove, there was Tsistimed the Golden and the Hu'n-tai At, the doom now breaking against the far borders of the Ghargarlicean Empire.

The man with Johannes who was not Ferris Renfrow was unfamiliar. Else studied him. The man might have been decoration for all the interest he showed.

Helspeth was eyeballing him again, her interest so frank that Else suspected Ferris Renfrow had rehea.r.s.ed her as a distraction.

Pinkus Ghort's sudden touch startled Else. "Wake up! We're leaving."

What? Had he become that distracted? Apparently so. And the Princ.i.p.ate was not pleased.

BRONTE DONETO MOVED TO AN APARTMENT ON THE FOURTH floor of the Dimmel Palace. His imprisonment was no less real, however. He was given three servants, all of whom could be trusted to report to Ferris Renfrow. He was allowed td keep Pinkus Ghort and Else as bodyguards, though they remained unarmed. They could not leave the apartment except for religious services in a small secondary chapel. Where they saw only the same people they had seen every day since the ambush.

Of those who came to Plemenza with Doneto, nine took service with the Grail Emperor. Two succ.u.mbed to ill health. So, besides Ghort, Else, Bo, and Joe, only three men chose to stick with the Princ.i.p.ate. Two were the last survivors of Doneto's original lifeguard. The other, Gitto Boratto, a Vangelin, was obviously a spy.

The Patriarch continued to procrastinate. His reluctance to pay had no limit. Crucial tasks of the Church remained untended because of deadlocks in the Collegium.

"WAKE UP, PIPE!" GHORT SHOUTED ONE MORNING, LONG BEFORE Else's shift with the Princ.i.p.ate. "We're moving out. The ransom money finally showed up."

"Really?"

"Really. Himself says so."

And well past time. It was spring outside. Else grumbled, "At least we got through the winter without freezing."

Ghort chuckled. He knew perfectly well that Else was sick of Bronte Doneto and even more sick of Pinkus Ghort.

Ghort prophesied, "You may not have to strangle me after all."

Else suspected that, for all he complained about everyone he ever met, Pinkus Ghort had no nerves to be rubbed raw by interminable proximity.

"Maybe. But don't push your luck. What happened? Why the sudden turnaround?"

"Pirates."

"What? You want me to brain you? What's with the cryptic answer?"

"I mean it. Pirates from Calzir are all over the place, suddenly. Raiding both coasts. I'm sure there's a story. But all I've heard is, the raiders are picking on the Church and the Benedocto family holdings."

Piracy was an old-time favorite sport of Calzir's Pramans. At times buccaneering offered better prospects than any more mundane career. At least until the appearance of the Firaldian mercantile republics. Those ferocious capitalists were less forgiving than feeble counts and dukes and kings. The men they sent to scour out the pirates' home villages and harbors were deadly, cruel, and thorough.

Else said as much. "They couldn't be that stupid. Could they?"

"Why ask me? All I know is, we're getting out of here. You want to argue about it, take it up with the Princ.i.p.ate. Or the Patriarch next time you see him. Or those lunatic Calzirans."

"All right. All right. I'm just amazed at humanity's boundless capacity for making stupid choices." How could the Calzirans have grown so contemptuous of reality? Sublime was looking for excuses to preach a crusade. Did they believe that Sonsa, Dateon, and Aparion would look away? h.e.l.l. Maybe they did. The Devedian uprisings, fomented by the Brotherhood of War and Patriarchal agitators, might have made the republics withdraw protection from areas not their direct dependents.

Else asked, "Do you know where the raids were? Only Patriarchal States got hit?"

Ghort shrugged. "They didn't call me into any councils, Pipe. They told me to wake your a.s.s up and get ready to hike. And hike for real, because we ain't getting our horses back. So, if you don't mind, get shaking. I'll get Pig Iron and the boys stirring."

THEY MADE A PATHETIC LITTLE BAND LEAVING PLEMENZA. The anonymous Braunsknechts captain watched from the gateway, as though to make sure they really went away.

There were seven of them. The Princ.i.p.ate, Else, and Ghort. Bo Biogna and Just Plain Joe. Plus Bergos Delmareal and Gadjeu Tifft. The spy who had intended to stick with Doneto, Gitto Boratto, was too sick to travel. Which was a genuine coincidence. Boratto came down with the runs the afternoon before the ransom arrived. Bo thought Boratto's troubles were due to a rich diet that was his reward for spying.

So Delmareal and Tifft were reliable. Delmareal was an exile from one of the smaller Chaldarean kingdoms in Direcia, absorbed by Navaya shortly after Peter became king. Delmareal had no inclination to go home.

Gadjeu Tifft hailed from Croizat, a tiny state on the Creveldian coast across the narrow Vieran Sea, east of Firaldia. The details of his story were protean. Men did stupid, impulsive things when they were young.

Tifft did not seem bright enough to be an agent of the Rhun, though Croizat and all of Creveldia belonged to the Eastern Empire.

No matter. The sh.o.r.es of the Mother Sea crawled with displaced men who, often in some way that they did not comprehend, found themselves far from anyone or anything they knew. They survived by signing on with some warlord.

The Bronte Donetos were always there.

Doneto was in good health now and eager to get home. He pushed as hard as Pig Iron allowed. And Pig Iron was in a mood to put Plemenza behind him.

Pinkus Ghort started grumbling before the first day was halfway done. "Good thing we spent so much time staying in shape, eh? That's paying dividends now." Else was one of few prisoners who had made an effort to stay fit. Ghort was not.

Even the Princ.i.p.ate had to walk. Possibly, Hansel thought, that might inspire him to rein in his natural arrogance.

Only a brace of ancient donkeys had been given the privilege of becoming Pig Iron's a.s.sociates in the transport department.

Doneto wanted to plot against the future. He told Else, "As soon as we get to Brothe, before anybody even sees you, I'm going to set you up with Draco Arniena. He'll take you on because, although he opposes Sublime publicly, in secret he's our ally."

Doneto bubbled with eagerness to plunge into Brother's ferocious political dialogue.

19. Andorayans in Brothe

s.h.a.got and Svavar survived by theft and violence while they learned enough Firaldian to get by. Then they worked their way up the ranks of strong-arm men. They started as bouncers in one of Brothe's more riotous waterfront dives, then became wholesale butchers on behalf of an a.s.sociation of shopkeepers grown weary of paying protection to gangs who did not protect them from other gangs demanding protection money.

They had a miraculous knack for surviving. Their cold-bloodedness intimidated the most hardened Brothen criminals. It took just months to convince a superst.i.tious underworld that they could not be touched but would happily obliterate anyone who even thought about getting in their way.

s.h.a.got learned that producing the monster head while using weapons from the old battlefield in the White Hills left him and Svavar invulnerable. He did not understand why. He did not care. It was sufficient that he was doing the work of the G.o.ds.

The brothers had no trouble being coldly murderous because they were so far out of their own time that they did not see people of the present as entirely human.

This was like butchering chickens. When s.h.a.got could stay awake. s.h.a.got slept up to sixteen hours a day.

Their work came to the attention of Father Syvlie Obilade, who had a special place in the household of the Bruglioni family. The Bruglioni were one of the Five Families of Brothe. They were long-time enemies of the Benedocto. Father Obilade told the brothers they would enjoy an easier, more profitable life if they put their talents on retainer to the Bruglioni.

s.h.a.got had nothing but contempt for Father Obilade. "They're all oil and slime, these Chaldarean priests," he told Svavar. "I'd love to see them delivered to the mercies of the Old Ones. Especially these s.h.i.t-for-brains Brothen priests. All they're interested in is getting hold of power. Their screams would be sweet music."

Svavar did not reply. He seldom spoke anymore. He did what s.h.a.got required of him, however b.l.o.o.d.y, insane, or cruel, while abiding his release from his obligations to his G.o.ds.

The biggest handicap endured by the brothers was s.h.a.got's sleep compulsion. That worsened almost daily.

SYLVIE OBILADE WAS NOT A BLOOD MEMBER OF THE Bruglioni. He was a boyhood friend of Soneral Bruglioni, who would be the Bruglioni chieftain today if he had not somehow managed to swallow a fatal dose of poison during the maneuvering prior to the election of Honario Benedocto. The priest's apparent loyalty now lay with Soneral's brother, Paludan.

Paludan Bruglioni overflowed with rage and hatred. Paludan Bruglioni's whole being revolved around those. All Brothe believed Father Obilade did nothing to soften Paludan's dark obsessions. Indeed, perhaps, he nurtured Paludan's abhorrence of those who favored the Benedocto Patriarchy.

Sylvie Obilade tried to be a good priest. But he had wrestled with his own faith for years.

s.h.a.got and Svavar entered Father Obilade's small, dank room. The stench of mold and mildew beset them. Discarded clothing lay in the corners, damp and decaying, gifts never worn.

The priest never changed his filthy, tattered smock, His personal odors were powerful, too. "Thank you for coming." His voice was raspy, damaged permanently by the mold in the air.

s.h.a.got exchanged glances with his brother. This ragged old skeleton was one of the more powerful men in Brothe. Which was why s.h.a.got had listened when the priest recruited him.

The view is always better from a high place. From a high enough vantage s.h.a.got thought he could see all the way to the man he was supposed to find.

Father Obilade teetered on the brink of his fiftieth year but a lifetime of self-abuse had him looking seventy. He ate only unleavened bread and drank nothing but water. On holy days he rewarded himself by fasting.

s.h.a.got considered him a madman. He rumbled, "You said your boss would pay well. So we came."

Svavar asked, "Have you found out anything about the man we're seeking?"

The priest was puzzled momentarily. Then, "Oh. The mystery man from the orient. No. Not yet. No one knows anything. But Brothe is big and the search is of no urgency to anyone but you. And the hunt has only just begun."

s.h.a.got grunted, tormented by the alien urgency coiled within him. He forced it down. "You have work for us or not?"

The smelly old man twitched. He had moral qualms about what he had been told to engineer.

The Grimmssons did not yet realize that they had been retained only because the Bruglioni family could deny them. And because they could be used up in some scheme down the road, where deniability would be particularly appetizing.

Father Obilade had spent a lifetime deluding himself. But he was not stupid. He knew Paludan Bruglioni did not intend to exploit these foreigners for the glory of G.o.d. But it might be possible that what served the Bruglioni could benefit G.o.d as well. This was the mission Sylvie Obilade set himself daily, to weave his day into the grand tapestry of G.o.d's master plan.

It is an easy intellectual step to the conviction that whatever you do must be part of G.o.d's plan. Justification for villainy knows no intellectual constraint.

s.h.a.got said, "It reeks in here, old man. Why don't you clean this s.h.i.t out?" And, before Father Obilade could respond, "What do you want? You woke me up. So get to the point."

"The Patriarch plans to rectify his weakness in the Collegium by creating new Princ.i.p.ate positions disguised as the presentation of honors to stalwart defenders of the faith."

s.h.a.got snorted. He did not understand Episcopal politics.

"Sublime will nominate three men of three apparently diverse viewpoints one enemy of Sublime, one ally, and one disinterested outlander unlikely to a.s.sume his seat. These seats won't be permanent." Most Princ.i.p.ates served only in their own names, for life. But the Five Families colluded to make sure each clan held at least one seat at all times. You had to be a Princ.i.p.ate to be elected Patriarch. "They'll pa.s.s away when these individuals go to their heavenly rewards."

Again, s.h.a.got snorted. "Why should I care about that s.h.i.t?"

"Rodrigo Cologni has made a secret agreement with Sublime. After his confirmation he'll change sides and vote with Sublime's party in return for castles and estates he can distribute to his children."

The purportedly celibate fathers of the Church could be fathers in the literal sense. They failed to admit the hypocrisy.

"Once these nominations go through and Bronte Doneto returns, Sublime will have a three-vote advantage in the Collegium. But Sublime's plans aren't in the best interest of G.o.d's Church. Therefore ..."

s.h.a.got suspected that the Chadarean G.o.d was old enough to look out for himself. "You want somebody killed."

"Crudely put, but, yes. Though it isn't as simple as that. There'll be a clamor if Rodrigo Cologni is murdered. That can't be connected with the Bruglioni."

s.h.a.got was not brilliant but he was a cunning villain. Things fell into place instantly.

He and Svavar would kill this Rodrigo Cologni and, somehow, before they could be arrested and questioned, brave Bruglioni household fighters who arrived too late would kill them while supposedly trying to save Cologni. Or some variant on such a scheme.

"How much time do we have to get ready?"

"It needs to happen within the next twenty days. Before Bronte Doneto returns."

"I'll sleep on it. I'll see what the physical situation is. Do you have somebody inside the Cologni household?'' s.h.a.got thought it likely that the Five Families all had spies inside the others' houses.

Father Obilade was exasperated. These outlanders were too clever, by half. But he had to use the tools at hand.

"Why is that of concern?" the priest asked.

"Because we need to know the target's movements. His plans. We can't just march into the Cologni compound to get him."

"Access won't be a problem. Rodrigo Cologni is a wh.o.r.e-master. He's determined to enjoy as many women as he can before it's too late to futter another. He goes looking for new wh.o.r.es at least three nights a week."

"Good. Good. That'll make it easier." Rodrigo did not sound bright. Far safer to have women brought to him. "How big a mob follows him around?"

"There haven't been any family wars for a generation. The Five Families want to avoid the excesses of the past. So Rodrigo only needs to worry about robbers. He'll have four bodyguards. And maybe a few friends. None of those have to die. But the Cologni bodyguards may be a challenge."

"Uh. Like I said. Let me sleep on it. Let me look it over. Find out whatever you can about Rodrigo Cologni. Be ready to say yes when I name our price."

Once they left the crazy priest, Svavar observed, "They plan to use us up."

"They mean to try. But they don't understand our luck. Let's have a little fun with them." Clever evil was s.h.a.got's sole remaining pleasure.

The Walker himself strode through s.h.a.got's dreams that night.

FATHER OBILADE, OF COURSE, WANTED s.h.a.gOT TO WAIT TILL after the job to get paid. s.h.a.got laughed. That after Svavar spent dozens of hours studying Rodrigo Cologni and the Cologni compound. Which, like the homes of all of the Five Families, was a fortress. Literally.

s.h.a.got replied, "I'm inclined to go along, old man. I mean, why would a priest try to cheat me? But my brother Asgrimmur, he says he didn't just fall off the turnip cart. He's naturally suspicious. Especially of anybody who chooses to live in these southern cities, where honor and the value of a man's word are considered trivial. Well, he's my brother. I've got to keep him happy. So what we're gonna do is, we're gonna take a third for each of us right now, then we'll pick up the rest afterward."

Father Obilade had not yet recovered from hearing s.h.a.got's price for Rodrigo Cologni's life, six hundred gold Patriarchal ducats.

Nor did he like the demand for two-thirds payment up front. He could not make that deal, anyway. Paludan Bruglioni had not put that much specie at his disposal.

Paludan had a powerful desire to turn loose as little money as possible because he might not get it back.