"Is that likely?"

"t.i.tus! Sarcasm? I like that. I think." Smile gone, Hecht said, "You could have a point. I"m feeling some time pressure. Things are happening in Brothe. And people there are trying to keep me from hearing about it."

"Did it occur to you to ask me?"

After a moment, "No. My spymaster? Why consult him? Because I"ve been too focused on what"s in front of me? What do you know?"

"My contacts in the Devedian community aren"t what they used to be. But some still think being friendly could pay dividends. They tell me when there"s something they think we should know."

"And?"

"Most Brothens think Sublime is dying. The gang around him want to make sure they can name his replacement. The Fiducian, Joceran Cuito, looks like he"ll be their candidate."

The Direcian. Peter of Navaya"s man. That could lead to interesting times. "A Navayan? We"re still not over the last non-Brothen who won a Patriarchal election."

Consent shrugged. "I"m just telling you what I hear. They say Peter wants it. And has the money to make it happen."

"I see. And I"m being kept isolated because?"

"Because you have an army. You could veto the outcome of an election. If you had the inclination. Like a general from Imperial times."

Hecht chuckled. What would Gordimer and er-Rashal think? Their throwaway agent was in a position to influence the selection of the next main enemy of the Kaifate of al-Minphet.

Consent asked, "You thought about who you"d rather have take over if Sublime went away?"

Hecht a.s.sayed tone and expression. Was he being felt out? He decided not. "Something else to worry about."

"Always plenty."

"Where is Princ.i.p.ate Delari? I don"t see him around anymore."

"Nor do I. But he"s out there. Maybe missing Armand."

"Maybe." Hecht did not miss Osa Stile even a little.

Seeing the diminution of the besieging forces, the magnates of the White City launched another desperate night sortie. The Captain-General saw it coming. Every sally had been presaged by the gathering of watchers on the city wall.

A lot of dead men decorated the slopes when the sun rose. Few were Patriarchals.

The revenant Instrumentalities were busy all night. There were numerous reports of encounters in the form of sound or stench, but only a few had seen anything.

Hecht asked his staff, "Are they rattled enough to fall apart if we attack?"

Consent said, "Our men are exhausted, too. Those who were away from the main action wore themselves out mounting diversionary attacks."

And had gained several footholds inside the main wall. > "I"ll let the Princ.i.p.ates give them one more chance to surrender. What"s this?"

A courier. With news that Queen Isabeth was moving. Her whole force was headed east, two hundred fifty knights, their a.s.sociated sergeants, squires, and infantry, and nearly eight hundred Sevanphaxi and Terliagan mercenaries Tormond had conjured somehow. Nearly two thousand men, almost all veterans.

Hecht scanned the message again. "They"re coming straight at us. To see what we"ll do, I imagine. They"re in no hurry. That"s good for us." Otherwise, they"d be right behind the news. He sent messengers flying. To Hagan Brokke. To the scouts watching Isabeth. To those whose job it was to watch Mohela ande Larges.

An intricate dance began. It developed slowly. Each dancer waited for the other to misstep.

Isabeth halted after traveling twelve miles. She occupied the common farmland outside the town h.o.m.odel. Hecht"s scouts reported the ground looked good for cavalry.

"Let them sit. Let them get colder." He thought it looked like there would be a more serious snowfall sometime soon. "Chase their scouts. Ambush their foragers. We"ll let Brokke upset them."

While he waited, though, he kept on filtering men out of camp.

The bombardment of the White City went on.

Hagan Brokke feinted toward Mohela ande Larges, the attack the Captain-General supposed the enemy expected. Once Brokke saw that the Queen"s headquarters could not be taken quickly, he headed toward Khaurene. As always, his troops crushed resistance ferociously. In two days they captured six towns and fortresses and accepted the surrenders of three more.

The Patriarchals from around Castreresone established a camp three miles from Isabeth"s. Making no offer of battle.

The nights became filled with the bark and chatter and numbing stench of the Night, worsening fast. The Connecten Instrumentalities were gathering, tormenting the sons of men not nearly so much as one another.

So said Princ.i.p.ate Muniero Delari, more in evidence now that a collision might be coming.

The old man a.s.sembled a team of falconeers whose weapons had been lost in the confrontation with the G.o.d grub. They built and tested traps, some as imagined by Drago Prosek, most designs handed down from early Old Empire times.

The smallest Instrumentalities were easily caught, often because they were desperate to escape larger predators. Delari hoped to use the small captives to lure the large.

"What kind of sorcerer are you?" Hecht asked. "I thought, as a cla.s.s, that was your high purpose. To round up a bigger, nastier herd than anyone else has."

"You aren"t sufficiently well informed." Delari said that deadpan. And did not explain. His sense of humor was hard to detect. "You need to spend more time with your grandfather."

The Navayans were patient. Hecht went out to the camp and took charge. It was an excuse to get away from Castreresone. He tried provoking the Navayans with nighttime hara.s.sments. His men could not penetrate their picket lines. He had his surviving falcons fire stone shot toward the fanciest pavilion. Their accuracy was foul, one exploded, and the noise frightened the crusaders" own animals. There was no evidence the Navayans were impressed.

Hecht began a process of encirclement, having his men pick off anyone who strayed from the enemy camp. His patrols watched for couriers. Those from the White City were allowed to get through. Messages coming out were intercepted as often as possible. Those were in cipher. Even t.i.tus Consent had no luck breaking the code. The couriers themselves, naturally, had no clue.

Hecht said, "I don"t mind if they just sit there. Except that it"s cold. We have food. They don"t. Not enough to wait us out." While they sat, they would be hammered by increasingly desperate pleas from Castreresone.

The Captain-General refused to engage an enemy with such a heavy cavalry advantage.

Four days into the standoff news came that Patriarchal troops had gotten a solid foothold inside Castreresone. Several leading men had been captured.

It looked like the beginning of the end for the White City. That same day word came that Hagan Brokke"s men had shown themselves to watchers on the wall at Khaurene. They had burned villages and manors within sight of the city, concentrating on properties belonging to Duke Tormond. A huge, angry response from the city forced them to withdraw. But the message had been delivered.

t.i.tus Consent materialized at Hecht"s elbow as the Captain-General tried to pry advice out of Princ.i.p.ate Delari. The old man was depressed for no obvious reason. Hecht told him, "You don"t have to be here. I can send you down to Sheavenalle. You could get pa.s.sage across to Brothe. You could be back loafing in the Chiaro baths in a week."

"That won"t change the future. Nor the past. Lieutenant Consent has something urgent. Spend your empathy on him."

"t.i.tus?"

"The Navayans are up to something over there. Scouts are heading out."

Soon afterward the Navayans left camp. The knights headed toward the Patriarchal camp. The mercenary infantry marched out eastward. Their own infantry followed the hors.e.m.e.n. Knights, sergeants, senior squires, and whatnot, those numbered almost three hundred. More than Hecht had expected.

The hors.e.m.e.n stopped outside bowshot, dismounted, began an advance on foot, each armored man backed by two foot.

Hecht did not know what to do. Crossbowmen being at a premium, he had left his at Castreresone.

"We have to go. Now. Lay down some kind of hara.s.sing fire. Burn some firepowder for the smoke. The breeze is blowing their way."

It was close but the Patriarchals escaped. The Navayans evidently had no enthusiasm for their tactics and so did not move forcefully. Nor did they show any desire to enter the foul firepowder smoke.

Prosek caught up with Hecht. "You saw how the smoke bothered them? Sir?"

"Of course. It was my idea."

"Make some with more sulfur in it. For that purpose."

"Do it. Add captain of chemical warfare to your job description."

The Patriarchal forces rea.s.sembled farther east. Infantry there had been skirmishing with the mercenaries all afternoon. The mercenaries were waiting on their paymasters. Hecht did not press them.

The Navayans were not inclined to be drawn in, either. t.i.tus Consent opined, "This could be a long, nasty war if there are never any battles."

"It"s long and nasty now. These people have been crippling each other by ruining one another"s agriculture for several years."

"We can turn the country into a desert."

"And G.o.d will love us more. Apparently." Redfearn Bechter scowled the whole time. He was a cynical old man himself, but this talk smacked of heresy. He sent a look of appeal to Madouc. The chief lifeguard shrugged. Doctrinal indiscretion was not his problem.

The Captain-General said, "Sergeant, disrespect for the intellect of the Patriarch isn"t heresy. It isn"t sacrilege, either. It"s not even insubordination. We"re doing what he tells us. We"re just not sure he"s hearing what G.o.d is whispering in his ear."

No explanation would comfort the old soldier. He had lived his life for G.o.d and the Church. He said, "The men we have hidden in the hills are having a lot of trouble with Night things."

"For example?"

"Just little things. So far. But always something wicked. Spoiling wine. Making beer go skunky. Stirring up hornets. Spooking horses."

"Where"s Princ.i.p.ate Delari gotten to? He should"ve been here long before us. I started him off early."

Bechter said, "I kept him going back to Castreresone. a.s.suming you didn"t want him exposed to misfortune out here."

"Of course. d.a.m.n! No, you did right. It"s just inconvenient. I wanted to ask him why the Night is ganging up on us all of a sudden."

Consent asked, "Is it? I"d bet it"s being just as obnoxious to those people back up the road."

The skirmishing ended at nightfall. The Navayans withdrew into a tight encampment. Which suggested that the Night was, indeed, being impartially obnoxious.

Something big came after midnight. Something that made Hecht"s amulet burn his wrist. Something that reeked and birthed terror with its stench. The animals nearly revolted.

The Captain-General summoned Drago Prosek. "There"s work for the falcons." The first weapon barked ten minutes later. There was no need for a second to comment.

Instantly there was an absence of any sense of supernatural presence. The falconeers reported a vast, panicky rustle a moment before the falcon spoke.

Then there was excitement to the west. Fires blazing up. Distance-muted shouting.

Nothing more happened. Hecht told Prosek, "Keep a crew standing by. They don"t need permission to fire but they better not waste charges on their imaginations."

Prosek nodded, expression grim. Knowing perfectly well the nervous falconeers would fire first and worry about weathering the Captain-General"s displeasure once they had survived.

Hecht headed for the shelter his lifeguards had thrown together. And discovered that he would be getting no sleep anytime soon.

Cloven Februaren sat in a corner, barely discernible. Hecht said, "I thought we"d lost you."

"I"m always around. Somewhere. You"re getting comfortable with destroying Instrumentalities."

"It"s easier than killing people. Emotionally."

"You should keep yourself inside a circle of ready falcons. From now on."

"Yes?"

"The Night sees you finding it easier than killing people, too. The Night doesn"t understand that the djinn can"t be shoved back into the lamp. It hasn"t gotten over Man having gained the secret of fire."

Hecht nodded. He was exhausted. Dawn would come sooner than he liked. "You always turn up when something awful is about to happen. What will it be this time?"

"Not this time. Just pa.s.sing through. Wanted to caution you to be careful with Isabeth. She"s in a tight place. She has to be seen trying to do something. But neither she nor her captains know what. This war is nothing like what they"re used to in Direcia, where they know who the enemy is. And people don"t change sides when the whim strikes."

Hecht knew of no fickle, shifting allegiances, except during the little county wars that faded once the Grolsacher and Arnhander incursions began. "I haven"t seen any of that."

"You will. All those towns and castles you"re taking, that have sworn fealty to Sublime and the Church. They"ll turn in an instant if they sense any weakness."

Hecht had not thought about that. It sounded true, though. Those people were not joining the Brothen cause for love of Sublime V. "Makes sense."

"I have further advice. Whatever you hope to accomplish here you"d best get done soon. Big changes are coming. And round up any Artecipeans you can. They"re behind the resurgence of the Night. They"re a third side in this war. They aren"t friends of the Connecten factions but they"re helping them because they"re your worst enemies."

"Why?"

The old man bowed his head as though in contemplation. He said, "They want to destroy you for the reason they"ve always wanted to destroy you. A conviction on the part of certain Instrumentalities that you could become the mechanism of their destruction."