by Glen Cook
“Oh?” Else said.
“Until Acato and Gildeo were killed he spouted the same nonsense as Dugo. Which is why Dugo was all confused.”
“How did he keep the family going, men?”
“Inertia. And he hasn’t. Not well. He never really had to be responsible, growing up. He’s always let things ride while he had a good time. He got away with it until the disaster in the Mahdur Plaza.”
“The world caught up?”
“It didn’t change who he is but it did make him realize that there’re challenges beyond just seeing if he can’t bed more women than his father did. Even so, he passed the work on to us. He has no faith in himself.”
“And?”
“You have to understand. Besides his character shortcomings, Paludan just isn’t very bright. He isn’t subtle. His preferred solution to any problem is to hit it with a hammer.”
“The way Dugo would.”
“The way Dugo would. Though now it seems he’s started to catch on. He knows that he has to start doing the right thing. For the family’s sake. Meantime, his major adviser, which would be me, might not be any smarter or subtler.”
“Really?”
“My genius and my gullibility got us into this. Sylvie Obilade manipulated me. I sold Paludan on the priest. Like his ideas were mine. I thought Obilade wanted the best for the Bruglioni.”
“Maybe he did.”
“Sure, he did. He was a good priest. But he wanted to be something more. He wanted to make the Church all-powerful, temporally as well as spiritually.””
“That doesn’t sound exciting.” Dreanger was not terrible but there were smaller principalities within the Realm of Peace where religious rule smothered everything.
“We need to make peace with the Church over Father Obilade.”
“Being a country boy from the far frontiers I’m obviously missing some critical local angle. Six members of the Bruglioni household were killed. The priest caused that. The men who murdered them were killed themselves.”
“So you think the scales are balanced?”
“Yes, actually.”
“The Church wouldn’t agree. If Church people screw you you’re supposed to take it with a smile and beg for more because it feels so good.”
“This will take getting used to.” It might be the sort of thing he could use to stir confusion and distract the Patriarch from organizing a new crusade. “I need to know Brothe better. Like Paludan said. Even taking into account the natural arrogance of people who believe God speaks with their mouths, there’s a lot of flawed thinking in this city.”
“Going out there could be dangerous.”
“How? Even if word is out that I’ve been hired nobody knows what I look like except a few Arniena. And they’re on our side.”
“I don’t know.”
“Uhm?”
“I’m not sure we should trust anybody out there, right now. I’m not sure why Paludan and I decided Rodrigo Cologni would defect.
Father Obilade probably sold us. We know that wasn’t true, now. Rodrigo kept faith.”
“Treachery is the most popular sport in town. I’ll learn what I can, outside. You get Paludan to decide what he wants to accomplish so we can start planning. Find out if he want to hire real swords. Those bodyguards were make-believe.”
“I don’t think he’ll stand for the extra expense. Right now we’re completely clear on who to blame if anything goes wrong.”
“I’ll do my utmost to ensure that your faith in the is justified.” Else parted with Saluda still unsure of the man. Was he bright or dim? Was he manipulating Paludan Bruglioni? Was he Paludan’s dedicated friend?
***
BROTHE WAS UNIQUE AMONG CITIES ELSE HAD KNOWN. IT showed its age much more than did even the oldest pities of Dreanger. There were ruins everywhere. In Dreanger they cleared the old away in favor of the new. In Dreanger the surviving ruins were not inside cities, they were out in the deserts and mountains and, as it had been from the most archaic times, they were occupied only by the dead.
The priests who had tended them had been massacred by Josephus Alegiant a thousand years ago. Alegiant’s successors had been massacred in turn by warriors of the Praman Conquest five hundred years later.
Reminders of the glory days of the Old Empire were everywhere, usually overgrown by creeping vines and brush. Remnants of triumphal arches still spanned the streets. Weeds and brush grew atop them. Else wondered where the soil came from.
Today’s Brothe stood on ground ten to twenty feet higher than it had been in antiquity. In places the old low ground lay buried even deeper.
In Brothe the past was as omnipresent and intrusive as the Instrumentalities of the Night in the Holy Lands. It meant more here than elsewhere. Brothe’s yesterdays defined its todays.
Sublime enjoyed local popular support because people thought he might resurrect the ancient glories.
In Brothe even the poorest of the native poor worshiped the city’s past glories. And seemed indifferent to its present. Yesterday’s toppled memorials loomed large in the lives of squatters and drifters. Poverty was ubiquitous, too. But that did not touch Else. Poverty and misery were the natural state of humanity wherever he went.
***
ELSE STROLLED AROUND IN WHAT HE HOPED LOOKED LIKE random rambles. He noticed no obvious tail. Which might mean that someone with superb skills had been assigned to track him. Or someone with a supernatural assist.
He did not count on his new employer not to spy on him. He would never allow a stranger deep into his world as easily as he had gotten into that of the Bruglioni.
Else drew dark looks wherever he went. He did not understand. He did note that other foreigners drew equally malignant attention, though.
He had been on his own a long time. Had he forgotten a critical detail of his contact regime? Could life’s vicissitudes have claimed Gordimer’s local agents? He knew no names, just places to visit. The embassy of the Kaif of al-Minphet was to be approached only in extreme circumstance. A sailor’s tavern on the riverfront, as far downstream as you could go and still be inside the wall, was just too far away. The only convenient contact resided inside the Devedian quarter.
Brothe was a vast sprawl south of the Teragi. It seemed to go on forever. “Hey, Pipe! Piper Hecht! How the hell you doing, asshole?” Pinkus Ghort jogged across the street, dodging between donkeys and camels, oxcarts, dog carts, and got carts. Brothe’s streets were busier than those of al-Qarn. And twice as ripe. Little effort was made to clean up after the animals. Else had seen some amazing shit drifts.
“Ghort! You been following me?”
“No. Shit Man. It’s pure coincidence. I was just over to the... How the hell are you doing?”
“As good as could be hoped, I guess.”
“They get you in over there yet?”
“In?”
“The Bruglioni thing.”
Curious. “They don’t keep you in the know?”
“I’ve been out of town. There was a problem up the road Doneto needed handled. I got back last night. So are you in?”
“I think. I’m worried about how easy it was, though. I can’t believe anybody is as dimwitted as those people let on. “Believe it. This is the town where dumb comes. Two-thirds of them still think they rule the world. Basically, the whole damn town has their heads up their asses.”
“I’ll take your word for that.”
“We need to work out a way to communicate.”
“I know where the Principaté lives.”
“How do we get a message to you?”
Else considered briefly. “I can’t imagine an instance where you’d need to. Can you?”
“Uh... Maybe you’re right. But you’ll have to make contact sometime. Just so we can keep each other posted.”
Ghort had a point. Ghort was supposed to be his eyes inside Doneto’s establishment. “That shouldn’t be hard. I don’t suffer from excessive supervision. My job hasn’t been defined yet. P
aludan wants to hurt the Brotherhood because he thinks they killed his sons. Gervase is afraid the Brotherhood might come after the Bruglioni because of what happened to their men.”
Ghort eyed Else’s head. “You going to do something about your hair?”
“What? Why? Like what?”
“Half the nasty folks in Brothe are looking for big foreigners with long blond hair. Two were involved in the debacle you just mentioned. If they get close and bother to think, they’ll know you aren’t who they’re looking for. But suppose you run into idiots?”
“Well. Now I know why I keep getting those evil looks.”
“Those are probably just because you’re you.”
“No doubt. I have work to do. I’ll see you sometime.” For a moment Ghort looked hurt. “Yeah. Later.”
“Say hi to Bo and Joe. And Pig Iron.”
“Yeah.” Else got away before Ghort could delay him. Principaté Doneto was not going to be pleased. He had given Ghort very little about the Bruglioni and nothing about the Arniena.
Let the man stew.
Else wandered aimlessly. Just in case. No point leading Ghort to one of his contacts. He listened to people. He heard little but everyday arguments, whining, complaints and indifference to squabbles on high. The politics that mattered at street level involved next meals. And Colors.
There was a great deal of anticipation of something called the Summer Invitational Games, when chariot racing teams from throughout Chaldarean Firaldia would participate in a huge elimination contest. The Colors would be out in strength, then.
Else’s ramble took him to the south bank of the Teragi River, half a mile above the place where Father Obilade had been introduced to the Sacred Flood. In pre-Chaldarean times the river had been considered a goddess in its own right, harboring within her bosom a host of spirits, some quite wicked, all of which had to be appeased. The goddess was gone, now, but not so all of the dark sprites and nymphs and water horses who had attended her.
The Brothen ancients had done well, coming to terms with the Instrumentalities of the Night. The entire waterfront had been built up in a way that revealed ages of complete confidence that the river would not get out of control. Embankments constructed of huge blocks of dressed stone rose high enough that the water level could rise another twenty-five feet before there was a need to worry.
Else strolled downriver, along the top of the embankment, admiring the work of the ancient engineers. He was confident today’s Brothens couldn’t manage anything like this, if only for lack of will and energy. He had sensed a paucity of those commodities in the modern tribe.
He was impressed by the bridges, both in their number and their engineering. Each was a monument likely to last forever. And there was nowhere one had to walk more than a third of a mile to make a crossing. Above Castella dollas Pontellas, as it turned out. The whole would have been immensely picturesque! Without the swarms of people and animals and vehicles clattering the picture. Else settled himself on a stone block atop the embankment, at a point where he could see Krois on its stone-faced island, the Castella dollas Pontellas and its six little bridges arching over an arm of the Teragi that served as its moat, and farther left, the immense, massive dignity of the Chiaro Palace, the spiritual heart of the Episcopal strain of Chaldareanism. His was a vantage sought by many. When Else sat down he did so amongst a dozen fellow spectators who were besieged by street vendors selling purported holy souvenirs, hot sausages, and sweet cakes.
Sitting there, those three grand structures so close he could make out the streaks of pigeon droppings down their dun flanks, Else first felt some awe of western civilization. What were these buildings but the greatest ghosts of the glory that had been?
The fortress Krois, out in the midst of the flood, had stood there for twelve centuries. It began construction before the birth of the oldest of the Chaldarean founders. It had been decreed by a Brothen emperor uninterested in becoming a victim of the mob, after that had befallen several of his most immediate predecessors. A later emperor, in the end days of the Old Empire, bequeathed Krois to me Church.
It was the first legacy of the thousands responsible for creating the mad hodgepodge of states constituting today’s Firaldia.
Else watched the boats and barges go up and down, enjoying the subtle changes in the view as the sun limped westward and the light altered, growing more golden.
“Piper Hecht?”
Else started, spun toward the unexpected voice, noting that the other sightseers had disappeared. “Sainted Eis,” somebody growled. “This asshole is jumpy.” Else faced four armed men, one of whom he recognized. “Sergeant Bechter? You scared the shit out of me, sneaking up like that. So. You were lucky. You got out with Drocker?”
“I’m a survivor. Evidently, you are, too.”
“I got out with Principaté Doneto. Frying pan to the fire kind of thing. We got snapped up by Hansel’s men in Ormienden, somewhere up there. They kept us locked up in Plemenza until Sublime decided to ransom his cousin. What’s up?”
“Reports came in about a blond foreigner watching the Castella. They sent us to check it out.”
“I was just enjoying the view. I mean, look at that. What’s going on? Why the paranoia?”
“How long have you been here? In Brothe, not on the rock.”
“Ten, twelve days. It kind of runs together. Today was my first chance to get out on my own. I was just relaxing and watching the barges go by and feeling homesick. What’s up?”
“Did you hear about the Brothers getting murdered a while back?”
Else lifted himself back up onto the block of stone. “Join me in my parlor, here. Swap lies with me about all the fun we had putting down the heretics in the Connec.”
Bechter got the idea. He came and sat. “You do know what’s going on, don’t you?”
“Not really. Local politics are too twisted. I don’t see much that makes sense.”
“Here’s one for old time’s sake, Hecht. Let’s don’t bullshit each other.”
“Ouch! This doesn’t sound good at all.”
“Oh, it’s gooder for you than it would’ve been if you were the guy we were hoping you’d be.” Else glanced back. “Do they have to hover? Can’t you talk, just you and me?” After consideration, Bechter said, “I’ll take a chance on you, Hecht.”....,
***
ELSE GOT PALUDAN BRUGLIONI AND GERVASE SALUDA TO SEE him when he returned to the Bruglioni citadel. “I think I’ve managed a coup. I hope you weren’t so set on a war that you’ll be angry with me.”
“Talk to me,” Paludan said. He was in a foul mood, his supposed natural state. “I ran into somebody I knew from the Connecten campaign. He belongs to the Brotherhood of War. We talked. I made him understand what the Bruglioni think happened the night Rodrigo Cologni was kidnapped.”
Paludan seemed puzzled, Gervase, amazed. “Go on, miracle worker.” Was he sarcastic or serious?
“Here’s the thing.” Else explained what he had done in boring detail, without mentioning Pinkus Ghort “Bechter is a good man, despite his affiliation. He’s trustworthy. I told him the truth as seen from here. He told me theirs. Turns out the big question troubling his bunch is how to lay hands on some mysterious blond foreigners. They thought the Bruglioni might be hiding the outlanders. I set Becker straight. He believed me because he knew me from the Connec.”
Both Paludan and Gervase scowled.
Else told them, “You’ll recall that I suggested giving up the men you’d hired.” Gervase snarled, “The point, Hecht.”
“The Brotherhood just wants those two men. If you could tell them more about those two, there’d be peace between the Brotherhood and the Bruglioni.”
“And the Lord God Himself shall step down from Heaven and kiss each of us upon the lips — before he rolls us over and gives us a good old buttfucking,” Gervase said.
“No doubt. But not today. Look, It’s a way out.”
“Awful convenient, though. Your first
walk through the city, you run into an old pal from the wars.”
“You religious, Gervase?”
“As religious as I need to be to get by.”
“I thought so. Pretty much my attitude, too. But I’ve found that you can’t go wrong by assuming that life is tainted by the Will of the Night.”
“You saying supernatural forces are at work?”
“Always. But, in this case, yes, especially. Otherwise, why can’t the Brotherhood find those men? Bechter said they get sighting reports all the time but when they check them out there’s no further trace. Where I come from we’d think that means they’re protected by the Instrumentalities of the Night. The Collegium itself might not be able to ferret them out.”
“But the Collegium doesn’t care. Not right now. Are you suggesting that we try to reach an accommodation with the Brotherhood?” Else thought he had made that clear. “You’ve got nothing to lose.”
***
ELSE FELT GOOD. IT HAD BEEN A PRODUCTIVE DAY. HE HAD MADE himself useful, though Paludan was not yet ready to see that.
In an ideal world he would get everyone thinking he was doing great things. Which would get him established. But an outbreak of peace amongst Brothe’s factions would not serve the needs of Dreanger.
Else’s quarters consisted of one large room subdivided into three by hanging quilts. He slept in a space no grander than a monk’s cell. Polo slept in an even smaller area beyond their common area. That constituted half the total space. The dividers were old and ragged and did little to provide any privacy. They did keep heat from a little charcoal burner confined to the center room. Else stepped in from the passageway. “Polo? You here?” Someone groaned behind Polo’s quilts. “Yes, sir. What time is it? What do you need?”
“Were you away from here while I was out?”
“I went out to get charcoal, candles, an ink stone, pens, inks, and such. As you instructed. I couldn’t find any paper. The papermaker in Naftali Square is out of stock.” Polo slipped his head through an overlap between quilts.
“You don’t need to get up. I asked because somebody’s gone through my things. I don’t think anything is missing.” After a noise like a mouse’s squeak, Polo joked, “They wasted their time, didn’t they?”
