by Glen Cook
"Really? I thought it belonged to your family. That they built it."
"They did. Cloven Februaren was my grandfather."
"Oh." Why was he surprised? He was, though.
"This bears thought. And investigation. Are you getting along with Heris?"
"Who? Oh. The blond woman."
"Yes. Her. Heris. My granddaughter. As I've mentioned more than once. Are you getting along? Have you talked?"
There was an odd, added level of distress in the old man's voice. He was looking for something. Hecht was not providing it.
"We talked about how to avoid getting on each other's nerves. She isn't comfortable having us there. She seems reclusive. Anna didn't like her until she made coffee. That helped."
That was not what the old man wanted to hear. "Do you have more work to do here, Piper? Or at the Castella?"
"There's always work. But nothing that has to be handled tonight."
"Then we'll deal with this directly, right now. Otherwise… A reliable source tells me you won't be here much longer. Sublime has made a decision about the Connec."
Though unsurprised, Hecht swore. Delari said, "You're right. It's stupid. But he's the Infallible Voice of God. And God will shut Sublime up when He doesn't agree with what he says."
"And if someone takes exception and tries to silence the Voice?"
"That would be the Hand of God in motion, wouldn't it? The outcome would be in accordance with God's Will, wouldn't it?"
Almost a Praman way of looking at the world. A way of justifying almost anything, however wicked.
"Armand!"
Osa Stile appeared almost magically. He had been eavesdropping. Or trying to do so. "Your Grace?"
"We're moving to the town house. Make the arrangements."
The boy bowed his head slightly. He seemed puzzled. He had not overheard.
"Go! It's time you made yourself useful around here."
Hecht caught the Principate's wink from the corner of his eye.
"Of course, Your Grace."
When the boy left, Hecht asked, "You found out anything more about my ring?"
Delari frowned. "Ring?"
"I gave you a ring to study." He had begun remembering things about the ring. For example, that he had shown it to Polo the day Divino Bruglioni gave it to him. Had Polo mentioned that to Paludan or Gervase Saluda? Would they remember? Hecht even recalled admitting having received the ring to Principal Divino. Had the dead man mentioned that to anyone?
"Oh." Delari frowned again. "You did. What did I do vith that thing?"
"It supposedly makes you forget it. But could that turn around on you? Could you suddenly remember all about it?" Was that why Gervase Saluda was interested, suddenly?
"I remember, now. I wanted to fix it so you'd keep it with you even when you forget it. Because it would make you seem unworthy of notice. Not invisible, like the rings and cloaks in stories, just somebody nobody remembers seeing."
"That wouldn't be such a good idea. I'm supposed to be the Captain-General."
They discussed the ring several minutes more. Delari opined, "The shock of the explosion is the most likely reason that you're remembering. You should write it all down. Now. So the information is there if you forget it again."
Hecht grunted, thought for a moment. "That might be a good idea."
"Over here."
Time fled.
Osa Stile came to report, "Everything is set, Your Grace. When you're ready to go."
"We'll be a few minutes yet, Armand."
Anna and Principate Delari's granddaughter had reached an accommodation. They came out to meet the arrivals together. It was late. The children and household staff had retired. Anna was not shy about showing affection, though she did seem upset.
Armand and the coachmen got busy carrying the Principate's necessaries inside.
Anna demanded, "Where are your lifeguards, Piper?" So. That was her problem.
"Ah… Oops? I forgot them."
Anna shot a look of appeal at Delari, then glared at Hecht in a way that said there would be no more forgetting.
Principate Delari took his granddaughter aside. They spoke, he heatedly, she slowly and frowning. She bowed her head in submission, departed.
Anna said, "He shouldn't be that hard on her. She lived a terrible life till Grade Drocker found her a few years ago."
"Oh?"
"We talked a lot. I have a whole new appreciation of how good I've had it."
"And?"
"Her mother and her and her whole family were taken by slavers when she was five years old."
Hecht recalled Delari saying the woman's mother had been a slave liberated by Grade Drocker in the Holy Lands. So she had been dragged back into slavery.
Anna said, "The slavers sold them to different buyers. Drocker was big enough in the Brotherhood to use it to look for them. She was the only one he found again. Isn't that awful?"
It was, but that was the way of the world. That story repeated itself every day.
Anna shut up. Principate Delari was approaching. He said, "Piper, join me in the quiet room as soon as you can."
"Your Grace?"
"The room we used during Consent's confirmation."
"Oh. I understand."
"I doubt that sincerely. But do come. Heris will make coffee. Using Ambonypsgan beans."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Don't dally." Delari went off to bark at his catamite and coachmen.
Hecht glanced at Anna. He frowned. She responded with a shrug. She had no clue, either.
Principate Delari said, "I don't want to injure your feelings, Madam Mozilla, but this doesn't concern you. Please join your children."
Hecht was astonished. That bordered on being rude. Was that one of the perquisites of surviving long enough to become an antique? He told Anna, "It's private, dear. Apparently." And, "It's his house."
"Of course."
Principate Delari strolled the bounds of the room, scowling. He reminded Hecht, "The plaster conceals stone from a quarry in the Holy Lands, near where Aaron was born. One tradition says Aaron's father worked in that quarry."
The woman arrived with coffee. Hecht's mouth watered.
Delari mused, "This house has been in the family for ages. Settle somewhere, Heris. And relax."
She served the coffee before seating herself. Overlooking the admonition to relax. She sipped coffee and waited tensely.
Hecht grunted. She seemed oddly familiar when she drank.
"Piper?"
"Nothing, Your Grace. A vagrant recollection that got away before I could get hold of it."
"Ah. About this house, then. As I was about to explain. In the family for ages. Passed down, father to son. The usual. Except that we've all become members of the Collegium."
"How does that work if the clergy can't marry and illegitimate children aren't supposed to inherit?"
"Power and money, Piper. Those always trump the most ironbound rules. This family is always long on the former. They'd rather have us in the Collegium than running around loose. Sorcerers not on the inside cause too many problems. Our member of the Collegium is usually the bull sorcerer of the club. That definitely helps people come up with workarounds."
"Of course." Power and money did shout. Wherever you were.
Delari turned to the woman. "There's a problem, Heris. It has to do with the family and the house."
"Yes?" Evidently this was not what troubled her.
"Reliable witnesses have seen Cloven Februaren coming and going."
"What?"
"A man, so tall, always wears brown. Very much in the image of your father. Before his misfortune in Sonsa." Delari's voice hardened. "He looks how old, Piper?"
"Forty-five. Roughly. Definitely not his real age."
The woman shrugged. "I haven't seen anyone like that. Anyway, isn't Cloven Februaren dead? You said he was already old when you were born."
"You're right. He should be long gone. But someone
identified as Cloven Februaren has been coming and going here. We need to look at that. It could be profoundly important."
"Turking or Felske might know something. Or Mrs. Creedon. Most of what happens here goes right past me. I've never visited most of the house."
"We'll correct that shortly. We three will go over it intimately. Piper?"
"It's been a long day. Piled atop yesterday."
"You're a thousand years younger than I am, Piper. But the hunt comes later. Right now, I want to know, what do you remember about your earliest childhood?"
"I was cold a lot." Which was true. Memories of cold were his most vital connection with the time when he was little. "Even then three out of four seasons in Duarnenia were winter. I remember wanting to hurry and grow up so I could have ice crystals in my beard like Papa when he came in out of the cold. Mama used to cry… She'd bury her face in his beard to hide her tears. She was so happy when he came back. When he was gone she spent a lot of time staring at the door. She was terrified that he wouldn't come through it again. And then he didn't. His brother Tindeman did. And we all started bawling before he could say a word.
"That's when I knew there was no way I'd ever be a good enough Chaldarean to follow the trail blazed by Rother Hecht.
"Mama died of a broken heart. The day we buried her my brothers went east to avenge Papa. They made me stay home because I was too young. An hour after they left I took a rusty old Sheard long knife, a leather helmet, and three pounds of cheese and headed south and west. I broke the knife before the day was over, so I had no way to defend myself when they beat me and took my cheese. The helmet saved me. I kept it till they made us prisoners in Plemenza. It was my good-luck talisman. They didn't give it back."
Principate Delari and the woman stared in amazement.
He was amazed himself. He had come near believing every word when he spoke it.
Delari asked, "Any chance your father was mistaken, Heris? Any chance at all?"
"No, Grandfather. He consulted the Instrumentalities themselves."
"I see. You did that quite well, then, Piper," Delari said. "What do you remember about your earliest childhood, Heris?"
The woman looked at Hecht oddly. "It was almost like he said. Mother worried so much. Father was always away somewhere fighting. When he did come home he never stayed long. We cried when he came home because we were happy to see him. Then we cried when he left because we didn't want him to go. Mother always begged him to stay. He wouldn't. He couldn't. The time he spent with us was time stolen from the great work of his life."
Delari said, "She romanticizes somewhat but that's the truth. My son-call him Grade Drocker because that was the name he preferred-had a mission. You saw him. Even at the end… He denied his heritage and he denied himself so he could war against the Night. And, in the end, it gained him nothing."
The woman said, "He was hunting a monster in the Holy Lands when the slavers came. In the night. Surprising everyone. There hadn't been any ships sighted. Mother said so. That it couldn't be. That there hadn't been any raids for years. Aparion and Dateon kept them away. She kept saying that all the way down to the ship. That's almost the only thing I remember about that night."
The earth fell away beneath Piper Hecht.
His earliest fixed recollection was of being dragged aboard ship by foul-smelling men who spoke a foreign language. The ship had pretended to be a trader. The slavers took only younger women, girls, and small children. By the score.
Earlier memories visited his dreams, too. He never remembered when he woke up. He had spent thirty years forcing all that to go away.
Principate Delari and the woman studied him intently. Delari said, "You seem disturbed."
"I'm thinking about what she said. We live in a harsh world."
"Warm his coffee, Heris. Piper, I may have to practice a small sorcery on you."
Hecht had regained control. Despite his internal turmoil.
Memories. He had had a sister named Heris. An older sister.
Delari once said that this Heris was the image of her mother.
She matched those fleeting images tormenting him now.
"I think you have already. What's in the coffee?" His amulet itched only faintly, though.
Delari asked, "Again, are you sure your father was right, Heris?"
"Absolutely. He spent a fortune and most of his last year making sure. Hidden somewhere here, or at the Castella, are copies of his records. Before that, all the way back to when he first heard about us being taken, he looked for us and hunted down the men who took us. Almost every man who was on that ship. They died knowing why, too. Excepting the last few. Starkden, who planned everything, and some Deves who financed the expedition. Wherever Father is now, I'm sure he's glad about what happened to Starkden. But not about the Deves. They still haven't been found."
Delari grunted. Then turned his stare on Hecht.
Hecht could feel the earth shifting. He was not ready for anything like this.
The Principate said, "I've been trying to nudge you toward the truth gently, hoping you'd figure it out for yourself. But you're exceptionally, persistently, stubbornly blind."
The blond woman sighed wearily. She came to stand in front of him. "Don't you remember anything, Gisors?"
"Gisors?" he asked.
"The name my son gave you. I'm not sure why. It's an eastern name. As is Heris. We'll still call you Piper. You're comfortable with that and it's the name everyone knows. So there'll be no slipups. It's much too late to have you emerge as the long-lost child."
Hecht wanted to argue. To deny. To go back to his stories about Duarnenia. He had done an inspired job of selling. These people just were not buying.
So he went silent. He would admit nothing. No matter what. However great the shock. He was Sha-lug. He was the most promising product of the Vibrant Spring School.
Heris said, "The slavers were Deves. That's how they got a ship with so many men aboard into the harbor. That's why Father hated Deves. That's why he was in Sonsa. Everybody thinks it was because the Brotherhood wanted to plunder the Deves. He let them think that. He exploited their greed. But he came over from Runch because he'd heard that some Deves who financed that raid were in Sonsa.
"He was cruel and clever. And devious. He used the Brotherhood of War to engineer his revenge. And no one ever saw that. Because he gave them what they wanted."
Hecht betrayed no emotion. It was too absurd to be true.
They thought they knew who he was. Some Devedian who did know must have betrayed him. Or Anna had. Or Titus Consent. This would be a trick to get him to open up.
"Once he realized who you must be, your father… He forgave you the hurt you did him."
Could the Sha-lug Else Tage have fired the blast that crippled and slowly killed Grade Drocker had he suspected that the Special Office sorcerer was his natural father?
He could have. Knowing no more than that. He had had no reason to love Grade Drocker. Nor had Drocker had any reason to love him. The man had tried to kill him only days earlier.
"He insisted on directing the Calziran campaign. He wanted to shield you and bring you along."
Hecht had a hundred questions. He did not mouth a one.
He would not anger anyone by arguing. Neither would he concede anything.
"He failed. Once it became obvious that he wouldn't last long enough, I came down and took over. I've tried to bring you along. I've celebrated a few successes. But never those I hoped to enjoy. My grandson has become the most important soldier in the Chaldarean world. But he won't admit that he's part of my family. And, after generations of breeding the most powerful sorcerers in the Episcopal Chaldarean realm, the line has burped up children with less grasp of the power than your average pig farmer."
Hecht took a calming breath. "I thought we were going to investigate the mystery of the unexpectedly healthy Cloven Februaren."
Delari and his granddaughter exchanged exasperated glances. Delari said, "As
you wish, Piper. As you wish. You can't be forced. But you'd better assess the risks of persevering in refusing to admit the truth."
Was that a threat? Or just a statement of fact? Or both?
He began to catalog everyone who might know that in his once upon a time he had been Captain Else Tage of the Sha-lug.
The possible number was dishearteningly large.
He said, "If it is necessary, I'll be Gisors. I've learned that sometimes I have to be what others want me to be."
That had worked when he was a prisoner of the Grail Emperor. That had worked when he was employed by Bronte Doneto. To a lesser extent, it had worked with the Arniena, the Bruglioni, and when he had commanded the City Regiment during the Calziran Crusade. The trick was to make people see what they wanted to see while he got what needed doing done.
Principate Muniero Delari wanted no illusions. He wanted what he wanted. His intensity made that clear. "Heris. Assemble the staff. In the kitchen. We'll start there."
The staffers were not happy. The cook was in her nightdress, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She was not afraid so demand, "Will this take long? I start my days early."
"How long it takes is up to you."
Turking and Felske were locals of middle age. Felske was graying and Turking would soon be bald. Service in the town house was all they had ever known. Unlike Mrs. Creedon, they had not been wakened.
The Principal asked, "Is there anyone living here that I haven't been told about?"
The staff exchanged appropriately puzzled glances.
"Well?"
Mrs. Creedon said, "I'm not sure I understand what vou're asking."
"I didn't stammer. Nor did I obfuscate. Who is living in my house without my knowledge or permission?"
The cook shook her head. The couple looked at one another, shrugged. Turking said, "No one, Your Grace. We wouldn't presume."
"Yet a man of medium stature, resembling my son, middle forties to fifty, always wearing brown, has been seen coming and going here."
The servants wilted under Delari's glare. Mrs. Creedon managed, "Could it possibly be young master Drocker, Your Grace?"
"It could not. I supervised the execution of his final wishes. I watched his cremation." The Principate glanced back, "Ideas, you two?"
