Surrender to the Will of the Night - By Glen Cook Page 0,119

and Princess Apparent want in-the-flesh proof. They’re afraid the rest of us are covering up so we won’t lose our jobs. The Imperial treasury, by the way, handed over our start-up money.”

“I’ll see Katrin as soon as I’m able. A short visit. Unless she wants to come see me here. Where I still won’t last. I’ve been awake how long? And I’m ready to sleep again.”

Might his people be drugging him for his own good?

Titus said, “There was a letter from Buhle Smolens. He’s on his way. The weather will slow him. One of my agents says he had a real knock-down, drag-out with Captain-General Ghort when he resigned.”

“That’s not good.” Could it have been staged?

“Ghort took it personally. He wouldn’t listen to excuses about not being able to work for Serenity.”

“Again, not good.”

“Considering the loss rate among veterans he’s suffering, no. Those men have been to the Connec before. They don’t want to go back. The Connec doesn’t deserve what Serenity wants to deliver.”

Hecht managed a nod and grunt.

“Your friend might be in over his head.”

“And that wouldn’t be good for him, Serenity, the Church, or the Connec.” Hecht could imagine a frustrated Ghort and Serenity deliberately unleashing a massacre like the inadvertent bloodbath at Antieux during the earliest Patriarchal incursion into the Connec.

“Nothing good will happen in the Connec, Piper. King Regard has left an investing force outside Khaurene. They don’t have the numbers for a siege but they’re tearing up the countryside and making Khaurenese life difficult. And that has the Direcian kings and princes pissed off. King Peter has told King Regard and the Patriarch both to back off or face grim consequences. He’s already negotiated truces with the surviving Praman princes. Who are only too happy to buy time to recover from the disaster at Los Naves de los Fantas. The Direcian Principatés are getting loud in the Collegium, too. Where Serenity has lost most of his support. The Principatés have decided that they made a huge mistake, electing Bronte Doneto.”

“Interesting times. All right. I’m going back to bed. Much as it gripes me to admit it, I need somebody to take care of me till I recover.”

“The progress has been back long enough for the prostitutes to have gotten caught up.”

“Titus.”

“Sorry. It’s the company I keep.”

“You told me Pinkus Ghort was still in Viscesment. That’s his kind of joke.”

“You should’ve let Pella come along. It would be perfect work for him.”

Hecht growled softly. He did not want to think about family. “Have you located Algres Drear?”

“Yes. He’s willing to talk whenever you’re recovered.”

“Do you remember why I wanted to see him?”

“You didn’t say. Is there a problem?”

“I’ve lost some memories. Nothing much. Little details from the last few days before it happened.”

“You do remember who Drear is?”

He did. “That’s still in there.”

“Then your answer should be involved with who he is.”

“Politics, maybe. He knows the players and the secret rules. He could be an informal adviser.”

“If he was willing.”

“There is that.” But that was not it, he was sure.

* * *

The Empress insisted on seeing her hired general before she went into seclusion. Hecht had himself carried to the audience in a sedan chair, then entered the presence in a wheeled chair pushed by Terens Ernest, one of Titus Consent’s clerks. Ernest had become Piper Hecht’s keeper. Who would, undoubtedly, monitor and report the boss’s every breath.

Many staffers were not yet comfortable about his return to life.

Hecht had used his pendant, one-handed, to warn Heris that he would no longer be alone nights. When Ernest was not hovering another of Consent’s minions was.

Isolated, bored, he spent a lot of time toying with the pendant. Too much. Heris’s responses became curt, irritated.

His left arm and shoulder were bound in bandages and splints which made him look worse off than he was. Though that was bad enough. He was tired of the pain.

The show might not have much impact. Brother Rolf Hasty, lately, had become the most popular healer in Alten Weinberg. Everybody wanted to quiz him about the new general’s health.

Arrangements had been made to let Ernest help Hecht with his ceremonial obligations. The Empress was in a flexible mood. She had chosen to interview him in the same venue, Winterhall, where first she had asked him to come over to the Empire. As then, there were few witnesses, though more than before.

The Princess Apparent sat to her sister’s right and below, slouched but quietly attentive. Her truce with Katrin continued. An heir was on