Surrender to the Will of the Night - By Glen Cook Page 0,125

But Renfrow was never missing when it really counted.”

Hecht saw Heris seldom and the Ninth Unknown never, these days. He did communicate, via pendant, often. They had nothing to report about Ferris Renfrow, either. They said they were working on it.

Hecht felt starved for information.

He had access to more and better intelligence than anyone, possibly saving Renfrow, but remained painfully aware that there was much that he did not know.

Intelligence was like opium. The more you tasted, the more you wanted. The craving could not be satisfied.

The session never slipped the bonds of propriety. But it did go on. Helspeth always had another question. Hecht began doling out bits of thinking he had not yet shared with Titus, also to prolong their encounter. Before they did part, Helspeth suggested that they make an evening briefing part of their schedules. So that, when Katrin returned, she would find her crusade developing perfectly.

Hecht’s men worked long days. They drilled. They performed weapons exercises. They performed fatigue duties. They helped clear snow from thoroughfares. They were involved in restoration of the city fortifications and a study of its arsenals and emergency stores. The latter, as in so many cities not recently threatened, existed mainly in wishful thinking. Shortages had sparked several scandals already. No names of consequence surfaced, naturally, so punishments were draconian.

Mostly, the Commander wanted his men seen. Wanted everyone aware of them constantly. He wanted potential villains conscious that a new factor had to be reckoned with and that factor was beholden to the Ege sisters.

He did not want to be lord of a praetorian guard. The politics of the Grail Empire, however, pressed him into the role of Imperial shield and hound.

He accepted that because he wanted to lead the next crusade. Which, if the Empress had her way, would be the biggest ever.

Katrin meant to buy her way into Heaven.

Loyalties blanketed Hecht in layers. He was several people, the created become most real. He forgot Else Tage completely for long stretches, as Else Tage had forgotten Gisors. Duarnenia and a childhood with Rother and Tindeman Hecht usually seemed more real. He rehearsed that past every day. And each time he talked about his boyhood new details accreted.

Alten Weinberg enjoyed a quiet winter. Weather in the Jagos was terrible. Not so in the capital. People remained content to mark time. Men of standing told Hecht that Alten Weinberg had not been so quiet since the heyday of Johannes’s power. A popular effect. But that could change when Katrin came out of seclusion.

Helspeth’s ladies were not as tight-lipped as she predicted. The heightening tension between the Princess Apparent and the Commander of the Righteous was the object of considerable delicious speculation. Nothing had happened yet, but, oh, what about tomorrow?

Privately, several Electors petitioned their God to make it happen—publicly enough to compel official notice.

The instruments establishing the Ege line as the Imperial succession just might be overturned if the Princess Apparent got caught in something sordid with a base-born, foreign-born soldier of fortune.

Crueler realities, filthy of tooth and claw, prowled the shadows of tomorrow. The first would come shambling out long before the first thaw.

22. The Chosen: The Wounded God

From the nethermost orient to the eastern shore of the Shallow Sea a grand migration was under way, though the families, clans, and decimated tribes braved the heart of winter. The Windwalker was hurt and distracted, somewhere far away. There might never be another chance to escape.

Few were welcomed. Resources were strained everywhere. Often there was fighting more bitter than when the Chosen were war slaves of the winter lord.

The empire of Tsistimed the Golden was an exception. Refugees were welcomed where willing to become subjects, so great had been the Empire’s losses fighting the Windwalker.

Tsistimed seethed continuously. Those near him feared he would suffer some final outrage and succumb to fatal apoplexy. The Ghargarliceans were pushing back. They had recaptured several cities where the nomads had demolished the walls. The kaifate of Qasr al-Zed remained defiant, scorning all ambassadors and executing merchants and traders caught scouting.

Never had Tsistimed known such difficulties. He railed against his commanders like a spoiled child, till the more thoughtful began to wonder if it was not time to decide which son ought to succeed.

Winter, though, was time to rest and recover. Tsistimed himself had to wait out the season. He came to terms with reality.

He had been through this before, early on, on a smaller scale. Time and patience were the remedies. He could await a