Perforce, those in her presence shared the pretense.
“As you command, so shall it be.”
“In all things?”
Uncertain of his ground, Hecht went for cautious honesty. “Almost all things. There is my higher obligation to God. I won’t sell my soul. I won’t surrender to the Will of the Night, though I love you as a man must love his greatest earthly lord.”
“An answer Mother Church and all her swarming little priests would applaud. Good enough. Suppose I were to order you to carry my sister into one of these private chambers and spend the rest of the night making her fantasies come true?”
That edge of cruelty was back in Katrin’s voice, stronger than before. Time to be very careful.
“Much as I might, as a man, wish for such a night, I think that the situation, as you present it, would come near asking me to sell my soul.”
The devil left its place behind Katrin’s eyes. The urge to be cruel evaporated. “Very well. If I can’t help, I can’t. You two will just have to manage it by bumbling and sneaking. Go, now, Commander of the Righteous.” A hint of mockery there? “I want that report right away.”
* * *
The Empress seemed to lose interest. Hecht’s meetings with her came further and further apart as winter headed toward spring. He was not alone in enjoying less of her time. She was withdrawing. Her periods of distraction grew longer and more frequent. There were rumors of physical complications left over from her delivery.
There was talk of erratic behavior, though Hecht never faced it during his visits. He did see the harsh consequences suffered by some who managed to displease their Empress.
The same period saw the Princess Apparent growing ever more frightened. She told Hecht, “She’s worse than she was when she sent me off to die in exile. It’s only a matter of time before she turns on me. On all of us, eventually. Nothing we do will change that.”
Hecht wished he could reassure her. But the Empress he saw in meetings was not the Empress others saw when he was not around. There was plenty of smoke to give that fire away.
“Piper, she’s clever at covering it, but my sister is quite mad.”
“Maybe. You should be less melodramatic, though. The walls have ears.” Katrin kept setting up situations where they might think they were alone. But someone was watching. Possibly Katrin herself.
There were ugly whispers about the Empress ordering persons from the court to couple while she watched.
That, Hecht suspected, was enemy talk. Somebody wanted to paint Katrin in a repulsive array of colors. But caution would not hurt.
Helspeth whispered, “We need an exorcist. Something dark got into Katrin that night. It’s taking over.”
“Which night?”
“When she had the baby. Don’t be an idiot.”
“The night she … But … I thought …”
“What?”
“That you took a dead baby and made the whole business up. To stop her self-delusion.”
“You really did?”
“Of course I did. That’s what a lot of people think. While admiring how well all of you in the conspiracy have held your tongues.”
“Understand this, Lord Commander of the Righteous. One last time. It was real. Katrin’s pregnancy, Katrin’s delivery, Katrin’s baby. All real. I was there. I saw that thing come out. It was awful. The midwives made it look a lot better before they put it in the coffin. They were terrified. They kept babbling about sorcery and the Night.”
“Hold on.” Even now Hecht had trouble believing in Katrin’s pregnancy. “Any chance somebody besides Jaime could have been the father?”
“Piper! None! How dare you …”
“It’s a process. Seduction of the truth. Save your indignation. So. Before, your sister was rude, self-centered, uncaring, and bullheaded. Everything we admire in a monarch once they’re safely dead. But now she’s more of all that, and crazy religious besides.”
“Yes. She lives according to her faith. As she sees it. But what she sees keeps changing and getting uglier.”
“If she’s devout, then she didn’t have knowing congress with the Night. That she birthed a monster wouldn’t be her doing.”
“Wrong! Of course it’s her fault. She let that animal Jaime spill his seed inside her. She wanted him to. She begged him to.”
“It wasn’t a match ordained in Heaven.” Hecht looked around hard. Where would an eavesdropper be lurking? Along with what else?
He tried to caution Helspeth with a hand sign.
She forged on. “For Katrin it was. It still is. She’s blind about Jaime. Say something against him and you’re on her bad side for sure. I