Socia joined him. The girl looked tired and older than her years. Incessant dejection had ground her down. "What are you looking at?" There had been nothing different to see since they arrived. Just a little more snow every day.

"The future."

"Pardon?"

"All our tomorrows look like that."

"You do need to go off to one of your Masters' secret places for a spell."

"Want to know a secret, Socia? There are no secret places. Unless you count hideaways like this. They exist only in imaginations of those who fear the Path."

"There's somebody down there."

Specks of humanity marked the trail. Maybe refugees. Maybe someone bringing news. Maybe just men who made the climb each day to clear the trail of ice and to bring yet more water up to the cisterns.

"There's still spring," the old man said. "A new year always holds promise."

There was the hardest part, these days. Encouraging others when he had so little optimism left himself.

The Captain-General was reviewing inventory lists payrolls. Scut work was the biggest part of his job. "How the hell do one hundred fifty-eight crossbowmen use up eight barrels of bolts in one engagement?"

"They kill a lot of people," Titus Consent replied. Sounding mildly amused.

He was, Hecht knew. Consent thought he was becoming a miser.

"Sure. But you'd think they'd get more of the bolts back after the dust settled."

"They probably missed twenty times for every hit. Those bolts aren't going to be recovered. Unless you put a thousand men out to glean the battlefield."

"Phooey. I'll make the Khaurenese buy me fifty new barrels when we take the city."

Consent smiled without being amused. It was an open secret: The Connecten Crusade had run its course. When elected, the new Patriarch would discontinue the war gainst heresy.

Reports had the balloting deadlocked. None of the Five Families could muster even a significant minority backing for their Principate. All they could agree on was unity against the non-Brothen candidates. Neither the Brotherhood of War nor the Society had backed a candidate yet.

Principate Delari had garnered the second biggest plurality in the initial poll, to his complete consternation. Hugo Mongoz was the front-runner, a compromise candidate who could be counted on to die soon. An interim figurehead to fill a role while the Collegium worked out a real succession. The Five Families could stomach Hugo Mongoz for a year or two.

"Messenger from Antieux," one of Hecht's lifeguards announced.

"No doubt Ghort whining for more money. Send him in."

A road-weary, dirty, damp courier entered, accompanied by Redfearn Bechter. The room was the warmest in the fortress, Camden ande Gledes, which stood a scant twenty miles from Khaurene. It commanded both old roads from the east.

Bechter presented a one-sheet estimate of the damage suffered by the Khaurenese and their allies. The fallen numbered more than fifteen thousand. Thousands more had been captured. The fools had fielded an army with no centralized command. Hecht had given them no chance to overcome that disadvantage.

"Good, with the Navayans. Some important catches there."

Bechter nodded. Hecht turned to the courier. "Yes?" The man behind the mud was one of Ghort's most trusted.

"The Colonel wants you to know he's been recalled. The City Regiment has been ordered back to Brothe. Never mind that they're in pay. The orders came from the city senate but were signed by Bronte Doneto. Colonel Ghort says the senators are scared there'll be major disorders after the election."

Hecht surveyed his staff, saw raised eyebrows. "Does that mean they expect another foreign Patriarch?"

"Colonel Ghort said, 'When he asks if they're going to pick a non-Brothen, tell him the guy in Viscesment, Bellicose or whatever, is running a strong fourth. And he's ex-communicate.'"

"I see." Hecht reflected. "How soon will he move?"

"He's already started. The orders gave him no wiggle room

Doneto knew Ghort.

"Do the people inside Antieux know?"

"Of course."

"Any idea how much longer the election could take?"

"Maybe ages. There isn't much bribe money floating around. Extra funds got burned up financing the Calzir Crusade."

"Get some hot food and some rest. I'll have something for you to take back when you go."

Bechter led the courier out. Hecht asked the air, "What does this mean to us?"

Consent said, "You'll have to reinforce Sedlakova. Leaving us too thin here."

True. Losses had not been great and desertions refreshingly few but, still, there had been a sizable turnover. Hecht had little reason to trust the locals and defeated mercenary who wanted to join up.

Consent said, "We have to decide what we want to get done before a new Patriarch comes in. Everything will change once he does. He won't share Sublime's obsessions. He may fire us all to save money so he can afford to commission monuments to himself."

That was the future Hecht feared and expected. Few in the Collegium shared Sublime's obsession with eradicating heresy and recapturing the Holy Lands.

Hecht said, "We've been on borrowed time since Sublime died. Being aggressive hasn't gained us much. Sure. A blood triumph. Heroic in proportion. It'll be talked about for years. But it wasn't decisive. It just taught the Khaurenese to stay inside their walls. Send somebody over there tomorrow. Demand a huge fine and a commitment to root out the heretic What we've been asking for all along. Tell them they have no time to talk about it. Start pulling in the patrols, foragers, and raiders, so it looks like we're going to attack. Let it out that we have Society friends inside waiting to help us."

"Your point being?"

"Maybe they'll bite. Maybe they'll bribe us to go away. But once we have everyone together we'll move back to Castreresone."

Duke Tormond did not surrender. Did not offer to accept terms, despite Khaurene's suffering. The Captain-General was not surprised. Even the hotheads over there should see that their best course would be Duke Tormond's traditional strategy. Just sit and wait.

The Patriarchal army had exceeded the easy reach of its logistical support, in country desolated by fighting, in the midst of the worst winter the Connec had ever known. It lacked the backing of a distant, obsessed Patriarch. Its commanders were not driven by fanaticism, which was not lost on the snoops and note takers of the Society.

Khaurene had only one worry. Treachery.

Plots failed regularly. The plotters were, usually, outsiders who had entered Khaurene to escape the Patriarchals. So they claimed.

The Captain-General faded quietly, taking valuables but doing no great damage to homes or fortresses or public works.

Madouc asked, "You want something to happen to that asshole?"

He meant a Society bishop who had just left, after raging at the Captain-General for not furthering the Society's agenda.

"Not at all. I just turned it all over to him. He can do whatever he wants, any way he wants, now. I won't interfere."

"You figure he'll get shit on. Right?"

"The Connectens are a patient, long-suffering people. But they've passed the point where they'll tolerate him and his kind."

"Good. Those crows need a lesson in humiliation."

"You had a reason for seeing me?"

"I need to put more men around you and keep them closer."

"Please! I've already got men unlacing my trousers for me when I need to use the latrine. Why?"

"The last courier brought a letter from your uncle. He told me to be especially vigilant for the next two months. There will be a serious effort to destroy you."