"My uncle?"

"The author said. Lord Silent? Or is someone playing tricks?"

"Possibly. I'm never sure how to take him. He's actually more like a great-grand-uncle. If he says be more although, we have to pay attention. Like it or not."

"I didn't know you had any family, sir." A hint of suspicion, there.

"I don't. In a blood sense. Lord Silent is a distant, secretive relative of Principate Delari. He's part of that family's adoption of me."

"One must confess a certain curiosity about that."

"One must, mustn't one? I don't get it, myself. I think somebody saw something in a chicken's entrails."

Hecht had just sunk into sleep, in his down bed in the keep of the Counts of Castreresone, first night back. Titus Consent burst in, accompanied by four of Madouc's lifeguards.

"What the hell? It can't wait till morning?"

"I don't think. The populace may have heard by then. It could cause trouble."

"All right. Let's have it."

"We have a new Patriarch. Pacificus Sublime."

"Huh?"

"I don't know why he chose that reign name. He used to be the Fiducian, Joceran Cuito."

"A front-runner before Sublime died but not a name we've heard much since. What happened?"

"King Peter showed up. And spread a lot of money around."

"The Five Families are fit to be tied, I'm sure."

"I don't know about that. There wasn't much more to the message. But this could mean trouble here. Castreresone belongs to King Peter."

Hecht avoided the obvious counterargument. "Put patrols out. Tell them not to start anything but to be ruthless if they're provoked."

"Letting that word out should do wonders." Hecht treated everyone fairly, by his lights. But he was not merciful toward those who defied him. The Castreresonese would understand. "Can I get some sleep, now?"

There was a definite change in the White City. Anticipation filled the air. Positively, not as a premonition or foreboding. The Castreresonese were willing to bide their time.

The officially sealed message wallet from the Patriarch arrived nine days later. His staff assembled while he reviewed the messages. "Nothing unexpected here. A formal announcement that the Connecten Crusade is over. A list of Connectens who are being restored to the bosom of the Church. Including Duke Tormond and Count Raymone Garete. The siege of Antieux is to be abandoned. Castreresone should be turned over to agents of its rightful master, who are on their way. We are to withdraw down the Laur and assemble at Sheavenalle for transport."

Redfearn Bechter said, "That makes no sense. Why wouldn't he just tell us we're fired? Just leave us where we are?"

"We aren't fired. Obviously. Maybe we're needed in Brothe. People there won't be happy having a Direcian Patriarch. It would be Ornis of Cedelete all over again."

There was more to the letters but little of immediate import. Hecht told the staff to make ready for movement. To finish getting ready. The order to abandon Castreresone was no surprise.

Titus Consent was last to leave. He observed, "Have you noticed who the big winner was in this crusade?"

"Navaya? King Peter?"

"Exactly. At small cost he's become the power in the Connec. He's been using his gains in the last crusade to take over Artecipea. Now he owns the Patriarchy. He's letting other people build him an empire."

"Clever."

Inasmuch as there had been no Patriarchal instruction otherwise, Hecht left a garrison in Castreresone's keep. They would guarantee access if he decided to come back. They would keep order. They received instructions not to resist Duke Tormond or Queen Isabeth.

Buhle Smolens prepared quarters. Despite losses, desertions, and the absence of the City Regiment the army numbered more than ten thousand. There were no forty-day men attached, either. The last of those had gone before the weather turned really ghastly. Hecht had won outside Khaurene with a third of the numbers he had had when crossing the Dechear, westbound.

Hecht assembled his senior officers and staffers.

"I wanted to thank everyone. We did well. Probably too well. The new people are afraid of us. Which leaves me suspicious of their gathering us here. They're up to something."

Sedlakova stood. His handicap lent no strength to his argument as he made an impassioned appeal for men of faith to enter the Brotherhood of War.

Hecht stopped listening. The others all talked about what they might do with their lives, now. The Connecten Crusade was over. Nothing had been concluded. They were not distraught, though. That was not a new experience. Castles and cities fell. Death and misery walked the earth. Little changed in the broader picture.

He sank into a reverie about Anna Mozilla and the children. Thoughts of home had had a powerful impact on him these past few months. Never had he been drawn that way back when he was Else Tage.

He had developed new dimensions here in the west.

Everyone was distracted by concerns about tomorrow, forgetting that today still harbored dangers more deadly than the nuisance perils lately offered by the Night.

Hecht and some staff went to the harbor to watch the ships come in. Peter of Navaya's ships, mainly fat traders flying the banners of Platadura. A few lean triremes boasting Navayan colors larked around the flanks of the convoy. Hecht studied those ships and wished Pinkus Ghort was handy so they could brood over shared suspicions. He noted that several older, more weary-looking ships flew Sonsan standards and resembled vessels he had seen falling into ruin along the wharves of that city.

Shrieking birds wheeled and dove where the ships churned up the water. Though it was winter, the harbor reek was thick. The chill had reduced the insect population to a tolerable level.

Clej Sedlakova, seated on a cask, said, "Them tubs is riding high in the water. They must figure on really loading them down." Sedlakova was in a permanent foul temper lately. He was sure that, given just a few more weeks, maybe just a few more days, he could have reduced Antieux. Even absent Bronte Doneto and the City Regiment. People inside the city had begun to put out feelers, looking for rewards.

"Put Antieux behind you," Hecht told him. "We get paid the same sitting here as we do risking our behinds in the field."

Colonel Smolens said, "It isn't the risking that bothers me. It's the freezing and starving."

Sedlakova said, "Listen to that shit. What's he had going, this whole war? Hanging out in Viscesment. Then hanging out here. Check him out. He's gained fifteen pounds."

Smolens said, "I confess. The food is good. I'll miss it."

Hecht said, "You may not have to leave."

"What? What's this?"

"I haven't heard anything about us giving up Sheavenalle. If King Peter is running the new Patriarch, you can bet he won't give up control of a city this important. My guess is, they'll try to make it over into a free city, like Sonsa or Platadura. Allied to Navaya."

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Sounded like a giant bumblebee."

Twenty yards out on the mucky bay gulls dove to examine a small splash.

Madouc, always close by, still moving gingerly because of his wounds, said, "That was no bumblebee, sirs." Then he howled, flung back against Hecht, clawing at a crossbow bolt that had penetrated the left shoulder of his leather body armor.

Another bumblebee struck the cask that served Sedlakova as his throne. Sedlakova had vanished. Most everyone had. Madouc was down and trying to drag Hecht along.

Hecht refused to be dragged.

He headed for the source of the bolts. Not thinking, just reacting. With controlled anger. Grabbing half a broken oak stave abandoned by some dock walloper. The wood was old. Probably older than he was, Hecht thought, having one of those irrelevant thoughts that surface in times of stress, when everything seems to be happening in slowed motion.