"You're right. Nothing for it."

The path to the outhouses led through the kitchen area, dark, smoky, and filthy enough to silence hunger for days. A greasy, heavily furred fat man was loafing, dispiritedly chatting up a bored serving girl who had no interest in a game of slap and tickle. She was not more than three years older than Vali. The cook demanded, "What's this damned parade to the jakes? Ain't nobody drunk enough to need a piss between them. You." He pointed a sausage finger at Hecht. "You ain't had a drink since you been here. That's unnatural."

Ghort countered, "It ain't the beer, brother. It's the rotten food all in a gassy hurry to get out the shit chute."

The cook considered taking umbrage. It was not worth the energy. He would save himself for the serving girl.

Hecht said, "She's probably his daughter."

"Even so, can't say as I blame him for trying. She's got an interesting look."

Pella materialized outside the back door. He whispered, They headed for the stables, Your Honors. With two other men. Ones that was staying here already."

"Where's Vali?"

"Watching them."

"Show us where they are. Then you and Vali get back inside. Go to bed. You'll need the rest. We'll be on the road again tomorrow."

"This what you been waiting for?"

"Yes. Get moving."

Pella led off like he could see in the dark. Hecht and Ghort eased along behind, Hecht wondering what had become of the third priest.

The stables were quiet. The stable boys were asleep and he animals snoozing. Even the rats seemed to have taken the night off. An utter lack of response from his amulet told Hecht that no supernatural threat was afoot. Meaning none had an interest in what was happening here.

Their quarry proved not to have gone to the stable itself but into the attached feed shed. A lantern burned there. Light leaked through unsealed walls. Ghort used touch and gesture to tell Pella to collect Vali and head back inside. To Hecht, he breathed, "Keep alert. There's another one around somewhere."

Hecht nodded. He eased up to peek through an uncaulked crack between horizontal logs.

The missing man was inside. He helped his friends move sacks of oats. The would-be assassins were more wary than the men paying off.

Interesting, Hecht thought. The holy men seemed inclined to play it straight. The deserters must have convinced them that everything had gone well.

Ghort breathed, "I don't buy it. Those two aren't even the ones that were sent down there."

Hecht squeezed Ghort's arm. They could talk later.

The three counted out silver to the two. There was a brief argument about whether or not the wages of dead conspirators ought to be paid. The deserters argued that the dead men had left families behind.

The paymasters offered half the agreed sum. Or nothing.

The deserters took what they could get. Hecht got the sense that their concern about the families of relatives now fatherless and husbandless was genuine. The plot may have been an extended family enterprise.

There was little talk, though the deserters did offer an account of the attack that failed to match what Hecht recalled.

Why were the paymasters so amenable?

Well, the deserters were no real threat since they could not know anything about these three.

The deserters pocketed their money and took off for the stable. They roused the stable boys and ordered their mounts readied. One boy protested. "Them nags is plumb worn out. Yer killin' them. And yer don't want ter go ridin' round in the night, nohow. On account a they's banes on the road up north. An' thank 'e, Yer Honors!" The boy stopped having opinions. Hecht guessed that he had received a nice tip.

Hecht peeked through the feed-shed wall. All three priests were seated on sacks. After a joint prayer, one produced a kuf pipe. As he packed it, he asked, "Coyne is ready?"

"I sent word. He'll handle it."

Hecht became aware of Pella's continued presence. Irked, he said nothing. He did not want the boy to argue and give them away. He pulled Ghort closer, breathed, "What do you think?"

"We need to move now. Never gonna get a better chance. They're cornered."

But there were three of them, complete unknowns.

GHORT WENT FIRST. HE WANTED TO SEE THEIR SHOCK. When Hecht followed the three had just begun to rise in a loud of kuf smoke, confused. Ghort said, "Just a social visit, guys. We smelled the pipe. Hoped you'd share."

Pella slid in behind Hecht, armed with a piece of kindling he considered a worthy truncheon.

Ghort continued. "My name is Pinkus Ghort. My friend is Piper Hecht. The short guy is a famous literary character. You know who we are, now. We'll talk while we're passing the pipe."

The trio did recognize at least one of the names.

Pella looked at them, back and forth. He did not know those names but was pleased to hear what might be real ones.

Ghort warned, "Don't be that way. You aren't killers. We're professionals. You pull a knife, you get hurt."

One man did not listen.

Ghort moved so fast he startled Hecht as much as the man he disarmed. "So, what we're going to do here is, we're going to share a pipe and talk about assassinations."

Ghort collected the fallen knife. "Pipe? Want to throw anything in here?"

"You're doing fine. But let's not dawdle."

Ghort flipped the knife. It stuck in the throat of the man farthest from him. "You," he told the next farthest. "Take care of him. He'll live if you pay attention. Unless you all want to be stubborn. Then none of you will. And you'll ruin a lot of good oats before you stink enough for them to dig you out."

"Sit," Hecht told the man Ghort had disarmed. "Talk to us. Who are you?"

After a brief consultation with his courage, the man said, "We're priests. Lay brothers, actually."

"Priests don't murder people."

"They do it all the time, Pipe. They just dress it up in mumbo jumbo. Do go on. This could get fascinating. Our own Church is trying to stab us in the back."

"Not the Church. Not your Church. Not the Usurper."

"She-it! Viscesment! Immaculate?"

Hecht found that hard to swallow. It was a given that the Anti-Patriarch was weak and ineffectual, little more than a joke. The consensus was that Immaculate II would drink himself to death and the dual Patriarchy would fade into history with him. Immaculate's line, though it had sound legal footing, would end.

"That will take some explaining," Hecht said.

"Are you really the Captain-General?"

"Yes. Why?"

"The Advisory concluded that you are the most dangerous weapon the Usurper has in his arsenal. If you're removed Sublime will never pull together forces able to impose his will outside his own territories. Especially once the Emperor dies."

The Empire was expected to weaken and become chaotic when Lothar died. His sister Katrin would succeed. And she would have to deal with scores of Electors and lesser nobility who would chafe under the rule of a woman.

"Explains the incompetence of the whole thing," Ghort muttered. "The Anti-Patriarch. Who'd of thought he even had a hair, let alone a complete set of balls?"

"Supposing anyone is telling the truth," Hecht observed. "I can think of several men who have the nerve, supposing there's any real point to killing me." There must be. Attempts had been made regularly.

He watched the other two pray over the wounded man. He pushed Pella back out into the darkness. "Take care of Vali. You don't want these men to know you're with us, anyway. They're not nice people."

The fight had gone out of the three, though. Ghort asked, "What now, Pipe? I didn't expect no priests from Viscesment."

"Nor did I." Where to? Race the news from the Connec to Brothe with no hope of beating it?