"Being a girl I guess I'm supposed to be too dim to notice. Before he disappeared Bernardin was chummy with some outlanders who spoke a dialect harder to follow than Firaldian. Men who looked like they'd butcher and roast their own mothers if they missed a meal. Bernardin disappeared but those men are still around."

"I haven't been paying close enough attention, obviously. I haven't noticed them."

Naturally, when Socia tried to point them out not a one could be found.

But the war on Sublime's running dogs never abated.

"Well?" Anna Mozilla asked as Piper Hecht collapsed onto a couch. "How bad is it?"

"It's awful. It's beyond awful. Sublime is a raving lunatic. The whole west will go up in flames if he has his way. He's determined to invade the Connec. Anne of Menand seems to be in complete control in Salpeno. She takes the crusade idea seriously. She has people in the Connec already. She's so focused on the south, you know Santerin's surrogates will get busy elsewhere. If it goes badly for Arnhand in the Connec, King Brill might invade the Pail itself. To press his claim to the Arnhander throne."

"No more politics, Piper."

"How are the kids?"

"Getting fat. And in bed. Bechter sent word you were coming."

"I don't know what I'd do without him."

"What was the coronation like?" With a sharp edge there. The Captain-General's mistress had not been invited.

Hecht said, "That was weeks ago."

"And you haven't been home since."

"Uhn? I didn't realize… We really are working hard."

"You're the man in charge, Piper."

He sighed. He would not be able to keep much from Anna, anymore. Titus Consent had had to leave the Devedian quarter. He had moved in not far away. Noe and Anna vere getting chummy.

Neither woman had an extended family to give her support.

Anna had become uncomfortably domestic. She was older than Hecht. Maybe the adventure had gone out of her.

She did have plenty of domestic adventure left.

Lying in the post-prandial glow, half asleep, Hecht tried to get the coronation out of his head. It was stuck like a song that would not go away. Like the latest love song from some Connecten jongleur. Princess Helspeth had stared at him throughout the ceremony. It was so obvious that several people asked about it. He explained that he had saved her life at al-Khazen.

He hoped he was more subtle than she.

The girl fascinated him.

But it was only a fancy. Helspeth Ege was Princess Apparent of the New Brothen Empire. He was a sword in the pay of her father's favorite enemy.

The Imperial party still had not left Brothe. But the Captain-General had seen nothing of those people since the ceremonies.

Nor would he have had time.

Sublime wanted to send an army through Ormienden into the End of Connec. He had more backing than Hecht had thought possible. Many supporters, disappointed by the Calziran Crusade, were willing to throw more wealth down another rathole hoping they could fatten up in the Connec.

Titus's reports made it sound as though there would be little left to take. Bad things were happening out there.

Sublime still had received only a quarter of the money promised by Anne of Menand. As much more was supposed to have disappeared in transit. And there were rumors that Anne was financing Arnhander incursions to the Connec using the rest of Sublime's bribe as security for loans for her own warmaking.

Brothen moneylenders had become reluctant to deal with the Patriarchy.

Sleep came. Helspeth haunted his dreams. She did so every night. He had gotten no chance to speak with her. Then, or since. The Imperial party would leave soon. The Empress Katrin wanted to cross the Jago Mountains while the passes were in their best possible state.

Anna rolled over and buried her face in his chest. Her hot breath wakened him. "Can't you relax?" she murmured. "Can't you just push it all out of your head for one night?"

He could not. When not obsessing about Helspeth Ege he worried about Principate Delari, Osa Stile, recruiting troubles, the next assassination attempt, and what had become of al-Azer er-Selim. He wanted a long talk with his onetime Master of Ghosts. But Az had not revealed himself again.

He had not had news from Bo Biogna yet, either. No one had seen Bo for a long time.

Piper Hecht was worried.

Dangers circled like impatient vultures.

"I'm trying, darling. Truly, I am, But…"

Sleep finally returned. Almost that suddenly.

Pella and Vali made breakfast. And did a creditable job. They brought it in to Hecht and Anna, still lying entangled. Neither child was troubled. Privacy was not that common.

Hecht was not comfortable with the situation although, intellectually, he knew that here in the west, even among nobles, whole families slept in the same room, often in the same bed. The usual business between men and women proceeded anyway.

Hecht asked, "Has our little girl said anything yet?"

"No. But her motives have changed. It isn't about hiding anymore. Now she's just being stubborn." Anna leaned in to whisper, "I heard her talking to Pella. She didn't know I was in the next room."

"She'll come around." After a few minutes lying there, fed, enjoying the holding and being held, Hecht said, "They're good kids."

"Amazingly so, considering their backgrounds. Yes."

"Aren't we all? Pella ever show signs of homesickness? Does Vali?"

"Pella? Not that I've ever seen."

"He knows when he's got it good."

"He mentioned his sister once."

"The prostitute?"

"He's asked if he can read the book that has him and her in it. I don't know what he means."

Hecht explained. "Bronte Doneto has a copy. According to Pinkus. Who claims to have read it. I doubt that Doneto would let us see it. It's banned in the Patriarchal States. It pokes fun at the Church. Supposedly."

"You haven't found out anything about Vali?"

"Only that her real name can't be Vali Dumaine. Titus can't find Dumaines anywhere who are missing a daughter. Nor are there any girls named Vali missing anywhere, at least at a level where there would be any notoriety."

"So she's just a clever con artist."

"Probably. But I still have trouble swallowing the coincidence of her being a prisoner in a sporting house that fronts for the Witchfinder side of the Special Office. For a Brotherhood cabal set on scuttling Sublime's deal with the secret mistress of Arnhand."

"If you didn't have to be here, if you could just retire and go live your own life, where would you go? What would you do?"

Anna was tense, suddenly. His answer mattered. She was not just chattering in bed. "I don't know. I've never thought about it." Dreanger's call was fading, even ignoring its unfriendly attitude since he had been on this side of the Mother Sea. "I do tell people I want to get rich enough to buy one of those big latifundia farming operations, but I don't mean it. Farming is too much work. Even for owners."

"You ever done any farming?"

"No."

"Then definitely don't start. The farmer is at the mercy of everything and everyone. Bugs. Rodents. Moneylenders. Weather. Disease. Peace. War. The whims of God and Man. If it wasn't for forced tenancy, the people who do all the real work would quit."

"Voice of experience?"

"I had the great good fortune to have good skin, big eyes, a pretty face, and excellent tits when I was young. Those bought me out of the rustic life."

Hecht knew little about Anna's life before he met her. He never tempted fortune by prying. She seldom shared what she had survived or seen before she opened her door that night in Sonsa. That simple act marked the start of new lives for both of them.