He said only, "Uhm?"

"You should've seen me when I was sixteen, Piper. I can't believe any girl ever looked that good."

"I'm sorry I missed you. Though I can't imagine you being more desirable than you are right now."

"You do have a knack for slinging the bull, Piper Hecht. And a woman of my years does need to hear that sort of thing occasionally." She grabbed. "Is this thing interested in another adventure?"

Anna Mozilla made it entirely impossible for Piper Hecht to remember that there were children in the next room.

Pella and Vali were young but not ignorant of the way of men and women. In fact, but for Hecht rescuing her, Vali would by now have had considerable direct knowledge.

Young girls were very marketable.

Boys were, too, though to a smaller pool of eager consumers.

Hecht was half-awake, thinking about Principate Muniero Delari. He had not seen the old man for weeks. Delari was preoccupied with refurbishing his underground world. While striving to avoid exposure to the machinations of Principate Doneto.

Anna snuggled closer, murmuring, "We should probably think about getting up."

Hecht had just finished dressing when the world seemed to end.

Hecht wakened aboard a litter. The air was thick with smoke and the stench of spent firepowder. Men from the City Regiment carried the litter's four corners. They wore the padded leather shirts and hard leather caps of the new militia patrol, the constabulari. They jogged up the steps of a church. Other constabularii jostled them, carrying other litters.

As the City Regiment dwindled it was being replaced by unpaid citizens performing duties defined by laws newly promulgated by the city senate and approved by the Church and Brothe's leading families. All able-bodied were now obligated to work a shift of fire watch and street patrol once each ten days, inside their native quarter, the shifts set by the crafts guilds and neighborhood social associations.

Although called quarters, there were nine military districts in Brothe. The patrols had had a dramatic effect on crime.

Hecht wondered where Pinkus Ghort had found the model. The Eastern Empire?

The constabularii lowered the litter. They eased Hecht onto a pallet. One called, "Father Capricio! This one might be important." Then they were gone, back for another customer.

Hecht stared at the high ceiling. Angels had been painted between supporting beams. A priest dropped to one knee beside him. "Ah. You're conscious." His cassock was that of one of the healing orders. "Can you tell me how badly you're hurt?"

"Concussion. I think there was an explosion."

"A huge one. A dozen buildings were damaged."

"Anna. The kids…" He tried to get up.

"Lie still. The constabulari will deal with it. Injured women and children would be here already. One of the deacons or altar boys can help you look. If you don't need me?"

"I don't know if I do. I'm having trouble feeling things."

"I don't see anything external. And I do have seriously wounded people here."

"Go."

Where had Ghort harvested his three-branched militia idea? Every Patriarchal city now had to organize a militia. The Captain-General's idea. Pinkus Ghort, overseeing the Brothen militia, built the local force to his own standards, dividing it into the constabulari, the guardi, and the equestri. The guardi manned permanent watch stations on the city wall and manned the several gates. They came from a more prosperous class than the constabulari. Already, some were pooling resources to hire individuals to fulfill their obligations for them. All of those hirelings were veterans of the City Regiment. And now, more than ever, beholden to the man who found them their jobs, Colonel Pinkus Ghort.

The third group was drawn from the richest families. The equestrian order. The men who could afford horses. Mimicking antiquity.

That puffed wealthy egos. Though there was resistance to actually going into the field.

The Brothen militia, as were those being organized in all the other Patriarchal cities, was expected to make some of its number available for service outside the home city.

Since ancient times the overlord had had the right to call out the entire male population. In the developing system a militiaman could expect to do forty days of active field service about once every six years.

Even the least enthusiastic cities would tolerate a ten percent call-up. Or, Hecht hoped, they would contribute money. That would let him hire experienced troops from amongst the refugees.

One of Anna's neighbors, a widow named Urgent, found him. "There you are. Anna is beside herself. You should treat her better."

"You could be right. Is she hurt? Are the children all right?"

"They're fine. The girl is covered with blood but it was just a nosebleed."

"Good. Would you tell them where you found me?"

"Why don't you?"

"Madam, I'm here for a reason. Not because I need a nap." The Urgent woman was the busybody sort. Nevertheless, she nodded once, sharply, and went away. He passed out moments later, while trying to get up.

"Pinkus?"

"The one and only. How come you're loafing around in here?" Ghort settled cross-legged, part of him on Hecht's pallet and part on that of a man who had arrived while Hecht was unconscious. The other man would not mind. He was dead.

"Last time I tried to get up I passed out."

"What I heard. I'll have a couple guys hang around. In case they try again."

"What?"

Ghort reflected. "That's right. You wouldn't know."

"Know what?"

"The big boom. We think it was meant for you. Only it went off early."

"Uhm?"

"All right. From the beginning. There was a donkey cart loaded with kegs of firepowder. Made a hell of a bang. It was supposed to go off in front of Anna's house."

Impossible that he should be so lucky, Hecht thought. He suspected that Ghort agreed. Ghort said, "We caught two men. Which is how we know what was supposed to happen. We'll backtrack it. From them and from the source of the firepowder."

"Sounds like you got it all under control."

"I think so. Tell me something, Pipe."

"What's that?"

"How come people keep trying to waste your ass? You might be the fucking Captain-General but it still don't make sense that somebody keeps coming after you."

"Pinkus, I wish I knew. If I did, you can bet your mother's reputation I'd be on top of it. But I don't have a clue. It can't be the past catching up. I don't have that interesting a past."

"Freaky."

"Absolutely. This scares me more than if I did know why. Because then I'd know who. Are you sure somebody was after me?"

"As sure as I can be of anything. And they were so eager that they didn't care how many people got hurt as long as they killed you."

"You have prisoners who were involved, I'd be thrilled to visit with them myself. Or, if you don't have anything special in mind for them, turn them over to Principate Delari."

"I might be able to arrange that."

"Good. Help me get up, here."

Earth-turning dizziness overwhelmed him before he could get his feet under him. "I'm not ready. Put me back down."

Hecht slipped into unconsciousness again.

He wakened. His head was pounding. He thought Anna must be responsible. He worried about the concussion… No Anna. No Pella or Vali. Nor anyone else who was part of his current life. But on the pallet formerly occupied by the dead man was a face from another life.

"Az?"

Al-Azer er-Selim, Master of Ghosts. Almost unrecognizable in western clothing, wearing no facial hair. His eyes gave him away. Those eyes had looked into the heart of the Night, yet remained amused by the folly rampant in Man and all of God's creation.