Lord of the Silent Kingdom (43 page)

She wanted Katrin to have no excuse to deepen her misery.

Katrin had miseries of her own. The Council Advisory worked at creating them. Grand Duke Hilandle was especially unpleasant. Because of events during his desperate attempt to catch up with the Imperial procession before it reached Brothe, especially. Helspeth could not believe the stories the survivors told.

They sounded like tales cooked up to conceal the wickedness of human monsters.

On reaching the Dimmel Palace Helspeth slept. For ten hours. Then she got up for a few, removed the road and ate, then slept some more. Then she dragged herself out. She had duties. She had been away a long time.

Those left behind had done well. Only a few whiners showed for the summary assizes. Their petitions were easily handled. Helspeth retreated to her quarters.

There had been changes among her women. Gruff Lady Chevra diNatale had gone home. Lady Delta va Kelgerberg had wheedled her way into Katrin’s entourage. She had been replaced by Lady Hilda Daedal of Averange. Helspeth was glad to have her.

Lady Hilda was only a little older than she. Helspeth knew her from the Imperial court. Her husband’s father had been a favorite of Johannes Blackboots.

Lady Hilda was a tall, slim blonde, in the mold of Katrin Ege. At twenty-three she had been married nearly nine years. She saw her husband Strumwulf just often enough to become pregnant regularly. She had given birth five times. Two of her children survived.

Lady Hilda’s life appalled Helspeth. Yet it was typical of a woman of her class and time.

Despite all those pregnancies she remained attractive.

There were rumors. Lady Hilda might not be one hundred percent faithful to the Landgraf fon Averange.

One suspected lover was her husband’s father, Sternhelm, the Graf fon Sonderberg. Averange was a walled town inside Sternhelm’s barony.

Other names mentioned all belonged to older men.

Lady Hilda was a Brothen Episcopal. “And I won’t hide the truth, Princess,” she told Helspeth. “I’m supposed to keep an eye on your religious practices. Though I’m not a fanatic myself.”

“I don’t understand. Katrin never showed any religious interest before Father died.”

“It was there. Secretly. Because her mother was religious. What she’s doing now is more about prying the fingers of the Grand Duke and Council Advisory off her throat. She’ll be less devoted to Sublime once she rids herself of those foul old men.”

“The men she’s allying with aren’t much better.”

“They’ll follow the Council. Katrin wants to be as powerful as your father was. Without having to give what he did on behalf of the Empire.”

Helspeth doubted Lady Hilda. She had seen her sister regularly in Brothe. Not once had Katrin changed in private, in her suite in the Penital, when there were no witnesses.

Helspeth would not disagree with Lady Hilda. There was much she wanted to learn from the more experienced woman.

“What is that you keep fussing with?” Lady Hilda asked.

Helspeth had been reading a letter when Lady Hilda joined her. Searching for any missed nuance.

She dared all. Took a huge risk. Trusted a woman whose mind she did not know, for no better reason than that she liked her. “It’s a letter.”

“From the way you say that, and from the way you’re coloring, it has to be from a man. About whom you’ve had unchaste thoughts.”

Helspeth felt the heat rise to her cheeks.

Lady Hilda laughed softly.

“It’s not funny.”

“I wasn’t … Never mind. You poor girl. Your age and never been touched. Too valuable a counter in the game of empire.” She extended a hand. “Let me see what he says.”

Helspeth felt like she was caught in a trance.

Lady Hilda was not impressed. “Plainly, he isn’t any more practiced at this than you are. And he doesn’t get carried away saying anything romantic or concrete. Does he?”

“You don’t understand. The important thing is, he replied. I almost died of anxiety waiting to see if he would.”

“You wrote to him? First?”

Heat in the cheeks again. “Yes. Several times. I …”

“Not the way the jongleurs sing it.”

“I can’t help it. I’m fascinated. Like the mouse in stories about mice and snakes.”

“This snake doesn’t sound eager to catch a mouse. He sounds wary. He’s afraid you’re a living pitfall.”

Helspeth grimaced. Princess Apparent Helspeth Ege, lethal pitfall.

Had she truly pelted the Captain-General with letters while she was in Brothe? She had gotten no opportunity to do anything but exchange glances with him, otherwise. The one time they might have met, he had gotten caught in an explosion beforehand.

The big thing was, he had answered her. Twice.

The second letter she would share with no one. Ever. It contained hints that fed her imagination. And might be enough to betray their author.

“Are you going to report this?”

“Of course not. I’m supposed to protect your soul, not your chastity. You do have sense enough to know you need to remain a virgin, don’t you? Anyway, this can’t go anywhere.”

“I’m not … It isn’t a matter of …”

“Calm down. I know what you’re going through. Though I didn’t go through it till I’d been married a while. I was just ready to turn seventeen. I was pregnant. For the third time. I’m pregnant a lot. The first two times I miscarried. And that one would be stillborn, later. Strumwulf was off to the Holy Lands. He’d be gone for two years. I’m saying things I shouldn’t.”

Helspeth took her letter back. She folded it and slipped it into the hiding place it occupied when the other women were around. “Are you ashamed?”

Lady Hilda seemed surprised. Like that had not occurred to her. “No. The flesh has its hungers. Some endure them more easily than others. Can you imagine a dragon like Lady Chevra engaged in passionate congress? The victim of her appetites?”

“You can’t control yours?”

“I can. I don’t want to. You can’t possibly understand, now. You may not even after you’re married. If you fail to marry a man who shows you the best of that.”

Lady Hilda’s sour tone suggested direct knowledge. She continued. “The final, ugly truth is, your husband will end up more interested in some pliant peasant slut … Never mind. I have no room to be bitter.

Providence fashions some of us to be rutting animals, Princess, with little more self-control than coupling dogs.”

“You aren’t helping me, Lady Hilda. You make me ache for a lover to show me the pleasures hinted at in the songs of the jongleurs.”

“I apologize, Princess. I don’t intend to make you regret your virginity. Ignore me. Your innocence is priceless on the marriage market.”

“I’m sure.” Sourly. Though she understood her value to the Empire. Of Johannes Blackboots’s children she was most like the Ferocious Little Hans.

“I doubt you’ll bear the burden long, Princess. The factions at Alten Weinberg are shopping for husbands for you and Katrin, both. If your sister had her choice she’d take Peter of Navaya.”

“But …”

“He’s taken. And all she knows about him is a painting she saw in Brothe. She was taken with his beard.”

“Really?”

“Really. Katrin feels the fire but doesn’t know what it is. Or doesn’t want to acknowledge it.”

“She always scorned that when we were younger.”

“The court would like to make a match for her in Arnhand, with Regard of Menand or the son of the Count of Earistnei, a cousin of Charlve some want to succeed Charlve.”

“Wouldn’t marriage to the Empress decide the succession?”

“Probably. For you the leading candidate is the Duke of Brandecast.”

“Who? Uh … Shouldn’t your betrothed be somebody you’ve heard of?”

“Errol, first Duke of Brandecast. The oldest son of King Brill of Santerin. The Crown Prince. You’d be queen, someday.”

“And forever at war with my sister if she was Queen of Arnhand. But your smirk tells me there’s a joke here somewhere.”

“Errol is eleven years old.”

Helspeth sputtered. Ridiculous! But similar arrangements happened all the time.

Lady Hilda said, “There’s also talk about Jaime of Castauriga, in Direcia. Your sister wants a Direcian connection. Jaime is younger than you, too, but he’s seventeen. And will be king — unless Navaya swallows Castauriga. Jaime is both handsome and a seasoned rakehell.”

“Considering those options, I don’t think I’ll marry. The Empire will survive.”

“The Empire may, Princess. But will the Empress?”

“Excuse me?”

“There’s disaffection already. Katrin’s rapprochement with Sublime is unpopular. Her granting the Society the right to operate inside the Empire is unpopular. Her decree that churches in the Empire must forward twelve percent of their incomes to Brothe to finance the war on heresy is unpopular. She’s won no friends at all.”

“She overstepped herself. Even my father wouldn’t have dared tell the Church how to distribute its monies. Even if Defender of the Faith has been added to the Imperial titles. What is it, Claire?”

Claire was a fair-haired wisp of ten, the daughter of one of Helspeth’s new attendants.

“I’m to tell you that a man named Ferris Renfrow is here. Captain Drear said to tell you.”

“I’ll be there shortly. Lady Hilda. Help me make myself presentable.”

“Can we dispense with the formalities in private, Princess? Just call me Hilda. You’re excited. Is this him?

The spymaster? Or is it the Braunsknechts captain?”

“Neither. Ferris Renfrow was my father’s friend. He’s like a second father to me. I like having him around. He makes me feel safe.”

Lady Hilda accompanied Helsepth to her audience. “Most of the Council Advisory don’t want you here, on your own, with the Jagos between you and them, Princess. Playing at being a man again. The Grand Duke and the Lord Admiral both have volunteered to take you into their households.”

“I envy the peasants their freedom from such nonsense.”

“You wouldn’t envy them anything else.”

As usual, Ferris Renfrow was tired and Algres Drear was worried. Neither said anything substantial till Claire and Lady Hilda cleared off.

Renfrow asked, “Did you enjoy your stay in the Mother City?”

“Not especially.” Startled. She had forgotten how informal Ferris Renfrow was in private. “I got few chances to see the famous places or monuments.”

“Or anyone.”

She scowled. “What? I don’t know anyone there.”

Renfrow’s smile was enough. He knew she had tried to see the Captain-General. Algres Drear did not.

Though he might suspect.

Renfrow said, “War is coming. Chaos is coming. This may be the last summer we can cross the Jagos safely. You have choices to make, Princess.”

After a pause, she said, “You’ve lost me.”

“Sublime has unleashed his Captain-General. Told him to tame the heretics of the Connec. The Patriarchal forces gather strength from the Patriarchal States as they travel. Two of the most intimidating members of the Collegium are with them. The Captain-General and his staff have justified our fears.

They’ve worked wonders. They’ve changed the way things are done in Firaldia. He may collect twenty thousand men, mainly well-equipped and properly trained veterans. Forming what may be the most professional army seen since the Old Empire.

“Arnhand’s factions have put together several smaller armies. Once they’re engaged, Santerin is sure to take advantage. King Brill has been raising troops, too, since last winter. None of the Amhander factions have seen fit to buy a truce. King Peter of Direcia will get involved somehow, too, for Isabeth’s sake. And to his own advantage.

“Once the Patriarchal forces get bogged down in sieges the independent Firaldian republics and principalities are sure to act up. Some of them supposedly subject to the Empire. If you see what I mean.”

She did. The perceived weakness of the Imperial proconsul in Plemenza would encourage misbehavior.

What could a mere girl do? Especially a mere girl who had only her lifeguard and a rabble of a city militia?

“Not just because you’re a woman but because the Empire is fragmenting. Most of our nobility disagree with the Empress about her surrender to wicked Sublime.

“I take no position on that. I just point out the obvious. Someday soon I’ll say the same in Alten Weinberg. I serve the Empire. I hope Katrin will listen.”

Not wanting to hear the answer she expected, Helspeth asked, “What do you mean, this may be the last summer we can cross the Jagos?”

“That might qualify as hyperbole. Between the worsening weather and growing threat of some insane Instrumentality, the Remayne Pass will be unusable.”

“Alternatives are available.”

“If people up north stop fussing about religion and pay attention. We need to secure the east and west routes. Then we need to deal with the monster in the Jagos.”

Reports from the survivors of the Grand Duke’s party, unfortunately, did not seem exaggerated.

Helspeth said, “If something needs doing, please do it.”

That startled Drear and Renfrow alike.

Helspeth put on a big-eyed little-girl expression, smiled cutely.

She had employed the formula used by Johannes Blackboots to urge actions for which he preferred not to be seen as responsible.

Helspeth said, “What about the monster? How do we destroy it?”

“Destroy it? That’s impossible, Princess. We may still be able to constrain …”

“Destroy it! That’s
not
impossible. I saw what became of an older and far more powerful entity at al-Khazen.” She would not call Ordan a god, though he had been a mighty one in his time. “The Instrumentalities of the Night are no longer invulnerable.”

“They never were, Princess.”

“I’m not talking about tricking them into an idol that you shatter into a thousand pieces and broadcast across the continent. I’m talking about destruction. About what happened to the Gray Walker at al-Khazen. I’m talking about
killing
the Dark Gods.” She gasped. She had not meant to state it quite that bluntly.

Algres Drear observed, “That would be extremely risky, Princess. We don’t know how it happened. It might have been magical happenstance.”