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had passed in a city where structures still in daily use were three times the age of the oldest in Brothe.
    The rain continued, growing heavier. Thunder mouthed off north of the Teragi River. There was a pre-Chaldarean superstition about thunder’s location being some sort of omen. Hecht could not recall details. He was too wet and uncomfortable to focus on much but the ambush and getting into dry clothing.
    His batman came out to help. “What’s all this, sir?” Redfearn Bechter was a pensioner of the Brotherhood of War. And, surely, still its agent.
    “They ambushed us, Sergeant.”
    “Bad decision on their part. I know that one there.”
    “What?”
    “Not personally. I’ve seen him before. He was with Duke Tormond of the Connec when he visited the Patriarch a few vcars ago.”
    Bechter had a scary knack for recalling names and faces. “Rainard. That’s his name. I remember thinking he was either too stupid or too smart for the job he was doing.”
    “And that was what?”
    “He was one of the varlets managing their animals. But he didn’t do much work. He kept sneaking off to hang out in low places. So he was a shirker. Or a spy. I figure spy. A shirker wouldn’t get away with it for long.”
    “You listening, Pinkus?”
    “Plenty. You want to keep him? I’ll take the other two.”
    “We do have better interrogators here.”
    “Let me know what you find out. Look, I came after you for a reason. The screaming high shits really do want to talk about Clearenza. Now.”
    Being Captain-General had its perquisites. A dozen varlets and stablemen came for the animals and prisoners and casualties. Ghort lied to them. “The guy with the bad arm is related to Principatè Bruglioni.
    See he gets treated like it.”
    Polo did come from the Bruglioni household, originally, and likely continued spying for them. But he was a hireling. Even so, invoking the name of one of the Five Families got results.
    Ten minutes later, Hecht entered a room he found depressingly familiar. Each time he visited, it was to face irate members of the Collegium, the Princes of the Church. This looked like no exception. The dozen most powerful Principaèes had gathered. A bitter squabble was under way, along the usual political lines. The one friendly face he saw belonged to Principatè Delari.
    “About damned time!” Principatè Madisetti bellowed. “Where the hell have you been? We sent for you hours ago.”
    And the Cologni Principatè wanted to know, “Why do you have to come here filthy, smelling like a dung heap?”
    “We were ambushed. Four men. Three equipped with our own standard-issue crossbows. The fourth a sorcerer of some skill but very little luck. The corpse is downstairs. If you want to examine it. Who, other than Colonel Ghort and yourselves, knew that I’d been summoned?” Professionally, he had to admire the quickness with which the ambush had been put together. Though, certainly, the ambush team had been around, waiting for an opportunity, for some time.
    It did not occur to Hecht that he might not have been the target. He thought he knew who was behind the attempt. He did not know why.
    He watched the churchmen closely, not expecting anyone to betray himself. None were major suspects, anyway. Their crime, if any, would be the sin of talking too much.
    Only Principatè Delari reacted strongly. His response was vast anger tightly reined. He had, to all intents, adopted Piper Hecht. This ambush was a direct assault on his family.
    Piper Hecht had not plumbed the relationship deeply enough to understand. The man he had worked for from his earliest mercenary days, Grade Drocker, had become his mentor during the Calziran Crusade.
    Drocker was one of the top dozen men in the Brotherhood of War. And the warrior priest had been the illegitimate son of Principatè Muniero Delari. Who assumed the mentor role with a passion following Drocker’s death.
    Hecht did not understand but he did not scruple to exploit the