Now his stomach growled as if to punctuate his thoughts, and his face tightened as he thought about all the other people — the thousands upon thousands in his own archbishopric — whose stomachs were far emptier than his. Even as he sat here sipping tea — as Clyntahn was undoubtedly gorging himself once more upon the finest delicacies and wines — somewhere in Glacierheart, a child was slipping away into the stillness of death because her parents simply couldn’t feed her. He closed his eyes, clasping the teacup in both hands, whispering a prayer for that child he would never meet, never know, and wondered how many others would join her before this bitter winter ended.

“You’re doing what you can, Your Eminence,” a voice said very quietly from behind him, and he opened his eyes and turned his head to meet Thomys’ gaze. The valet’s smile was lopsided, and he shook his own head. “We’ve been together a while now, Your Eminence. I can usually tell what you’re thinking.”

“I know you can. They say the shepherd and his dog grow alike, so why shouldn’t my keeper be able to read my mind?” Cahnyr smiled. “And I know we’re doing what we can. It isn’t making me feel any better about what we can’t do, though, Fraid.”

“‘Course ’tisn’t,” Thomys agreed. “Could hardly be any other way, now could it? It’s true enough, though. And you’d best be concentrating on what it is we can do, not brooding over what we can’t. There’s a mortal lot of folk in Tairys — aye, and in a lot of other places in Glacierheart — as are waiting for you, and they’ll be looking to you once we’re there, too. You’re not so very wrong calling yourself a shepherd, Your Eminence, and there’s sheep depending on you. So just you see to it you’ve the strength and the health to be there when they need you, because if you don’t, you’ll fail them. In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve not seen you do that a single time, and Father Gharth, and Mistress Sahmantha and I — we’re not about to let you do it this time, either.”

Cahnyr’s eyes burned, and he nodded silently, then turned back the fire. He heard Thomys puttering about behind him for a few more moments. Then –

“You bide by the fire, Your Eminence. I’ll fetch you when it’s suppertime.”

The door closed behind the valet, and Cahnyr gazed deep into the fire, watching the slow, steady spill of coals, feeling the heat, thinking about the journey which still lay before him. At the moment, he and his companions were near the town of Sevryn, crossing through the northernmost rim of Shiloh, one of the provinces where neither the Republic nor Clyntahn’s Temple Loyalists held clear-cut control. The Loyalists had seized its southwestern portions in a grip of iron, but the northern — and especially northeastern portions — were just as firmly under the Republic’s control. The middle was a wasteland, dotted with the ruins of what had once been towns and farms where hating, embittered men hunted one another with savage intent and a cruelty no slash lizard could have equaled. This particular portion of Shiloh had missed — so far, at least — the wave of bloodshed sweeping through so much of the rest of the province, but the destruction of foodstuffs (and the interruption in their delivery) had made itself felt even here. As many Shilohans as could, especially women and children, had fled down the Siddar to Old Province and New Province, where the Army still promised security and there was at least some hope food would somehow make it up the river to them from the coast. They’d fled by barge, by boat, by canoe and even raft before the river froze; now, with the river ice four inches thick, they pulled sleds loaded with pitiful handfuls of household goods and their silent, wide-eyed children down its broad, steel-gray ribbon, trudging with gaunt, starvation-thinned faces towards what they hoped — prayed — might be salvation.

Cahnyr was using that same icy road, but in the opposite direction, into the very heart of the savagery Zhasphar Clyntahn had loosed. The ice was thick enough already to support cavalry, even light wagons, far less dog sleds and snow lizard sleighs. They’d come as far west by barge as they could before the ice forced them to put ashore and shift to the sleds, with the loads carefully dispersed to spread the weight, and the river ice had allowed them to make far better time than they would have made by road, at least until they’d broken a runner. Unfortunately, they were still almost five hundred miles from Mountain Lake, and that assumed Glacierborn Lake had frozen over as well. It might well not have, but there would certainly be enough ice about to prevent them from crossing the lake by boat. That would increase the distance by a hundred and forty more miles by forcing them to circle around the lake’s north end, and it was another four hundred and thirty miles from Mountain Lake to Tairys. Nine hundred miles — possibly over a thousand — before he could reach his destination, and Langhorne only knew what he’d find when he finally got there.

He thought about what was on those sleds, about the food he’d begged, pleaded for, even stolen in some cases. It wasn’t that Lord Protector Greyghor hadn’t wanted to give him all he could have asked for; it was simply that there’d been so little to give, especially with so many refugees pouring into the capital. The lord protector hadn’t been able to provide him with an army escort, either, because every soldier remaining to the Republic was desperately needed elsewhere, like in the Sylmahn Gap, with its direct threat to Old Province’s frontiers. Yet Stohnar also recognized the vital importance of succoring the people of Glacierheart who’d risen against their own archbishop, the man the Group of Four had named to replace Cahnyr, and beaten back the “Sword of Schueler.” It wasn’t just a matter of the province’s critical strategic location, although that would have been more than enough reason to support its citizens, either. Any people who’d paid the price Glacierheart’s had, in defiance not simply of rebels but of the Grand Inquisitor himself, had earned the support they desperately needed. And so Stohnar had given Cahnyr everything he possibly could, and Aivah Pahrsahn had collected still more in voluntary contributions from the capital’s Charisian Quarter and refugees who themselves couldn’t be certain where their next five-day’s meals were coming from. Aivah had provided medicines, bandages, and healer’s supplies of every description, as well.

And, Cahnyr thought harshly, she’d provided the escort Stohnar couldn’t: two hundred trained riflemen, under the command of a grim, determined young man named Byrk Raimahn. There were another three hundred rifles distributed between the caravan’s sleds, and Stohnar — whose armories at the moment held more weapons than he had soldiers to wield — had offered a thousand pikes, as well. There were bullets and powder in plenty, and bullet molds, as well. Zhasyn Cahnyr was a man of peace, but men of peace were in scant demand just now, and those weapons might well — probably would — prove just as vital to Glacierheart’s survival as the food coming with them. But even more important was what they — and Cahnyr’s return — would represent to the men and women of his archbishopric.

They had kept the faith. Now it was up to him to keep faith with them. To join them, be with them — to be their unifying force and, if necessary, to die with them. He owed them that, and he would see to it that they had it.

Chapter 32

The Kremlin

April, 1633

“Death and taxes,” Bernie muttered as he fell into the chair. “I’d really prefer a visit from the tax man.” It was April 15 and Bernie was in the Kremlin. Not because he was really needed but because he was the up-timer and the Muscovites believed that his presence was a shield against the slow fever. Typhoid, that was, in up-timer English. So he went through the hospices where the people who had gotten typhoid fever this spring were being treated with down-time made Gatorade. At least this year they had real instructions on how to make the stuff, not just what Bernie could suck out of his thumb. And they were making their own aspirin for the fever even if they couldn’t make chloramphenicol yet.

“It really does help, Bernie,” said Father Kiril. “You up-timers even tested it and gave it a name. Not that they were telling any down-time doctor anything they didn’t already know. Or any priest, either, when you come down to it. The placebo effect, they called in your future, and you, Bernie, are a very effective placebo.”

“Yes, everything’s great,” Bernie said sourly. “Natasha, Anya, Filip the whole staff of the Dacha, the mayor of Moscow, the rich and powerful, and the poor and huddled all agree. It’s likely that this spring’s outbreak of the slow plague will kill less than a hundred people. Which is great, if you don’t happen to be one of those hundred people. Sorry, Padre. It’s just that I know that we could cure this if we had the right antibiotic and we knew how to make them up-time. We even had the knowledge in the Ring of Fire, but we haven’t been able to make it. And ‘sorry, kid, maybe next year . . . oh yeah, you’ll be dead next year’ just doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“All we can do is the best we can do,” Father Kiril said. “The Ring of Fire didn’t change that. I suspect that nothing ever will.”

****

Guba Ivashka Kalachnikov was very interested in the knowledge from the future. He hadn’t been last year, much to his regret. He had found the up-timer uncultured and rude to people who had practiced the healing craft for decades. It wasn’t that Guba had any profound objection to washing his hands. True, it wasn’t a lot of fun in icy water and heating water was expensive. Boiling it, as the up-timer wanted, was even more so. But he had seen the results. He had seen patients that he would have said would die, live. If the Gatorade had that effect, what about the hand-washing? Since spring of last year Guba had been trying to learn more of the up-timer knowledge so that he might determine how much of what the up-timer said was knowledge and how much ignorance.

“Quicksilver, mercury,” he whispered, “is a poison?” He wasn’t that concerned about the lead that the ladies used in their makeup. There were other things that would work as well for that. He was busily trying to integrate the things that were coming from the Ring of Fire with his experience. He had a lot of the latter; he had been a healer for over forty years.

He listened to the rest of the list. It was something called a cheat sheet and was being read to him by a clerk from the Grantville Section of the embassy bureau. The clerk was a lad of fifteen and, even though he was Guba’s social superior, worked for him doing reading and writing. He paid the boy and thanked him for the service. Guba had never bothered to learn reading and writing. At least not what most people would think of as reading and writing. He used a set of symbols that was partly inherited from his teacher and partly made up by himself to keep track of what drug, prepared in what way, was in each container.

He worked with potions to relieve pain and balance the humors. He had mixed potions for Czar Ivan when he was an apprentice. Potions that included mercury. The knowledge that his potions might have been what drove Ivan mad didn’t sit well. “Mercury causes delusions?” he repeated. “I made drugs that drove Ivan Grozny mad? Drugs without which he would not have killed his son and the Time of Troubles would not have happened?”

No!

he thought. It’s lies. It must be.And yet . . . He could think of no reason for them to lie. At least none that made sense given the circumstances.

The shop was in Moscow and up-scale. Guba knew about drugs and acupuncture and a number of other treatments. He had a large number of very wealthy customers, and he wasn’t sure what to do. In more than one way. First, the potion for relieving the pain of swollen joints worked. He knew that; he had seen it. Mercury potions were also the only effective treatment for syphilis that he knew of. The dementia, if it was caused by the drug and not the pain, was a side effect that took multiple doses over a period of time to manifest.

Nor did he have a replacement for the drug. Not one that was nearly as effective. He understood from some of the things the boy from the Grantville Section had said that Grantville did have drugs that were effective. The little blue pills of happiness that were supposed to relieve pain and restore manhood. Another called Mary Jane. It didn’t matter; he didn’t have them and had no practical way to get them or make them.

Chapter Seven

I really hate this, Shahana Lillinarafressa thought moodily as the right leaf of Thalar Keep’s heavy wooden gates swung open at her approach, and the fact that her own fair-mindedness told her she was being unreasonable only made her mood even worse.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter, and since that was true, she was determined to discharge her duty well. However badly it set her teeth on edge.

Her mail jingled as her horse trotted through the gatehouse entry tunnel, hooves noisy on the pavement, the sound echoing under the circles of the murder holes in the passageway’s roof. Then she was out into the sunlight once again, drawing rein in the keep’s cobblestoned courtyard. It wasn’t much of a keep to someone who’d seen the massive engineering works and fortifications of the Empire of the Axe, but she supposed it was a fairly impressive pile of stone for a relatively minor lord warden of the Sothōii. Poorly designed and laid out by the standards of competent fortress engineers, perhaps, not to mention easily dominated by proper siege engines on the nearby high ground and with an equally easily-mined earth footing instead of solid stone, but impressive for a Sothōii keep. Of course, for anyone else…

She grimaced mentally as the reflection flashed through her brain. She was being cattish again, she thought, and reminded herself — again — to keep her opinion of Lord Trisu’s family seat to herself. However justified it might be.

Stop that! she scolded herself.

Behind her, the combination honor guard and delegation from Kalatha rode out of the same tunnel, and she sensed the male eyes watching all of them with the combined curiosity and flicker of hostility to which any arm of Lillinara became accustomed, at least in the Kingdom of the Sothōii. The hostility quotient was probably a little higher in this case, she reflected, given her war maid escort and memories of what had so nearly happened six or seven years ago. However –

“Welcome, Dame Shahana,” Sir Altharn Warblade, the senior officer of Thalar Keep’s garrison, greeted her with a bow.

Shahana was no knight — no arm was — and the title was yet another thing about her current duty that set those teeth of hers on edge, but she couldn’t seem to break the Sothōii of the need to append some sort of title they recognized to her name. Even now, she wasn’t certain whether that was because they needed that formal label to feel remotely comfortable with any woman who lived her life under arms, or if it was because of her champion’s status. Of course, the arms weren’t quite like any other deity’s champions, but it was probably too much to expect any Sothōii to grasp that point. They were doing their best to be courteous, and given how hard it must be for any new thought to claw its way through their brains, she had no choice but to take it in the spirit in which it was — probably — intended.

“And greetings to you, Sir Altharn,” she replied pleasantly, half-bowing in the saddle.

“As always, it’s a pleasure to see you,” Sir Altharn lied politely. “Will you step down from the saddle and let us see to your horse?”

“With pleasure,” Shahana said, swinging down from her mount.

One thing she had to admit was that the Sothōii deserved every bit of their reputation as horse breeders. Her own mare was a case in point, a gift from the man she was here to see. And another of those little irritations with which she had to cope, considering how little she relished having to feel grateful to Lord Warden Trisu for any reason. Sadly, she had little choice from that perspective, since Spring Storm Cloud Rising, the name the Sothōii had inflicted upon the beautiful creature, was undoubtedly the finest horse she’d ever ridden in her life. She’d shortened the splendiferous name to “Stormy,” of course — not even the Sothōii routinely used the names they bestowed upon their horses — and she paused to rub the iron gray’s satin nose before she handed the reins to the waiting groom. Stormy nosed back affectionately, and Shahana smiled for a moment before she turned back to Warblade.

“We’ll take good care of her, Milady,” the armsman promised as the groom led the mare away, and Shahana nodded.

“I know,” she said, and she did. Despite all the things about the Sothōii which irritated her, there were almost as many things she liked, when she had the patience to admit it to herself, and their near universal dedication to the four-legged wonders they bred was high on the list.

“Then if you’ll accompany me,” Warblade invited, and she nodded again and fell in at his side as he escorted her into the main keep.

* * *

Leeana Hanathafressa dismounted from her own gelding as Sir Altharn led Arm Shahana off to her first meeting. She didn’t envy the arm — a stubborner, more iron-headed individual than the current Lord Warden of Lorham would have been impossible to imagine — and she wasn’t looking forward to her own visit with him, either. But whatever his other failings, Trisu was at least unfailingly (if coldly, disapprovingly, and stiffly) courteous, even to her. The same could not be said for some of his armsmen.

She felt eyes upon her as she came lithely down from the saddle. She knew it wasn’t because of her horsemanship, and she suppressed an urge to tug down her chari’s hem. It was ridiculous, of course, and one of the reasons she most hated her occasional trips to Thalar Keep, where every single armsman and servant knew exactly who she’d been born to be. The knowledge behind those eyes made her much more aware than usual of just how much thigh the chari showed, and she could imagine only too readily how the minds behind some of those eyes were stripping her the rest of the way naked.

The owners of those eyes would undoubtedly have done the same to any war maid, but there was no point pretending they didn’t pay special attention to her. Legally, all war maids were equal before the law, absolved of all previous family affiliation and duties, yet it seemed every living Sothōii knew who her father was. That made her an object of special interest to almost everyone…and one of special contempt to those who insisted on thinking of all war maids as unnatural creatures, the best of whom were little better than common harlots and all of whom were dark dish0nor to their family names. The thought of successfully bedding her held a special attraction for quite a few Sothōii males, and not just because she happened to be young and good looking, and she knew exactly why that was. And what was almost worse, there were countless “proper” Sothōii women who undoubtedly figured that was exactly what she deserved after the humiliation and shame she’d inflicted upon her parents.

There’d been a time when her awareness of those watching eyes and the thoughts behind them had embarrassed her more than she would have believed possible; now, it only made her angry. She had no intention of revealing that to her audience, though, however much pleasure it would have done her to rip off a few heads and shove them up their owners’ bodily orifices.

The tart thought woke an unexpected sparkle of welcome amusement, and she reached up and patted Boots’ neck. The bay brown gelding blew heavily, trying to convince her the journey from Kalatha had worn him to the bone, but she knew better, and she smiled.

“Don’t lie to me,” she told him. “I’ve known you too long for that.”

Boots tossed his head with a snort, recognizing her tone, and she laughed. Yet even as she did, she felt those eyes, and that pissed-off part of her still wanted to go turn some of them black and blue.

“Kitty, kitty, sheathe those claws,” a voice murmured very quietly beside her, and she glanced at Garlahna. “I know what you’re thinking,” her best friend said. “For that matter, I’m thinking the same thing, but if you go and start kicking their arses the way they deserve, Mayor Yalith and Balcartha will have a few sharp things to say to you when we get home.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Leeana replied, elevating her nose. “Although, I do notice no one’s offered to take care of our horses for us…again.”

“As if you’d let anyone else take care of Boots!” Garlahna snorted.

“That’s not the point. The point is that they didn’t offer.”

Garlahna shrugged, and Leeana reminded herself not to grimace. Her friend was unaware of the finer points of etiquette among the Sothōii aristocracy. As such, she didn’t recognize the deeply offensive insult the Kalathan war maids had just been offered. For that matter, most war maids wouldn’t have recognized it, given the relatively humble origins from which the majority of them sprang, which was probably one reason Trisu’s armsmen and grooms took such delight in offering it. They knew how they’d just slighted the two of them, and the fact that war maids in general were too stupid to even know they’d been insulted only made it better.

And then there was Leeana herself…the one war maid they could be certain would know how profoundly she’d just been insulted.

She found a certain degree of revenge in smiling at the grooms and hostlers standing around with their hands ostentatiously in their pockets as she and Garlahna passed on their way to the stables. It wasn’t the kind of smile Sothōii were accustomed to seeing from war maids, and she knew her mother would have been appalled if she could see it. There were advantages to having been raised as the daughter of one of the Kingdom’s foremost powerful nobles, however, and she knew exactly how to put the proper cold edge of contempt into an otherwise pleasant expression.

“You’ll do fine. And you’ll have Vaijon along to help out, once we get back from Sothōfalas.”

“Isn’t that about like saying the tinder will have a spark along to help it out, Milord?” Brandark inquired.

“You’re welcome to come along yourself, Brandark,” Vaijon invited, but the Bloody Sword shook his head quickly.

“I appreciate the invitation — really, I do — but I’m afraid I don’t remember having lost anything on the Ghoul Moor.”

The others laughed, although the notion of the upcoming summer’s campaign wasn’t an especially humorous topic. The Sothōii had been forced to launch periodic campaigns into the Ghoul Moor for as long as anyone could remember. In fact, generations of young Sothōii warriors — like Trianal (and Tellian himself, if it came to that) — had been blooded there. Yet those had all been little more than spoiling attacks, designed to drive the ghouls back from the foot of the Escarpment and remind them to stay clear of the Sothōii’s horse herds on the far side of the Hangnysti River. With the approaching completion of the Derm Canal, something more permanent was required.

No one was foolish enough to believe the ghouls could actually be exterminated, although that would have been the preferred solution for anyone who’d ever had the misfortune to meet one of them. But if the entire canal project was to succeed, something had to be done to protect barge traffic on the Hangnysti. Ghouls, unfortunately, were excellent swimmers, and they had objectionable dining habits. It might be just a little difficult to convince bargemen to sail down the river knowing the ghouls — who regarded them as tasty snacks which were tastiest of all while they were still alive — were waiting to greet them.

That was the reason for the joint campaigns Tellian and Bahnak had mounted in the Ghoul Moor over the last two summers. The ghouls’ territory stretched over seven hundred miles along the Hangnysti, and there was no hope that anyone could possibly actually control that vast an area. But what they could do was to secure the strip along the riverbank itself with a series of blockhouses and forts connected by mounted patrols. Maintaining those blockhouses and garrisons — and especially the patrols — wouldn’t come cheap, but the projected earnings of the new trade route would more than cover the expense…assuming King Markhos wasn’t convinced by the anti-hradani faction in Sothōfalas to forbid Sothōii participation.

At the moment, there seemed little probability their opponents would be able to persuade him to do anything of the sort, but the possibility couldn’t be ruled out. And, in the meantime, the thought of Sothōii cavalry voluntarily cooperating with hradani infantry on any endeavor was enough to reduce those opponents to frothing fury. Even many of those who were tentatively in support of the new trade route were…uncomfortable with the notion. After a thousand years of merciless hostility, the concept of an army which combined hradani and Sothōii into a single, unified force was a profoundly unnatural one.

In fact, the first campaign season had gone less than smoothly. The armsmen of the West Riding were deeply loyal to their baron, yet his decision to fight side-by-side with hradani had come hard for many of them. Even those who’d accepted that Bahzell truly was a champion of Tomanāk and a wind rider had found it difficult to extend that same acceptance to hradani in general after so many centuries of bloodletting and mutual atrocities. There’d been a great deal of grumbling and more than a little resistance, not all of it from anti-hradani bigots, and Tellian had been forced to lead them himself that first year. And, of course, there were anti-Sothōii bigots in plenty on the hradani side, just to make the situation still better. Given the obstinacy quotient of Sothōii and hradani, the situation had been rife with potential disasters, and even with Tellian there in person, and with Bahnak’s heir, Bahzell’s oldest brother Barodahn, personally commanding the hradani contingent (and cracking heads where necessary), things had almost spiraled out of control on more than one occasion.

In the end, it had been the Order of Tomanāk more than anything else which had held things together. The Hurgrum Chapter had earned a high reputation among the Sothōii in the bloody battle to avenge the desecration of the Warm Springs courser herd, and its destruction of Sharnā’s influence in Navahk had won it an equally high reputation among the hradani. The respect it enjoyed from human and hradani alike had allowed it to serve as both a unifying force and a buffer between the two factions when tempers flared. It had also led the way once battle was joined, and whatever they might think of one another, the Sothōii and Prince Bahnak’s hradani were all fighting men. Where the Order led, they followed, and in the following they learned to respect one another, as well.

There were still occasional troublemakers from both sides, of course, although their fellows tended to quash them even more effectively than their officers might have. And the Order of Tomanāk remained a unifying force, as well as the point of the spear. By now, however, the West Riding by and large had at least accepted the concept that fighting with hradani rather than against them was a possibility. The fact that the Hurgrum Chapter was headed by a human, despite its exclusively hradani membership, hadn’t been lost on Tellian’s armsmen that first summer, either. In fact, the Hurgrum Chapter now boasted almost a dozen human members besides Vaijon, although any Sothōii would have flatly denied the possibility of such an arrangement before Tellian had “surrendered” to Bahzell in the Gullet.

Once this summer’s campaign began, Vaijon would be personally leading the Order, and over the last half dozen years, he’d turned into a seasoned and skillful field commander. That was a transition not all knights, even of the Order of Tomanāk, made, and Bahzell was proud of the younger man.

“So you’ve made up your mind as how Trianal will be after commanding your armsmen this time?” he asked Tellian now, and the baron nodded.

“I’ve got a feeling you and I are going to be spending more time than either of us might like in Sothōfalas this year, Bahzell,” he replied. “Especially me.” He grimaced. “Besides, Trianal’s more than up to the challenge, and he’s senior enough — and old enough now — that I can delegate the job to him without worrying that any of my officers might feel they have to test the limits of his authority.” He grinned at his nephew. “And he’s still young enough I can downplay just how ticklish the situation in the Ghoul Moor is if I have to in Sothōfalas. After all, if it were really important, or if our alliance with your father was truly shaky, then surely I’d be there myself, wouldn’t I?”

“And who was Father thinking about from his side, Vaijon?” Bahzell asked. “Barodahn? Thankhar?”

“Actually, no,” Vaijon said. “He’s sending Barodahn off to Silver Cavern for a conference with Kilthan and the other clan elders, and Thankhar’s busy acting as his eyes and ears with Serman and the Derm Canal work crews. So he’s picked someone else — Yurgazh.”

Bahzell blinked, ears flattening briefly in surprise, but then his eyes narrowed and he began to nod. Slowly, at first, then faster and more enthusiastically.

Prince Arsham Churnazhson had inherited the throne of Navahk following the death of his father. Despite his own illegitimacy, he’d always been popular with the Navahkan Army, and he’d fought well and hard against Hurgrum and her allies. In the end, he’d surrendered honorably, and while he was unlikely ever to be especially fond of Prince Bahnak or his sons, he’d also never had time for the perversions and cruelty of Churnazh’s legitimate sons. Besides that, he was smarter than they’d been, able to recognize the advantages the unification of the northern hradani had brought to all of them. Navahk had gone from starving misery to something which actually approached prosperity; that had done wonders to consolidate the legitimacy of his rule, if not his parentage, in Navahkan eyes, and the completion of the canals and the tunnel was bound to bring his city state even greater prosperity.

Yurgazh Charkson was cut from much the same cloth as Arsham, and he’d become the Navahkan prince’s senior general following the war. In addition, he and Bahzell had formed a wary semi-friendship during Bahzell’s days as a political hostage in Navahk, which hadn’t hurt his acceptability among Horse Stealers. Yet, like Arsham, he’d distinguished himself in both wars against Hurgrum, as well, which meant he was both popular with the Navahkans and respected by Bahnak’s Horse Stealer officers. He had the moral authority to command the allegiance of both, and putting a Bloody Sword in command of the Northern Confederation’s half of the Ghoul Moor expedition would constitute another major step in Bahnak’s ongoing campaign to truly unify the northern hradani.

And letting deputies, however senior, represent both Tellian and Bahnak in the field would go far to suggest that human and hradani cooperation was becoming routine enough it no longer required heads to be knocked together on a wholesale basis.

“He’s a canny one, my Da,” Bahzell said with a smile. “Almost as canny as someone else as comes to mind.” He twitched his ears at Tellian, who snorted.

“It’s not canniness on my part, if that’s what you mean, Bahzell; it’s laziness. That’s why the gods gave us youngsters to send out and do the hard work while we lie about drinking wine and belching.”

Lots of luck with that, Cahnyr thought dryly. It was a matter to which he’d given quite a lot of thought — and devoted much of his effort — during his own exile in Siddar City. Whatever they may want, in the end they’re going to have to choose between finding a way home to Zion or accepting the unavoidable conclusion of the steps they’ve already taken. And the truth is that the Charisians’ve been right from the very beginning. The Group of Four may be the ones twisting and perverting Mother Church at this particular moment, but if she isn’t reformed — reformed in a way that prevents any future Group of Four from hijacking her — they’ll only be replaced by someone else altogether too soon. More to the point, if the hesitaters don’t make up their mind to embrace Charis, they’ll inevitably fall to the Temple, and there won’t be any way “home” for any of them as long as Zhaspahr Clyntahn is alive.

He’d reached that conclusion long ago, even before Clyntahn butchered all of his friends and fellow members of Samyl Wylsynn’s circle of Reformist-minded vicars and bishops. Nothing he’d seen since had shaken it, and he’d spent much of his time during his exile from Glacierheart working to bolster the pro-Charis wing of the Reformist communities in and around Old Province and the capital. Fardhym had been one of the churchmen who’d very cautiously worked with him in that endeavor, which was a big part of his acceptability in Stohnar’s eyes.

And it doesn’t hurt that he had “Aivah’s” recommendation, as well,

Cahnyr thought, smiling faintly at the thought of the redoubtable woman who’d once been known as Ahnzhelyk Phonda . . . among other things. At the moment, she probably has more influence with Stohnar than virtually any nativeborn Siddarmarkian. After all, without her he’d be dead!

“You know, Gharth,” he said out loud, “technically, Archbishop Dahnyld has no authority over me whatsoever without the confirmation of his elevation to Primate of all Siddarmark by the Council of Vicars, which I don’t think, somehow, he’s going to be receiving anytime soon. Even if, by some miracle, that should happen, though, no one short of the Grand Vicar himself has the authority needed to strip an archbishop of his see or order him not to return to his archbishopric. And with all due respect to the Lord Protector, no layman, regardless of his civil office, has that authority, either.”

“Well, unless memory fails me, Your Eminence, the Grand Vicar named your replacement in Glacierheart quite some time ago,” his undutiful secretary shot back. “So if we’re going to concern ourselves about deferring to his authority rather than Archbishop Dahnyld’s, we should probably turn around and head home right now.”

“I was simply pointing out that what we confront here is something in the nature of a power vacuum,” Cahnyr said with the utmost dignity. “A situation in which the lines of authority have become . . . confused and blurred, requiring me to proceed as my own faith and understanding direct me.”

“Oh, of course it does, Your Eminence.” Gorjah frowned thoughtfully for a moment, then slowly and deliberately removed one glove so he could properly snap his thumb and second finger. “I know! We can ask Madam Pahrsahn’s opinion!”

“Oh, a low blow, Gharth. A low blow!” Cahnyr laughed, and Gorjah smiled. He hadn’t heard that infectious laugh out of his archbishop very often in the last year or so. Now Cahnyr shook a finger under his nose. “A dutiful, respectful secretary would not bring up the one human being in the entire world of whom his archbishop is terrified.”

“‘Terrified’ isn’t the word I’d choose, Your Eminence. I have observed, however, a distinct tendency on your part to . . . accept Madam Pahrsahn’s firmly urged advice, shall we say.”

“Diplomatically put,” Cahnyr said , then sighed. “You really are going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Your Eminence, I am,” Gorjah said in a softer, much more serious tone. He reached out and laid his bare hand affectionately on his superior’s shoulder. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you truly aren’t as young as you used to be. You’ve got to start taking at least some cognizance of that fact, because there are so many things you have to do. So many things only you can do. And because there are so many people who love you. You owe them a willingness to at least try to take care of yourself, especially when so many of their hopes are riding on your shoulders.”

Cahnyr gazed across into the taller, younger man’s eyes. Then he reached up and patted the hand on his shoulder.

“All right, Gharth. You win. This time, at least!”

“I’ll settle for any victories I can get, Your Eminence,” Gorjah assured him. Then he opened the inn’s front door and ushered the archbishop through it with a flourishing bow. Cahnyr chuckled, shook his head, and stepped back inside resignedly.

“Sent you to the right about, didn’t he just, Your Eminence?” Fraidmyn Tohmys, Cahnyr’s valet for over forty years, since his seminary days, remarked dryly from where he’d been waiting just inside that door. “Told you he would.”

“Did I ever mention to you that that ‘I told you so’ attitude of yours is very unbecoming?”

“Now that I think about it, you may have — once or twice, Your Eminence.”

Thomys followed the archbishop into the small, rustic, simply furnished side parlor which had been reserved for his personal use. The fire crackled and hissed, and the valet divested Cahnyr of his coat, gloves, scarf, and fur hat with the ease of long practice. Somehow, Cahnyr found himself seated in a comfortable chair, stocking feet towards the fire while his boots sat on a corner of the hearth and he sipped a cup of hot, strong tea.

The tea filtered down into him, filling him with a welcome heat, yet even as he sipped, he was aware of the flaws in the picture of warmth and comfort. The fire, for example, had been fed with lengths of split nearoak and logs of mountain pine, not coal, and under other circumstances, the cup of tea would have been a cup of hot chocolate or (more likely, in such a humble inn) thick, rich soup. But the coal that would normally have been shipped down the river from Glacierheart hadn’t been shipped this year, chocolate had become an only half-remembered dream of better times, and with so little food in anyone’s larder, the innkeeper was reserving all he had for formal meals.

And even the formal meals are altogether too skimpy,

Cahnyr thought grimly as he sipped his tea. He’d always practiced a degree of personal austerity rare among the Church’s senior clergy — one reason so many of that senior clergy had persistently underestimated him as they played the Temple’s power games — yet he’d also always had a weakness for a savory, well-prepared meal. He preferred simple dishes, without the course after course extravaganzas in which a sensualist like Zhaspahr Clyntahn routinely indulged, but he had had that appreciation for food.

Chapter 31

Grantville

March 1633

Vladimir was running late. He had just about given up on doing his own research. There wasn’t time. There wasn’t really even enough time to provide supervision of the researchers. Not with the sources Francisco Nasi pointed out to him. Yet here he was, because someone in Russia had found something about mica capacitors and wanted to know more because apparently Russia had the best mica in the world. At least, so he was told. He was looking around trying to decide where to start, when he heard a voice.

“Well, hello, Prince Vladimir. What brings you here?”

Vladimir looked around and saw a vaguely familiar young woman. He couldn’t quite place her though she was clearly an up-timer.

While he was trying to figure out what to say to the young woman, she spoke again. “I thought you master-spy types had minions to do this sort of thing.”

Her knowing that he was a spy wasn’t much help, but it did offer something to say. “I think you must be thinking of Boris, who has gone back to Russia. I’m just a journeyman spy. Besides it’s amazingly hard to find minions for this sort of work. Do you know some of them actually insist on having their eyes open when reading the books?”

“How horrible for you,” the young woman said. “Why, someone might actually find out what they were learning about for you. Now I understand why you hired Bernie for your Dacha. He can read the entire encyclopedia without learning anything.”

Bernie? Yes. This was Natasha’s correspondent that Bernie had recommended to her, the one that wrote to her about bras and things. Brandy . . . yes, that was it. This was Brandy Bates. “Regretfully, Miss Bates, you do Bernie an injustice. From all reports he has proven to be both hard-working and capable.”

“So Natasha keeps saying in her letters. But I’ve known Bernie all my life and it’s a bit hard to believe that he’s taking anything seriously for more than a couple of months.” Brandy shrugged “Maybe he’s grown up.”

Actually Brandy’s assessment of Bernie would have fit Vladimir’s perfectly, when he’d sent Bernie off to Moscow. He’d thought they’d have had to use much more stick to keep him at his work. “Apparently things changed this spring in Moscow.”

“Yes, Bernie wrote me about that. I hope you can get plumbing in before it happens again next year.”

Vladimir felt his head shaking before she had finished her sentence. “It’s most unlikely. Frozen ground is almost as hard to dig as stone. I do understand that there will be some rather draconian punishments for emptying chamber pots in the street and they are going to have barrels and workmen to move those barrels out of town.”

“Barrels?”

“To empty the chamber pots into.”

“It might work as a stopgap measure. Is that what you’re doing here, looking for new kinds of barrels or ways of carting them off?”

“No, the Streltzi of Moscow, who have apparently taken Bernie to their bosom after last spring, are taking care of that. I am in search of information on mica, muscovite, or Muscovy-glass. It’s sometimes used as glass in Moscow windows and someone at the Dacha seems to have discovered that it is an unusually good insulator. It’s a potentially high profit export for Russia.”

“So, why don’t you have your minions doing it, Prince Vladimir? Surely a prince has minions?”

“It’s that same problem again. The minions insist on reading with their eyes open. Plus the fact that my main researcher just got hired away by a French marquis who may be working for Cardinal Richelieu or the king of France’s little brother Gaston. But what are you doing here? Surely no one could hire away your minions. Besides, you’re an up-timer. Probably you already know all of this.” Vladimir waved at the thousands of books casually.

“No minions, I’m afraid. I’m a researcher. Have card catalog, will cross-reference.”

“Ah!” Perhaps I can get back to work. Vladimir felt himself grinning. “A minion for hire. I pay standard rates.”

“Yes, but you see I read with my eyes opened,” Brandy said, grinning back.

“Well, in this case it doesn’t matter. Poor spy that I am, I’ve already let you discover that I’m seeking information on mica. Are you sure you’re not a spy?”

Brandy giggled. Then quickly regained her composure and asked what he wanted to know about mica. He told her and they discussed hourly wage, the cost of copying and other fees involved. They reached an agreement and Vladimir was free to get back to his organizational duties.

****

Brandy went to work on the mica research, but her tummy was jumping a bit. Well, maybe not her tummy. But something inside her was jumping a bit about something.

The last thing she’d ever expected was to feel this way about a down-timer. Down-timers were . . . well, down-timers. They didn’t quite get civilization.

Over the next few days, she saw Vladimir quite a bit. And that jumping feeling became rather more intense.

****

Prince Vladimir had his own sensations. And the more he saw Brandy Bates, the more interesting those feelings got.

It was hard to know what to do about them. Up-timer women were . . . different. Not suitable for a casual dalliance. And, by Russian standards, not suitable for anything else. Still, he couldn’t help wanting to see her.

He kept finding jobs for her. And then, when he’d worked up the courage, he suggested they have lunch. And lunch led to dinner. And without really realizing it, he had become involved.

****

“Vladimir.” Brandy waved the letter. “What precisely is a clan?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your sister is talking about clans. I’m not sure what she means.” She handed him the letter and waited impatiently as he read it.

“Clan seems a fairly good word.” He pursed his lips like he wasn’t quite sure. “I think I would say family connections, but I am not sure. From what I understand, your government frowns on what you call nepotism, right?”

Brandy nodded, wondering where this was going.

“Russia is different. Nepotism is an institution of government.”

Brandy giggled, thinking he must be exaggerating to make his point. But Vladimir was looking serious, even concerned. “You don’t mean literally?”

Vladimir nodded. “Yes. If a person whose extended family is of lower rank is placed over a person whose family is more highly ranked . . .” Vladimir hesitated.

Brandy had seen it before, both in Vladimir and other down-timers. She had even done it herself, trying to explain things like the Goth-style of dress. It wasn’t just that the concept was missing; it was that there were half a dozen interrelated concepts that were all a bit different from the down-time concepts.

“A person’s rank in Russia is determined by three things,” Vladimir finally continued. “His personal rank in the bureaucracy, his family’s rank and his inherited rank. However, they are all at least somewhat mixed together. My family is small but descended from independent princes. Because it is small and doesn’t have a lot of connections to other great families, it’s fairly weak. In my case, that is somewhat counter-balanced by the fact that I am the prince. But a cousin of mine, if I had one, would be of significantly lower rank than a cousin of Ivan Borisovich Cherkasski, because the Cherkasski family has connections by marriage to many other great families. Also, because the Cherkasski family has served in the government of Russia for many generations and counts several boyars among its ancestors.

“So, say my cousin and Ivan Borisovich’s cousin both get jobs in the bureaus. My cousin, through talent or luck, advances more quickly. So my cousin is placed as section chief over a section in which Ivan Borisovich’s cousin serves.”

“Makes sense.”

But Vladimir was shaking his head. “Because the Cherkasski clan is higher ranked than the Gorchakov clan, it would be against the law for my cousin to be placed in authority over Ivan Borisovich’s. He could have higher personal rank, but still could not be put above Ivan Borisovich’s cousin in the same chain of command.”

“Like, say, he’s a prince?” Brandy tilted her head to the side.

“No.” Prince Vladimir got a bit red in the face. “I was talking about his rank in the bureaus or the army. Say a colonel in command of a battalion . . . a captain with the higher family rank could not be placed in command of one of the companies of that battalion because that would put him under the orders of the colonel. If the colonel was also a prince, it would be all right because his personal rank would trump the family rank, sort of. It gets a bit complicated. It’s the rank of the family as much as that of the individual. The family’s situation must be considered first. Before individual wants. Which is one of the things that has made it so hard for our people to accept your innovations. It’s common knowledge that you’re a ‘peasant village’ from the future.”

“We’re not, you know,” Brandy said. “I know that’s the way we have been portrayed and even how we tend to present ourselves. A village from a nation that didn’t have nobility. In a way, it’s true, but it would be just as true to say we were a nation of nothing but nobility. What we really don’t have, Vladimir, is the distinction.”

“And that, Brandy, is even harder for my people to accept,” Vladimir said, though in his heart he had accepted it. Accepted it because he had to. The proof was here before his eyes and before his heart. In the person of Brandy Bates who was as noble as anyone he had ever met and as common as the barmaid she had been before the Ring of Fire. All classes, all in one beautiful young woman.

“I don’t think He’d mind, Milord,” Vaijon said dryly, “and I know neither Bahzell nor I would object to spending four or five minutes taking care of it. So perhaps you should balance your laudable determination not to pester Tomanāk over ‘something that minor’ against the fact that we’re both going to be just about insufferable if you don’t let us take care of it and it gets worse again.”

“I think you’d better surrender while the surrendering is good, Uncle,” Sir Trianal Bowmaster said, smiling as he crossed the council chamber from his place by the windows and held out his own arm to Vaijon. “I’ve certainly been suggesting the same thing to you long enough, and so has Aunt Hanatha.”

“And why doesn’t one of you just go ahead and say ‘You’re not as young as you used to be and you need looking after, Tellian’?” Tellian demanded acidly.

“Because we’re thinking as how it would only be making you stubborner still?” Bahzell suggested in an innocent tone, and despite himself, Tellian laughed.

“Seriously,” Vaijon said, “you ought to let us get rid of it for you, Milord. Perhaps it is only a minor inconvenience, but there’s no point in your putting up with it, and I agree with Bahzell. There are enough people who wish you ill for something that just keeps hanging on this way to make me unhappy. I’m not trying to encourage you to look for assassins under your bed every night, but we know for a fact that the Dark doesn’t much care for you. You’re probably right that it’s nothing more than a simple cough…but you might not be, too, and it would make all of us feel a lot better if it went away. Especially if you’re going to be traveling to Sothōfalas with Bahzell and Brandark and this damned rain hangs on the way it looks like doing. The last thing we need is for you to come down with something like you had last winter when you need to be on your toes dealing with Lord Amber Grass and Prince Yurokhas.”

Tellian glowered at him for a moment, then sighed and shook his head.

“All right. All right!” He shook his head again. “I yield. I still think you’re all worrying like a batch of mother hens, but I can see I’m not going to get any rest until I do it your way.”

“And why you couldn’t have been realizing that a week ago is a sad puzzle to me,” Bahzell told him with a slow smile.

“Probably because I’m getting so old, frail, and senile,” Tellian replied darkly, then pointed at the chairs around the table. “And I suppose we should all sit back down before my aged knees collapse and I fall down in a drooling heap.”

The others all laughed, although at forty-six, Bahzell was actually a few months older than the baron. On the other hand, he was also a hradani, and hradani routinely lived two hundred years or more, assuming they managed to avoid death by violence. That made him a very young man by his own people’s standards. Indeed, he was little more than a stripling, younger even than Tirinal of Balthar, by hradani reckoning.

They settled themselves around the conference table and Trianal poured a big, steaming cup of tea and passed it to Vaijon.

“This wouldn’t be more of that vile morning moss tea, would it?” the champion asked, sniffing the fragrant steam suspiciously.

“Not in Hill Guard,” Tellian reassured him. “Would you like me to drink some first to reassure you?”

“That won’t be necessary, Milord,” Vaijon said. “Unlike some of the people sitting around this table, I don’t think you’d deliberately set out to poison an innocent and unsuspecting man.”

“You’ve a way of holding grudges, don’t you just?” Bahzell observed. “We told you as how it would relieve your cramps, and so it did, didn’t it?”

“That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it, I see.” Vaijon sipped cautiously, then smiled and drank more deeply. “Thank you, Milord,” he said. “It’s good.”

“You’re welcome.” Tellian leaned back in his chair, covering his mouth as he coughed again, and Trianal poured him a cup and slid it across to him. The baron grimaced, but he also drank dutifully, then raised both eyebrows at his nephew. “Satisfied?”

“For now,” Trianal replied, and Tellian snorted.

“Well, pour yourself some,” he directed sternly. “I wasn’t the one running around out in the rain without even a doublet, now was I?”

Trianal smiled and shook his head. But he also poured himself a cup obediently and sipped from it.

“I trust you’re satisfied now, Uncle?” he asked, and Tellian chuckled.

“For now,” he said, drinking some more of his own tea, and then cocked his head at Vaijon.

“Prince Bahnak asked me to give you his greetings,” Vaijon said, responding to the silent invitation to begin. “And Princess Arthanal’s sent along that pillowcase she’s been embroidering for Baroness Hanatha. I understand this one completes the entire set.”

“Your mother’s skill with a needle never ceases to amaze me, Bahzell,” Tellian said with simple sincerity, “although how she finds the time to use it with everything she and your father have on their plates amazes me even more. Please tell her how much Hanatha and I appreciate the gift…and the thought that went into it, even more.”

“I will that,” Bahzell assured him. “I’m thinking as how that’s not all Father had to be saying, though.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Vaijon agreed. “A messenger came in from Kilthan just before I left Hurgrum. It seems Kilthan’s agents are reporting that the Purple Lords are finally waking up, and they don’t much like what they’re hearing.”

“My heart bleeds for them,” Tellian said sardonically.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to waste much sympathy on them, Milord. But Kilthan’s of the opinion they might try to do something to scuttle the entire project.”

“Like what?” Trianal asked. At twenty-seven, Tellian’s nephew was a broad shouldered, solidly built young man. He was also an inch shorter than Brandark, making him the shortest person in the room, as well as the youngest, but there was nothing hesitant about his manner. “They don’t exactly have an army they could send up this way — or not one worth a solitary damn, at any rate.” He snorted contemptuously. “And even if they had one, we are just a bit too far from their frontiers for that,” he added.

“No, they can’t get at us with troops, even assuming they had an army used to doing anything more strenuous than terrorizing ‘uppity’ peasants, but they do have influence,” his uncle pointed out, never looking away from Vaijon. “That’s what Kilthan’s thinking about, isn’t it?”

“He and Prince Bahnak both,” Vaijon confirmed with a nod. “Mind you, I don’t think the Purple Lords would be above trying to provoke some sort of more…direct action. I imagine the possibility of using the River Brigands as catspaws has to’ve crossed their brains, for example. It’s the sort of idea that would appeal to them. But I think they’re more concerned about behind the scenes efforts in Sothōfalas itself, Milord.”

“Where Cassan and Yeraghor would just love to help them succeed,” Tellian said sourly.

“Something along that line, yes.” Vaijon nodded again.

“Which would be lending some added point to our visit,” Bahzell observed.

“Perhaps. No, probably,” Tellian said. “Not that Cassan and Yeraghor need any outside encouragement to do anything they can to break our knees for us.”

“From the construction side, I’d say it’s really too late for them to stop you, Milord,” Brandark put in.

“It’s never too late for that, Brandark,” Tellian replied. “If the faction that’s most worried about Prince Bahnak’s power base had its way, the King would lead an army down the Escarpment, burn Hurgrum and the rest of the Confederation to the ground, and take the entire project over in the Crown’s name. I suspect at least half of them have to be bright enough to figure out how Kilthan would react to that, even assuming Prince Bahnak didn’t hand us our heads — which I rather suspect he would — but that wouldn’t stop them from proposing it for a moment. And if they didn’t get it, their fallback position would be to insist that King Markhos embargo any trade between the Confederation and the Kingdom. For that matter, some of them are going to argue that the canals and the tunnel are only going to increase the Empire of the Axe’s ‘already disproportionate influence’ in the Kingdom’s politics and policy.”

“It’s not something they’ll find simple to be stuffing back into the bottle,” Bahzell rumbled, “which isn’t to say as how they won’t try to do just that. And I’m thinking they’ve more than enough ways to be causing us grief if it should happen they take it into their heads to be doing it.”

“Which is why you and I are going to Sothōfalas,” Tellian agreed, then looked back at the window at the steady rain and grimaced. “Not that I’m really looking forward to the trip.”

“Ah, but it could be worse,” Brandark comforted him. “You could be headed in the opposite direction.”

“Not a feeble and ancient wreck like myself.” Tellian coughed again, quite a bit more dramatically than strictly necessary. “That’s a job for a younger — and more waterproof — man.”

“You’re so good to me, Uncle,” Trianal said dryly, and Tellian chuckled and reached across the table to clasp his nephew’s shoulder.

Mikhail looked at his wife for a long time, just taking in the bubbling excitement. She fairly glowed with it. Could Petr Nickovich’s assemblage of balloons really produce such a reaction? And if it produced that sort of reaction in the Russian heart, what effect would it have on the Polish heart and the Cossack heart? “Very well. I will support the project. I can make no promises, mind.”

Somehow, as pleasant as his wife’s smile was, it made Mikhail a bit nervous.

****

Bernie had spent most of the last three days explaining that it was really Vanya, Misha, Filip, Gregorii, Lazar and even Andrei at the Gun Shop who had actually worked out all the improvements. He had just helped a bit. It was becoming increasingly clear not everyone at the Dacha agreed with that assessment, though. Some of the folks who worked here had even said so, though that was less common.

Bernie had been in Russia long enough to know how dog-eat-dog the bureaus were, so he was surprised and impressed that any of them were willing to share credit. But some of them were. Not Andrei, of course. But some were, and not just with Bernie, but with each other. Which was even more impressive.

All of which didn’t make orbital mechanics one whit more interesting. When Gregorii Mikhailovich started explaining orbital mechanics and Newton’s laws of motion, Bernie’s brain started to fry. He just didn’t want to hear it again, not right now.

He was having a beer in the kitchen when the door opened unexpectedly. At first Bernie was afraid that one of the brain cases had come looking for him again. But, no . . . the boss.

“Howdy, Boss.” Bernie snaked out an arm and grabbed a chair. “Have a seat.”

“Thank you,” Natasha said taking the offered chair. “Petr Nickovich is going to be impossible.”

“Why?” Bernie asked.

“Because the czar — and as of this morning, a majority of the Boyar Duma — wish a dirigible or half-dirigible built. They are going to build a facility at Bor on the Volga to build the main ship and others to follow it, but we will be building a test device here. Things are going quite well.”

Maybe,

Bernie thought, but it’s still a pain in the butt. “Glad to hear it.” he said.

Natasha lifted an eyebrow at him and he shrugged.

“I am. It’s still a pain, but I am glad it’s going well. The politics are something I’d just as soon avoid, but I realize that it’s necessary.”

“It is necessary, Bernie, and I’m not sure how much we’re going to be able to avoid them.” She then told him a bit more about the structure of the Russian government. How the bureaus were traditionally non-political — at least how they had remained non-political in the Time of Troubles, working for whichever claimant was holding the throne at the time. How Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov had been a dark horse candidate who didn’t want the throne.

Bernie snorted. Then at Natasha’s look, he elaborated. “Isn’t that the standard line? After working for years to get the throne, the new king or dictator or whatever says ‘I didn’t want it, it was just my duty.’”

“Perhaps that is how it happens in most cases, but my family has known the czar since before he was the czar. And my father was with the delegation that went to him. Mikhail was a teenager, old enough to know that being declared czar was a short step away from being declared dead. His mother and father each had more than their share of ambition, but they passed none on to Mikhail. He was precisely what the Boyar Duma and the Assembly of the Land wanted, a figurehead to move the battle for control of Russia back out of sight. Even so, the Boyar Duma and Assembly tied his hands with a set of restrictions.”

Bernie held up his hands in surrender. “I wasn’t there,” he said, “and I don’t doubt you. It’s just that the king that doesn’t want the throne is a stock item in fairytales, but pretty darn rare in a world of elected officials, where if you don’t want the office you don’t have to run.”

“In any case, the czar is generally quite impressed and so are the patriarch and Prince Cherkasski.”

Bernie knew that Cherkasski was the czar’s cousin and was the boss of three of the bureaus that ran Russia.

“With their support,” Natasha continued, “Sheremetev won’t be able to do anything.”

“What bugs this Sheremetev about the Dacha?” Bernie asked.

“Primarily that he doesn’t own it,” Natasha said. “The Sheremetev family are famous for their corruption, but also very good at politics. They know all about bribery and blackmail, having accepted more bribes than any other great family in Russia. But we’ll be all right here, as long as Patriarch Filaret can keep a leash on Sheremetev. The brain cases will be fine.”

****

Mikhail and his father were already consulting with the “brain cases,” as Bernie called them. Mikhail wanted a way out of the trap the up-time history had put him in. Since the history of that other future had leaked, people with power were not happy. He and his father, as czar and patriarch, had been carefully dancing in the mine field of Russian politics, focusing on the danger of a return to the Time of Troubles to keep the various factions in check. Even so, power was shifting between the factions. The one led by Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev, for instance. Their cousin or not, Sheremetev felt that the information from the up-timers and the actions of Peter the Great really destroyed the Romanov credentials as arch-conservatives.

“Interesting, perhaps.” Sheremetev set his glass on the table. They had been discussing the history of the United States of America and its constitution. “Interesting, but not that impressive. It was their day in the sun, that’s all. The Mongols had theirs and this United States had theirs. They were only two hundred years old. Barely a youth, as nations go.”

Mikhail looked across the table at him. There were only three men at dinner tonight. Filaret, Mikhail and Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev. Mikhail wanted Sheremetev’s support. “I am more concerned with something else,” he said “The general agreement — and I read this over and over again — was that Russia continued to lag behind much of the rest of the world. We can change that, and I believe we should. Right now, we should start. Because right now, everyone is four hundred years behind Grantville. We have Bernie here and Vladimir in Grantville. We can modernize.”

Sheremetev nodded, but Mikhail didn’t think he was listening. Not properly at any rate. “The army, most assuredly. Right away. That I agree with. But this other? This constitution? Why? A firm hand on the reins. That is all that is needed, Mikhail. A firm hand on the reins of Rus.”

Mikhail shook his head. No, Sheremetev wasn’t listening.

****

Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev left the dinner and considered the evening most of the way home. He understood what Mikhail and Filaret were contemplating. Let every peasant vote. Introduce a constitutional monarchy, then gradually give away the power, not only of the monarchy, but of the great families as well.

He would not, he could not, let that happen. They said it was to prevent the revolution that had come in three hundred years hence in that other history, which they thought would probably happen even sooner in this one if they didn’t act to forestall the causes for it. But to Sheremetev, such reasoning bordered on sheer insanity. Who could predict what might happen in three centuries? In any event, if preventing a revolution was the issue, surely a policy of more severe and consistent maintenance of order would work far more reliably than introducing chaos.

But Sheremetev suspected that the real reason for their schemes, at least for the czar himself, was that Mikhail was afraid of power. When they had offered him the crown he had cried like a babe.

Sheremetev had a lot more sympathy for Joseph Stalin than he had for Nicholas Romanov. And more for Nicholas than for Mikhail. It was God’s whimsy to sometimes put a peasant in the blood line of kings, or a let a king be born in a peasant’s hovel.

Stalin was a king born of base blood. And Mikhail was a peasant borne of some of the noblest blood in Russia. But that whimsy of God’s didn’t invalidate the concept of royalty, any more than the occasional sport in a fine bloodline of hounds or horses invalidated breeding.

Filaret would have made a better czar, except for his fanatical hatred of Poland. Couldn’t they see that the Swede was the danger now?

.VI.

The Siddar River,

Shiloh Province,

Republic of Siddarmark

“Will you please go back inside, Your Eminence?”

Archbishop Zhasyn Cahnyr looked over his shoulder at the much younger man who stood in the inn courtyard, hands on hips, glaring at him. The younger man’s breath flowed out in a cloud of steam as he sighed in exasperation at his superior’s deliberately blank expression. The icy wind whipping across the flat, gray ice of the Siddar River snatched the cloud into fragments almost instantly, something else of which Cahnyr deliberately took no notice.

“I simply wanted a breath of fresh air, Gharth,” he said mildly.

“‘Fresh air,’ is it?” Father Gharth Gorjah, Cahnyr’s personal Secretary and aide, took his hands from his hips so that he could throw them up in the air properly. “If this air were any fresher, it’d turn you into an icicle the instant you inhaled, Your Eminence! And don’t think I’m the one who’s going to go home and discuss your foolishness with Madam Pahrsahn when it happens, either. She told me to take care of you, and standing around out here until you catch your death of cold isn’t exactly what she had in mind!”

Cahnyr smiled faintly, wondering exactly when the last vestiges of control over his own household had slipped from his fingers. It was kind of all of them to pretend (to others, at least) they still deferred to him over such minor matters as whether or not he had the wit to come in out of the rain — or the cold — but they weren’t really fooling anyone.

“I’m not going to ‘catch my death of cold,’ Gharth,” he said patiently. “And even if I were, Madam Pahrsahn’s a fair-minded woman. She could hardly hold my stubbornness against you. Especially with so many witnesses prepared to testify you nagged me absolutely unremittingly to behave better.”

“I do not ‘nag,’ Your Eminence.” Father Gharth crunched through the crusty snow of the inn yard towards him, trying not to grin. “I simply reason with you. Sometimes forcefully, I’ll admit, but always with the utmost respect. Now, would you please get your venerable, highly respected, consecrated and ordained arse inside where it’s warm?”

“Can I at least walk as far as the stable first?” Cahnyr cocked his head. “I want to see how they’re coming on the repair of that runner.”

“I just talked to them myself, Your Eminence. They say it should be done by suppertime. Which means we’ll be able to get back on the trail after breakfast tomorrow. I have to admit it doesn’t break my heart to think we’re going to be able to sit you down by a fire this afternoon, keep you under a roof tonight, and wrap you around a hot meal in the morning before we set back out.” He stepped up onto the veranda with the archbishop and folded his arms. “And now that you’ve had that reassurance, please — I’m serious — go back inside where it’s warm, Your Eminence. Sahmantha isn’t happy about the way you were coughing yesterday, and you know you promised to listen to her before Madam Pahrsahn, the Lord Protector, and Archbishop Dahnyld gave you permission to come along.”

Cahnyr cocked his head quizzically at that particularly underhanded blow. Sahmantha Gorjah had left her infant son Zhasyn in Siddar City to accompany her husband — and Cahnyr — back to Glacierheart. True, Zhasyn was in the personal care of Aivah Pahrsahn, one of the wealthiest women on all of Safehold, who could be trusted to guard him like a catamount with a single cub, but she’d still left him behind. And she’d done that because she and her husband regarded themselves as the children Cahnyr had never had. They’d flatly refused to let him make the journey without them . . . and especially without Sahmantha’s training as a healer. She’d never taken vows as a Pasqualate sister, but she’d been intensively trained by the order, and she had every intention of using that training to keep the undeniably frail archbishop she loved alive.

Of course, under the circumstances, she was only too likely to find other uses for those skills. Ugly ones he would not for the world have exposed her to, and his expression darkened at the thought. Not that it had been his idea, or even Gharth’s in this case. No, it had been Sahmantha’s, and there’d been no dissuading her. She’d always been stubborn as the day was long, even when her sainted mother had been plain old Father Zhasyn’s housekeeper. He’d never been able to make her do anything she didn’t choose to do, and this time she’d had help. Lots of help, given the way the Lord Protector and Aivah Pahrsahn — and that young whippersnapper Fardhyn! — had made the inclusion of a personal healer a nonnegotiable condition of their agreement to allow him to make the trip.

If the truth be known, he was considerably senior to Archbishop Dahnyld Fardhym, the newly created Archbishop of Siddarmark. The previous archbishop — the only legitimate archbishop, as far as the official hierarchy of the Church of God Awaiting was concerned — was Praidwyn Laicharn, but Laicharn had enjoyed the misfortune of being trapped inside Siddar City when Clyntahn’s “Sword of Schueler” failed to take the capital. He was a polished, distinguished-looking, silver-haired man, every inch the perfect archbishop, but he was an absolutely fanatic Temple Loyalist — less, in Cahnyr’s opinion, because of the strength of his belief than because of his terror of Zhaspahr Clyntahn. Had refused to have anything to do with Stohnar’s “apostate and traitorous government” following his capture, and he’d denounced any member of the clergy who did as a faithless, treacherous servant of Shan-wei.

Cahnyr had known Laicharn for over twenty years. That was one reason he was convinced it was terror, not personal faith, which made the other archbishop such an ardent Temple Loyalist. And another reason for that ardency was that Laicharn understood perfectly that unlike Zhaspahr Clyntahn, Stohnar and the Reformists were unlikely to torture their opponents or burn them alive over doctrinal disagreements, which made it much safer to defy them.

Nor was Laicharn’s attitude unique. The entire Siddarmarkian ecclesiastic hierarchy was in what could only be called acute disorder. Personally, Cahnyr thought “utter chaos” probably hit closer to the mark.

At least a third — and quite possibly closer to half — of the Church’s clerics had fled to the Temple Loyalists. Losses were substantially higher among the more senior clergy, with a far higher percentage of younger priests, upper-priests, and very junior bishops openly embracing the Reformist position. That left all too many holes in very senior positions, which accounted for much of the disarray. Stohnar, Fardhym, and other prelates and senior priests in the provinces which had remained loyal to the Republic were laboring ferociously to restore at least some order; unfortunately, they had quite a few other pressing concerns at the same time. Even more unfortunately, there was a great deal of uncertainty as to just how far toward Reformism the Siddarmarkian church as a whole was prepared to go. There’d been a lot of Reformist sentiment in the Republic even before the Sword of Schueler, and the excesses of the Temple Loyalists who’d planned and executed Clyntahn’s attack had hardened attitudes and strengthened that Reformist sentiment quite remarkably. Atrocities did tend to have a . . . clarifying effect when it came to choosing sides. Yet even some of the most enthusiastic Reformists hesitated to actively embrace the schismatic Church of Charis. That was going a step too far for many, even now, and they were trying desperately to find some halfway house between the Temple and Tellesberg Cathedral.

Chapter Six

Rain pattered down on the roofs of Hill Guard castle. It was a little late in the year for the persistent, day-long, soaking rains of spring’s first blush, and not quite early enough for the short-lived, torrential afternoon thunderstorms of midsummer, but there was enough water in the air to go around, Bahzell reflected, standing under the overhanging roof which projected over the central keep’s massively timbered front door. And probably enough to fill the Bogs knee-deep and send the overflow gushing down the old riverbed to join the water from Chanharsa’s tunnel culverts, he thought, regarding the waterfalls streaming like finely beaded curtains from the eaves of that protecting roof. That would be one explanation for the condition in which Baron Tellian’s latest guest had arrived at his ancestral keep above the city of Balthar.

Bahzell’s lips twitched in amusement as the muddy, soaked-to-the-skin, plainly dressed warrior climbed down from his saddle in Hill Guard’s courtyard, for the newcomer bore precious little resemblance to the dandified, arrogant Sir Vaijon of Almerhas he’d first met the better part of ten years ago in Belhadan. The changes were much for the better, in Bahzell’s opinion, although he hated to think about how Vaijon’s father must have reacted the first time his wandering son returned for a visit. The beautiful, jeweled sword at Vaijon’s side was about all that was left of his onetime sartorial splendor, and that sword had been even more profoundly changed than Vaijon himself.

“And aren’t you just the drowned rat?” the massive hradani inquired genially as Vaijon climbed the steps towards him while one of Tellian’s grooms led his horse towards the stable at a brisk pace.

“Drowned, certainly,” Vaijon agreed wryly, reaching out to clasp forearms with him. “The Gullet’s hock deep in a lot of places, and cold, too — somebody forgot to tell Chemalka it’s spring, I think — but surely you can find something better than a rat to compare me to!”

“Oh, I’m sure I could, if it happened I was so minded,” Bahzell replied, returning his clasp firmly.

“Which you aren’t. I see.” Vaijon nodded, then turned to Brandark, and extended his hand to the Bloody Sword in turn. “You could come to my assistance here, you know.”

“I could…if it happened I was so minded,” Brandark said with a grin, and Vaijon heaved a vast sigh.

“Not bad enough that I’m doomed to spend my life among barbarian hradani, but they have to insult me at every opportunity, as well.”

“Aye, it’s a hard lot you’ve drawn, and no mistake,” Bahzell’s tone was commiserating, but his eyes twinkled and his ears twitched in amusement.

“Yes, it is.” Vaijon pushed back the hood of his poncho, showing golden hair which had once been elegantly coiffed but which he now wore in a plain warrior’s braid very much like Bahzell’s own. The Sothōii-style leather sweatband he’d adopted made him look older and tougher, somehow (not that he wasn’t quite tough enough without it, as Bahzell knew even better than most), and the past six years had put laugh lines around his eyes and weathered his complexion to a dark, burnished bronze. At six and a half feet in height, Vaijon was “short” only in comparison to a Horse Stealer like Bahzell, and with his thirty-second birthday just past, he was settling into the prime of his life.

“The bit from Hurgrum to the Gullet wasn’t so bad, now that they’ve got the locks open all the way,” he continued. “A lot faster and easier than the first time I made that particular trip, at least! But I, for one, will be delighted once the tunnel finally breaks through and my poor horse doesn’t have to swim all the way to the top of the damned Escarpment whenever there’s a little sprinkle! I said as much to Chanharsa when I passed through, too. I even took her a basket of your mother’s cookies as a bribe, Bahzell. I was sure that would inspire her to greater efforts! But she only laughed at me.” He heaved a vast sigh. “I never would’ve guessed dwarves were just as disrespectful of birth and position as hradani.”

“Well, I suppose the least we can be doing is to get you out of the rain now you’re here,” Bahzell told him. “Tellian was all set to come out and greet you his own self, but I told him as how he should be staying right where he was.” The hradani’s expression darkened slightly. “I’m not liking that cough of his one bit, and the man’s too stubborn to be calling in a healer. Or letting me deal with it, come to that.”

“Is he still coughing?” Vaijon’s asked, blue eyes narrowing as he followed the two hradani into the keep and down a flagstoned corridor. It was a sign of how much things had changed in Balthar over the past six or seven years that none of the human armsmen or servants they encountered along the way so much as turned a hair when the unlikely trio passed them. Indeed, most of them smiled and nodded respectfully to Bahzell and his guest.

“Aye, that he is. Mind you, it’s not so bad as it was this winter past, but it’s easier in my mind I’d be if he could just be shut of it once and for all.” Bahzell grimaced, ears flattening slightly. “There’s no reason at all, at all, I can see why he isn’t shut of it, and I’m none so pleased when someone as so many like so little is after being plagued by something like this. No doubt it’s naught but my nasty, suspicious mind speaking, and so he’s told me plain enough — aye, and more than a mite testy he was about it, too — but I’m thinking it’s worn him down more than he’s minded to admit even to himself.” He shrugged. “Any road, Hanatha was more than happy to be helping me scold him into staying parked by the fire.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Vaijon said testily. “This isn’t the time for him to be sick, especially not with something that hangs on this way and won’t let go, wherever it came from. I know he realizes how much depends on him right now. Why can’t he grow up and let you take care of it for him?”

“And aren’t you just the feistiest thing?” Bahzell said with a laugh. “Not but what you’ve a point.” He shrugged again. “And I’ll not be brokenhearted if it should be you’ve more success than I at making him see reason. There’s times I think he’s stubborner than a hradani!”

“Ha! No one’s stubborner than a hradani, Bahzell! If anyone in the entire world’s learned that by now, it’s me.”

“A bit of the pot and the kettle in that, Vaijon,” Brandark pointed out mildly.

“And a damned good thing, too, given the job He and Bahzell have handed me,” Vaijon retorted.

“Actually, you might have a point there,” Brandark conceded after a moment. “And speaking as someone who always wanted to be a bard, I can’t help noticing that there’s a wagonload or two of poetic irony in where you’ve ended up, Vaijon.”

“I’m so glad I’m able to keep you amused,” Vaijon said.

“Oh, no! Keeping me amused is Bahzell’s job!” Brandark reassured Vaijon, as they turned a corner and started up the steps to the keep’s second floor.

“You just keep laughing, little man,” Bahzell told him. “I’m thinking it would be a dreadful pity if such as you were to be suddenly falling down these stairs. And back up them — a time or two — now that I think on it. It’s a fine bouncing ball you’d make.”

Brandark started to reply, then stopped and contented himself with an amused shake of his head as Bahzell opened a door and led him and Vaijon into a well lit, third-floor council chamber. Diamond-paned windows looked out over the gray, rainy courtyard, but a cheerful coal fire crackled in the grate and a huge, steaming teapot sat in the middle of the polished table. The red-gold-haired man seated at the head of the table, closest to the fire, looked up as Vaijon and the hradani entered the chamber.

“Good morning, Vaijon!” Sir Tellian Bowmaster, Baron of Balthar and Lord Warden of the West Riding, said. He rose, holding out his hand, then coughed. The sound wasn’t especially harsh, but it was deep in his throat and chest, with a damp, hollow edge, and Vaijon frowned as they clasped forearms in greeting.

“Good morning to you, Milord,” he replied, forearms still clasped. “And why haven’t you let Bahzell deal with that cough of yours?”

“Well, that’s coming straight to the point,” Tellian observed, arching his eyebrows.

“I’ve been dealing with hradani too long to beat about the bush, Milord,” Vaijon said. “And since, at the moment, you have not one but two champions of Tomanāk right here in your council chamber, it seems to me to be a pretty fair question.”

“It’s only a cough, Vaijon,” Tellian replied, releasing his forearm. “I’m not going to run around panicking just because I don’t shake off a winter cough as quickly as I did when I was Trianal’s age. And there’s no need to be asking a champion — or two champions — to waste Tomanāk’s time on something that minor!”