She said, "It's Pinkus Ghort. His own self." Imitating Ghort's Grolsacher speech habits. "So it must be serious."

Hecht's old campaigning companion commanded the Brothen City Regiment, a task as thorny and thankless as herding cats. Ghort faced constraints and demands as distracting as those plaguing the Captain-General himself. Ghort would have a good reason for appearing in person, in the rain.

"It must be." Hecht went to the door. Anna had admitted no one. Only Piper Hecht and one maid ever entered her home. Ghort and his man Polo waited on the tiny stoop.

The warm rain had wakened the rich aromas of the street. Sadly, it was not heavy enough to wash anything away.

"Some major shit coming down, Pipe. We need to jump on it. Fast."

"What?"

"Clearenza. Fon Dreasser repudiated his oaths to the Patriarchy. They haven't heard at the Castella. Yet. Sublime's gonna shit himself."

There would be more. Clearenza's defection was not unexpected. Duke Germa fon Dreasser was inconstant, to be generous. His allegiance shifted between the Grail Empire and the Patriarchy with every change in the political breeze. But this time the change could have more than indifferent consequences. Sublime V owed Germa and the syndics of Clearenza eighteen thousand gold ducats against past-due loans taken to finance the Calziran Crusade. Which had been expected to be self-financing through plunder. That expectation having been stillborn. The little wealth to be found had gotten into the hands of Sublime's Imperial and Direcian allies. Lately, Sublime had stopped even pretending that he would meet his obligations. He had stopped making interest installments to the Clearenzan consortium.

"And?"

"He's asked for the Emperor's protection."

Although unsurprising, that made no immediate sense. The Grail Emperor, Lothar, was a sickly boy not expected to survive the year. Though he had not been expected to survive any of his previous fifteen.