Piper Hecht burst into laughter.

"What?"

"Grade Drocker said the same about you not that long ago."

"When? I was always a self-starter."

"When we were in the Connec. At Bishop Serifs's manor, besieging Antieux."

"That was different. You didn't want to stick your neck out around those Brotherhood of War assholes. They didn't care what you did, it was fucked up. You were always wrong just because you didn't belong to their crazy man club."

Pinkus Ghort always had an answer. It might not ring true or make sense, but he had one.

"The corpse," Hecht reminded gently.

"Izzy. Buchie. Search the dead guy. And don't pocket anything. It could kill you later." Softly, he said, "They wouldn't take nothing, no how. They're all guys from out in the sticks. So superstitious and scared of the Night it'll be a miracle if they keep it together now long enough to find the kind of priest who'll pretend to pull the imaginary supernatural leeches off them."

Ghort was exaggerating. That was a matter of course. But Hecht had run into people who were that afraid of the hidden world. People who could not draw a breath without praying and calculating how much attention that might draw from the Instrumentalities of the Night.

Brothe being the Holy Mother City of the Episcopal strain of Chaldareanism, its streets ever boasted floods of religious pilgrims. Many were the sort who held intimate discourse with their deity every waking moment. They wandered in a perpetual daze, babbling constantly.

God must find them annoying. They suffered more misfortunes than the less devout.

Ghort helped Polo onto his mount. Sensitive to the Night, the animal grew skittish. Men, forced to walk because their mounts were carrying a dead sorcerer, a wounded ambusher, or had run away, kept Polo's horse under control.