Hecht did not understand but he did not scruple to exploit the situation.

"I'll return shortly," Muniero Delari said. He was a sallow stick figure of a man in his seventies. He moved as easily as men thirty years younger. He left in a rush. The air seemed to go out with him.

The Madisetti Principate, Donel Madisetti, presumed to pick up his attack. For reasons as obscure as Delari's favor, the Madisetti family had developed an antipathy toward Hecht. The Bruglioni and Arniena families were firm supporters, though they disagreed with one another about Sublime V. The Cologni family waffled. More often than not, though, they opposed the Captain-General because he had worked for the Bruglioni before his elevation. And the Bruglioni may have been behind the assassination of Principate-designate Rodrigo Cologni. Which had taken place before Hecht's arrival in Brothe.

The relationships and balances between the Five Families seldom made sense to outsiders.

Strange bedfellows. Always. Piper Hecht now worked for Honario Benedocto, the Patriarch Sublime V. The Benedocto were sworn enemies of the Bruglioni. This decade. The Madisetti had marched shoulder to shoulder with the Benedocto for a generation.

The Captain-General was immune to most of the feuding. He was not supposed to be part of city politics, only Church politics. Though the former became the latter at every Patriarchal election.

He turned his back on Donel Madisetti. He addressed details of the ambush to Principate Bronte Doneto, the Patriarch's cousin. And one of Sublime's few friends.

Doneto asked, "Why would these men want to kill you?"

Hecht shrugged. "That will become more clear once, we know who they are."

Doneto's gaze shifted to Pinkus Ghort. Ghort said, "I don't have any ideas."

"You'll have to answer for the men who led you into the ambush." Meaning that, while Ghort was beholden to Bronte Doneto already, he was about to be pushed in a whole lot deeper.