Book 2 - Lord of the Silent Kingdom by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page A

any bright
outsiders around to take advantage."
    "Those idiots just saw a chance to grab some extra money."
    That was not hard to understand. The poor generally were very poor
and desperate indeed. Thinking past tomorrow was a waste of time.
    Hecht shrugged. "I'd like to go after those cousins of
yours myself."
    "Not cousins." Ghort meant to distance himself. "Just guys from back
home. How would you get away? Especially with this Clearenza shit?"
    "'I can't. I'd just like to. To talk to them before anyone else."
    "What do you want to find out before anybody else?"
    "Who sent them."
    "You know they won't know that."
    "Don't underestimate the reservoirs of stupid in this world. The man
who's supposed to pay them will turn up there. Maybe to pay them, maybe
to cut their throats."
    "It was me, I'd send some other guys to do that."
    "That's possible, too."
    "So. I'd really better have somebody get there first. You gonna lend
me your Deves?"
    "They aren't mine. They're still part of the City Regiment."
    "All but the best ones. You took them with you."
    "Yes. I did. And I mean to keep them close."
    "But…"
    "I'll talk to Titus. If he sees any advantage for his people, he'll
help. Was I you, I wouldn't count on it."
    "Well, shit. I didn't want to use my own guys. The finance board
will kick my ass for operating outside the city. 'Course, they'll kick
it if I don't do nothing, too."
    "I feel your pain, brother. I don't have it any better. It's a
full-time job just getting my troops paid." He had a sudden notion. He
suggested it.
    "I like it, Pipe. How long till you could find out if Consent would
cover you?"
    "Not long."
    "I know a ship. The Donetos own her. She's waiting for a cargo.
She's supposed to be greased lightning. She trades in places where the
republics think they own a monopoly."
    "A smuggler."
    "Technically. Her master would argue, though."
    "He'd sail up the Sawn to Sonsa?"
    "Why not? If he ain't carrying contraband?"
    Hecht thought there might be a problem, anyway. If he took up his
notion. He had been to Sonsa before.
    Ghort said, "Unless the gods intervene, we can afford another day.
If we use the
Lumberer."
    "The what?"
    "That's the name of the boat. A joke. Like calling a big guy Tiny."
    Hecht understood without comprehending. It was a western thing.
"Uhm. I wonder. Think we could pull it off?"
    "What?"
    "Sneaking out. To make the pickup ourselves."
    "Sure. But your excuse is gonna raise a stink like a year-old
latrine." Ghort smirked.
    "But if we say we did it ourselves because we didn't have the money
to pay our men to, we shame them before the people."
    "If we pull it off."
    "Yes. We wouldn't dare fail." Hecht knew what he was proposing was
not bright. But sometimes you bull ahead in full knowledge that you are
doing something dumb.
    "Goo! Hey! Back to the fun days when we didn't have no
responsibilities."
    "We could get things done right the first time."
    "Let's do." Ghort was not obsessive about being responsible. "Just
cancel everything and go, Pipe."
    "I'm tempted." He was. "I'll think about that, too."
    THE VISIT TO THE BATHS, THE CONFERENCE WITH PlNKUS Ghort, and a visit
to Polo in the Chiaro Palace hospital left the Captain-General two
hours late for his daily staff conference. "I'm sorry. The Clearenza
situation has the Collegium in a snit." They would know that he had
been called in.
    Five senior staffers waited in the master planning center at the
Castella dollas Pontellas. They included Hecht's new second in command,
Colonel Buhle Smolens. Smolens had not been appointed by the
Captain-General. Hecht did not know the man. He came from the
Patriarchal garrison at Maleterra and was related to somebody Sublime
owed money. He did, however, have a solid military reputation.
    Clej Sedlakova was an observer for the Brotherhood. They insisted.
The Captain-General was using their facilities.
    Hecht could not operate without their approval and support.
    Sedlakova was new, too, but there was no doubt he knew his