Soldiers Live

102 The Palace: Better Housekeeping

The Great General picked up a snail shell, considered it. “More of these things around here all the time. But nobody ever sees a live one.”

Ghopal said, “I’d bear down on my household staff if this was my place.”

A distant crash echoed through the hallways. Greys and Guards had begun demolishing walls at random, to make it more difficult for the Deceivers to hide. And in areas they felt confident were clear they had masons sealing doorways and walling off entire hallways. Additionally, several self-anointed psychics and ghost hunters had joined the hunt.

Mogaba said, “You’re probably right.” He gestured to one of several young men who had been trailing them. That fellow snapped a slight bow and disappeared. Before long every domestic in the palace was involved in a massive housekeeping campaign. Mogaba observed, “We can’t have this place looking a mess when our enemies get here.”

A messenger huffed and puffed into the presence. The search had stumbled onto some corpses. From long ago. Three men wearing nothing but loincloths. They appeared to have gotten lost in the maze of the Palace, but had perished of wounds suffered earlier. The searchers were troubled because the corpses had not suffered much from vermin or normal putrefaction.

“Don’t do anything with them,” Mogaba said. “Don’t even touch them. Just seal them up where they are.” He told Ghopal, “Those would be some of the Deceivers who tried to assassinate the Liberator and the Radisha when you were still wearing diapers.” He sighed. “No matter what we do to hurry this it’s going to take an age.”

“They do have to eat.”

“Eventually, yes. We’ll guard the kitchens at all times.” And, he said aloud to no one, because these days it was more secure to communicate by passing notes, any food easily reached during quiet hours would be poisoned.

“Keep at it here, Ghopal. Day and night. Use as many people as we can spare.” The Great General expected his enemies to come for him and he was making preparations to welcome them.

Mogaba withdrew to his own quarters. There he invested an hour in one of his hobbies before he moved on to the Protector’s quarters to nap. He used her apartment now because no one ever went there. No one but the Great General dared. No one but the Great General could pass through the warding spells the Protector had left in place.

It had become his sanctuary.

Mogaba’s scouts and spies had reported that Croaker and all his mob had rejoined the Company, back from wherever they had gone, with even more tools of deviltry.

The crisis could come any time now.