Chương 411: 12.8

Havel Nightmanson was familiar with the idea of a punishment assignment. Even in his father's line of work there were worse parts of the job then others. Going down into a latrine to fill a bucket was an entirely different matter from simply pushing the cart full of 'night soil'.

When he was a mere apprentice training in Countess Bathory's guard there were fetching jobs that he was almost certain were only ever used as punishments in themselves, even when he had become a full proper guard with pay there were assignments and patrols that were practically rewards and ones that you only got if you pissed someone off. Being sent to the other side of the world for what might very well be years to look into just what it was the Pantheon was doing with its endless entreaties for True Wyrm Eggs?

Havel was pretty sure this was a punishment assignment. Still vital, important work that needed someone to do it, but that it was him that had to do it? Adelyne had been in a state after the disaster in Magarska, and having been present for that awfulness Havel could sum up that she was judging him for it. He was one of the guild mistress' 'best' but did he get sent to listen and watch over the Count Consort or the rat's nest that was the other guilds in Kaeketeh?

The city that was his home where his wife and daughters lived? No, of course not. Did he join the slowly growing number of watchers and listeners spread out over Viznove to carry word of trouble from the Countess' vassals? Places that in good weather were only half a season away from Havel's family at worst? No, he was far too 'valuable' for that. Did he get to go to the Capital of the Realm of Cantor Reborn? Where Adelyne fretted that they lacked insights into the court of Mathias and the Countess' fellow vassals?

At the substantial distance of nearly thirty days travel on foot and maybe five on horseback in an emergency if you could trade steeds every few villages? No, Adelyne was training up some lordling noble's third son for that role so that he could stay as a guest of the High King officially, which Havel had to admit was a fair point at least and he didn't particularly want to be all the way in the Capital.

The Guildmistress got a funny look in her eye whenever she talked about the time she visited the place and Havel knew better than to get close to anything that made the Guildmistress look that worried. No, instead he got to go to Old Cantor itself to root out the secrets of the Pantheon and their obsession with True Wyrm Eggs. Which was fair, it was a vital mission even if you discounted the nature of his Countess. But he really missed his family.

Little Etelka was at that wonderful age after a babe stopped shitting themselves! And Heidi was just entering her ninth winter! Havel wanted to enjoy those years with his daughters and wife! Instead he was here in the ruined capital of the Cantor Empire. Where new word of his children and wife were seasons apart!

Still, it was incredible, the providence that had seen fit to put two waifs, men joined in a shared curse, obviously separated by very different lives after their transformations to be here in the same place, under the same roof. He could admit he was curious about this other Waif that had fallen in with guarding foreign merchants, what had they seen away from Kaeketeh and Viznove? The question burned in his heart. Not that he dared to reveal himself.

No, Havel held true to that special gift of sorcery he'd been taught by Guild Mistress Adelyne, using it like a lifeline, making sure to always stand in the least viewed place, and when he felt the shifting of attention to move like vermin fleeing the burn of sunlight as he slipped ahead of gazes, stepped when ears were not listening and in general made himself absent before notice. Years ago he'd used his gift to find a stone whose powdered dust he could rub into clothes that helped him avoid the nose of hounds.

Now pouches of the stuff were part of the standard kit, even Adelyne kept some on her person in case she needed it. Watching the other Waif had been difficult, they were watchful in a way that made him pretty sure this was one of the old veterans in the guard. The feeling for the itch before a gaze swept a particular part of the room was a very tricky thing with them. Moving silently enough to avoid drawing attention while keeping ahead of those eyes was even harder.

He'd only lingered in the room to verify facts for the report that time. Four Wyrm Eggs delivered, future dealings unlikely, leaving the enterprise for places unknown with a ludicrous amount of pay and the rest of their mercenary band. He'd heard many more such deliveries and far more accepting future dealings with this whole 'enterprise'.

The gold, silver and divine favors on offer from the Pantheon were honestly pretty tempting prizes, He'd never dare to turn against the Countess (h e wasn't stupid the other waif was wise to be rid of this place) but that was an awful lot of money. Still the mere peddlers that brought the goods were of marginal concern, especially when they left for parts foreign. Far more important was the apparent head of the entire enterprise, one Peter Bulchava.

He and the god botherers of the Pantheon were substantially easier to maneuver in the blind spots of. Sure sometimes Havel had to dress up in the robes of one of the acolyte orphans or other such costumes in order to avoid attention, but even without such outfits they were surprisingly unobservant. Even in places they absolutely should have had better security. Such as one of the treasure rooms literally full of silver and gold coins!

He'd never thought that the Pantheon was supposed to be particularly rich, he knew that Temples generally worked under payments from petitioners but he'd always been told they spent a good sum on herbs, incense and offerings to the gods. Surely Adelyne would have heard if anything like this quantity of precious metal was trying to be shipped out of Kaeketeh from its own Pantheon affiliated god workers.

But yet there were piles of coins taller than Havel of what he'd done a quick bite test to verify was full through silver and gold! And they were astoundingly under guarded! Which suggested these were not even the biggest stores of wealth. A very troubling thought for Havel, if they had silver to spare and leave lying about unguarded, just where was all the money the Pantheon was paying for these wyrm eggs coming from?!

There were certainly a great number of commissions for miracles, at least half the people who met with Peter Bulchava were in fact old kings and queens arriving for a boon of health and vitality from the stars But Havel's sums didn't leave him feeling like that could make up for how egregious the pay for the eggs themselves was! He was no merchant son but his father had been shrewd with every coin he could get when a penny meant a bucket of shit and piss you'd had to see out of the city.

Moreover Adelyne often traded in secrets you could only hold in your head if you had a feel for the way coins moved in and out of a target's coffers. Or worse, in receipts and contracts! If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

And after days of lurking around the Pantheon, sitting in corners during supposedly 'private meetings' that he wished he could better forget the details of and in peering over the records and receipts tallied by the Pantheon's Scribes? Havel suspected that the Pantheon should have drained even its prodigious and prestigious wealth dry years ago.

When he slipped into the archives and dug up the older records his hunch proved to be grossly underestimating their costs, the pay they were giving for Wyrm Eggs was insane! Where was all the silver coming from?! Nevermind the gold! And then there were the prices of simply living in Old Cantor itself! He'd had to nick a few silver coins from the Temple's treasury to keep the rest of the Guild Members in lodgings and food more than once! You could spend a full silver Grosz on a day's food!

And that was not fine boar or hunt caught stag either! Just a simple pie! The laborers and priests of the Pantheon itself were all paid more than enough to afford it but for any foreigners it was practically robbery! A man paid the more than fair wage of six haepenny for a day's labor would have starved in Old Cantor. It drew in a lot of peddlers selling basic fare at exorbitant prices for coins that would go ten times as far beyond this sprawling ruin of a city. And they were not only paying simple priests!

The interior of the building was full of dozens upon dozens of artisans and their apprentices. Entire wings of the interior were being worked on every hour that Havel cared to check! And he'd read the receipts of their pay too and it was obscene! Moreover it was all going through the accounts of the `Bulchavan Enterprise`.

The Pantheon should have been bleeding silver for all of this, silver for its Priests daily bread, silver for their servants, silver for offerings, silver for the maids doing laundry, silver for the fine spinsters and gold smiths and painters, and most of all silver for True Wyrm Eggs! Yet they had rooms full to overflowing in coffers and barely any concern over it besides! Havel didn't understand it, and it was not the only thing that confused him about the Pantheon.

Beyond the vastness of the main dome the Pantheon's hallways were odd, he'd been certain the complexes surrounding it should have only taken a day or so to search, but day after day he kept finding more hallways, more passages, more rooms that were always surprisingly larger than you'd expect. Today he'd finished counting his steps, the main hallway inside the Pantheon complex was twice as long as the building itself!

And now, here he found a garden with the familiar coolness of mountain air and a garden full of herbs! The only problem was that this particular garden was down several flights of stairs and by Havel's reckoning directly underneath the floor of the Pantheon's central dome! Yet, the sun and absolutely clear blue sky shone down on the green shoots, a constant wind blowing from the opposite end of the walled in greenspace.

He stepped into the shade of one wall and crouched down where none of the gardeners felt inclined to glance. Crouching low to listen to the chatter of the vulgar almost cantoran spoken in the city and surrounding lands." You hear they found a trick to make one warmer yesterday? Well the priests had me checking it over, sweltering hot and muggy as the worst summer day I tell you. They are gonna have us try growing wheat there, they said." The words were difficult, the accent thick, just barely legible." Hah!

The ones they set up so high? Top of the stairs both ways? Did those precious nosed painters actually use proper soil and dung in their magic paint this time? Or are we gonna be carting up buckets of pig shit all those steps?" Havel was silent, unnoticed, invisible in the shade, even his breathing kept in time with the rhythmic flow of wind from the opposite entryway." Nay, soil was more of that farce like they first had down here, not even deep enough for more than a meadow let alone a shrub or tree, Pah!

The least they could do was bring up some chickens or piglets to this new one. Save us the stink and back ache of hauling shit in buckets." He resisted the urge to laugh as even half the world away in the heart of the greatest temple made by men some one still had to carry shit in buckets. His pa would have found it an absolute hoot if he'd lived to hear this." Do you want to try to wrestle even a piglet up those stairs?"

One of the gardeners huffed as they inspected whatever the green shoots were growing all around them. Havel leaned a bit and slowly rose, preparing to move with the fuzzy itch of attention passing over the room." Why is it even up so many stairs though? Those painters can magic a whole room and sky into any wall they like! Don't need to go up so high in the first place!" The man's partner shrugged then reached down and plucked out some greenery from the dark soil that presumably was not supposed to be there?

Havel had no idea, the closest he ever got to farming was helping his father sell shit to one of the headmen outside Kaeketeh." May as well ask why did they put this one down so deep? Is all for the same reason, the Priests said so." The other one spat and Havel had to silently shift a bit more over to avoid catching the slowly rising attention to his spot along the wall." Daft priests this lot, not like sister Isabelle back home." A dry chuckle and a shaken head from the other man."

Sister Isabelle ain't paying us a Grosz a day for puttering in gardens and keeping our mouths shut. I'll take foolish if it keeps my pouch heavy in coin and my belly full." An answering laugh, loud and boisterous filled the strangely closed air of the garden." Well said! Still be nice if they would actually learn! I've seen them mix up manure with their paint afore!" A heavy snort as the gardeners finished their circuit of the grounds." Be nice, sure, but shit in one hand and wish in another."

The other gardener hummed." But, we're surrounded by priests right? What about pray-" The other man slapped his hand over his partner's mouth. Hissing harshly." SHut it! Remember what happened to Jacopo!" The other man stiffened and then nodded hard before both hurried from the strange open yet closed garden room, walking through the doorway Havel had come through, none of them ever having looked at where Havel was crouched in the corner.

Alone again the waif stepped around the perimeter of the room slowly, counting the steps. Then exited through the doorway that still let in a soft breeze, carefully stepping, listening, feeling for the sign of attention that meant that he might be spotted. Moving along yet another twisting hallway eventually coming to a balcony, open to a view from the complex behind the main Dome of the pantheon. A quick check of the horizon to verify landmarks and the height over the street, accursed fiends and pits!

Havel was far too practiced in his role to hiss through his teeth or even bite at a lip. But there was no denying the fact that he had just walked through an open air garden somehow over fifty steps below street level, then out into a hallway to a balcony easily twenty five feet above it, all walking on an even path straight across from one doorway to another. Things were definitely not right at the Pantheon.