Lord of Order Read online

  When Troy’s company turned onto Canal and then Decatur, Stransky stirred. Troy kicked Japeth, his gray, into a fast trot. The others followed, and when Stransky regained consciousness in the Quarter, her grunts as the animal’s spine drove into her abdomen kept time with the hoofbeats. Near the Temple, they passed more and more armed guards.

  I wonder if it’s time we made the Cabildo an armory, Troy thought. Seems a waste, makin all these folks take two extra trips every day, checkin out their weapons off-site and back in again eight hours later.

  As the officers of Order passed, the guards saluted, most of them eyeing Stransky with the kind of awe and horror usually reserved for gods or devils. Grown men and women scattered like chaff in the wind. Children ducked behind parents’ legs or into the shadows of stoops. Soon enough, the company trotted through the gates of Jackson Square. They reined their horses and dismounted on the pristine grounds, tying their animals to the hitching posts erected around the statue depicting Jesus with outstretched arms.

  Troy had searched the official histories and found no mention of any Jackson connected with New Orleans. His identity—indeed, his whole life—had blown away like dust before history’s winds, like the origins of so many street names, bodies of water, whole territories. In any case, the square belonged to Jesus now, in fact if not in name.

  Hobbes and Boudreaux untied Stransky and shoved her toward the High Temple as a groom scurried across the grounds. He saluted Troy. Your orders? he asked.

  Rub em down and feed em.

  Yes, sir. Should we shoot the infidel’s mare?

  No. That law’s a relic. The animal ain’t at fault for what her rider did.

  The groom saluted again and turned to the horses. Ford and Tetweiller stood nearby. McClure had slipped away as soon as they had mounted up back at Loyola. She would reappear when she wanted. She had been living like that for years.

  Troy first turned to Ford, the dreadlocked man with the muscular arms, the deerskin shirt, the alligator boots, the bear’s teeth necklace. Ford had supervised the city’s hunters for ten years, and though he was only thirty-seven, he had more experience spilling blood than even old Tetweiller, much of it from animals, fish, fowl. Today, as always, Ford had fought well and killed cleanly, but, as always, his eyes revealed his inner sadness. In all the wide world’s principalities, Troy wondered, is there another chief hunter who hates to kill?

  Couldn’t have done it without you, Troy said, sticking out his hand.

  Ford shook it. You hear anything else about the proposals?

  The Dallas principality’s high minister had recently and publicly urged Rook—the Supreme Crusader, who lived in Washington, D.C.—to legitimize Catholic rituals, arguing that a Christian was a Christian, no matter how the person got baptized or took the Lord’s Supper. Troy liked the idea but doubted Rook would ever go that far.

  Nothin, he said. I reckon we’ll just have to keep prayin on it.

  Ford looked as if he were about to say something, but then he saluted. Yes, sir.

  Bag that. Old friends ain’t gotta sir me.

  Okay, Gabe.

  Speak your mind, Santonio. Somethin’s got you in its teeth.

  Ford looked toward the river for a while. He seemed tired. Rook scares me, he said. From what I’ve heard, every suspicion in Washington turns into an accusation, and every accusation becomes truth. If that’s how it is, we’re buildin our house on sand.

  Tetweiller, walking over and catching this last, said, And here I thought you always followed orders.

  Ford frowned. I always have. Obedience is faith, right? But if Rook keeps takin the hardest line, we’ll have a Stransky in every neighborhood. There’s gotta be a middle ground. I think that’s where most folks live.

  Ain’t you philosophical, Tetweiller said. Especially for a fella that won’t have kids of his own to send into this future he’s so worried about.

  Ford looked as if he wanted to punch the old man. Instead, he turned away.

  Don’t know why Ernie aimed so low with that comment, but he’s right, Troy thought. We gave up any chance for kids and families when we took our vows. Just like the Catholic priests and nuns. Weird how the brass ain’t ever seen that similarity.

  Still, Ford had a point, too. From what Troy had seen in his own life and gleaned from past lords’ journals, the Crusade had grown more secular over time. Now Rook ruled in Washington, isolated, surrounded by acolytes, digging himself deeper and deeper into the old dogmas, pushing when the tides of most people’s lives pulled. If those trends continued, revolution would be inevitable. If Rook had his way, they would all be wearing sackcloth and ashes by next year. Infertile ground in which to plant the future.

  Still, Troy was a lord of order, not a theologian. He clapped Ford on the shoulder. That’s a worry for another day. I gotta see to Stransky. Be well, my friend. After Ford had saddled up and trotted through the gates, Troy turned to Tetweiller. Thanks, Ernie. I don’t know what we’d do without you.

  The old man scoffed. Horseshit. You could have got anybody to lay on that roof and take potshots at them polecats. You’re just too goddam sentimental to let me stay home and drink.

  As always, Troy ignored the old man’s salty tongue. You think Santonio’s right?

  Tetweiller’s face was lined and creased, his eyes deep set, his bushy white eyebrows waving in the breeze like a crawdad’s antennae. I ain’t noticed much love for Matthew Rook, but we don’t seem to be losin any folks to the Troublers. We might just need to hunker down and hope the next supreme’s better.

  Sometimes it seems like Santonio’s travelin a dangerous road.

  He’s troubled, but he’ll never turn Troubler. Still, the next time some Washington muckety-muck comes to town, you might wanna make sure he’s gone fishin. Rook’s people don’t take kindly to talk about middle ground.

  Troy considered this for a bit. Ford kept the city supplied with fresh meat, watched over the crops, drove away scavenging animals and Troublers. He had fought beside Troy countless times, had just helped him catch Lynn Stransky. If Rook were willing to toss aside such a loyal and valuable man simply for questioning methodology, then perhaps the Crusade really was losing its way.

  Well, Troy said, I gotta figure out how to handle Stransky. You wanna come?

  Naw. I’m old. It’s almost time for my nap.

  Time for your whiskey, you mean.

  Tetweiller smiled. That, too.

  The old man turned and ambled toward the gates. Troy wished he too could walk away from everything awaiting him in the Temple. His bones ached, as if he were closer to Tetweiller’s age than Ford’s. On some days, gunpowder seemed to make the world turn, to raise the crops. It wore on a man. He wanted to go home and soak in a cold bath, let today’s deaths ebb out of his conscience like sweat from his pores. That house, that tub, the attendants who filled it at exactly the right times were part of the privileges that came with being the lord of order. He had earned them.

  But duty came first. So despite his ringing ears and the will-sapping heat, he approached the Temple, which the ancients had called St. Louis Cathedral.

  Heavenly Father, give me the strength to get through this.

  Inside, Norville Unger manned the reception desk, as he did from dawn till dusk every day. Seventy years old, Unger lived in the prison out back and, in Troy’s memory, had traveled no farther from his post than Jesus’s statue, at least while on duty. He ate in his little cell and slept almost exactly eight hours a night. He took no days off. Though the guards outside searched all visitors, Unger searched them again. He interviewed them and determined their purpose, their politics, their faith. If someone made it past him, they had been deemed a loyal member of the Bright Crusade on urgent business. The only people who could enter the Temple without Unger’s say-so were the lord of order, the deputy lords, and the city’s most prominent, office-
holding Crusaders like Ford and LaShanda Long, the chief weaponsmith.

  The Temple’s spires—seemingly ornamental when seen from the street—had been hollowed out and fortified. Inside the Temple, at the front of the sanctuary, entrances to each spire faced Unger’s desk and opened onto narrow spiral staircases. No one except the lord of order was allowed in them without Unger’s permission. Two floors above, twins of these doors separated Troy’s office from the staircases. Only Troy and Unger possessed keys to these four doors, which proved how highly the lord esteemed his desk sergeant. Anyone climbing those staircases could move beyond Troy’s third-floor office and up to the tiny cells at the terminus of either spiral staircase, though not even Norville Unger could open the cells’ doors; the only keys sat in a locked drawer of Troy’s desk. Only the Crusade’s greatest enemies ever occupied the towers.

  When Troy entered the sanctuary, Unger saluted. Congratulations on the arrest, the old man said.

  Thanks, Troy said, returning the salute. The towers secure?

  Unger frowned. Course they are.

  Troy winked. I figured. They got the prisoner ready?

  In your office now.

  Okay. I’m headin up.

  Beyond Unger’s desk, pews bordered the long center aisle, which led to a raised platform where New Orleans’s high minister—a pinch-faced, stoop-shouldered man named Jerold Babb, who was older than Tetweiller and wore isolated tufts of springy white hair like drifts of melting snow on his wrinkled and spotted pate—preached his sermons. Troy walked under ancient chandeliers hanging from long chains in the ceiling, their crystal globes holding thick candles, their glass fogged by time and soot and dust. The windows looking onto the alleys outside had once held stained glass, but it had been shattered during the Purge. In its place, smoked bulletproof glass had been installed, with thick iron bars bolted to the outer walls.

  Despite these fortifications both within and without, the Temple’s foundation had been sinking for centuries. Yet it still stood. Most New Orleanians believed this phenomenon proved their cause was just, though the secret histories revealed that some of the first Crusaders voiced outrage at how the bones of old Catholics had been disinterred and tossed in the great river back in the time of Jonas Strickland, the Crusade’s founder. Strickland’s forces had purified those early protestors through torture and confession, and the ancient Papists had gone unavenged.

  But such unpleasantries had long since vanished from the Temple grounds. Now, in this place, the high commanders of the Bright Crusade’s New Orleans chapter held their heavily guarded worship services every Sunday morning and evening. The gathered flock would file in, accompanied by the choir’s a capella humming. Once everyone had found their seats, Jerold Babb led them in pledging allegiance to the Crusade. Two songs—one by the choir, one from the full congregation—preceded a prayer from the reigning lord of order. Next came testimony from any Crusader who had traveled beyond the principality’s borders, followed by reaffirmations of faith and tributes to anyone who had distinguished themselves in the past week. These last parts were not repeated in the evening, which shortened the night service by as much as an hour. Then Jerold Babb would preach—though, these days, wheeze would have been more accurate—while drinking whole carafes of water and wiping his grizzled brow on the sleeves of his robes. His evening services seldom lasted more than an hour and a half and sometimes sputtered to a halt in half that time. After a final hymn and a brief benediction from Babb, the weary Crusaders would go forth into the city, there to fellowship and break bread. Once a month, Babb would deliver the Lord’s Supper. No Crusader ever spoke the word communion.

  Now, on a weekday, with the sanctuary mostly empty, Troy passed down the center aisle. Two more doors were set into the back wall. The left-hand one led to a short hallway, which opened into the prison out back. The jail, which had been built in Strickland’s time, currently housed only twelve prisoners, most of them low-level Troublers. Troy passed through the right-hand exit, beyond which lay staircases any visitor allowed inside the sanctuary could use. They led to the second-floor offices of the deputy lords and to Troy’s headquarters on the third floor. The first Crusaders had installed those rooms where once there had been only balconies. They reinforced the walls and mounted shatterproof windows every few feet so officials could look over the ground floor. Hobbes and Boudreaux shared the office on the right, their walls covered with city maps, sketches of possible Troubler positions in outlying areas, routes to Baton Rouge and Lafayette and the entire southern region, hand-drawn wanted posters, weather forecasts, personal notes. Both men used mahogany desks that were stacked high with government documents, political reports, crop and water information, pest control memoranda.

  On the left side of the second story, in Babb’s office, the minister’s cedar desk, enscrolled with Bible verses in calligraphy, never held much besides an inkpot and quill, a sheaf of paper, the Jonas Strickland Bible, and an in-progress sermon. The walls were bare except for a few pinned-up notes near the desk. Babb kept no other furniture except an oil desk lamp, a rack for his heavy robes of office, and two hard straight-backed chairs for anyone in need of counsel. Deep, plush rugs meant to ease the pressure on Babb’s creaky joints and spine covered most of the floor space. When the minister napped in his office, which was often, he slept on a rug, using his robes as a pillow. When he awoke, he would call out until Hobbes or Boudreaux or a passing Temple worker came and helped him up.

  Babb met Troy as the lord reached the second-floor landing. The high minister’s hands trembled, but his voice rang out strong and deep. Gabriel, he said. Congratulations. May you purify your prisoner and send her to meet the Lord’s judgment scoured clean.

  Troy touched a finger to his hat brim. Thank you, Jerold, he said, shouldering past the old man. Have a good evenin.

  The lord of order’s office was located in the hollowed-out and armored third floor. According to the histories, the front wall had once housed a huge clock face, but it had been replaced just after the Purge with an enormous stained-glass rendering of Jonas Strickland holding a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other. This glass was both bulletproof and one-way so Troy could look over the expanse of Jackson Square all the way to the river. Documents and maps annotated in Troy’s neat and precise hand covered the office walls. His desk sat near the back wall, where visitors using the rear staircase could pass through the heavy oak door and pull up a chair. The lord kept his desk nearly bare; he liked to look his visitors in the eye, not barely glimpse them through mountains of reports.

  Presently, Hobbes and Boudreaux sat on the desk, one at each corner. Lynn Stransky knelt before them, her head high, her greasy hair hanging like the strands of a wet mop. His padded straight-backed guest chairs had been pushed against a wall.

  Where should we put her when we’re done here? The prison or a tower?

  Troy’s humanity suggested the prison, but the cold and practical part of his mind already knew he would put Stransky in a tower. She was the kind of enemy of the state for which the place had been built.

  Before that, though, she had to be interrogated.

  I ain’t lookin forward to this. Shootin somebody in battle’s one thing. This other, it never seems godly.

  The bare wooden floor creaked under Troy’s feet as he crossed the room, sat behind his desk, and glanced at Hobbes, who shook his head, indicating Stransky had not spoken. Her eyes were open, their piercing green eerie in the dim room. Troy leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest.

  Hobbes and Boudreaux took positions on either side of Stransky, facing Troy. Hobbes hooked his thumbs into his gun belt. Boudreaux tucked his hands into his pockets. Both men’s faces were expressionless. Stransky stared at Troy’s breastbone.

  We know who you are, Troy said. We got your description from Willie Grout when we took him outta Armstrong Park two years ago. See? You’re on my wall.

  He
cocked his thumb and indicated a wanted poster—painted, not sketched, and twice as big as the ones in the deputies’ offices. Stransky glanced at it. One corner of her mouth twitched. Ain’t that pretty, she said.

  Troy cracked his knuckles. You can thank Willie if you ever see him again. That picture helped our source recognize you when you made your mistake.

  What mistake?

  Comin into my city without a mask.

  Ain’t you the shit.

  Reckon you never saw our lookout when you rode outta the bayou, but he saw you. And he came a-runnin. Now your riders are dead, and you’re all alone.

  Stransky snorted. Boudreaux glanced at her and shifted his weight. Without looking at him, Stransky said, Don’t get fidgety, boy. I ain’t gonna bite your nuts off. Not today, anyway.

  Boudreaux stilled, his face blank.

  You’ve been spotted in a dozen different places over the last two months, Troy said. Sometimes in town, sometimes in the swamps. It ain’t like you to be so visible. Makes us wonder what kind of Troubler business needs that much of your personal attention.

  I reckon you can wonder your heart out.

  Could be you’re plannin an assault on this Temple. Could be somethin worse. Tell us what you’re up to, or you’re gonna wish you had.

  Stransky grinned. Her teeth were white and straight, even though the rest of her looked like she had never seen a bathtub. I got the love of the true God on my side. You shitbirds don’t scare me.

  Hobbes backhanded her on her left temple, the sound flat and meaty. She grunted and fell against Boudreaux’s legs. The younger deputy shoved her away, and when she regained her balance and looked at Troy again, the smile was gone.