'You're in trouble/ he said.
'Really? Why is that?'
He looked round, peeling strips of citrus rind off a fruit with a paring knife.
'I don't know. But there are rumblings/
'There are always rumblings/
He turned to face me fully. His eyes were suddenly very hard and bright. Take this seriously/
Very well, I will/
You know what the rumour-mill is like. Someone's always got a point to make, a score to settle. There were stories. I dismissed them at first/
'Stories?'
He sighed again and returned to his seat with his refreshed drink.
'There is talk that you are… unsound/
"What talk?'
'Damn it, Gregor! I'm not one of your interview suspects! I've come here as a friend/
'A friend who broke in wearing a stealth suit and-'
'Shut up just for a minute, would you?'
I paused.
'Gladly. If you cut to the chase/
'The first I heard, someone was bad-mouthing you/
Who?'
'It doesn't matter. I waded in and told them just what I thought. Then I heard the story again. Eisenhorn's unsound. He's lost the plot/
'Really?'
Then the stories changed. It was no longer "Eisenhorn's unsound", it was, "The people who matter think Eisenhorn's unsound". As if somehow suspicion of you had become official/
'I've heard nothing/ I said, sitting back.
'Of course you haven't. Who'd say it to your face but a friend… or a convening judge from Internal Prosecution?'
I raised my eyebrows. 'You're really worried, aren't you, Titus?'
'Damn right. Someone's gunning for you. Someone whose got the ear of the upper echelon. Your career and activities are under scrutiny/
'You get that all from rumours? Come on, Titus. There are plenty of inquisitors I can think of who'd like to score points off me. Orsini's a closet Monodominant, and the puritan idealists are forming a power block around him. They are radicals, in their way. You know that. Us Amalathians are too louche for their tastes/
I mentioned before how I hated politics. Nothing is more fruitless and wearying than the internal politics of the Inquisition itself. My kind is fractured internally by belief factions and intellectual sectarianism. Endor and myself count ourselves as Amalathian inquisitors, which is to say we hold an optimistic outlook and work to sustain the integrity of the Imperium, believing it to be functioning according to the divine Emperor's scheme. We preserve the status quo. We hunt down recidivist elements: heretics, aliens, psykers, the three key enemies of mankind – these are of course our primary targets – but we will set ourselves against anything that we perceive to be destabilising Imperial society, up to and including factional infighting between the august organs of our culture. It has always struck me as ironic that we had to become a faction in order to fight factionalism.
We profess to be puritans, and certainly are so compared to the extreme radical factions of the Inquisition such as the Istvaanians and the Recongrenators.
But equally alien to us are the extreme right wing of the puritan factions, the Monodominants and the Thorians, some of whom believe even the use of trained psykers to be heretical.
If I was in trouble, it would not be the first time an inquisitor of tempered, moderate beliefs had run foul of either extreme in his own organisation.
'This goes beyond simple faction intrigue/ Titus said quietly. 'This isn't a hardliner deciding to give the moderates a going over. This is particular to you. They have something/
'What?'
'Something concrete on you.'
'How do you know?'
'Because twenty days ago on Messina, I was detained and questioned by Inquisitor Osma of the Ordo Malleus.'
I suddenly realised I was up out of my seat.
'You were what?'
He waved dismissively. 'I'd just finished a waste-of-time matter, and was preparing to pack up and ship for Thracian. Osma contacted me, polite and friendly, and asked if he could meet with me. I went to see him. It was all very civil. He made no effort to restrain me… but I don't think I could have left before he had finished. He was guarded, but he made it clear that if I decided to walk out… his people would stop me.'
