How Firm a Foundation (Safehold)

by David Weber

  But if there was no shame in breaking, there was pride in not breaking, and his heart swelled as he looked around at those stumbling, crippled, tormented ruins and knew exactly what they’d already endured without yielding. As long as one of them—one of them—was still on his feet, still defiant, Sir Gwylym Manthyr would stand beside him at the very gates of Hell. They were his, and he was theirs, and he would not—could not—break faith with them.

  They marched across the plaza, and he saw the heaps of wood, the charred wooden posts arranged on the marble flags—many of them cracked now with the heat of past fires—between the fountains and the Temple’s soaring colonnade. They marked where others of Clyntahn’s victims had already died, those posts, and he watched his men being separated from one another, dragged to those heaps of wood, chained to those grim, scorched posts. He watched inquisitors coating their bodies with pitch that would take the flame and cling to them even as it offered their flesh a brief, transitory protection that would make their dying even longer and harder. He saw leather gloves, knuckles reinforced with steel studs, striking anyone who didn’t move fast enough, who showed any trace of fight. They had to use those weighted fists quite often, he thought, watching, taking it all in. When it was his turn to appear before the Throne of God he wanted to be certain he had it all straight as he gave his testimony against the men who had twisted and perverted everything God stood for.

  Then all of his men were chained, fastened atop their pyres, and there was only him. A pair of inquisitors started to drag him past his men, but he found the strength to shake off their hands and walk—slowly, but steadily, under his own power, making eye contact for one last time with every man he passed—towards the platform which had been reserved for him. The platform with the wheel and the rack, the white-hot irons waiting in their nests of glowing coals.

  He longed for one final opportunity to defy the Inquisition, to speak for his men, to ridicule the charges against them, but they’d taken that from him when they cut out his tongue. He could still scream—they’d proven that to him—but they’d silenced his ability to deny the “confession” they were going to read and attribute to him. He’d held out, he’d never admitted or signed a single damned thing, but that wasn’t the story they were going to tell. He knew that. They’d explained it to him in smirking detail in a last-ditch effort to break him into actually signing, and it grieved him that he could never set the record straight. Not so much for himself, but because it meant he couldn’t speak out for his men, either.

  It doesn’t matter, he thought as he climbed the steps to the platform, eyes hard with hate and defiance as they met Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s in person at last. Anybody who’d believe Clyntahn’s lies in the first place would never believe anything I said. And anyone who knows the truth about Clyntahn already knows what I would have said if I could. Those people, my Emperor and my Empress and my Navy, they know, and the time will come when they will avenge every one of my men.

  He saw the torches, flames pale in the cool autumn sunlight, as the inquisitors strode towards his chained and helpless men, and his belly tightened. They were going to burn the others first, let him listen to their screams and watch their agonizing deaths, before it was his turn. It was the kind of “refinement” he’d come to expect out of Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s Inquisition.

  Two more inquisitors seized his arms, stretching them out, chaining them to the rack, and Zhaspahr Clyntahn stepped closer to him. The Grand Inquisitor’s face was studiously calm, set in stern lines of determination as he prepared to play out the final line of this carefully scripted farce.

  “You have heard the judgment and sentence of holy Mother Church upon you for your blasphemy, your heresy, your wanton defiance of God and allegiance to Shan-wei, Gwylym Manthyr,” he said, his voice carrying clearly. “Have you anything to say before that sentence is carried out?”

  Clyntahn’s eyes glittered with satisfaction as he asked the question he knew Manthyr couldn’t answer. There was no way for his victim to voice his defiance, demonstrate his rejection of the judgment and sentence which had been pronounced upon him, yet there was also no way for anyone in that watching crowd to know his voice had been taken from him before the question was even asked. They would see only the terrified heretic, too cowed by the onrushing approach of the eternal damnation he’d earned to say a single word.

  Sir Gwylym Manthyr looked back at the gloating Grand Inquisitor as Clyntahn savored his triumph … and then he spat squarely into the vicar’s face.

  .VI.

  Saint Bailair’s Church and Madam Aivah Pahrsahn’s Townhouse, Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark

  “I don’t like it, Father,” Stahn Mahldan said unhappily as he knelt in the closed booth of the confessional. “I don’t like it at all. Where’s it coming from?”

  “I don’t know, Brother,” Father Lharee Traighair, the rector of Saint Bailair’s Church, replied, although he wasn’t as sure of that as he would have liked.

  “It’s all so … wrong,” Mahldan said, his eyes anxious, and Traighair smiled affectionately at him.

  Brother Stahn was in his late fifties, thinning hair going steadily white, and there wasn’t a malicious bone in his entire body. There wasn’t an ambitious one, either, as far as Traighair could tell, which probably explained why Brother Stahn was still only a sexton of the Order of the Quill at his age. It certainly wasn’t because of lack of ability, faith, or industry!

  A librarian by training and inclination alike, Mahldan was an absentminded, otherworldly sort who was always happiest puttering about in the histories he was responsible for maintaining and updating. He had a sharp, analytical brain, but one which was altogether too poorly suited for considering ugly truths outside the covers of his beloved histories. He was inclined to assume that since he wished ill to no one, no one could possibly wish ill to him, which, unfortunately, was no longer true even in the Republic, if it ever had been.

  At least the old fellow’s had the sense to keep his feelings mostly to himself, Traighair thought. Or I hope to Langhorne he has, at any rate!

  “I agree it’s wrong, Brother Stahn,” he said. “But I’m afraid it’s also fairly inevitable, as well.” He shook his head, his expression sad. “Men who are afraid do ugly things. And one of the things they do first is to strike out at and try to destroy whatever frightens them.”

  Mahldan nodded, although Traighair was pretty sure the sexton’s understanding was more intellectual than emotional. The priest wished he were a more inspired speaker, better able to explain what he saw so clearly, but he was a teacher more than a preacher, without the gift of language which God had given so generously to some other priests. He tried not to envy their greater gifts and to appreciate the ones he’d been given, but that was harder to do in times like these.

  “All I can tell you, Brother, is that I urge you to go home. Go about your business and do your best to … well, keep your head down.” Traighair’s smile was fleeting. “I don’t know where the fellows you’re talking about are likely to go in the end, but I advise you to keep yourself out of their sights.”

  “But they’re threatening people, Father!” Mahldan protested. “And they’re claiming it’s what God and Langhorne want them to do!”

  “I understand that, Brother,” Traighair said as patiently as he could. “But there’s nothing you can do about it, and if you confront them, you only run the risk of pouring oil on the flames. Trust me, men who say the things you say they said aren’t going to respond well to reasonable argument!”

  He gazed into the sexton’s eyes, willing Mahldan to simply take his word for it. He didn’t want to have to tell the gentle librarian that if he confronted the Temple Loyalist toughs he’d described he was only going to bring their violence down on his own head. And he didn’t want to have to explain that he was beginning to fear no amount of “reasonable argument” could head off what he was afraid was coming.

  “Are you sure, Father?” Mahldan shook his head. “The
Writ says we’re supposed to stand up for what we know is right and denounce what we know is wrong.”

  “Yes, we are. And you have—to me,” Traighair said firmly. “You’ll just have to trust me when I say I’ll bring it to the attention of the proper ears. That’s my responsibility, not yours.”

  Mahldan still looked unhappy and distressed, but he finally nodded.

  “Good, Brother Stahn. Good!” Traighair patted the older man on the arm. “Now, about those ‘sins’ of yours.” He shook his head and smiled. “I believe I can safely say they’re all scarcely even venal, this time. So light a candle to the Holy Bédard, leave an extra silver in Pasquale’s Basket this Wednesday, and say ten ‘Hail Langhornes.’ Understood?”

  “Yes, Father,” Mahldan agreed obediently, and the young priest stood and began escorting him down the nave.

  “I know you’re worried,” he said quietly as they reached the front steps. “To be honest, so am I, because these are worrying times. But you’re a good man and, if you’ll forgive my saying so, a gentle one. I think you’ll best serve by lending your prayers to those of all good and God-fearing people. And”—he looked the sexton firmly in the eye—“by staying home, keeping out from underfoot, and not making things worse. Understand me?”

  “Yes, Father.” Mahldan managed a wry smile and nodded again, more firmly.

  “Good!” Traighair repeated. “Now, go home!”

  He pointed like a stern grandfather, and the white-haired Mahldan laughed and obeyed the imperious gesture. The priest watched him until he turned the corner, then turned and walked briskly back into his church. It would be tight, but he had time to talk to those “proper ears” he’d promised Mahldan he’d speak to between now and afternoon mass if he hurried.

  * * *

  “I can see why Father Lharee was upset, Your Eminence,” Aivah Pahrsahn said.

  She stood gazing out her windows at North Bay once more. The Navy of God galleons had long since departed for Hsing-wu’s Passage, and the blue water sparkled under the September sun, busy with the weathered, tan sails of Siddar City’s teeming commerce. It would be winter again soon enough, she thought, with icy snow, rain, and the bay the color of a polished steel blade. She wasn’t looking forward to that. In fact, there were several things she wasn’t looking forward to, and she was frankly surprised they’d held off this long.

  “What worries me most is Father Lharee’s fear that he knows these men,” Zhasyn Cahnyr said unhappily.

  “Surely that doesn’t come as a surprise, Your Eminence?” Aivah turned to face him, and her expression was a strange mix of compassion and exasperation. “Did you truly believe this was all purely spontaneous? Something just naturally bubbling up out of Siddarmark’s burning loyalty to Mother Church and the people currently controlling her policies?”

  “I…” Cahnyr looked at her for a moment, then shrugged unhappily. “No, of course not,” he said. “I mean, in some ways I’d like to believe it’s purely out of loyalty to the Church, even if a mob mentality is a dangerous thing. Mobs can do horrible things, and I’ve seen it. But if Father Lharee is right, if these men Brother Stahn is talking about really do come out of Bishop Executor Baikyr’s or Father Zohannes’ offices, then we may be looking at something a lot worse than some kind of spontaneous vigilantism!”

  “Of course we are,” Pahrsahn told him flatly. “And Father Lharee is right, Your Eminence. I already had the names of four of the men he’s talking about, and at least one of them works directly for Father Saimyn.”

  Cahnyr looked at her sharply, and his expression tightened. Father Zohannes Pahtkovair, the Intendant of Siddar for the last sixteen months, was about as ardent as even a Schuelerite came. Cahnyr couldn’t be positive, but unless he was sadly mistaken, Pahtkovair had been handpicked by Zhaspahr Clyntahn for his current post specifically because of that ardency. The Inquisitor General would have made it his business to be certain he had a reliable intendant in a place like Old Province, the original heartland of the Republic of Siddarmark, under any circumstances. These days, with the upsurge in Reformist sympathies throughout the Republic, Clyntahn was going to be more focused on his intendants’ reliability than ever. Especially since Bishop Executor Baikyr Saikor was apparently at least a little more sympathetic to the Reformists than Archbishop Praidwyn Laicharn, his immediate superior. Of course, Saikor was also a bishop executor of the old school—a bureaucrat first and foremost, not someone likely to succumb to a sudden rush of piety. He’d follow his superiors’ instructions to the letter whatever his personal views might be. Still, it was obvious to Cahnyr that the bishop executor wasn’t going out of his way to stamp on peaceful, process-oriented Reformists, which probably explained why he’d been assigned a more … activist intendant last year.

  Father Saimyn Airnhart, however, worried the Archbishop of Glacierheart even more than Pahtkovair. Zohannes Pahtkovair was zealous about keeping a close eye on the reliability of the local clergy, but Airnhart was even more zealous. Which undoubtedly explained why he’d been assigned as Pahtkovair’s immediate subordinate for what was euphemistically termed “special functions.” In effect, Airnhart was responsible for managing the Inquisition’s covert operations. Not information gathering, not observation, but active operations—offensive operations, one might better say—intended to identify, unmask, and destroy the enemies of God and Mother Church … no matter where or who they might be. And no matter what he had to do to accomplish his mission, which had to suit Airnhart just fine. As Schueler had written in the very first chapter of his book, after all, “Extremism in the pursuit of godliness can never be a sin.” Cahnyr wasn’t at all convinced Saimyn Airnhart had ever bothered to read any of the rest of The Book of Schueler.

  “You really didn’t know, did you, Your Eminence?” Pahrsahn said quietly.

  “About Airnhart?” Cahnyr pursed his lips and exhaled heavily, then shrugged. “I knew about him, of course. We’ve been … keeping an eye out for him. But I hadn’t realized Bishop Executor Baikyr was working that directly with him. Or vice versa.”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure how directly involved the Bishop Executor actually is,” Pahrsahn said. “I know Pahtkovair has both his hands in the pie right up to the elbow, and Airnhart’s his chief kitchen assistant. On the other hand, I know where both of them are. I can keep an eye on them, and”—her voice turned grimmer, her eyes harder—“if I have to, I can put my hand on them anytime I need to, as well. I know you don’t want to hear that sort of thing, Your Eminence, but I’m afraid I’ve become rather addicted to that aphorism about the Archangels helping those who help themselves.”

  She looked at Cahnyr, who nodded. She was right; he didn’t want to hear about “that sort of thing,” but what he wanted and what he needed were two different things.

  “The thing that bothers me most about Father Lharee’s report,” Pahrsahn continued, “is what Brother Stahn had to say about Laiyan Bahzkai. He’s been turning into a really nasty piece of work, Your Eminence, and until today, I genuinely thought he was a ‘spontaneous’ bigot.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bahzkai’s an … interesting fellow, Your Eminence. He’s a Temple Loyalist, but he’s also a Leveler. And he’s been getting more active as an organizer over the past several months. More visible and more vocal. And he’s been moving steadily further and further towards their violent wing ever since Clyntahn declared his embargo against Charisian trade.”

  Cahnyr’s mouth tightened. He’d never heard Bahzkai’s name before, but he was more familiar with the Levelers than he wanted to be. In truth, he was more than a little sympathetic to at least three-quarters of their platform. He was less than convinced about the need for the complete and total destruction of capitalism, yet he was certainly willing to admit the system as it existed—especially in the Temple Lands, where senior churchmen used their privileged positions, entrenched corruption, and cronyism to amass staggering fortunes while squeezing out any competition—could
and did create huge inequities. That was the main reason the Levelers had originated in the Temple Lands, and many Reformists were at least mildly sympathetic to the Levelers’ core arguments.

  These days the Levelers were more active in the Republic of Siddarmark than anywhere else, however, which was precisely because the Republic’s level of tolerance was so much higher than that of most other mainland realms. As far as he was aware, they had virtually no representation in Charis, but that was understandable enough given the general Charisian enthusiasm for trade and individual self-betterment. Charisians liked capitalism—a lot—and they weren’t especially interested in hearing from people who disapproved of it.

  It was ironic, perhaps, that the realm in which the movement operated most openly was the one where the inequalities against which it inveighed were least pronounced, but that didn’t make it something the Republic’s civil authorities embraced with open arms, either. In Cahnyr’s opinion, though, the Levelers’ position that all men and women were equally children of God and therefore should take equal care of one another was straight out of the Holy Writ. There was nothing the least objectionable about that! And the majority of Levelers advocated peaceful means of pursuing their platform, although strikes and work stoppages had a tendency to turn violent at the best of times, especially in places like the Temple Lands or quite a few of the Border States between them and the Republic. And God only knew what would happen to a batch of Levelers who tried “civil disobedience” someplace like the Harchong Empire!