How firm a foundation s-5

by David Weber

  “Agreed,” Cayleb said. In fact, he and Wave Thunder knew perfectly well who’d arranged it. “I wish to God that man wasn’t on the other side,” the emperor continued soberly. “And I wish I hadn’t been quite so hard on him after Crag Reach.” He shook his head. “He deserved better, even if there wasn’t any way for me to know it at the time.”

  “I rather hate to suggest this, Your Majesty,” Prince Nahrmahn said delicately, “but if it should happen to leak back to the Inquisition that…”

  “No,” Cayleb said flatly, and Sharleyan shook her head firmly at his side. Then the emperor made himself sit straighter in his chair. “No, Nahrmahn,” he said in a more natural voice. “Mind you, you’re not thinking anything that hadn’t already occurred to me. And I suppose from a proper cold-blooded, pragmatic perspective no ruler in his right mind could justify rejecting such a neat way of removing his most capable military opponent from play. But the man who risked sending us Gwylym Manthyr’s final letters deserves better of us than that.”

  “I agree, Your Majesty.” Nahrmahn nodded. “Such possibilities need to be considered; that’s why I mentioned it. But not only would it be wrong to betray the Earl to the Inquisition, it would be foolish. Whatever the advantages in removing him as a military commander, the long-term consequence would be to guarantee that there were no more Earl Thirsks within the ranks of the Temple Loyalists. Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s actions have blackened the Group of Four beyond redemption in the eyes of any reasonable person. The last thing we need to do is to put ourselves into that same category by being no better than he is.”

  “Cold-bloodedly but cogently reasoned, Your Highness,” Staynair said with a crooked smile. Nahrmahn looked at him, and the archbishop smiled more naturally. “I have no objection to considering the political advantages of doing the right thing, Your Highness. I hope, however, that you’ll understand that from my perspective the fact that it’s the right thing takes precedence over the fact that it also happens to be politically expedient.”

  “Your Eminence, I agree with you entirely,” Nahrmahn replied with a wry smile. “It’s simply that the right thing and the politically expedient thing are so seldom the same thing that I couldn’t let it pass without mentioning it.”

  “We’re in agreement, then, that we won’t be publishing these letters abroad, Your Majesties?” Gray Harbor asked.

  “Why do I seem to hear a little… hesitation in your voice, Rayjhis?” Sharleyan looked at him shrewdly, and the first councilor grimaced.

  “There are also letters from others of his officers and enlisted men, Your Grace,” he sighed. “The very last letters any of them will ever write. If we don’t admit we’ve received them, we can’t deliver them to their loved ones, either.”

  There was silence again for several seconds. A lot of the people around the table were busy avoiding one another’s eyes, and Gray Harbor wondered how many of them found it as ironic as he did that this decision should arrive so close on the heels of Staynair’s and Nahrmahn’s discussion of the difference between expediency and what was right.

  “I believe there may be a solution,” Staynair said finally, and the eyes which had been studying the tabletop or the paintings on the council chamber’s walls swiveled to him. “By now, there’s been time for this same news to have reached Silk Town from Gorath by other means, and for us to have heard of it from someone besides Sir Gwylym or Earl Thirsk. That being the case, I propose we announce it without mentioning the receipt of any formal reports from Sir Gwylym or, for that matter, any of the letters. Instead, in a short time-two or three five-days, perhaps-I’ll announce the Church has come into possession of final letters from many of the prisoners who were handed over to the Inquisition. I’ll refuse to say how those letters reached me, but I’m sure everyone will assume it was courtesy of some Reformist member of the mainland clergy.” His lip curled, and his normally mild eyes glittered. “I rather like the thought that it may inspire the Inquisition to hunt for traitors among its own ranks.”

  “I think that’s an excellent idea, Your Majesties,” Nahrmahn agreed enthusiastically. “I’m sure Clyntahn’s response will be to brand any letters which end up being made public as forgeries on our part. They won’t really be from any of our people; we’ll have made them up as another step in our efforts to discredit Mother Church and the Inquisition. He may even actually believe that himself… in which case it could help divert a little pressure from Earl Thirsk.”

  Cayleb looked at Sharleyan, who nodded, then turned back to the rest of the Council.

  “Very well.” He nodded. “I think you’ve come up with the best solution for that particular problem, Maikel. But there’s still the matter of how we go about making news of this public… and what position we take.”

  “I agree.” Staynair nodded gravely. “This is something to which both Crown and Church must respond strongly and clearly, with no ambiguity. Your subjects and God’s children must clearly understand what this means, and where we stand in respect to it. And there’s also the question of timing. We’re less than a five-day from God’s Day, which is about as ironic as it gets, I suppose.” He raised one hand to his pectoral scepter. “Under the circumstances, I think there’s only one possible venue for addressing this matter properly, Your Majesty.”

  ***

  It was unusually quiet in Tellesberg Cathedral, especially for today. God’s Day-the unnumbered extra day inserted into every year in the middle of the month of July-was the great high holy day of the Church of God Awaiting. Every month had its religious holidays, its saints’ days, its liturgical observances, but this day, God’s Day, was set aside above all others for the contemplation of one’s soul and the state of God’s plan for all humanity. It was a day of solemn celebration, of joyous hymns, as well as a day on which gifts were exchanged, children were baptized, weddings were celebrated, and the praise and gratitude of the entire world ascended to the throne of God.

  There was always a special solemnity to the high masses celebrated in the great cathedrals of Safehold on God’s Day, and never more so than in those rare instances when an archbishop had scheduled his yearly pastoral visit to coincide with the religious festival. Of course, that seldom happened; it was far more important to be in Zion, at the Temple, on this holiest of days, and the archbishoprics were usually left to their bishop executors.

  But not in Tellesberg, or in places like Eraystor, Cherayth, or Manchyr. In those places, archbishops regularly celebrated mass in their own cathedrals, and Tellesberg Cathedral had filled to overflowing before dawn. Thousands of additional worshippers filled the square outside and spilled down the avenues in every direction, covering every square foot of pavement, sitting in the windows and on the roofs of buildings overlooking Cathedral Square. Priests and deacons formed human chains, stretching through the crowd, waiting for Archbishop Maikel’s sermon so that they could relay his words to every waiting ear.

  No one knew what the archbishop intended to say, but Maikel’s sermons were famous, and rightly so, for their warmth and their loving insight into the hearts and minds of human beings. They were followed even in the mainland realms-printed and distributed semi-openly in northern and eastern Siddarmark, and less openly in other lands. Indeed, they formed a major component of the Reformist propaganda so mysteriously and successfully spread across both continents despite all the Inquisition could do.

  But there was no mystery about their availability in the Empire of Charis. They were regularly reprinted and distributed in the bookstores and in the Empire’s newspapers, posted in broadside sheets in villages and town squares. Not because the Church or the Crown required it, but because those bookstores and newspapers’ readers, the citizens of those villages and towns, demanded it.

  Yet for all that, there was a special tension in the air. There were rumors, whispers, that the archbishop had something especially weighty to discuss today. The air would have been supercharged on God’s Day under any circumstances, given the religious as
pects of the war being waged against Charis, but there was more to it this time, and as the Cathedral Choir’s voices faded, they were replaced by a silence so intense a muffled cough would have sounded like a cannon shot.

  Archbishop Maikel rose from his throne and crossed to the carved and gilded pulpit. Anyone who’d ever seen the archbishop knew that purposeful stride of his, that sense of powerful forward movement and focused determination. Yet it was more pronounced, more deliberate, even than usual today, and the congregation’s tension ratcheted higher.

  He reached the pulpit and stood for a moment with his hand on the Holy Writ and his eyes closed, his head bent in silent prayer. Then he raised his head once more, looking out over the wide expanse of packed, silent pews.

  “Today’s Scripture is written in the fifth chapter of The Book of Chihiro, verses ten through fourteen,” he said clearly, and opened the Writ. Pages whispered as he turned them, the tiny sound distinctly audible in the stillness, but when he’d found the passage he sought, he didn’t even look at it. He didn’t need to, and he stood with his hand resting on the huge volume, eyes sweeping the congregation, while he recited from memory.

  “‘Then the Archangel Langhorne stood upon Mount Heilbronn, looking down upon the Field of Sabana, where so many had fallen opposing evil, and his eyes were wet with tears, and he said, “The time must come when only the sword of justice can oppose the many swords of evil-of pestilent ambition, of greed, of selfishness and cruelty, of hatred and terror. Might may be used to destroy might, and strength may be used to oppose strength, but justice is the true armor of the godly. That which cannot be done with justice must not be done at all, for only the Dark cannot stand in the brilliance of God’s Light. So you will abide by justice, by keeping faith with that which you know is right. You will do justice not in the heat of battle or the white fury of your anger, be that anger ever so justified. You will do justice soberly, with reverent respect for that love of one another God has placed within you. You will not condemn out of hatred, and he who uses justice for his own ends, he who perverts justice into that which he wishes it to be rather than what it truly is, that one shall be accursed in the eyes of God. Every man’s hand shall be against him. As he sows, so shall he reap, and the mercy he denies to others shall be denied to him in his turn. I will not shield him from his enemies. I will not hear him when he calls to me in his extremity. And in the final judgment, when he comes before the throne of God, I will not see him. I will not speak for him, and God Himself will turn His back upon him as he is cast forever into that bottomless abyss reserved for him throughout all eternity.”’”

  The stillness couldn’t possibly have gotten more absolute… yet somehow, as Staynair spoke, it did. God’s Day was a day for celebration, for joyous acknowledgment and thanks, not for the grim, harsh passages of The Book of Chihiro and the clashing iron of condemnation. That was true for any cathedral, any sermon preached upon this day, and to hear such words out of the gentle Archbishop of Charis only made them even more shocking.

  Staynair let the stillness linger, then turned his head slowly, surveying the congregation.

  “My sermon today will be brief, my children,” he said then. “It is not one I relish. This is supposed to be a day of joy, of the rediscovery of God’s love for His children and the expression of their love for Him, and I wish with all my heart that I could preach that message to you today. But I can’t. Instead I must speak of news which has reached us here, and which will reach homes and families everywhere within the Empire of Charis all too soon.”

  He paused, the stillness wrapping itself around him in the smoke chains of incense and the spangled light shafts of the cathedral’s stained glass. His archbishop’s crown glittered in that light, his vestments gleamed with jewels and precious embroidery, and his eyes were dark, dark.

  “Word has come to Tellesberg from Gorath,” he said finally, and somewhere in the cathedral a woman’s voice cried out indistinctly. Staynair’s eyes turned in its direction, but his voice never faltered.

  “King Rahnyld has chosen to yield Sir Gwylym Manthyr and all of the men under his command who were honorably surrendered to the Dohlaran Navy to the Inquisition. They were consigned to the Inquisition at the end of May. By this time, my children, they have already reached Zion. No doubt they are enduring the Question even as I stand before you.”

  More voices joined that first, single protest, crying out. Not in denial of Staynair’s words, but in grief-and anger-as the thing they had all feared would come to pass was finally announced to them. Rage guttered in the depths of those voices, and hatred, and growing under both of them-newborn, yet already with bones of iron and fangs of steel-was vengeance.

  The priests and deacons relaying Staynair’s sermon to the crowds outside had repeated his words, and the same instant upwelling of anger rolled across Cathedral Square and down the avenues. That vast crowd’s fury could be heard even inside the cathedral, even over the voices being raised within its walls, and Staynair raised one hand, commanding silence.

  He got it, and it was a testimony to his stature, his congregation’s love and respect for him, that he did. That he could.

  It didn’t come instantly, that silence. Even for him, it came slowly, limpingly, like a catamount unwillingly surrendering its prey, and it spread even more slowly to the throngs beyond the cathedral’s walls. Yet it came at last, and he looked out across the pews once more.

  “Our brothers and fathers and sons and husbands have been given over into the hands of torturers and murderers serving that vile corruption which sits in the Grand Inquisitor’s chair,” the normally gentle and loving archbishop said harshly. “They have been given over not because of anything they’ve done that deserves such hideous punishment, whatever Zhaspahr Clyntahn and his coterie of sycophants and butchers may claim. They’ve been surrendered to suffer all of those agonies and the final and culminating agony of the Punishment of Schueler because they dared- dared, my children!-to defend their families and their loved ones and their fellow children of God against exactly that which they themselves are even now suffering. They dared to defy the evil and corruption and the arrogance of the Group of Four, and Zhaspahr Clyntahn has perverted his office, just as he has perverted his immortal soul, to punish that defiance not of God, but of him.

  “This is not the act of the Temple Loyalists, although many among them may be so deceived by the Group of Four’s lies that they applaud it. This is not the act of the neighbor across the street from you who continues to oppose the schism, the ‘heresy,’ of the Church of Charis. This is not the act of someone who truly seeks to know and to understand God’s will. It is not the act of someone who respects law, or justice, or truth, or anything in God’s wide world which is more important than himself.”

  More than one of the people in that cathedral stared at him in something very like shock. Not at what they were hearing, but at who they were hearing it from. This was Maikel Staynair, the gentle shepherd-the archbishop who’d cried out for understanding and compassion from the very same pulpit in which he stood today with the blood of his own intended assassins splashed across his vestments. Yet there was no gentleness in him this day.

  “As today’s Scripture tells us, ‘That one shall be accursed in the eyes of God. Every man’s hand shall be against him. As he sows, so shall he reap, and the mercy he denies to others shall be denied to him in his turn.’” The archbishop’s voice was ribbed with iron, and his eyes were harder yet. “The Church of Charis does not torture, does not murder, does not massacre-not even in the name of God, far less in the name of foul and vaunting ambition! The Empire of Charis will not strike out blindly, will not mistake the unwilling servant for the corrupt and despicable master. No doubt there will come a reckoning for King Rahnyld, in the fullness of time, yet Rahnyld is nothing. He is only a servant, a slave of his masters in Zion, and we know our true enemies. We know the hand behind this crime. We know the twisted mind and the withered soul which commanded it. W
e know whose hand this blood is truly on, and we will remember. We will remember… and we will call that hand to account.”

  Bared steel clashed in the depths of that promise, and he looked out over the shocked, silent cathedral.

  “I have consulted with Emperor Cayleb and Empress Sharleyan about this matter,” he said quietly, flatly. “I have urged from the beginning that we leave justice to be done by the Crown, and so I urge now. I beg all of you, as God’s children, to refrain from seeking objects of vengeance. Those Temple Loyalists who live in the Empire had nothing to do with this! The vast, vast majority of Temple Loyalists living even in Dohlar had nothing to do with this. It was done not at the orders of the Dohlaran Navy or the Dohlaran Army, but at the orders of the Inquisition and of that unspeakably vile individual whose every breath profanes the vicar’s robe he wears. And because it was, the Empire of Charis and the Church of Charis will not strike out at the innocent or those who had no choice but to obey corruption’s orders.”

  He drew himself up to his full impressive height, and his voice rolled with harsh thunder.

  “No doubt there are those who will argue that we should carry out reprisals against the far greater number of prisoners who lie in our hands. That we should make clear to the kings and princes who oppose us in the service of the Group of Four that we will treat their surrendered soldiers and sailors precisely as they treat ours. But we are called upon to wield the sword of justice, my children, not the sword of blind vengeance. Your Emperor and Empress will not dishonor themselves or stain the honor of those who serve in our Navy and our Marines and our Army with the murder of those who have done nothing but follow their officers’ orders and fight honorably and openly upon the field of battle.

  “But- but, my children!-the Inquisition has shown itself to be the enemy of all mankind. Whatever it may once have been, it has fallen into the grasp of men like Zhaspahr Clyntahn who have distorted and twisted it into something which it may never be possible to cleanse again. Its members have become not servants of God but His enemies. God gave all men free will, the ability to choose, and they have chosen to serve the Dark, instead.