A Mighty Fortress (62 page)

The hammers swung a third time, and Sir Koryn Gahrvai’s grin grew broader—and more cruel—as holes suddenly appeared in what had been supposed to be a solid wall. Not dark holes battered into the masonry, either. No, these were illuminated from the other side, and he heard a voice saying something frantic as the hammers pounded into the wall again, and again, and again.

The holes in the wall grew bigger, spreading, merging into one, and then an entire section of thin stone blocks tumbled away. Something exploded thunderously, a muzzle flash belched a choking cloud of powder smoke, and one of Naiklos’ infantryman cried out as a musket ball slammed into his left leg. Before Gahrvai could say a thing, one of the wounded man’s squad mates had his own musket at his shoulder, and a second shot hammered ears already cringing from the first one. Fresh smoke billowed, thick and vile- smelling, and someone shrieked from the other side of it.

“In!” Captain Naiklos barked. “And remember, we want the bastards alive!”

“Aye, Sir!” the squad’s sergeant acknowledged grimly. Then—“You heard the Cap’n!
Hop it!
”

The squad’s unwounded members shouldered their way through the hole, the passage of their bodies widening it as they went. The room on the other side was as large as the precise directions from Gahrvai’s mysterious correspondent had indicated. And according to those same directions, it was also only the first of a half- dozen rooms which had been hidden by the priory’s original architect better than five centuries ago. Unlike some priories and monasteries or convents which had changed hands and religious affiliations more than once over the years, Saint Zhustyn’s had always been a Schuelerite house, and Gahrvai found himself wondering how many other concealed rooms might have been tucked away in the order’s other religious houses and manors.

No telling,
he thought as he ducked his head to follow Uhlstyn and Naiklos through the hole in the wall.
This is the first I’ve ever heard of
any
of them. For that matter, neither Archbishop Klairmant nor Bishop Kaisi had ever heard about anything like this. Or I don’t
think
they had, at any rate.
He grimaced mentally.
Damn. Now I’m starting to wonder if even the bishops I
trust
are holding back information I need!

He heard raised voices—angry, threatening voices. They were coming from the next room, and he coughed on a fresh cloud of smoke as he stepped through the door into it. Not powder smoke, this time, he observed. Instead, it was the smoke of burning paper, and his eyes smarted as he saw the overturned brazier. Obviously, someone had been burning documents when his men arrived, and even as he watched, Uhlstyn was stamping out the last flickers of flame from the pile of paper he’d dumped on the floor.

Two men, both in nightclothes, stood with their backs against a wall, pale faces strained as they faced the points of his soldiers’ bayonets. He recognized one of them without difficulty.

“Father Aidryn Waimyn,” he said in a voice of stone, “I arrest you in the name of the Crown and of Mother Church, on the authority of Prince Daivyn’s Regency Council and Archbishop Klairmant, on charges of sedition, treason, and murder.”

“You have no authority to arrest me!” Waimyn spat back. He was obviously shaken, and there seemed to be as much disbelief as anger in his expression. “You and your apostate masters have no authority over God’s true Church!”

“Perhaps not,” Gahrvai replied in that same stony voice. “But they have enough authority for
me,
Priest. And I advise you to recall what happened to the Inquisitors of Ferayd.”

Fear flickered behind the outrage and fury in Waimyn’s eyes, and Gahrvai smiled thinly.

“More of my troops are calling on Master Aimayl even as we speak,” he told the ex- intendant. “And Master Hainree is being visited about now, as well.”

Waimyn twitched visibly when he heard those names, and Gahrvai’s smile broadened without becoming a single degree warmer.

“Somehow I suspect one of those fine gentlemen is going to confirm what we already know,” he said. “It won’t even take the sort of torture you’re so fond of. Which, in my personal opinion, is a great pity.” He looked deep into Waimyn’s eyes and saw the fear- flicker dancing higher. “There’s a part of me that regrets the fact that the Emperor and Empress and Archbishop Maikel have specifically renounced your own Book’s penalties for the murder of priests. On the other hand, it’s probably as well for the state of my own soul. I’d hate to find myself damned to the same coals as
you,
so I suppose I’ll just have to settle for a rope.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Waimyn got out.

“I’m sure that’s what the Inquisitors at Ferayd thought, too,” Gahrvai observed. He examined the ex- intendant coldly for another moment, then turned to Naiklos.

“Your men have done well here to night, Captain, and so have you,” he said. “Now I want all of these prisoners transported to Kahsimahr Prison.” He gave Waimyn another icy smile. “I understand they’re expected.”

A Private Council Chamber,

Imperial Palace,

Cherayth,

Kingdom of Chisholm

Your Majesties.”

Prince Nahrmahn of Emerald bowed as he stepped past the guardsmen outside the door in answer to the pre- breakfast summons. Cayleb and Sharleyan sat at a table beside one of the chamber’s windows. It was still dark, and the moonless, starless winter sky was cloudy enough no one should expect to see the sun even when it finally deigned to rise. The hour was a bit early, even for vigorous, youthful monarchs, Nahrmahn reflected. It was somewhat more than “a bit early” for him, on the other hand, given that he preferred a rather more leisurely schedule, and he hadn’t really expected to be summoned to a conference even before breakfast.

The chamber had been fitted with one of the Howsmyn foundries’ new cast-iron stoves, its chimney ducted into the flue of an enormous but old- fashioned and rather less efficient fireplace, and it was actually comfortably warm, even by Nahrmahn’s semi- tropical Emeraldian standards. A tall, steaming carafe of hot chocolate sat beside an equally steaming pot of tea, and both were accompanied by cups, plates, and a tray well provided with scones and muffins. Before his arrival here in Cherayth, Nahrmahn had never encountered the scones, laced with nuts and sweetbriar berries, but they were a local specialty and he approved of them enthusiastically. Especially when they were still hot from the oven and there was plenty of fresh butter available.

He brightened visibly as he saw them, and not simply because he hadn’t eaten yet. That was rather central to his reaction, but there
were
other factors. Specifically, since he and Ohlyvya had acquired their own coms and access to Owl’s computer files, his wife had begun to fuss over his eating habits. Nahrmahn himself had spent many hours now poring over those same files with delight, yet he’d been interested in significantly different portions of them. He supposed he was glad they had access to information which told them the truth about health issues the
Holy Writ
had demoted to rote obedience to “religious law,” but he could have wished that information had not contained words like “cholesterol” and “arteriosclerosis.” It had been quite bad enough, in his opinion, when Pasqualate- trained healers had fussed at him about what he ate without any knowledge of the actual reasons behind Pasquale’s dietary suggestions.

He smiled at the thought, but then his smile faded as he saw the emperor’s and empress’ expressions.

“Good morning, Nahrmahn,” Sharleyan replied to his greeting. Her voice was courteous, but there was something hard, angry, about her tone. What ever it was, though, at least it didn’t appear to be directed at him, for which the prince was grateful. “Please, join us.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

Nahrmahn crossed to the indicated chair, facing Cayleb and Sharleyan across the table and looking out through the window behind them. He sat, and Sharleyan poured hot chocolate and handed it to him. He accepted the cup with a murmured thanks, sipped, then set it on the table before him, folding his hands around it, while he considered possible reasons for his unanticipated summons. His first thought had been that it had something to do with Merlin’s mission to Maikelberg, but he’d watched the “imagery” of Merlin’s conversation with Duke Eastshare himself. It didn’t seem likely anything had gone wrong there, yet if not that, then—?

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he said, looking at Sharleyan, “but from your tone, something’s happened of which I’m not aware.”

His own tone and raised eyebrows made the statement a question, and Cayleb gave a harsh, ugly little bark of a laugh. Nahrmahn transferred his attention to the emperor and cocked his head.

“You might say that,” Cayleb said. “When I woke up this morning, I touched base with Owl. I usually do, and I usually have a couple of things I’ve got him keeping track of—specific things I’m particularly interested in.” He shrugged. “Most of them, frankly, aren’t particularly earthshaking. You might even call them purely selfish. Things like the baseball scores and standings back in Old Charis, for example. Or keeping track of Hektor and
Destiny
. That sort of thing.”

He paused, and Nahrmahn nodded in understanding. “Well, one of the things I’ve had him keeping track of was Father Tymahn’s sermons down in Manchyr. Not so much because of their political implications, but because I’ve enjoyed them so much on a personal level. So this morning I asked him how Father Tymahn was coming on this Wednesday’s sermon.” The emperor’s face tightened, and his voice went harsh and flat. “Unfortunately, he won’t be preaching this five- day after all. Those bastards of Waimyn’s murdered him night before last. As a matter of fact, they tortured him to death and then dumped his naked body in Gray Lizard Square yesterday morning.”

Nahrmahn stiffened, and his eyes darted to Sharleyan. He understood the rage glittering in her eyes now. The empress had been looking forward to the day she would finally get to meet the priest who had emerged as the spiritual leader of the Corisandian Reformists. He knew how much she’d come to respect Hahskans, and he suspected that the priest’s murder, especially at Waimyn’s direct orders, must resonate with the memory of how so many of her own guardsmen had been killed as the result of another high churchman’s plans to murder
her
.

“Owl is positive Waimyn personally ordered it, Your Grace?” He asked in as neutral tone as he could manage, choosing to direct the question to Cayleb, and the emperor made a sound midway between a growl and a snarl.

“Oh, he’s positive, all right. The bastard passed the order through Hainree to Aimayl.”

“I see.” Nahrmahn’s expression was simply thoughtful, but something harder and colder glittered at the backs of his habitually mild brown eyes. “I must admit I’m a bit surprised by his decision to escalate matters this way,” the rotund prince continued after a moment. “I realize his communications with Bishop Executor Thomys and the ‘Northern Conspiracy’ are roundabout and limited, but surely he must be aware their plans are far too incomplete for any sort of direct confrontation with the Regency Council and General Chermyn.”

“Obviously we’ve all believed that,” Sharleyan said. Now that Nahrmahn knew what had happened, he recognized that cold, hard tone as an echo of the hard- won self- discipline a child queen had learned so long ago. It was painfully evident that it required quite a lot of that self- discipline to control the rage deep inside her.

“What ever we believed, though,” she continued, “we were wrong.”

“I don’t think that’s exactly what happened,” Cayleb said. She looked at him, her eyes considerably colder and flatter than usual, and he shook his head. “What I mean is that I think he’s perfectly well aware the Bishop Executor and his secular cronies aren’t ready to move yet, and we know he’s been trying to coordinate things in Manchyr to bring the city to a boil gradually. To touch off the fuse at the moment the Northern Conspiracy
is
ready. That suggests to me that something must have happened to change his plans.”

“I believe I agree with His Grace, Your Majesty,” Nahrmahn told Sharleyan after a moment. He reached out and began absently buttering a still- warm scone. “Of course, Waimyn’s always had the problem of those poor communications. Any sort of fine coordination with Shylair, Storm Keep, and the rest has been out of the question. Still, it’s been obvious he recognizes the need to orchestrate his own efforts with theirs in so far as he
can,
so I’m strongly inclined to believe that some purely local factor—a tactical one, one might say, and not a fundamental shift in his strategic thinking—produced this decision on his part.”

From Sharleyan’s expression, it was obvious Nahrmahn’s apparent detachment irritated her. The prince wasn’t too concerned about that, though. She and Cayleb had come to know him well enough by now that she had to recognize the manner in which he normally approached this sort of analysis. It was her own pain and anger which woke her irritation, and Sharleyan Tayt Ahrmahk, for all her youth, was more than wise enough to recognize that, as well.

“I’ve had a little longer to think about it than you have, Nahrmahn,” Cayleb said, reaching for his own chocolate cup, “and I imagine it was actually a combination of things. If I had to guess, I’d say Father Tymahn was proving more effective in unifying support for the Church of Charis than Waimyn had expected. And while I don’t think it was what Father Tymahn truly had in mind, that’s been spilling over into an at least grudging acceptance of the
Empire
of Charis among a significant segment of the capital’s population, as well. I’m positive Waimyn saw that, whether Tymahn and the rest of the Reformists did or not, and I doubt he cared for the impact it was having on his own plans and organization. For that matter, we
know
he’s been concerned about the number of people who have begun quietly passing on bits and pieces of information about his operations to priests like Tymahn. So my theory is that he reached the point of deciding Tymahn was proving an unacceptable hindrance and had to go. And the way he had him killed, and where he had the body dumped, was intended to... discourage not only Tymahn’s fellow Reformist clergy, but also any members of the laity who might have been inclined to ‘collaborate’ with them.”