By Schism Rent Asunder (38 page)

Staynair and he followed their guide into the chapter house and down a series of whitewashed corridors. The brick floors had been worn smooth and gullied by centuries of passing feet, and the walls were a combination of stone and brick, with the transition between building materials indicating where later additions joined the original structure. They were also quite thick, and it was cool and quiet inside them.

Their guide paused at last outside another door. He glanced over his shoulder at Staynair, then knocked once, gently.

“Enter,” a voice called from the other side, and the monk opened the door and stood aside.

“Thank you, Brother,” Staynair murmured, then stepped past him with a slight “follow me” head twitch at Merlin.

They found themselves in what was obviously an office, although at first glance one might have been forgiven for thinking it was a library, instead. Or possibly an outsized storage closet. The slightly musty smell of paper and ink filled the air, bookshelves filled what would otherwise have been a high-ceilinged, airy chamber almost claustrophobically full, and the desk under its single skylight sat in a shelf-surrounded space, like a clearing hacked out of a towering rain forest canopy, that looked much too small for it and the two chairs sitting in front of it.

Judging from the heap of books and papers stacked on the floor, Merlin suspected that the chairs normally served as convenient holding spots for reference works and documents. Somehow he didn't think they “just happened” to have been cleared of their burdens before he and the archbishop arrived so unexpectedly.

“
Seijin
Merlin,” Staynair said, “allow me to introduce Father Zhon Byrkyt, the Abbot of Saint Zherneau's.”

“Father,” Merlin responded with a slight bow. Byrkyt was an elderly man, obviously at least several years older than Staynair, who wasn't precisely an infant himself. In his youth, he'd probably been somewhere between Staynair's height and Merlin's, which would have made him a veritable giant for Charis, although advancing years and a curving spine had changed that, and he looked almost painfully frail. He wore the green cassock of an over-priest, rather than the brown habit the door warden had worn. And, Merlin noted with slightly narrowed eyes, his cassock carried the quill pen of Chihiro rather than the horse of Truscott or the lamp of Bédard.

“Seijin,”
the abbot replied. His voice sounded as if it had once been far more robust—even as he had—but his eyes were clear and sharp. They were also at least as intense as Merlin's own, and there was a curiously eager light in their brown depths. He gestured at the chairs in front of his desk. “Please, be seated, both of you,” he invited.

Merlin waited until Staynair had taken one of the chairs before he sat himself. Then he settled down, standing his scabbarded katana upright against the edge of Byrkyt's desk and hoping he looked rather more relaxed than he actually felt. He didn't need a PICA's sensors to feel the strange, almost anticipatory tension which hovered about him.

That tension stretched out in silence for several seconds before Staynair broke it.

“First,” the archbishop said, “allow me to apologize, Merlin. I'm reasonably certain you've already deduced that I was guilty of a certain amount of … misdirection, let's say, when I ‘invited you' to accompany me this afternoon.”

“Some slight suspicion along that line
had
occurred to me, Your Eminence,” Merlin conceded, and Staynair chuckled.

“I'm not surprised,” he said. “On the other hand, there are certain things which will be easier to explain here at Saint Zherneau's than they would have been in the Palace. Things which, I feel certain”—his eyes bored suddenly into Merlin's—“will come as something of a surprise to you.”

“Somehow, I don't doubt that in the least,” Merlin said dryly.

“What I said to Cayleb was the truth,” Staynair told him. “Zhon”—he nodded at Byrkyt—“is indeed a very old friend of mine. And, alas, his health isn't good. I'm fairly confident he won't find himself in need of extreme unction this afternoon, however.”

“I'm relieved to hear that, Your Eminence.”

“So am I,” Byrkyt agreed with a smile of his own.

“Well, yes.” Staynair might actually have looked just a little embarrassed, Merlin thought, however unlikely it seemed. If he did, it didn't slow him down for long.

“At any rate,” the archbishop continued, “my real objective, obviously, was to get you here.”

“And the reason you wanted me here was precisely what, Your Eminence?” Merlin inquired politely.

“That's probably going to take a little explaining.” Staynair leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs, and regarded Merlin steadily.

“The Monastery of Saint Zherneau is quite ancient, actually,” he said. “In fact, tradition has it—and I believe the tradition is accurate, in this case, for several reasons—that the monastery stands upon the site of the oldest church in Tellesberg. It dates back literally to within a very few years of the Creation. Indeed, there are some indications that the original church was built on the Day of Creation itself.”

Merlin nodded, and reminded himself that unlike any of the terrestrial religions with which he was familiar, the Church of God Awaiting truly was able to assign an exact day, hour, and minute to the moment of Creation. A date and time amply substantiated by not simply the
Holy Writ
itself, but also by
The Testimonies
, the firsthand recollections of the eight million literate Adams and Eves who had experienced it. Of course, none of the people who'd left those written journals, letters, and accounts had remembered that they'd volunteered as colonists only to have their memories completely scrubbed and reprogrammed to believe the colony command crew's personnel were archangels.

“Saint Zherneau's isn't well known outside Charis,” Staynair continued. “It isn't a large monastery, and the Brethren of Zherneau have never been particularly numerous compared to any of the mainstream orders. Of course, there are quite a few small monasteries and convents, and they tend to come and go. Most of them grow out of the life and example of a particularly pious and devout spiritual leader who attracts a following of like-minded individuals during his or her own lifetime. Mother Church has always permitted such small religious communities, and the majority of them, frankly, don't often last more than a single generation or so after their founders' deaths. Generally, they're sponsored and supported by one of the major orders, and when they fade away, their holdings and manors—if any—escheat to the sponsoring order.

“Saint Zherneau's, however, is … unique in several respects. First, its charter was established right here in Tellesberg, not in Zion, under the authority of the first Bishop of Tellesberg, even before any archbishop had been appointed to us. Secondly, it's never been sponsored by—or restricted to the membership of—a single order. The Brethren are drawn from virtually every order of Mother Church. The monastery is a place of spiritual retreat and renewal open to all, and its brethren bring a wide diversity of perspectives with them.”

The archbishop paused, and Merlin pursed his lips thoughtfully. What Staynair was describing was quite different from the vast majority of monastic communities Merlin had studied since awakening in Nimue's Cave. Most Safeholdian monasteries and convents were very definitely the property of one or another of the great orders, and those orders were zealous about defending their ownership. Once one got beyond the borders of the Temple Lands, the competition between orders was seldom as fierce as it was inside the precincts of the Temple and the city of Zion. But it always existed, and their monasteries, convents, manors, and estates represented more than simple tokens in the competition. Those institutions were the sinews and wealth which made that competition possible.

Of course, Saint Zherneau's didn't exactly strike Merlin as one of the great monastic communities. Despite its obvious age and lovingly landscaped grounds, it was, as Staynair had said, a relatively small monastery. It wasn't likely that it produced a great deal of wealth, which might well explain how it had avoided the great orders' attention, as well as the greater inclusiveness and diversity of its membership.

Somehow, though, Merlin rather doubted the explanation was quite that simple.

“I, myself, came here to Saint Zherneau's as a very young man,” Staynair said. “At the time, I was unsure whether or not I truly had a vocation, and the Brethren helped me address my doubts. They were a great comfort to me when my spirit needed that comfort badly, and like many others, I became one of them. Indeed, although the population of the monastery itself at any moment is usually quite small, a great many of the Brethren, like myself, maintain our membership even after we've moved on formally to one or another of the great orders. We remain family, one might say, which means we have far more members than one might think from the size of the monastery itself, and most of us return at intervals to the monastery for spiritual retreats and to draw strength from the support of our fellow brothers.

“Interestingly enough”—the archbishop's eyes drilled into Merlin's once more—“the confessors of six of the last eight kings of Charis have all been Brothers of Saint Zherneau, as well.”

Had Merlin still been a creature of flesh and blood, he would have inhaled a deep breath of surprise and speculation. But he wasn't, of course, and so he simply tilted his head to one side.

“That sounds like a remarkable … coincidence, Your Eminence,” he observed.

“Yes, it does, doesn't it?” Staynair smiled at him, then glanced at the abbot. “I told you he was quick, didn't I, Zhon?”

“So you did,” Byrkyt agreed, and smiled somewhat more broadly than his ecclesiastic superior. “As a matter of fact, he rather reminds me of another young man I once knew, although he seems rather less … rebellious.”

“Really? And who might that have been?”

“Fishing for compliments is a most unbecoming trait in an archbishop,” Byrkyt replied serenely, but his sharp brown eyes had never wavered from Merlin's face. Now he turned to face him fully.

“What Maikel is getting at, in his somewhat indirect fashion,
Seijin
Merlin, is that the Brethren of Saint Zherneau haven't, as I'm sure you've already guessed, produced that many confessors for that many monarchs by accident.”

“I'm sure they haven't. The question in my mind, Father, is exactly why they've done it, and how, and why you and the Archbishop should choose to make me aware of it.”

“
The
question?” Byrkyt said. “By my count, that's at least three questions,
Seijin
.” He chuckled. “Well, no matter. I'll answer the last one first, if you don't mind.”

“I don't mind at all,” Merlin said, although, to be honest, he wasn't absolutely certain that was the truth.

“The reason Maikel decided to bring you here to meet me today,
Seijin
, has to do with a letter he received from King Haarahld. It was written shortly before the King's death, and it dealt primarily with his underlying strategy for keeping Duke Black Water's fleet in play until Cayleb—and you, of course—could return from Armageddon Reef to deal with it. In fact,” if Staynair's eyes had bored into Merlin like drills, Byrkyt's were diamond-cutting lasers, “it had to do with how he knew how long he had to keep Black Water occupied.”

Merlin found himself sitting very, very still. He'd never explained to either Cayleb or Haarahld exactly how he'd physically traveled four thousand miles in less than two hours to carry the warning about Black Water's new strategy to Haarahld. He'd been astounded and immensely relieved, to say the very least, by how calmly Haarahld had taken his “miraculous” appearance on the stern gallery of the king's flagship in the middle of the night, but in all honesty, he'd been so focused on the immediate threat that he hadn't really tried to nail down
why
the king had reacted with so little outward consternation.

And he'd never suspected for a moment that Haarahld might have told anyone else, even his confessor, about it.

Silence lingered in the quiet office-library. In an odd sort of way, it was almost as if Staynair and Byrkyt were the PICAs, sitting silently, waiting with absolute patience while Merlin tried to absorb the implications of what Byrkyt had just said … and think of some way to respond.

“Father,” he said finally, “Your Eminence, I don't know exactly what King Haarahld may have written to you. I can only assume, however, that whatever it was, it was not to denounce me as some sort of demon.”

“Hardly that, Merlin.” Staynair's voice was gentle, almost comforting, and as Merlin watched, he smiled as if in fond memory. “He was
excited
, actually. There was always that piece of a little boy down inside him, that sense of wonder. Oh,” the archbishop waved one hand, “he wasn't
totally
immune to the possibility that he was making a mistake in trusting you. That you might actually turn out to be a ‘demon.' After all, we're speaking here of matters of faith, where reason is but one support, and that sometimes a frail one. Still, Merlin, there comes a time when any child of God must gather up in his hands all that he is, all that he can ever hope to be, and
commit
it. After all the thought, all the prayer, all the meditation, that moment of decision comes to all of us. Some never find the courage to meet it. They look away, try to ignore it or simply pretend it never came to them. Others turn away, take refuge in what others have taught them, what others have commanded them to think and believe, rather than making the choice, accepting the test, for themselves.

“But Haarahld was never a coward. When the moment came, he recognized it, and he met it, and he chose to place his trust in you. He wrote me about that decision, and he said”—Staynair's eyes went slightly out of focus as he recited from memory—“‘He may
be
a demon, after all, Maikel. I don't think so, but as we all know, I've been wrong a few times in my life.
Quite
a few, actually. But either way, the time has finally come. I won't fail the trust God has placed in all of us by refusing the choice. And so, I've placed my own life, my son's life, the lives of my other children, my people, and
yours
—and all the souls that go with them—in his hands. If I'm wrong to do so, then surely I will pay a terrible price after this life. But I'm not. And if it should happen that God chooses for me never to return home, know this. I accept His decision, and I pass to you and to my son the completion of the task I agreed to undertake so long ago.'”