By Schism Rent Asunder (53 page)

Trynair frowned, his expression thoughtful. Maigwair appeared torn between agreement with Clyntahn and skepticism about his sweeping suggestion's apparent simplicity. Duchairn, on the other hand, shook his head.

“It's not going to be that easy, Zhaspahr,” he said almost gently. “There are too many people and too many livelihoods wrapped up in it. Even the best of men, faced with the need to provide for their own families, are going to find themselves sorely tempted to continue to deal covertly with Charis if it's a choice between that and financial ruin. And make no mistake about it, for a great many of the people involved in any successful exclusion of Charisian shipping from our ports, the consequence
will
be ruin.”

“If it is, it is.” There was no flexibility at all in Clyntahn's voice or expression. “This is a struggle for the primacy of God Himself on His own world, Rhobair. Given that, the financial tribulations of a pack of merchants and shopkeepers is an insignificant price to pay if it weakens the hand of Shan-wei's foul get.”

“It may be,” Duchairn responded. “But whether it is or not isn't really the point, Zhaspahr. The point is whether or not we can convince or compel those ‘merchants and shopkeepers' of yours to do it in the first place. And, to be completely honest, even if we should succeed in that, the consequences for our own requirements if we intend to take the war to Charis could well be significant.”

“When grass is growing in the streets of Tellesberg because they have no one to buy their goods or charter their ships, we won't need to pay for any ‘requirements' to topple Cayleb and his eternally damned advisers,” Clyntahn shot back. “What will be an inconvenience for us—even a serious one, perhaps—will be
fatal
for Charis. How long do you think Cayleb will last once those money-worshipping Charisians of his realize their entire kingdom is going bankrupt, and them with it?” He grunted a hungry laugh. “And once they turn on one another like the rabble they are, how much military power will it take to sweep up the pieces?”

“He has a point there, Rhobair,” Trynair said quietly, and Duchairn was forced to nod.

“Yes, he does. Assuming we could enforce such a policy.”

“All we have to do is give the order,” Clyntahn said coldly.

“Not this time, Zhaspahr,” Duchairn disagreed, facing the Grand Inquisitor's ire from the serenity of his own newly refound faith. “The Knights of the Temple Lands don't have the authority to simply issue orders like that and see them obeyed without question. Not when the temptation—the necessity, even—to
disobey
them is going to be so powerful.”

“Shan-wei with the ‘Knights of the Temple Lands!'” Clyntahn snarled. “It's time we stopped dancing around in the shadows, anyway.”

Duchairn's expression stiffened. The Grand Inquisitor's anger had continued fermenting into fury, and the totally unexpected defiance Dynnys had shown, even in the face of his agonizing death, had goaded Clyntahn's always irascible temper into a white-hot blaze. Worse than that, in some ways, Dynnys' final statement, interrupted though it had been, had called the Group of Four's motivations into question. No one—no one outside the Council of Vicars, at least—was prepared to say so openly, but the fact that Charis' own archbishop had been prepared to indict not Charis, but the Church, from the very lip of unspeakable torment and death, had struck a totally unexpected blow against the Group of Four's authority. Indeed, much as Duchairn hated to admit it, it had struck a blow against the authority of Mother Church, herself.

And it's also undermined Zahmsyn's strategy for differentiating between the Church and the Knights of the Temple Lands
, he thought.
Dynnys didn't charge the
Knights
with attacking Charis; he charged
us
, the four of us and even Mother Church herself. And if anyone believed him when he proclaimed Charis' innocence before we attacked her, it's also undermined the argument that this is all the result of some long-standing, heretical Charisian plot which has simply strayed into the open at last
.

“I have the authority to order it on the basis of the Inquisition's overriding authority to combat heresy and apostasy anywhere it emerges,” Clyntahn continued.

And since when has any Grand Inquisitor ever had
that
authority?
Duchairn wondered.
Within the Church, yes. And the power to summon the secular lords to support Mother Church against heresy in their own lands. But to arbitrarily order them to close their ports to another nation? To dictate the terms on which their subjects are allowed to make the livings needed to feed their own children? No Inquisitor has ever claimed
that
sort of power! On the other hand, when has any other Grand Inquisitor confronted the threat confronting
us?

“It would be a direct escalation,” Trynair pointed out. “It would take the onus for the present situation off of Charis, to some extent at least, and place it upon Mother Church.”

“And,” Duchairn added, “if we do that, it will also increase the pressure on us—on Mother Church—to take powerful military action against Charis, and we're scarcely in a position to do that, I'm afraid.”

“For the rest of this year, at least,” Maigwair agreed. “Even after we get the ships built, it's going to take time to train crews for them. It's not as if we have the unlimited supply of seamen Charis seems to have.”

“Who cares if it's ‘an escalation'?” Clyntahn demanded. “This is a war between God's Church and His enemies. Between the Light of Langhorne and Shan-wei's eternal Darkness. Instead of pretending it isn't, it's time we told all of the Faithful the truth about Charis' carefully planned and long prepared rebellion against the rightful authority of God and His stewards here in the world. My agents tell me there are already whispers in the taverns and the streets about Staynair's defiance and that bastard Dynnys' so-called deathbed statement. It's time we openly admit the true nature of the struggle, time we openly call for all the Faithful to join in holy battle against that nest of Shan-wei. Better to open the wound to the cleansing air and drain the poisons of doubt before they lead still more into the paths of corruption.”

Trynair's thoughtful frown deepened, and so did Duchairn's. As much as he continued to fear and distrust the consequences of Clyntahn's temper, there was much to what he'd just said. The Charisians, at least, had never tried to pretend they hadn't defied Mother Church's authority. In fact, they'd printed up thousands of copies of the text of Staynair's defiant letter to the Grand Vicar and distributed them in every port city on Safehold. The Inquisition had seized every copy it could find, but Duchairn was positive there were still plenty of them circulating. And the fact that Staynair had couched his defiance in terms of challenging the Church's corruption rather than upon any doctrinal dispute—aside, of course, from the doctrine of the Grand Vicar's paramount authority—hadn't passed unnoticed.

And coupled with Dynnys' statement, it's truly flicked Zhaspahr on the raw
.
But the mere fact that there's as much anger as logic driving his reasoning doesn't necessarily make it invalid. And neither does the fact that he's distorting the evidence.

Staynair is right about one thing. I may hate admitting it
—
I
do
hate admitting it
—
but the Council of Vicars
is
corrupt.
We're
corrupt, and it's long past time we cleaned our own house. But however right he may be about that, first we have to preserve that house. We can't let someone destroy the unity of Mother Church which has existed from the very Creation, however justified his anger and his calls for reform may be. And if that's true, then we must openly confront the actual nature of the battle we face. And,
he admitted unhappily
, if that requires us to … misrepresent some of the particulars in order to preserve the whole, what choice do we truly have?

“So what you're recommending is an open encyclical from the Grand Vicar?” Trynair asked. “Not just for distribution among the bishops, but for dissemination from the pulpit, as well?”

“That's exactly what I'm recommending.” Clyntahn shrugged. “I realize it will have to be carefully drafted, and that's going to take some time and thought. But I believe it's time we laid all of our cards on the table.”

“If we do as you suggest, Zhaspahr,” Duchairn said aloud, “it will reduce the scope and flexibility of the strategies available to us. If we draw that line, openly, before all of God's children, then those children will rightly expect us to
act
. To act as boldly and as decisively as God requires of us. Yet as Allayn's just said, we won't have that capacity to act for months to come.”

“It'll take months for our message to spread and truly sink in, anyway,” Zhaspahr retorted. “We can get our directives to the secular rulers involved and get our encyclical to every church on the mainland within five-days, using the semaphore. But even after we do, the common people are going to need time to absorb what we've told them. And Mother Church is going to need time to shape and direct their natural and inevitable sense of outrage.”

“If we declare Holy Crusade,” Duchairn said in a carefully neutral tone, “there can be no going back. Any possibility that we might be able to convince the clergy of Charis, or its people, to return willingly and repentantly to the arms of Mother Church will be gone forever. The only appeal left will be to the sword, not to reason or remonstrance.”

“That decision's already been made,” Clyntahn said grimly. “It was made when Cayleb and Staynair chose to dispatch their hellish letter and openly give their allegiance to Shan-wei.”

Duchairn winced inside, remembering another conversation, when Zhaspahr Clyntahn, over a bottle of wine, had almost casually brought them to the point of condemning an entire kingdom to fire and destruction without warning. There was no question in Duchairn's mind of their overriding responsibility to preserve the Church and her authority as the final mortal guarantor of the souls of all men, everywhere. Yet Clyntahn's statement bothered him deeply on several levels. First, because of what it implied about who had actually made the initial decision to resort to violence. Second, because it starkly underscored the chasm of death and devastation into which Clyntahn was prepared to cast anyone who stood in his path. And, third, because Clyntahn actually
believed
what he'd just said.

That's the truly scary thing, isn't it, Rhobair?
he thought.
This man is Mother Church's Grand Inquisitor, the keeper of the sanctity of her doctrines and the moral rectitude of her priests. Bad enough to think he's still prepared to make decisions at a time like this at least partially on the basis of cynical pragmatism. But if the keeper of God's doctrine is able to genuinely convince himself to
believe
whatever he needs to believe to suit his own purposes, preserve his own base of power within the Church, then where is the true guarantor of that doctrine?

He had no answer to that question. Perhaps God would show him one in the end, but He clearly wasn't going to do it before the Group of Four made its decision in the name of the entire Church. And for all his doubts about the wisdom of Clyntahn's suggestion, or what had induced him to make it, Duchairn had no better answer to offer.

“Zhaspahr's right,” Maigwair said. “There hasn't been any going back since Staynair's letter arrived here at the Temple, Rhobair. You know that as well as the rest of us do.”

“Yes, I suppose I do,” Duchairn sighed. “It's just the thought of how many people are going to die that makes me wish I
didn't
know it.”

“Death is better than any heretic deserves.” Clyntahn's voice was cold, his fleshy face carved out of granite. “The sooner the lot of them join their dark mistress in Hell, the better for the entire body of God's Faithful.”

And what about all the people who
aren't
heretics, Zhaspahr?
Duchairn asked silently.
What about the children who are going to be slaughtered along with their parents when you burn Charis' cities? Have those innocents had the opportunity to choose between heresy and the truth? And what about those Charisians who remain loyal to God and the Church and still get in the way of the holy armies you propose dispatching to slaughter their neighbors? And what about the reaction
—
and the reaction
is
coming, one of these days
—
when the rest of Charis realizes Staynair's accusations of corruption were completely justified? Are
you
going to reform the corruption? Renounce your own position of power and wealth? Begin approaching doctrine and matters of faith with a genuinely open and accepting mind?

But despite his questions, it still came back to that single, unanswerable fact. To have any chance of restoring Mother Church to what she ought to be, what she
must
once more become, first Mother Church, whatever her present blemishes, had to be preserved.

“I don't especially like it,” Trynair said with what Duchairn recognized as massive understatement, “but I'm afraid you may be right, Zhaspahr. At any rate, we must take some sort of action against the effects of the Charisian privateers Rhobair and Allayn have analyzed for us. And,
you
are certainly right about Charis' dependency on its own merchant fleet. To be honest, I want to make no suggestion that Holy War is inevitable—not yet—but you're right that we have to do
something
.”