By Schism Rent Asunder (77 page)

“Amen,” Wylsynn agreed quietly, bowing his head. There was a moment of silence, made somehow stiller and more intense by the sound of the autumn storm lashing the church's exterior. Then Wylsynn raised his head once more.

“No one in the Office of Inquisition is going to admit what actually happened. In fact, Clyntahn hasn't even admitted the full truth to the other three. I'm not sure why. It may be that he's afraid of Duchairn's possible reaction. At any rate, the official position of Mother Church is going to be that the Charisians provoked the Delferahkans who were only attempting to peacefully board and ‘sequester' their vessels. It was the
Charisians'
fault there was any fighting at all, and their resistance was obviously a result of their heretical rejection of Mother Church's legitimate authority to order their vessels detained. Clyntahn is also planning on grossly exaggerating the number of Delferahkan casualties while understating the number of Charisian dead.”

Someone muttered something indistinct which Wylsynn felt quite certain went poorly with the speaker's high clerical rank.

“In addition to all of that,” he continued, “there's the reason they're in such a hurry to get their version of events out. It seems at least some of the Charisians got away—in fact, one of the galleons must have been a heavily armed privateer, judging by the amount of carnage it appears to have wreaked on its way out of Ferayd Sound. That means it isn't going to be very long before Charis starts telling
its
version of what happened, and the Group of Four wants to be sure it already has its story straight and issued for public consumption before any inconvenient little truths turn up to challenge it.”

“Much as I despise Clyntahn, I can understand his reasoning, Samyl,” Vicar Hauwerd Wylsynn said. Hauwerd looked a great deal like his older brother, with the same auburn hair and gray eyes, although he was a member of the Order of Langhorne, not a Schuelerite. At the moment, his expression was just as grim as Samyl's, as well.

“Oh, we all
understand
it, Hauwerd,” Samyl replied. “And they're undoubtedly correct that almost any of the mainlanders who hear the ‘official' version are more likely to believe it than the Charisians' version, especially if they hear the Church's version first and get it set into their minds. Unfortunately, no one on the other side is going to believe it for a moment, and the fact that the Church is obviously lying is only going to be one more nail in the coffin of any hope of reconciliation.”

“How realistic is that hope, anyway?” Vicar Chiyan Hysin asked.

Hysin had been born into one of the powerful Harchongese dynasties. In the Empire, more than in most Safeholdian realms, the nobility and the traditional church dynasties tended to be identical, and Hysin's older brother was a duke. Despite that, and despite the Harchongese tradition of arrogance and extreme conservatism, Hysin had been a member of the Circle since he'd been an under-priest. There were points in the doctrine of reform on which he and Wylsynn disagreed, but his dual status as secular aristocrat and Knight of the Temple Lands gave him an often invaluable perspective. And unlike most members of the Circle—including, Wylsynn admitted, himself—Hysin had always been skeptical of any possibility of peacefully resolving the Charisian schism.

“I don't know that there ever was any realistic hope,” Wylsynn admitted now. “What I
do
know, though, is that if there ever was any such hope, the Group of Four is doing its very best to demolish it as quickly as possible. Not only are they planning to declare that every Delferahkan killed at Ferayd is a martyr of Mother Church, but they intend to excommunicate Cayleb, the entire clergy of the ‘Church of Charis,' every Charisian noble who accepted Cayleb's succession and Staynair's appointment as Archbishop, and also Nahrmahn, his entire family, and anyone else who may have supported, joined in, or even simply passively accepted his decision to seek terms from Cayleb. And just for good measure, they intend to place all of Emerald and all of Charis under the interdict.”

“They've gone mad, Your Grace!” Cahnyr blurted.

“It sounds that way, doesn't it?” Wylsynn agreed. “As a matter of fact, the only thing that really surprised me when I heard about all of this is that they've stopped short of simply going ahead and declaring Holy War right now. Clyntahn, for one, not only sees that as inevitable but is actually eager to be about it, I think.”

“They didn't go ahead and declare it yet because Trynair, at least, is smart enough to realize they have to prepare the ground for it first,” Hysin said. The others looked at him, and the slightly built, dark-haired vicar shrugged. “There's never been a true Holy War in all of history,” he pointed out. “Not, at least, since Shan-wei's defeat. Even the most faithful are going to have qualms about embracing
The
Book of Schueler
's ordinances where Holy War is concerned. Despite the general belief in Dynnys' guilt, there was a great deal of shock and revulsion right here in Zion when they tortured him to death on the Temple's front steps, and that was actually
mild
beside what Schueler laid down for cases of large-scale heresy.” The Harchongese vicar's oval eyes were hard with remembered anger and disgust. “If they expect to treat entire kingdoms to the same sort of punishment, they're going to have to whip up enough hatred, enough anger, to carry the rest of the Church hierarchy—and the common folk—along with them. Which is precisely what they're doing here.”

“And what can we do to stop them?” Tanyr asked.

“I don't know,” Wylsynn admitted. “We and our predecessors have been waiting for over twenty years now for the opening we need, and it's persistently eluded us. We have all the evidence we've collected over those years to prove the corruption and doctrinal perversion of people like the Group of Four. But we still don't have the opening wedge we need to make use of it.”

Several heads nodded in bitter agreement, and Wylsynn managed not to grimace in even more bitter memory. He'd come so
close
to beating Clyntahn out as Grand Inquisitor, and if he had, he would have been in a position to use all of the evidence, all of the proof, people like him, Ahnzhelyk Phonda, Adorai Dynnys, and so many others had carefully gathered and substantiated. Of course, it was just as probable he would have gone the same way as his ancestor, Saint Evyrahard. But at least he'd been willing to try, and unlike the murdered Evyrahard, he'd carefully built at least a small core of fiercely loyal supporters who would have tried hard to watch his back as he recalled his own order and the Office of Inquisition to their high purpose of policing Mother Church, and not simply terrorizing God's children in the
name
of Mother Church.

“We certainly don't have any opening now,” Hysin agreed. “At the moment, opinion's setting strongly in the Group of Four's support on the Council.”

“Can't
any
of those idiots see where this is headed?” Hauwerd Wylsynn demanded. Everyone recognized it as a rhetorical question, born of bitterness and frustration, but Hysin shrugged once more.

“Frightened men see only what offers them a chance of survival, Hauwerd. Charis' military victories would be frightening enough without adding Cayleb and Staynair's open defiance into the mix. Deep down inside somewhere, all of them must recognize how corrupt we've become here in Zion and, especially, in the Temple. They're terrified of what may happen if the windows are pried open and all of their dirty little secrets are revealed openly to the flock they've been supposed to be shepherding, and the Charisians are threatening to do exactly that. Anything that lets them cling to the possibility of continuing ‘business as usual' is bound to attract powerful support.”

“Until they discover that it isn't going to let them do that at all,” Vicar Erayk Foryst put in.

“
If
they discover it,” Hysin replied. “Don't forget how long we've already been waiting for our opportunity. If the confrontation with Charis turns into a full-blown Holy War, then the Council as a whole is going to voluntarily surrender what's left of its decision-making power to the Group of Four on the basis that fighting and winning such a conflict requires unity and centralized direction. And that, Erayk, is precisely what Clyntahn is counting on.”

“I don't think it's
all
cynical calculation on his part,” Vicar Lywys Holdyn said. The others looked at him, and he snorted. “Don't misunderstand me. Cynical calculation would be more than enough for Clyntahn, but we'd be foolish to risk forgetting that streak of zealotry of his.” Holdyn's mouth twisted as if he'd just tasted something sour. “I think he's one of those people who believes the ferocity with which he forces
other
people to behave buys
him
a degree of license. The ‘good' he does so hugely outweighs his own sins that God will overlook them.”

“If that
is
what he believes, he's going to pay a terrible price,” Samyl Wylsynn observed quietly.

“Oh, I don't doubt that for a moment,” Holdyn agreed. “If God knows His own, so does Shan-wei, and no mere mortal—not even the Grand Inquisitor of the Church of God Awaiting—can fool either of them when he meets them face-to-face. But in the meantime, he's in a position to wreak immense harm, and I don't see a way we can stop him.”

“Unless he and the Group of Four continue to suffer reverses like Crag Reach and Darcos Sound,” Tanyr pointed out. “If it's mainly fear which inspires the rest of the Council to follow them—and I think you're essentially correct about that, Chiyan—then still more, equally spectacular disasters are bound to shake the other vicars' confidence in Trynair and Clyntahn. A horrible number of people are going to be killed and maimed in the process, but if Cayleb and any allies he manages to gain can throw the Church obviously back on the defensive, I think the Group of Four's support will vanish.”

“Which is a bit like saying that if the house burns down, at least you won't have to fix the leaks in the roof,” Hauwerd Wylsynn observed.

“I didn't say it was an ideal solution, Hauwerd. I simply pointed out that the Group of Four's arrogance may yet be its own downfall.”

“And if the Group of Four falls,” Samyl Wylsynn pointed out to his brother, “then the door will be open for the Circle. Perhaps once the rest of the Council has had a chance to recognize that brute force isn't going to succeed, it will be willing to admit at least the possibility that the true answer lies in reforming the abuses the Charisians have so rightly identified and protested.”

“Even if that happens, do you honestly believe this ‘Church of Charis' will ever voluntarily return to Mother Church?” Foryst asked, shaking his head, and Wylsynn shrugged.

“To be honest? No.” He shook his own head. “I'm beginning to come to Chiyan's view of the future, I'm afraid. By the time we're able to convince the Council that the Group of Four is leading all of us to disaster—
if
we ever manage to convince the others of that—too much blood will have been shed, and too much hatred will have been engendered. I'm very much afraid that whatever else happens, the schism between Charis and the Temple is unhealable.”

The silence in the rain-lashed church was profound as the Circle's leader finally admitted that.

“In that case, is Clyntahn's determination to forcibly suppress the schismatics really wrong?” Holdyn asked. All of them looked at him, and he waved one hand in the air before his face. “I'm not saying the man isn't a monster, or trying to suggest that his initial solution to the ‘Charisian problem' wasn't loathsome in the eyes of God. But if we've reached a point where the Charisians will never return voluntarily to Mother Church, what other option than
forcing
them to return will lie open to us as the vicars of God's Church?”

“I'm not certain forcing them to return, by any means, is the right course,” Wylsynn replied, facing the issue squarely. “With all due respect for the traditions of Mother Church, perhaps the time's come for us to simply accept that the people of Charis are not going to submit to what amounts to foreign rule of their own church any longer.”

He looked around the other, worried faces and wondered how many of them were thinking what he was. The Church's “traditions” didn't always perfectly reflect historical truth. That was one of the things which made Maikel Staynair's appointment as Archbishop of Charis—and his letters to the Temple—so dangerous. It was enormously ironic that the rebellious archbishop had chosen to base so much of his argument on Grand Vicar Tomhys' writ,
On Obedience and Faith
. That writ of instruction's true purpose had been to establish the doctrine of the Grand Vicar's infallibility when he spoke in the name of God. Which, as Wylsynn, for one, knew perfectly well had been a new and radically different formulation of doctrine, justified on the basis of “necessary change.” And the same writ had moved the Church's confirmation of bishops and archbishops from the archdiocesan level to that of the vicarate itself.

That had been in the year 407, and in the five centuries since, it had become the Church's tradition that it had
always
been so. Indeed, most people—including many of the clergy, who should have known better—truly believed that to have been the case. Which was what made the fact that Staynair had used the same writ's authorization of canonical change when events within the world made it necessary so damnably ironic … and dangerous. For the Church to deny the authority of Tomhys' writ in Charis' case was to deny its authority in
all
cases. Including that which, ultimately, had made the vicarate the undisputed master of the Church in the first place.