How Firm a Foundation (77 page)

“I
am
right,” the Grand Inquisitor said instead. “And if I’m not, I’ve got you and Major Phandys keeping an eye on him, don’t I? We’ll know if he starts to become a genuine threat. As for his absence this afternoon, I’ll let him have that much. It’s not
as if anyone else is going to ignore today’s lesson, is it? Besides,” Clyntahn smiled suddenly, the smile of a slash lizard scenting blood, “it’s useful in its own way.”

“I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”

“Wyllym, Wyllym!” Clyntahn shook his head, still smiling. “Think about it. First, he’s such a convenient focus for anyone who might disagree with us. All we have to do is watch for anyone who
seems inclined to suck up to him instead of to me and we’ll know where the real weak links are. And, second, Trynair and Maigwair are so busy trying to stay out of the line of fire between me and Rhobair that neither one of them is even going to
consider
doing something to make me think they’re choosing his side instead of mine. Oh, they may side with him over some purely technical issues, like
how we balance the books and pay for the jihad, but not on anything
fundamental
. From that perspective, it’s far better to have him right where he is, driving them into
our
arms in their desperation to make it clear they’re not rushing into
his
.”

Rayno was still thinking about that when the bells began to ring.

*   *   *

Sir Gwylym Manthyr could hardly stay on his own feet, yet he wrapped his
right arm around the man beside him, draping the other Charisian’s left arm across his own shoulders and somehow supporting the shambling, stumbling weight. The two of them staggered along, two more “penitents” in the rough, scratchy burlap robes that covered their savagely scarred, emaciated nakedness. For now, at least.

It was a beautiful day, Manthyr thought, listening to the magnificent,
silver-throated bells of Zion as he looked around at the handful of his men who’d survived this long. There weren’t many. He didn’t have a definite count, but there couldn’t be more than thirty, and he was amazed the number was that high.

Tough, those Charisian seamen,
he thought.
Too tough and too stupid for their own good. The
smart
ones gave up and died. But that’s all right, because I’m not
very smart either, I guess
.

He knew every one of those thirty shambling, broken wrecks of human beings had been given the option: confess their heresy, admit their blasphemies and all of the hellish crimes to which they had set their hands in the service of their accursed emperor and empress, and they would face the garrotte, not the Punishment. Some of his men—a handful—had taken that offer,
and Manthyr couldn’t find it in his heart to condemn them for it. As he’d told Lainsair Svairsmahn a seeming eternity ago, there was only so much any man could endure, and there was no shame in breaking under the savagery of the Question.

But if there was no shame in breaking, there was pride in
not
breaking, and his heart swelled as he looked around at those stumbling, crippled, tormented ruins
and knew exactly what they’d already endured without yielding. As long as one of them—
one
of them—was still on his feet, still defiant, Sir Gwylym Manthyr would stand beside him at the very gates of Hell. They were his, and he was theirs, and he would not—
could
not—break faith with them.

They marched across the plaza, and he saw the heaps of wood, the charred wooden posts arranged on the marble
flags—many of them cracked now with the heat of past fires—between the fountains and the Temple’s soaring colonnade. They marked where others of Clyntahn’s victims had already died, those posts, and he watched his men being separated from one another, dragged to those heaps of wood, chained to those grim, scorched posts. He watched inquisitors coating their bodies with pitch that would take the
flame and cling to them even as it offered their flesh a brief, transitory protection that would make their dying even longer and harder. He saw leather gloves, knuckles reinforced with steel studs, striking anyone who didn’t move fast enough, who showed any trace of fight. They had to use those weighted fists quite often, he thought, watching, taking it all in. When it was his turn to appear before
the Throne of God he wanted to be certain he had it all straight as he gave his testimony against the men who had twisted and perverted everything God stood for.

Then all of his men were chained, fastened atop their pyres, and there was only him. A pair of inquisitors started to drag him past his men, but he found the strength to shake off their hands and walk—slowly, but steadily, under his
own power, making eye contact for one last time with every man he passed—towards the platform which had been reserved for him. The platform with the wheel and the rack, the white-hot irons waiting in their nests of glowing coals.

He longed for one final opportunity to defy the Inquisition, to speak for his men, to ridicule the charges against them, but they’d taken that from him when they cut
out his tongue. He could still scream—they’d proven that to him—but they’d silenced his ability to deny the “confession” they were going to read and attribute to him. He’d held out, he’d never admitted or signed a single damned thing, but that wasn’t the story they were going to tell. He knew that. They’d explained it to him in smirking detail in a last-ditch effort to break him into actually signing,
and it grieved him that he could never set the record straight. Not so much for himself, but because it meant he couldn’t speak out for his men, either.

It doesn’t matter,
he thought as he climbed the steps to the platform, eyes hard with hate and defiance as they met Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s in person at last.
Anybody who’d believe Clyntahn’s lies in the first place would never believe anything I
said. And anyone who knows the truth about Clyntahn already knows what I would have said if I could. Those people, my Emperor and my Empress and my Navy, they
know,
and the time will come when they
will
avenge every one of my men
.

He saw the torches, flames pale in the cool autumn sunlight, as the inquisitors strode towards his chained and helpless men, and his belly tightened. They were going
to burn the others first, let him listen to their screams and watch their agonizing deaths, before it was his turn. It was the kind of “refinement” he’d come to expect out of Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s Inquisition.

Two more inquisitors seized his arms, stretching them out, chaining them to the rack, and Zhaspahr Clyntahn stepped closer to him. The Grand Inquisitor’s face was studiously calm, set in
stern lines of determination as he prepared to play out the final line of this carefully scripted farce.

“You have heard the judgment and sentence of holy Mother Church upon you for your blasphemy, your heresy, your wanton defiance of God and allegiance to Shan-wei, Gwylym Manthyr,” he said, his voice carrying clearly. “Have you anything to say before that sentence is carried out?”

Clyntahn’s
eyes glittered with satisfaction as he asked the question he knew Manthyr couldn’t answer. There was no way for his victim to voice his defiance, demonstrate his rejection of the judgment and sentence which had been pronounced upon him, yet there was also no way for anyone in that watching crowd to
know
his voice had been taken from him before the question was even asked. They would see only the
terrified heretic, too cowed by the onrushing approach of the eternal damnation he’d earned to say a single word.

Sir Gwylym Manthyr looked back at the gloating Grand Inquisitor as Clyntahn savored his triumph … and then he spat squarely into the vicar’s face.

.VI.

Saint Bailair’s Church and Madam Aivah Pahrsahn’s Townhouse, Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark

“I don’t like it, Father,” Stahn Mahldan said unhappily as he knelt in the closed booth of the confessional. “I don’t like it at all. Where’s it
coming
from?”

“I don’t know, Brother,” Father Lharee Traighair, the rector of Saint Bailair’s Church, replied, although he wasn’t as sure of that
as he would have liked.

“It’s all so … wrong,” Mahldan said, his eyes anxious, and Traighair smiled affectionately at him.

Brother Stahn was in his late fifties, thinning hair going steadily white, and there wasn’t a malicious bone in his entire body. There wasn’t an ambitious one, either, as far as Traighair could tell, which probably explained why Brother Stahn was still only a sexton of the
Order of the Quill at his age. It certainly wasn’t because of lack of ability, faith, or industry!

A librarian by training and inclination alike, Mahldan was an absentminded, otherworldly sort who was always happiest puttering about in the histories he was responsible for maintaining and updating. He had a sharp, analytical brain, but one which was altogether too poorly suited for considering
ugly truths outside the covers of his beloved histories. He was inclined to assume that since he wished ill to no one, no one could possibly wish ill to him, which, unfortunately, was no longer true even in the Republic, if it ever had been.

At least the old fellow’s had the sense to keep his feelings mostly to himself,
Traighair thought.
Or I hope to Langhorne he has, at any rate!

“I agree
it’s wrong, Brother Stahn,” he said. “But I’m afraid it’s also fairly inevitable, as well.” He shook his head, his expression sad. “Men who are afraid do ugly things. And one of the things they do first is to strike out at and try to destroy whatever frightens them.”

Mahldan nodded, although Traighair was pretty sure the sexton’s understanding was more intellectual than emotional. The priest
wished he were a more inspired speaker, better able to explain what he saw so clearly, but he was a teacher more than a preacher, without the gift of language which God had given so generously to some other priests. He tried not to envy their greater gifts and to appreciate the ones
he’d
been given, but that was harder to do in times like these.

“All I can tell you, Brother, is that I urge you
to go home. Go about your business and do your best to … well, keep your head down.” Traighair’s smile was fleeting. “I don’t know where the fellows you’re talking about are likely to go in the end, but I advise you to keep yourself out of their sights.”

“But they’re
threatening
people, Father!” Mahldan protested. “And they’re claiming it’s what God and Langhorne want them to do!”

“I
understand
that, Brother,” Traighair said as patiently as he could. “But there’s nothing you can do about it, and if you confront them, you only run the risk of pouring oil on the flames. Trust me, men who say the things you say they said aren’t going to respond well to reasonable argument!”

He gazed into the sexton’s eyes, willing Mahldan to simply take his word for it. He didn’t want to have to tell the
gentle librarian that if he confronted the Temple Loyalist toughs he’d described he was only going to bring their violence down on his own head. And he didn’t want to have to explain that he was beginning to fear no amount of “reasonable argument” could head off what he was afraid was coming.

“Are you sure, Father?” Mahldan shook his head. “The
Writ
says we’re supposed to stand up for what we
know is right and denounce what we know is wrong.”

“Yes, we are. And you
have—
to me,” Traighair said firmly. “You’ll just have to trust me when I say I’ll bring it to the attention of the proper ears. That’s
my
responsibility, not yours.”

Mahldan still looked unhappy and distressed, but he finally nodded.

“Good, Brother Stahn. Good!” Traighair patted the older man on the arm. “Now, about those
‘sins’ of yours.” He shook his head and smiled. “I believe I can safely say they’re all scarcely even venal, this time. So light a candle to the Holy Bédard, leave an extra silver in Pasquale’s Basket this Wednesday, and say ten ‘Hail Langhornes.’ Understood?”

“Yes, Father,” Mahldan agreed obediently, and the young priest stood and began escorting him down the nave.

“I know you’re worried,”
he said quietly as they reached the front steps. “To be honest, so am I, because these are worrying times. But you’re a good man and, if you’ll forgive my saying so, a gentle one. I think you’ll best serve by lending your prayers to those of all good and God-fearing people. And”—he looked the sexton firmly in the eye—“by staying home, keeping out from underfoot, and not making things
worse
. Understand
me?”

“Yes, Father.” Mahldan managed a wry smile and nodded again, more firmly.

“Good!” Traighair repeated. “Now, go home!”

He pointed like a stern grandfather, and the white-haired Mahldan laughed and obeyed the imperious gesture. The priest watched him until he turned the corner, then turned and walked briskly back into his church. It would be tight, but he had time to talk to those “proper
ears” he’d promised Mahldan he’d speak to between now and afternoon mass if he hurried.

*   *   *

“I can see why Father Lharee was upset, Your Eminence,” Aivah Pahrsahn said.

She stood gazing out her windows at North Bay once more. The Navy of God galleons had long since departed for Hsing-wu’s Passage, and the blue water sparkled under the September sun, busy with the weathered, tan sails
of Siddar City’s teeming commerce. It would be winter again soon enough, she thought, with icy snow, rain, and the bay the color of a polished steel blade. She wasn’t looking forward to that. In fact, there were several things she wasn’t looking forward to, and she was frankly surprised they’d held off this long.

“What worries me most is Father Lharee’s fear that he
knows
these men,” Zhasyn Cahnyr
said unhappily.

“Surely that doesn’t come as a surprise, Your Eminence?” Aivah turned to face him, and her expression was a strange mix of compassion and exasperation. “Did you truly believe this was all purely spontaneous? Something just naturally bubbling up out of Siddarmark’s burning loyalty to Mother Church and the people currently controlling her policies?”