A Mighty Fortress (72 page)

“Sir, I think that’s exactly what happened,” the captain admitted. He shook his head, his own expression manifestly unhappy. “Major, I know we’re not supposed to officially know everything that’s going on. And, Sir, Langhorne knows I don’t want to be poking my nose in somewhere it’s not supposed to be! But this just doesn’t make sense to me, not the way it seems to’ve happened, and, well . . . under the circumstances....”

His voice trailed off, and Kahrnaikys gave him a thin smile. Yet for all its thinness, there was at least a little approval in it, Phandys thought.

“I understand, Captain. And I... appreciate the delicacy of your situation. But, tell me—which vicar had this lengthy message to send at such an ungodly hour?”

Silence hovered for an instant, as if Phandys realized he stood upon the brink of a precipice. That there could be no going back from this moment. Yet the truth was that he’d known that before he ever opened his mouth the first time, and so he simply squared his shoulders and looked Kahrnaikys square in the eye.

“It was Vicar Hauwerd, Sir,” he said softly, and Kahrnaikys’ eyes flashed with dark fire.

“I see.” He looked at Phandys for a seemingly endless moment, then nodded sharply, pushed back his chair, and surged to his feet, reaching for his swordbelt as he rose.

“Captain, if I’ve seemed to doubt your judgment in bringing this to me, I apologize. You did exactly the right thing. Now, come with me!”

Samyl Wylsynn picked up his chocolate cup, cradled it in both hands, and gazed across it at his brother, sitting on the other side of the breakfast table. Samyl’s eyes were speculative, and he tilted his head to one side as he contemplated Hauwerd’s expression.

“Are you ready to tell me why you invited me to breakfast this morning?” he asked. Hauwerd looked up from the breakfast sausage he’d been pushing aimlessly around his plate for the last ten minutes, and Samyl smiled gently. “I’m always happy to share a meal with my favorite brother, Hauwerd. My only brother, now that I think about it. But you’re not exactly a big fan of early rising at the best of times, and I practically have to stand over you with a club to get you to join
me
for breakfast. For that matter,” he nodded at the fork-herded sausage making yet another perambulation around his brother’s plate, “I don’t think you’ve managed to actually eat a single thing this morning. So I have to admit to a fair amount of curiosity.”

“Was I that obvious?” Hauwerd’s answering smile was crooked. “Actually, yes,” Samyl said. He paused for a moment, sipping chocolate, then drew a deep breath. “Would it happen your contacts have suggested something to you that indicates we may not have a great many more breakfasts to share?”

Hauwerd’s powerful shoulders stiffened. He started to respond quickly, but then he stopped himself and gazed back at his older brother for several seconds.

“Yes,” he said then. He grimaced. “I still have a few friends in the Guard, you know. One of them—I’d rather not say who, even to you—warned me we’re running out of time, Samyl. I think . . . I want you to reconsider what we discussed last five- day. Please.”

“No.” Samyl’s tone was gentle, almost regretful, but firm. “Samyl, you
know
—” Hauwerd began, but Samyl raised one hand and shook his head.

“Yes, Hauwerd. I
do
know. And I won’t pretend I’m not terrified—that your suggestion isn’t tempting. Very tempting. But I can’t. What ever else may happen, what ever else I may be, I’m still a vicar of Mother Church. And I’m still a priest.”

“Samyl, even
The Book of Schueler
makes it clear that when a situation is truly hopeless, there’s no sin in—”

“I said it was tempting,” Samyl interrupted, his tone a bit sterner. “But you know that the passages in
Schueler
you’re talking about have a lot more to do with illnesses than with matters of faith.”

“You’re splitting hairs!” Hauwerd’s voice was harder, ribbed with frustration and concern. “Damn it, Samyl! You
know
what Clyntahn’s going to do to you—to
you,
especially, of all people!— if he gets his hands on you!”

“There’s a point where it doesn’t matter anymore,” Samyl replied. “It’s only a matter of degree, Hauwerd—and he’s going to do exactly the same thing to men we’ve known and loved for years. Brothers, even if you and I don’t share our parents with them. Should I abandon them? I’m the one who got them involved with the Circle in the first place. I’ve been their
leader
for years. Now you want me to take the easy path out and leave
them
to reap the whirlwind?”

“Oh, for Langhorne’s sake!” Hauwerd snapped, his eyes flashing. “It’s going to happen to them what ever you do, Samyl! And don’t pretend you got them into this all by yourself—that they didn’t know
exactly
what they were doing! You aren’t the only grown- up in the vicarate, damn it, and don’t you take that away from them. Away from
me!
” Hauwerd glared at his brother. “Yes, all of us followed your lead. And I’m pretty sure at least some of the others did it for the same reasons I did—including the fact that I love you. But we also did it because you were
right
! Because we owed God at least an attempt to reclaim His Church from bastards like Clyntahn. Even from bastards like Trynair, who’s never been the outright sadist Clyntahn is! That was
our
choice, and we
made
it, and don’t you
dare
take that away from us now!”

“Hauwerd, I—”

Samyl’s voice was husky, and he broke off, gazing out at the snowy morning and blinking rapidly. Then he cleared his throat and looked back at his brother.

“I’m sorry,” he said humbly. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Oh, shut up.” The words were harsh, but Hauwerd’s voice was soft, the hard edges gentled by love, and he shook his head. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. And I know that’s not what you meant, too. But that doesn’t change anything. I guess that’s what really pisses me off. You know as well as
I
do that it won’t change a thing. All you’re doing is being stubborn, and that’s stupid.”

“Maybe it is,” Samyl acknowledged. “You could well be right. But I’m not going to give Clyntahn that particular satisfaction. I’m not going to face God and the Archangels with someone like him thinking I killed myself because I was so terrified of what he intended to do to me.”

“So instead of giving him
that
satisfaction you’re going to give him the satisfaction of actually torturing you to death?!” Hauwerd shook his head harder. “Samyl, that’s the dictionary definition of ‘stupid’!”

“Probably.” Samyl’s smile was twisted, yet there was a shadow of real amusement in it. Then the smile faded, and it was his turn to shake his head. “Erayk Dynnys found the moral courage and faith to speak the truth when he’d been given the chance to buy an easy death with a lie, Hauwerd. Can I do less? And can I give Zhaspahr Clyntahn the weapon of my own suicide? Give him the opportunity to shout to all the world that the members of the Circle lacked the faith, in the end, to face the Question and the Punishment of Schueler for what we truly believed in? Let him reduce our commitment to the level of his own ambition and greed? You know he’d never have the courage to face something like this for
his
faith, for what
he
believes in. Am I supposed to tell the rest of the vicarate, the rest of God’s Church, the rest of God’s
children,
that this was really only one more power struggle? One more contest over who was going to wrest political power from whom? If I do that, what happens to the
next
Circle? To the next group of men and women who might have
successfully
opposed Zhaspahr Clyntahn? Or his successor? Or his
successor’s
successor?”

Hauwerd Wylsynn looked at his brother, and for just a moment, as he heard the passion still glowing in Samyl’s voice, saw the absolute, unyielding commitment still burning in Samyl’s eyes, he saw something else, as well. A memory of another day, when he’d been... what? Six years old? Something like that, he thought, remembering the day in the boat, remembering watching his older brother—the older brother he longed with all his heart to emulate—bait his hook for him.

It was odd. He hadn’t thought about that day literally in years, but now he did, and he remembered it with such utter clarity. The Tanshar sunlight warm on his shoulders, the way he’d watched Samyl’s fingers, admiring their dexterity and wishing it were his. The desultory conversation which had gone with their long, lazy fishing expedition—with the coolness radiating up off the water and chilling the boat under their bare feet even while the thwarts grew uncomfortably hot under the honey- thick sunlight pouring down from above and the breeze blew pollen dust and the scent of spike thorn from the shore to tickle their nostrils like rich, golden incense.

They hadn’t caught much, he remembered. Not that day. Certainly not enough for dinner for everyone, although their mother had loyally had their meager catch cleaned and broiled for the two of them—and for her, the parent whose courageous hunters and fishermen had managed to feed her after all—while their father had tried hard—so
hard
!— not to laugh.

But if Hauwerd Wylsynn hadn’t caught many fish that day, he’d caught something else. He’d caught the great prize, the doomwhale of prizes, the joyous, leviathan prize to which he had given his entire life. For while they’d fished and the languid conversation had drifted like another breeze above the lake, Samyl had retold the stories. The wonderful stories, about the Archangels, and about their responsibilities. About the charge Schueler had given the Wylsynn family. About the whispered legends that they were ... might be . . .
could
be descended from Schueler himself. About the price their ancestors had paid to serve Mother Church and the solemn, joy- filled weight of duty.

It hadn’t been the first time Samyl had told him those tales, but that day had been different. He hadn’t realized that, then. Not really. In fact, he thought wonderingly, he hadn’t
truly
realized how different it had been until this very moment. Hadn’t realized, that day when he’d seen the glow in Samyl’s eyes and felt its twin in his own, where those tales were going to lead them both.

Now he did. And he felt a bittersweet smile hover just behind his lips as that realization touched him at last.

Silly, really, he thought. That was the only word for it.
Silly
for two boys—even Samyl couldn’t have been more than fifteen—to be thinking such solemn thoughts. To recognize their priestly vocations in the incense of lakewater and pollen, the smell of the bait jar, the paint and varnish of the rowboat. To realize, as the years passed, that
that
had been the day they’d truly given themselves to the task God had set for their family so many centuries before. Yet that was precisely what they had done. That golden jewel of a day, he knew now, had been the true beginning of their decision to take up the task God had sent them.

And now they had come to this, and the joy of giving themselves had been touched by the terrible ice of fear. By the bitter knowledge that they’d failed. By the horror of the fate they were about to suffer in the name of the very Archangel from whom those boys had decided they really must be descended. It changed everything, that fear. Transmuted joy into sorrow and hope into despair. Not despair for their own souls’ ultimate fates, for neither of them questioned
that
for an instant, but for their failure. The
Writ
said that all God truly asked of a man was the best he could do, and they’d done that, but it hadn’t been good enough in the end, and that knowledge prickled the backs of Hauwerd’s eyes with tears.

Yet as he looked into Samyl’s eyes this morning, he saw the same determination still burning there. The same passion for the cause to which they had given themselves. And the same love for the younger brother who had followed his lead for so many weary years, shouldered his own share of their task’s weight without protest or hesitation. There’d been times Hauwerd had thought Samyl was hopelessly idealistic, times the younger brother had . . . modified their plans without mentioning it to the older. Yet he’d never wavered in his own commitment or doubted, for one single, fleeting moment, the constancy of Samyl’s unwavering love for him.

Their parents were gone now, thank God. Lysbet and the children had managed—somehow—to disappear after all. And Hauwerd himself had no wife, no children. Aside from a handful of distant cousins, they were alone once more—just the two of them, drifting again in that fishing boat. God had given them that much grace, despite their failure, and—despite their failure—they were still committed. Even now. Foolish as it undoubtedly was, it was also the truth, and Hauwerd Wylsynn would not have changed that truth even if he had known from the very first day exactly where it must lead them.