A Mighty Fortress (74 page)

She shrugged quickly, angrily, and Zhevons nodded. In the wake of her own disappearance, Ahnzhelyk’s information net had been largely shut down, but they scarcely needed it to confirm that her worst estimates of Clyntahn’s intentions had been horrifyingly accurate. Not a single member of Samyl Wylsynn’s Circle in the Temple or here in Zion had escaped. The handful of lower- ranked bishops and archbishops who’d managed to get out of the city before winter might still have some faint chance of evading the Inquisitors, but no one else—aside from the family members Ahnzhelyk had gotten to in time—had pulled it off.

It had taken three days to confirm Samyl and Hauwerd Wylsynn’s deaths, and Ahnzhelyk had withdrawn to the tiny cubbyhole here in the ware house which had replaced her luxurious town house. She’d closed the door very quietly behind her, and only a PICA’s exquisite hearing could have detected the soft, stifled, disciplined, infinitely bitter, brokenhearted sobs which had been her companions in that dark little room. When she’d reemerged an hour later, her eyes might have been the tiniest bit swollen, but if they were, that was the only sign of her bottomless grief.

Nor were the Wylsynns the only people she had to mourn. They were the only members of the Circle who had truly known about Ahnzhelyk’s activities, but many of the others had known “Madame Ahnzhelyk,” and many of those others had grown to be close personal friends over the years. Very few of them had held Ahnzhelyk’s profession against her, and most of them had learned, gradually, of her charitable activities and, especially, her contributions to the winter soup kitchens and shelters. If Samyl and Hauwerd were lost to her forever, at least they were already dead; her other friends, less fortunate, were in Clyntahn’s power, and she had no illusions about what was happening to them at this very moment.

And gathered together here in this ware house were six families, all of them forced to live with that same knowledge.

At least they won’t be “gathered here” much longer,
Zhevons thought.
Thank God. This city’s been bad enough from the moment I got here. Now, it’s ten times worse
.

The news of the Circle’s arrest had hit Zion like a hammer. Like Ahnzhelyk herself, the majority of the Circle’s members had been active in the city’s charitable activities. Many had been Bédardists or Pasqualates, affiliated with the Church shelters those orders maintained. Inadequate, underfunded, under-staffed, and largely ignored by their mother orders though those shelters might be, they were still the difference—literally—between life and death for many of the city’s poor, and the high churchmen who had deigned to support them—who, in some cases, had actually
served
in them on a regular basis—had been deeply beloved by those same poor citizens of Zion. Others had worked with individual churches who took their obligation to care for their less fortunate brothers and sisters seriously, and they, too, had been known and loved by the needy in Zion.

Quite aside from the citizens those vicars and archbishops had helped directly, the sincerity of their faith and compassion had been evident to the junior clergy and laymen who’d worked with them. The news that they’d been arrested for treason and heresy, that they were to be condemned—effectively already had
been
condemned—as “secret heretics” affiliated with the “Charisian apostasy” (not to mention all manner of unspeakable personal perversions), had stunned all of those people. It seemed impossible on the face of it, an obvious mistake. Yet the rumors of arrest turned out to have been true, and the “confessions” were already beginning to surface as the Inquisitors “reasoned” with their prisoners.

Zion was in very quiet, very secretive tumult. No one dared say so out loud, but there were plenty of people who suspected what had truly happened. People who saw in the Circle’s destruction a ruthless, coldly planned and executed maneuver to silence anything which could be construed as dissent. It was the eradication of toleration. The official endorsement of fanatical loyalty not simply to Mother Church but to the vicarate and—especially—to the Group of Four.

Zhaspahr Clyntahn had closed an iron fist about the Temple and the very heart of the Church of God Awaiting, and the city of Zion held its breath, trembling, while it waited to discover the cost of his triumph.

It’s not going to be long before the denunciations begin,
Zhevons told himself sadly.
The Inquisition’s always had its in formants and its spy networks all over Safe-hold. Here in Zion and the Temple, more than anywhere else, and for damned good reasons. But now people are going to start looking for someone
— anyone—
they can turn in to prove their own orthodoxy, their own loyalty and reliability. People they can throw to the krakens to protect themselves and their own families
.

“I have to admit,” Ahnzhelyk continued with bleak, bitter satisfaction, “that even though I started planning for this long before Clyntahn came to power, it pleases me im mensely to
use
that pig to get all these people out of Zion.”

Zhevons nodded again, although if
she
had to admit that,
he
had to confess that the sheer audacity of her plan made him more than a little nervous. But that bold effrontery was probably the very thing that was going to make it work, he reminded himself.

He’d already realized Ahnzhelyk Phonda was a shrewd businesswoman, as well as a skilled conspirator. He hadn’t realized quite how wealthy she’d become, however. He supposed it shouldn’t surprise him that someone who’d been able to hide her activities from the Inquisition for so long had been equally successful at hiding her various business enterprises from the city and Church tax collectors, as well. Although, to be fair, he was pretty sure she’d actually paid all her taxes and business licensing fees—and probably a few reasonably generous bribes, on the side, as well. She just hadn’t paid them in her own name. In fact, now that he knew what to look for, he’d managed to identify no less than nine completely false business identities she’d set up and maintained—in one case, for almost twenty- six years—and he was positive he still hadn’t found all of them. She’d been wired into the Zion business community, including its less than fully legal aspects, since well before Cayleb Ahrmahk was born, and almost all her various ventures had shown a profit. The level of profits had varied from case to case—from “just- better- than- breakeven” to “license- to- mint- money” levels, as a matter of fact—but the cumulative total and variety of her assets had been amazing.

Including this ware house and Bruhstair & Sons, the perfectly legitimate—and
highly
profitable—warehousing and freight- hauling business which officially owned it. Of course, like many such operations, especially here in Zion, Bruhstair & Sons made its own contributions to the “gray economy.” Rather large contributions in Bruhstair’s case, as a matter of fact. Bruhstair Freight Haulers, Bruhstair & Sons actual drayage unit, had been fifty- seven years old, with a workforce of over two hundred, when Ahnzhelyk acquired it (through suitably anonymous and/or fictitious intermediaries) from the last of the original “& Sons,” and it had grown substantially under her management. A transportation company that big and that profitable (it had shown a clear profit of almost eighty thousand marks last year, which was a staggering return for a mainlander warehousing firm) didn’t last that long in Zion without having reached the appropriate accommodations with members of the vicarate and the Church hierarchy in general. It was amazing, for example, how few import duties actually got paid on freight destined for someone like, say, Vicar Zhaspahr Clyntahn.

There’d always been some of that, but it had grown steadily worse over the last century or so. By now, no one even bothered to insist on
good
forged paperwork. Customs agents and tax collectors knew better than to look closely at anything consigned to senior members of the Church, and Langhorne help the occasional—
very
occasional—agent or collector naïve enough (or stupid enough) to make the mistake of noticing something he shouldn’t have noticed!

Of course, there weren’t very many of those. According to Ahnzhelyk, when he’d raised that concern with her, the last confirmed sighting of an honest customs agent in Zion had been just over thirty- seven years ago. It wasn’t that the present crop of officials weren’t efficient or capable; it was simply that they understood very clearly that a significant portion (Zhevons’ current estimate ran as high as twenty- five percent, and even that might be low) of the city’s commerce—especially in high- priced luxury items—was actually being carried out by or for vicars or archbishops or bishops who were effectively tax exempt. And since no one had ever gotten around to making that tax exemption legal, even the most dedicated of customs agents recognized that he was winking at an unlawful trade.

And once you realize you’re doing that, you have to start wondering why you shouldn’t be building up a little nest egg of your own,
he thought harshly, comparing the local situation and the rampant corruption it promoted to anything which would have been tolerated for a moment in the Empire of Charis.

Not that he had any intention of complaining. And especially not given that Ahnzhelyk Phonda had possessed both the talents to make that corruption work so well for her... and the chilled- steel nerve to enlist none other than Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s own bailiff as a silent partner in Bruhstair & Sons.

The brazen audacity of it awed “
Seijin
Zhevons.” What tax agent, what customs inspector, in his right mind was going to meddle with
Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s
illegal smuggling trade even at the best of times? The very idea was ridiculous! And, at
this
moment, when Clyntahn was establishing his very own reign of terror throughout the city,
no one
was going to take the slightest chance of calling himself to the attention of an irritated Grand Inquisitor. Which made his involvement with Bruhstair Ahnzhelyk’s best and most effective protection against his own vengeful search for the people she was protecting.

The exquisite irony of her solution was beautiful to behold, despite the tension quotient, he thought admiringly.

“We’ll be ready to leave in the morning,” Ahnzhelyk said now. “What do your ‘
seijin
- like abilities’ tell you about the weather, Ahbraim?”

“Indications are that it should be clear and cold pretty much for the rest of the month, now,” he replied. “We’ll get another day or so of snowfall around the middle of next five- day, but nothing like the blizzards we’ve been seeing. Probably not more than another ten inches to a foot or so, where you’ll be traveling.”

She gave him a speculative look, which he returned with the blandest of smiles. He no longer doubted that very soon after getting her charges to Old Charis, Ahnzhelyk Phonda was going to find herself admitted to another circle. In the meantime, he rather enjoyed watching the razor- edged brain behind that thoughtful expression trying to figure out just how he managed such incredibly accurate weather predictions.

Among other things. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said after a moment. Then she looked around the cavernous ware house again and shook her head. “I’m actually going to miss this place,” she sighed.

“May I ask what sort of arrangements you’ve made for your enterprises here in Zion after you, ah, depart?” he inquired, and she shrugged.

“I was tempted to leave them all up and running, actually,” she confessed. “I spent so long putting them together in the first place that giving them up is almost like an amputation. I hadn’t expected to feel that way about it, but I have to admit I do. And once I finally admitted that to myself, I also discovered I was trying to convince myself that maintaining them long- distance would provide me with a valuable operational base here in Zion. One that might come in handy for... doing Clyntahn and his cronies a mischief some fine day.”

She shook her head, her jaw tightening, and he saw bleak hatred flicker deep in her eyes as she gazed at something only she could see.

“But—?” he prompted after a moment when she paused. “What?” She gave herself a shake, blinked, and refocused on him. “Oh. Sorry. I was just . . . thinking.”

“I realize that. But from what you were saying, it sounds like you’ve decided
against
trying to keep them in operation?”

“Yes.” She shrugged. “The way I have things arranged right now, all of my Zion business interests will either be quietly liquidated or else transferred to the ownership of the people who’ve managed them for me all along. I decided a long time ago that it would be better to quietly fold my tent and bury my tracks than to have a dozen or so businesses suddenly and mysteriously go
out
of business about the same time Ahnzhelyk Phonda disappeared into thin air. Besides, most of the people who have worked for me—even if most of them never realized they were working for
me,
if you understand my meaning—have done their jobs well.” She shrugged again. “I think of this as a sort of retirement settlement.”

“I can see that.” He nodded. “On the other hand, I suspect that rewarding them for their loyalty and hard work isn’t the only thing on your mind.”

“It isn’t.” She looked up at him. “If any single thing under heaven is certain, Ahbraim, it’s that Clyntahn’s going to tighten his grip throughout all the mainland realms. He probably won’t be able to wrap Siddarmark up as tightly as he’d like to; or not until he’s done a lot more preparation work in the Republic, at any rate. But the other kingdoms, the empires—those he’s going to rule with an iron fist in Mother Church’s name. And if he’s going to be doing that anywhere, you know his control is going to be tighter and even more restrictive here in Zion than anywhere else. So, tempting though it was to hang on to a toehold here, I can’t possibly justify exposing all of these people to potential punishment as ‘agents of Shan- wei.’ I’ve been very careful to avoid traceable connections between any of my operations here in Zion and the Circle. I’m not going to endanger people who have worked for me for so long by tying them into active operations against the Temple now that Clyntahn’s so obviously out for blood.”