A Mighty Fortress (87 page)

“What’s the meaning of this, Zhaspahr?” Zahmsyn Trynair demanded. The normally urbane and controlled Chancellor’s voice was harsh, his expression tight with mingled anger and an undeniable edge of fear, as he confronted the Grand Inquisitor across the council table.

“I think that’s plain enough,” Clyntahn replied in a cold, dangerously level tone. “I’ve been telling all of you for some time that we had traitors right here in the vicarate. I realize the three of you have been discounting my warnings. That you’ve gone your way comfortably assuming it’s just a case of me once again seeing enemies in every shadow. Well, I won’t say that hasn’t happened in the past. I won’t apologize for it, either; it’s better to be overly suspicious rather than blindly oblivious in the ser vice of God and Schueler.

“But not this time. Oh, no, not
this
time! These bastards have been conspiring against Mother Church, against the Grand Vicar’s authority, against our struggle with the heretics in Charis, and against God Himself. They can dress it up any way they want, try to justify it any way they choose, but the truth will come out. Trust me. The truth...
will
. . . come out.”

Rhobair Duchairn could not recall ever having seen Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s expression so armored in assurance and so ribbed with iron determination. He radiated a terrifying power as he glowered at his three colleagues, crouched forward like a jowly, hot- eyed, furious great dragon about to open its vast maw and charge with a bellow of killing rage.

The Treasurer started to open his mouth, although he had absolutely no idea what he was going to say. While he hesitated, searching for words, Trynair sat back in his chair, his eyes intent, and spoke first.

“What truth, Zhaspahr?” he asked. “I know Wylsynn and his brother were always critics, always pains in the arse. And I know they were dangerous—to
us,
at least. But there’s a world of difference between that and what you’re accusing them of now. And all of these arrests, midnight seizures of women and children... Langhorne, man! Can’t you see what this is going to do? D’you think all those people aren’t related to other families throughout the Temple Lands? Some of them are related to
me,
for God’s sake! How do you think the
rest
of the vicarate’s going to react if they think
their
families are going to be threatened with something like this just because we think they’re opposing our policies?”

“Is
that
what you think this is?” Clyntahn stared at Trynair in disbelief. “Oh, it would have given me im mense plea sure to take that sanctimonious bastard and his brother down, don’t think for a moment that it wouldn’t have. But this isn’t something I’ve manufactured just to quash an enemy, Zahmsyn. This is something that came to
me.
It’s a conspiracy that extends far beyond Wylsynn and his brother, and it’s only God’s own mercy I found out about it at all.”

“What kind of conspiracy? And just how
did
you ‘find out about it’?” Try-nair demanded, his skepticism eroding slightly before Clyntahn’s tone of steely certitude.

“They’ve been conspiring to overthrow the Inquisition and its God- given authority as the first step in their plan to recognize the
legitimacy
of the ‘Church of Charis,’ ” Clyntahn said flatly. “They’ve been gathering material they believed they could use to blackmail other vicars, extort their support against us and the Grand Vicar, as a means to do just that. They’ve been working steadily to undermine fundamental Church doctrines, including the doctrine of the Grand Vicar’s infallibility when he speaks in Langhorne’s name, and planning to undermine Mother Church’s central authority by actually supporting the demands of people like Staynair and his so- called ‘Reformists’ for the local election of bishops. I think all of that constitutes a fairly significant threat to Mother Church and God’s plan for Safehold, Zahmsyn. And it doesn’t even begin to get into some of the things we’ve discovered about their
personal
degeneracy.”

Duchairn felt a sudden surge of nausea at hearing someone like
Clyntahn,
of all people, accuse someone else of “degeneracy.” Yet even he was a bit taken aback by the cata log of the Grand Inquisitor’s other accusations. He never doubted that Clyntahn had twisted and misconstrued everything Samyl and Hauwerd Wylsynn had been trying to accomplish—the Treasurer had that terrifying note Hauwerd had slipped him as evidence—but he was frighteningly confident that Clyntahn could sell his interpretation of their intentions to a lot, possibly even a majority, of the other vicars. Those other vicars were already terrified of the consequences of the war with Charis, and the reports of more and more Reformist- inclined clergy going over to the Church of Charis in places like Emerald and Corisande would only make them even more suspicious of, more frightened by, the specter of betrayal from within.

“Those are serious accusations,” Trynair said, and this time the Chancellor sounded shaken, even a little frightened. “And you still haven’t told us how you came to ‘discover’ all of this? And why you didn’t tell all of
us
about it at the time?”

“I didn’t tell the rest of you about it, first, because it was the Inquisition’s business, not yours,” Clyntahn said bluntly. “Langhorne and Schueler established the Inquisition expressly to deal with this sort of internal rot. I didn’t need to consult with anyone else to recognize what my office and my own vows required of me. Second, I didn’t tell the rest of you—or anyone, outside of Wyllym Rayno and a handful of senior Inquisitors whose ability to keep their mouths shut I unreservedly trusted—because it was essential the conspirators not know I’d become aware of their actions until winter trapped them here in Zion and I’d had time to complete my preliminary investigations and arrange to seize all the guilty parties simultaneously. I’m not saying any of you would have deliberately warned someone capable of this sort of damnable treason,” his eyes flipped briefly to Rhobair Duchairn’s face, and those eyes had gone cold, instead of hot, “but even a single incautious word in the wrong spot could have warned them before I was ready. You have no idea how far their nets extended, how deeply into the staffs of other vicars and other archbishops their corruption had spread.

“As for how I discovered it, I wish I could take credit for that, but I can’t.” Duchairn’s eyes weren’t the only ones that widened in astonishment as Zhaspahr Clyntahn disavowed the credit for discovering a conspiracy on the scale of the one he’d just described. “As it happens,” he continued, “someone who’d been recruited by the conspirators and recognized where they were actually headed brought it to my attention.”

“Who?” Duchairn heard his own voice demand.

Clyntahn gazed at him silently, almost thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded. He pushed back his chair with a little grunt of effort, stalked to the chamber’s door, and opened it.

“Yes, Your Grace?” the purple- cassocked Inquisitor outside the door said. “Fetch him,” Clyntahn said flatly. “At once, Your Grace.”

The Inquisitor bowed, then turned and walked swiftly down the corridor while Clyntahn returned to his place at the table. He sat back down, folded his arms across his chest, and sat silent, waiting.

The wait wasn’t as long as it felt—Duchairn was certain of that—yet it seemed forever before the door opened once more and the Inquisitor returned. He was accompanied by another man, this one in the orange- trimmed white cassock of an archbishop.

“I believe all of you know the Archbishop of Hankey,” Clyntahn said. Duchairn’s eyes narrowed. He did, indeed, know Nyklas Stantyn, the Archbishop of Hankey, although not well. Their paths had crossed on several occasions, especially where the details of Hankey’s finances were concerned, but he’d never actually gotten to know Stantyn. Now he considered the obviously frightened man in front of him, wondering what lay behind that exquisitely tailored façade. There was something dark in Stantyn’s brown eyes, and his hands trembled visibly before he concealed them in the sleeves of his cassock.

“Nyklas came to me last May,” Clyntahn continued. “He sought me out because he had become aware of a truly horrendous plot by so- called men of God right here in the vicarate. They’d approached him, and for some time, as he will freely confess, he allowed himself to be deceived and taken in by their lies. They convinced him their goal was simply to ‘reform’ certain ‘abuses’ within Mother Church.” The Grand Inquisitor smiled thinly. “Does that sound like what we’re hearing from other lands about ‘Reformists’ trampling all over one another in their eagerness to betray Mother Church to Staynair and his heretics?”

Duchairn felt his heart sink as he realized how that question was going to resonate with other frightened vicars. Indeed, he saw a flicker in
Trynair’s
eyes, and it was obvious from Maigwair’s expression that he was prepared to embrace what ever expedient was required to crush any “Reformist plot” coming from
inside
the Temple.

“At first, Nyklas was so impressed by their apparent sincerity and devoutness that he allowed himself to be taken in,” Clyntahn went on after letting his question sink fully home. “In time, however, he came to realize their actual objectives were rather more sinister. Then this business with Charis erupted. In their eagerness to seize the opportunity they believed it presented, they made the mistake of coming a bit too far out into the open, and he began to see things he hadn’t seen before, including the evidence of deeply hidden
personal
corruption. He was, I think, understandably frightened—both by what he was discovering, and by how Mother Church and the Office of Inquisition might respond to his own involvement. It took him some time, and a great deal of prayer, to realize it was his duty to bring all this to my attention. To lay it before me, so Mother Church might defend herself against this attack out of the night. He recognized the personal risk he ran in informing me of it, yet he was resolved to do so, and he did.”

He was so terrified of what you’d do to all of them if you found out on your own that he came to you to sell the others out and buy the best personal terms he could, you mean,
Duchairn thought coldly.

“May we hear this from Archbishop Nyklas himself?” Trynair asked in a painfully neutral tone.

“Of course you may.” Clyntahn sounded almost exasperated, as if he couldn’t believe there’d ever been any question in Trynair’s mind, and glanced at the waiting, silent archbishop. “Tell them, Nyklas.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Stantyn replied.

He looked at the other three vicars, cleared his throat, and swallowed hard. Then he drew a deep breath.

“It’s as the Grand Inquisitor has already described, Your Graces.” His voice quivered slightly, yet he met their eyes squarely. “At first, I genuinely believed Vicar Samyl and Vicar Hauwerd had only Mother Church’s best interests at heart. In fact, I believed that for several
years
. It was only gradually that certain parts of what they said began to sound as if they were contradicting other parts, and even then, I was able to convince myself I’d simply misunderstood. But they had me . . . doing things which made me uncomfortable. Spying on my fellow bishops and archbishops. Gathering information about members of the vicarate—even the Grand Vicar himself. Looking, especially, for evidence which might have been used to blackmail or pressure members of the Inquisition. And, in addition, for anything which might have been used as a weapon against the Chancellor, the Grand Inquisitor, and the Treasurer.”

He paused, as if gathering his thoughts, then continued. “I began to realize that what they were gathering was information which might be used against personal enemies in the vicarate. That concerned me deeply, especially when I began to discover certain . . . unpleasant aspects of their own lives.” His mouth twisted briefly in what might have been a grimace of distaste . . . or, perhaps, fear. “I’ve found that behind the virtuous façade they strove to present, they were actually dedicated to a personal licentiousness that shocked me. Your Graces, I’m no prude, and no stranger to reality. I know bishops, archbishops, even vicars are still men, that all of us are still prone to the temptations of the flesh, and that, too often, we succumb to them. I’m not prepared to condemn any of my brothers in God for being weak, because all mortals are weak and fallible. But there are perversions at which I must draw a line. Unnatural lusts, and the abuse of children, are more than I could endure.”

Duchairn’s eyes widened. Surely Clyntahn didn’t think he could sell
that
to the rest of the vicarate? Not about Samyl and Hauwerd Wylsynn, of all men!

Yet even as he thought that, he was struck by how damnably sincere and convincing Stantyn sounded. By the way men already eager to justify the destruction of someone they’d been convinced was their enemy would seize upon such additional charges.