A Mighty Fortress (89 page)

Irys’ eyes had flinched very slightly at the word “excesses.” It was the first time he’d used that particular word, his most open statement of disagreement with the official keeper of Mother Church’s soul. Yet her only surprise was that he’d finally used it, not that he felt that way.

“But to order his arrest—
their
arrest—on charges like
these,
” she said. “Charges which will condemn them to such horrible punishment. And to arrest entire
families,
as well.” She shook her head, and Coris grimaced.

“Irys,” he said as gently as he could, “Clyntahn chose those charges
because
of the penalty they carry. Oh, he needed alleged crimes serious enough to justify the arrest and removal of members of the vicarate itself, but his real reasons—his true reasons—are, first, to find charges which permanently and completely discredit his critics, and, second, to punish those critics so severely no one will dare to take their places when they’re gone. He’s trying to deter
anyone
from opposing him or the Group of Four’s policies and strategy, and this is his way of warning any of those would- be opponents of exactly how . . . unwise of them it would be to even hint at criticizing them.”

He saw something flicker in her eyes. It puzzled him, for a moment, but then he realized what it had been.

You’re thinking about your father, aren’t you?
he thought.
Thinking about how
he
sometimes punished someone more harshly in order to deter others from committing the same offense. And you really are smart, Irys. Little though you might want to think that about your own father, you know there were other things he did—things he never discussed with you—that had very little to do with “justice” and quite a lot to do with deterrence
.

“So you think he really will inflict the Punishment of Schueler on them?”

“I’m afraid the only real question is whether or not he’ll inflict the Punishment on their families, as well,” Coris said sadly. Irys inhaled sharply, fresh horror filling her eyes, and he reached out and touched her cheek gently, something he almost never did.

“But the
children
, Phylyp,” she said pleadingly, raising her own hand and cupping it over the hand on her cheek. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Surely he’ll spare—”

She broke off as Coris shook his head sadly, gently. “They’re not children to him, Irys. Not anymore. At best, they’re the ‘spawn of traitors and heretics.’ Worse, they’re pawns. They’ll be more useful to Mother Church—and him—as warnings to future ‘traitors.’ ” He shook his head again. “No, I think the only question is whether he’ll settle for simply having the children executed rather than subjecting them to the Punishment of Schueler, as well.”

Irys looked physically ill, and Coris didn’t blame her. Some of those children would be mere infants, in some cases still babes in arms. And it wouldn’t matter one bit to Zhaspahr Clyntahn. Not any more than—

He chopped that thought off quickly. Irys, he knew, remained convinced Cayleb Ahrmahk had ordered her father’s and her brother’s assassinations. In many ways, he wished her mind were more open to other possibilities—especially the one which had begun to look to him more and more like a certainty where Zhaspahr Clyntahn was concerned. But as he saw the worry, the sickness, in those hazel eyes, he felt a familiar hesitation.

She was already deeply concerned for her little brother’s safety. Did he want to add to that concern? Fill her with even more worry and fear? For that matter, her own best defense against Clyntahn might well reside in her obvious, ongoing ignorance of the part Coris had become certain the Grand Inquisitor had played in Hektor’s and his son’s murders. As long as she remained passionately and openly convinced of Cayleb’s guilt, she was useful to Clyntahn—another voice, a highly
visible
voice, condemning Cayleb and Sharleyan and all of Charis for the crime. Yet another source of legitimacy for anyone in Corisande tempted to resist the Charisian annexation of that princedom. But if she ever once openly
questioned
Cayleb’s guilt, she would go instantly from the category of “mildly useful” to the category of “liability” in Clyntahn’s mind. And if that happened....“They got in his way,” the Earl of Coris said, instead of what he’d been thinking about saying. “And he’s not going to overlook the fact that so many of the people who might oppose him are also fathers and mothers. Can you think of a single threat which could be more effective than that?”

He asked the question quietly, and, after a moment, she shook her head in mute reply.

“Of course you can’t.” Coris’ lips worked like a man who wanted to spit out something rotten, and he looked back out the window at the lake. At the pure, cold water of the lake. “Of course you can’t,” he said softly, “and neither can Zhaspahr Clyntahn. Which is why he’ll do it, Irys. Never doubt it for a moment. He
will
do it.”

Rhobair Duchairn’s Office,

The Temple,

City of Zion,

The Temple Lands

Rhobair, you can’t keep doing this,” Zahmsyn Trynair said flatly. “Doing what?” Rhobair Duchairn asked calmly, almost coldly, looking up from the endless sea of paperwork which flowed across his desk daily.

“You know perfectly well
what.
”

Trynair closed the door of Duchairn’s private office behind himself and crossed to stand before the other vicar’s desk.

“Do you think Zhaspahr is the only one who’s noticed what you’re doing—or
not
doing?” he demanded.

Duchairn sat back in his chair, elbows on the armrests, and gazed at the Chancellor of the Church of God Awaiting. As always, the office was perfectly, restfully lit and exactly the right temperature. The chair—as always—was almost unbelievably comfortable under him. The walls—as always—bore a slowly, almost imperceptibly changing mosaic of fresh green trees, growing against the backdrop of distant blue mountains. And the air—as always—was filled with the gentle sound of background music.

It was all a jarring, almost—no, not
almost
— obscene contrast to the horrors Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s Inquisition was even then visiting upon men, women, and children in God’s name.

“What is it, precisely, I’m not doing, Zahmsyn?” he asked. “Tell me. Am I failing to participate in the judicial murder of my fellow vicars? Failing to applaud the torture of women, wives, who probably didn’t even know what their husbands were doing... assuming their husbands were actually
doing
anything at all? Failing to lend the seal of my approval to the decision to have sixteen-year- old girls burned to death because their fathers pissed Zhaspahr off? Is
that
what I’m failing to do, Zahmsyn?”

Trynair’s eyes widened at Duchairn’s cold, biting contempt. He gazed at the other vicar for a long moment, then his own eyes fell and he stood looking at Duchairn’s desktop until, finally, he raised his eyes once again.

“It’s not that simple, Rhobair, and you know it,” he said. “On the contrary, it’s
exactly
that simple,” Duchairn responded. “You may argue that there are other factors involved, other considerations, but that doesn’t make a single question I just asked you any less valid or less pertinent. You can lie to yourself about that if you want, but I won’t. Not anymore.”

“Don’t you understand how Zhaspahr’s going to react if you start saying things like that to someone else?” Trynair’s eyes were almost pleading. “If he even
thinks
you’re trying to inspire some sort of resistance to the Inquisition....”

The Chancellor’s voice trailed off, and Duchairn shrugged. “To my own shame,” he said flatly, “I’m doing nothing of the sort. I’m keeping my mouth shut . . . and may God forgive me for it. Because, believe me, Zahmsyn, if I thought for one single moment that I
could
inspire some effective resistance—that I could stop this . . . this
atrocity,
I would do it. I would do it if I knew I would die tomorrow myself for the doing.”

He met Trynair’s gaze flatly, unflinchingly, and tension hummed between them, singing in the depths of the office’s silence.

Something deep inside Zahmsyn Trynair quailed before Duchairn’s unwavering eyes. Something which had once believed it, too, was a true vocation to serve God’s will.

He’d always thought that, in many ways, Rhobair Duchairn was the weakest of the Group of Four. Far smarter—and more principled—than Allayn Maigwair, perhaps, but ultimately flawed. Unwilling to face what had to be done in the ser vice of maintaining Mother Church’s authority. He was the sort of man prepared to look the other way, to
acquiesce
when someone else was willing to do what must be done, so long as it was not required of
him.

Most of the Chancellor still thought that. But not all of him . . . not that something in himself which had once believed.

Maybe he
is
still like that,
he thought.
Maybe all this “regenerated faith” of his is only another way to avoid doing the unpleasant things. But I don’t think it is. Not really. If that were all it was, he wouldn’t antagonize Zhaspahr this way. And he sure as Shan- wei wouldn’t antagonize
me
when I’m the only potential ally against Zhaspahr he can possibly hope to find!

“If Zhaspahr ever hears you say something like that,” Trynair heard his own voice saying almost conversationally, “the fact that you’re a member of the ‘Group of Four’ won’t save you. You do realize that, don’t you? That you might as well go ahead and oppose him openly?”

“I could find myself in far worse company,” Duchairn replied levelly. “But not in any
deader
company.”

“Probably not. Which is why you’re the only one I’ve said it to. Of course, you can always go and tell him what I said, couldn’t you? On the other hand, if you do that, and he does to me what he’s already done to so many other men and women we’ve known all our lives, then you’ll be all alone with him and Allayn, won’t you? How long do you think you’ll last—especially when you’re the one the Grand Vicar listens to, the only person with a source of authority which might rival that of the Inquisition—once he starts worrying about traitors in our own ranks?”

Trynair felt his jaw trying to drop. He restrained the impulse with the experience of de cades of political infighting, yet the acuity of what Duchairn had just said shocked him.

And he’s right, damn him. I
can’t
afford to have Zhaspahr thinking that way. And I can’t afford to let Rhobair go down, either. Because as long as he’s still here, I can always divert Zhaspahr into going after
him
if I have to. Once he’s gone.
...“All right. I won’t deny—I
can’t
deny—your point,” Trynair admitted out loud. “I
don’t
want to be the only potential voice of opposition, now that he’s got the bit between his teeth. But that’s not going to keep you alive and in one piece if you antagonize him badly enough. I may have selfish reasons to not want to see . . . anything happen to you. But it won’t do you any good if I go down with you, either, and I’m not willing to do that.”

It was Duchairn’s turn to gaze thoughtfully at Trynair. That was the frankest admission he’d ever heard out of the Chancellor.

“Tell me, Zahmsyn,” the Church Treasurer said finally, “do you really believe
any
of the testimony being presented? Be honest—with me, at least. You know how the Inquisition goes about extracting ‘confessions,’ so tell me. Do you think Samyl and Hauwerd Wylsynn—
Samyl and Hauwerd,
of all people—were molesting
children
? That they were practicing Shan- wei worship, right here in the Temple? That they were in treasonous communication with the Church of Charis? That they were planning to cooperate with the Charisians, recognize the ‘legitimacy’ of the schism in return for Charis’ support in putting one of
them
on the Grand Vicar’s throne here in the Temple?”

Trynair looked away. He stood staring unseeing at the wall mosaics for almost a full minute, then drew a deep breath and looked back at Duchairn.

“No,” he said softly. “No, I don’t believe that. But I do believe they were conspiring against Zhaspahr. And, by extension, that means against you and me, as well.
You
may be sufficiently confident in your faith to take something like that calmly. I’m not. I’ll admit it—I’m not. But it’s not just my own security, my own power and comfort I’m thinking about, either. Whether they were planning to conspire with the Charisians or not is really beside the point, in at least one way. If they’d succeeded in bringing down Zhaspahr, it would have created a huge power vacuum in the Temple and the vicarate. God only knows how that would have worked out, what it would have meant for Mother Church’s cohesiveness at this moment. But even worse, they might have
tried
to bring him down... and failed.

“You think what’s happening now is terrible? Well, I can’t really disagree. But how much worse would it be if they’d managed to provoke a genuine revolt against Zhaspahr? Managed to stir up enough of the vicarate to support them? Managed to fracture Mother Church—fracture Mother Church’s
vicars,
with all of the implications that would have for the faith and support of the ordinary people? Do you think that
wouldn’t
have opened the door wide to the Charisians, whether that was what they wanted or not? And do you think, for one moment, that Rayno and Zhaspahr’s other handpicked appointments in the Inquisition and the Schuelerite hierarchies wouldn’t have stayed loyal to him? What do you think would have happened if the Wylsynns had created a genuine civil war inside Mother Church’s most senior vicars? You think the cost wouldn’t have been immensely worse even than what we’re already seeing?”