How Firm a Foundation (109 page)

Swivel wolf
—a light, primarily anti-personnel artillery piece mounted on a swivel for easy traverse. (See “wolf.”)

Teak tree
—a native Safeholdian tree whose wood contains concentrations of silica and other minerals. Although it grows to a greater height than the Old Earth teak wood tree and bears a needle-like
foliage, its timber is very similar in grain and coloration to the terrestrial tree and, like Old Earth teak, it is extremely resistant to weather, rot, and insects.

Tellesberg Krakens
—the Tellesberg professional baseball club.

Temple, The
—the complex built by “the Archangels” using Terran Federation technology to serve as the headquarters of the Church of God Awaiting. It contains many “mystic”
capabilities which demonstrate the miraculous power of the Archangels to anyone who sees them.

Temple Loyalist
—one who renounces the schism created by the Church of Charis’ defiance of the Grand Vicar and Council of Vicars of the Church of God Awaiting. Some Temple Loyalists are also Reformists (see above), but all are united in condemning the schism between Charis and the Temple.

Testimonies,
The
—by far the most numerous of the Church of God Awaiting’s sacred writings, these consist of the firsthand observations of the first few generations of humans on Safehold. They do not have the same status as the Christian gospels, because they do not reveal the central teachings and inspiration of God. Instead, collectively, they form an important substantiation of the
Writ
’s “historical accuracy”
and conclusively attest to the fact that the events they describe did, in fact, transpire.

Wire vine
—a kudzu-like vine native to Safehold. Wire vine isn’t as fast-growing as kudzu, but it’s equally tenacious, and unlike kudzu, several of its varieties have long, sharp thorns. Unlike many native Safeholdian plant species, it does quite well intermingled with terrestrial imports. It is often used
as a sort of combination hedgerow and barbed wire fence by Safehold farmers.

Wolf
—(1) a Safeholdian predator which lives and hunts in packs and has many of the same social characteristics as the terrestrial species of the same name. It is warm-blooded but oviparous and larger than an Old Earth wolf, with adult males averaging around two hundred to two hundred and twenty-five pounds.

Wolf
—(2)
a generic term for shipboard artillery pieces with a bore of less than 2" and a shot weighing one pound or less. They are primarily antipersonnel weapons but can also be effective against boats and small craft.

Wyvern
—the Safeholdian ecological analogue of terrestrial birds. There are as many varieties of wyverns as there are birds, including (but not limited to) the homing/messenger wyvern,
hunting wyverns suitable for the equivalent of hawking for small prey, the crag wyvern (a small—wingspan ten feet—flying predator), various species of sea wyverns, and the king wyvern (a very large flying predator with a wingspan of up to twenty-five feet). All wyverns have two pairs of wings, and one pair of powerful, clawed legs. The king wyvern has been known to take children as prey when desperate
or when the opportunity presents, but they are quite intelligent. They know that man is a prey best left alone and generally avoid areas of human habitation.

Wyvernry—
a nesting place and/or breeding hatchery for domesticated wyverns.

The Archangels:

The Church of God Awaiting’s Hierarchy:

Clergy who do not belong to a specific order wear cassocks entirely in the color of their rank. Auxiliary bishops’ cassocks are green with narrow trim bands of white. Archbishops’ cassocks are white,
but trimmed in orange. Clergy who belong to one of the ecclesiastical orders (see below) wear habits (usually of patterns specific to each order) in the order’s colors but with the symbol of their order on the right breast, badged in the color of their priestly rank. In formal vestments, the pattern is reversed; that is, their vestments are in the colors of their priestly ranks and the order’s
symbol is the color of their order. All members of the clergy habitually wear either cassocks or the habits of their orders. The headgear is a three-cornered “priest’s cap” almost identical to the eighteenth century’s tricornes. The cap is black for anyone under the rank of vicar. Under-priests’ and priests’ bear brown cockades. Auxiliary bishops’ bear green cockades. Bishops’ and bishops’ executor
bear white cockades. Archbishops’ bear white cockades with a broad, dove-tailed orange ribbon at the back. Vicars’ priests’ caps are of orange with no cockade or ribbon, and the Grand Vicar’s cap is white with an orange cockade.

All clergy of the Church of God Awaiting are affiliated with one or more of the great ecclesiastic orders, but not all are
members
of those orders. Or it might, perhaps,
be more accurate to say that not all are
full
members of their orders. Every ordained priest is automatically affiliated with the order of the bishop who ordained him and (in theory, at least) owes primary obedience to that order. Only members of the clergy who have taken an order’s vows are considered full members or brethren/sisters of that order, however. (Note: there are no female priests
in the Church of God Awaiting, but women may attain high ecclesiastic rank in one of the orders.) Only full brethren or sisters of an order may attain to rank within that order, and only members of one of the great orders are eligible for elevation to the vicarate.

The great orders of the Church of God Awaiting, in order of precedence and power, are:

The Order of Schueler
, which is primarily
concerned with the enforcement of church doctrine and theology. The Grand Inquisitor, who is automatically a member of the Council of Vicars, is always the head of the Order of Schueler. Schuelerite ascendency within the Church has been steadily increasing for over two hundred years, and the order is clearly the dominant power in the Church hierarchy today. The order’s color is purple, and its symbol
is a sword.

The Order of Langhorne
is technically senior to the Order of Schueler, but has lost its primacy in every practical sense. The Order of Langhorne provides the Church’s jurists, and since Church law supersedes secular law throughout Safehold that means all jurists and lawgivers (lawyers) are either members of the order or must be vetted and approved by the order. At one time, that gave
the Langhornites unquestioned primacy, but the Schuelerites have relegated the order of Langhorne to a primarily administrative role, and the head of the Order lost his mandatory seat on the Council of Vicars several generations back (in the Year of God 810). Needless to say, there’s a certain tension between the Schuelerites and the Langhornites. The Order of Langhorne’s color is black, and its
symbol is a scepter.

The Order of Bédard
has undergone the most change of any of the original great orders of the Church. Originally, the Inquisition came out of the Bédardists, but that function was effectively resigned to the Schuelerites by the Bédardists themselves when Saint Greyghor’s reforms converted the order into the primary teaching order of the church. Today, the Bédardists are philosophers
and educators, both at the university level and among the peasantry, although they also retain their function as Safehold’s mental health experts and councilors. The order is also involved in caring for the poor and indigent. Ironically, perhaps, given the role of the “Archangel Bédard” in the creation of the Church of God Awaiting, a large percentage of Reformist clergy springs from this
order. Like the Schuelerites, the head of the Order of Bédard always holds a seat on the Council of Vicars. The order’s color is white, and its symbol is an oil lamp.

The Order of Chihiro
is unique in that it has two separate functions and is divided into two separate orders. The Order of the Quill is responsible for training and overseeing the Church’s scribes, historians, and bureaucrats. It
is responsible for the archives of the Church and all of its official documents. The Order of the Sword is a militant order which often cooperates closely with the Schuelerites and the Inquisition. It is the source of the officer corps for the Temple Guard and also for most officers of the Temple Lands’ nominally secular army and navy. Its head is always a member of the Council of Vicars, as Captain
General of the Church of God Awaiting, and generally fulfills the role of Secretary of War. The order’s color is blue, and its symbol is a quill pen. The Order of the Sword shows the quill pen, but crossed with a sheathed sword.

The Order of Pasquale
is another powerful and influential order of the Church. Like the Order of Bédard, the Pasqualates are a teaching order, but their area of specialization
is healing and medicine. They turn out very well-trained surgeons, but they are blinkered against pursuing any germ theory of medicine because of their religious teachings. All licensed healers on Safehold must be examined and approved by the Order of Pasquale, and the order is deeply involved in public hygiene policies and (less deeply) in caring for the poor and indigent. The majority
of Safeholdian hospitals are associated, to at least some degree, with the Order of Pasquale. The head of the Order of Pasquale is normally, but not always, a member of the Council of Vicars. The order’s color is green, and its symbol is a caduceus.

The Order of Sondheim and the Order of Truscott
are generally considered “brother orders” and are similar to the Order of Pasquale, but deal with
agronomy and animal husbandry respectively. Both are teaching orders and they are jointly and deeply involved in Safehold’s agriculture and food production. The teachings of the Archangel Sondheim and Archangel Truscott incorporated into the
Holy Writ
were key elements in the ongoing terraforming of Safehold following the general abandonment of advanced technology. Both of these orders lost their
mandatory seats on the Council of Vicars over two hundred years ago, however. The Order of Sondheim’s color is brown and its symbol is a sheaf of grain; the Order of Truscott’s color is brown trimmed in
green
, and its symbol is a horse.

The Order of Hastings
is the most junior (and least powerful) of the current great orders. The order is a teaching order, like the Orders of Sondheim and Truscott,
and produces the vast majority of Safehold’s cartographers and surveyors. Hastingites also provide most of Safehold’s officially sanctioned astronomers, although they are firmly within what might be considered the Ptolemaic theory of the universe. The order’s “color” is actually a checkered pattern of green, brown, and blue, representing vegetation, earth, and water. Its symbol is a compass.

The Order of Jwo-jeng
, once one of the four greatest orders of the Church, was absorbed into the Order of Schueler in Year of God 650, at the same time the Grand Inquisitorship was vested in the Schuelerites. Since that time, the Order of Jwo-jeng has had no independent existence.

The Order of Andropov
occupies a sort of middle ground or gray area between the great orders of the Church and the
minor orders. According to the
Holy Writ
, Andropov was one of the leading Archangels during the war against Shan-wei and the Fallen, but he was always more lighthearted (one hesitates to say frivolous) than his companions. His order has definite epicurean tendencies, which have traditionally been accepted by the Church because its raffles, casinos, horse and/or lizard races, etc., raise a great
deal of money for charitable causes. Virtually every bookie on Safehold is either a member of Andropov’s order or at least regards the Archangel as his patron. Needless to say, the Order of Andropov is not guaranteed a seat on the Council of Vicars. The order’s color is red, and its symbol is a pair of dice.