How Firm a Foundation (80 page)

“In some ways I agree with you,” he repeated, “but we live when we live, and all any of us can do is pray for guidance to get through all
this without trading away any more of our souls than we have to. And if we get an opportunity to do something which may make it even a little better—or at least less bad—than it would have been otherwise, then we give thanks on our knees.”

“Yes, Sir.” Wynai lowered her eyes, seeming a bit abashed at having spoken out, and he inhaled deeply.

“Go ahead and get clear copies of those written up,”
he told her in a gentler tone. “And tell Zheryld we’re going to have a special dispatch bag for Tellesberg.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“And, Wynai, if you’d like to send any messages home to Charis, feel free to use the dispatch bag.” She looked up at him, and he smiled at her. “I know you don’t abuse the privilege, and at least this way they’ll get home a little quicker.”

“Thank you, Sir Rayjhis.
I appreciate it.”

Wynai gathered up her notepad and her pen and headed down the hall to her own little cubbyhole of an office. The door closed quietly behind her, and Dragoner returned his attention to the window, looking across those sunlit roofs at North Bay’s sail-dotted azure water and thinking about the homeland which lay so far beyond it.

*   *   *

Wynai Thyrstyn closed her office door
behind her and sat in the creaky, slightly rickety chair at her desk. She laid her shorthand notes on the blotter and stared down at them, thinking about them, wondering what she should do. Then she leaned back, closed her eyes, and covered her lids with her hands while she tried not to weep.

There were times she felt almost unbearably torn by guilt as she sat in Sir Rayjhis’ office, taking down
his words, working on his correspondence, answering his questions about the Charisian and non-Charisian communities here in Siddar City. It was wrong of her to feel that way, she knew that. She wasn’t doing anything she shouldn’t be doing, and Sir Rayjhis was a good man, one who needed her help. She could see how he was aging before her, the way his hair was going progressively whiter, the lines
carving themselves more and more deeply into his face. He’d revealed more of his own spiritual turmoil than he thought he had—she was pretty sure of that—and she wondered how much longer he could bear it. And how he was going to react when the inevitable happened.

And it
was
inevitable. She lowered her hands again, staring at the icon of the Archangel Langhorne hanging on the wall above her desk.
God couldn’t permit any other outcome, but why did it have to be so
hard
? Why did so many people—
good
people, and there
were
good people, on
both
sides—have to die?

The tears came despite her efforts to stop them as she thought of her brother Trai and her cousin Urvyn. Sir Rayjhis had tried so hard to comfort her when the terrible news came, tried to tell her it had all been some horrible accident,
but Wynai knew better. She couldn’t be
certain,
of course, but … she knew better. If only Urvyn had been able to see the truth the way she and Trai had! But he hadn’t, and they’d lost him to the heresy, and she’d still loved him so much, and, O Sweet Bédard, but it
hurt
so much to be so sure Trai had killed him … and himself.

Forgive him,
she prayed now, staring at the image of the Archangel
on the wall before her, not entirely certain if she were praying for her heretical cousin or the brother who’d violated divine law by taking his own life. But then she shook herself. God couldn’t possibly condemn Trai for giving up his life in His own service! Yet even so—

Forgive
all
of them, please! I know Urvyn and the others are wrong, I know it’s
all
so horribly
wrong,
but they’re not really
evil. They’re doing what they think they
have
to do, what they think you and God
want
them to do. Do they really have to spend all of eternity paying for
that
?

The icon didn’t answer her, but she hadn’t really expected it to, and she drew a deep breath. A decisive breath.

She’d wanted to do more from the very beginning, but Trai had convinced her—no, be honest, he’d
ordered
her—not to. She remembered
that first letter of his, the one which had filled her with mingled fear and elation. It was so like her big brother to take charge, to know exactly what to do, and she’d taken his warnings seriously. She’d never said a single word to anyone, not even her own priest and confessor, about the “personal letters” to her which she relayed to her husband’s aunt in Zion. The letters which went
from there directly to the Office of the Inquisition … and the replies to which were transmitted to him in her own “personal letters.” She had no idea what information and what instructions had passed back and forth, because Trai had been very clear about that, as well. At his request, the Inquisition had sent him a code book by an entirely separate route—she didn’t know what it had been—and he and
whoever he was actually writing to had buried their messages in the word puzzles and acrostics he and Wynai had shared regularly by mail ever since her marriage had taken her to the Republic so many years before.

But he’d been very specific in that first letter. She was to do nothing
but
relay letters. That was the most important thing she could possibly do, and she mustn’t do
anything
that could
compromise her ability to perform that task. So she’d had no contact at all with the Inquisition here in Siddar. She’d spoken as calmly and reasonably as she could when the inevitable debates erupted between Temple Loyalists and adherents of the Church of Charis, avoiding anything which could have gotten her labeled an extremist by either side. And she’d never, not once, used her privileged position
here inside the embassy to provide information to Mother Church.

In a lot of ways, she’d been grateful Trai’s instructions had precluded her from doing that. But Trai was gone now, and Urwyn, both of them sacrificed to the war impious man had declared upon God Himself, and that meant she was free. It would be a betrayal of Sir Rayjhis’ trust, and she regretted that deeply, yet she had no choice
but to serve God and the Archangels in any way she could.

She drew another deep breath and began transcribing her notes in the beautiful, clear handwriting she’d been taught as a child in Tellesberg. She had the dispatch bag to catch, and she would. But this time, instead of destroying her original notes the way she always had before, she would take them with her when she left.

It was very quiet
in the tiny office, with only the soft, purposeful scratching of her pen to break the silence.

.VIII.

The Temple, City of Zion, The Temple Lands

“God
damn
them! God damn
all
of them!”

Zhaspahr Clyntahn threw the entire file across the sitting room of his luxurious personal suite. It hit the outer wall’s unbreakable transparent crystal with a thump and flew back, scattering pages across the thick, rich carpets, and the Grand Inquisitor snarled. His heavy-jowled face was purple with fury
as he snatched up a priceless glass paperweight that was over three hundred years old and hurled it across the room, directly into a glass-fronted cabinet of crystal decanters. It struck with an ear-shattering crash and the sharp scent of expensive brandies and whiskeys as paperweight, glass, and bottles exploded in fragments.

Spectacular as it was, the destruction had no apparent effect on Clyntahn’s
rage, and he bent and snatched up the bronze coffee table. It had to weigh a hundred pounds, Wyllym Rayno thought, but the Grand Inquisitor didn’t even seem to notice. He only hurled it after the paperweight with an explosive grunt of effort, demolishing the entire wet bar in a cascade of shattered snifters, goblets, liqueur bottles, and exquisite—and exquisitely
expensive—
cabinetry.

The Archbishop
of Chiang-wu made himself as small and inconspicuous as he possibly could. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Clyntahn explode in all but incoherent fury, but it was never a pleasant experience. And he’d seldom seen the Grand Inquisitor
this
angry. In fact, it was entirely possible he’d
never
seen Clyntahn this angry.

Not even Zhaspahr Clyntahn in the grip of a monumental rage could throw something
as heavy as that coffee table without consequences. He stumbled, nearly falling, and kept himself on his feet only by grabbing the back of a couch. He snarled, shoved himself back upright, and kicked the couch halfway across the room. It knocked over a display pedestal, and a marble bust of the Archangel Chihiro—carved from life by the second-century master Charkain—toppled to the floor in
a crunching, face-first impact that sent fragments of white stone flying. He looked around, as if seeking something else expensive to destroy, then stomped out of the sitting room, kicking heirloom furniture out of his way, and Rayno heard more shattering sounds from the adjacent bedchamber.

Fortunately, Clyntahn hadn’t ordered the archbishop to accompany him, and Rayno breathed a quiet prayer
of thanks as he tucked his hands into the sleeves of his cassock and prepared to wait out his superior’s rage.

From the sounds of things, it was going to take a while.

*   *   *

“All right,” Clyntahn said flatly, the better part of two hours later. “Give me the details.”

He and Rayno had withdrawn to the small conference room attached to the Grand Inquisitor’s suite. The door had opened at
their approach and then closed silently behind them, cool air whispered through the overhead ducts, and the conference room’s soundproofing guaranteed that none of the white-faced servants creeping about while they dealt with the wreckage littering the wake of Clyntahn’s rage would hear a word they said.

Rayno considered pointing out that all “the details” he possessed had been contained in the
file, but he didn’t consider it very hard. He’d quietly gathered up the file’s scattered contents and brought them with him, but reminding Clyntahn he’d cleaned up behind him probably wouldn’t be a good idea.

“I’m afraid there’s not a great deal to add to what I’ve already told you, Your Grace,” he said just a bit cautiously. “The destruction appears to be effectively total. Jahras’ entire fleet
seems to have been sunk, burned, or taken. All the navy yard facilities were burned. The artillery foundries in and around Iythria were all destroyed, and the port’s batteries were blown up. As nearly as I can tell, Your Grace, the Imperial Desnairian Navy now consists solely of the twenty-one galleons in Desnair Bay. And, in all honesty, Your Grace, I’ll be astounded if the heretics don’t move
against Desnair the City very soon now.” His mouth twisted. “They made it clear enough at Iythria that they’re not afraid to confront heavy fortifications
or
our galleons, and I don’t think there’s anything at Desnair that could stop them if Jahras couldn’t stop them at Iythria.”

“No?” Clyntahn glared at him, jowls tinged with just a hint of the purple which had suffused them earlier. “What about
a fucking commander with at least a little
guts?
” he snarled. “What about a goddamned navy that remembers it’s fucking fighting for
God?!
”

Rayno started to reply, then paused. From the casualty reports he’d read (and which Clyntahn hadn’t gotten to before he’d launched off into his paroxysm of fury), the Desnairian Navy had fought—and died—hard before its final surrender. He thought about pointing
out that of the ninety-plus ships with which Jahras had begun the action, the Charisians had kept only thirty-five or forty as prizes. The others had been so badly damaged Rock Point had ordered them burned. That didn’t strike him as the sort of damage a fleet that gave up easily suffered. And Jahras’ after battle report had pulled no punches about the devastating advantage the Charisians’ new
ammunition had provided them.

No, there’d been nothing wrong with the fighting spirit of Iythria’s defenders. Not until after Jahras’ surrender, at least. But pointing that out would be … impolitic.

“I trust we have both of those things at Desnair the City, Your Grace,” he said instead. “It
is
the Empire’s capital city, after all, and the added motivation of fighting under Emperor Mahrys’ own
eye should help to stiffen their spines, as well. I know!” He raised a hand quickly as Clyntahn’s eyes flashed. “The fact that they’re fighting under
God’s
eye should be motivation enough for any man. But you’ve always told me, Your Grace, that we have to allow for men’s inevitable weaknesses, the way their fallen nature leads them to fall short of their duty. I’ve dispatched instructions to Archbishop
Ahdym and Bishop Executor Mahrtyn to do all in their power to strengthen the faith and determination of the capital’s defenders, and I’m sure they will. At the same time, though, if there are any purely secular … motivators we can apply, I’m in favor of using them, as well.”

The incipient glare in Clyntahn’s eyes eased slightly under Rayno’s reasonable tone. He continued to stare at the archbishop
for a long, simmering moment, but then he shoved himself back in his chair with a choppy nod.

“Point taken,” he said, his own voice once again flat and controlled. “I want Jahras and Kholman, though. They’ve failed Mother Church—
betrayed
Mother Church—and they have to pay the price.”

“I agree entirely, Your Grace, and I’m already considering possible ways to see that they do. The fact that they’ve
cravenly fled to Charis like the cowards they are is going to make it difficult, however.”

In fact, Rayno thought, Baron Jahras and Duke Kholman had displayed prudence, not cowardice, in removing themselves from Clyntahn’s reach. And unless he was mistaken, before their departure they’d done their best to report honestly and accurately—and warningly—on what they’d faced when the Charisian Navy
came to call. Best not to make
that
point just yet, either, though.