“As the prime instigator undoubtedly knows,” Sister Agika raised her voice, “all witnesses in an Inquisition grand trial wear the silver chains during their testimony to bind them to the Ancestor’s truth.”
Sherzal’s gaze flickered towards the gathered lords. With a forced smile she presented her wrists to Sera and the guard dutifully bound the thin chain around the royal wrists, wrapping them half a dozen times before leaving the ends hanging loose.
“Now, prime instigator.” Brother Pelter positioned himself before the emperor’s sister. “Honourable Sherzal. If I may—”
“You didn’t ask me how I plead.” Abbess Glass raised her voice just as she would on seeing novices misbehaving in the cloister.
Brother Pelter rounded on her, mouth working but managing to articulate no words.
“It is customary.” Sister Agika nodded.
Pelter gathered himself. “My apologies. I had assumed that you would try to cling to a claim of innocence and force us to the unpleasantness of putting an abbess of the Church to the sternest of questioning. Am I to understand that you wish to plead guilty and move directly to sentencing?”
Abbess Glass let her gaze wander from Pelter’s flushed cheeks to the men and women on the lords’ benches. Sherzal had done an impressive job to array such a large fraction of the Sis beneath her roof. Some of course would never place themselves in her power, but many had decided to entrust themselves, old allies, new allies, or just houses with sufficient confidence in their own power and in Sherzal’s fear of the emperor’s censure to keep them safe. The Sis have a saying: “Murder the wrong man and he’ll kill you.”
“I am not pleading guilty, no.”
Pelter threw up his hands with a noise of disgust. “So you claim innocence and waste our time.” He turned back to Sherzal, mouth opening to speak.
“I’m not pleading innocent either,” Glass said.
Pelter didn’t bother to turn but he did lift his voice. “Your grasp on Church law seems to be as feeble as your grasp on Church doctrine, heretic.”
Some among the lords laughed at that. Glass spotted Arabella Jotsis and Joeli Namsis sitting just a few seats apart on benches to the left of the lords, Terra Mensis between them.
“I’m pleading special dispensation,” Glass said.
“Special . . . ?” Pelter turned back to her with a bewildered smile, hands circling to bring forth some explanation.
“Special dispensation,” Glass said. “I have permission from High Priest Nevis and High Inquisitor Gemon to practise heresy.”
A rumble went through the crowd, heated muttering, glances exchanged.
“Why would—” Pelter abandoned questions in favour of accusation. “No you don’t! That’s a lie! You expect us to believe such nonsense just because you have the audacity to speak it?”
“I have written permission. Signed and sealed.” Glass met the inquisitor’s stare.
“No you do not!” Pelter shouted. Then more quietly, “We searched you!”
Agika struck the table before her. “Produce these documents or fall silent, abbess. Such claims cannot stand upon the word of the accused.”
“My hands are tied.” Glass lifted her wrists. “But if someone were to reach into my habit?” She pressed her hands to her left side. The document had spent most of the journey strapped high on her left thigh but in the seclusion of a palace privy Glass had placed it for more ready access just before coming to trial.
Sera clanked across, meeting Glass’s eyes with a puzzled look as she retrieved the parchment, then passed it to the judges and returned to her station. Pelter eyed his colleagues furiously as if the offending article should have first been delivered into his hands.
The three inquisitors crowded around the parchment, holding corners to keep it flat.
“It bears the high inquisitor’s seal . . .” Seldom said.
“A forgery.” Dimeon dismissed it with a wave. “The abbess once held that office herself! She kept her seal and—”
“It’s Gemon’s seal,” Agika said. “And his signature.”
“I’m not so sure,” Brother Dimeon rumbled.
“There is also High Priest Nevis’s seal and signature.” Agika raised her head and looked towards Glass. “Why would both men give their permission for heresy?”
Seldom stood up, staring at Glass in confusion. “And why would you keep it secret?”
Glass tilted her head and allowed herself a smile. “How else to get a full Inquisition trial beneath the roof of the emperor’s sister and the woman herself in chains before the rail?”
Laughter rose from the lords’ bench at this, some of it simple amusement, some shocked, some nervous and confused. Here and there a hint of realization dawned. Carvon Jotsis saw it and his eyes widened.
Sherzal shook her arms in an attempt to be rid of the silver chain.
“Judges!” Glass barked out the word. “Your witness has not been given permission to depart.”
Agika stood now, then Dimeon, dwarfing her. “What is the meaning of this nonsense?” he boomed.
“Honourable Sherzal!” Agika ignored her fellow judge. “You will remain, please.” She waved to Sera who, white-faced, placed herself in Sherzal’s path. All around the margins of the great chamber members of Sherzal’s personal guard exchanged confused glances.
Glass bowed her head. “I collected you three judges—”
“You did not collect them! I collected them!” Pelter shouted.
“I knew where they would be, and when,” Glass said. “I chose the time of our departure. Thus I selected them.”
“I chose the time of our departure!” A note of desperation had entered Pelter’s voice. He looked to Sherzal for support. “I arrested her!”
Glass looked up. “And I chose when to take the action that made you arrest me.” She had thought Zole might go after Nona immediately but the girl had waited until Kettle left, perhaps knowing that Kettle would not have let Nona go without some means of finding her again. Even then Zole had hesitated. She had come to Glass seeking wisdom, and Glass had told her to follow her instinct. “I wanted you to bring me here.”
“But why?” Pelter, almost helpless now.
“No court of the Inquisition could ever be set up beneath the roof of the emperor’s sister without her invitation,” Glass said. “And neither the emperor nor the immediate members of his family can be put on trial anywhere but beneath a Lansis roof.”
“But Sherzal is not on trial!” Brother Dimeon blustered.
“She will be once Sister Agika has her arrested and charged.” Glass turned her gaze on Agika. “Sherzal’s agent took the Church’s only shipheart. The case for suspicion is simple and well documented. Under questioning she will admit her guilt and return what was stolen.”
Glass had lied when she said that she had chosen the judges. Pelter had been slower to act than anticipated and their journey east more convoluted. However, Agika and Seldom had been high on Glass’s list of possibles and she had prayed they would be found. She had also been aware that Brother Dimeon would be a likely inclusion since the last report on the man had him held by his duties on the path Pelter would almost certainly follow. In a minority, however, Brother Dimeon was an asset, his loyalty to Sherzal well known.
A decade earlier, after Glass had made her decision to leave her high office atop the Tower of Inquiry, but before she had announced it, she had set several acts of forward planning in motion. Prime amongst these acts was the fall from grace of certain of her most loyal inquisitors, Seldom and Agika among them. Their arguments and growing mistrust were both public and false, a deception agreed upon by both parties. Former holders of any high office were vulnerable both to their immediate successor and to all those subordinates who resented them. What better insulation against future extremis than to promote to the top of any list of enemies men and women who held secret loyalty to her?
“There’s no evidence to base any such charge upon!” Dimeon thumped th
e table before him. Both Sherzal’s bodyguards who had flanked her at the proxy throne now moved to stand behind Sera. Safira was the first to reach her, one hand resting on a sword hilt.
Glass ignored the open threat. “Evidence abounds, Brother Dimeon! Sherzal’s own employee, placed at Sweet Mercy on her insistence, stole the shipheart. Were we talking about anyone other than the emperor’s sister and the prime instigator of the Inquisition, they would have been arrested and put to the question years ago. Only the impossibility of doing so has prevented formal accusation.”
“If this is true,” Agika placed each word with care, as if thinking furiously, “why were we three judges not informed?”
“Yes,” Brother Dimeon demanded. “We cannot be expected to put our host to the question without instruction from Gemon himself! It’s nonsense to suppose he would desire such a trial and yet issue no orders.”
Glass appreciated the judges’ reluctance. Their authority might stand on firm legal ground but they had only the fact that a full third of the Sis stood witness to ensure their safety. Had the party been concluded by the time Glass was brought to trial, as she had begun to desperately fear that it might, then Sherzal would very likely have had Glass and the inquisitors quietly murdered rather than submit to their inspection and judgment.
Safira’s proximity to Sera was a reminder of how swiftly the two Inquisition guards could be overcome. A warning not to take false comfort in the presence of two armed Church enforcers.
Glass motioned for the three judges to take their seats again, and to her surprise, they did. “No word of this possibility was sent out because Sherzal has too many ears among the Inquisition. Any communication would risk discovery. If even a hint of such an idea had reached the palace you three would never have received a formal invitation to enter the premises. Brother Pelter would have taken me to the emperor’s palace instead and hoped for a swift conviction before the wider Church and the Tower of Inquiry became involved.” Glass was willing to bet a very large sum that had Brother Dimeon received word of the plot then Sherzal would have known of it shortly after. Brother Dimeon would remain Sherzal’s creature, but fortunately Inquisition judicial panels could conduct all their business with a simple majority. A unanimous vote was never required.
“And we are now expected to . . .” Brother Seldom stared at Glass. The falling out between Glass and her former disciples had been all about her safety in the years to come. Now she had stood them both at a precipice where it was very much their safety at risk. “You want us to—”
“You’re expected to do your duty, brother. You have the opportunity to right a great wrong perpetrated against the Church. High Priest Nevis and High Inquisitor Gemon set seal and signature to the dispensation before you exactly to win you this chance to act. The Ancestor’s eyes are upon you.”
Sister Agika stood. She made a slow turn towards the outrage on Sherzal’s face, and with reluctance, as if each word pained her, she said her piece. “Honourable Sherzal, you are hereby under arrest, a prisoner of the Inquisition, charged with theft of a holy relic.”
40
“THE HEARTBEAT IS changing.” Nona stopped in the narrow passage, her hand raised before her, fingers spread as if she could feel the shipheart’s pulse.
“You’re sure?” Kettle limping up behind her.
“Why would it change?” Clera turned back, impatient, the lantern swinging.
Nona didn’t know. The beat of the shipheart at Sweet Mercy hadn’t changed from the moment she first learned to sense it to the moment it was taken. Without an answer she posed her own question. “You said these tunnels connect with Sherzal’s palace. How are we going to get away?”
“There are entrances further down the Grand Pass. We’ll get you past the guards somehow and you can be on your way. Bye-bye Tetragode, hello Sweet Mercy.”
“Kettle’s been stabbed in the leg. She can’t walk down a mountain.” Nona wasn’t sure she could either, though her strength was returning slowly.
“She won’t have to. If you get across the pass there’s a road with plenty of traffic. You can get a ride on a wagon. You’ll be back before the abbess.” Clera started to walk away again.
“How steep is this pass? Can Kettle make it ac—” Nona stopped. “‘Back before the abbess’?”
“It’s pretty steep in places but if you choose your route carefully a three-legged donkey could do it.” Clera quickened her pace, her speech quickening too.
“Clera!” Nona stood her ground.
Clera turned, face innocent, body guilty. “Yes?”
“What about the abbess?”
“Oh.” Clera lowered the lantern, leaving her face in shadow. “She’s at the palace.”
“Doing what?” Kettle and Nona asked together. Part of Nona feared that Abbess Glass would be hunting her for the Church. She pushed the thought aside. The abbess had sent Kettle to help her escape.
“The Inquisition brought her,” Clera said. “There’s to be a trial tonight.”
“We have to save her.” Nona advanced on Clera, jaw set.
“Do I have to repeat everything I said about going after Zole?” Clera hung her head. “Look, I know it’s bad, but I’m sure the old girl will wriggle out of it, and you can’t fight your way through Sherzal’s guard any more than you could fight your way through the Tetragode. She has an army gathered! A whole army!”
“To hold the pass against the Scithrowl,” Kettle said.
“We have to go after her,” Nona said.
Clera faked a cough. “Zole . . .”
“The abbess isn’t Zole!” Nona shouted. “She’s just an old woman. She must be fifty! We have to go after her. Tell her, Kettle!” She rounded on the nun.
Kettle, deadly pale where the shadows ebbed, frowned and said nothing.
“What?” Nona widened her eyes. “It’s the abbess, Kettle!”
“I know.” Kettle leaned against the rock, taking the weight off her injured leg, hissing in relief. “But she gave me this great long speech about how we weren’t to fight the Inquisition, about how if we started fighting them then where would it stop? She said it wouldn’t stop, and that the Church and the convent would be torn apart. And . . . that the Ancestor would weep to see it.”
“That’s just . . . words,” Nona said helplessly. “We have to do something.”
“Even if we could, Nona, the abbess wouldn’t thank us for it. She would turn herself over to the authority of the Church at the first opportunity.” Kettle shook her head as if imagining Abbess Glass’s condemnation. “We have to go. It’s what she would want for us. We’ll keep her in our hearts.” She offered the last thought as if for comfort, as if Nona were still a child.
“Our . . . hearts?” The corner of an understanding angled into Nona’s mind. She held out her hands, one back the way they had come, towards the Tetragode, one to the front, towards Sherzal’s palace and the Grand Pass.
“We need to move.” Clera shuffled her feet.
“Nona?” Kettle hobbled forward, shadows swirling.
“That’s why the beat changed when we travelled.” Nona spread her fingers. “I got more of one and less of the other . . .”
“What are you talking about?” Clera, curious despite herself.
“Hearts,” Nona said. “There are two shiphearts, not one. The first is behind us, the other ahead.” She looked at Kettle. “It’s our shipheart, from Sweet Mercy. I’m sure of it!”
“How sure?” Kettle set a hand to Nona’s shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter how sure she is!” Clera threw up her arms, bashing one on the rock and cursing. “You’re not going to get it back with a wounded nun and a sick novice!”
“I know it’s there.” Nona ignored Clera.
“Take us to the palace, Clera.” Kettle advanced on the girl. “We can’t leave.”
“Not going to happen.” Clera backed away.
“If we recover the shipheart the abbess will pardon your crimes, Clera.” A
s Kettle spoke the shadows thickened around them, pressing the lantern’s light back towards its source.
“But you won’t recover it,” Clera said, hand straying towards her hip. “At best you’ll die. If you’re captured they’ll get my name from you, but it will be obvious enough who helped you even if you’re killed quickly.”
“Get me close to the shipheart.” Nona remembered the awful power of the thing, seen and felt through Hessa. “If I lay hands upon it nobody will stop me.”
Kettle frowned at that, almost spoke, but bit back the words. “We have to get it back. Any price is worth paying.”
Clera made to skip away but Kettle proved too fast, seizing her arm.
“Please, Clera.” Nona fixed her eyes on her friend’s face. When Nona had shared Kettle’s mind she’d felt the strength of the compulsion Zole used. Being twisted like that by Zole’s will had woken in Nona an understanding of how to better use her own touch of marjal empathy. “We need to do this.” Nona’s guilt at manipulating her friend stood in the shadow of their cause and the memory of betrayal in another cave years ago. She let the strength of her conviction flow through the cracks in Clera’s personality, cracks that she knew of old. Ambition, pride, and a need for challenge.
“I don’t know where the shipheart is . . .” Clera started to weaken. “And Yisht might be with it. I don’t want to meet her.”
“We need you, Clera,” Nona said. “Aren’t you tired of being a tool for these people? I want you back.”
Clera frowned. “Sherzal probably keeps it in her treasury.”
“And you know where that is?” Kettle asked.
Clera’s frown vanished. “Of course!”
* * *
• • •
HAVING GIVEN CLERA some semblance of conviction Nona found her own fading as they approached the palace. She couldn’t reach the Path again so quickly. It would be many hours before she would be able even to see it. How they could hope to penetrate Sherzal’s stronghold so deeply without being overwhelmed by her guards Nona had no idea. And without the shipheart there was no chance of saving the abbess.