None of which seemed to faze Trynair, who simply went on speaking as if he were making some sort of genuine differentiation.
"Nowhere in any of the correspondence or diplomatic exchanges between the Knights of the Temple Lands and any of the secular rulers involved was there any discussion of Crusade or Holy War, which would surely have been the case had Mother Church moved against apostates and heretics. Clearly, Cayleb and his supporters are in possession of much of the correspondence between the Knights of the Temple Lands' secular allies and their naval commanders. As such, they must be aware of the fact that Mother Church was never involved at all and that, in fact, the entire war had its causes in purely secular motives and rivalries. Yet their immediate response has been to impiously and heretically name an apostate bishop to the primacy of the Archbishopric of Charis in defiance of the Council of Vicars as God's chosen and consecrated stewards and to flatly reject Mother Church's God-given authority over all of God's children."
He leaned back in his chair, his expression suitably grave, and Duchairn blinked. He'd never heard such a heap of unadulterated claptrap in his entire life. And yet . . .
"So what you're saying," he heard his own voice say, "is that the actions they've taken prove they were already lost to apostasy and heresy before anyone ever moved against them?"
"Precisely." Trynair waved one hand at the documents. "Look at the number of signatures, the number of seals, on these writs and Staynair's letter. How could anyone have possibly generated such a unified, prompt response to any perception of Mother Church's hostility? At least some of the nobles of Charis must be aware of the fact that the Council of Vicars and Grand Vicar Erek never authorized, far less demanded, any attack on their kingdom. And even if they weren't, Mother Church's own bishops must know the truth! Yet here they are, supporting Cayleb's illegal and impious actions. If, in fact, it were no more than a response to the attack of a purely secular alliance, Cayleb could never have secured the support of such an overwhelming majority in so short a time. The only possible explanation is that the entire kingdom has been falling steadily into the hands of the enemies of God and that those enemies have seized upon the current situation as a pretext for open defiance of the legitimate stewards of God and Langhorne here on Safehold."
Duchairn sat back in his own chair, his expression intent. It wasn't just claptrap—it was, in fact, outright dragon shit—but he saw where Trynair was headed.
And so, apparently, did Clyntahn.
"I see what you mean, Zahmsyn." There was an unpleasant glow in the Grand Inquisitor's eyes. "And you're right, of course. No doubt Cayleb and his lackeys were as surprised as anyone by the scale of their naval victories. Obviously the overconfidence and arrogance that's generated has led them to openly embrace the heretical attitudes and goals which they've been secretly nurturing for so long."
"Precisely," Trynair said again. "Indeed, I think it's highly likely—almost a certainty—that the Ahrmahk dynasty, and others who have fallen into the same sin, have been headed in this very direction ever since Haarahld insisted Archbishop Rojyr name Staynair Bishop of Tellesberg. Obviously that insistence was part of a long-standing plan to subvert Mother Church's loyalties in Charis. . . as the rest of the Council is well aware that Zhaspahr has warned everyone so many times might be the case."
Duchairn's eyes narrowed. He couldn't very well dispute Trynair's thesis, since Erayk Dynnys' failure to remove Staynair from his see and purge his archbishopric's ecclesiastic hierarchy of its Charisian elements had been one of the many crimes of which he had been convicted.
On the other hand, of the nineteen bishops who had concurred in Staynair's illegal elevation, only six were native-born Charisians, which left the question of how Haarahld, and now Cayleb, had influenced the others into supporting the Ahrmahks' criminal actions. That was a fact to which the Group of Four would undoubtedly be well advised to avoid drawing attention, he thought.
"Even so," he pointed out aloud, "that leaves us with the problem of how we respond. Whether they've been secretly planning this for years or not doesn't change the consequences we have to deal with."
"True." Trynair nodded. "However, despite the gravity of the situation, there's no need for panic or overly precipitous action. Although we may not currently possess the naval strength to act directly against Charis, Cayleb has no army. His fleet may suffice—for now—to keep the armies Mother Church may summon to her banner away from the shores of his kingdom, but he cannot threaten Mother Church's own security here in Haven or Howard. And let us not forget that Charis is a small kingdom, when all's said and done, while nine in ten of all the human souls of Safehold are found in the kingdoms and empires of Haven and Howard. Even if Cayleb controlled every ship on God's seas, he could never raise the troop strength to attack here. And so, ultimately, time must be on our side. We can always build new ships, in the fullness of time; he cannot somehow create the manpower required for him to raise whole armies, however much time he may have."
"Building fleets isn't something to be accomplished in a day, or even a five-day," Duchairn pointed out.
"Allayn?" Trynair looked at Maigwair. The Captain General straightened a bit in his chair, and his eyes lost some of their earlier sullenness. "Do we have the capacity to build a new navy?" the Chancellor continued. "And if we don't, how long will it take to create that capacity?"
"If you're asking whether or not Mother Church and the Temple Lands have the capacity to build a navy, the answer is no, not immediately," Maigwair admitted. "We could almost certainly build that capacity, but it would require us to import the carpenters, designers, and all the other skilled workers shipyards require. Or enough of them to train our own workforce, at least." He shrugged. "The Temple Lands have never been a naval power, for obvious reasons. The only 'seacoast' we have is on Hsing-wu's Passage, and that's frozen every winter."
Trynair nodded. So did Duchairn. Despite his personal opinion of Maigwair's intellect, the Church's Treasurer had to admit that when it came to implementing tasks, the Captain General frequently showed the traces of genuine ability which had gotten him elevated to the vicarate in the first place.
Of course, he thought sardonically, the fact that Allayn's uncle was Grand Vicar the year he was elevated to the orange also had just a little hit to do with it. And the problem's never been that Maigwair can't carry out instructions; it's that he's pitiful when it comes to deciding which tasks ought to be undertaken to begin with.
"I was afraid you were going to say that, Allayn," Trynair said. "I believe it might well be worthwhile to begin building up that workforce as quickly as possible, but I'd already assumed we'd be forced to look elsewhere in the short term. So what are our prospects in that direction?"
"None of the mainland realms have the concentrated shipbuilding capacity Charis possesses," Maigwair replied. "Desnair certainly doesn't, and neither does Siddarmark."
"Umpfh!" The irate grunt came from Clyntahn, and everyone looked at him. "There's no way I want to rely on Siddarmark for naval support, shipyards or no shipyards," the Grand Inquisitor said bluntly. "I don't trust Stohnar as far as I can fart. He's likely to take our money, build the ships, and then decide to throw in with Charis and use them against us!"
Duchairn frowned. The Siddarmark Republic and its growing power and apparent territorial ambitions had concerned the Group of Four and its predecessors for decades. Indeed, Siddarmark had been considered an actual, immediate threat, potentially at least, while Charis had been regarded more as a long-term cancer which must be excised before it became a threat. And Lord Protector Greyghor Stohnar, the current ruler of Siddarmark, was a dangerously capable man. Worse, he'd been elected to the protectorship. That gave him a much broader base of support than would have been the case for many an hereditary ruler who might have aroused the Church's ire. Against that backdrop, it was scarcely surprising Clyntahn should react strongly against the possibility of actually increasing Siddarmark's militar
y potential. Still . . .
"If we obviously exclude Siddarmark from any shipbuilding programs," he said in a painfully neutral tone, "Stohnar, for one, is unlikely to misconstrue our reasoning."
"Fuck Stohnar," Clyntahn said crudely, then grimaced. "Of course he's unlikely to misunderstand," he said in somewhat more temperate tones. "On the other hand, he already knows we don't trust him. God knows we've never made any great secret of it among ourselves or in our correspondence with him. Since the enmity's already there, I'm in favor of depriving him of any additional weapons he might use against us rather than worrying about how the injury to his tender sensibilities might turn him against us."
"Zhaspahr has a point, I think," Trynair said. "And we can still. . . soften the blow, I suppose, by spreading some of the gold we're not using on ships in Siddarmark around to Siddarmark's wheat farmers. For that matter, they have plenty of excess pikemen we could hire when the time comes."
"All right, then," Maigwair said, "excluding Siddarmark, and leaving Desnair and Sodar aside because they have almost as little naval capacity as we do, that really leaves only Dohlar, the Empire, and Tarot. And, of course, Corisande and Chisholm."
The last sentence was a sour afterthought, and Duchairn snorted mentally. Corisande's shipbuilding capacity was going to become a moot point as soon as Cayleb and Charis got around to dealing with Hektor, which was probably true for Tarot, as well. And unless Duchairn much missed his guess, Chisholm's building capacity was more likely to be added to that of Charis than brought to the support of Mother Church.
Dohlar and the Empire of Harchong were very different matters, however. Dohlar, at the moment, no longer had a navy, courtesy of the Royal Charisian Navy, but King Rahnyld had been attempting to increase his shipbuilding capacity for many years. And Harchong—the largest and most populous of all Safehold's kingdoms and empires—had the biggest fleet of any of the mainland realms.
"Rahnyld is going to want revenge for what happened to him," Maigwair continued, putting Duchairn's thoughts into words. "If we agree to subsidize the rebuilding of his navy, I'm sure he'll jump at it. And he'd be even happier to build ships expressly for Mother Church's service, since Dohlar would get to pocket every mark of their price at no cost to his own treasury.
"As for Harchong, most of its navy is laid up. I have no idea how much of it may be serviceable and how much of it's hopelessly rotten by now. But the Empire at least has shipyards, which we don't. And I don't think any of us would have any qualms about the Emperor's reliability."
Which was certainly true, Duchairn reflected. Harchong was the oldest, wealthiest, largest, and most conservative realm in existence. It was also arrogant, disdainful of all outsiders, and run by an efficient but deeply corrupt bureaucracy. From the Group of Four's perspective, however, what mattered just now was that the Harchong aristocracy's allegiance to Mother Church was ironclad. That aristocracy could always be relied upon to come to Mother Church's defense in return for Mother Church's validation of its privileges and power over the hapless serfs who drudged away their lives on its huge, sprawling estates.
"I'll have to do some research before I could give you any hard and fast numbers," Maigwair said. "I believe that between Harchong and Dohlar, we could probably come close to matching Charis' present building capacity, though. Charis will probably do everything that it can to increase its capacity, of course, but it simply doesn't have the manpower—or the wealth—to match the extent to which we could expand Harchong's and Dohlar's shipyards."
"What about Trellheim?" Clyntahn asked, and Maigwair's face tightened in scorn, or possibly disgust.
"None of those lordlings have more than a handful of galleys apiece," he said, "and the lot of them are nothing more than common pirates. If they had the ship strength to make their raids on Harchong's coastal shipping more than a nuisance, the Emperor would already have conquered them outright long ago."
Clyntahn grunted again, then nodded in agreement.
"So it would appear to me," Trynair said in his patented summarizing fashion, "that we're in agreement that one of our first steps must be to undertake a major naval expansion through Harchong and Dohlar. Until Allayn's had an opportunity to conduct his research, we don't know how long that's going to take. I'd be surprised, however, if it takes less than a year or two, at the very best. During that time, we will remain secure against attack here, but we'll be unable to take the offensive against Charis. So our immediate concern is how to address that period in which we can't effectively attack them— with fleets or armies, at least—and how to deal with our fellow vicars' reaction to these . . . tumultuous events."
"It's clearly our responsibility to prevent any weaker souls among the vicarate from overreacting to the current provocation, despite the undoubted seriousness of that provocation," Clyntahn said. "Charis has bidden defiance to the Church, to the Archangels, and to God Himself I believe we must quench any sparks of panic among those weaker souls by making it clear to the entire vicarate that we have no intention of allowing that defiance to stand. And that we intend to deal. . . firmly with any additional outbreaks of defiance. That will be the Inquisition's task."
The Grand Inquisitor's face was hard and cold.
"At the same time, however, we must prepare the entire Council for the reality that it will take time for us to forge the new weapons we need for our inevitable counterstroke," he continued. "That may be difficult in the face of the deep concern many of our brothers in God will undoubtedly feel, and I believe your earlier point was well taken, Zahmsyn. We must make it clear to those . . . concerned souls that Charis' apparent strength, and Charis' initial victories, are not a threat to us, but rather a sign to Mother Church. A warning we must all heed. Indeed, if one considers the situation with unclouded eyes, secure—as one ought to be—in one's faith, the hand of God Himself is abundantly clear. Only the achievement of such an apparently overwhelming triumph could have tempted the secret heretics of Charis into openly revealing themselves for what they are. By permitting them their transitory victory, God has stripped away their mask for all to see. And yet, as you say, Zahmsyn, He's done this in a way which still leaves them unable to truly threaten Mother Church or undermine her responsibility to guide and protect the souls of all His children."
Trynair nodded again, and an icy quiver ran through Duchairn's bones. The Chancellor, he felt certain, had evolved his explanation as if he were solving a chess problem, or perhaps any of the purely secular machinations and strategies his office was forced to confront daily. It was an intellectual ploy based on pragmatism and the naked realities of politics at the highest possible level. But the glitter it had lit in Clyntahn's eyes continued to glow. Whatever the Chancellor might think, and however capable of cynical calculation the Grand Inquisitor might be when it suited his purposes, the fervent conviction in Clyntahn's tone was most definitely not feigned. He had embraced Trynair's analysis not simply out of expediency, but because he believed it, as well.
And why does that frighten me so? I'm a Vicar of Mother Church, for God's sake! However we came to where we are, we know what God demands of us, just as we know that God is all-powerful, all-knowing. Why shouldn't He have used our own actions to reveal the truth about Charis? Show us how deep the rot truly runs in Tellesberg?
Something happened deep in Rhobair Duchairn's heart and soul, and another thought occurred to him.
I have to think about this, spend time in prayer and meditation, pondering the Writ and The Commentaries. Perhaps people like the Wylsynns have been right all along. Perhaps we have grown too arrogant, too enamored of our power as secular princes. The Charisians may not be the only ones whose mask God has decided to strip away. Perhaps this entire debacle is God's mirror, held up to show us the potential consequences of our own sinful actions and overweening pride.
It was not, he knew, a suggestion to be brought forth at this moment, in this place. It was one to be considered carefully, in the stillne
ss and quiet of his own heart. And yet . . .
For the first time in far too many years, in the face of obviously unmitigated disaster, Vicar Rhobair Duchairn found himself once more contemplating the mysterious actions of God through the eyes of faith and not the careful calculation of advantage.
.II.
Queen Sharleyan's Palace,
City of Cherayth,
Kingdom of Chisholm
Trumpets sounded and the batteries protecting the Cherry Bay waterfront blossomed with smoke as they thudded their way through a sixteen-gun salute. Indignant seabirds and wyverns made their opinion of the goings-on abundantly clear as they wheeled, screeched, and scolded across a sky of springtime blue. The brisk wind out of the east lofted them easily as it blew across the sheltering peninsula known as The Sickle, which shielded Cherry Bay and the city of Cherayth from the often rough weather of the North Chisholm Sea, and the air was refreshingly cool.
Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm stood at a window high up in Lord Gerait's Tower on the seaward side of the palace which had been her family's home for two centuries, looking out over the orderly stone houses, streets, warehouses, and docks of her capital as she watched the four galleons sailing majestically into its harbor. The winged tenants of Cherry Bay might be filled with indignation at the disturbance of their normal routine, but they had no idea just how disturbing she found all this, she reflected.
Sharleyan was a slender, not quite petite young woman who'd just turned twenty-four. Despite the occasional fawning versification of particularly inept court poets, she wasn't a beautiful woman. Striking, yes, with a determined chin, and a nose which was just a bit too prominent (not to mention a bit too hooked). But her dark hair, so black it had blue highlights in direct sunlight and so long it fell almost to her waist when it was unbound, and her huge, sparkling brown eyes somehow deceived people into thinking she was beautiful. Today, Sairah Hahlmyn, her personal maid since she was nine, and Lady Mairah Lywkys, her senior lady-in-waiting, had dressed that hair in an elaborate coiffure, held in place by jeweled combs and the light golden circlet of a presence crown, and those lively eyes were dark and still and wary.