Clyntahn looked at the Chancellor as if he were speaking a completely unknown language, Duchairn thought. And from the Grand Inquisitor's perspective, perhaps Trynair was. After all, they'd been prepared to unleash fire, slaughter, and devastation on the entire Kingdom of Charis from the outset, so why should anyone get particularly upset over the deaths of a few dozen— or a few hundred—Charisian sailors and their wives and children?
"All right," Clyntahn said after a moment. "If you're so worried about how the Charisians can use this, then let's use it ourselves. Father Styvyn's dispatch makes it abundantly clear it was the Charisians who began the fighting. And, I might add, the Delferahkans' casualties weren't exactly light. Since they started it, I think we should tell the world exactly that. The Delferahkan authorities attempted to peacefully sequester their vessels, and instead of submitting to the instructions of the legal authorities, they resisted with deadly force. I'm sure the Charisians are going to hugely exaggerate their own casualties, so I don't see any reason why we should downplay the Delferahkans' losses. In fact, I think we should probably declare that anyone who was killed attempting to carry out Mother Church's orders to sequester those ships should be declared a martyr of God."
It wasn't "Mother Church's" decision to close the mainland ports against Charis Duchairn thought grimly. It was yours, Zhaspahr. And it was done on your authority. Amazing how your new formulation of what happened gets you off of that particular hook, isn't it?
But that wasn't the worst of it—not by a long chalk. If they declared the dead Delferahkans martyrs, then they moved an enormous stride closer to declaring all-out Holy War against Charis. No doubt that was inevitable, in the fullness of time, but Rhobair Duchairn was in no hurry to embrace that cataclysm.
And is that simply moral cowardice on your part, Rhobair? If that's our inevitable destination, why hesitate? It's God's will that His Church's authority be maintained in accordance with His plan, so how can you justify trying to avoid doing whatever is required to accomplish His ends?
"I don't know. . . ." Trynair said slowly.
"I think Zhaspahr's right," Maigwair said. The others looked at him, and it was his turn to shrug. "The smartest thing we can do is to use the semaphore to see to it that our version—the true version"—he actually managed to say that with a straight face, Duchairn noted—"reaches all the mainland realms before any lies Charis may choose to tell. And if these men were killed carrying out Mother Church's orders, then what are they, if they aren't martyrs?"
"Exactly!" Clyntahn agreed vigorously.
Trynair looked at Duchairn again, and the Treasurer General knew exactly what the Chancellor's eyes were asking him. He started to open his mouth to disagree with Clyntahn and Maigwair, then hesitated.
"Besides," Maigwair continued while Duchairn wavered, "when you look at this news alongside Nahrmahn's decision to betray us—Mother Church, I mean—there's a pattern."
"A pattern?" Trynair didn't quite manage to keep his incredulity out of his tone, and Maigwair's lips tightened.
"What I mean," he said, "is that as you pointed out just a few minutes ago, other secular rulers are going to be tempted to seek some sort of accommodation or understanding with Charis if they find themselves between the rock and the hard place. I think we need to give them a reason to think long and hard about that. And we need to make it clear to everyone in Charis exactly what stakes they're allowing their king to play for."
"How?" Duchairn asked with a distinctly sinking sensation.
"I say we formally excommunicate Cayleb, Staynair, and every single person who signed Staynair's appointment as archbishop, or Cayleb's writ of succession, or Staynair's letter to the Grand Vicar. We excommunicate Nahrmahn, Pine Hollow, and anyone else who reaches an 'understanding' or 'accommodation' with Charis. And we place all of Charis and all of Emerald under the interdict."
Duchairn's sinking sensation accelerated abruptly, but Clyntahn's eyes flashed.
"That's exactly what we ought to do," he agreed harshly. "We've been tiptoeing around from the outset, trying to avoid 'inflaming the situation,' when we've all known all along exactly where it has to end! What we should have been doing instead was putting the damned schismatics on notice, telling them exactly where they're going to end up if they persist in this defiance. And we need to tell every single one of Cayleb's subjects what sort of disaster their precious King is leading them directly to!"
"This isn't a step to take lightly," Duchairn cautioned. "And if we do take it, it isn't one we'll be able to take back later."
Excommunicating Cayleb and the others would be bad enough. Under Church law, it would absolve every child of God from obedience to them. Indeed, it would make continuing to obey them an act of defiance against the Church and against God. Assuming most Charisians were prepared to follow Church doctrine, it would in effect dissolve all legal authority in the kingdom. Yet, in many ways, the interdict would be even worse. As long as the interdict was in effect, all Church sacraments, offices, and functions within Charis would be suspended. There would be no baptisms, no weddings, no masses, no burials. And that would continue until the interdict was lifted.
Inflicting such severe and weighty punishment was, as Duchairn had said, never something to be undertaken lightly. Its consequences for the souls of those caught up in it might well be dreadful.
That was bad enough, yet it was scarcely all that might follow from Maigwair's proposed actions. The declaration of excommunication and the interdict was only one tiny step short of the declaration of Holy War, and once Holy War was openly declared, there could be no stepping back from a life or death grapple between the Church and those opposed to her.
And the one thing this isn't going to do is convince Charis to return willingly to the fold, he thought. Cayleb and Staynair would never have gone as far as they have already if they weren't prepared to go all the way, and even Zhaspahr's reports make it clear the overwhelming majority of Charisians agree with their King and their new "Archbishop." So even if we declare Cayleb excommunicate and all of Charis under the interdict, they won't care. Or, at least, they won't pay any attention. They'll continue in their allegiance to him, which will mean we've created a situation in which they'll be in direct, open defiance of Mother Church. And that will leave us with no choice but to declare Holy War in the end, whatever we might wish.
I wonder if that's exactly why Zhaspahr and Allayn are so in favor of this? Because it will commit us once and for all, before the entire world, to the complete destruction of Charis?
"It may not be a step to be taken lightly," Clyntahn said, "but it's a step we'll have to take sooner or later, Rhobair, and you know it. Given what Zahmsyn's already said, I think we have no choice but to go ahead and do it now. Take the offensive and preempt whatever distorted version of events Charis might choose to publish to the world. Unless, of course, you have a better idea?"
* * * *
Icy rain pelted down from a midnight-dark sky, although it was technically still an hour or so before official sunset. Wind lifted sheets of water, blowing it into the faces of anyone foolish enough to be out and about in it and weaving delicate veils of dancing mist where it whipped the water cascading from eaves.
None of the visitors converging on the Church of the Holy Archangel Bédard had either the time or the inclination to stop and observe the weather. The landscaped shrubbery and ornamental trees around the church flogged limbs to which the last colorful sprays of leaves still clung or waved branches already bared by approaching winter as the wind lashed at the church's solid stonework, and that was a far better metaphor for the visitors than any fanciful visions of dancing water.
The Church of the Holy Archangel Bédard was quite old. Tradition had it that Archangel Bédard's had been built within only a year or two of the Temple itself; although unlike the Temple, it was manifestly the work of mortal hands. And despite its antiquity, it was little used these days. It lay within less than
two miles of the Temple, and any who could preferred to walk the additional few thousand yards to worship at the Temple. Despite that, its age, and the fact that the Bédardists considered it the mother church of their order, meant it was carefully maintained, and like every church, its doors were perpetually unlocked, open to any worshipper at any hour, as the law required.
Yet the Temple's proximity meant the church was undeniably all but forgotten by the vast majority of the Faithful, and so it was left to itself most of the time, drowsing away in the shadows of its larger, newer, and more prestigious brothers and sisters. Indeed, most of the time people seemed to forget it was even there, which was what made it appropriate to the ends of the men gathering within it despite the pounding rain.
The last visitor arrived, slipping through the heavy wooden doors into the church's anteroom. He surrendered his cloak to a waiting under-priest, revealing the orange cassock of a vicar of the Church of God Awaiting, and then walked briskly into the church proper. The residual scent of centuries of incense, candlewax, and the printer's ink of prayer books and hymnals, greeted him like a comforting hand, despite the wet, autumnal chill which could be clearly felt even here, and he drew the perfume of Mother Church deep into his lungs.
Twenty-odd other men waited for him. Most of them wore the same orange cassock he wore, but there were others in the more modest attire of archbishops and bishops. There were even a couple of mere upper-priests, and all of them turned to look at him as he arrived among them.
"I beg your pardons, Brothers." Vicar Samyl Wylsynn's deep, beautifully trained voice, well suited to his priestly calling, carried easily through the sound of rain pounding on the church's slate roof and pattering against the stained-glass windows. "I had an unexpected visitor—on purely routine Church business—just as I was preparing to leave."
Several of the other men had tensed visibly at the words "unexpected visitor," only to relax with almost audible sighs of relief as Wylsynn finished his sentence. He smiled wryly at their reactions, then waved one hand at the pews at the front of the church.
"I believe we should probably be about our business, now that the late arrival is among you," he said. "It would never do to have to explain what the lot of us are doing out here on a night like this if someone should happen by."
As he'd intended, his choice of words engendered a fresh air of urgency, and the others settled quickly into the pews he'd indicated. He himself walked to the rail around the sanctuary, genuflected to the traditional mosaics of the Archangels Langhorne and Bédard, then rose and turned to face them once again.
"First," he said gravely, "allow me to apologize for summoning all of you on such short notice. And for asking you to gather for an unscheduled meeting. All of us are only too well aware of the risks involved in improvising meetings such as this, but I believe it's essential we and all other members of the Circle be made aware of the Group of Four's most recent decisions."
No one else spoke, and he could literally feel the intensity of their eyes as they gazed at him.
"They're reacting to two new messages," he continued. "One is from Emerald, and strongly suggests that Prince Nahrmahn has elected to align himself with King Cayleb and the 'Church of Charis.' Whether he's done so out of conviction or out of the pragmatic need to survive is more than anyone here in Zion can possibly guess at this moment. Somewhat to my own surprise, I find myself inclining to the theory that it may, indeed, be a matter of conviction, or at least a combination of the two. I base this in no small part upon past conversations with Earl Pine Hollow's younger brother, but I emphasize that it can be only an opinion at this time. Nonetheless, judging from what my sources in Clyntahn's office have been able to tell me, I believe our Grand Inquisitor's interpretation of Nahrmahn's actions is essentially accurate, whatever the Prince's motives may have been.
"The second message is from Ferayd, in the Kingdom of Delferahk. My sources were able to get me an actual copy of the original semaphore message which doesn't quite match exactly what Clyntahn reported to the other three According to the original message, the attempt to seize the Charisian galleons in the port turned into a bloodbath after someone in one of the boarding parties shot and killed a woman armed only with a belaying pin. There's no question, according to the dispatch, but that the Delferahkans shot first and that their very first victim appears to have been a woman whose sole 'crime' was to attempt to prevent them from boarding her husband's ship."
Wylsynn's face was grim, his eyes bleak, and he felt the same anger radiating from his audience.
"Once the Charisians realized they were under attack and began attempting to defend themselves, it turned even uglier," he told them. "In fact, according to this Father Styvyn's letter, only fourteen Charisians survived to be taken into custody by the Inquisition."
"Only fourteen, Your Grace?" a voice asked. The shock in Archbishop Zhasyn Cahnyr's voice was mirrored in his expression, and Wylsynn nodded.
"I'm afraid so, Zhasyn," he said heavily. "Even in a personal message to Clyntahn, this Father Styvyn didn't want to be too explicit, but there's no real question. The Delferahkan troops massacred virtually every Charisian they got their hands on, and from the very careful way 'Father Styvyn' chooses his words, I'm quite certain that one reason the troops 'got out of hand' was because they were being egged on by him and his fellow Schuelerites."
Wylsynn himself wore the sword-and-flame of the Order of Schueler, and shame made his voice even flatter and harder than it might have been otherwise.
"May God have mercy on their souls," Vicar Gairyt Tanyr murmured.
"Amen," Wylsynn agreed quietly, bowing his head. There was a moment of silence, made somehow stiller and more intense by the sound of the autumn storm lashing the church's exterior. Then Wylsynn raised his head once more.
"No one in the Office of Inquisition is going to admit what actually happened. In fact, Clyntahn hasn't even admitted the full truth to the other three. I'm not sure why. It may be that he's afraid of Duchairn's possible reaction. At any rate, the official position of Mother Church is going to be that the Charisians provoked the Delferahkans who were only attempting to peacefully board and 'sequester' their vessels. It was the Charisians' fault there was any fighting at all, and their resistance was obviously a result of their heretical rejection of Mother Church's legitimate authority to order their vessels detained. Clyntahn is also planning on grossly exaggerating the number of Delferahkan casualties while understating the number of Charisian dead."
Someone muttered something indistinct which Wylsynn felt quite certain went poorly with the speaker's high clerical rank.
"In addition to all of that," he continued, "there's the reason they're in such a hurry to get their version of events out. It seems at least some of the Charisians got away—in fact, one of the galleons must have been a heavily armed privateer, judging by the amount of carnage it appears to have wreaked on its way out of Ferayd Sound. That means it isn't going to be very long before Charis starts telling its version of what happened, and the Group of Four wants to be sure it already has its story straight and issued for public consumption before any inconvenient little truths turn up to challenge it."
"Much as I despise Clyntahn, I can understand his reasoning, Samyl," Vicar Hauwerd Wylsynn said. Hauwerd looked a great deal like his older brother, with the same auburn hair and gray eyes, although he was a member of the Order of Langhorne, not a Schuelerite. At the moment, his expression was just as grim as Samyl's, as well.
"Oh, we all understand it, Hauwerd," Samyl replied. "And they're undoubtedly correct that almost any of the mainlanders who hear the 'official' version are more likely to believe it than the Charisians' version, especially if they hear the Church's version first and get it set into their minds. Unfortunately, no one on the other side is going to believe it for a moment, and the fact that the Church is obviously lying is only going to be one more nail in the coffin of any hope of reconciliation." br />
"How realistic is that hope, anyway?" Vicar Chiyan Hysin asked.
Hysin had been born into one of the powerful Harchongese dynasties. In the Empire, more than in most Safeholdian realms, the nobility and the traditional church dynasties tended to be identical, and Hysin's older brother was a duke. Despite that, and despite the Harchongese tradition of arrogance and extreme conservatism, Hysin had been a member of the Circle since he'd been an under-priest. There were points in the doctrine of reform on which he and Wylsynn disagreed, but his dual status as secular aristocrat and Knight of the Temple Lands gave him an often invaluable perspective. And unlike most members of the Circle—including, Wylsynn admitted, himself—Hysin had always been skeptical of any possibility of peacefully resolving the Charisian schism.
"I don't know that there ever was any realistic hope," Wylsynn admitted now. "What I do know, though, is that if there ever was any such hope, the Group of Four is doing its very best to demolish it as quickly as possible. Not only are they planning to declare that every Delferahkan killed at Ferayd is a martyr of Mother Church, but they intend to excommunicate Cayleb, the entire clergy of the 'Church of Charis,' every Charisian noble who accepted Cayleb's succession and Staynair's appointment as Archbishop, and also Nahrmahn, his entire family, and anyone else who may have supported joined in, or even simply passively accepted his decision to seek terms from Cayleb. And just for good measure, they intend to place all of Emerald and all of Charis under the interdict."
"They've gone mad, Your Grace!" Cahnyr blurted.
"It sounds that way, doesn't it?" Wylsynn agreed. "As a matter of fact, the only thing that really surprised me when I heard about all of this is that they've stopped short of simply going ahead and declaring Holy War right now. Clyntahn, for one, not only sees that as inevitable but is actually eager to be about it, I think."