"They didn't go ahead and declare it yet because Trynair, at least, is smart enough to realize they have to prepare the ground for it first," Hysin said. The others looked at him, and the slightly built, dark-haired vicar shrugged. "There's never been a true Holy War in all of history," he pointed out. "Not, at least, since Shan-wei's defeat. Even the most faithful are going to have qualms about embracing The Book of Schueler's ordinances where Holy War is concerned. Despite the general belief in Dynnys' guilt, there was a great deal of shock and revulsion right here in Zion when they tortured him to death on the Temple's front steps, and that was actually mild beside what Schueler laid down for cases of large-scale heresy." The Harchongese vicar's oval eyes were hard with remembered anger and disgust. "If they expect to treat entire kingdoms to the same sort of punishment, they're going to have to whip up enough hatred, enough anger, to carry the rest of the Church hierarchy—and the common folk—along with them. Which is precisely what they're doing here."
"And what can we do to stop them?" Tanyr asked.
"I don't know," Wylsynn admitted. "We and our predecessors have been waiting for over twenty years now for the opening we need, and it's persistently eluded us. We have all the evidence we've collected over those years to prove the corruption and doctrinal perversion of people like the Group of Four. But we still don't have the opening wedge we need to make use of it."
Several heads nodded in bitter agreement, and Wylsynn managed not to grimace in even more bitter memory. He'd come so close to beating Clyntahn out as Grand Inquisitor, and if he had, he would have been in a position to use all of the evidence, all of the proof, people like him, Ahnzhelyk Phonda, Adorai Dynnys, and so many others had carefully gathered and substantiated. Of course, it was just as probable he would have gone the same way as his ancestor, Saint Evyrahard. But at least he'd been willing to try, and unlike the murdered Evyrahard, he'd carefully built at least a small core of fiercely loyal supporters who would have tried hard to watch his back as he recalled his own order and the Office of Inquisition to their high purpose of policing Mother Church, and not simply terrorizing God's children in the name of Mother Church.
"We certainly don't have any opening now," Hysin agreed. "At the moment, opinion's setting strongly in the Group of Four's support on the Council."
"Can't any of those idiots see where this is headed?" Hauwerd Wylsynn demanded. Everyone recognized it as a rhetorical question, born of bitterness and frustration, but Hysin shrugged once more.
"Frightened men see only what offers them a chance of survival, Hauwerd. Charis' military victories would be frightening enough without adding Cayleb and Staynair's open defiance into the mix. Deep down inside somewhere, all of them must recognize how corrupt we've become here in Zion and, especially, in the Temple. They're terrified of what may happen if the windows are pried open and all of their dirty little secrets are revealed openly to the flock they've been supposed to be shepherding, and the Charisians are threatening to do exactly that. Anything that lets them cling to the possibility of continuing 'business as usual' is bound to attract powerful support."
"Until they discover that it isn't going to let them do that at all," Vicar Erayk Foryst put in.
"If they discover it," Hysin replied. "Don't forget how long we've already been waiting for our opportunity. If the confrontation with Charis turns into a full-blown Holy War, then the Council as a whole is going to voluntarily surrender what's left of its decision-making power to the Group of Four on the basis that fighting and winning such a conflict requires unity and centralized direction. And that, Erayk, is precisely what Clyntahn is counting on."
"I don't think it's all cynical calculation on his part," Vicar Lywys Holdyn said. The others looked at him, and he snorted. "Don't misunderstand me. Cynical calculation would be more than enough for Clyntahn, but we'd be foolish to risk forgetting that streak of zealotry of his." Holdyn's mouth twisted as if he'd just tasted something sour. "I think he's one of those people who believes the ferocity with which he forces other people to behave buys him a degree of license. The 'good' he does so hugely outweighs his own sins that God will overlook them."
"If that is what he believes, he's going to pay a terrible price," Samyl Wylsynn observed quietly.
"Oh, I don't doubt that for a moment," Holdyn agreed. "If God knows His own, so does Shan-wei, and no mere mortal—not even the Grand Inquisitor of the Church of God Awaiting—can fool either of them when he meets them face-to-face. But in the meantime, he's in a position to wreak immense harm, and I don't see a way we can stop him."
"Unless he and the Group of Four continue to suffer reverses like Crag Reach and Darcos Sound," Tanyr pointed out. "If it's mainly fear which inspires the rest of the Council to follow them—and I think you're essentially correct about that, Chiyan—then still more, equally spectacular disasters are bound to shake the other vicars' confidence in Trynair and Clyntahn. A horrible number of people are going to be killed and maimed in the process, but if Cayleb and any allies he manages to gain can throw the Church obviously back on the defensive, I think the Group of Four's support will vanish."
"Which is a bit like saying that if the house burns down, at least you won't have to fix the leaks in the roof," Hauwerd Wylsynn observed.
"I didn't say it was an ideal solution, Hauwerd. I simply pointed out that the Group of Four's arrogance may yet be its own downfall."
"And if the Group of Four falls," Samyl Wylsynn pointed out to his brother, "then the door will be open for the Circle. Perhaps once the rest of the Council has had a chance to recognize that brute force isn't going to succeed, it will be willing to admit at least the possibility that the true answer lies in reforming the abuses the Charisians have so rightly identified and protested."
"Even if that happens, do you honestly believe this 'Church of Charis' will ever voluntarily return to Mother Church?" Foryst asked, shaking his head, and Wylsynn shrugged.
"To be honest? No." He shook his own head. "I'm beginning to come to Chiyan's view of the future, I'm afraid. By the time we're able to convince the Council that the Group of Four is leading all of us to disaster—if we ever manage to convince the others of that—too much blood will have been shed, and too much hatred will have been engendered. I'm very much afraid that whatever else happens, the schism between Charis and the Temple is unhealable."
The silence in the rain-lashed church was profound as the Circle's leader finally admitted that.
"In that case, is Clyntahn's determination to forcibly suppress the schismatics really wrong?" Holdyn asked. All of them looked at him, and he waved one hand in the air before his face. "I'm not saying the man isn't a monster, or trying to suggest that his initial solution to the 'Charisian problem' wasn't loathsome in the eyes of God. But if we've reached a point where the Charisians will never return voluntarily to Mother Church, what other option than forcing them to return will lie open to us as the vicars of God's Church?"
"I'm not certain forcing them to return, by any means, is the right course," Wylsynn replied, facing the issue squarely. "With all due respect for the traditions of Mother Church, perhaps the time's come for us to simply accept that the people of Charis are not going to submit to what amounts to foreign rule of their own church any longer."
He looked around the other, worried faces and wondered how many of them were thinking what he was. The Church's "traditions" didn't always perfectly reflect historical truth. That was one of the things which made Maikel Staynair's appointment as Archbishop of Charis—and his letters to the Temple—so dangerous. It was enormously ironic that the rebellious archbishop had chosen to base so much of his argument on Grand Vicar Tomhys' writ, On Obedience and Faith. That writ of instruction's true purpose had been to establish the doctrine of the Grand Vicar's infallibility when he spoke in the name of God. Which, as Wylsynn, for one, knew perfectly well had been a new and radically different formulation of doctrine, justified on the basis of "necessary change.
" And the same writ had moved the Church's confirmation of bishops and archbishops from the archdiocesan level to that of the vicarate itself.
That had been in the year 407, and in the five centuries since, it had become the Church's tradition that it had always been so. Indeed, most people— including many of the clergy, who should have known better—truly believed that to have been the case. Which was what made the fact that Staynair had used the same writ's authorization of canonical change when events within the world made it necessary so damnably ironic . . . and dangerous. For the Church to deny the authority of Tomhys' writ in Charis' case was to deny its authority in all cases. Including that which, ultimately, had made the vicarate the undisputed master of the Church in the first place.
From Wylsynn's perspective, that would almost certainly be a very good thing. From the perspective of the Group of Four and those like them, it was anathema, complete and total.
"All of you know my son was Dynnys' intendant," he continued. "In fact, he understood from the beginning the reasons why I actually helped Clyntahn engineer his 'exile' to Tellesberg rather than trying to fight it. I've shared most of his private letters with other members of the Circle. He's convinced—and I have great faith in his judgment—that whatever else the Charisians may be, they aren't servants of Shan-wei, and that their general hostility towards Mother Church is directed at her hierarchy—at the Group of Four . . . and at the rest of the vicarate because of our failure to restrain people like Clyntahn. So I believe we have to ask ourselves a fundamental question, Brothers. Which is more important? The outward unity of Mother Church, enforced by swords and pikes against the will of God's children? Or the continued, joyous communion of those children with God and the Archangels, even if it be through a hierarchy other than our own? If the only point of true doctrinal disagreement lies in the infallibility of the Grand Vicar and the overriding authority of the vicarate, isn't it perhaps time we considered saying to our brothers and sisters in Charis that they are still our brothers and sisters, even if they refuse to submit to the authority of the Temple? If we let them go their own way to God, with our blessing and continued prayers for their salvation, rather than attempting to force them to act in violation of their own consciences, perhaps we can at least blunt the hatred between Tellesberg and the Temple."
"Accept the schism as permanent, you mean?" Hysin asked. The Harchongese vicar seemed surprised to hear such sentiments from any Schuelerite even a Wylsynn.
"So long as it's only schism, and not true heresy, yes," Wylsynn agreed.
"That's getting much too far ahead of ourselves," Tanyr said after a moment. "First, we have to survive, and somehow Clyntahn and the others have to be taken out of the decision-making positions of Mother Church." He smiled without any humor at all. "That's quite enough of a challenge for me, I think."
"To be sure." Wylsynn nodded.
"Actually, in some ways, I find Duchairn more worrisome than Clyntahn at the moment," Hysin said. Several others looked at him questioningly and he frowned. "Unlike the rest of the Group of Four, I think Duchairn's actually rediscovered the Writ. Everything I've seen suggests a genuine resurgence of faith on his part, but he's still wedded to the rest of the Group of Four. In an odd sort of a way that actually serves to legitimize the Group of Four's policies in a way Clyntahn doesn't. . . and can't."
"Because it's obvious that unlike Clyntahn, he's not making cynical calculations—anymore, at least—you mean?"
"That's exactly what I mean, Hauwerd." Hysin nodded. "Even worse, I think he may well prove a rallying point for vicars who might otherwise support the Circle. Vicars who're genuinely tired and heartsick over the Church's abuses may see in him and in his regenerated faith the model for their own regeneration. And I'm very much afraid that whatever we may think about the acceptability of a permanent schism, Duchairn isn't prepared to entertain that concept at all."
"Perhaps it's time we started thinking about recruiting him for the Circle," Foryst suggested.
"You may be right," Samyl Wylsynn said after several seconds of careful thought. "But even if it might prove possible to recruit him, we need to be very, very cautious about how we approach him. First, because we might be wrong—he might regard us as traitors, as an internal threat to Mother Church's unity at the greatest moment of crisis in her history. But, second, because he's so close to Clyntahn. And Trynair, of course; let's not forget that our good Chancellor is scarcely an idiot, however much he may act like one upon occasion. But I would be absolutely astonished to discover that Clyntahn isn't using the Inquisition to keep tabs on his three 'allies.' If he is, and if we approached Duchairn even a little clumsily, it could be disastrous for everyone."
"Agreed," Foryst said. "And I'm not suggesting we rush right out and invite him to our next meeting. But I do think it's time we began considering this possibility seriously, and thinking about ways we might approach him if the time should come when it seems appropriate. Arguments to convince him we're right, and ways of presenting those arguments that aren't likely to trigger any alarms in Clyntahn."
"I see you haven't lost your taste for formidable challenges, Erayk," Hysin said dryly, and a chuckle ran around the seated vicars and bishops.
"Very well," Samyl Wylsynn said after the chuckle had died. "We've all been brought up to date, and we've all had a chance to discuss our current thinking where the schism—and the Group of Four—are concerned. I don't believe we're in a position to decide on any new policies or strategies at this point. Not, at least, until we've had an opportunity to see how the Group of Four's version of events in Ferayd, Charis, and Emerald plays out once it's finally presented to the rest of the Council. Between now and then, I think all of us need to pray and meditate in hopes that God will show us our true path."
Heads nodded gravely, and he smiled more naturally and openly than anyone had since their arrival.
"In that case, Brothers," he said, "won't you join me in a moment of prayer before we venture back out into all that wind and rain?"
.V.
Army Training Ground
and Manchyr Cathedral,
Duchy of Manchyr,
Kingdom of Corisande
The SNARCs deployed sensor was parked on Hektor of Corisande's right shoulder, where it provided Merlin with, among other things, an exquisitely detailed view of the prince's ear hair. There were times—many of them—when Merlin had felt severely tempted to use the sensors' self-destruct capability to remove Hektor from the equation once and for all. The remotes had been designed to be capable of working together with their clones to destroy specifically targeted circuits in enemy installations with their incendiary shaped-charge "suicide pills," and it wouldn't have been particularly difficult for him to maneuver several of them deep into the Corisandian's ear canal and use their combined charges to eliminate him while he slept.
Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to disguise what had happened, and even if Safeholdian healers had been trained by rote according to The Book of Pasquale rather than on any scientific basis, an explosive burst of flame sufficient to burn holes through tempered steel plates inside an ear canal would be hard for any postmortem exam to miss. The questions that would raise— including the inevitable allegations that the Charisians must have done it using black arts provided to them by their true mistress, Shan-wei (which, after all, would be uncomfortably close to the truth)—scarcely bore thinking upon.
It's bad enough that everyone in Corisande already thinks we tried to kill him once Merlin reflected, swiveling the sensor's field of view away from the prince's hairy earlobe and back out across the grassy hillside on which Hektor, his daughter, and the Earl of Coris sat their horses with Earl Anvil Rock. Adding charges of witchcraft to the mix couldn't make anything better!
The thought brought a slight smile to his lips, but his amusement vanished as he reflected upon what Hektor had come here to see.
Manchyr was six hours ahead of Tellesberg. Although it
would be some hours yet before the sun rose over Cayleb's capital, the morning was already well advanced in Corisande, and the troops who'd been detailed to demonstrate their new weapons for Hektor had been waiting for him and the princess for almost an hour.
"All right, Rysel," Hektor said. "Your reports have been interesting enough. I'm looking forward to seeing the actual guns."
"I don't think you'll be disappointed, My Prince," Anvil Rock told him.
"I'm not expecting to be," Hektor assured the earl.
Anvil Rock grinned at him, then nodded to the youthful officer standing beside him. The young man picked up a flag from the grass at his feet and waved it vigorously overhead. Someone down at the deployed battery of guns saw it and waved another flag in response, and the waiting gun crews swung into action.
The guns themselves looked odd, especially in comparison to the pieces Seamount was in the course of providing for Charis. The barrels were short and stubby, which only made sense, Merlin supposed, since they'd been copied directly from the sketches Captain Myrgyn had sent home. Myrgyn had sketched only the carronades the Charisian galleys had mounted in their broadsides, not the long guns they'd mounted as chase weapons, and most of the new Corisandian artillery was being made to that pattern.
Earl Tartarian had recognized the implications of the carronades' shorter inherent range once the Navy had begun test firings, and the third pour of naval artillery had increased barrel length to extend the weapons' range-Anvil Rock and his son were familiar with the modified, longer naval pieces, but they'd chosen to stick to the carronade pattern for their new field artillery That let them put considerably heavier guns into the field for the same weight of metal, and even the "field carronades," as Merlin had decided they needed to be called to separate them from proper field guns, had several times the effective range of smoothbore matchlock muskets. Against that sort of infantry weapon, the artillery Anvil Rock had designed made excellent sense. Unfortunately—or, perhaps, fortunately, from Merlin's perspective—Anvil Rock wasn't aware of the fact that the Charisian Marines were now armed with rifles, not smoothbores.