Pathspace

by Matthew Kennedy

Chapter 13

  Peter: “Of the backward devils”

  His Excellency, Defender of the Faith, by the grace of God the Honcho, ruler of the Lone Star Empire adjusted his sword belt and glanced at the water clock in the corner of his office. Where is the Runt? I told him the audience began at ten.

  He almost reached for the bell pull at the side of the desk, but stopped himself. It was bad enough that Jeffrey was late. Announcing the fact to his staff by summoning an adjutant to fetch him would not improve things. I swear, if he's been drinking again this early, I swear I'll...

  But the thought went unfinished. You'll what? As his only heir, the Runt could not be demoted, and the problem was, Jeffrey knew it. Impatient for a succession that could be decades away, the boy did his best to evade tutors and trainers to spend more time in his cups or the casinos, where he usually lost, secure in the knowledge that the Honcho would cover all debts as a matter of honor. If he were anyone but the Runt Peter would have had him whipped into shape by now.

  The door banged open and Jeffrey strolled in, thumbs hooked in his belt, affecting a bored expression that complained without words of the waste of his time.

  Peter rose to his feet. “It's about time. Let's go. The Pontiff is already waiting for us.”

  Four guards snapped to attention as the two of them exited the Honcho's residence. Another held open the door of the coach.

  He noted that Jeffrey was interested in the conveyance. The boy had never seen it before, of course. His crafters had been working on it for nearly a year and only completed the final touches on the vehicle last week. They had begun with a conveyance of the Ancients called a “stretch limousine” discovered in remarkably good condition in a private garage in the outskirts of Austin. The body had been lightened by removing the useless engine parts, and the top had been sawed off and replaced with a thin leather arrangement that could be pulled up to cover the occupants in the event of rain, in the manner of the “convertibles” mentioned in the old stories. The windshield had been removed to allow the reins of the four-horse team to reach the driver in the front seat. The result of these labors was a comfortable ride for at least four passengers who could sit in the ancient benches facing each other and enjoy the luxury of the car's suspension, a marvel of twenty-first century engineering. The tires, of course, had decayed long ago, and had been replaced with laminated rims fashioned from many layers of birch bark and a resinous glue compounded by the royal alchemist, who claimed the composite material would survive the wear and tear for at least six months. Materials for the expected replacements had been ordered.

  “Do you really think he'll agree to it?” Jeffrey said, interrupting the Honcho's meditations upon vehicular adaptation.

  “Eventually. But he'll probably have a lot to say about how we handle it. The Pontiff and I are in complete agreement on rebuilding civilization's infrastructure without any of the Tourist technology. But we disagree on the timetable.”

  “How so?”

  “As you know, there are only so many surviving governments on the continent. The more we absorb – “

  “You mean, conquer.”

  “Indeed. The more we conquer, the fewer are left to threaten an alliance against our expansion. To expedite the process, however, we need a mechanized army to field a decisive advantage. Which means, naturally, that we need our fuel as soon as we can get it.”

  The car slowed to negotiate a turn onto Church Lane. This was facilitated by the fact that the driver had tied the reins to the steering wheel. As he hauled the wheel around to his left, this pulled in the reins for the left-hand horses, slowing them, and permitting the right-hand horses more time to cover their longer arc of the turn.

  “Which is why you are proposing to make an exception and use swizzles and everflames to extract the oil and distill your gasoline,” said the Runt.

  “Yes. His Holiness, however, will try to argue us out of it. He's perfectly happy to accept a more gradual expansion, if it means we can avoid what he is not willing to accept as a necessary evil.”

  Jeffrey craned his neck to look at the sky. Peter could guess what he was thinking. Probably hoping there would be no rain to force them to use the leather cover, which would spoil their unobstructed view. For his part, he wasn't worried. His Meteorologist, whom the Runt referred to as the court Astrologer, had assured him there would be no rain for at least two days. He made no mention of this, however. His holiness had the same opinion of the man as Jeffrey, and it would not make their audience any smoother if the man's name were mentioned.

  “I suppose,” Jeffrey said, upon reflection, “that he might make an exception should we require extra large-fires for the conversion of all those Protestants and Mormons.”

  Peter had to smile at that. Sometimes his son surprised him. “Probably not, unless we pointed out that the available wood might be better employed for the building of more churches in the soon-to-be conquered lands.”

  He did not speak of what they both knew: that the Church had done well in the reduced circumstances Humanity faced after the Fall. What His Holiness called “the arrogance of scientific atheism” has suffered greatly when the civilization that appeared to promote it collapsed. Yes, the Church had done well after that. The problem was, other religions had, also. Many had seized upon prayer for their emotional support, once the loss of technological medicine and industrial food distribution had made survival harder. One only had to look at the Kingdom of New Israel in the Northeast and the Muslim Emirates of Dixie to see that the Church faced stiff competition for the hearts and minds of humanity.

  Peter's late grandfather had made Catholicism the official religion of the Lone Star Empire, which had endeared him to His Holiness's predecessor. It was a real coup that the old dog had gotten the Pontiff of the Americas to relocate his New Vatican to Texas. There would, perhaps, be the devil to pay when contact with Europe was reestablished. If the papacy had survived the Fall there, it might mean another war. But that, thankfully, was a long way off. No one that he knew of was spending their resources building navies.

  “Try not to make mention of the other religions today,” he advised his son. “This audience could be difficult enough without reminding His Holiness of his competition. And let me do most of the talking. I shouldn't need to remind you that any sign of disagreement between us will be looked upon by the Pontiff as a weakness to exploit for further concessions to the Church.”

  “Further concession?” Jeffrey dropped his pretense of boredom. “Does he truly believe that we need his permission for anything? Could he actually think that Grandfather gave him asylum here because he needed him?”

  Peter eyed him. “I see you have your own opinions on the matter,” he said.

  The Runt pretended interest in something outside the window. “I've made no secret of them,” he muttered.

  No, you haven't have you? You still have a lot to learn about governing before you're ready to assume the mantle. “You said often enough that you think the Church a quaint establishment, outdated and meaningless.” He shook his head. “Perhaps you imagine word of such sentiments will endear you to the population, especially those near your own age.”

  “No,” said Jeffrey, turning back to face him. “I merely see no point or honor in lying about my beliefs.”

  His father smiled at that. You just did, and you think I don't know it. But his pride at Jeffrey's attempt at deception was dampened by the knowledge that the Runt still thought he could fool him. “Then you're not as smart as I thought. Many of the people out there believe that the hardships and plagues we suffer nowadays are a punishment from God for the arrogance of the Ancients.”

  Jeffrey snorted at that. “It's far more likely that the hardships and sicknesses which you refer to are the result of losing the refrigeration, vaccines, and other advantages which the science of the Ancients used to provide, until the Tourists came and meddled in our affairs.”

  The Honcho's eyes narrowed. “Sometimes your cynicism i
s only matched by your foolishness,” he snapped. “What you say is true, but irrelevant. The majority of the public hasn't had your expensive education, your private tutors, or your access to ancient records. What they believe isn't based on the truth. It's based on what they know, or think they know.” He could hear the rising temper in his voice and took a moment to sigh and calm himself. “It has been generations since the Fall happened. None of them has ever seen a functioning refrigerator, a light bulb, an electric stove, or any other device of the Ancients. All they have, instead, are the odd coldbox, everflame, or glowtube, slowly dying. That, and the old stories.”

  “Told by the priests – as moral lessons,” his son spat. “By the flunkies of the old fraud we are on our way to kowtow to.”

  Peter managed not to slap him. Managed only because of two reasons. First, because it would be taken as a sign of weakness if he let the boy provoke him into losing control – and he wouldn't give the Runt the pleasure of thinking he was slipping. Your promotion is a long ways away, you senseless idler! But the main reason, at the moment, was that they, at that very instant, were pulling into the papal compound. If he struck the lad as he deserved for that crack, it would likely leave a mark – and he'd be damned if he'd show the Pontiff the slightest sign of division in their ranks.

  “We are not kowtowing,” he hissed. “The Church is an effective tool of statecraft. If you paid attention to your history tutor you'd know that by now. We don't have to believe in it, in order to use it. And we don't have to suffer the kind of trouble he could cause for us, if nothing more than a show of respect and courtesy will prevent it.”

  “Or a crossbow at short range.” Jeffrey grimaced. “It's not prayer that makes crops grow or herds increase.” Seeing Peter's expression, he held up his hands. “Oh, all right, I'll make nice for the sake of the Empire. I'll pretend a respect that I'll never have.”

  How did I raise such an insolent fool? It was a question he asked himself often, and he asked it yet again while they sat in the Pontiff's outer room. Could I have been that bad before my own promotion, when I was the Runt?

  The problem was, he actually agreed with the boy on many points. In a country poised for greatness, the Church contributed little and consumed much. Every bit of coin or hempscript dropped into the coffers of the Texan Catholic Church was money that could have gone to finance his growing army. And unlike other enterprises in his empire, the TCC paid no taxes on its incomes or properties, a convention as inconvenient as it was ancient.

  Still, they were needed, at least for the short term. People had to have something to believe in. Naturally, he wished that he were that something, but even he had to admit that the Honcho could not make it rain or ward off sickness. Some of the old stories said the Ancient had controlled the weather. Well, that ability was long gone. Mankind was once again at the mercy of the vagaries of Fate, and until he could offer a viable alternative to their comforting belief in a benevolent Creator watching over them, he was not going to make life harder by trying to take that away from his people.

  But what about Jeffrey? Could he make him understand before the idiot inherited the throne? Eventually, the growth of the Lone Star Empire would put them up against the Dixie Emirates. Even if he succeeded in fielding a mechanized army, the Church could come in handy then. A holy war would play out far better in the farms and cottages of the commoners than the mere continuation of the expansionist agenda. With a provoked incident here, and a widely publicized outrage there, they might even volunteer for it and make conscription unnecessary.