by David Weber
And it would appear there’s quite a bitto respect about the Archbishop, Ahdymsyn thought. Rather more than there was to respect about me in the good old days, at any rate!
His lips twitched again, remembering certain conversations which had once passed between him and then- Bishop Maikel Staynair. It was, he reflected (for far from the first time), a very fortunate thing that Staynair’s sense of humor was as lively as his compassion was deep.
The door closed behind the departing aide, and Gairlyng returned his attention to his guests. He’d gotten to know Mahkhynroh surprisingly well over the past month or two. Or perhaps not surprisingly well, given how closely he’d been compelled to work with the other man since his own elevation to the primacy of Corisande and Mahkhynroh’s installation as the Bishop of Manchyr. He wouldn’t have gone quite so far as to describe the two of them as friends yet. “Colleagues” was undoubtedly a better term, at least this far. They shared a powerful sense of mutual respect, however, and he’d come to appreciate that Mahkhynroh had been chosen for his present position at least in part because he combined a truly formidable intellect with a deep faith and a remarkably deep well of empathy. Despite his installation by a “foreign, heretical, schismatic church,” he’d already demonstrated a powerful ability to listen to the priests—and laity—of his bishopric. Not simply to listen, but to convince them he was actually hearing what they said . . . and that he would not hold frank speaking against them. No one would ever accuse him of weakness or vacillation, but neither could any honest person accuse him of tyranny or intolerance.
Ahdymsyn, on the other hand, was so far a complete unknown. Gairlyng knew at least the bare bones of his official history, yet it was already obvious there were quite a lot of things that “official history” had left out. He knew Ahdymsyn had been Archbishop Erayk Dynnys’ bishop executor in Charis before Dynnys’ fall from grace and eventual execution for heresy and treason. He knew Ahdymsyn came from a merely respectable Temple Lands family, with considerably fewer—and lower placed—connections than Gairlyng’s own family could boast. He knew Ahdymsyn, as bishop executor, had more than once reprimanded and disciplined Archbishop Maikel Staynair when Staynair had been simply the Bishop of Tellesberg, and that he had been imprisoned—or, at least, placed under “house arrest”— following the Kingdom of Charis’ decision to openly defy the Church of God Awaiting. And he knew that since that time, Ahdymsyn had become one of Staynair’s most trusted and valued “troubleshooters,” which explained his current presence in Corisande.
What Gairlyng did not know, and what it was becoming rapidly evident to him he’d been mistaken about, was how—and why—Zherald Ahdymsyn had made that transition. He thought about that for a few seconds, then decided forthrightness was probably the best policy.
“Forgive me, My Lord,” he said now, returning Ahdymsyn’s level regard, “but I’ve begun to suspect that my original assumptions about how you . . . come to hold your present position, shall we say, may have been somewhat in error.”
“Or, to put it another way,” Ahdymsyn said dryly, “your ‘original assumptions’ were that, having seen the way the wind was blowing in Charis, and realizing that, what ever defense I might present, the Grand Inquisitor and the Chancellor were unlikely to be overjoyed to see me again in the Temple or Zion, I decided to turn my coat—or would that be my cassock?— while the turning was good. Would that be about the size of it, Your Eminence?”
That, Gairlyng decided, was rather more forthrightness than he’d had in mind. Unfortunately...
“Well, yes, actually,” he confessed, reminding himself that however he’d become one, he was an archbishop while Ahdymsyn was merely a bishop. “As I say, I’ve begun to think I was wrong to believe that, but while I don’t believe I’d have phrased it quite that way, that was more or less my original assumption.”
“And, no doubt, exactly the way it was presented to you here in Corisande before the invasion,” Ahdymsyn suggested.
“Yes,” Gairlyng said slowly, his tone rather more thoughtful, and Ahdymsyn shrugged.
“I don’t doubt for a minute that the Group of Four’s presented things that way, what ever they truly think. But neither, in this case, do I doubt for a moment that that’s exactly what they think happened.” He grimaced once more. “Partly, I’m confident, because that’s precisely the way they would have been thinking under the same circumstances. But also, I’m very much afraid, because they’ve spoken with people who actually knew me. I hate to admit it, Your Eminence, but my own attitudes—the state of my own faith—at the time this all began ought to make that a very reasonable hypothesis for those who were well acquainted with me.”
“That’s a remarkably forthright admission, My Lord,” Gairlyng said quietly, his chair squeaking ever so softly as he leaned back in it. “One I doubt comes easily to someone who once sat as close to an archbishop’s chair as you did.”
“It comes more easily than you might think, Your Eminence,” Ahdymsyn replied. “I don’t say it was a pleasant truth to face when I first had to, you understand, but I’ve discovered the truth is the truth. We can hide from it, and we can deny it, but we can’t change it, and I’ve spent at least two- thirds of my allotted span here on Safehold ignoring it. That doesn’t give me a great deal of time to work on balancing the ledger before I’m called to render my accounts before God. Under the circumstances, I don’t think I should waste any of it in pointless evasions.”
“I see,” Gairlyng said. And I’m beginning to think I see why Staynair trusted you enough to send you here in his name, the archbishop added silently. “But since you’ve been so frank, My Lord, may I ask what actually led you to ‘face the truth,’ as you put it, in the first place?”
“Quite a few things,” Ahdymsyn replied, sitting back in his own chair and crossing his legs. “One of them, to be honest, was the fact that I realized what sort of punishment I would face if I ever did return to the Temple Lands. Trust me, that was enough to give anyone pause . . . even before that butcher Clyntahn had Archbishop Erayk tortured to death.” The ex- bishop executor’s face tightened for a moment. “I doubt any of us senior members of the priesthood ever actually gave much thought to having the Penalty of Schueler levied against us. That was a threat—a club—to hold over the heads of the laity in order to frighten them into doing God’s will. Which, of course, had been revealed to us with perfect clarity.”
Ahdymsyn’s biting tone could have chewed chunks out of the marble façade of Gairlyng’s palace, and his eyes were hard.
“So I hadn’t actually anticipated that I might be tortured to death on the very steps of the Temple,” he continued. “I’d accepted that my fate was going to be unpleasant, you understand, but it never crossed my mind to fear that. So I’d expected, at least initially, that I’d be incarcerated somewhere in Charis, probably until the legitimate forces of Mother Church managed to liberate me, at which point I would be disciplined and sent to rusticate in disgrace, milking goats and making cheese in some obscure monastic community up in the Mountains of Light. Trust me, at the time I expected that to be more than sufficient punishment for someone of my own exquisite epicurean tastes.”
He paused and looked down, and his eyes softened briefly, as if at some memory, as he stroked one sleeve of his remarkably plain cassock. Then he looked back up at Gairlyng, and the softness had vanished.
“But then we learned in Tellesberg what had happened to the Archbishop,” he said flatly. “More than that, I received a letter from him—one he managed to have smuggled out before his execution.” Gairlyng’s eyes widened, and Ahdymsyn nodded. “It was written on a blank page he’d taken from a copy of the Holy Writ, Your Eminence,” he said softly. “I found that remarkably symbolic, under the circumstances. And in it, he told me his arrest—his trial and his conviction—had brought him face- to- face with the truth... and that he hadn’t liked what he’d seen. It was a brief letter. He had only the single sheet of paper, and I think he was writing in
haste, lest one of his guards surprise him at the task. But he told me— ordered me, as my ecclesiastic superior— not to return to Zion. He told me what his own sentence had been, and what mine would undoubtedly be if I fell into Clyntahn’s hands. And he told me Clyntahn’s Inquisitors had promised him an easy death if he would condemn Staynair and the rest of the ‘Church of Charis’’ hierarchy for apostasy and heresy. If he would confirm the Group of Four’s version of the reason they’d chosen to lay waste to an innocent kingdom. But he refused to do that. I’m sure you’ve heard what he actually said, and I’m sure you’ve wondered if what you heard was the truth or some lie created by Charisian propagandists.” He smiled without any humor at all. “It would certainly have occurred to me to wonder about that, after all. But I assure you, it was no lie. From the very scaffold on which he was to die, he rejected the lies the Group of Four had demanded of him. He rejected the easy death they’d promised him because that truth he’d finally faced was more important to him, there at the very end of his life, than anything else.”
It was very quiet in Gairlyng’s study. The slow, measured ticking of the clock on one of the archbishop’s bookcases was almost thunderous in the stillness. Ahdymsyn let that silence linger for several moments, then shrugged.
“Your Eminence, I knew the reality of the highest levels of Mother Church’s hierarchy... just as I’m sure you’ve known them. I knew why Clyntahn had the Archbishop sentenced, why for the first time ever the Penalty of Schueler was applied to a senior member of the episcopate. And I knew that, what ever his faults—and Langhorne knows they were almost as legion as my own!— Erayk Dynnys did not deserve to die that sort of death simply as a way for a hopelessly corrupt vicarate to prop up its own authority. I looked around me in Charis, and I saw men and women who believed in God, not in the corrupt power and ambition of men like Zhaspahr Clyntahn, and when I saw that, I saw something I wanted to be. I saw something that convinced me that, even at that late a date, I—even I— might have a true vocation. Langhorne knows, it took God a while to find a hammer big enough to pound that possibility through a skull as thick as mine, but He’d managed it in the end. And, in my own possibly long- winded way, that’s the answer to your question. It’s not the answer to all of my questions—not yet—I’m afraid, but it’s something just as important. It’s the start of all my questions, and I’ve discovered that, unlike the days when I was Mother Church’s consecrated vice regent for Charis, with all the pomp and power of that office, I’m eager to find answers to those questions.”
Ahdymsyn drew a deep breath, then he shrugged.
“I’m no longer a bishop executor, Your Eminence. The Church of Charis doesn’t have those, but even if it did, I wouldn’t be one again. Assuming anyone would trust me to be one after the outstanding job I did last time around!”
It was no smile, this time. It was a broad, flashing grin, well suited to any youngster explaining that fairies had just emptied the cookie jar. Then it faded again, but now the eyes were no longer hard, the voice no longer burdened with memories of anger and guilt. He looked at Gairlyng from a face of hard-won serenity, and his voice was equally serene.
“I’m something far more important than a ‘bishop executor,’ now, Your Eminence. I’m a priest. Perhaps for the first time in my entire life, really, I’m a priest.” He shook his head. “Frankly, that would be far too hard an act for any high episcopal office to follow.”
Gairlyng gazed back at him for a long, thoughtful moment, then looked at Mahkhynroh. None of that had been the answer he’d expected out of Zherald Ahdymsyn, yet somehow it never occurred to him for a moment to doubt the other man’s sincerity.
Which is the biggest surprise of all, really,he thought. And where does that leave you, Klairmant?
He thought about that carefully. He was the consecrated Archbishop of Corisande, as far as the Church of Charis was concerned. Which, of course, made him an utterly damned apostate heretic where the Church of God Awaiting was concerned. After what had happened to Erayk Dynnys, as Ahdymsyn had just reminded him, there was no doubt in his mind what would happen if he or Ahdymsyn or Mahkhynroh ever fell into the hands of the Inquisition. That was a thought fit to wake a man wrapped in the cold sweat of nightmares, and it had, on more than one occasion. In fact, it had awakened him often, making him wonder what in the world—what in God’s name—he’d thought he was doing when he accepted his present office.
And now this.
As archbishop, he was Ahdymsyn’s ecclesiastic superior. Of course, Ahdymsyn wasn’t assigned to his archbishopric, so he’d properly come under Gairlyng’s orders only when those orders did not in any way conflict with instructions he’d already received from Maikel Staynair. Still, in this princedom, in this arch-bishopric, and this office, Ahdymsyn could neither give Gairlyng orders nor pass judgment upon him. All he could do was report back to Staynair, who was thousands of miles away in Chisholm, assuming he’d met his planned travel schedule, or even farther away than that, in Emerald or in transit between Eraystor and Cherayth, if his schedule had slipped. Yet Ahdymsyn was Staynair’s personal representative. He was here specifically to smooth the way, prepare the ground, for Staynair’s first pastoral visit to Corisande. Despite everything, Gairlyng had expected a far more overtly political representative, especially given Ahdymsyn’s hierarchical pedigree. But what he’d gotten . . . what he’d gotten raised almost as many questions in his own mind—questions about himself— as they’d answered about Zherald Ahdymsyn.
“My Lord,” he said finally, “I’m honored by the honesty with which you’ve described your own feelings and beliefs. And I’ll be honest and say it had never occurred to me that you might have . . . sustained that degree of genuine spiritual regeneration.” He raised one hand, waving it gently above his desk. “I don’t mean to imply that I believed you’d accepted your present office solely out of some sort of cynical ambition, trying to make the best deal that you could out of the situation which had come completely apart for you in Charis. But I must confess I’d done you a grave disser vice and assumed that that was much of what had happened. Now, after what you’ve just said, I find myself in a bit of a quandary.”
“A quandary, Your Eminence?” Ahdymsyn arched one eyebrow, and Gairlyng snorted.
“Honesty deserves honesty, My Lord, especially between men who both claim to be servants of God,” he said.
“Your Eminence, I doubt very much that you could—in honesty—tell me anything that would come as a tremendous surprise,” Ahdymsyn said dryly. “For example, I would be surprised—enormously surprised—to discover that you had accepted your present archbishopric solely out of a sense of deep loyalty and commitment to the Empire of Charis.”
“Well,” Gairlyng’s voice was even drier than Ahdymsyn’s had been, “I believe I can safely set your mind to rest upon that point. However,” he leaned forward slightly and his expression became far more serious, even somber, “I must admit that despite my very best efforts, I felt more than one mental reservation when I took the vows of my new office.”
Ahdymsyn cocked his head to one side, and Gairlyng glanced quickly at Mahkhynroh. This wasn’t something he’d admitted to the Bishop of Manchyr, yet he saw only calm interest in the other man’s eyes before he looked back at Ahdymsyn.
“First, I would never have accepted this office, under any circumstances, if I hadn’t agreed Mother Church—or the vicarate, at least—has become hopelessly corrupt. And when I say ‘hopelessly,’ that’s exactly the word I meant to use. If I’d believed for one moment that someone like Zahmsyn Trynair might demand reform, or that someone like Zhaspahr Clyntahn would have permitted it if he had, I would have refused the archbishopric outright and immediately. But saying I believe Mother Church has been mortally wounded by her own vicars isn’t the same thing as saying I believe the Church of Charis must automatically be correct. Nor does it mean I’m somehow magically free of any suspicion that the Church of Charis has been co- opted by the Empire of Chari
s. Mother Church may have fallen into evil, but she was never intended to be the servant of secular political ambitions, and I won’t willingly serve any ‘Church’ which is no more than a political tool.” He grimaced. “The spiritual rot in Zion is itself the result of the perversion of religion in pursuit of power, and I’m not prepared simply to substitute perversion in the name of the power of princes for perversion in the name of the power of prelates.”
“Granted.” Ahdymsyn nodded. “Yet the problem, of course, is that the Church of Charis can survive only so long as the Empire of Charis is able to protect it. The two are inextricably bound up with one another, in that respect, at least, and there are inevitably going to be times when religious policy is shaped by and reflects political policy. And the reverse, I assure you.”
“I don’t doubt that for a moment.” Gairlyng reached up and squeezed the bridge of his nose gently between thumb and forefinger. “The situation is so incredibly complicated, with so many factions, so many dangers, that it could hardly be any other way.” He lowered his hand and looked directly at Ahdymsyn. “Still, if the Church is seen as a creature of the Empire, she will never gain general acceptance in Corisande. Not unless something changes more dramatically than I can presently imagine. In that regard, it would have been far better if she had been renamed the ‘Reform Church,’ perhaps, instead of the Church of Charis.”
“That was considered,” Ahdymsyn told him. “It was rejected because, ultimately, the Group of Four was inevitably going to label it the ‘Church of Charis,’ what ever we called it. That being so, it seemed better to go ahead and embrace the title ourselves—I speak here using the ecclesiastic ‘we,’ of course,” he explained with a charming smile, “since I was not myself party to that particular decision. And another part of it, obviously, was that mutual dependence upon one another for survival which I’ve already mentioned. In the end, I think, the decision was that honesty and forthrightness were more important than the political or propaganda nuances of the name.”