A Mighty Fortress

by David Weber

  And that was precisely what they’d done. The excommunicate traitors had dared—dared!—to defrock a priest made by the Grand Vicar’s hands in the Temple itself. They’d set their Shan- wei- accursed pride and arrogance above all else, above the Archangels and even God Himself, and told him he was no longer God’s priest. That they— they—had judged him a criminal not simply against the secular puppets of Charis, but against the law of God. They had declared that the execution of the traitor Hahskans had been not the Inquisition’s justice, but simple murder. And that even greater traitor, Gairlyng—“Archbishop Klairmant”— had actually stood in judgment and declared that he, Waimyn, as the one who had ordered that execution, had violated the sanctity of the priest-hood by his actions. Gairlyng, the foresworn, excommunicated apostate, had passed judgment on the legitimate Intendant of Corisande and in profane and heretical violation of every ecclesiastic law, expelled Waimyn from the priesthood of the Church for the “torture and murder of a fellow priest, brother, and innocent child of God.”

  Waimyn had been unable to believe anyone could have the sheer effrontery, the insolence before God, to claim authority to do any such thing. Yet the “archbishop” had done precisely that, and the secular authorities had accepted his judgment. Indeed, they had applauded it.

  He realized his teeth were grinding once again, and made himself stop. It wasn’t easy. He’d gotten into the habit over the five- days of his imprisonment, and he smiled bleakly, without humor, as he reflected that at least he wouldn’t have to worry about that particular problem very much longer.

  He pushed away from the window and paced slowly back and forth across his cell. It was better than some cells, he supposed, but, once again, it was the cell of a common criminal. Ten feet on a side, with a narrow cot, one table, a chair, a pitcher of water, a washbasin, a battered cup, and a chamber pot. That was all, aside from the copy of the Holy Writ they’d oh- so- graciously permitted him. The austerity had been yet one more calculated insult, a way to underscore their contempt for the man who was Mother Church’s chosen champion.

  In the end, though, they hadn’t had the courage—or the insolence—to truly carry through on the beliefs they proclaimed so loudly. Aidryn Waimyn was only too well aware of the penalties The Book of Schueler prescribed for anyone guilty of the crimes for which they had convicted him. Indeed, what had been done to the traitor Hahskans had been well short of the fullness of those penalties; it had simply been the best that could be done in the time and with the tools available.

  Waimyn was a Schuelerite. If anyone knew that, he did, and he wasn’t going to pretend, even to himself, that he wasn’t prayerfully grateful they’d been too cowardly to put him to the Question or decree the Punishment of Schueler. The thought of the wheel, the rack, the white- hot irons—of castration and blinding, of having his belly slit and his intestines drawn forth living, and then the fire—was enough to terrify any man, and rightly so. Schueler had instituted those penalties as much to deter such crimes as to punish them. Yet had “Archbishop Klairmant” and his lapdog Regency Council truly possessed the courage of their convictions, they would have decreed the full Punishment of Schueler for his alleged crimes, not settled for a simple hanging.

  His lips twitched with contempt as he recalled what the “Church of Charis” called an interrogation. They’d refused to employ even the most gentle of the Inquisition’s techniques. Sleep deprivation, yes, and endless relays of interrogators, hammering away, hammering away, hammering away. And he had to admit they’d gotten more out of him than he’d expected. That had been mostly because they already knew so much, though. It had proven far harder than he’d ever anticipated not to answer their questions when they’d already demonstrated they knew at least two- thirds of the answers before they ever asked. And as the fatigue mounted, it had become harder and harder to prevent little bits and pieces from dribbling out.

  But they didn’t get the big admission out of me,he thought grimly. They came closer than they ever guessed more than once, but they never got it. That secret held, at least. They knew—or they sure as Shan- wei suspected— who gave the order, but they obviously don’t have any evidence of it, and Cahmmyng, at least, must have gotten away. That bastard would’ve betrayed me in a minute, if the offer was right. But they never got me to admit it—not once! His eyes flickered with grim, hating triumph—and contempt for his enemies—at the thought. The fools. Anyone can be made to confess with the proper persuasion, an Inquisitor knows that if anyone does! If they’d been willing to put the Question, they’d have gotten it out of me, however hard I tried to resist, but the cowards wouldn’t do it.

  The secular authorities had been more willing to accept . . . rigorous techniques. Indeed, Waimyn had been shocked by the readiness of common soldiers to lay violent, impious hands on his person. It seemed the traitor Hahskans had been even more popular with Gahrvai’s troops than with the bulk of Manchyr’s citizens. The sheer, blazing hatred in their eyes when they learned Waimyn had ordered the priest’s kidnapping and execution had stunned the intendant, and the fists and boots which followed had been even worse. He’d been battered, bruised, bleeding, half- naked, and less than half- conscious when a captain, two lieutenants, and a quartet of leather- lunged sergeants rescued him. And there’d been a time or two here, in the prison, when one of his jailers had helped him “fall” or a pair of them had administered a brutally skilled, methodical beating that left no bruises where anyone was likely to see them.

  At first, he’d thought the soldiers responsible for those actions had actually been acting under orders. That they were the true face of the “Church of Charis’ ” pious public disavowal of the Inquisition’s methods. But he’d gradually decided he was wrong. First, because it was so haphazard, so uncoordinated and inefficient. Any Inquisitor worth his salt would have managed the whole thing far better, far more effectively, without ever officially Questioning the prisoner. Waimyn had done precisely that at least a dozen times during his own novitiate, after all.

  But second, and probably even more conclusive, at least three jailers who’d been responsible for giving him “special treatment” had been severely disciplined by their own superiors. It hadn’t stopped the occasional abuse, yet he was convinced their punishment had been genuine.

  When he’d finally accepted that, he’d felt two conflicting emotions. One was an even deeper contempt for his captors, for their craven refusal to interrogate him effectively even under the cover of “spontaneous” actions by common soldiers. But the other, the one which still shocked and confused him, was the realization that the soldiers were doing it on their own. That the troopers were so furious over Hahskans’ death that they were actually defying orders to beat and abuse a consecrated priest.

  And worse, far worse, was the crushing realization that the soldiers weren’t alone in their anger.

  Despite everything else they’d done, his captors had at least permitted him access to clergy. He had no doubt their willingness to allow that was just as much a thing of cynical calculation as everything else they’d done, but he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t grateful. They’d even allowed him a true priest—one of God’s servants who’d had the integrity and moral and spiritual courage to remain an openly observant “Temple Loyalist”— rather than giving him the opportunity to reject their own false and faithless clergy. He’d been permitted to make confession, but as a condemned murderer, he was not permitted to speak privately even with his confessor. A priest of the “Church of Charis” was always present, sworn (of course) to respect the sanctity of the confessional (not that Waimyn believed for a moment he actually would) even as he enforced the legal restrictions upon the confessional. That had prevented Waimyn from using it to pass messages to anyone outside the prison via the confessor. On the other hand, he hadn’t had anyone left to pass messages to, either, given the clean sweep Gahrvai had made.

  But the confessor’s thrice- a-five- day visits had given him at least a limited window on even
ts beyond Kahsimahr Prison’s walls, and that window had confirmed his captors’ version of events in Manchyr. The other priest hadn’t wanted to tell him that—out of pity and compassion, Waimyn suspected. He hadn’t wanted the intendant to discover how completely and utterly he’d failed. Yet in the end, the bits and pieces he’d been willing to admit had convinced Waimyn the stories of his interrogators, the taunts of his jailers and the jeers of the common soldiers, had been only too true.

  So now he was to hang, his great work in God’s name completely undone by the stupid credulity and gushing sentimentality of the ignorant, unwashed cretins who had allowed themselves to slobber over a single provincial upper-priest and the justified fate his betrayal of God and his own vows had brought upon him.

  Aidryn Waimyn closed his eyes again, pacing, pacing, pacing, while the smoking lava of hatred, failure, and despair flowed through him.

  “It’s confirmed, Your Eminence,” Wahlys Hillkeeper, the Earl of Craggy Hill, said grimly. “I’ve just had a runner from the semaphore station. They hanged him this morning.”

  “May God and the Archangels welcome him as their own,” Bishop Executor Thomys Shylair murmured, tracing Langhorne’s Scepter.

  There was a moment of silence, a stillness, in the luxuriously appointed chamber. It was so quiet they could hear the distant voices of the city of Vahlainah from beyond the walls of the earl’s palatial residence. Crag House was more mansion than castle, although it was surrounded by a twenty- foot wall. It was also large enough, and possessed of enough... unobtrusive entrances and exits, that Shy-lair felt reasonably safe visiting it. It wasn’t as remote and as secure as the tiny monastery outside Serabor where he’d been the guest of Amilain Gahrnaht, the legitimate Bishop of Larchros, but it was secure enough. Especially now that Craggy Hill, like the Earl of Storm Keep and Baron Larchros, had quietly increased his own strength of armsmen.

  And, to be honest,Shylair thought now, I feel a lot more secure here than I felt in Sardor.

  The bishop executor’s well- trained face showed no sign of his mental grimace. He and Mahrak Hahlynd, his secretary and aide, had been the “guests” of Mailvyn Nohrcross, the Bishop of Barcor, for almost a month before they moved on to Larchros. Nohrcross was one of the senior clergymen who’d sworn obedience to the “Church of Charis” in order to retain his see, and he’d offered what seemed the most promising port in the storm when Shylair fled Manchyr. In the event, however, Nohrcross’ palace in Sardor, the capital of the Barony of Barcor, had proved less suitable than he’d hoped.

  The fact that Nohrcross had sworn to obey and follow directives from “Archbishop Klairmant” had bothered neither him nor Shylair, since no one could swear a valid oath to someone Mother Church had excommunicated. And Shylair was confident of Nohrcross’ loyalty to the legitimate Church. His outrage and anger over the heresy of the “Church of Charis” certainly seemed genuine, even if a bishop who’d officially pledged his loyalty to that church had to be careful about where he allowed them to show. And, if nothing else, the Bishop of Barcor was in too deep to back out now. But that hadn’t made Shylair any happier about being dependent upon the Baron of Barcor for his security.

  He’d come to the conclusion that Sir Zher Sumyrs, the current baron, was much better at bluster and promises than at action. His efforts to increase his force of personal armsmen were pathetic compared to those of men like Craggy Hill and Baron Larchros, and he was far more willing to make extravagant guarantees in private conversation than to run the slightest risk to bring those guarantees to fruition. In fact, Shylair had concluded that for all of Barcor’s undoubted hatred for Sir Koryn Gahrvai and the members of the Regency Council, he was far too timid to do anything likely to draw attention his way. He was willing enough to talk, even to shovel substantial sums of money in the resistance’s direction, but not to risk coming out into the open.

  He’s covering his arse, is what he’s doing,Shylair thought coldly. If we win— when we win—he’ll remind us all that he was on our side from the very beginning, and he’ll expect his share of Mother Church’s reward to her loyal sons. And if it should happen that we don’t win, he’ll go back into hiding and pretend he didn’t know anything about it. Not him! Why, he’s always been a loyal and faithful subject of Prince Daivyn! One who’d never dream of defying the legitimate orders of Daivyn’s regents! And as for ecclesiastic matters, he’s certainly not qualified to make such judgments! Who is he to set his judgment above the confirmed and consecrated archbishop sitting in Manchyr? The very notion never entered his head.

  But thinking of Barcor left a bad taste in the bishop executor’s mouth, and he didn’t need any more bad tastes on top of Craggy Hill’s news. He pushed the absent baron resolutely to the back of his mind and considered the men sitting around the table with him.

  Craggy Hill, as their host and the senior noble of their strategy council, sat at the head of the table. They’d been joined by Earl Storm Keep and Baron Larchros, and Bishop Amilain and Larchros’ chaplain, Father Airwain Yair, were also present. Bryahn Selkyr, the Earl of Deep Hollow, and Sir Adulfo Lynkyn, the Duke of Black Water, unfortunately, had been unable to be present, which was the real reason Hahlynd was taking notes. It wasn’t the same as actually having them there would have been, but at least it would allow them to be brought up- to- date on any decisions which were actually made today.

  And whether they liked it or not, it was the only way coordination could be maintained, really. None of them cared for the notion of committing their plans and hopes to paper, even in the most secure cipher Mother Church could contrive, yet it was less risky to rely on written messages than it would have been for all the members of their conspiracy to gather in one place and mark themselves out for the in formants Anvil Rock and his son had undoubtedly put in place by now. For that matter, the Earl of Windshare had stationed thirty of his “mounted constables” here in Vahlainah itself. They weren’t getting much cooperation out of Craggy Hill’s subjects, who were as insular and stubbornly loyal to their earl as anyone could have asked, but simply hiding Craggy Hill’s steadily growing number of armsmen was a problem. At the moment, he had them distributed among half a dozen manors scattered across his earldom’s hinterlands, where, hopefully, no one would realize each group was only one small part of the total force he was raising. It was easier to hide a few dozen, or even a few hundred, armsmen out in the countryside than it was to hide the comings and goings of great feudal lords, however.

  “Was there any indication of unrest in Manchyr following Father Aidryn’s execution, My Lord?” Shylair asked now, looking across the table at Craggy Hill.

  “None, Your Eminence,” the tall, powerfully built earl replied unflinchingly.

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t any, Your Eminence,” Mahrak Hahlynd pointed out diffidently, looking up from his notes. Shylair’s secretary had been close to Waimyn, and there was a stubborn light in his eyes. “This came over the official semaphore,” he reminded his superior now. “You don’t think Anvil Rock, or Gahrvai, or—especially—Gairlyng would admit to any such thing in an official communiqué, do you?”

  “I’d like to think you might have a point, Father Mahrak,” Craggy Hill said before Shylair could respond. The secretary looked at him, and the earl shrugged. “The message wasn’t sent for general dissemination, Father,” he explained almost gently. “It was sent to me, for my information as a member of the Regency Council, and it specifically reported that the capital was calm following the execution.”

  Hahlynd’s face tightened, and Shylair felt his own trying to do the same thing.

  “So,” Earl Storm Keep said after a moment. “It sounds as if they’ve managed to turn the situation around, at least in Manchyr.”

  “I’m afraid they have,” Craggy Hill confirmed. He was the only member of the Regency Council who was an active party to the resistance, and all of the others watched his expression carefully.

  “I don’t think Anvil Rock and
Tartarian really trust me,” he began, “and I know that bastard Gahrvai and his arse- licker Doyal don’t. On the other hand, if they had any concrete evidence against me, they would’ve acted on it by now. And what ever else we can say, Anvil Rock and Tartarian have been scrupulous about keeping all the members of the Council fully informed when we can’t be personally in Manchyr.” He grimaced. “They don’t have much choice, given the terms of their authority under Parliament’s grant, but I have to admit they’ve been more forthcoming in their reports than I would have anticipated. Because of that, I’m pretty sure they aren’t lying, or even misrepresenting their view of the situation, when they say the arrest of Father Aidryn and his associates seems to have broken the back of any effective resistance in Manchyr itself.”

  The earl paused for just a moment, gazing at Shylair with oddly opaque brown eyes, then shrugged.

  “The truth is, Your Eminence, that Father Aidryn seems to have badly underestimated Father Tymahn’s popularity in Manchyr. We knew he’d always been popular with the riffraff, the common city trash, but it would appear a sizable percentage of the better sort were listening to him, too. I don’t say they agreed with him, but it seems pretty evident that his . . . execution has inspired a general sense of outrage. And when Gahrvai followed that up by arresting Father Aidryn and virtually his entire leadership group—and when he managed to turn up so much evidence, completely exclusive of any confessions, of all they’d already accomplished and of their future plans, as well—it was fairly decisive.”

  “Wahlys is right about that, Your Eminence, I’m afraid,” Storm Keep said heavily. The bishop executor raised an eyebrow at him, and the earl shook his head. “Having the arrests follow so quickly on Hahskans’ execution, especially when there’d been so few arrests prior to that, made Gahrvai look not simply decisive, but effective. A lot of people who’d been trying to decide where their true loyalties lay were wavering in large part because of uncertainty, the question of whether or not the Regency Council could provide stability. Whether its legs had the strength to stand. Well,” he raised his right hand, palm uppermost, “the verdict seems to be in, now. At least as far as Manchyr is concerned. And, to be brutally honest, the restraint Gairlyng’s shown is working in favor of a general acceptance of the authority of both the Regency Council and the ‘Church of Charis.’ ”