A Mighty Fortress

by David Weber

  The service flowed smoothly. There’d been virtually no changes to the longstanding and much beloved liturgy. Indeed, the only substantive change was the omission of the pledge of loyalty to the Grand Vicar as the head of God’s Church on Safehold. Which, Gahrvai suspected, probably struck the Group of Four as a very “substantive change.”

  But, eventually, they reached the point for which every person in that cathedral had been waiting, and the enormous structure was hushed, so silent the faint sounds of Staynair’s footsteps were clear and distinct as he crossed to the pulpit.

  He stood for a moment, gazing out across the cathedral, then traced the sign of the scepter over the enormous bound volume of the Writ before he opened it. The sound of the turning pages whispered through the cathedral’s listening silence, and when he cleared his throat gently, it seemed almost shockingly loud.

  “Today’s scripture,” he said, his deep voice carrying to every ear, “is taken from The Book of Chihiro, Chapter Nine, verses eleven through fourteen.

  “Then said the Lord to the Archangel Langhorne, ‘Behold I have created my Holy Church to be the mother of all men and women on the face of this the world I have made. See to it that she nurtures all of My children. That she teaches the young, supports the footsteps and wisdom of those who are grown, cares for the elderly. And, above all, that she trains up all of My children in the way they should go.

  “ ‘Find men worthy of this great charge among My priests. Instruct them in all of their duties, examine them and mea sure their souls, weigh them in the scales of My balance, fire them in the furnace of My discipline, hammer them upon the anvil of My love.

  “ ‘And when you have done these things, when you are confident that these are the priests fit to lead and feed My sheep, set them in places of authority. Give them that which they need to do My will, and remind them, and the priests who will come after them, and all the priests who shall follow them, that their purpose, and their charge, and their duty is to do My will and always and everywhere, in every way, to serve My people.’

  “And the Archangel Langhorne listened to all of these instructions from the Most High and Holiest, and the Archangel bowed his face to the earth, and he said unto the Lord his God, ‘Truly, it shall be as You have commanded.’ ”

  The archbishop laid his hand on the opened book, looking out across the cathedral.

  “This is the Word of God, for the Children of God,” he told them.

  “Thanks be to God, and to the Archangels who are His Servants,” the congregation replied, and there was an edge of tension in that response. A sort of breathless wonder as to how Staynair proposed to address those verses.

  “Be seated, my children,” he invited, and feet scraped and clothing rustled in a great sighing murmur as they obeyed him.

  He waited the better part of another full minute, hands clasped lightly on the Writ. He gazed out at them, his eyes sweeping the entire cathedral, letting them see his examination and giving them time to examine him, in turn. There was no sign of any notes, not even a single note card, and he smiled.

  It was a thing of wonder, that smile. Gentle and warm, welcoming, and—above all—real. It was no actor’s trained smile. It came from somewhere deep inside the man, and Gahrvai felt an odd little stir, more sensed than heard, sweep through the cathedral as the worshippers saw it.

  “I picked today’s scripture deliberately,” he told them then. “But I bet most of you had already figured that out,” he added, with a perfect sense of timing, and somehow that smile had turned impish.

  A soft mutter of laughter—laughter which had surprised itself—gusted through the cathedral, and his smile grew even more dazzling for a moment.

  “Of course I selected it deliberately.” His smile faded, and his voice turned serious, dropping a bit lower, so that they had to listen just a bit harder. “All of you have heard that passage time and time again. In fact, it has a name, doesn’t it? ‘The Great Charge,’ we call it. And we call it that because that was what the Archangels called it, and because it is the Great Charge. This passage, this scripture, is the fundamental basis of Mother Church, God’s own warrant for her creation and birth. His instruction to Holy Langhorne contains not only His command for Mother Church’s creation, but also the description of her duties. The end—the purpose—for which He ordained her creation. It tells us what she is supposed to do in simple, straightforward words.”

  He paused, allowing his own words to settle into his listeners’ minds and thoughts, then continued.

  “Of course, ‘simple and straightforward’ isn’t the same as easy. No great task, however straightforward, is ever ‘easy,’ and what task could be greater than the one God Himself assigned to Mother Church? And what other institution of this world could command the devotion, the respect, and the love of God’s children more strongly than His own Church? We are enjoined again and again, over and over, in every book of the Holy Writ, to love God, to keep His laws, to do His will, to live in fulfillment of His plan, and to honor and obey His Church.”

  The stillness in the cathedral had grown tighter, more focused, and he smiled again, sadly, as if he felt that physical pressure bearing down upon him.

  “Of course that’s what He said,” the schismatic archbishop told them all calmly. “There’s no ‘wiggle room’ in God’s instructions on this matter, my children. No gray theological areas where scholars and theologians can argue and debate and parse the language. It’s not a suggestion, not an invitation, not a proposal—it’s a command. It’s God’s command, just as surely as He has commanded us to keep Wednesdays holy or to love one another as much as we love ourselves.”

  He shook his head. “And yet the very fact that I stand here before you in this cathedral is proof the Church of Charis is not obeying the Church’s decrees.” His voice was hard, now. Not angry, not denouncing, not even challenging, but unflinching as a sword.

  “I have been excommunicated by the Grand Vicar,” he continued, and tension ratcheted upward in the cathedral as he met that fact head- on. “I have been stripped—by him—of my priestly status. I have been condemned, in absentia, for heresy, apostasy, and treason and sentenced to suffer the Punishment of Schueler for my manifold crimes and sins. The ‘Church of Charis’ has risen in revolt against the decrees of the vicarate, of the Grand Inquisitor—of the Grand Vicar, himself. We have rejected instructions from the Temple. We have defrocked and hanged for murder priests acting in the Grand Inquisitor’s name. We have created our own bishops and archbishops, ordained our own priests, and in every corner of the Empire of Charis, we have defied Mother Church and dared her to do her worst. We have met her proxies in battle, and we have conquered other lands—even this Princedom of Corisande—by force of arms in spite of Mother Church’s declared will. And I tell you now, it is only a matter of time, and not a great deal of it, before Mother Church declares Holy War against the Church of Charis, the Empire of Charis, and any human being—any child of God—who has been so lost to his obedience to Mother Church as to support her enemies. We did not come to you here bearing peace, my children, and I will not pretend we did. No, we come bearing a sword, and that sword is in our hand just as surely as defiance is in our hearts.”

  The stillness was so intense now that Gahrvai was distantly astounded that it didn’t shatter when he inhaled. Staynair let that stillness linger, let it roar in the worshippers’ ears. He stood in the stained- glass sunlight, wreathed in tendrils of incense, like a lump of stone at the bottom of a deep, cold well of silence.

  “Yes,” he said at last, “we have rejected our obedience to Mother Church, despite God’s own order. But there is a reason we’ve done that, my children. Despite anything you may have heard, the Kingdom of Charis and the Church within Charis did not declare war upon Mother Church.”

  Feet and bodies stirred in protest, but he shook his head sharply, and the stirrings ceased.

  “Mother Church declared war upon us, my children. She decreed the destructio
n of Charis, and she used your prince and your navy and your husbands and fathers and sons and brothers to bring that destruction to pass. She launched her attack without warning or declaration. She did not remonstrate with us, never told us we had fallen into doctrinal error, never instructed us in what we might have done better, more obediently. She simply decreed our destruction. That we be broken and shattered and wiped from the record of Safehold’s history. That our people be murdered in their own homes, and that those homes be burned above their heads. And so we defended ourselves, protected our homes—our families—from that destruction... and for that—for that—we were pronounced heretics and excommunicate.”

  He shook his head again, his expression grim. “And in the thirteenth verse of this morning’s scripture, you will find our defense. The Lord said to Langhorne, ‘When you are confident that these are the priests fit to lead and feed My sheep, set them in places of authority. Give them that which they need to do My will.’ But He also said to Langhorne, ‘Remind them, and the priests who will come after them, and all the priests who shall follow them, that their purpose, and their charge, and their duty is to do My will and always and everywhere, in every way, to serve My people.’ He instructed Langhorne that it was their charge, the very reason he had brought the vicarate into existence, to nurture and teach and guide and protect and serve His people. There is no—can be no—calling higher than that one. No deeper obligation, no more solemn duty.

  “But Mother Church failed that obligation, ignored that duty. Mother Church, my children, is governed by men. They are enjoined to govern her in accordance with God’s will, but they are still men. And the men who currently control Mother Church, who have turned the Grand Vicar himself into their puppet and mouthpiece—men like Allayn Maigwair, Rhobair Duchairn, Zahmsyn Try-nair, and, above all, Zhaspahr Clyntahn—are as corrupt and venal and evil and foul as any men who ever walked God’s world.”

  The gentle archbishop’s voice was the very sword he’d told them the Church of Charis had brought to Corisande, and it was as keen- edged and as merciless as any blade ever forged.

  “It is our duty to obey Mother Church, but it is also our duty to recognize when the orders we are given come not from Mother Church—not from the Archangels, and never from GodHimself—but from corrupt powermongers.

  From men who have chosen to turn God’s holy Church into a prostitute. Who sell the power of their high offices. Who sell Mother Church herself. Who decree the murders of entire kingdoms. Who use the power of the Inquisition to terrify any thought of opposition to their corruption. Who have Mother Church’s own priests tortured to death on the very steps of the Temple for failing to be corrupt enough.

  “God’s instruction to obey Mother Church is as simple and straightforward as the words of this morning’s scripture, but so is His great charge to the priest-hood of Mother Church. To the men called to wear the orange of vicars. To the Grand Vicar, and the Grand Inquisitor. And those men in Zion... have... failed . . . His . . . charge.”

  That last, measured sentence rang in his listeners’ ears like an iron gauntlet, hitting a stone floor in challenge.

  “Obedience to instructions to commit sin becomes complicity in sin, no matter the source of those instructions. Schueler tells us that in his Book. ‘No matter the source’— those are the Archangel Schueler’s very words, my children! I know you’ve heard Temple Loyalists here in Manchyr quoting that passage. And the Church of Charis will not tell them to be silent. Will not seek to dictate to their souls. But the Church of Charis believes we cannot give godly obedience to sinful men claiming to speak in His most holy name when they have long since forfeited that claim by their own actions.”

  He drew himself up to his full height, facing the packed pews of Manchyr Cathedral.

  “We cannot, we have not, and we will not,” he said. “We dictate to no man or woman’s conscience. We will not compel. We will not torture and kill those who simply disagree with us. But neither will we yield. Let it be known throughout Corisande that any who wish to join us in our effort to reclaim Mother Church’s soul from the corrupt men who have defiled it will be welcome. That we will greet you as our brothers and our sisters and our fellow children of God. And that we will go forward to the end of this great task to which we have been called. We will not falter, we will not be swayed, and we will never— ever—surrender. Let Clyntahn and Trynair and their flunkies be warned. In the fullness of time, the Church of Charis will come for them. Come for them in that day when it comes to Mother Church’s rescue and liberates her from the servants of the Dark who have profaned her for far too long.”

  .VII.

  Crag House,

  City of Vahlainah,

  Earldom of Craggy Hill,

  Princedom of Corisande

  Bishop Executor Thomys Shylair looked up from his conversation with Mahrak Hahlynd as someone rapped sharply on the chamber door. Despite the fact that he knew—intellectually—that he was perfectly safe here in his Crag House office, a spasm of alarm flashed through him. There were no scheduled visitors or conferences this morning, and for a hunted fugitive (especially a fugitive bishop executor whose intendant had been impiously murdered), “unexpected” translated itself into “threatening.”

  Oh, don’t be silly, Thomys!he scolded himself. I doubt armed minions of the Regency Council or the “Church of Charis” could break this far into an earl’s town-house without at least some alarm preceding them. For that matter, I tend to doubt thepresent authorities would knock politely once they got this far! They didn’t bother to “knock” on Aidryn’s door, at any rate.

  His face tightened briefly at that thought. Then he cleared his throat.

  “Enter!” he called, and the Earl of Craggy Hill stepped through the door.

  “Good morning, My Lord.” Shylair heard the surprise in his own voice. “I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”

  “I didn’t expect to be here, Your Eminence.”

  Something in Craggy Hill’s manner, something glittering in his brown eyes, brought Shylair a bit more upright in his chair. He glanced quickly at Hahlynd, catching a glimpse of an echoing speculative curiosity in his secretary’s expression, then returned his full attention to Craggy Hill.

  “May I ask what changed your plans, then, My Lord?” the bishop executor inquired, gesturing at the comfortable armchair before his desk as he spoke.

  “You most certainly may, Your Eminence.”

  Craggy Hill flashed a brief, tight smile before he settled into the armchair. Hahlynd started to rise, but the earl waved him back into his own chair.

  “Stay, Father,” the nobleman said. “I’m sure you and His Eminence will be preparing quite a bit of correspondence in the next few five- days, so you might as well here my news now.”

  “Of course, My Lord,” Hahlynd murmured.

  The secretary sat back down after glancing at his superior for confirmation, and Craggy Hill returned his full attention to Shylair.

  “I realize the reports from Manchyr have been fairly disappointing ever since Staynair arrived in the Princedom, Your Eminence,” he said then, which, Shylair reflected, was one of the best examples of understatement he’d heard in the last several years. Calling the semaphore summaries from Manchyr “fairly disappointing” was about the same as calling Carter’s Ocean “fairly deep.”

  It was obvious, however little the bishop executor cared to admit it, that not simply the city of Manchyr but the entire duchy was largely lost. Aidryn’s order for Hahskans’ execution had backfired badly. Shylair was astounded that the fully justified death of a single apostate priest could have spawned such seething anger and outrage. It was as if the citizens of Manchyr had deliberately chosen not to understand the depravity of Hahskans’ attack upon Mother Church. As if they’d actually sympathized with him, simply because he was capable of occasional bursts of eloquence in the service of God’s enemies.

  Yet it would have been foolish to underestimate the strength of tha
t furious anger... or the severity of its consequences. Staynair certainly hadn’t. His very first sermon from the stolen pulpit of Manchyr Cathedral had capitalized upon that anger as he’d set forth his attempts to justify his own betrayal of Mother Church and the creation of the “Church of Charis.” Nothing could possibly justify such an abortion, yet angry minds were not reasonable ones, and Staynair’s sermons had fallen upon fertile ground. Even many of those who continued to bitterly resent the Empire of Charis were weakening in their opposition to the “ Church of Charis.” For that matter, any residual anger in the capital over the fashion in which Aidryn Waimyn and the other slain priests had been martyred was increasingly directed towards the secular authorities, rather than Staynair . . . or Gairlyng. Any idiot ought to recognize that neither the Regency Council nor Viceroy General Chermyn would have dared act in such a fashion except at the direct orders of the Church to which they had given their allegiance. Yet a dangerous degree of separation between the Charisian church and the Charisian crown had crept into the minds of all too many. And Staynair’s other sermons, with their emphasis on “freedom of conscience,” their renunciation of the Question and the Punishment of Schueler, their specific guarantees that “Temple Loyalists” who abided by the law might continue to worship using the liturgy and even the priests they chose, had won him still more support. Even worse, perhaps, it was winning him toleration even among those who thought they were remaining loyal to Mother Church. There were reports that even many of the “Temple Loyalists” had come to respect him—even if grudgingly—for his “integrity.”

  That erosion of faith was what most worried Shylair, yet he knew his secular allies—like Craggy Hill—were just as worried by the fact that despite the separation some still drew between empire and church, the acceptance of the “Church of Charis” was slowly but steadily eroding resistance to the empire, as well. Primary loyalty to Prince Daivyn clearly remained high, many Corisandians continued to distinguish between their exiled prince and the Regency Council acting in his name, and the people of Corisande were a long, long way from forgiving Cayleb for Prince Hektor’s murder. Yet there was a vast difference between rejecting the current regime’s legitimacy and actively resisting it. That was where the overflow of the creeping acceptance of the “Church of Charis” was gradually eating away at the foundations of the resistance’s secular support.