A Mighty Fortress

by David Weber

  “ ‘Exuberant self- confidence,’ is it?” Lock Island snorted. “I think it’s a fair term,” Merlin responded, smiling at the rising sun. “Mind you, I never said it wasn’t justified. Normally, at least.”

  “I only wish we could talk to Gwylym this way,” Lock Island said in a rather more fretful tone. “I’m beginning to realize how maddening it must have been for Domynyk to be able to talk to you and to Cayleb—to see Owl’s . . . ‘imagery’—” (he pronounced the still- unfamiliar word carefully) “and not be able to tell me about it. But with Gwylym that far out on the end of a limb . . . .”

  He shook his head, and Merlin’s smile faded. “I know,” he sighed. “In fact, it was something we discussed—Domynyk and I—before Gwylym ever left. Unfortunately, we can only move so fast in bringing more people into the circle, and—”

  He broke off with a shrug, and Lock Island nodded. “I won’t pretend I was happy to discover how long it took the Brethren to finally decide I was a sufficiently stalwart and trustworthy soul.” The high admiral’s lips twisted with wry humor. “At the same time, I can see why they might want to think about it for a bit before they start blabbing away about things like ‘spaceships’ and counterfeited religions. And, to be honest, I think it was probably a good idea to wait until Cayleb got home to tell me about it in person.” He snorted again, a bit more loudly. “At least he had the authority to sit on me if I started running around in circles like a wyvern with its head cut off!”

  “That thought did pass through our minds,” Merlin acknowledged amiably.

  “I’m sure,” Lock Island said. Then he paused for a moment, frowning. “In regards to that sort of decision,” he said slowly, then, “I’ve been thinking about Ahlfryd.”

  “Don’t worry.” Merlin chuckled. “They’re planning on telling him as soon as he pays one of his visits to Tellesberg. The healers aren’t letting Sharleyan stir a step out of the palace until the baby’s born, and she’s determined she’s going to be the one to tell him!”

  “That wasn’t my point,” Lock Island said even more slowly. He hesitated, like a man steeling himself to say something he didn’t want to, then continued anyway. “My point was that I don’t know if it would really be a good idea to tell him at all.”

  Merlin blinked in astonishment. Despite the difference in their ranks, Baron Seamount was one of Lock Island’s personal friends. The high admiral had an even better appreciation than most for the sharp agility of Sir Ahlfryd Hyndryk’s mind. For that matter, if anyone in the entire Charisian Empire understood exactly how critical Seamount’s innovations had been, it had to be Lock Island. So why—?

  “Are you afraid he won’t accept the truth about Langhorne and Bédard?” Merlin asked after a moment.

  “You mean like Rayjhis and Green Mountain?” Lock Island shook his head. “Oh, no. That’s the least of my worries where Ahlfryd’s concerned!”

  “Then may I ask why you have any reservations about telling him?”

  “It’s just ....”

  Lock Island paused again, obviously marshaling his own thoughts. “Look, Merlin,” he said then, “I’ve known Ahlfryd for the better part of thirty years. There’s not a man on the face of the world I’d trust more implicitly. And God knows I’ve never met anyone with a sharper brain! But there are actually three points I think need to be considered here.

  “First, he’s producing new ideas faster than we can put them into production already. Not only that, he’s got his entire Experimental Board doing the same thing now, and all without knowing the truth or having access to all those . . . ‘computer records’ you’ve been talking about. I’ll admit, I still don’t really understand much about them, but my point is that Ahlfryd’s been forging ahead on the basis of the handful of hints you’ve already given him. As I understand it, your whole idea in the long run is for people to start thinking of these sorts of things for themselves, and Ahlfryd’s doing exactly that. Do we really need—or want—to divert him from stretching his own mind and the minds of people like Commander Mahndrayn into picking over someone else’s records for ideas?

  “Second, I do know Ahlfryd. The instant he finds out he can have access to such advanced knowledge, he’s going to dive in headfirst, and we won’t see him again for months. He won’t be able to resist it any more than a drunkard could resist whiskey, Merlin, and you know it. We can probably come up with some sort of explanation for his sudden disappearance, but it’s going to be awkward. And, in the same vein, once he knows what can be done, he’ll move heaven and earth to get it done. I think there’s a real chance he might end up pushing ahead too quickly. You’ve been very careful about not openly violating the Proscriptions, but I have to believe restraining Ahlfryd, keeping him from doing something that would clearly represent a violation, may turn out to be harder than you think. And, conversely, if we avoid that, he’s going to be miserably unhappy knowing how much he could have done if only he’d been allowed to.

  “But my third concern—and in many ways, it’s the most serious one—is how he’s going to react to the truth, to the discovery that he could have been running ahead—learning things, discovering things, doing things—for his entire life if not for the Proscriptions of Jwo- jeng... and that the Proscriptions themselves have been nothing more than a colossal lie. Cayleb told me the Brethren were concerned about his possible ‘youthful impetuosity’ if they told him the truth. Well, Ahlfryd’s no impetuous teenager, but I literally don’t know if he’ll be able to go on pretending he doesn’t know the truth once he does.”

  “Um.”

  Merlin frowned into the strengthening sunlight. He wasn’t certain he shared Lock Island’s concerns, but as the high admiral said, he’d known Seamount for a long time. In fact, he’d known him longer—and better—than anyone else in Cayleb’s inner circle.

  “I hadn’t really thought about it from that perspective,” he admitrted finally, slowly. “I’m not sure I agree—I’m not saying I don’t; just that I’m going to have to think about it, first—but I think it’s definitely something worth raising with Cayleb and Sharleyan before they tell him.” He grimaced. “Sharleyan is not going to like it if we decide against telling him, you realize?”

  “Oh, believe me, I do—I do!” It was Lock Island’s turn to grimace. “And, to be honest, in a lot of ways I won’t regret it if I get overruled on this one. I’ll worry about it, but, damn it, Ahlfryd’s my friend. I want to tell him the truth, Merlin. I just think this is something that needs to be considered very carefully.”

  “I agree with you about that much, at least,” Merlin sighed. “So you’ll bring it up with Cayleb and Sharleyan?”

  “Instead of you bringing it up, you mean?”

  “Well, actually... yes,” Lock Island admitted.

  “Coward.”

  “Absolutely,” the high admiral acknowledged rather more promptly, and Merlin chuckled.

  “All right, I’ll do it. Maikel and I need to talk to her and Cayleb about Rayjhis’ correspondence with Gorjah, anyway. We think it may be time to, ah, push that process along a bit faster. I can probably work your little brainstorm into the conversation in my usual diplomatic fashion. On the other hand, she is pregnant, you know, and she’s been more than a little irritable for the last month or so. I don’t promise she won’t hit the ceiling, however tactful I am. Still,” he chuckled again, louder, “ I’m still thousands of miles away. So if she does ... take it poorly, guess which one of us she’ll be able to get her hands on first?”

  .VII.

  Archbishop’s Palace,

  City of Tellesberg,

  Kingdom of Old Charis

  The Bishop is ready to see you now, Father.”

  Father Paityr Wylsynn looked up from the small volume of The Testimonies he’d been reading as he waited to find out why Bishop Hainryk had summoned him to the Archbishop’s Palace. The fact that he’d been summoned here, rather than to the bishop’s own residence, suggested that it was both official and that it
dealt directly with either the Church of Charis as a whole, since the bishop was deputizing for Archbishop Maikel during his absence, or with the affairs of the Royal Council of Old Charis, upon which the bishop also sat at the moment as Staynair’s deputy. Beyond that, however, he didn’t have a clue, and so he’d striven to possess his soul in patience while he waited to find out.

  Now he stood and followed the under- priest into the archbishop’s office. Bishop Hainryk stood, holding out his hand across the desk, as Wylsynn entered the office. The intendant bent over the hand, kissing Waignair’s ring, then straightened. Wylsynn liked the bishop, and he respected him, yet it still seemed subtly wrong to see him sitting behind Staynair’s desk, be it ever so temporarily.

  Just how Charisian have I become?Wylsynn wondered wryly, then brushed the thought aside, folded his hands in the sleeves of his cassock, and regarded Waignair with polite attentiveness.

  “You sent for me, My Lord?”

  “Yes. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did, Father,” Waignair replied, and pointed at the armchair beside Wylsynn. “Please, sit.”

  “Thank you, My Lord.”

  Wylsynn settled into the chair, but he never took his eyes from Waignair’s face, and the bishop smiled slightly. Then he leaned back in his own chair, smile vanishing, while his right hand toyed with the scepter he wore around his neck.

  “I’m sure you’ve been at least mildly curious about why I asked you to come visit me today, Father.”

  “I must admit the question did cross my mind,” Wylsynn conceded when Waignair paused.

  “There were two things I needed to speak to you about, actually, Father.” Waignair’s voice was suddenly much graver, and Wylsynn felt his own eyes narrow in reaction to the shift in tone.

  “Before I deal with those, however, Father Paityr, I want to express, once again, my condolences for the execution—the murder—of your father and your uncle. I have no wish to re open the wound I know their deaths inflicted upon you, but I bring it up once more at this point because there are two additional things I need to say to you, and both relate to your loss.”

  Wylsynn’s face tightened. Not simply with the memory of past grief but with the tension of present worry. He hadn’t heard a word from Lysbet Wylsynn since her single letter had arrived. At least he hadn’t heard of her or the children’s being taken, yet that was very little comfort for his ignorance about where they were, how they were faring, or if they were even still alive. By now, even someone with his deep personal faith was beginning to feel almost frantic with worry.

  “The first thing I wanted to say to you,” Waignair continued, “is that the manner in which you’ve dealt with this news has only deepened my already profound respect for you as a person, as a child of God, and as a priest.” The bishop held Wylsynn’s eyes steadily. “It would have been only too easy to fall into personal despair upon receiving such news, especially in the absence of any news about the rest of your family. And when the murders of so many of your father’s friends—and their familes—were confirmed, it would have been equally easy to turn against God Himself for permitting such hideous crimes to be committed in the name of His Church. You did neither of those things. Nor, despite your own loss, your own lack of information about your brothers and sisters and stepmother, did you falter for a moment in your duties as one of God’s priests. Archbishop Maikel has frequently mentioned to me the high regard in which he holds you. What I wish to say to you today, Father, is that over the last few months I’ve come to understand—fully understand—precisely why he feels that way about you.”

  Paityr wondered what in the world he was supposed to say in reply. Whatever Bishop Hainryk might say, Paityr Wylsynn knew himself too well to recognize the candidate for sainthood Waignair had just described. It was horribly embarrassing, and yet he couldn’t deny it was also... comforting. Not because he believed he was superior to anyone else, more important in God’s eyes, but because . . . because it demonstrated that the bishop and the archbishop he served recognized that he was at least trying. And, even more important, that someone whose judgment he deeply respected found his efforts satisfactory.

  Waignair watched the young priest on the other side of his desk, and knew exactly what Wylsynn was thinking. He couldn’t have thought anything else and been who he was. And the bishop never doubted that he’d just embarrassed the intendant. But there were times when any child of God needed to be commended. Needed to be given the positive reinforcement of knowing he or she was truly valued, truly important in his or her own right. And when someone had given—lost—as much as this young man had in the service of God, it was at least as important to Hainryk Waignair to tell him how much he was valued as it could ever be for Paityr Wylsynn to hear it.

  “I—” Wylsynn began, then hesitated. He closed his mouth, then opened it again, but Waignair raised his right hand in a “stop” gesture and smiled gently.

  “Father, you’re young. And I just embarrassed you horribly, didn’t I?”

  His smile grew broader, his brown eyes twinkling, and Wylsynn, despite the cocoon of grief he could never quite break free of, felt himself smiling back.

  “Well, actually... yes, My Lord.”

  “Of course I have. But the Writ tells us it’s as much our responsibility to know and to acknowledge virtue as it is to recognize and condemn sin. Or, as the Archangel Bédard put it, simply learning what it’s wrong for us to do isn’t enough unless we’re also given examples of what it’s right for us to do. In that regard, you can think of this as an example of my discharging my pastoral responsibility to you in obedience to both those commands. And you might also think of it as a lesson by example for you to apply in your own ministry when it comes time for you to praise someone else.”

  “I’ll . . . try to remember that, My Lord.”

  “I’m sure you will. However, that was only the first thing I wished to speak to you about.”

  “Yes, My Lord?” Wylsynn said when Waignair paused yet again. “Actually,” the bishop said in the tone of a man who’d suddenly been struck by a happy inspiration, “perhaps it would be simpler—or better, at least—for me to let someone else talk to you about this particular point, Father.”

  Wylsynn frowned, perplexed by the bishop’s almost whimsical smile, but Waignair simply stood, walked to his office door, and opened it.

  “Would you ask them to step in now, please, Father?” he said to the under-priest who had escorted Wylsynn into the office. Wylsynn couldn’t hear the reply, but he twisted halfway around in his chair so he could watch as the bishop stood to one side of the door, waiting patiently.

  Then someone stepped through it.

  Paityr Wylsynn never remembered—then or later—getting out of that chair. Never remembered how he crossed between it and the door. Never remembered what—if anything—he said as he did it.

  The only thing he ever remembered was the feel of his arms around Lysbet Wylsynn, the feel of her arms around him, the sight of his sisters, his brothers, his brother- in- law, his infant nephew—all of them— all of them—crowding into Maikel Staynair’s office while tears poured down their cheeks . . . and his.

  Bishop Hainryk Waignair watched for a moment, smiling, seeing the tears, the joy, the grief... the love. Listening to the babble of voices, the exclamations of wonder. Then, very gently, he stepped out into the anteroom and closed the door behind him.

  He turned to find his secretary looking at him, beaming hugely, and he smiled back.

  “Some days, Father,” he said quietly, “it’s easier than others to remember how good God truly is.”

  JULY, YEAR OF GOD 894

  .I.

  King Gorjah’s Bedchamber,

  Royal Palace,

  City of Tranjyr,

  Kingdom of Tarot

  King Gorjah woke up rather abruptly.

  A hand suddenly clamped over one’s mouth in the middle of the night tended to have that effect. Especially upon a king whose bedchamber was at the top of the
central keep of an old- fashioned castle well provided with guardsmen.

  His eyes flew open, and he started to struggle, only to stop almost instantly. There were two reasons for that. One was that the hand over his mouth might as well have been a gentle, hand- shaped steel clamp. The other was that he’d just become aware of the tip of what seemed to be an exceedingly sharp dagger pressed against the base of his throat.

  The night, he decided, was going rapidly from bad to worse. “I’d appreciate it if you’d be calm, Your Majesty,” a tenor voice he’d never heard before in his life said. “If I’d only wanted to cut your throat, I wouldn’t have bothered to wake you up first.”

  The calm voice sounded almost insanely reasonable, like that of a man simply pointing out that thunderclouds often meant rain.

  Gorjah could just make out the silhouette of a man’s head against the dim glow of the bedchamber’s gauzy, moonstruck drapes, and he felt a stab of gratitude that Rholynd was having a fretful night and Maiyl had insisted on having her own bed made up in the nursery to night. At the time, he’d thought it was charmingly sweet of her to want to personally oversee the nurses; at the moment, he was deeply grateful that at least his wife and son were somewhere else.

  “On the other hand,” the voice went on pleasantly, “I’m quite sure that if, for some reason, I decided I did want to cut your throat, I could do it long before any of your guardsmen could respond to any shout on your part. If I decided to take my hand off of your mouth, so the two of us could speak as one civilized man to another, do you think you could bear that in mind? The bit about my being able to kill you before anyone else gets here, I mean?”