by Glen Cook
They had been preparing, naturally. But with little enthusiasm. Word had come that a Perfect Master was headed their way. The peasants were eager to see a famous holy man, even if few of them were believers themselves. The people were eager to hear and debate the message the Perfect Master would bring.
Even poor farmers in the Connec enjoyed an active intellectual life. Many minds still could not understand the Maysalean divergences from Episcopal creed — but most Connectens were willing to argue.
The Maysalean Heresy had been around for decades but only lately had it begun to catch on. Though there was as much nationalistic fervor in that as philosophical conviction. The Heresy's growth was a response to the incessant outrages practiced by the illegitimate Patriarchs of Brothe.
One hundred and fifty-six years had passed since the election of the Connecten Ornis of Cedelete to the Patriarchal throne. Within hours the unheroic Ornis fled the Holy City, harried by a mob whipped into a frenzy by agents of the Brothen Five Families. Who considered the western religious Patriarchy a part of their birthright.
Legitimate Patriarch Ornis, taking the reign name Worthy VI, established himself in the Palace of Kings at Viscesment. Though legitimate in canon law, Worthy's Patriarchy in exile was impotent. His own countrymen in the End of Connec did not take him seriously. His successors made up a parade of ineffective, craven, and often quickly murdered Patriarchs. Meanwhile, the illegitimate line of Usurper Patriarchs in Brothe came to be recognized by most of the Episcopal bishops, archbishops, and Principals. The Five Families of Brothe could pay much bigger bribes. Only lukewarm support from me Grail Emperors kept the Viscesment anti-Patriarchy breathing.
Barely, now known as the Pretender Patriarchy.
The current Pretender Patriarch, Guy ande Scars, styling himself Immaculate II, sputtered and fussed at the Episcopal world from his family estate outside Viscesment. His entire Patriarchal establishment, horizontally and vertically, consisted of fewer than a hundred persons, the majority of them extremely competent Braunsknechts Guards from the Grail Emperor Johannes' own Kretien Electorate. Their presence assured Immaculate a definite, though modest, level of respect.
For fifty years the usurpers in Brothe had been strong men. Principality by principality, by persuasion or by bribe, they had gained the allegiances of the lords of the Church and the Lords Temporal, so disdained by the Collegium.
The Maysalean Heresy renounced all things worldly, power and property and the pleasures of the flesh in particular.
Long ago Brother Candle wore the name Charde ande Clairs and was a wealthy merchant of Khaurene. Once his children were grown and married and had established their own lives, the merchant foreswore the world of trade. As a simple mendicant brother he set out in search of Perfect Enlightenment. His wife, Margete, entered the Maysalean nunnery at Fleaumont, where she attained Perfect status herself. Around Fleaumont Sister Probity was better known than her former husband.
The folk of St. Jeules ande Neuis welcomed the missionary heartily. His arrival guaranteed a break from boredom. Even devout Brothen Episcopals embraced the Perfect. The mendicant brothers were the news bringers of the back country. At a time when the world was quickening with fears and alarums. In rumor of late, it seemed every far land was boiling with conflicts.
Almost out to the edge of imagination, a fanatic styling himself Indala al-Sul Halaladin had overrun much of the Holy Lands, the region known as the Wells of Ihrian. Al-Sul Halaladin served the Kaif of Qasr al-Zed, a man something like a western Patriarch. With much more temporal power. He headed the al-Zhun Path of al-Prama, the Faith. Al-Prama made no distinction between religious and mundane leadership. Every ruler was responsible for both the secular and spiritual welfare of his people.
A few Praman rulers took that charge seriously.
The Kaif of Qasr al-Zed was determined to remove all westerners from the Holy Lands. His successes of a decade ago so disturbed the now-dead Usurper Patriarch Clemency III that the false Patriarch called for a new crusade to recover the holy places and strengthen up the small kingdoms and city states created by crusaders in ages past.
All this and much more Brother Candle explained to St. Jeules the first evening of his stay. Most of it they had heard already, in garbled form. News traversed the rural world slowly but it did travel. Those who were Viscesment Episcopals were intimately familiar with the wickedness of the Brothen Usurper Patriarch Clemency III and his successor, Sublime V. Bishop Serifs of nearby Antieux, sent out by Clemency III to wean the peoples of the eastern Connec from their allegiance to Immaculate II, and confirmed in his mission by Sublime V, was hated with immense vigor by Maysaleans, all subspecies of Episcopals, Devedians, Dainshaus, and the Connec's remaining handful of Pramans, of every station and faction. Because the Bishop seemed to have decided that his main mission was to deprive anyone who defied him of any hint of wealth. Wealth that, somehow, always found its way into his personal control.
Brother Candle was but one of numerous Perfect wandering the byways of the End of Connec, gently witnessing their creed without speaking ill of either Patriarch or anything Episcopal.
He failed to mention, right away, that most of the Perfect would come to St. Jeules after him.
Brother Candle went on to talk about the sharp religious fighting beyond the Verses Mountains, in Direcia, orchestrated by Peter of Navaya, who had married Isabeth, younger sister of Duke Tormond IV of Khaurene, the overlord of the End of Connec.
Brother Candle also predicted a resumption of hostilities between Santerin and Arnhand, partly because of dynastic disputes complicated by confused feudal obligations, but also because Santerin was not satisfied with the disaster their forces had visited upon Arnhand's at Themes in Tramaine last summer.
Connectens cared little about the squabble between Santerin and Arnhand except that it did keep Arnhand from taking an interest in me Connec. Connectens were more concerned about events to the east. It was in that direction that the big predators prowled.
“Tell us what Hansel is doing," Pere Alain insisted. Pere Alain meant the Grail Emperor Johannes III Blackboots, Hansel the Ferocious, supreme warlord of the New Brothen Empire, the Anointed Fist of God. The Usurper Patriarch Sublime's bitterest foe and abiding nightmare. Little Hans was a fierce critic of ecclesiastical corruption, which ran deep and was almost universal in the Episcopal Church. Johannes blamed all that on the Patriarchy, which defended the priesthood, however heinous or egregious its crimes. He hated Sublime V and held today's Patriarchy in deep contempt.
The Emperor was almost always at war with the Patriarchy somewhere but only desultorily because the Grail Empire could not finance a more vigorous campaign.
Sublime V had been Patriarch for barely two years. In that time he had issued numerous thunderous bulls excommunicating Johannes Blackboots and his captains, frequently to the dismay of those nobles who worried that God might be standing behind Sublime V instead of Immaculate II.
Hansel tirelessly belabored the point that Sublime was illegitimate and his decrees therefore no more momentous than those of other thieves and perjurers. Only the Patriarch in Viscesment could issue Writs of Anathema and Excommunication.
Unfortunately, even patriotic Connectens admitted that Immaculate II was a feeble joke who would fade faster than morning dew without Johannes behind him.
Pere Alain asked, "Master, will you stay long?"
"Call me Brother. Maysaleans consider all men equal. All men are brothers. We suffer nothing from hierarchy." Hierarchy caused more trouble amongst Episcopals than did any point of dogma. The Church and churchmen were hierarchical in the extreme. And jealous of every little perquisite. Which offended a great many layfolk, who retained the ancient values.
"Will you stay and teach?"
"Of course. That's my work. I teach, I witness, I perform acts of charity. And I'm tired of traveling." Brother Candle grinned his winsome grin but did not mention that other Perfects planned to gather in the village.
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nbsp; They put him up in the chapel. St. Jeules did not have its own priest It was a time of prosperity. Few Episcopals were taking orders. The smaller livings went begging.
The people of St Jeules trekked four miles to St Aldrain's for weekly service. Once a month, old Father Epoine made the difficult climb to St. Jeules to deal with baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and funerals. When extreme unction was needed a boy ran down and one of the donkeys of St. Aldrain's fetched Father Epoine up as fast as might be.
If good Episcopals were involved.
A quarter of the folk of St Jeules belonged in that category, supporting Viscesment. A third were Maysaleans. The rest were largely indifferent, though a handful, all connected to the Ashar family, still favored the ancient ways, bending to the Will of the Night.
By day Brother Candle taught basic ciphering and the most rudimentary fundamentals of reading, more Maysalean habits that scandalized the Church. After supper he sat with those who were interested and helped them explore new ways of thinking about the Creator, his handiwork, and the place the thinking animal occupied in the worldly pit.
One young man, who had been all the way to Antieux and was considered an adventurer, said, "They say the wells of power are weakening. That snow keeps piling deeper and deeper in lands where it's always winter."
"I don't know. That could be. Maysaleans are more concerned with the ice inside."
Their vision mirrored the traditional. To a Maysalean Perfect this world was not the handiwork of a kind and loving Creator. This world was an artifact torn violently from the womb of the void by the Adversary, to become a weapon in His great war with Heaven. Souls caught up in mortal existence were separated from the Light, subject to the Tyranny of the Night Some would cling to the Wheel of Life forever, never attaining Perfection, never rejoining the One.
The End of Connec had been tamed for fifteen hundred years. Yet minor spirits of wood and field and stream abounded, lurking, abetted by the Ashars and their like, doing mischief where they dared. Maysaleans considered all the Instrumentalities of the Night, great or small, to be concrete evidence of their creed's first principle.
The Heresy was a gentle creed. Traditionalists found its social notions more disturbing than its religious absurdities. In a time when senior churchmen lived more grandly than princes, the Maysaleans preached — and lived — lives of poverty and service. Their property ideals were communal, as had been those of the Founders of the Church. Their attitudes toward the sacraments were relaxed, particularly as regarded marriage. Though the Perfect abstained from the pleasures of the flesh. If one yielded to their temptation one fell from Perfection.
There were not many young Perfect.
Old Juie Sachs, the carpenter, told Brother Candle, "Sounds like a slow curse upon the world you got there, Master."
Puzzled, the Perfect said, "Please explain."
"It's a mathematical thing. If only the best people become Perfect and escape the world, then, each time one does, the world will get a little darker."
Jhean, the carpenter's son, said, "Maybe that's why me permanent snows get deeper and the winters get longer and colder. Maybe it don't have nothing to do with the wells of power."
Brother Candle was a fine missionary. When he explained the Maysalean Heresy it sounded obvious and inarguable. He had won countless converts. It was a harsh world even in good times. That made it easy to assert that life was a toy of darkness rather than a gift of light.
"We inspire the will to do good works by doing good works. The soul of the newborn does not bring with it the burden of sin accumulated in its previous life. In the beginning we stand equal before the Light, a book not yet written."
That did not answer the question posed, however. And now he was on difficult doctrinal ground. There were several points of view on the clean slate.
"Life starts as a blank tablet," he said. "Character is created and written each day. Meaning that there will always be more good people coming up."
That was an idea difficult to embrace. Common sense said some souls were so black that they could not become better if they went around the Wheel a million times. Even devoted Episcopals offered Sublime and the Bishop of Antieux as examples. The Bishop had taken ecclesiastical corruption into previously unknown realms.
One of the young men announced, "There's another Perfect on the way."
The old men in St. Jeules' little church eyed Brother Candle. It was time for him to tell them why he had come to their village. "All the Perfect who can are going to gather here. They'll come by the most remote and obscure byways."
The announcement caused no stir of excitement.
"We won't presume upon your charity. We'll pay for food and drink. And we'll help in the fields."
Someone asked, "How many Perfect Masters are there?"
"Forty-five," Brother Candle replied, though he had no real idea. "But they won't all come. Most are too far away."
The Maysalean Heresy did well wherever the Church was its most corrupt or oppressive. The ugliest accusations retailed by the Episcopal priesthood convinced no one that the Perfect were evil or out to harvest souls for the Adversary. Nor could the Church obscure the fact that most of me Perfect had been successful men before they donned the white robe.
So the bishops and priests of the Brothen rite peddled tales of devil worship and sexual license in secret, remote places. Credulous folk in cities and foreign places willingly believed anything wicked of anyone different. And neither accusation was an outright lie. Maysaleans did not worship the Adversary but they did believe that it was not me Evil One who had been cast out of Heaven. Nor did they believe in proprietary rights to the flesh of any individual, even in marriage.
Brother Candle said, "No more than twenty Perfect should turn up."
The old men wanted to know why the Perfect were gathering. There had been no Maysalean synod in more than fifty years.
"The Usurper, Sublime, intends to send selected priests to the Connec to destroy our beliefs. Some will belong to the Brotherhood of War. Some will be armed with writs granting them extraordinary powers. Bishop Serifs will be in charge of spiritual affairs throughout the Connec, with permission to use any means necessary to expunge our faith."
Old men spat. Young men cursed Serifs. The women offered prayers for me Bishop's disgrace and ruin.
"He'll be able to get away with anything as long as he claims he's doing it to suppress Those Who Seek the Light."
A key tenet of the Maysalean Heresy was a conviction that its followers were the true Chaldareans. Although that stretch was extreme, in truth, modern Episcopal dogma bore only a lip service resemblance to the gentle, egalitarian, communal doctrines of the Holy Founders.
The Episcopal Church survived on size, inertia, and the staying power of vested interest. It had survived challenges more serious than the Maysalean Heresy. The Borgians of the previous century had been more critical of the establishment and more militant in their defiance and disdain for all temporal power. The Borgians wanted to rid the world of all priests except part-time village clerics, and all nobles, period.
The Borgian dogma was naive. It required an already indifferent God to make sure no new hierarchies established themselves. It counted on that lazy deity to ensure that no savage invaders descended upon the pastoral Borgian realm, that no bandits took advantage.
The fatal flaw of the Borgian fallacy was that it assumed all men to be good and empathetic at heart, endowed with an innate drive to harm no one who would not fight back.
There were no Borgians anymore.
The Maysalean Perfect were pacifist but not blind. A man just had to glance around to find villains willing to eat him alive, then sell his bones.
Maysaleans were worldly enough to distinguish between ideal and real.
The second Perfect was the Grolsacher, Pacific. His speech was heavily accented and strong with dialect. Two more Perfect arrived before sundown. Brother Bell had made his home in Arcgent before he put the w
orld aside. Brother Sales hailed from Cain, in Argony. He was in the Connec on a pilgrimage of personal discovery. His dialect was impenetrable.
That night St. Jeules went to sleep certain that momentous decisions would be made in their shy little village.
The Synod of the Perfect began formally midway through the second week of Mantans. Twenty-four Perfect had gathered. Their presence was a strain on the village. The people grumped about the disruption while pocketing startling amounts of money and taking advantage of the free labor.
The Perfect baffled the Episcopal faction by treating the female Perfect as the equals of men.
Equality had been part of early Chaldarean practice but had fallen to revisionism even before me founding prophets left the world.
The non-Maysaleans of St. Jeules were disappointed by the absence of orgies. Nor did the Perfect hold midnight masses where they celebrated their love for the Night.
The great difficulty for the Brothen Church in the End of Connec was that everyone there had friends or neighbors or cousins who were heretics. Everyone got an occasional glimpse of the truth. Maysaleans truly were Seekers After Light. And their gentle witnessing drew purses away from the established Church.
Sublime and Bishop Serifs were correct.
The Church was losing the Connec.
If the Connec went, the spread of heresy would accelerate. The Grail Emperor might profess it simply to seize a new weapon to wield in his squabble with Brothe.
The Maysalean Heresy was dangerous in ways that only a few of the Perfect understood. Which was one purpose of the gathering at St. Jeules.
The Seekers had good friends in Antieux, close to Bishop Serifs. They had friends in Brothe itself. And Sublime had numerous enemies willing to befriend the Seekers for as long as he survived.
The synod of the Perfect would also decide how Maysaleans should face the coming repression.