by Paul Kearney
Himerius smiled.
“I will also send a private letter to King Lofantyr of Torunna, expressing my outrage at this heretical occurrence and telling him of my reluctance to commit our Knights Militant to the defence of his kingdom whilst that same kingdom harbours a pretender to my own position, an affront against the Holy Office I occupy, a stink in the nostrils of God.”
“So you will withhold the troops you promised Brother Heyn,” Betanza said. He sounded tired.
“Yes. Until this thing is dealt with Torunna shall receive no material aid from the Church.”
“And Ormann Dyke?”
“What of it?”
“The dyke needs those men, Holiness. Without them it will surely fall.”
“Then so be it. Its commander should have thought of that before he started elevating blind old men to the position of High Pontiff.”
Betanza was silent. As the Knights Militant were quartered in Charibon they were nominally under the command of the head of the Inceptine Order. But never in living memory had a Vicar-General flouted the wishes of his Pontiff.
“The men are already on the march,” Betanza said. “They must be halfway to Torunna by now.”
“Then recall them,” Himerius snapped. “Torunna shall receive nothing from me until it extirpates this impostor.”
“I beg you to consider, Holiness . . . What if this man is who he says he is?”
“Impossible, I tell you. Are you questioning my judgement, Brother?”
“No. It is just that I do not want you to make a mistake.”
“I am directly inspired by the Blessed Saint, as his representative on earth. Trust me. I know.”
“By rights we should reassemble the Synod and put this to the convened Colleges and Prelates.”
“They’re happily trekking homewards by now. It would waste too much time. They will be informed in due course. What is the matter with you, Brother Betanza? Do you doubt the word of your Pontiff?”
One of the powers inherent in the Pontifical office was the nomination or removal of the Vicar-General of the Inceptines. Betanza looked his superior in the eye.
“Of course not, Holiness. I only seek to cover every contingency.”
“I am glad to hear it. It is always better when the Vicar-General and the Pontiff have a good working relationship. It can be disastrous if they do not. Think of old Baliaeus.”
Baliaeus had been a Pontiff of the last century who had quarrelled with his Vicar-General, removed the man from office and assumed the position himself in addition to his Pontiffship. The event had scandalized the entire Ramusian world, but none had attempted to reinstate the unfortunate head of the Inceptines. The man had died a reclusive hermit in a cell up in the Cimbrics.
“But you are no Baliaeus, Holiness,” Betanza said, smiling.
“I am not. Old friend, we have worked too hard and striven too long to see what we laboured for torn away from us.”
“Indeed.” So if Himerius went, Betanza went. That much was clear at least.
“In any case,” Himerius went on suavely, “we may be worrying over nothing. You have said yourself that the dyke must fall. If it does, the impostor will fall with it and all those who believe in him there. Our problems will be at an end.”
Betanza stared at him, open-mouthed.
“That will do, my lord Vicar-General. Have the scribes sent to me when you leave. I will dictate the dispatches this evening. We must strike whilst the iron is hot.”
Betanza got up, bowed and kissed his Pontiff’s ring. He left the room without another word.
Brother Rogien was waiting for him as he exited. He strode along the wide corridors of Charibon with Rogien silent at his side. He could hear Vespers being sung from half a dozen college chapels and smell the enticing aromas from the kitchens of the monastery.
Rogien was an older man, broad-shouldered and stooped, with hair as white and fine as the down on a day-old chick. He was Betanza’s deputy, experienced in the ways of Inceptine intrigue.
“He will not even investigate it!” Betanza raged at last, striding along at a swift, angry pace.
“What did you think, that he would tamely lie down and accept it?” Rogien asked caustically. “All his life he has coveted the position he now occupies. He is more powerful than any king. It is not a thing to be abandoned lightly.”
“But the way he goes about it! He will recall the Knights promised to Torunna; he will alienate Heyn and the Torunnan king. He will gladly see Ormann Dyke fall rather than risk his own position!”
“So? We knew that was what would happen.”
“I have been a soldier of sorts, Rogien. I commanded men in my youth and maybe that gives me a different outlook. But I tell you that this man will see the west riven by fire and ruin if he thinks it will advance his own cause one jot.”
“You have attached yourself to him,” Rogien said implacably. “His fortunes are yours. You worked with him to gain the Pontiffship; he helped vote you into your position. You cannot turn around now and forsake him. It will ruin you.”
“Yes, I know!”
They reached the Vicar-General’s quarters, dismissed the Knights at the door and went inside, lighting candles as they did so.
“You would never have become head of the order were it not for him,” Rogien went on. “Your age and your late vocation counted against you. It was Himerius’ lobbying that swung the Colleges. You are his creature, Betanza.”
The Vicar-General poured himself wine from a crystal decanter, made the Sign of the Saint with a clenched fist and drank the wine at a gulp.
“Yes, his creature. Is that what they will say in the history books? That Betanza stood by whilst his Pontiff brought down the west? Can the man be so blinkered that he is unable to see what he is doing? By all means, denounce the impostor; but withhold the Torunnan reinforcements as well? That smacks of paranoia.”
Rogien shrugged. “He is willing to take no risks. He knows it will bring Lofantyr to heel quicker than anything else. And you have to admit it would look odd were the High Pontiff to send troops to bolster the garrison of a fortress which has raised up a rival High Pontiff.”
“Yes, there is that, I suppose.” Betanza smiled wryly and poured his colleague and himself more wine. “Mayhap I am losing my skill at the Inceptine game.”
“You bring to it the wisdom of a man who has not worn a black habit his whole life. You were a nobleman once, a lay-leader. But that is in the past. If you are to survive and to prosper, you must learn to think wholly as an Inceptine. The order must retain its pre-eminence. Let the kings worry about the defence of the west; it is their province. We must concern ourselves with the spiritual welfare of the Ramusian world—and what would happen to it were there to be two Pontiffs? Chaos, anarchy, a schism that might take years to heal. Think on that, Brother.”
Betanza regarded his subordinate with sour humour.
“I think sometimes that you would be better off sitting in my chair and I in a soldier’s harness before Ormann Dyke, Rogien.”
“As you are Himerius’ creature, I am yours, lord.”
“Yes,” the Vicar-General said quietly. “You are.”
He threw back his wine. “Send a half-dozen of our quickest scribes to the High Pontiff’s chambers. He will be wanting to dictate his dispatches at once. And warn off a squad of our dispatch-riders to be ready for a long journey.”
Rogien bowed. “Will there be anything else? Shall I have your meal sent up, or will you eat in hall?”
“I am not hungry. I must be alone for a while. I must think, and pray. That will be all, Rogien.”
“Very well, my lord.” The older man left.
Betanza moved to the window and threw back the heavy shutters. A keen air smelling of snow wafted into the dim room. He could see where the majestic Cimbrics loomed right at the shores of the Sea of Tor, the last light of the sun touching their white peaks while the rest of the world was sinking into shadow. Eighteen days the messeng
er had been on the road. The dyke had most likely already fallen and his worries were academic. The largest army yet seen could be even now resuming its march westwards, and he remained here splitting hairs with an egocentric Churchman.
He smiled. What Inceptine was not egocentric, ambitious, imperious? Even the novices behaved like princes when they walked the streets of the fisher villages.
It would cause trouble. He could feel it in his bones. It was not just the Merduk war; there were other straws in the wind tonight. The Conclave of Kings would be convening very soon; he would know more then. He had his informants in place.
A time of change was approaching. Attitudes were shifting, not just among the common people but among kings and princes. Himerius already had the aspect of a man on the defensive. But perhaps his efforts would be no more effectual than the efforts of those few unfortunates who were fighting and dying along the Searil River at this very moment. The mood of the age could not be turned around by a few ambitious men, even ones as powerful as the High Pontiff.
He wondered if Macrobius were truly alive. There was little chance of it, of course, and the likeliest explanation for the dispatch they had received that afternoon was the one proffered by Himerius. But if the impostor were the old Pontiff, Betanza doubted very much whether Himerius would step down. There would be a schism: two Pontiffs, a divided Ramusian continent with the Merduks baying at its borders. Such a scenario did not bear thinking about.
He left the window, shutting out the cold air and the sunset-tinted mountains. Then he knelt on the stone floor and began to pray.
NINETEEN
A N unending expanse of ocean, blue as the cerulean vault which arced down to meet it, unbroken on every horizon. Limitless as the space between stars.
And on that unruffled ocean a minuscule speck, a tiny piece of flotsam overlooked by the elements. A ship, and the souls contained within its wooden walls.
T HE Osprey was becalmed. After three days and nights the storm had veered off to the north-west, having had its diversion and driven the carrack uncounted leagues off her course. Then the wind had died, leaving the sea as glassily calm as the water in a millpond on a still summer’s day. The ship’s company had watched the black towering banners of the storm billow off into the distance, taking the darkness and the cold with them, and they had been left with an eerie silence, an absence of noise that they could not quite account for until they remembered the absence of the wind.
The ship was a battered hulk, a relic of the proud vessel which had sailed out of Abrusio harbour a scant month before. The main topmast had gone, and its passing had torn chunks out of the larboard sterncastle. The gun that had been wrenched overboard had also ripped a hole in the ship’s side so that the carrack looked as though some immense monster had been chewing on it. Rags and loose ends of rigging dangled everywhere and the normally smooth lines of the ropes which formed the rigging itself were bunched and untidy after being knotted and spliced countless times throughout the storm.
The ship was floating in a greasy pool of her own filth. Around the hull floated human waste and detritus, fragments of wood and hemp, and even the bloated corpses of a pair of sheep. The miasma of the stagnant surroundings stank out the ship along with the familiar reek of her bilge, now somewhat sluiced out by the tons of seawater the ship had made and pumped away throughout the tempest. The ship’s boats were full of holes so the crew could not even tow the carrack out of the area. And the heat battered down relentlessly from a sun that seemed made of beaten brass. The pitch bubbled in the seams and, as the upper deck dried, so the planking opened and let water drip down through the ship, soaking everything. The ship’s company became accustomed to finding mould and strange fungi sprouting in the unlikeliest of dark corners throughout the carrack.
19th day of Midorion, year of the Saint 551.
Flat calm. The fourth day with no wind. The ship is still in the doldrums. By my estimate we have been blown some one hundred and eighty leagues off our course to the south-west or sou’-sou’-west. From cross-staff observations I believe that we are on the approximate latitude of Gabrion, but my calculations must needs be largely guesswork. In the middle of the worst of the storm the glass was neglected for almost half a watch, and so our timings must begin anew and dead-reckoning becomes ever more unreliable.
There is only one recourse that I can see to help us make up our lost northing, and that is Pernicus, the weather-worker. If he can be prevailed upon to conjure up a favourable wind then we may yet make landfall ere the winter storms begin. But I know what prejudices such a line of action would evoke. I must talk to the man Bardolin, who seems to have become a spokesman of sorts for the passengers since the storm, and, of course, Murad. But I will be damned to the bottom if I will endanger my ship any further for the religious fanaticism of a cursed Raven whom no one wanted on this ship in the first place.
Hawkwood looked over what he had written and then, cursing under his breath, he scored out the last sentence heavily and retrimmed his quill.
Ortelius will surely see reason. It may be a choice between utilizing the abilities of the weather-worker or, at best, extending the voyage by a good two months. At worst it could mean our deaths.
Crew employed about the ship on repairs. We will be swaying up a new topmast in the first dog-watch, and then working on the ship’s boats. I must report the deaths of Rad Misson, Essen Maratas and Heirun Japara, all able seamen. May the Company of the Saints find a place for their benighted souls, and may the Prophet Ahrimuz welcome Heirun to his garden.
Four men, including First Mate Billerand, confined to their hammocks with injuries sustained in the storm. Velasca Ormino acting first mate for the duration.
I must report also the deaths of three passengers, who were consigned to the sea during the storm itself. They were Geraldina Durado, Ohen Durado and Cabrallo Schema. May God have mercy on their souls. Brother Ortelius today conducted a ceremony to mark their passing and preached a sermon about the consequences of heresy and disbelief.
“The bastard,” Hawkwood said aloud.
Of Haukal and The Grace of God there is no sign. I cannot believe that such a well-found ship under such a captain could have foundered, even in the blow that we went through.
Unless, Hawkwood thought with that persistent hollow feeling in his stomach, they had been pooped and broached-to whilst running before those enormous waves. The Grace’s stern was not as high as the carrack’s, and a wave might have overwhelmed her whilst Haukal had been putting her before the wind. And those lateen yards were less handy than the square-rigged ones of the carrack. Frequently sail was taken in by lowering the yards to the deck, and in such a sea there might not have been time to do that.
He had a man in the foretop round the clock, and from up there the lookout could survey at least seven leagues in any direction, despite the haze that was beginning to cloud the horizon with the growing heat. There was just no telling.
Hawkwood looked up from his desk. Beyond the stern windows he could see the glittering, unmoving sea, and the darkness on the northern horizon that was the last of the storm. The windows were open to try and get some air circulating, but it was a fruitless gesture. The heat and the stench were hanging in the throats of every soul on the ship, and the hold was a shattering wooden oven, humid as the jungles of Macassar. He must get the animals out of there for a while, and rig up a wind sail to get some air below-decks. If there were any wind to fill it.
There was a knock at the cabin door.
“Enter.”
He was startled to see Ortelius the Inceptine standing there when he turned.
“Captain, do you have a moment?”
He was half inclined to say “no,” but he merely nodded and gestured to the stool behind the door. He closed the ship’s log, feeling absurdly shifty as he did so.
The cleric pulled out the stool and sat down. He was obviously uncomfortable with the low perch.
“What is it you would say to me,
Father? I cannot give you long, I am afraid. We’ll be swaying up the new topmast in a few minutes.”
Ortelius had lost weight. His cheeks seemed to have sunk in on themselves and the channels at the corners of his nose were as deep as scars.
“It is the voyage, my son.”
“What of it?” Hawkwood asked, surprised.
“It is cursed. It is an offense against God and the Holy Saint. The smaller vessel is already lost and soon this one will be also if we do not turn back and set sail for the lands that are lit by the light of the Faith.”
“Now wait a moment—” Hawkwood began hotly.
“I know you are Gabrionese, Captain, not from one of the five Ramusian bastions that are the Monarchies of God, but I say this to you: if you have any piety about you whatsoever, you will heed my words and turn the ship around.”
Hawkwood could have sworn that the man was sincere—more, that he was genuinely afraid. The sweat was pouring off him in drops as big as pearls, and his chin quivered. There was an odd glitter to his eyes that somehow made Hawkwood uneasy, as though they had something lurking behind them. For an instant he was inclined to agree with the distressed priest, but then he dismissed the notion and shook his head.
“Father, what reasons can you give for this, beyond the usual disquiet of a landsman at being far out to sea? It affects all of us at one time or another—the absence of land on any horizon, the limitless appearance of the ocean. But you will grow used to it, believe me. And there is no reason to think the caravel is lost. It is as fine a vessel as this one, and I’ll be surprised if we ever have to weather a worse storm than the last in our crossing of the Western Ocean.”
“Even if we are upon it when winter comes?” the Inceptine asked. He had one hand white-knuckled round his Saint’s symbol.
“What makes you think we will still be at sea by then?” Hawkwood asked lightly.