Rale glanced at Cruk, who gave a single, brief shake of his head, and said, “No one in their right mind fights a two-front war if it can be avoided. With that as our starting point we’re left with only one viable option. Find a way without the duke’s ships to turn the situation back into a one-front war.”
Rale took a deep breath, as if consideration of such a plan daunted him. “We could scorch the earth east of the tri-cities to the Ladoga Pass and south to Talia and Basquon. Bring the people of the kingdom west and north. Force our enemies to use up their stores marching through land that will not feed them. We could meet their combined armies at a place of our choosing and fight a one-front war there.”
The archbenefice and the primus stared at Rale as if he’d shouted some unutterable blasphemy. Even Duke Weir looked shocked.
“By all that’s holy, do you know what you’re saying?” Enoch Sten asked. “You would turn Illustra into a nation of refugees. Do you know how many people would die under such a strategy?”
Rale nodded. “I do not recommend this course of action unless we are at our utmost need. You wanted an alternative to Duke Weir’s bargain. I have offered it.”
Uncounted masses of people uprooted from home and livelihood would fill the cities until they burst. Starvation and plague would follow. The exodus would kill more people than the war. Errol’s throat constricted around a hopeless emptiness. They would have to accept Duke Weir’s help and his price.
Canon looked as if he’d been punched in the gut. “Captain Cruk, surely you have something to suggest that will mitigate Elar’s dour pronouncement.”
Cruk shook his head slowly. “No. His assessment is accurate so far as it goes. What he didn’t say was that our ability to wage war will be severely compromised by the presence of so many refugees behind our line of battle. If we deplete the farmlands behind the front, the lack of food will defeat us. So the question becomes, who starves first, us or our enemies?” His face twisted to the side in a grimace. “Not exactly the smartest way to wage war.”
The archbenefice questioned the other captains, but Indurain maintained that his expertise lay in individual combat, not strategy, and Merodach merely shook his head.
“Errol,” Archbenefice Canon said, “though you have no cause to love Illustra, the church, or her nobility, I would ask you to convey your thoughts. Of all of us seated at this table you alone have borne the responsibilities of every branch of our kingdom. As a reader and the only living omne, you are part of the church. In addition, as earl, you are the only noble present that may bring an accusation against the duke. Finally, though you did not accept it, you passed the challenge to become one of the watch, and Reynald made you an honorary captain. Do you see any way Illustra may be saved?”
Across the table, Dane snorted. “Yes, let’s hear the wisdom of the Earl of Peasants.”
The archbenefice signaled two men of the watch. “Benefice Dane seems to have forgotten his place at this gathering. Please avail yourselves of the opportunity to remind him. I don’t know that you need to be overly gentle in your instruction.”
Dane goggled as the men lifted him from his chair. “You pathetic old man. You will die in your folly. You will—”
One of the guard’s fists truncated the remainder of his statement, and Dane spit blood and pieces of teeth. The archbenefice and the primus regarded Errol once more. They leaned forward, waiting for him to speak. Yet when Errol met their gaze, both men cut their glance to include Liam.
The advice of the captains had been for show. Canon and Sten were certain either he or Liam was destined to be king and, like Magis, would save Illustra in death. The archbenefice and the primus were going to let Errol and Liam decide the fate of Weir and the kingdom.
He wanted to throw up.
“I don’t know what to say, Your Excellency. Dane’s insults hold a large measure of truth. I was a peasant for much longer than I’ve been a reader or an earl. And as far as being an omne, I think that was just an accident of birth, like having blue eyes. It doesn’t really have much to do with me.”
“Your humility becomes you, Errol,” Primus Sten said. “But what do you think we should do?”
They couldn’t win. Even with the duke’s ships, the malus-infected Merakhi would find a way to invade Illustra, and they would ravage the kingdom until he or Liam met their leader in combat at the time appointed by Deas and died. The captains and the archbenefice were engaged in a game of pretend.
“If we make Duke Weir king, we will gain his ships, but how many men will we lose because we put a murderer on the throne? I don’t know as much about strategy as Cruk or Rale—Elar, I mean—but one of the things they taught me was that men need to believe in their leaders. If our king resembles what we’re fighting against, what are we fighting for?”
Errol looked around the table. Most of the men appeared as if he’d just asked them to take poison. Merodach gave a sharp nod, followed by Indurain, then Cruk and Rale.
The archbenefice sighed. “What say you, Liam?”
He rose from his chair, his blond hair falling to his shoulders like a mantle and his eyes gleaming. “I think Errol Stone’s humility is the most perfect embodiment of nobility I have seen. And I would add this—how can we expect Deas’s favor if we knowingly elevate a usurper?”
Archbenefice Bertrand Canon sighed, his gaze fixed on his hands folded on the table in front of him. “Dissent?”
Silence filled the room, grew heavy. No one spoke.
Canon lifted his head. “The deed must be done quickly. We must not risk his rescue and a protracted civil war.”
Benefice Weir started from his chair, eyes popping. “You are dooming yourselves,” the benefice whined. “You must reconsider this rashness.”
“Be quiet, brother. They mean to kill us now,” Duke Weir snarled. “Which one of you will swing the sword that dooms the kingdom?” He looked at Errol. “Will you do it, puppy?”
Archbenefice Canon shook his head. “You will not die at the hand of any here.” He turned to Reynald. “Captain, please select one of the watch, not an officer, to dispatch the criminals.” He eyed Weir with iron-willed resolve. “We’ll have to display their bodies as proof. No beheadings, if you please.”
9
Scour
MARTIN FINGERED THE THICK CASSOCK that warmed him against the predawn chill of the cathedral stones. Deas have mercy, he needed a bed. A hot bath and clean clothes had not assuaged his need for sleep, only accentuated it. Luis stood on his left, as he had twice before when they’d set out for Callowford. Errol and Karele, the small man he still thought of as the master of horses, stood on the other side. Errol seemed only slightly less nervous than Martin himself. As for Karele, the little man appeared unaffected by anything outside the shadow lands.
Bertrand Canon’s door opened. Cleatis, his secretary, nodded greetings to each of them, without allowing them entrance. “His Excellency is asleep, Benefice Arwitten.” His voice held a strong note of remonstration.
Martin sighed. “I’m no longer a benefice, Cleatis. Wake him.”
The secretary’s face puckered into a circle of disapproval, but he disappeared into the expansive interior of the archbenefice’s apartments.
Canon emerged after a few short moments, his hair disheveled but his eyes alert. He shrugged. “Old men sleep lightly when they sleep at all, and I am older than most. What concern brings you to me early enough to escape the notice of the rest of humanity, my friend?”
Now that the moment was upon him, thin needles of dread danced up and down Martin’s spine. He took a deep breath to summon his courage. With a bow to Canon’s office he met the man’s gaze and cut his eyes to the archbenefice’s secretary. “I have come to make confession, Excellency.”
Canon’s eyes widened with surprise, but the good-natured smile didn’t slip from his face. “And you have brought interesting witnesses with you, I see. I always enjoy your approach to orthodoxy, Martin. Your unique interpretation of the
traditions of the church never fails to lighten the tedium of an otherwise dull proceeding.”
He turned to his secretary. “Thank you, Cleatis. You may withdraw. I will send someone for you when Pater Martin and I are done.”
Martin raised his hand. “A moment please, Cleatis. Would you be so kind as to ask Primus Sten to join us? I feel the need for his witness most acutely.”
Canon’s secretary nodded and withdrew. They waited in silence until Sten, bleary-eyed and heavily robed, joined them. The archbenefice sniffed and gave himself a shake. “All right, Martin, we’re all here. What’s this about?”
He turned away from Canon’s gaze to pace the floor. “I pray that you grant me indulgence to confess, Excellency?”
The archbenefice’s thick white eyebrows rose, and he took his lower lip between his teeth in thought. When he addressed Martin again, his voice mirrored the formality. “Very well, Pater. You have invoked the office of confession. In front of these witnesses, I grant you permission to proceed. Speak no word that is untrue and omit no detail that might serve to deceive. You are adjured by Deas, Eleison, and unknowable Aurae.”
Again, the archbenefice’s clear blue-eyed gaze robbed Martin of the ability to speak. His steps measured the length of Canon’s audience chamber, came back again. “Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? For centuries we’ve put the acolytes at their tables with ink and parchment, copying the liturgy of the church because we didn’t have Magis’s book, and every sheet of lambskin or vellum sent out from the isle, even to the smallest church in the most insignificant province, says Aurae is unknowable.”
He took a deep shuddering breath, felt it leave his lungs in stuttering puffs of air. “And it’s all wrong, Excellency. Aurae is knowable.”
Canon’s lips tightened in disapproval. His hands clenched the arms of his chair as if only a supreme effort of will kept him from denouncing Martin where he stood. “Pater Martin, your confession takes a most unexpected form. Are you stating fact or belief? I’m sure I need not remind you that many have gone to the block for espousing that heresy.”
Martin bowed. “It is a fact, Excellency, and the reason I have asked Primus Sten here as a witness. I did not think you would trust the demonstration of proof to the secondus or the omne, since much of my journey has been shared by them.”
Canon’s gaze never left Martin’s face, but he lifted one hand to beckon the primus forward. “Do you have your tools of office with you, Enoch?”
The primus nodded, his wispy hair fluttering with the motion. “When Cleatis summoned me, I suspected you might desire a cast.” He glanced at Martin. “Though I only brought ten blanks. If the pater’s demonstration requires more, we’ll have to send someone to the conclave.”
Martin shook his head, his stomach roiling inside like a pot of boiling water. “I do not believe so, Primus, though His Excellency may require it.”
Canon regarded him, licked his lips with a pale tongue. “I find myself unprepared for such a demonstration, Martin. I think perhaps it would be best if we continued the form of the confession. There is a tale here, and I would hear it before we engage the primus in his craft.”
He moved across the room, retrieved a chair, and seated himself. At his wave, the others did likewise.
Grateful the archbenefice had asked him to do so, and hoping the telling would somehow lessen the shock, Martin related his journey. Yet when he spoke of Cruk’s near-death injury and their meeting with Karele, he realized he had been mistaken. Canon’s thick eyebrows began a gradual climb up his forehead and stayed there. By the time Martin mentioned his encounter with Aurae in the council of the shadow lands, his superior’s eyes were wide with surprise and disbelief. Yet the biggest shock remained.
Martin brought his portion of the tale to a close at the point where Lord Weir’s treachery landed them in a Merakhi prison, with the captains forced to fight in the arena until they died. He turned to the young man in the chair behind him, his narrow face still boyish and open. Still.
“Errol, would you please relate what happened to you?”
To the lad’s credit, he didn’t protest. He rose, so different from the boy he had been, and walked the space in front of the archbenefice as he spoke of captivity, his friendship with Hadari, the ilhotep’s Ongolese guard, and his encounter with the book.
Canon lurched forward in his seat. “What?”
“I read the book, Excellency,” Errol said. “The book of the history of Deas and Eleison that Magis took to battle with him.”
The archbenefice sat his chair, shaking his head in denial. “No. It was lost.”
Martin bowed. “Lost, Excellency, not destroyed. Please continue, Errol.”
“Hadari let me read it,” Errol continued. “He wanted me to. The book says Aurae is knowable but incomprehensible.”
“And I believe that wording, Excellency, is the source of our centuries-old error,” Martin said.
Bertrand Canon slumped in his chair, slack-jawed, his right hand making vague summoning gestures in Sten’s direction. The primus came forward and bent at the waist to place his head close to the archbenefice’s.
“Yes, Excellency?”
Canon’s mouth worked for a moment before any words came out. “Cast for this?”
“Which part?”
His eyes searched Errol and then swept to Martin and Karele. “All of it.”
Sten straightened. “Your Excellency, it will take some time if I take each person’s confession as a discrete quantity. There may be a more expedient approach.”
The archbenefice snorted his vexation. “Out with it, man. What is it?”
“I can cast once to see if everything said is true.”
“Why would you not?”
Primus Sten sighed. “Because it is not the same as casting to see if they are telling the truth. A man can believe he is speaking the truth even while he is quite wrong. This makes him mistaken, not a liar. Casting for absolute truth is a far more stringent cast than whether one believes what he is saying. Yet, I thought I should offer it in order to confirm Martin’s, um, confession.”
“Confession?” Canon snorted, turning to face Martin again. “You’re trying to dump hundreds of years of church tradition into the sewer, Pater. You tricked me.”
Martin bowed, accepting the rebuke. “My apologies, Excellency.”
“Humph. Enoch, cast to see if everything said is true, absolutely true.”
Twenty minutes later, Sten pulled the first of the lots from the drawing bag. “Yes.”
Canon gaped. “Yes, what?”
The primus licked his lips. “Yes, it’s all true.”
The archbenefice pointed a shaking finger at the pine lot. “Draw again.”
“How many times, Excellency?”
Canon’s finger trembled in the air as if he were counting outcomes. “Twenty.”
Moments later, Sten pronounced the results. “Seventeen out of twenty draws say Pater Martin and Errol Stone have spoken the absolute truth. There can be no doubt, Excellency.”
Bertrand Canon’s gaze swept to Martin again, but this time it passed over and through him, unseeing. Then his voice exploded, filling the room. “By all that’s holy, why didn’t you grab the book? Deas in heaven, Martin, we’re at war! If we reveal this to the Judica, the chaos will be twice what it was during Weir’s assault, ten times.”
Martin winced at the rebuke. How many times in the past weeks had he reviled himself for not returning to the Merakhi capital to attempt recovery of the book? Only Deas knew how much of the upcoming wrangling in the Judica it would have eliminated.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” Canon said. “That was uncharitable. Please forgive me.” He breathed deeply, appeared to take hold of himself.
“Surely the timing of this is beyond coincidental, but it is difficult for me to see anything but evil in it.” He shook his head in surrender. “If we tell the Judica the book still exists, they will be unable to think of anything else. And if we
tell them Aurae is knowable and the solis Karele has the means to control the cast, they will dissolve into chaos, unable to confirm the most basic decisions.”
He laughed but the sound contained no humor. “Forgive me for sounding less than grateful at your news, my friend, but your tidings hold edges that might bleed the kingdom of the surety it needs.” He sighed, then pointed a pale, veined finger at Karele. “I think I would like to see this confounding of lots for myself.”
Nearly an hour later, after several casts had yielded contradictory results, the archbenefice shook his head in wonderment. “Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.” He grunted. “I’m still not sure I believe it.”
He paused to run his hand slowly down his face before turning to Karele. “Is it possible for any power other than Aurae’s to affect the lots this way?”
Karele shook his head. “Only Deas, through Aurae, can confound the cast.”
The archbenefice breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s something anyway.” His mouth tightened. “I want every member of the Judica and conclave tested before word of this gets out. After that,” he sighed, “Deas help us, it will be chaos.”
Canon pronounced the Judica proceedings finished for the day and bade Errol and the rest to accompany him back to his chambers. Once there, his mien of unshakable confidence slipped from him like a discarded robe. “That makes three today, three out of twenty, and Deas alone knows how many more tomorrow.”
Martin shrugged. “Hardly unexpected, Excellency. Weir brandished extraordinary power. Many perceived him as Illustra’s best hope for survival. Three is not such a great number.”
“There shouldn’t have been any,” Canon snarled. “The church is supposed to look to Deas and the conclave for . . .”
He stopped, his anger dissipating, and flopped in a chair. “I’m going to have to readjust my thinking.” He gnawed one corner of his lower lip in frustration. “We’re moving too slowly, gentlemen. At this rate it will take days to confirm the Judica, and then we must do the same with the conclave.”
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