‘Luck had very little to do with it, Your Majesty,’ Talen grinned. ‘Sephrenia almost dislocated her jaw and very nearly braided her fingers putting the spell together. Excuse me. I’m supposed to go and tell Dolmant and Emban. Then I have to report it to Wargun so that he doesn’t bash in Soros’s head to keep him quiet.’
After they had finished with their lunch, Sparhawk escorted the two ladies back to the audience chamber. ‘Sparhawk?’ Ehlana said just before they entered, ‘do you like Dolmant, the Patriarch of Demos?’
‘Very much,’ he replied. ‘He’s one of my oldest friends – and that’s not just because he used to be a Pandion.’
‘I like him too,’ she smiled. She said it as if something had just been settled.
Dolmant reconvened the Hierocracy and then asked each of the kings to address the assembled Patriarchs. As Sparhawk had suggested to Ehlana earlier, each monarch rose, thanked the Hierocracy for being permitted to be present, made a few references to Annias, Otha and Azash and then invoked the blessing of God upon the deliberations.
‘And now, brothers and friends,’ Dolmant said, ‘we have a rare occasion here today. For the first time in history, a queen will address us.’ He smiled ever so faintly. ‘I would not for the world offend the mighty kings of western Eosia, but I must in all candour say that Ehlana, Queen of Elenia, is far lovelier than they are, and I think we may be surprised to discover that she’s as wise as she is beautiful.’
Ehlana blushed charmingly. For the remainder of his life, Sparhawk was never able to discover how she could blush at will. She even tried to explain it to him a few times, but it was quite beyond his understanding.
The Queen of Elenia rose and stood with her face downcast for a moment as if in some confusion at Dolmant’s prettily turned compliment. ‘I thank you, Your Grace,’ she said in a clear, ringing voice as she raised her head. All traces of the blush were now gone, and Ehlana had a very determined expression on her face.
Sparhawk’s heart gave a sudden suspicious lurch. ‘Get hold of something solid, gentlemen,’ he warned his friends. ‘I know that look on her face. I think she has a few surprises in store for us here.’
‘I too must express my gratitude to the Hierocracy for allowing me to be present,’ Ehlana began, ‘and I will add my prayers to those of my brother monarchs, asking God to grant these nobles of the Church wisdom in their deliberations. Since I am the first woman to ever address the Hierocracy in such circumstances, however, might I ask that indulgence of the assembled Patriarchs that I might address a few additional remarks to them? If my words seem frivolous, I’m sure the learned Patriarchs will forgive me. I am but a woman and not very old. And we all know that young women are sometimes silly when they become excited.’ She paused.
‘Excited, did I say?’ she continued, her voice like a silver trumpet. ‘Nay, gentlemen, say instead that I am enraged! This monster, this cold bloodless beast, this – this Annias murdered my beloved father. He struck down the wisest and gentlest monarch in all Eosia!’
‘Aldreas?’ Kalten whispered in disbelief.
‘And then,’ Ehlana continued in that ringing voice, ‘not content with breaking my heart, this ravening savage sought my life as well! Our Church is tainted now, gentlemen, besmirched because this villain ever professed holy orders. I would come here as a suppliant, a petitioner, to demand justice, but I will wring my own justice from the body of the man who murdered my father. I am but a weak woman, but I have a champion, gentlemen, a man who at my command will seek out and find this monstrous Annias even though the beast seeks to hide himself in the very bowels of Hell itself. Annias will face me. I swear this to you all, and generations yet unborn shall tremble at the memory of his fate. Our holy mother Church need not concern herself with dispensing justice to this wretch. The Church is gentle, compassionate, but I, gentlemen, am not.’ So much for his queen’s apparent submission to the dictates of the Church, Sparhawk thought.
Ehlana had paused again, her young face lifted in vengeful resolve. ‘But what of this prize?’ she asked, turning to look pointedly at the shrouded throne. ‘Upon whom will you bestow this chair for which Annias was willing to drown the world in blood? To whom shall this piece of ornate furniture descend? For mistake me not, friends, that’s all it is, a piece of furniture, heavy, ungainly and, I’m sure, not very comfortable. Whom will you sentence to bear the awful burdens of care and responsibility which go with this chair and which he will be forced to carry in this darkest hour of our holy mother’s life? He must be wise, of course, that goes without saying, but all of the Patriarchs of the Church are wise. He must also be courageous, but are you not all as brave as lions? He must be shrewd, and make no mistake, there is a vast difference between wisdom and shrewdness. He must be clever, for he faces the master of deceit – not Annias, though Annias is deceitful enough; not Otha, sunk in his own foul debauchery; but Azash himself. Which of you will match strength and cunning and will with that spawn of Hell?’
‘What is she doing?’ Bevier whispered in a stunned voice.
‘Isn’t it obvious, Sir Knight?’ Stragen murmured urbanely. ‘She’s selecting a new Archprelate.’
‘That’s absurd!’ Bevier gasped. ‘The Hierocracy chooses the Archprelate!’
‘Right now, Sir Bevier, they’d elect you if she pointed that small pink finger at you. Look at them. She has the entire Hierocracy in the palm of her hand.’
‘You have warriors among you, reverend Patriarchs,’ Ehlana was saying, ‘men of steel and valour, but could an armoured Archprelate match the guile of Azash? You have theologians among you, My Lords of the Church, men of such towering intellect that they can perceive the mind and intent of God Himself, but would such a man, attuned to the voice of Divine Truth, be prepared to counter the Master of Lies? There are those versed in Church Law and those who are masters of Church politics. There are those who are strong, and those who are brave. There are those who are gentle, and those who are compassionate. If we could but choose the entire Hierocracy itself to lead us, we would be invincible, and the gates of Hell could not prevail against us!’ Ehlana swayed, raising one trembling hand to her brow. ‘Forgive me, gentlemen,’ she said in a weak voice. ‘The effects of the poison with which the serpent Annias sought to steal away my life do linger yet.’
Sparhawk half-started to his feet.
‘Oh, do sit down, Sparhawk,’ Stragen told him. ‘You’ll spoil her performance if you go clanking down there right now. Believe me, she’s perfectly fine.’
‘Our holy mother needs a champion, my Lords of the Church,’ Ehlana continued in a weary voice, ‘a man who is the distillation and essence of the Hierocracy itself, and I think that in your hearts you all know who that man is. May God give you the wisdom, the enlightenment, to turn to the one who even now is in your very midst, shrouded with true humility, but who extends his gentle hand to guide you, perhaps not even knowing that he does so, for this self-effacing Patriarch perhaps does not even know himself that he speaks with the Voice of God. Seek him in your hearts, My Lords of the Church, and lay this burden upon him, for only he can be our champion!’ She swayed again, and her knees began to buckle. Then she wilted like a flower. King Wargun, his face awed and his eyes full of tears, leapt to his feet and caught her even as she fell.
‘The perfect touch,’ Stragen said admiringly. He grinned. ‘Poor, poor Sparhawk,’ he said. ‘You haven’t got a chance, you know.’
‘Stragen, will you shut up?’
‘What was that really all about?’ Kalten asked in a baffled tone.
‘She just appointed an Archprelate, Sir Kalten,’ Stragen told him.
‘Who? She didn’t mention a single name.’
‘Isn’t it clear to you yet? She very carefully eliminated all the other contenders. There’s only one possibility left. The other Patriarchs all know who he is, and they’ll elect him – just as soon as one of them dares to mention his name. I’d tell you myself, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.’<
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King Wargun had lifted the apparently unconscious Ehlana in his arms and was carrying her towards the bronze door at one side of the chamber.
‘Go to her,’ Sephrenia said to Mirtai. ‘Try to keep her calm. She’s very exhilarated right now – and don’t let King Wargun come back in here. He might blurt something out and ruin everything.’
Mirtai nodded and rushed down to the floor.
The chamber was alive with excited conversation. Ehlana’s fire and passion had ignited them all. Patriarch Emban sat with his eyes wide in stunned amazement. Then he grinned broadly, and then he covered his mouth with one hand and began to laugh.
‘– obviously possessed by the Divine Hand of God himself,’ one nearby monk was saying excitedly to another. ‘But a woman? Why would God speak to us in the voice of a woman?’
‘His ways are mysterious,’ the other monk said in an awed voice, ‘and unfathomable to man.’
It was with some difficulty that Patriarch Dolmant restored order. ‘My brothers and friends,’ he said. ‘We must, of course, forgive the Queen of Elenia for her emotional outburst. I have known her since childhood, and I assure you that she is normally a completely self-possessed young woman. It is doubtless as she herself suggested. The last traces of the poison still linger and make her sometimes irrational.’
‘Oh, this is too rare,’ Stragen laughed to Sephrenia. ‘He doesn’t even know.’
‘Stragen,’ she said crisply, ‘hush.’
‘Yes, little mother.’
Patriarch Bergsten, mail-shirted and dreadful in his ogre-horned helmet, rose and rapped the butt of his war-axe on the marble floor. ‘Permission to speak?’ He didn’t actually ask.
‘Of course, Bergsten,’ Dolmant said.
‘We are not here to discuss the vapourish indisposition of the Queen of Elenia,’ the massive Patriarch of Emsat declared. ‘We are here to select an Archprelate. I suggest that we move on with it. To that end, I place in nomination the name of Dolmant, Patriarch of Demos. Who will join his voice with mine in this nomination?’
‘No!’ Dolmant exclaimed in stunned dismay.
‘The Patriarch of Demos is not in order,’ Ortzel declared, rising to his feet. ‘By custom and by law, as one who has been nominated, he may not speak further until this question has been decided. With the consent of my brothers, I would ask the esteemed Patriarch of Ucera to assume the chair.’ He looked around. There appeared to be no dissent.
Emban, still grinning openly, waddled to the lectern and rather cavalierly dismissed Dolmant with a wave of one chubby hand. ‘Has the Patriarch of Kadach concluded his remarks?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Ortzel said, ‘I have not.’ Ortzel’s face was still stern and bleak. Then, with no sign of the pain it must have caused him, he spoke firmly. ‘I join my voice with that of my brother of Emsat. Patriarch Dolmant is the only possible choice for the Archprelacy.’
Then Makova rose. His face was dead white, and his jaws were clenched. ‘God will punish you for this outrage!’ he almost spat at his fellow Patriarchs. ‘I will have no part in this absurdity!’ He spun on his heel and stormed from the chamber.
‘At least he’s honest,’ Talen observed.
‘Honest?’ Berit exclaimed. ‘Makova?’
‘Of course, revered teacher,’ the boy grinned. ‘Once somebody buys Makova, he stays bought – no matter how things turn out.’
The voting went swiftly after that as Patriarch after Patriarch rose to approve Dolmant’s nomination. Emban’s face grew sly as the last Patriarch, a feeble old man from Cammoria, was helped to his feet to murmur the name ‘Dolmant’ in a creaky voice.
‘Well, Dolmant,’ Emban said in mock surprise, ‘it seems that only you and I are left. Is there someone you’d like to nominate, my friend?’
‘I beg of you, my brothers,’ Dolmant pleaded, ‘don’t do this.’ He was openly weeping.
‘The Patriarch of Demos is not in order,’ Ortzel said gently. ‘He must place a name in nomination or stand mute.’
‘Sorry, Dolmant,’ Emban grinned, ‘but you heard what he said. Oh, incidentally, I’ll join my voice with those of the others in nominating you. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to nominate somebody?’ He waited. ‘Very well, then. I make it one hundred and twenty-six nominations for the Patriarch of Demos, one bolted and one abstention. Isn’t that amazing? Shall we vote, my brothers, or shall we save some time and just declare Patriarch Dolmant the Archprelate by acclamation? I pause for your reply.’
It began with a single deep voice coming from somewhere down front. ‘Dolmant!’ the voice boomed. ‘Dolmant!’
It was soon picked up. ‘Dolmant!’ they roared. ‘Dolmant!’ It went on for quite some time.
Then Emban raised his hand for silence. ‘Awfully sorry to be the one to tell you, old boy,’ he drawled to Dolmant, ‘but you don’t seem to be a Patriarch any more. Why don’t you and a couple of our brothers retire to the vestry for a few moments so they can help you try on your new robes?’
Chapter 18
The audience chamber was still filled with excited conversation, some of it in shouts. Patriarchs with looks of exaltation on their faces milled about on the marble floor, and Sparhawk heard the phrase ‘inspired by God’, repeated over and over in awed tones as he pushed his way through the crowd. Churchmen are traditionally very conservative, and they found that any hint that a mere woman might have actually guided the Hierocracy in its decision was unthinkable. The notion of Divine inspiration was a convenient way out. Obviously, it had not been Ehlana who had spoken, but God Himself. At the moment, Sparhawk was not concerned about theology. What he was concerned about was the condition of his queen. Stragen’s explanation was plausible, of course, but Stragen had been talking about Sparhawk’s queen – and his betrothed. Sparhawk wanted to see for himself that she was well.
She appeared to be not only well but in glowing health as he opened the door through which King Wargun had carried her. She even looked a little ridiculous as she stood half bent over with her ear pressed to the spot where the closed door had only recently been.
‘You could hear much better from your seat out there in the chamber, My Queen,’ Sparhawk said with some asperity.
‘Oh, be still, Sparhawk,’ she said tartly, ‘and come in and shut the door.’
Sparhawk stepped through the doorway.
King Wargun stood with his back against the wall and his eyes a little wild. Mirtai stood in front of him, poised. ‘Get this she-dragon away from me, Sparhawk,’ Wargun begged.
‘Have you decided not to make an issue of my queen’s theatrics, Your Majesty?’ Sparhawk asked him politely.
‘Admit that she made a fool of me? Don’t be absurd, Sparhawk. I wasn’t going to run out there and declare that I’d been a jackass in public. All I wanted to do was to tell everyone that your queen was all right, but I didn’t even make it as far as the door when this huge woman came in here. She threatened me, Sparhawk! Me, of all people. Do you see that chair there?’
Sparhawk looked. The chair was upholstered, and large wads of horsehair were protruding out of a long gash in its back.
‘It was merely a suggestion, Sparhawk,’ Mirtai said mildly. ‘I wanted Wargun to understand what might happen if he made any wrong decisions. It’s all right now. Wargun and I are almost friends.’ Mirtai, Sparhawk had noticed, never used titles.
‘It’s very improper to draw a knife on a king, Mirtai,’ Sparhawk told her reprovingly.
‘She didn’t,’ Wargun said. ‘She did that with her knee.’ He shuddered.
Sparhawk looked at the Tamul woman, puzzled.
Mirtai pulled aside her monk’s robe, reached down and modestly lifted her kilt a few inches. As Talen had told him, she had curved knives strapped to her lower thighs so that the blades rode along the inside of her calves for about four inches. The knives appeared to be very sharp. He also noted in passing that both her knees were dimpled. ‘It’s a practical arrangement for a woman,’ she explain
ed. ‘Men sometimes become playful at inconvenient times. The knives persuade them to go and play with someone else.’
‘Isn’t that illegal?’ Wargun asked.
‘Would you like to try to arrest her, Your Majesty?’
‘Will you all stop that chattering?’ Ehlana said sharply to them. ‘You sound like a flock of magpies. This is what we’re going to do. In a few moments, things will start to quieten down out there. Then Wargun will escort me back inside, and Mirtai and Sparhawk will follow. I’ll lean on Wargun’s arm and look properly weak and trembly. After all, I’ve either just fainted or had a Divine visitation – depending on which of the rumours I hear buzzing around out there you care to believe. We all want to be in our places before the Archprelate is escorted to his throne.’
‘How are you going to explain that speech to them, Ehlana?’ Wargun demanded.
‘I’m not,’ she replied. ‘I’ll have absolutely no memory of it whatsoever. They’ll believe whatever they want to believe, and no one will dare to call me a liar, because either Sparhawk or Mirtai will challenge them if they do.’ She smiled then. ‘Was the man I chose more or less the one you had in mind, dear?’ she asked Sparhawk.
‘Yes, I think he is.’
‘You may thank me properly then – when we’re alone. Very well, then, let’s go back inside.’
They all looked suitably grave as they re-entered the chamber. Ehlana leaned heavily on Wargun, her face looking wan and exhausted. There was a sudden, awed silence as the two monarchs resumed their places.
Patriarch Emban waddled forward, his face looking concerned. ‘Is she all right?’ he asked.
‘She seems a bit better,’ Sparhawk told him. It was not exactly a lie. ‘She tells us that she has no memory of anything she said when she was addressing the Hierocracy. It might be better if we didn’t press her on that point in her present condition, Your Grace.’
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