At the Sign of Triumph (Safehold)

.V.

Earl Thirsk’s Townhouse,

City of Gorath,

Kingdom of Dohlar.

“Thank you for coming, My Lord,” Earl Thirsk said as Bishop Staiphan Maik followed Paiair Sahbrahan into his library. He climbed out of his chair—a bit of a struggle with his left arm still immobilized—despite Maik’s quick, abortive wave for him to stay seated. The earl smiled faintly at the bishop’s distressed expression and bent to kiss Maik’s ruby-set ring.

“There’s no need for this sort of nonsense when no one else is looking, Lywys,” Maik scolded. “Sit back down—immediately!”

“Aye, aye, My Lord.” Thirsk’s smile broadened, but he obeyed the prelate’s command, settling back into his chair with a slight sigh of relief he couldn’t quite suppress. Maik heard it, and shook his head.

“All silliness about formal greetings aside, you shouldn’t push yourself this hard,” he said seriously, brown eyes dark with a very personal concern. “Langhorne knows you’ve been through enough—lost enough—for three men!”

“Others have lost their families,” Thirsk replied, his smile vanishing. “And others have been ‘through’ quite a lot since the Jihad began.”

“Of course they have.” Maik’s hair gleamed like true silver in the lamplight as he shook his head, and his expression tightened. “But I’ve seen and shared more of what you’ve been through. And try though I might, I can’t avoid the thought that God’s asked too much of you.”

“I don’t think so, My Lord.”

There was a curious tranquility in Thirsk’s tone, and he leaned back in his chair, his good hand waving for Sahbrahan to leave. The valet withdrew, closing the door behind him, and it was the earl’s turn to shake his head.

“Men can ask too much of someone,” he said. “And sometimes Mother Church—or the men who serve her, at least—can do the same. But God and the Archangels?” It was his turn to shake his head. “We owe them all we are or can ever hope to be. How can they possibly ask ‘too much’ of us?”

The bishop sat back in his own chair, his eyes narrowing, and frowned.

“I’ve known you and worked with you for several years now, Lywys,” he said slowly. “I think I’ve come to know you fairly well during that time.”

“I’d agree with that,” Thirsk conceded.

“On the basis of how well I’ve come to know you, I think you just chose your words very carefully.”

“Because I did.” Thirsk’s good hand pointed at the whiskey decanter and glasses on the small table at the bishop’s elbow. “Would you pour for us, My Lord?” He smiled thinly. “It’s Glynfych … from Chisholm.”

“Is it?” Maik smiled slightly as he unstoppered the decanter and poured the amber liquid into the glasses. “I’m sure the bottle was imported long before the Grand Inquisitor prohibited any trade with Chisholm.”

“Oh, of course!”

Thirsk accepted his glass and the bishop re-seated himself and sipped appreciatively. Yet his eyes never left the earl’s face, and a subtle tension hummed in the modest-sized, book-lined room. The coal fire crackling on the hearth seemed unnaturally loud in the stillness, and Thirsk allowed that stillness to linger as he took a slow, deliberate swallow of his own whiskey and wondered if he was right about the man sitting across from him. He hoped he was. He believed he was. But he also knew Staiphan Maik had been handpicked by Wyllym Rayno and Zhaspahr Clyntahn for his present assignment because of how implicitly they’d trusted his judgment and his devotion to Mother Church.

Of course, there’s just a tiny difference between devotion to Mother Church and devotion to Zhaspahr Clyntahn, now isn’t there? Thirsk thought. And time and experience have a habit of changing a man’s opinions, if his heart’s good and his brain works.

The library was smaller than his formal study, and it was also an interior room with no windows, although it was well illuminated in daylight by an extensive, domed skylight. Its size and internal location meant it tended to stay warmer this time of year, despite the skylight’s expanse of glass, but warmth wasn’t the primary reason he’d invited the Royal Dohlaran Navy’s intendant to join him here. The lack of windows, and the fact that no one could enter it—or eavesdrop upon any conversation within it—without first getting past Sahbrahan and Sir Ahbail Bahrdailahn, Thirsk’s flag lieutenant, were far more pertinent at the moment.

“I’m pleased to see you looking so well. Relatively speaking of course,” Maik said into the stillness. “I was … concerned about what I was hearing.”

“You mean you’d heard I was doing my best to drink myself to death.” Thirsk shook his head and waved the glass in his hand as Maik started to protest. “I’m sure that’s what you heard, My Lord, since it’s exactly what I was trying to do.”

The bishop closed his mouth, and the earl chuckled softly. There was very little humor in the sound.

“I’m afraid I’d come to the same conclusion you had, My Lord—that too much had been asked of me. I just didn’t think it was God or the Archangels who’d done the asking.”

The humming tension intensified suddenly, and Maik settled slowly back into his chair.

“That’s … a very interesting statement,” he said at last.

“I doubt somehow that it comes as a total surprise to you, My Lord. I remember the day you mentioned the sixth chapter of the Book of Bédard to me. I’d come to the conclusion that I’d waited too long to comply with the Holy Bédard’s commands in that chapter.”

“That was scarcely your fault, Lywys,” the bishop said quietly.

“Perhaps not.” Thirsk sipped more whiskey and gazed down into his glass. “No, definitely not—you’re right about that. But the fact that it wasn’t my fault doesn’t change the fact that seeing my family into a place of safety was my responsibility. And now that that’s … no longer a factor, I’ve been forced to reconsider all of my other responsibilities, both as the senior officer of His Majesty’s Navy and—” his eyes lifted suddenly, stabbing into his intendant’s “—as a son of Mother Church.”

“Have you, my son?” Staiphan Maik asked very softly.

“Yes, I have.” Thirsk’s eyes held the bishop’s gaze very, very levelly. “And the true reason I invited you here today, My Lord, is that one of those ‘other responsibilities’ includes explaining to you as my intendant, my spiritual councilor, and—I believe—my friend how that reconsideration has … shaped my thinking.”

“You used the term ‘spiritual councilor,’” Maik said. “Should I assume you’re telling me this in my priestly office and treat anything you say as covered by the confidentiality of the confession?”

“No.” Thirsk’s voice was very soft, but there was no hesitation in it. “I want you to feel free to treat what I’m about to say in the way that seems best to you. I trust your judgment—and your heart—as much as I’ve ever trusted any man’s. And, to be honest, you and your office are … rather central to my present thinking. Your response to it will probably determine exactly what I do—or can do—to better meet those responsibilities of mine.”

“I see.” Maik sipped more whiskey, rolling the golden glory over his tongue before he swallowed. “Are you very sure about this, Lywys?” he asked then, his voice even softer than the earl’s had been.

“Staiphan,” he said, using the bishop’s given name without title or honorific for the first time in all the months they’d known one another, “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

“Very well, then.” Maik set his glass back on the side table and settled himself squarely in his armchair, his elbows on the armrests and his fingers interlaced across his chest, thumbs resting lightly on his pectoral scepter.

“In that case, I suppose you’d best begin.”