At the Sign of Triumph (Safehold)

.I.

The Halberd Rest Tavern,

City of Zion,

The Temple Lands.

“I’ll be honest,” Captain Ahksynov Laihu said somberly as the waitress set the fresh tankard on the table and disappeared with the latest empty one, “I never thought I’d see anything like today. Never.”

He buried his nose in the tankard, swallowing a deep draft of the honeyed mead he favored, then set it down with a thump. The background noise was more muted than one ever heard in The Halberd Rest. The raucous shouts of greeting, the cheerful ribaldry directed at the long-suffering waitresses—who normaly gave back as good as they got—and the clink and rattle of cutlery were all subdued, as if a cloud of silence hung suspended in the tobacco smoke among the rafters.

“Don’t know why not, Sir,” Sergeant Phylyp Preskyt said from the other side of the square table. Laihu looked at him, and Preskyt shrugged. “Not exactly the first vicar to face the Punishment,” he pointed out.

Trust Preskyt to put it into perspective, Ahrloh Mahkbyth thought, nursing his own glass of whiskey.

He sat between the captain and the sergeant at the small table tucked into an alcove in the back of the tavern’s dining room. It was a very inconveniently placed alcove, right beside the swinging doors from the kitchen. The traffic was heavy as waiters and waitresses shuttled back and forth past it with trays of food, and the noise as orders were shouted to the cooks through the huge, square window beside the doors made it difficult for people sitting in it to hear one another without raising their voices. On the other hand, it was almost impossible to see into it from most of the dining room floor, and if the people around the table found it difficult to hear one another, it was even more difficult for anyone else to hear them.

I really shouldn’t be doing this, Mahkbyth told himself now, looking back and forth between the two Temple Guardsmen. What I should be doing is sitting at home, keeping my head down and making damned sure I don’t draw any attention to myself!

Unfortunately, that had turned out to be rather more difficult than usual.

He’d gone to witness Zahmsyn Trynair’s Punishment for a confused tangle of reasons he couldn’t completely sort out. Part of it, and he was honest enough to admit it to himself, was that he’d wanted to see Trynair’s death. If any man had ever deserved to suffer the Punishment, it had to be one of the four who’d launched the madness of the Jihad and condemned so many millions of others to the same fate. He didn’t really want to see and hear anyone screaming as the white-hot irons were applied, or as the roaring pyre consumed his tortured body, but if it had to happen to anyone, he couldn’t think of a better candidate. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. He could definitely think of a better candidate, but the odds against anyone condemning Zhaspahr Clyntahn to that fate were … slim.

He’d also gone because he’d been quietly underlining his piety ever since Zhorzhet Styvynsyn and Marzho Alysyn died in the Inquisition’s custody. It turned his stomach, but he knew the value of protective coloration. And he’d gone to touch base with two or three old comrades from his own days in the Guard. Maintaining those contacts was part of his public persona, and their willingness to share barracks scuttlebutt with an old retired sergeant often provided Helm Cleaver with useful tidbits of information. Besides, many of them had been his friends for decades—like Laihu and Preskyt—and he missed them.

He hadn’t expected them to invite him to The Halberd Rest for sausages and beer, though. Food was the last thing he would’ve thought of after the hideous spectacle they’d just witnessed. But he’d forgotten the pragmatism of serving guardsmen, just as he’d forgotten the way in which familiar food and drink could comfort a man when he needed it worst.

Laihu was quite a few years younger than Mahkbyth, with the dark hair and eyes of his Harchongese ancestry. He was also an intelligent, insightful fellow who’d learned the realities behind the Temple’s façade only too well over the course of a thirty-year career, and once upon a time, long, long ago, Mahkbyth had been the senior sergeant in Lieutenant Laihu’s platoon for almost five years. He’d come to know the other man well during those years, and it amazed him sometimes that Laihu could have served that long a career, well over half of it right here in Zion, without succumbing to the cynicism that was so much a part of Temple duty. It amazed him even more that Laihu was still on active duty in Zion, given the doubts he knew the captain had cherished for many years about the fashion in which the vicarate’s morality reflected—or didn’t—the Archangels’ true intentions.

Of course, you always knew he was a smart fellow, Ahrloh. Certainly smart enough to keep his mouth shut about the sorts of things that get a man killed!

He did, indeed, know that. In fact, he’d considered attempting to recruit Laihu for Helm Cleaver more than once. But the captain was also a man of stubborn integrity who took his oaths seriously. There’d never been much chance he’d violate those oaths, even for an old friend.

Not before the Jihad, anyway, Mahkbyth reflected. Might be a little different these days. But it might not, too.

“You’ve got a point, Phylyp,” Laihu said now, his expression that of a man who’d just tasted something spoiled. “Never sat right what happened to Vicar Hauwerd. Never. And I’ll tell you what.” He looked Mahkbyth straight in the eye. “Vicar Hauwerd and his brother? No way they were guilty of all the crap they were accused of! I never knew Vicar Samyl well, but I served under Hauwerd when he was with the Guard. So did you, Ahrloh! You think the two of them would’ve conspired against Mother Church?”

“I think you may have had a little too much mead, Ahksynov,” Mahkbyth replied. “That’s not exactly the sort of question a dutiful son of Mother Church ought to be asking another dutiful son of Mother Church at a time like this.”

“If you can’t ask another dutiful son of Mother Church, who can you ask?” Laihu shot back.

“Pretty sure that’s not exactly what Ahrloh meant, Sir,” Preskyt said. The sergeant was a solid, square shouldered fellow with a stolid, intensely loyal personality. He’d been Mahkbyth’s senior corporal when they’d both served in Laihu’s platoon, and he’d been with Laihu ever since. Now he shook his head. “Business of a good sergeant is to keep officers from doing the stupid stuff,” he pointed out. “And I hate to say it, but asking the wrong question where the wrong set of ears can hear comes under the head of really stupid stuff right now.”

Despite himself, Mahkbyth chuckled. Then he looked back at Laihu.

“That’s exactly what I meant,” he said. “Mind you, Phylyp’s much more eloquent than I am, but he’s grasped the nub of my thought.”

Laihu snorted into his mead, and Mahkbyth shook his head with a smile. But then the smile faded, and he shrugged.

“Having said that, no. I don’t think for a second the Wylsynns were guilty of everything they were accused of. I’m not prepared to say they weren’t guilty of anything they were accused of, but I’ll guarantee you they were never in this world involved in Shan-wei worship or an effort to destroy Mother Church.”

“Exactly,” Laihu said, although he was careful to keep his voice even lower than it had been, low enough that Mahkbyth had to strain to pick it out of the background sound even though they were less than three feet apart. “Exactly.” The captain shook his head. “Too many personal scores are getting paid off, Ahrloh. I always knew there’d be things I wouldn’t much like doing, but believe me—you’re a hell of a lot better off as a civilian.” He looked moodily down into his mead. “Some mornings, it’s awfully hard to get up and report for duty.”

“I’m not surprised.” Mahkbyth reached out and patted him on the shoulder lightly. “There were days like that for me even before the Jihad, and I don’t see how it could’ve gotten anything but worse since the Jihad started. But it’s like the Writ says. There are going to be dark days as well as happy ones. What matters is how well we bear up on the dark ones.”

“I know.” Laihu threw back another swallow of the mead, then put down the empty tankard and gazed down into it. “And you’re right,” he said with the air of a man who’d come to an important decision. “I have had too much mead tonight. So, with your permission, Sergeant Mahkbyth, I believe I’ll invite Sergeant Preskyt to escort me back to barracks and pour me safely into bed.” He grimaced. “I’m pretty sure Shan-wei’s going to be using the inside of my skull for an anvil when I wake up in the morning.”

“Oh, probably won’t be that bad, Sir,” Preskyt said encouragingly as Laihu stood almost steadily. “I’ve seen you lots drunker than this,” the sergeant continued with a wink at Mahkbyth. “A little tomato juice, some raw egg, some tabasco sauce, and you’ll be right as rain by, oh, thirteen o’clock!”

“Your sympathy is always such a comfort to me, Sergeant.” Laihu patted Preskyt on the shoulder, then nodded to Mahkbyth.

“And on that note, I’ll bid you good night, Ahrloh. Was good seeing you. We’ll have to do this again.”

“Hopefully on a happier occasion,” Mahkbyth agreed, and watched the two of them weave their way across the crowded dining room and out into the late summer twilight.

He finished his own beer, tossed a handful of coins onto the table, nodded to the waitress, and followed them out the door. He turned and started along the street, ignoring the trams rattling by behind their draft dragons. Nights were short in Zion this late in summer, and he enjoyed walking. Besides, it was only a few blocks, and—

“Good evening, Chief Sergeant,” a voice said behind him, and he stopped. He hesitated for just a moment, then turned to face the officer standing behind him. The officer in the uniform of the Temple Guard but with the flame and sword of the Inquisition on his shoulder flash.

“Evening, Captain,” he replied, then corrected himself. “Major, I mean. Sorry, I’d heard about the promotion, just forgot it.”

“Not surprising when you’ve been out of the Guard so long, Chief Sergeant,” the other man said with an easy smile. “What’s it been? Fifteen years now? Sixteen?”

“More like twenty-five, Sir. Since about three months after Dahnyld died.”

“That long?” The major shook his head. “It doesn’t seem like it could have been. I heard about your wife’s death, though. I’m sorry you lost her … and I wish the Guard had figured out who was responsible for that. And for your boy.”

“So do I,” Mahkbyth said levelly.

They stood silently for a moment, then the major shrugged.

“Could I ask where you’re headed?”

“Home.” It was Mahkbyth’s turn to shrug. “I’ve got a cat-lizard who’s probably wondering where the Shan-wei I am right now.” He smiled crookedly. “You know how cat-lizards are.”

“Always refused to be owned by one of them, myself,” the major replied with an answering smile. “But I’d sort of hoped you were headed by your shop. A friend of mine tells me you’ve got the best selection of whiskeys in Zion.”

“I don’t know if it’s the best, but it’s certainly one of the best, if I do say so myself. We’re closed right now, but if you’d like to come by tomorrow, I’ll be happy to prove that.”

“I’ve got the duty all next five-day,” the major said. “And your shop’s sort of on the way home, isn’t it?”

Mahkbyth frowned. Something about this conversation was making his antennae tingle, but there was no point lying. Especially to an officer assigned to the Inquisition who obviously already knew the answer to his own question.

“About a half-block out of the way, Sir,” he said.

“Well, I don’t want to sound like I’m wheedling, but I really would appreciate it if you could open up just long enough to sell me a couple of bottles. I’ve got some serious entertaining to do, and I’m afraid the liquor cabinet’s bare just now. And at least one of the friends I have coming over has some … sophisticated tastes. I’ve already tried three other shops here in Zion without finding his preferred blend.”

Mahkbyth managed not to frown. He really didn’t want to open his shop, and especially not on such short notice for an officer who’d been seconded to the Inquisition. By the same token, pissing off someone with the sort of connections the major had could be dangerous. More to the point, people might start wondering why he’d been stupid enough to risk pissing him off.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Sir,” he said after only the briefest of hesitations. “Of course, if you’ve been to that many other shops, it’s likely I don’t have it in stock either.” He grimaced. “I’m sorry to say quite a few labels have been in short supply since the Jihad began.”

“Oh, trust me!” The major rolled his eyes. “I’m only too well aware of that, Chief Sergeant!”

“What are you looking for, exactly, Sir?” Mahkbyth asked pleasantly. If it was as rare as the major was implying, he could always deny he had it in stock, either. For that matter, he thought with a smile, he might even be telling the truth! “I’m assuming it’s one I’ve at least heard of!”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure you have,” the major said, looking him straight in the eye. “I’m looking for Seijin Kohdy’s Premium Blend, Chief Sergeant. Do you think you could find me a bottle?”