At the Sign of Triumph (Safehold)

.I.

Siddar City,

Republic of Siddarmark.

“I’m sorry it took this long to get you back to our city, Your Majesty,” Greyghor Stohnar said, accepting a fresh wine glass from one of the efficient Charisian servants.

“Well, I’ve been a little busy,” Sharleyan Ahrmahk replied with a smile, and looked across the informal sitting room at her husband, who—exhibiting the restrained dignity appropriate to one of the two most powerful monarchs in the world—was busy crawling around on the carpet while he tickled their daughter. Crown Princess Alahnah, who would be five in another two months, was equally busy squealing, and her mother shook her head with a smile. Then she looked back at the lord protector, and her smile faded.

“I could wish it was a joyous occasion, My Lord, rather than simply a … satisfying one.”

“I think all of us feel that way,” Stohnar acknowledged. “Not your daughter, of course.” It was his turn to shake his head, his lined face—several years older than it had been when Zhaspahr Clyntahn unleashed the Sword of Schueler—wreathed in a smile of his own. “Mine are all grown, but I remember that age. And I know how much Cayleb missed both of you. I don’t know whether to envy the two of you for the partnership you have or to pity you for how long and how often it takes you apart.”

“Well, one thing about being married to a sailor, My Lord, is that you learn to deal with those lengthy separations. And—” she brushed the slight swell of her belly “—he’s always so happy to see me after them, you know.”

Stohnar’s lips twitched.

“I’d … ah, heard the Crown Princess is about to acquire a sibling,” he said.

“And at least one more cousin.”

“Really?” Stohnar cocked his head.

“Yes. Duchess Darcos is married to a sailor, too, you know.”

“Princess Irys is expecting another child? I hadn’t heard!”

“It hasn’t been announced. The last time, saluting guns started going off all over Manchyr Harbor fifteen minutes after the healers confirmed her pregnancy. Flattering, but she’d prefer a little more … private time with Hektor before going public with this one. In fact, she’s decided to make the announcement right after Zhan and Mahrya’s wedding. I think she hopes it will get lost in the festivities.” Sharleyan shook her head. “I believe that’s what they call a triumph of optimism. And I happen to know Mahrya is secretly hoping the news of Irys’ pregnancy will divert some of the public attention from her.”

“You do have an interesting family, Your Majesty.”

“As Merlin would say, ‘one tries,’ My Lord.” Sharleyan chuckled. “And that’s especially true of Cayleb. He can be very trying upon occasion.”

“I’m sure he can. But having him here in Siddar City made a tremendous difference, you know. And we couldn’t have had him without the way you two work together. I don’t think there’s ever been another marriage—another pair of monarchs—like the two of you.”

“Most of the secret’s simply trusting one another, My Lord, but another part—a huge part, really—is having councilors you can trust. Ministers whose judgment is sound and who you know are both capable and loyal. And, frankly,” she dimpled suddenly, “having Maikel Staynair on your side helps enormously!”

“And so did Merlin Athrawes’ council—and sword—I’m sure.”

“No, having Merlin at our side didn’t hurt a bit,” Sharleyan agreed softly. “But, to be honest, the thing that really made it work was Cayleb.” She looked back at her husband, who was upright now, with Alahnah on his shoulders. She had both hands on top of his head while her heels drummed on his chest, and Sharleyan’s smile softened. “He was the one who had the courage to propose a joint crown when we’d never even met. And would you like to know the truly remarkable thing about my husband, My Lord?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I would.”

“The most remarkable thing about Cayleb Ahrmahk,” she said, “is that he doesn’t think he’s remarkable at all. He’s never flinched, never even considered turning aside, even when Charis faced the entire world alone … and he thinks anyone would have done the same things he’s done in his place.”

“Then I’d say you’re well matched, Your Majesty,” Stohnar said. She looked at him and she shrugged. “You didn’t do very much flinching either, from what I’ve seen. Like that business in Chisholm.”

Sharleyan’s smile faded, and he felt a stab of remorse for having reminded her of where she’d been only three five-days ago, before Gwyllym Manthyr had borne her and her husband from Cherayth to Siddar City for tomorrow’s grim duty.

The last of the convicted traitors had faced the headsman a month ago, and Sharleyan and Cayleb had been present for every execution. Some might believe they’d been there because Sharleyan wanted to see those traitors pay for their treason, but those people were fools. Sharleyan Tayt Ahrmahk hadn’t wanted to see anyone die, but her presence had been the final facet of the lesson she’d taught her nobles: she would never flinch from the harsh responsibilities of her crown … and she would never hide behind her ministers.

That lesson had gone home this time. All Stohnar’s sources agreed on that.

“Forgive me,” he said after a moment. “I didn’t mean to—”

“You didn’t take my brain anywhere it wouldn’t have gone anyway, My Lord.” She shook her head quickly and smiled once more. “And Cayleb and I really have accomplished a bit more than just keeping the imperial headsmen busy!”

“That’s one way to describe redrawing the map of the entire world,” Stohnar said dryly.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say we’ve gone quite that far, My Lord.” Sharleyan’s lips twitched. “Most of the borders are still where they were, after all.”

“Oh? Would that include Tarot, Emerald, Zebediah, and Corisande?”

“Their borders are still exactly what they were. They’ve simply been integrated into something even larger. Actually,” her expression turned thoughtful, “you’re probably in a better position than most to understand that. The Republic’s provinces have always enjoyed a lot of local autonomy, yet they’re part of a single whole. We’re a lot alike that way.”

“You may have a point,” he agreed. “And if Grand Vicar Rhobair has his way, I suspect the Temple Lands will be a lot more like us, too.”

“We’ll have to see how that works out.” Sharleyan’s expression was doubtful, but then she shrugged. “If anyone can make it work, it’s probably him, but he’s taken on an awfully ambitious task.”

“I hadn’t realized what a gift for understatement you have, Your Majesty,” Stohnar said dryly.

Grand Vicar Rhobair was clearly determined to restore order—and decency—to the Church of God Awaiting. And, as Sharleyan had suggested, he had his work cut out for him.

Between Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s purges and the Fist of God, the vicarate had been reduced by more than a third since the Armageddon Reef campaign, and well over a quarter of the survivors had retired to private life, mostly to avoid lengthy imprisonments, over the past few months. Forty-two of their fellows hadn’t been given that option. Much of the evidence against what had come to be known as “the Forty-Two” had been assembled over decades of patient effort by the murdered Wylsynn brothers and their allies, and Grand Vicar Rhobair had pressed their prosecutions relentlessly. Thirty-four had already been sentenced—eighteen of them to death—and the remaining eight trials were in their closing stages. Acquittal was … unlikely, and Stohnar suspected the Grand Vicar had been motivated almost as much by his debt to the Wylsynns as by the need to see justice done.

Yet justice must be done—not only done, but seen to be done—if anyone was ever to trust the Temple again. The man Zion called the Good Shepherd understood that the Church of God Awaiting must be cleansed, restored and—especially—reformed as transparently as possible. That was one reason he’d refused to fill the vacancies in the vicarate by appointment. That had been the grand vicar’s prerogative under church law that went back over five centuries, but these vacancies would be filled by election by their fellow vicars.

Not that he wasn’t prepared to use his prerogatives ruthlessly where he deemed necessary.

The Temple Lands were in the process of a major political reorganization. Stohnar suspected the Grand Vicar would have preferred to shift from direct ecclesiastic rule to some form of secular government. That clearly wasn’t going to happen, but he had managed to end the practice which had developed over the last two hundred years of appointing vicars to govern the episcopates. Instead, they’d become what they’d been originally: archbishoprics, governed by prelates appointed by the Grand Vicar with the advice and consent of the vicarate. He’d also abolished the Knights of the Temple Lands and eliminated the special privileges and exemptions of the Temple Lands’ clerical administrators. And, for good measure, he’d decreed that henceforth Mother Church’s archbishops would follow the Charisian model and spend a minimum of eight months out of every year in their archbishoprics, not Zion.

He’d overhauled the system of ecclesiastic courts just as completely as the vicarate and the episcopate. They’d been removed from the Order of Schueler’s jurisdiction and restored to the Order of Langhorne. The office of Grand Inquisitor had been abolished and a new Adjutant, Archbishop Ignaz Aimaiyr, had been appointed to oversee the Inquisition’s complete reform. Aimaiyr was about as popular a choice as anyone could have been … which, admittedly, wasn’t saying a great deal at the moment.

The Grand Vicar had come under enormous pressure to push even farther and simply abolish the Punishment, or, at least, to renounce its use as the Church of Charis had, but he’d refused. Horrible as the Punishment was, it was too deeply established within the Holy Writ to abolish it without fundamentally rewriting the Writ, and that was farther than a man like Rhobair Duchairn was prepared to go. Yet he’d taken steps to prevent the way in which it had been abused and perverted.

To insure there would be no more Zhaspahr Clyntahns, he’d replaced the office of Grand Inquisitor with a new three-vicar Court of Inquisition with its members drawn from the Orders of Langhorne, Bédard, and Pasquale; the Order of Schueler was specifically denied a seat. The Grand Vicar would formulate policy for the Inquisition; the adjutant would administer it; and the Court would determine who had—or hadn’t—violated fundamental doctrine. Never again would a single vicar possess the authority to condemn even a single child of God, far less entire realms, for heresy. Moreover, any conviction for heresy by the Court of Inquisition could be appealed to the vicarate as a whole, and the Punishment of Schueler could be inflicted only after the sentence had been confirmed by a majority vote of the entire vicarate and the Grand Vicar.

The Punishment would remain … but whether it would ever again be applied was another matter entirely, given the restrictions with which Grand Vicar Rhobair had hedged it about.

There were some—including Greyghor Stohnar—who had mixed feelings about that. The Lord Protector could think of at least two dozen Inquisitors who’d thoroughly earned their own Punishment. But if they’d escaped the Punishment, they hadn’t escaped punishment. The Grand Vicar had promised justice as the critical component of the minimum peace terms the Allies would accept, and he was keeping that promise. Over three hundred ex-Inquisitors, most of them from the concentration camps, had been stripped of their priestly office so that they might be arraigned before secular Siddarmarkian courts for crimes which ran the gamut from theft and extortion to rape, torture, and murder.

There were those, Stohnar knew, who felt the Grand Vicar was casting too wide a net. Who pointed out—quietly—that some of the accused had acted not as Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s tools but from the genuine belief that God Himself had called them to extirpate heresy by any means necessary.

Maybe they truly thought they were serving God, the lord protector thought now. And maybe in some grand scheme of things that makes a difference. But it doesn’t make one to me, by God.

Twenty-six million people had lived in the third of the Republic which had been occupied by the Army of God. Seven million of them had been murdered in Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s concentration camps. Another four and a half million had died during the Sword of Schueler’s violence or perished more slowly from starvation or exposure trying to escape it. And another four and a half million had fled from the Republic, or been forcibly resettled to the Temple Lands by the Church’s military. Eleven and a half million dead and four and a half million refugees represented twelve percent of the Republic’s pre-Jihad population, and that didn’t count the military casualties suffered by the Siddarmarkian Army, both during the Sword of Schueler and after it.

The refugees, especially, were going to be a thorny issue. The hatred between the Temple Loyalists who’d supported the Sword of Schueler and the Church’s invasion and those who’d remained loyal to the Republic was arsenic-bitter and as deep as the Western Ocean. Stohnar didn’t know if it could ever be healed … and even if it could, it would be the work of generations.

Ultimately, we’ll have to find some way to address the refugees’ status. Figure out if they can ever come home—or, for that matter, what happens to property they abandoned when they refugeed out. But I’ll be damned if I see any answers. Hell, at least a quarter of them are probably guilty of murder! So do we insist on trying to investigate them all somehow? Figure out who’s guilty and hang the bastards? Or do we admit we can’t do that at this point? Just let them all come home with some sort of blanket amnesty, if that’s what they want? And how the hell do I keep the Sword’s survivors from massacring them all if they do?

A solution—or, at least, a resolution—would have to be found … eventually. That was why he and the Grand Vicar had appointed Arthyn Zagyrsk, the Archbishop of Tarikah, Zhasyn Cahnyr, and Dahnyld Fardhym to a commission which was very quietly attempting to address the issue. Stohnar didn’t expect them to succeed, but if anyone could find an answer, it would probably be those three.

And the truth is that dealing with that one is probably the easy part!

Despite all Grand Vicar Rhobair’s efforts, a chasm yawned between the Temple and Siddarmark, one Stohnar doubted could ever be fully bridged. Too many in Siddarmark had lost too much—and too many—to the atrocities the Temple had permitted to happen. Perhaps a quarter of Siddarmark’s remaining population self-identified as Temple Loyalists. Another twenty percent had formally embraced the Church of Charis. But that left over half who weren’t prepared to become members of the Church of Charis but were equally determined never to submit to the doctrinal authority of the Temple again.

I can’t say I’m looking forward to seeing how all that settles out. At least Duchairn’s been smart enough to officially proclaim that neither the Church of Charis nor the “Church of Siddarmark” is—or ever was—heretical.

The Church of Charis continued to deny the authority of the Grand Vicar, whoever that Grand Vicar might be, which constituted a significant violation of church law. But Grand Vicar Rhobair had declared that there was a difference between church law and church doctrine, and that so long as any church adhered to the teachings and requirements of the Holy Writ, it could never be heretical. He held out hopes—officially, at least—that reconciliation and reunification might someday be possible.

Might get the first of those, Stohnar thought. No way in hell is he going to get reunification—not with Charis. But maybe reconciliation and peaceful coexistence will be good enough. Surely to God we’ve all learned that oceans of blood aren’t the way to resolve doctrinal dis—

“Excuse me, Your Majesties.”

A deep voice pulled Stohnar up out of his thoughts.

“Yes, Merlin?” Emperor Cayleb said, turning to face the seijin who’d just entered the sitting room.

“Merlin!” the crown princess squealed, holding out her arms to her godfather, and the tall, armored seijin laughed.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he told her, touching the tip of her nose with an index finger. “I’ve got the duty tonight.”

“Oh.” Alahnah frowned, but she was the daughter of monarchs. She’d already started learning about duty. “Breakfast?”

“Probably not.” Merlin’s sapphire eyes met Cayleb’s. “There’s something the grown-ups have to do tomorrow morning. I think it’ll probably keep us busy at least until lunchtime, but I’ll see you then.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, promise. Satisfied, Your Imperial Highness?”

“Yes,” she said, lifting her nose in a credible imitation of one of her father’s sniffs. Merlin chuckled, but then he looked back at Cayleb and Sharleyan.

“Earl Thirsk and his daughters have arrived,” he told them. “I showed them to the dining room. Irys and Hektor are keeping them company, and I told them you’d be joining them shortly.”

“Was Archbishop Staiphan able to come?” Sharleyan asked, reaching up to lift Alahnah down from her perch.

“Not yet, Your Majesty. Earl Thirsk tells me the Archbishop’s been delayed but still hopes to be able to join you this evening. The Earl’s best estimate is that he’ll be another hour or so. And he says the Archbishop specifically ordered him to tell you not to wait supper. Something about warming pans, chafing dishes, and desecrating the second-best kitchen in Siddar City.”

“That sounds like him.” Cayleb chuckled, then looked at his daughter. “Now, let me see. Would you rather eat the supper with a bunch of boring grown-ups or eat upstairs in the nursery with Zhosifyn and Zhudyth?”

“Upstairs!” Alahnah said promptly, and Cayleb shook his head mournfully.

“Abandoned again,” he sighed.

“I’ll take her, Your Majesty,” Glahdys Parkyr said, and Sharleyan kissed the top of her head before she passed her across to the nanny.

“I wonder how many dynastic alliances come out of suppers in nurseries?” Stohnar mused as Alahnah was carried away, waving a grand farewell to the adults, and it was Sharleyan’s turn to chuckle.

“I don’t know if it’s going to turn into a ‘dynastic alliance,’ My Lord, but I can’t see how well she and Earl Thirsk’s granddaughters get along hurting anyway!”

That was one way to put it, Stohnar reflected. Lywys Gardynyr had been confirmed not simply as First Councilor of Dohlar but as regent to King Rahnyld V, following Rahnyld IV’s abdication. It would be a four-year regency, and given Thirsk’s age, he’d probably retire as soon as he’d seen his new king take up his crown in his own right. It looked as if the youngster would be a marked improvement on his father, who—to be fair—had never wanted to be king, and if Thirsk planned on retiring, Sir Rainos Ahlverez, the newly created Earl of Dragon Island and the Duke of Salthar’s successor on the Royal Council, would maintain a certain continuity. For that matter, Staiphan Maik, the new Archbishop of Dohlar, was also a member of the Regency Council, and unless he wound up elevated to the vicarate—a distinct possibility, at least in a few years—he’d be yet another steadying influence on the youngster.

In the meantime, the Kingdom of Dohlar had established remarkably cordial relations with the Empire of Charis. The fact that Cayleb and Sharleyan’s seijin allies had saved Thirsk’s family from almost certain death despite what had happened to Gwylym Manthyr and his men hadn’t been lost on the kingdom at large. Nor had the care Baron Sarmouth had taken to avoid civilian casualties in the attack on Gorath … or Caitahno Raisahndo’s return, unharmed, along with every Dohlaran sailor, soldier, and officer who’d surrendered to the Charisians. A lot of Dohlarans and Charisians had killed one another over the last eight years, but compared to the carnage in Siddarmark, they’d fought a remarkably clean war. It had ended in mutual respect, and according to Henrai Maidyn, at least a dozen Charisians, including Duke Delthak, were already pursuing Dohlaran investment opportunities.

In fact, Dohlar seemed poised to come out of the jihad in remarkably good shape. There were moments when Stohnar found himself resenting that, but Charis was making even more investments in Siddarmark. And however well Dohlar might be doing, Desnair and Harchong were a rather different story.

The Desnairians still had their gold mines. That was about it, and Desnairian fury had been unbridled, albeit impotent, when the Allies announced that the Republic and Empire of Charis jointly guaranteed the independence of the Grand Duchy of Silkiah in perpetuity. And Stohnar took a certain pleasure out of contemplating the reaction in Desnair the City when Emperor Mahrys learned about Charisian plans to deepen and broaden the Salthar Canal to permit actual oceanic shipping to cross the grand duchy without ever touching a Desnairian seaport. Delferahk probably wouldn’t be hugely pleased by the notion, either.

As for the Harchongians, South Harchong appeared to be relatively comfortable with Grand Vicar Rhobair’s reforms. For that matter, the South Harchongians were in the process of extending cautious feelers towards Charis and the acquisition of the new manufacturing techniques, as well. They weren’t pleased with the outcome of the war, and South Harchong had shown no desire to embrace the Church of Charis or the Church of Siddarmark, but they were … pragmatic. And they were eager to finalize a peace settlement with the Allies in order to reclaim their captured military personnel.

It was a very different story in North Harchong. The North Harchongians were clearly digging in to resist the changes sweeping towards them. Their aristocrats continued to reject the existence of the schismatic churches for a lot of reasons, including their “pernicious social doctrines.” And while their political establishment, including the professional bureaucracy, had professed its loyalty to the Temple, they were clearly unhappy with Grand Vicar Rhobair’s “liberalism.” In fact, the Church in North Harchong was dragging its feet about surrendering the Inquisition’s power, and Stohnar wouldn’t be surprised to see a Church of Harchong emerge. That could produce all sorts of interesting—and unfortunate—consequences. And while the South Harchongians wanted their soldiers returned home, North Harchong wanted nothing of the sort. Its aristocrats had been infuriated by Captain General Maigwair’s insistence on arming and training thousands upon thousands of serfs. The last thing they wanted, especially in light of Grand Vicar Rhobair’s reforms, was the Mighty Host back, and there was no doubt in Stohnar’s mind that Earl Rainbow Waters and most of his senior officers would be assassinated within five-days if they ever dared to go home.

“I suppose we should head on down to the dining room,” Cayleb said, pulling the lord protector back up out of his thoughts. “Wouldn’t want to keep our guests waiting. And—” he smiled, and his smile was suddenly cold “—I imagine they’re going to enjoy supper rather more than your guest, Merlin.”

“One tries, Your Majesty,” Merlin said. “One tries.”

* * *

Zhaspahr Clyntahn looked around the chamber in which he’d been confined for the last three months.

It wasn’t a very large chamber, and its furnishings were austere, to say the least. Despite which, he felt a familiar flicker of contempt at the heretics’ flabby softness. He’d come to terms with his fate. He didn’t look forward to death, and especially not to execution like a common felon, but the cowards who’d condemned him lacked the courage—the strength of their own convictions—to send him to the Punishment. He took a certain pleasure out of that, out of reflecting upon the thousands upon thousands of heretics he’d sent to the Punishment as God demanded. In a way, it was almost as if he’d had his vengeance upon his captors before he ever fell into their grasp.

As for the traitors who’d deserted Mother Church in her hour of need, who’d betrayed him by their gutless incompetence, they’d learn the error of their ways in the end. The cowards who’d run at the heels of those bastards Duchairn and Maigwair like frightened dogs would know the full cost of their sin when they beheld him sitting in glory at Schueler’s right hand, waiting as the Archangel passed judgment upon them. And there’d be a special corner of hell, a pit deeper than the universe, for Rhobair Duchairn who’d betrayed God Himself and surrendered Mother Church to the perversion, the apostasy, the depravity of the “Church of Charis” and the so-called Reformists!

He looked at the remnants of his meal. His last meal, this side of Heaven. It was a far cry from the repasts he’d enjoyed in Zion, and the wine had been barely passable. Of course, that had been true of all the meals they’d allowed him, and he’d lost a lot of weight, although he could scarcely say he’d wasted away.

He pushed away the tray and stood, crossing to the window that looked out across the vast square in front of Protector’s Palace. It was too dark to see it now, but he’d seen the gallows waiting for him. They’d made sure of that.

He glanced at the copy of the Holy Writ on the shelf beside the window, but he wasn’t like Duchairn. He didn’t need to paw through printed words to know he’d been God’s true champion! Shan-wei had proved stronger this time, gotten her claws and fangs into too many men’s hearts, but in the fullness of time, God would avenge him. God knew His own, and Zhaspahr Clyntahn treasured the damnation, the devastation and ruin God, Schueler, and Chihiro would decant upon His enemies—His and Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s—in the fullness of time.

He turned his back on the window and the Writ and stalked across to the narrow bed with the plain cotton sheets. He sat on it, irritated with himself when he realized that even now, even knowing Schueler and God waited to greet him as their own, there was the tiniest tremor in his fingers. Well, God’s champion or not, he was only mortal. The weakness of the flesh must overpower the strength of even the most brightly burning soul at times. And he’d shown his steel during that farce of a trial. For over a month they’d paraded their “witnesses,” adduced their “evidence,” whined to the judges about the death and the destruction—as if that could matter to a man defending God Himself!

He’d ignored them. Hadn’t deigned to cross-examine any witness, to challenge any evidence. It had been obvious the entire “trial” was only for show. The verdict had been passed before he’d ever been dragged off of that accursed Charisian ship in Siddar City. Everything else had been window dressing. But perhaps not. Perhaps they were such moral cowards that they’d really needed the entire circus, the entire pretense of justice, to steel their spines for what they’d intended to do all along.

It didn’t matter. Nothing they did could matter. All that mattered was that the Archangels would be waiting to reward him as his services deserved and—

A quiet sound interrupted his thoughts. The chamber door opened, and his stomach tightened as he looked up. He hated that reaction, but even God’s own champion could be excused for feeling an edge of physical fear when he found himself face-to-face with Shan-wei’s foul servants.

The tall, broad-shouldered Guardsman stepped through the door, and Clyntahn’s jaw clenched as a woman, a head shorter than he but clad in the same blackened chain mail and breastplate, followed him. Her red hair showed coppery highlights in the lamplight, and her eyes were the same dark sapphire as her companion’s.

Clyntahn glared at them, refusing to give them the satisfaction of speaking. They didn’t glare at him, however; they only looked at him with cold, disdainful contempt, and he discovered that contempt cut far deeper than any rage.

“Well?” he snapped finally. “Come to gloat, I suppose!”

“‘Gloat’ isn’t the word I’d choose, Your Grace,” Athrawes told him in a cold, thoughtful tone. “I prefer to think of it as … enlightening you.”

“Enlightening!” Clyntahn spat on the chamber floor. “There’s a special place laid up for you in hell, Athrawes! A pit of fire will consume your flesh for all eternity, and I’ll be standing on its brink pissing on you!”

“He still doesn’t get it, does he?” the false seijin said, glancing at his companion.

“No, he doesn’t.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t even realize that we requested the duty tonight so we’d have this opportunity to … explain to him.”

“You have nothing to explain to me, woman!” Clyntahn snarled.

“Oh, now, there you’re wrong,” she said, and the last Grand Inquisitor of Mother Church felt his eyes narrow as her voice began to change somehow. “We have quite a lot to explain to you, Your Grace. And we’ve waited a very long time for the opportunity.”

Clyntahn paled, and he felt himself shrinking back as her voice shifted, deepened, until it was no longer a woman’s voice at all. It had become a deep bass, identical to Athrawes’, and Athrawes smiled coldly as his eyes darted back and forth between them.

“The thing you need to understand, Your Grace, is that you’re won’t be sitting at Schueler’s right hand, passing judgment on anyone. If there truly is a hell, you’ll see it better than most, and I suppose it’s possible you will get to spend time with Schueler, Langhorne, and Chihiro … because that’s where every one of them will be.”

“Blasphemy!” Clyntahn snapped. He grasped his pectoral scepter and shook himself. “Blasphemy! And nothing but what I should expect from heretics!”

“You have no idea what you’re really facing at this moment, Your Grace,” Athrawes said softly. He reached one hand to the solid wooden table at the center of the chamber. He didn’t even look at it, only reached down and grasped it by one corner. And then, one-handed, he lifted its legs six inches off the floor … and held it there. His arm didn’t even quiver, and Clyntahn swallowed hard.

“You talk about ‘demons’ and ‘archangels,’” Athrawes told him. “But Langhorne and Schueler weren’t archangels. They were men—mortal men who lied to an entire world. Mass murderers. Pei Shan-wei was no archangel, either—only a woman who spent her entire life helping others. Only a woman who made it possible for humans to live and prosper on this world. Only a woman who was murdered by Langhorne and Chihiro and Schueler because she was so much better than they were.”

Clyntahn’s eyes were huge, darting back and forth between his face and that motionless table, suspended in midair. But then that same voice came from the woman, and his eyes whipped to her face.

“Only a woman,” she said, “who was my friend.”

“Demons!” Clyntahn whispered hoarsely, raising his scepter between them. “Demons! Creatures of hell!”

“Hell, Your Grace?” She laughed, and the silvery sound was cold and cruel. “You don’t know the meaning of the word … yet. But I think tomorrow, after the trap springs, you’ll find out.”

“Stay back!” he snapped.

“We have no intention of harming you in any way, Your Grace,” she told him. “None. As Merlin said, we’ve come to enlighten you. You’ve talked a lot about your special relationship with Schueler and the archangels, so we thought you might like to meet them—before your hanging, I mean.”

“What do you mean?” the question was betrayed out of him, and he closed his mouth with a snap as soon as he realized what she’d said.

“She means your Holy Writ is a lie,” Athrawes said. “She means every word about the Creation of Safehold is alive. That every page of the Commentaries was written by someone who’d been lied to by Langhorne, and Bédard, and Chihiro. She means she and I are older than your Writ. She means we died before the first human being ever set foot on this world. And she means that tomorrow morning when they hang you, there won’t be any archangels waiting for you.”

“Lies!” he shouted desperately. “Lies!”

“Oh, there’ve been lots of lies on this planet,” the woman told him, “but not from us.”

Clyntahn leapt off the bed, pressing his back against the wall, trying to sink into the solid stone as both false seijins’ eyes began to glow a hellish blue.

“Stay away from me!” he screamed.

“Of course, Your Grace,” Athrawes said.

He set the table down as if it were a feather and the woman withdrew a shiny object from her belt pouch. She set it on a corner of the table and smiled at Clyntahn while those demonic eyes glowed past her lashes.

“Allow us to introduce you to your ‘archangels,’ Your Grace,” she said. “This is what we call ‘file footage.’ We put together an hour or so of it. I think you’ll find it interesting. Especially the bit where Langhorne is explaining himself to Pei Shan-wei.”

She pressed the shiny object, and breath caught in Clyntahn’s throat as the image of a breezy room appeared before him, no more than two feet tall, but perfectly detailed. He’d seen images like it in the Temple, in the Inquisition’s secret records, and he heard someone whimpering with his voice as he recognized many of the faces in that room. He recognized the Archangel Langhorne, the Archangel Bédard, the Archangel Chihiro … the fallen Archangel Kau-yung … and Shan-wei the Accursed herself.

“—and we implore you, once again,” the slender, silver-haired mother of hell said, and he shuddered as that dreadful voice fell upon his ears for the first time, “to consider how vital it is that as the human culture on this planet grows and matures, it remembers the Gbaba. That it understands why we came here, why we renounced advanced technology.”

“Stop it,” Clyntahn whispered. “Stop it!”

“We’ve heard all these arguments before, Dr. Pei,” the Archangel Langhorne said, and it was the Archangel’s voice. He knew it was, because unlike Shan-wei’s, he’d heard it before. “We understand the point you’re raising. But I’m afraid that nothing you’ve said is likely to change our established policy.”

“Administrator,” Shan-wei said, “your ‘established policy’ overlooks the fact that mankind has always been a toolmaker and a problem solver. Eventually those qualities are going to surface here on Safehold. When they do, without an institutional memory of what happened to the Federation, our descendants aren’t going to know about the dangers waiting for them out there.”

“That particular concern is based on a faulty understanding of the societal matrix we’re creating here, Dr. Pei,” the Archangel Bédard said. “I assure you, with the safeguards we’ve put in place, the inhabitants of Safehold will be safely insulated against the sort of technological advancement which might attract the Gbaba’s intention. Unless, of course, there’s some outside stimulus to violate the parameters of our matrix.”

“I don’t doubt that you can—that you have already—created an anti-technology mindset on an individual and a societal level,” Shan-wei replied levelly. “I simply believe that whatever you can accomplish right now, whatever curbs and safeguards you can impose at this moment, five hundred years from now, or a thousand, there’s going to come a moment when those safeguards fail.”

“They won’t,” the Archangel Bédard said flatly. “I realize psychology isn’t your field, Doctor. And I also realize one of your doctorates is in history. Because it is, you’re quite rightly aware of the frenetic pace at which technology has advanced in the modern era. Certainly, on the basis of humanity’s history on Old Earth, especially during the last five or six centuries, it would appear the ‘innovation bug’ is hardwired into the human psyche. It isn’t, however. There are examples from our own history of lengthy, very static periods. In particular, I draw your attention to the thousands of years of the Egyptian empire, during which significant innovation basically didn’t happen. What we’ve done here, on Safehold, is to re-create that same basic mindset, and we’ve also installed certain … institutional and physical checks to maintain that mindset.”

“No, nooooooo,” Clyntahn moaned. Five or six centuries, thousands of years?! It was lies, it was all lies! It had to be!

But the voices went right on speaking, and he couldn’t look away.

“The degree to which the Egyptians—and the rest of the Mediterranean cultures—were anti-innovation has been considerably overstated,” Shan-wei told the Archangel Bédard. “Moreover, Egypt was only a tiny segment of the world population of its day, and other parts—”

* * *

His torment lasted more than the hour the hellish woman had promised. It lasted a century—an age! They made him watch it all, made him absorb the blasphemy, the lies, the deception. And, far worse than that, they made him realize something more dreadful, more hideous than any torment the Punishment had ever inflicted upon the most hardened heretic.

They made him realize it was the truth.

“Lies,” he whispered, staring up at them from where he’d slid down the wall to hunker on the floor. “Lies.” Yet even as he said it, he knew.

“Go on telling yourself that, Your Grace,” Athrawes said as the woman slid the object back into her belt pouch. “Be our guest. Tell yourself that again and again, every step of the way between this cell and the gallows. Tell yourself that when the rope goes around your neck. Tell yourself that while you stand there, waiting. Because when that trap door opens, when you fall through it, you won’t be able to tell yourself that any longer. And how do you think the real God, the true God, the God men and women like Maikel Staynair worship, will greet you when you hit the end of that rope?”

Clyntahn stared at him, his mouth working wordlessly, and the seijin—the seijin, he knew now, who was a young woman a thousand years dead—smiled at him while his companion—the same dead woman!—unlocked the chamber door once more.

“Tell yourself that, Your Grace,” Merlin Athrawes said as he turned to follow Nimue Chwaeriau through that door. “Take it with you straight to hell, because Schueler and Langhorne are waiting for you there.”

* * *

Greyghor Stohnar sat on the reviewing stand beside Cayleb of Charis. Empress Sharleyan sat on the Emperor’s right, with Aivah Pahrsahn to her right, and young Prince Nahrmahn Garyet and King Gorjah of Tarot sat with them. The Duke of Darcos and his wife sat on the rows below theirs, and so did Earl Thirsk, Archbishop Staiphan, Archbishop Zhasyn Cahnyr, Archbishop Klairmant Gairlyng, Archbishop Ulys Lynkyn.…

It was a very long list, scores of names. And for every name on it, there was another name that wasn’t there. Gwylym Manthyr, Mahrtyn Taisyn, Dabnyr Dynnys, Clyftyn Sumyrs, Samyl and Hauwerd Wylsynn, even Erayk Dynnys. As he sat there in the crisp, cold morning sunlight, bundled in his warm coat, wearing his gloves, his breath rising in a golden, sun-touched mist, he thought about all those missing names. The men—and the women—who couldn’t be here to see this morning, to know that justice had finally been done in their names.

Justice. Such a cold, useless word. It’s important—I know it’s important—but … what does it really achieve? Does it bring them back? Does it undo anything the bastard did?

He remembered the cold contempt in Clyntahn’s eyes as the verdict was finally read. Remembered the arrogance, the way he’d stared at all of them secure in the knowledge—even now, after everything—that the final victory would be his. That he truly had served God. He’d wanted to vomit that day, but today would be an end. And as he thought that, he realized what justice achieved.

It’s not about him, really. Oh, there’s vengeance in it, and I won’t pretend there isn’t. But what it’s about—what it means—is that we’re better than he is. That there are some acts, some atrocities, we won’t tolerate. That we will punish them to make our rejection of evil clear but we won’t resort to the butchery, the flaying knives, the castration, the white hot irons, or the stake that he used on so many people. We will remove him from the face of this world, but with a decent respect for justice and without—without—becoming him when we do. That’s what this morning is about.

A trumpet sounded. The background murmur of conversation died, and the only sound was the snapping of the banners atop Protector’s Palace and the faint, distant cry of a wyvern. Then the door opened, and the escort, an enlisted soldier chosen from every army that had fought against the Group of Four—and from the Royal Dohlaran Army, the Army of God, and the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels, as well—came through it, surrounding the prisoner in the plain black cassock.

Stohnar watched them come, and his eyes widened slowly as Zhaspahr Clyntahn drew closer. The arrogance was gone, the shoulders slumped, the hair was wild and uncombed, and he walked like an old, old man, eyes darting in every direction. They fastened on the tall, blue-eyed seijin standing behind Cayleb and Sharleyan, and the smaller seijin standing behind the Duke of Darcos and his wife, and even from his seat, Stohnar could see the terror in their depths.

They reached the foot of the gallows stairs, and Clyntahn stopped. The escort paused, and he raised one foot, as if to set it on the lowest stair tread. But he didn’t. He only stood there, staring now up at the noose swaying in the breeze, and not at the seijins standing post in the stands.

Seconds trickled away, and—finally—the sergeant in Charisian uniform touched him on the shoulder. The Charisian pushed gently, giving the prisoner the option of dignity, but Clyntahn whirled. He stared up at the stands again, his face white, his hands trembling.

“Please!” he cried hoarsely. “Oh, please! It was—I thought—I can’t—!”

He went to his knees, holding out his hands imploringly.

“I thought I was right! I thought … I thought the Writ was true!”

Stohnar stiffened. The man was mad. Here at the very end, finally face-to-face with death, with retribution for his millions of victims, he was mad.

“Please!” he half-sobbed. “Don’t! It’s not my fault! They lied!”

The sergeant who’d tried to leave him the gift of dignity drew back. Then he glanced at his companions, and four of them reached down, pulled the prisoner to his feet, and bore him towards the gallows. He fought madly, twisting and kicking, but it was useless. They dragged him across the platform, held him while the executioner put the noose about his neck. He tried to cry out again, but one of the guards clamped a gloved hand across his mouth while a young brigadier in the uniform of the Glacierheart militia unfolded a sheet of paper.

“‘Zhaspahr Clyntahn,’” he read, “‘you have been tried and adjudged guilty of murder, of torture, and of crimes too barbaric and too numerous to enumerate. You are cast out by the Church, stripped of your offices, deprived of your place among God’s children by your own actions. And so you are condemned to be hanged by the neck until dead, and for your body to be burned into ashes and the ashes scattered upon the wind so that they do not pollute sacred ground. This sentence to be carried out on this day at this hour.’”

He paused and folded the paper, then nodded to the sergeant whose hand was clamped across Clyntahn’s mouth.

“Do you have anything you wish to say?” Byrk Raimahn asked as that hand was removed, remembering the Starving Winter in Glacierheart, remembering all the Glacierhearters who would never come home.

“I … I—” The voice wavered around the edges. It cracked and died, and the mouth worked wordlessly.

* * *

“I wish the Commodore and Shan-wei were here to see this,” Nimue Chwaeriau’s voice said quietly in Merlin Athrawes’ ear, and he knew every other member of the inner circle heard her in that same moment, even if none of the others could reply.

“And Gwylym,” he replied over his own built-in com, sapphire eyes hard as he watched the trembling Grand Inquisitor with the noose about his neck. “Everyone else the bastard had murdered.”

“I know. But we’ve come a long way from where you started, Merlin. A long way.”

“Maybe. But we’ve got an even longer way to go, and there’s that ‘Archangels’ return’ to worry about. The way Duchairn’s salvaging the Church, finding some way to deal with that should keep us … occupied.”

“Of course it will,” Nahrmahn Baytz’ voice said. “But since you’re so fond of Churchill quotes, what about this one? ‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’”

* * *

Byrk Raimahn waited another ten, slow seconds. Then he stepped back.

“Very well,” he said coldly, and nodded to the executioner.

The trap opened, the rope snapped tight, and the body jerked once as the neck broke cleanly. There was a sound from the watching crowd. Not of jubilation, not of celebration. Only a vast, wordless sigh.

* * *

“I don’t know how it looks from your perspective, Merlin,” Nahrmahn said quietly, “but from mine? It’s been one hell of a beginning, my friend.”

Merlin gazed at the body, watching it sway slowly, and put his hands on Nynian’s shoulders. She covered the hand on her right shoulder with her own and turned her head to look up at him. He looked away from the body, meeting her eyes, and smiled slowly.

“It has that, Nahrmahn, it has that. And if we’ve got a long way to go,” he squeezed Nynian’s shoulders gently, “at least we’ve got good company for the trip.”