“I’ll grant you that,” Mahkbyth said unflinchingly. “But sooner or later, we’ll have to do it. And I’m serious when I say we need to hit the Inquisition back—hard—to undercut the boost their morale’s gotten out of this.”
“Ultimately, what happened at St. Thyrmyn—even the rumors of what happened at St. Thyrmyn—will do all the undercutting you could want, Ahrloh,” Murphai pointed out. “But that’s not to say Arbalest doesn’t agree it’s time to ‘send a message’ to Clyntahn. She just doesn’t want that message to be named ‘Rayno.’ Not yet. She’s saving that one for a special occasion.”
“So what ‘message’ does she have in mind?” Mahkbyth’s eyes had narrowed. “It must be fairly special to send you personally to arrange it.”
“Oh, believe me, she didn’t have to send me for this one,” Murphai told him. “For this one, I volunteered. In fact, it was something of a toss-up for a while as to whether I’d get to deliver it or Merlin would.”
“Really?” The light was back in Mahkbyth’s eyes—not quite as bright as it had been, but bright enough.
“Oh, really,” Murphai said. “Apparently the Grand Inquisitor’s still rattled by whatever actually happened at St. Thyrmyn, and he’s decided he has to turn up the wick under everyone else. Just between you and me, I think he’s almost at the point of making examples at the very top. In fact, in my ideal outcome, he’d decide to make an example out of Rayno so we didn’t have to. It wouldn’t exactly break my heart to see the good Archbishop in the Plaza of Martyrs.”
“I’ll bring the potato slices.”
“That’s what I thought. But that’s not going to happen tomorrow. On the other hand, it seems the situation’s getting bad enough in the Border States that Inquisitor General Wylbyr’s been summoned to Zion for a personal ‘conference’ with Vicar Zhaspahr.”
“Arbalest thinks Clyntahn’s going to send Edwyrds to the Punishment?” Mahkbyth sounded skeptical, and Murphai didn’t blame him.
“Killing off the man he hand-picked to return Siddarmark to the fold would be a little demoralizing for the rank-and-file, I imagine,” Murphai acknowledged. “He may be a lot closer to that point than he was a month or so ago, but, no. I think it’s entirely possible he does plan to give the Inquisitor General a significant tongue lashing and send him back to ginger up his inquisitors in the Border States and Tarikah and Westmarch. Their enthusiasm seems to have waned under Dialydd’s tender ministrations.”
The smiles they exchanged would have done any kraken proud.
“That’s not what’s going to happen, though,” the seijin said then. “As it happens, we have a source which will give us Edwyrds’ itinerary. We’ll know exactly when, where, and how he’ll arrive in Zion, and when he does, Helm Cleaver will be waiting for him.”
“We get to take down Edwyrds?” Mahkbyth repeated very carefully, like a man making sure he’d heard correctly.
“You get to take down Edwyrds,” Murphai confirmed. “Not only that, Arbalest wants it done here—in Zion itself, not out in the Border States or in the Republic where Dialydd Mab would receive credit for it. No questions about who’s responsible for this kill, Ahrloh. And that note you wanted to leave pinned to Rayno’s cassock? I think it wouldn’t be … inappropriate to pin it to the Inquisitor General’s, instead.”
.III.
Lake City,
Tarikah Province,
Republic of Siddarmark.
The silent, efficient servants removed the dessert dishes and Earl Rainbow Waters’ wine steward poured brandy into his and his nephew’s snifters with the careful attention the ritual required. Then he stood back, decanter at port arms, raising one eyebrow at his master. A slow, thoughtful wave of the tulip-shaped snifter under aristocratic nostrils, a nod of approval, and a flick of Rainbow Waters’ fingers indicated where he should set the brandy decanter—at the earl’s nephew’s elbow—and banished him to follow the other servants.
The wine steward bowed himself out, and the earl smiled indulgently as Baron Wind Song pulled out his pipe and raised his own eyebrow.
“Yes. Yes!” Rainbow Waters shook his head. “If you insist on destroying the palate of such an excellent brandy with tobacco, by all means do so.”
“It doesn’t destroy the palate, Uncle,” the baron replied. “It enhances it.”
Rainbow Waters snorted, because it was an old, familiar dance. And, while the earl would never have admitted it, even under torture, he rather enjoyed the scent of Wind Song’s tobacco.
The baron did treat himself to a luxurious sip of his own brandy before he carefully filled the foamstone bowl. He tamped the tobacco, and then slipped a hand into his pocket for one of the “lighters” Harchongese artisans had begun to craft from the samples which had been captured from the heretics. Of course, the heretics’ version were plain, unadorned—undoubtedly stamped out on some clumsy machine by one of their uncouth mechanics with dirty fingernails somewhere in one of their smoky, smelly manufactories—whereas the Harchongese version was exquisitely adorned, crafted of the finest materials by highly paid artists of the most impeccable sensibilities in a studio with perfect lighting and (probably) a harpist playing softly to aid its master’s pursuit of his creative muse. Wind Song’s, for example, bore a traditional hunting motif in bas-relief, with a magnificent prong buck, its eyes crafted from tiny chips of ruby, rearing as it was surrounded by the baying hounds.
And for the same cost and the same number of man-hours, the heretics would have produced at least two hundred of them, he reflected as he spun the wheel. The wick burst into flame and he lit his tobacco slowly and carefully. Of course, it would never do to point that out. God forbid anyone back home should pay attention to Uncle Taychau’s pleas to forget about luxury and start thinking about survival!
“So,” Rainbow Waters said as the younger man got his pipe properly alight and sat back in his chair, “what did you think of Bishop Merkyl’s explanation of the Inquisitor General’s travel plans, Nephew?”
That was coming to the point rather quickly, Wind Song thought. And the fact that Rainbow Waters called him “nephew” suggested he wasn’t asking in his official capacity as the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels’ commanding officer. Or not solely in that capacity, at least.
“I thought it was accurate in so far as it went, but probably … less than complete, Uncle,” he replied after a thoughtful moment. The small beckoning motion of Rainbow Waters’ left hand invited expansion, and he shrugged.
“I’m sure the Grand Inquisitor truly does need to confer with him about the Inquisition’s affairs in the Republic. And, for that matter, in the Border States, now that he’s been given authority in that area, as well. And, strictly between the two of us, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Inquisitor General Wylbyr gets … quite an earful about the conduct of the inquisitors in Mother Church’s camps in the Republic. On several points.”
Rainbow Waters snorted, then sipped his own brandy with an expression that mingled disgust, unhappiness, and a certain bitter amusement.
Despite the best efforts of the inquisitors in charge of evacuating Mother Church’s holding camps, more than two-thirds of those camps had been seized—liberated—by the advancing heretics over the previous summer. And, also despite the best efforts of the inquisitors in charge, the truth about how those seizures had occurred had gotten out. The fact that so many of the Inquisition’s loyal servants had been less than zealous about obeying Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s orders to massacre the camps’ inmates rather than allow them to be freed had not been calculated to soothe the Grand Inquisitor’s feelings. True, much of that disobedience had been laid at the feet of the Army of God guard forces, but Rainbow Waters’ sources in Zion reported that at least a half-dozen senior inquisitors had been severely punished—to the level of the Punishment, in at least two cases—for their failures. Or, perhaps, for failing to conceal their failures.