He was probably right; Rhavas' family connections alone wouldn't be enough to save him. Rhavas shrugged even so. "Oh, I expect I can find one way or another to persuade them. Will you come with me and help guard my back? The truth needs all the defenders it can find—and we both know what the truth is, don't we?"
Arotras licked his lips. "You must be mad if you think you can persuade people the dark god is stronger than the light one. You'll die, that's what'll happen, and you'll take a long time doing it. I want to live a full life. If you don't, that's your business." He shivered theatrically.
"Do you not have the courage of your convictions?" Rhavas demanded.
"I believe what I believe," Arotras said. "I'll tell you something else, too: one of the things I believe is that you're not going to change these people's minds. They're too set in their ways. And besides, they live in the imperial city, and everything is normal there, or as normal as it is anywhere. You might as well try telling them the world is round."
Rhavas had had the one thought himself. He laughed at the absurdity of the other. Every so often, ships would sail east from Kalavria, the easternmost island the Empire owned. None had ever come back. If they hadn't fallen off the edge, what had happened to them? No one had any idea. No ship had ever come out of the east from foreign lands, either.
"You know what I mean," Arotras said defensively. "Converting them won't work. You can't make it work."
"I can. I intend to." Pride rang in Rhavas' voice: the pride of an ecclesiastic who knew what he knew, and also the pride of a scion of the imperial family, a man who knew others would pay attention to him simply because of who he was.
"Well, good fortune go with you," Arotras replied. "If orders come from Videssos the city to stop believing one thing and start believing another, you can be sure that I will. If they don't, I won't, not where it shows. I'm sorry, very holy sir, but I haven't got the stuff of martyrs in me. I like life too well to want to end it, especially that way." He shuddered again.
"No god cares for a lukewarm worshiper," Rhavas warned, but Arotras only shrugged. Rhavas wondered if he ought to curse the other priest. With some regret, he decided not to. If he cursed everyone who was lukewarm, half the Empire would perish. Once he did what he set out to do, Arotras would be free to turn into what he was supposed to be.
Arotras probably had a good idea of what he was thinking. In slightly sullen tones, the plump priest said, "You want to be right more than you want to be safe. I'm sorry, Rhavas, but I've never been that way."
"We are right, you and I and those who think as we do—and there are bound to be many of them." As usual, Rhavas spoke with great conviction. "And, because we are right, we have the right—no, we have the duty —to bring our truth to everyone in the Empire." Missionary zeal blazed in him.
In him, yes, but not in Arotras. "As I say, good luck to you. I will stay where I am, stay a small man, and try to stay a safe man."
"Follow what is true wherever it leads you," Rhavas said.
"I know what I think," the other priest said unhappily. "And I know what will happen if the wrong people find out what I think. What I don't know is how I ever had the nerve to open my mouth to you." He got to his feet. "I don't know that things will turn out just the way you hope they do. I fear they won't, and I'm sorry for that. I'd better go now." With a shy dip of the head, he scurried out of the tavern.
"You didn't do anything to the holy sir, did you?" the tapman asked. "We like him here. We don't want any trouble for him."
"Neither do I," Rhavas said. "We have the same doctrine. He just doesn't want to follow it as far as I do."
"I don't care about his doctrine," the tapman said, which, if true, came close to making him unique in the history of Videssos. "But he's a good fellow, and I don't want anything bad happening to him."
"I told you—neither do I. And nothing will, nothing that has anything to do with me," Rhavas said.
"It had better not." The tapman ran a damp rag over the polished wood of the bar, giving himself a chance to think. Rhavas had seen that gesture from more tapmen than he could remember. This fellow went on, "Tell you what, holy sir. If you want to, you can spend the night here, and spend it on the house."
The attempt at a bribe was about as subtle as a kick in the teeth. Rhavas thought about saying so, but kept quiet. The tapman was doing what he could, offering what he had to give. "That's very kind of you," Rhavas replied after his moment of thought. "I do believe I'll take you up on it."
"Good. That's good!" The tapman looked relieved. "I thought you looked like a sensible fellow. Is there anything else I can get you while you're here so you'll have a better time?"
Rhavas wasn't about to demand anything a priest wasn't supposed to have—not in so many words he wasn't. He shrugged and said, "Why don't you surprise me?"
"Well, holy sir, I'll see what I can do," the man said. "You just leave everything to me."
He served up a huge bowl of beef-and-barley soup—a supper Rhavas might have had up in Skopentzana, too. The bowl held several bones with lots of rich, fatty marrow inside. Rhavas sucked it out. The tapman only smiled at his slurping noises.
When Rhavas went upstairs, he found his room not much better or worse than others he'd taken at inns across the Empire. He was settling down for the night when someone knocked on the door.
At some of the places he'd been, he wouldn't have opened the door if his life depended on it. This wasn't one of those. When he swung the door open perhaps a palm's breadth—ready to slam it shut in a hurry if he had to—a woman looked back at him from the hallway. "What do you want?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No, holy sir—what do you want? Melias said to make you happy, if you felt like that."
"Melias?" Rhavas found himself at sea.
The woman pointed downstairs. "The tapman."
"Oh." With the name and the person joined, things made more sense. "He told you that, did he?"
She nodded. "Can I come in?"
He opened the door wider. She stepped into the room. She was pretty in a haggard way, and had probably been prettier before hard living took its toll. Rhavas asked, "Did he tell you I was a priest?"
She looked at him. "Does it matter? If it matters, you'll throw me out. If you don't throw me out, it doesn't matter."
He'd heard the same cynicism from the first barmaid he bedded. "It doesn't matter, not like that," he said roughly.
"All right, then." She pulled off her long tunic. "Let's get on with it."
When they lay down together, Rhavas learned a few things he hadn't known before. That wasn't because she was anything out of the ordinary, or he didn't think it was, anyway; more that his own experience was still scanty. She didn't take pleasure in it herself, and didn't bother pretending she did. When it was over, he asked, "What do I owe you?"
"Nothing. It's taken care of." She got out of the bed, dressed quickly, and left the room. As her footsteps faded down the hall, Rhavas realized he'd never asked her name. Melias was doing everything he knew how to do to keep Arotras from finding trouble. The tapman might even be able to blackmail Rhavas if he turned on his fellow priest.
Rhavas had never intended to do that. He'd told Melias as much. The man hadn't listened to him—and how often did anyone ever really listen to anyone else? This time, Rhavas had got a fine supper, a room, and a woman because the tapman wouldn't listen. To him, it seemed a good exchange.
He slid toward sleep. He'd almost got there when a sudden thought brought him back to wakefulness. How often did anyone ever really listen to anyone else? When he got to Videssos the city, would his fellow ecclesiastics pay attention to the new doctrine he brought them?