Some of their counterarguments also came from the scriptures. Others were more pragmatic. "What will the Avtokrator Stylianos give us if we fall into this black heresy?" a plump abbot asked rhetorically. "He'll give us the sword, that's what, and put all our heads on the Milestone. If the very holy sir wants his head there, that's his business. If he wants ours up there with his, that's a different story."
"Even if Phos did rule the world, as you mistakenly believe, your cowardice would be plenty to send you to the ice," Rhavas sneered. "And it's a pity the ice is not fire, for you would burn very well."
"That will be enough, both of you." Sozomenos might have been reproving a couple of small boys, not two of the most powerful clerics in the Empire of Videssos.
The abbot, his face brick red, gobbled and sputtered but—no doubt luckily for him—did not manage to put his protest into words. Rhavas merely gave the ecumenical patriarch a stiff bow and returned to the theological attack.
Some time during the morning, a newcomer entered the High Temple. He seemed to have been there a while before Rhavas noticed him. He was neither ecclesiastic nor wizard. He leaned against a column sheathed in moss agate with the air of a man who'd drawn a soft duty but intended to fulfill it as if it weren't.
One of Stylianos' henchmen, Rhavas thought, here to keep an eye on the synod for him. Rhavas had a pretty good notion of what that meant. If the assembled ecclesiastics didn't condemn him on their own, the Avtokrator would take care of things for them.
Bitterness rose up in him like a cloud. Maleinos had shared his view. So had Arotras, a priest himself. So did Lardys. They all believed as he did—yes. Would any of them publicly admit it? Not a chance, not in all the world.
"Hypocrites!" he cried furiously. "You're all nothing but hypocrites, and you will get what hypocrites deserve!"
They would not believe him—or, perhaps more likely, they would not admit they believed him. That only made him angrier. He pictured priests and prelates nodding to themselves while they shook their heads for the world. He wanted to break those empty heads to let truth into them. That was the only way he could see to get the truth in there.
If he shouted, Curse you all! . . . what would happen? They would go down in windrows, like barley before the scythe. But even if they did, what then? Who would replace them? Men who thought as he did? Men, for that matter, who thought at all? Or would the new ecclesiastics just be more muttonheads indistinguishable from the ones he'd slain? That seemed altogether too likely.
A priest not far away pulled a loaf of brown bread and a chunk of pale yellow cheese out of a large belt pouch. Ignoring the debate and the occasional catcalls that filled the High Temple, he began to eat his lunch. That probably meant his mind was made up. It certainly meant he had a practical bent.
Not too much later, Sozomenos adjourned the synod to let the rest of the ecclesiastics eat. As they filtered out of the High Temple and down to the nearby plaza of Palamas to see what they could find, the ecumenical patriarch beckoned Rhavas to him. Warily, Rhavas approached.
"You are still here." Sadness filled Sozomenos' voice.
"Yes, of course I am," Rhavas said.
"But you are making a foolish mistake," the patriarch said, "a mistake even more foolish than I thought before I wrote you a few days ago. I met the Avtokrator yesterday. His Majesty would not be pleased with you even if you were not related to, ah, his predecessor. He seems to be a man of hasty temper, and one not easily swayed from anger."
"The synod will do as it will do. The Avtokrator will do as he will do. And I—I will do as I will do," Rhavas declared. "Does no one understand that I am as sure of my rightness as anyone else is of his?"
"I believe you are, very holy sir," Sozomenos replied. "I believe you—but I also believe your sincerity to be mistaken."
"And I feel the same about yours," Rhavas snapped. He did not care to think about how and why Sozomenos still stood. Since he didn't care to, he didn't.
"No doubt you do." Something in the ecumenical patriarch's stance and gaze put Rhavas in mind of a gentle grasshopper. Sozomenos went on, "The difference is, the synod will not condemn me when the time comes for it to define the faith. Nor will I be bound over for punishment. You wage a war you cannot win."
"Come the end of days, the war will be won," Rhavas said. Sozomenos frowned and shook his head. Rhavas ignored him. "The war may be won well before the end of days, too. Skotos is loose in the world, most holy sir. That you do not see it only shows you do not leave Videssos the city."
"Skotos is loose here, too," Sozomenos answered calmly, spitting in rejection of the dark god—as Rhavas had not done. "Skotos is loose everywhere—which does not mean we should embrace him."
"Why not? If he is the stronger, should we lie and say he is not?" Rhavas asked. "The Khamorth graze their ponies by the Long Walls—maybe inside them now, for all I know. Skopentzana is dead, along with so much else."
"I would believe as I believe if the barbarians rode their horses up the aisle of the Temple to the altar here," Sozomenos said. "I do not know when the end of days will come. I do not believe it will come soon. The struggle has a long way to go."
Rhavas scowled at him. "My prayers died unheard. My curses are fulfilled ten times over. Phos is deaf and blind and weak. Skotos hears me. More—Skotos speaks through me."
"Are you really so enamored of spectacle, very holy sir?" the patriarch asked. "I believed you a man of thought."
"And so I am," Rhavas answered, stung. "But thought that does not look at the world and what goes on in it is pointless. You will not see that, for you refuse to open your eyes."
"We talk past each other," Sozomenos said mournfully. "I wish it were otherwise. You were once the faith's strongest friend. I think you strike at it more from disappointment than from reason."
"I tell you, you are mistaken," Rhavas growled. Sozomenos only shrugged. Rhavas said, "The synod will do as it will do, as I said before. But its acts will be preserved. Those who come after us will see which side was in the right. I do not fear that."
"It will be a long time before anyone surely sees. Until that day of days comes, you must have faith. This is what you do not see," Sozomenos said.
"The day of days is coming sooner than you think. And I do have faith, most holy sir. This is whatyou will not see," Rhavas replied. Sorrowfully, the ecumenical patriarch turned his back on him.
Imperial guards seldom came to the inn where Rhavas stayed. They had their own dives, fancier and closer to the palace quarter. When they did come, they were even less likely to be accompanied by a pair of mages. Without much surprise, Rhavas recognized the men who had kept watch on him in the High Temple. But the wizards stayed in the background. It was one of the soldiers who pointed a gnarled finger at Rhavas in the taproom and declared, "Priest, you are summoned before his Majesty, the Avtokrator Stylianos."
"Am I?" Rhavas said mildly. "And if I don't care to come?"
"We are ordered to do whatever we need to do in that case," the soldier answered.
How much did he know? That he and his men had mages with them suggested they knew more than a little. How much could the sorcerers do to stop Rhavas if he chose to curse them—or Stylianos? He wasn't sure. He would have bet they weren't, either.
He shrugged and rose from his stool. "Never mind," he said. "Take me to the palaces."
Did the soldiers look relieved or disappointed that they didn't have to do whatever they needed to do? Rhavas couldn't tell, which was a tribute to their stone faces. Stylianos had chosen his men well.
A priest, a few soldiers, a couple of wizards—not such an unlikely group to walk west along Middle Street toward the palaces. "Bless me, holy sir," called a man with a cataract clouding one eye.