“If we do, then later generations will abhor our names-and rightly so,” Heyn said hotly.
“There is no reason that the dyke should fall,” Himerius said, “but it is the responsibility of Torunna, not of the Church.”
Heyn stood up at that, scraping back his chair. His black habit flapped around his thin form as he put his back to the fire, his eyes smouldering like the gledes at its heart.
“This talk of responsibility. . the west has a responsibility to aid Torunna at this time. If the Merduks take the dyke, then Torunn itself will almost certainly fall and the heathens will have no other barrier to their advance save the heights of the Cimbrics. And what if they turn north, skirting the mountains? Then it will be our precious Charibon next in line. Will it be our responsibility then to defend it-or should we wait until the Merduk tide is lapping at the gates of Abrusio?”
“You are excited, Brother,” Betanza said soothingly. “And with reason. It cannot be easy for you.”
“Yes. I’ll bet Lofantyr has all but got the thumbscrews on you, Heyn,” Escriban said. “What did you promise him before you came here? An army of the Knights? The Lancers of Perigraine? Or perhaps the Cuirassiers of Almark.”
Heyn scowled. His face was like a bearded skull in the firelight.
“Not all of us see life as one big joke, Escriban,” he said venomously.
Betanza thumped a large hand on the table, setting the glasses dancing and startling them all.
“Enough! We did not assemble here to trade insults with one another. We are the elders of the Church, the inheritors of the tradition of Ramusio himself. There will be no pettiness. We cannot afford the time for it.”
“Agreed,” old Marat said into his white beard. “It seems to me there are two issues confronting us at this time, Brothers. First, the High Pontiffship. It must be decided before anything else, for it affects everything. And secondly, these purges which our Hebrian brother has instigated and wishes to see extended. Do we want to see them across the Five Kingdoms? Personally, I’m in favour of them. The common folk of the world are like cattle; they need to feel the drover’s stick once in a while.”
“Merion of Astarac is one of your cattle, Marat,” said Escriban. “He will not vote for a continent-wide pogrom, I’ll tell you now.”
“He is only one man, and there are five of us.” Marat glanced about the table, and then smiled. He looked like a benevolent patriarch, but his eyes held no humour. “Good,” he said.
Heyn remained by the fire, isolated. At last he said:
“Torunna has not the resources to undertake a purge at the moment. We will need outside help.”
Betanza nodded, his bald head shining. “But of course, Brother. I am sure I can let you have a sizeable contingent of the Knights to aid God’s work in your beleaguered prelacy.”
“Six thousand?”
“Five.”
“Very well.”
Himerius drained the last of his wine, looking like a hawk which had just stooped on a fat pigeon. “It is good to have these things out in the open, to talk them over with friends, amicably, without rancour.” His eyes met Betanza’s. He nodded imperceptibly.
Escriban of Perigraine chuckled.
“What about the Pontiffship?” Betanza asked. “Who here wishes to stand?”
“Oh, please, Brother Betanza,” Escriban said with feigned shock. “Must you be so blunt?”
Another silence, more profound this time. In accepting Himerius’ proposals the decision had more or less been made, but no one wanted to voice what they all knew.
“I will stand, if God will grant me the strength,” Himerius said at last, a little annoyed that no one had publicly urged him to.
Betanza sighed. “So be it. This is entirely informal, of course, but I must ask you, Brothers, if there are any objections to Brother Himerius’ candidature.”
Still, no one spoke. Heyn turned away to face the fire.
“Will no one else put themselves forward?” Betanza waited a moment and then shrugged. “Well, we have a candidate to put to the Synod. It remains to be seen what the College of Bishops makes of it.”
But they all knew that the Bishops voted with their respective Prelates. The High Pontiffship of the western world had effectively been decided: by five men in a firelit room over dinner.
FOURTEEN
Autumn in the Malvennor Mountains. Already the snow had begun to block the higher passes, and from the vast peaks streamers and banners of white were being billowed out by the freshening wind.
Abeleyn pulled the fur of his collar tighter around his throat and stared up at the high land to the east and north. The Malvennors were fifteen thousand feet above sea level, and even here, on the snow-pocked hills at their knees, the air was sharp and thin and the guides had warned the party of the dangers of mountain sickness and snow blindness.
He was five weeks out of Abrusio, on his way to the Conclave of Kings at Vol Ephrir in Perigraine. His ship had made a rapid passage across the Fimbrian Gulf, docking at the breakaway Fimbrian city of Narbukir, then he had gone aboard a river boat for the laborious journey up the Arcolm river, taking to horses when the Arcolm was no longer navigable. He could see the river now, a narrow stream running and foaming through the icicle-dripping rocks off to one side. Further up in the mountains it was said that a man might bestride it if he had long legs. Hard to believe that down on the gulf its mouth formed an estuary fully three leagues wide.
The rest of the party were still below, labouring up the steep slopes towards him. He had a tolerably large escort: two hundred Hebrian arquebusiers and swordsmen and eighty heavy cavalry armed with lances and paired matchlock pistols. Then there were the muleteers of the pack-train, the cooks, the grooms, the smiths and the score of other servants who made up his travelling household. All told, some four hundred men accompanied the King of Hebrion across the Malvennor Mountains; a modest enough show. Only a king would ever be allowed to take such a force into a foreign country. It was part and parcel of the dignity of monarchs.
“We’ll camp here, and attempt the pass in the morning,” the King said to his chief steward.
The man bowed in the saddle and then wrenched his horse around to begin the job of setting up camp.
The King sat relaxed in the saddle and watched the ungainly straggling groups of men and animals gradually coalesce on the slope below him. The horses were finding it heavy going. If the snow grew much deeper-and it would-then they would all be afoot, hauling their mounts behind them. The snows had come early this year, and there was a bitter wind winnowing the high peaks. The baking heat of Abrusio seemed like a dream.
“Is it here you hope to meet up with King Mark, sire?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Hereabouts.” The King turned to regard the hooded lady who sat her palfrey behind him. The fine-stepping horse was feeling the cold; it was not the best of mounts for a journey such as this. “I hope you have good walking boots with you, lady. That nag of yours will drop in its tracks ere we’ve put another ten leagues behind us.”
The lady Jemilla threw back her hood. Her dark hair was bound up in circled braids around her head, held in place with pearl-topped pins. Two larger pearls shone like little moons in her earlobes. Her eyes sparkled in the snow-light.
“The walk will do me good. I am putting on weight.”
Abeleyn grinned. If so, he had not noticed. He looked down the hillside. His staff were erecting the huge hide tents, and he could see the dull flicker of a fire. His toes were numb in his furlined boots and his breath was whipped away from his lips, but he did not immediately ride down to the warmth of the fires. Rather he gazed south, along the line of the mountains to where Astarac loomed blue with distance on the southern side of the Arcolm river. If truth be told, they were in Astarac now, for the Arcolm had always been the traditional boundary between Astarac and Fimbria. But up in the mountains such technicalities were irrelevant. Shepherds herded their goats from one kingdom to another without formalities, as they always had. Up here the niceties of borders and diplomacy seemed like a faraway farce to be played out in the palaces of the world.