Four days passed. In the Palace of the Priest-Supreme, churchmen waited for the storm to break.
A messenger, clad in oilskins against the weather, came down from Icen Hill and delivered a sealed document at the Palace.
The Priest-Supreme broke the seal and read the message.
The message said that subversive pamphlets put out by the Synod preached treason, in that they set out deliberately to flout recent Acts promulgated by the State. Treason was punishable by death.
If there was an explanation for these vile offences, then the Priest-Supreme of the Church of the Formidable Peace should present himself before the Oligarch forthwith, and deliver it in person.
The letter was signed with the signature of Torkerkanzleg II.
‘I do not believe that man exists,’ Chubsalid said. ‘He has reigned for over thirty years. Nobody has ever seen him. No portrait exists of his face. He could be a phagor for all we know to the contrary…’
He continued for a while in this vein, tut-tutting absently, and visiting the Synod library to compare signatures, toying with magnifying glasses and shaking his head.
This activity made the Priest-Supreme’s advisors nervous; they felt he should be concentrating on the gravity of a summons which, on the face of it at least, appeared to be his death warrant. Senior advisors, speaking among themselves, suggested that the entire centre of the Church should move immediately from Askitosh to a safer place — possibly to Rattagon, although it was under siege, since its position in the middle of a lake rendered it secure; or even to Kharnabhar, despite its extreme climate, since it was a religious refuge.
But Chubsalid had his own ideas. Retreat never entered his mind. After an hour of pottering about comparing signatures, he announced that he would meet the Oligarch. An acceptance note was written by his scribe to that effect. It suggested that the meeting should be in the great entrance hall of Icen Castle, and that anyone who wished might come there and hear the debate between the two men.
As Chubsalid appended his name to the document, Priest-Chaplain Parlingelteg, who was standing nearby, came forward and knelt by the Priest-Supreme’s chair.
‘Sire, when you go to that place, permit me to accompany you. Whatever there befalls you, let it also befall me.’
Chubsalid set his hand on the young man’s shoulder.
‘It shall be as you suggest. I shall be grateful for your presence.’
He turned then to Asperamanka, who was also in the company.
‘And you, our Priest-Militant, will you also come to Icen Castle, to bear witness to the Oligarch’s crime?’
Asperamanka looked here and there, as if seeking out an invisible door. ‘You speak better than I, Priest-Supreme. I think it unwise to bring up the subject of the plague. We have no cure for the Fat Death, any more than the State. The Oligarch may have reasons we know nothing of for wishing to suppress pauk.’
‘Then we will hear them. You will come with Parlingelteg and me?’
‘Perhaps we should take doctors with us.’
Chubsalid smiled. ‘We shall be able to stand against him, I trust, without the aid of doctors.’
‘Surely we ought to try and compromise,’ said Asperamanka, looking wretched.
‘We shall see if that is possible,’ said Chubsalid. ‘And thank you for saying you will accompany us.’
The day dawned. Priest-Supreme Chubsalid put on his ecclesiastical robes and bade good-bye to his colleagues. One or two he embraced.
The silvery man shed a tear.
Chubsalid smiled at him. ‘Whatever happens this day, I will require your courage as well as mine.’ His voice was firm and serene.
He climbed into his carriage, where Asperamanka and Parlingelteg waited. The carriage moved off.
It made its way through silent streets. The police, at the Oligarch’s command, had cleared onlookers away, so that there was none of the cheering which usually greeted the appearance of the Priest-Supreme. Only silence.
As the carriage ground its way up the treacherous paving stones of Icen Hill, the presence of soldiery was all too noticeable. At the gates of the castle, armed men stepped forward and fended off those priests who had followed behind their leader’s carriage. The carriage passed under the ponderous stone arch. The great iron gates closed behind it.
Many windows looked down on the front courtyard, enforcing silence with their oppressive dead shine. They were mean windows, less like eyes than blunt teeth.
The party of three was led unceremoniously from the carriage into the chill of the building. Their footsteps echoed as they traversed the great entrance hall. Soldiers in elaborate national uniform stood on guard. None moved.
The party was shown to the rear, to a dingy passage where the skirting was scuffed by innumerable boots, as if a tormented animal had tried to fight its way to freedom. After a wait, a signal was given their guide and they ascended by a narrow wooden stair which wound up two flights without a window by way of punctuation. They emerged into another passage, no more congenial to tormented animals than the first, and halted at a door. The guide knocked.
A voice bade them enter.
They came into a room which displayed all the festive cheer for which the Oligarchy was noted. It was a reception room of a kind, lined with chairs on which only the most emaciated anatomies could have found rest. The one window in the room was draped in heavy leather curtains, evidently designed to be capable of repelling the onslaughts of daylight.
The niggardly proportions of the room, in which the height of the ceiling was matched only by the depth of gloom it engendered, was reinforced by its lighting. One fat viridian candle burned in a tall stand in the middle of the otherwise empty floor. A chilling draught caused its shadows to stir wakefully on the creaking parquet.
‘How long do we wait here?’ Chubsalid enquired of the guide.
‘A short while, sire.’
Short whiles were of long duration in such a room, but eventually inner doors opened. Two uniformed men with swords dragged the doors apart, allowing the party to view a further room.
This further room was lit by gas flares, which imparted a sickly light over everything but the face of a man sitting berobed in a large chair at the far end of the room. Since the gas lights were behind his throne, his face was cast into shadow. The man made no movement.
Chubsalid said in a clear voice, ‘I am Priest-Supreme Chubsalid of the Church of the Formidable Peace. Who are you?’
And an equally clear voice came back. ‘You address me as the Oligarch.’
The visiting party, although they had prepared themselves for the encounter, were silenced by a momentary awe. They shuffled forward to the door of the inner chamber, where soldiers barred their way with naked swords.
‘Are you Torkerkanzlag II?’ asked Chubsalid.
Again the clear voice. ‘Address me as the Oligarch.’
Chubsalid and Asperamanka looked at each other. Then the former spoke out.
‘We have come here, Dread Oligarch, to discuss the curtailment of traditional liberties in our state, and to speak with you regarding a recent crime committed—’
The clear voice cut in. ‘You have come here to discuss nothing, priest. You have come here to speak of nothing. You have come here because you preached treason, in deliberate defiance of recent edicts issued by the State. You have come here because the punishment for treason is death.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Parlingelteg. ‘We came here anticipating reason, justice, and an open debate. Not some sort of tawdry melodramatics.’
Asperamanka set his chest against one of the drawn swords and said, ‘Dread Oligarch, I have served you faithfully. I am Priest-Militant Asperamanka, who, as no doubt you know, led your armies to victory in the field against the thousand heathen cults of Pannoval. Did you not — were not those armies destroyed on their return to your domains?’