The unmoved voice of the Oligarch said, ‘In the presence of your ruler, you do not ask questions.’
‘Tell us who you are,’ said Parlingelteg. ‘If you are human you give no evidence of it.’
Ignoring the interruption, Torkerkanzlag II gave the guard an order: ‘Draw back the window curtain.’
The guide who had led the three into the stifling chamber creaked his way across the floor and grasped the leather curtain with both hands. Slowly, he pulled the curtain back from the long window.
Grey light filtered into the room. While the other two turned to see out, Chubsalid looked back towards the Oligarch. Some of the light filtered even to where he sat motionless on his shadowed throne; something of his features was revealed.
‘I recognise you! Why, you’re—’ But the Priest-Supreme got no further, for one of the soldiers grasped him unceremoniously by the shoulder and swung him to the long window, where the guide stood pointing downwards.
A courtyard lay beneath the window, surrounded entirely by tall grey walls. Anyone walking down there would have been crushed by the weight of disapproving windows ranged above him.
In the middle of the courtyard, a wooden cage had been built. Inside the cage was a tall, sturdy pole. What made this arrangement remarkable was the fact that cage and pole stood on a slatted wooden platform, which was built over piles of logs. Tucked in among the logs were bundles of brushwood. Bunches of twigs and kindling skirted the brushwood.
The Oligarch said, ‘The punishment for treason is death. That you knew before you entered here. Death by burning. You have preached against the State. You will be burnt.’
Parlingelteg spoke up boldly as the curtain was pulled back over the window. ‘If you dare burn us, you will turn the religion of Sibornal against the State. Every man’s hand will be against you. You will not survive. Sibornal itself may not survive.’
Asperamanka made a run for the door, shouting, ‘I’ll see to it that the world hears of this villainy.’
But there were soldiers outside the door who turned him back.
Chubsalid stood in the middle of the room and said soothingly to him, ‘Be firm, my good priest. If this crime is committed here in the centre of Askitosh, there will be those who will never rest until the Azoiaxic triumphs. This is the monster who believes that treachery costs less than armies. He will find that this treachery costs him everything.’
The unmoving man in the chair said, ‘The greatest good is the survival of civilisation over the next centuries. To that end all else must be sacrificed. Fine principles have to go. When plague’s rampant, law and order break down. So it has always been at the onset of previous Great Winters — in Campannlat, in Hespagorat, even in Sibornal. Armies run mad, records burn, the finest emblems of the state are destroyed. Barbarism reigns.
‘This time, this winter, we shall / will survive that crisis. Sibornal is to become a fortress. Already none may enter. Soon, none shall leave. For four centuries, we shall remain a haven of law and order, whilst the cold tears out the gizzards of wolves. We will live from the sea.
‘Values will be maintained, but those values must be the values of survival. I will not have Church and State at loggerheads. That is what the Oligarchy has decided. Ours is the only plan which can / determined save the maximum number of people.
‘Next spring, we shall rise up strong while Campannlat is still given over to primitivism and its women lug carts like beasts of burden — if they haven’t forgotten how to make wheels by then. At that time, we shall resolve the endless hostility with those savage lands for good and all.
‘Do you call that wicked? Do you call that wicked, Priest-Supreme? To see our beloved continent triumph?’
Garbed in his canonicals, Chubsalid made a fine figure. He drew himself up. He let silence cover the Oligarch’s rhetoric before he replied.
‘Whatever you may arrogantly believe to the contrary, yours is the argument of a weak man. We have in Sibornal a harsh religion, forged, like the Great Wheel itself, out of an adverse climate. But what we preach is stoicism, not cruelty. Yours is the ancient argument of ends justifying means. You will find that if you pursue your proposed course the cruel means will subvert the end, and your plan will fail utterly.’
The man in the chair moved his hand scarcely an inch as a substitute for a gesture. ‘We may make mistakes, Priest-Supreme, that I grant. Then we shall simply bury our dead and remain on course.’
Parlingelteg’s clear young voice rang out: ‘And all the dead will bear witness against you. Word will go from gossie to gossie. All will hear of your crimes.’
The Oligarch’s darker tone replied. ‘The dead may bear witness. Happily, they cannot bear arms.’
‘When this deed is known, many will bear arms against you!’
‘If you have nothing to say beyond the airing of threats, then the time has come for you to meet those unarmed millions below ground yourselves. Or do any of you care to reconsider your loyalty to the State in view of what I have said?’
He motioned to the guards. Parlingelteg shouted the forbidden curse. ‘Abro Hakmo Astab, damned Oligarch!’
Armed guards marched across the room with heavy tread, to take up positions behind the ecclesiastics.
Asperamanka could say nothing for the trembling of his jaw. He rolled his eyes at Chubsalid, who patted him on the shoulder. The youngest priest took Chubsalid by the arm and called out again, ‘Burn us and you set all Askitosh afire!’
Chubsalid said, ‘I warn you, Oligarch, if you cause a schism between Church and State, your plans will never succeed. You will divide the people. If you burn us, your plan will already have failed.’
In a composed voice, the Oligarch said, ‘I shall find others who will cooperate, Priest-Supreme. Dozens of the obedient will rush to fill your place — and think it honourable. I know men well.’
As the guards took hold of the captives, Asperamanka broke free. He ran towards the Oligarch’s throne and went down on one knee, bowing his head.
‘Dread Oligarch, spare me. You know that I, Asperamanka, was your faithful servant in war. You surely never intended that such a valuable instrument should be killed. Do with these other two as you will, but let me be saved, let me serve again! I believe that Sibornal must survive as you say. Harsh times call for harsh measures. Spiritual power must make way for temporal power to secure the way. Just let me live, and I will serve… for the glory of God.’
‘You may do it for your own base sake, but never for God’s,’ said Chubsalid. ‘Get up! Die with us, Asperamanka — ’twill be less pain.’
‘Living or dying, we accept the role of pain in our existence,’ said the Oligarch. ‘Asperamanka, this comes unexpectedly from you, the victor of Isturiacha. You entered here with your brothers; why not burn with your brothers?’
Asperamanka was silent. Then, without rising from his knees, he burst out in a flood, of eloquence.
‘What has been said here belongs not so much to politics or morals as to history. You wish to change history, Oligarch — perhaps the obsession of all great men. Indeed our cyclic history stands in need of reform — reform which must be brutal to be effective.
‘Yet I speak for our beloved Church, which I have also served — served with devotion. Let these burn for it. I’d rather live for it. History shows us that religions can perish just like nations. I have not forgotten my history lessons as a child in the monastery of Old Askitosh, where I was taught of the defeat of the religion of Pannoval at the hand of a wicked King of Borlien and his ministers. If Church and State here fall apart, then our Supreme God is similarly threatened. Let me, as a Man of God, serve your ends.’