“You really didn’t know, did you, Your Eminence?” Pahrsahn said quietly.
“About Airnhart?” Cahnyr pursed his lips and exhaled heavily, then shrugged. “I knew about him, of course. We’ve been… keeping an eye out for him. But I hadn’t realized Bishop Executor Baikyr was working that directly with him. Or vice versa.”
“To be honest, I’m not sure how directly involved the Bishop Executor actually is,” Pahrsahn said. “I know Pahtkovair has both his hands in the pie right up to the elbow, and Airnhart’s his chief kitchen assistant. On the other hand, I know where both of them are. I can keep an eye on them, and”-her voice turned grimmer, her eyes harder-“if I have to, I can put my hand on them anytime I need to, as well. I know you don’t want to hear that sort of thing, Your Eminence, but I’m afraid I’ve become rather addicted to that aphorism about the Archangels helping those who help themselves.”
She looked at Cahnyr, who nodded. She was right; he didn’t want to hear about “that sort of thing,” but what he wanted and what he needed were two different things.
“The thing that bothers me most about Father Lharee’s report,” Pahrsahn continued, “is what Brother Stahn had to say about Laiyan Bahzkai. He’s been turning into a really nasty piece of work, Your Eminence, and until today, I genuinely thought he was a ‘spontaneous’ bigot.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bahzkai’s an… interesting fellow, Your Eminence. He’s a Temple Loyalist, but he’s also a Leveler. And he’s been getting more active as an organizer over the past several months. More visible and more vocal. And he’s been moving steadily further and further towards their violent wing ever since Clyntahn declared his embargo against Charisian trade.”
Cahnyr’s mouth tightened. He’d never heard Bahzkai’s name before, but he was more familiar with the Levelers than he wanted to be. In truth, he was more than a little sympathetic to at least three-quarters of their platform. He was less than convinced about the need for the complete and total destruction of capitalism, yet he was certainly willing to admit the system as it existed-especially in the Temple Lands, where senior churchmen used their privileged positions, entrenched corruption, and cronyism to amass staggering fortunes while squeezing out any competition-could and did create huge inequities. That was the main reason the Levelers had originated in the Temple Lands, and many Reformists were at least mildly sympathetic to the Levelers’ core arguments.
These days the Levelers were more active in the Republic of Siddarmark than anywhere else, however, which was precisely because the Republic’s level of tolerance was so much higher than that of most other mainland realms. As far as he was aware, they had virtually no representation in Charis, but that was understandable enough given the general Charisian enthusiasm for trade and individual self-betterment. Charisians liked capitalism-a lot-and they weren’t especially interested in hearing from people who disapproved of it.
It was ironic, perhaps, that the realm in which the movement operated most openly was the one where the inequalities against which it inveighed were least pronounced, but that didn’t make it something the Republic’s civil authorities embraced with open arms, either. In Cahnyr’s opinion, though, the Levelers’ position that all men and women were equally children of God and therefore should take equal care of one another was straight out of the Holy Writ. There was nothing the least objectionable about that! And the majority of Levelers advocated peaceful means of pursuing their platform, although strikes and work stoppages had a tendency to turn violent at the best of times, especially in places like the Temple Lands or quite a few of the Border States between them and the Republic. And God only knew what would happen to a batch of Levelers who tried “civil disobedience” someplace like the Harchong Empire!
A growing number of Levelers did advocate a more… proactive stance, however. What Pahrsahn had just called their “violent wing” was tired of peaceful remonstrance and petitions for redress. Its members had come increasingly to the view that no one would ever take them seriously until they convinced the rest of the world they were serious, and that would require violence. Personally, Cahnyr thought they were out of their minds if they believed they could reform society into genuine egalitarianism by killing anyone who disagreed with them, although he supposed that when the rest of the world was busy going insane anyway, they might be excused for thinking they saw an opportunity to implement some of their own reforms. But still…
“A Leveler working hand in glove with the Inquisition?” he said. “That sounds suitably bizarre!”
“They don’t usually find one another congenial company, do they?” Pahrsahn agreed. “That’s what bothers me about this. Bahzkai’s a printer and a pamphleteer, and he’s produced some fairly inflammatory stuff for several years now. The Republic’s authorities’ve known exactly who he was and where to find him, but however inflammatory he may have been, he was always careful to stay away from advocating any form of violence. Only that emphasis of his has been changing over the last year or so. Since shortly after Pahtkovair was assigned to the Siddar archbishopric, in fact. And he’s been focusing more and more of his complaints about the unfair, unequal distribution of wealth on the Empire of Charis and Charisians in general.”
“Not Reformists? Charisians?”
“Well, in some ways an anti-Charisian bias from somebody like a Leveler is understandable enough,” Pahrsahn pointed out. “If there’s any city in the entire world whose society is further from the Leveler ideal than Tellesberg’s, it could only be Shang-mi, and that’s heading in the opposite direction!”
Despite himself, Cahnyr chuckled at her disgusted expression. Shang-mi, the capital of the Harchong Empire, made Zion seem like a hotbed of reform!
“But Bahzkai’s been concentrating on how damned rich Charis is supposed to be getting out of this war,” Pahrsahn continued, her expression becoming much more somber once more, “what with ‘sucking the lifeblood’ out of ‘legitimate Siddarmarkian businesses’ because of the embargo and the way the trading houses are evading it. As nearly as I can tell, he buys into the theory that what this is really all about is greed and that Charis, rather than needing every single mark to pay for the navy it needs to survive, is deliberately siphoning the Republic’s wealth into its own purse out of sheer avarice. Its ‘indecently wealthy plutocrats’ are actively pushing a deliberately aggressive, militant foreign policy to promote the war in order to fill their purses with more of the deserving world’s marks. If it weren’t for their greed, this whole thing could’ve been settled ages ago by a simple appeal to the Grand Vicar’s justice.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Forgive me, Your Eminence, but it’s always seemed to me that the very first thing that happens with any zealot is that he removes his brain just in case any thoughts that might challenge his zealotry should happen to stray into it. Present company excepted, of course.”
“Ouch.” Cahnyr winced. “Do you really think of me as a zealot?”
“For certain definitions of the word, I certainly do,” Pahrsahn replied calmly. “On the other hand, I’m a zealot. For that matter, there’s zealotry and then there’s zealotry, and while I may be prejudiced by my own perspective, I don’t think of you as a fanatic zealot. Just a… zealous zealot.”