Which only made his current illness even more heartbreaking to both of them, he admitted, looking back out across the bulwark, watching the guard boats row steadily, methodically around the prison hulks in their endless, unceasing circles. Not that even a Charisian seaman was going to try to swim ashore in water still fanged with winter cold from a hulk anchored the better part of a mile and a half from shore.
“I think his temperature may have come down a little, Sir Gwylym,” Vahlain offered, and Manthyr glanced at him. The valet shrugged. “I know we both want to believe that, Sir, but I really think it may be true in this case. If he just hadn’t been so weakened already…”
His voice trailed off, and Manthyr nodded. Then he laid one hand on Vahlain’s shoulder.
“We’ve gotten him this far, Naiklos. We’re not going to lose him now.”
“Of course not, Sir!” the valet agreed gamely, and both of them tried to pretend they truly believed they weren’t lying.
“My Lord, this is an act of murder,” Lywys Gardynyr said flatly.
He stood with his back to the stern windows of HMS Chihiro, his face like carven stone, and his eyes were hard. Not a large man, the Earl of Thirsk, but at that moment he seemed to fill the day cabin.
“That isn’t for you to judge, Lywys,” Auxiliary Bishop Staiphan Maik replied. His own expression was set, his eyes grim, yet his voice was remarkably gentle for a Schuelerite, under the circumstances.
“My Lord, you know what’s going to happen!” Despair flickered behind the hardness in Thirsk’s eyes.
“We’re both sons of Mother Church,” Maik said in a sterner tone. “It’s not up to us to judge her actions, but rather to obey her commands.”
This time, Thirsk’s eyes flashed, but he bit back an angry retort. He’d come to know the auxiliary bishop well-too well for either of their comfort and good, he sometimes thought-and he knew Maik was no happier with this command than he was. At the same time, the cleric had a point. It wasn’t their place to judge the Church’s actions, even if at this moment in time her policies were being decided by bloody-handed murderers.
God, the earl demanded harshly in the stillness of his own mind, how can You be letting this happen? Why are You letting this happen?! This is wrong. I know it, Bishop Staiphan knows it, yet both of us are going to watch it happen anyway because Your Church commands it. What are You thinking?
A part of him cringed from the impiety of his own questions, yet he couldn’t stop thinking them, couldn’t stop wondering what part of the inscrutable mind of God could let someone like Zhaspahr Clyntahn attain to the Grand Inquisitor’s chair. It made no sense to him, no matter how hard he tried to force it into some kind of order, some sort of pattern he could understand and accept.
But if I can’t understand why it’s happening, he thought, shoulders slumping, I damned well understand what’s happening.
He wheeled away from the auxiliary bishop, staring out the opened stern windows with his hands gripped together white-knuckled behind him while he fought his anger and tried to throttle his despair. He’d already put Maik into an invidious, even a dangerous, position and he knew it. Just as he knew all the reasons he shouldn’t have done it. There were limits to what even the most broad-minded Schuelerite could overlook at a time like this, and he’d come perilously close to that limit. Which was particularly reprehensible when the Schuelerite in question was trying so hard to do what he knew was decent despite the all too real danger into which that plunged him.
“You’re right, My Lord,” the earl said at last, still facing the panorama of the harbor beyond the windows. “We are sons of Mother Church, and we have no choice but to obey the commands of her vicarate and the Grand Inquisitor. Nor is it our place to question those commands. Yet speaking purely as a layman, and as the commander of one of Mother Church’s fleets”- and the only effective fleet she has left, he added silently-“I must express my concern about the future implications of this decision. I’d be derelict in my duty if I didn’t, and-”
“Stop, my son,” Maik interrupted, cutting him off before he could continue. Thirsk looked over his shoulder at him, and the auxiliary bishop shook his head.
“I know what you’re about to say, and based purely on military logic and the reasoning of the world, I agree with you. This is going to create a situation the heretics are only too likely to seize upon as an excuse for carrying out atrocities against the loyal sons of Mother Church, and I fully realize the way in which it’s likely to… adversely affect the other side’s willingness to grant our soldiers and sailors quarter in the first place. From that perspective, I can’t argue with a single thing you’re about to say. But as the Grand Inquisitor has reminded all of us”-his eyes stabbed Thirsk’s-“the logic of the world, even the mercy natural to any man’s heart, must sometimes give place to the letter of God’s law. That law sets one penalty, and only one, for the unregenerate, unrepentant heretic. As Schueler teaches, for the good of their souls, for the possibility of reclaiming them even at the very last moment from Shan-wei and the Pit, the Inquisition dares not relent lest the transitory illusion of mercy in this world lead to their utter damnation in the next. And as the Grand Inquisitor has also reminded us, at a time when God’s Own Church stands in such peril, we dare not ignore the requirements of His law as set forth by the Archangel Schueler.”
Thirsk’s jaw clenched, but he heard the warning, and he understood. Understood not only that Maik was telling him further protest, however logically and reasonably couched, would be unavailing and almost certainly dangerous, but that the auxiliary bishop would be unable to protect him if he drew the Grand Inquisitor’s ire down upon his own head.
“Very well, My Lord,” the earl said finally. “I understand what you’re saying, and I accept that I must obey the instructions we’ve been given. As you say, the Church stands in peril and this”-he emphasized the last word ever so slightly-“is not the time to question the Grand Inquisitor. Or the rest of the vicarate, of course.”
Maik winced. It was almost imperceptible, but Thirsk saw it anyway, and he responded with an almost equally tiny nod. The auxiliary bishop raised one hand and started to say something, then visibly changed his mind and shifted subjects.
“Turning from our instructions to the rest of the dispatch, what did you think of Vicar Allayn’s analysis of what happened, my son?” he asked instead.
“I thought it was cogently reasoned,” Thirsk replied, smiling faintly and without humor as he recognized Maik’s quest for a less volatile topic. He shrugged. “Obviously, the Charisians”-he seldom used the word “heretic” any longer in his conversations with Maik; probably another dangerous habit he was getting into-“have found some way to load their round shot with gunpowder, exactly as the Captain General is suggesting. I hadn’t considered the possibility myself, and I’ll have to have a word with the foundry masters before I could hazard a guess as to how difficult it might be to cast hollow shot that don’t simply break up when you fire them, but it’s obvious the Charisians have figured it out. How they manage to get the things to explode when they want them to is another matter, of course.”
He frowned thoughtfully, his brain and professional curiosity engaged almost despite himself.
“It’s got to be some sort of fuse,” he half murmured, “but how do they light it? The barrel’s too long to reach down and light it after they’ve loaded the gun, unless they’re firing them only from carronades, and that doesn’t seem possible given the weight of fire Father Greyghor reported. Hmmmmm…” His frown deepened. “Muzzle flash? Is that what they’re using? And if it is, how do they manage it without blowing the fuse into the shell and setting it off early?”