Count Scar - SA (14 page)

We kicked our horses forward. Now we could see a stake erected outside the gates, a whole mob of people swirling around it. "Looks like another mayor has forgotten to talk to the count before
hanging the local criminals," suggested Bruno.

But this wasn't gibbets. That was a stake for burning heretics.

Brother Melchior realized it at the same time as I did. He clutched so hard at the reins that his horse pulled up abruptly, then shook the reins violently and kicked the beast hard. "Stop them!" he
cried as his horse shot past mine. His face had gone dead white. "Stop them, in the name of God!"

I was right behind him. If the archbishop from over in Haulbe had found some people guilty of heresy, there was nothing I could do about that decision, or even want to. But when it came to the
actual burning, no one was going to be put to death in my county except by me.

They already had the heretics, two men and a woman, tied to the stake when we thundered through the crowd. I didn't hesitate. Years of leading men into battle had taught me that rapid decision
and rapid action were always best. Bruno, at my shouted order, snatched a burning brand right from the hand of a wizened little priest in brown. "Stop!" I yelled as the crowd surged forward. My
horse reared, sending the first row of people pushing back against those behind them. "As your count, I command you to stop!"

The shouting continued, but my knights all had their swords out, and the crowd was now surging back instead of forward. Men, women, even children like the boy I had pretended to threaten up
in the shadow of Peyrefixade, glared and snarled at me like scavengers cheated of their prey.

But all I had attention for was the heretics, dressed in white shifts and tied to the stake, their eyes glazed as though they hadn't even noticed me. Drugged, I thought. "Free them," I snapped at
Bruno. He handed the burning brand to a knight and swung down to cut the ropes. No one came forward to catch the heretics as they sagged forward—no one dared show himself as their friend.

"And put that fire out!" I yelled at the knight who now held the torch. The woman heretic, her pulled-back hair streaked with gray, was much too old to be my little sister. But for a second I saw
Gertrude.

The wizened priest pushed his way forward, trembling with fury. "I will have you know I condemned these heretics to death by the authority of the Apostolic Curia itself!"

"And I free them," I said, trying hard to keep my own voice from trembling, "by the authority of Count Caloran, myself."

"Inquisition," muttered one of the knights next to me. There was an unmistakable note of fear in his voice.

Brother Melchior was off his horse, helping the heretics away from the stake since no one else seemed about to, lowering them to the ground and murmuring prayers. He at any rate did not seem
terrified. When the knight standing with the torch in his hand seemed paralyzed, Melchior took it from him and ground the flame out in the dirt, sending up a smudge of dark smoke.

I took a deep breath as the priest of the Inquisition continued to glare at me. After the great war against the Perfected, I seemed to recall, the bishops of the region, urged by the distant Apostolic
Curia, had set up the Inquisition to uncover any of the damnable enemies of the True Faith who had gone into hiding to save their skins. The last thing I wanted was to appear to give support to
any such demon-worshipers, especially in my own county, or to risk the fury of the Church.

But no one was going to be put to death here—most especially by fire—I wasn't consulted. "I commend you, Father," I said in a somewhat more conciliatory tone, dismounting to be able to speak
to the priest more easily, "for hunting out this spawn of Satan. Were they brought before the archbishop in council? Were they given every opportunity to repent of their error when it was pointed
out to them, so that they could be welcomed back into the fold and their miserable souls might still be saved?"

The emperor didn't have heretics like this in his domains, but over on his eastern borders there were plenty of people who still clung to the old pagan practices, and I knew how all such enemies of
the Faith were to be treated. Cut them out if you had to, before they became a cancer eating away at the body of the faithful, but first give them every chance to repent.

The little brown priest shot me a look full of venom. Small and vicious like a viper, I thought. His voice was low and intense. "When I discovered their heresy, there was no time to wait for a
council, no leisure to let them infect others with their noxious beliefs! You are new here, I understand, the new count from the north, so you don't know how slippery these people can be. Now step
aside, step aside before anyone suspects you of sympathy with them, and let Gods will be done!"

My knights were wavering, not exactly abandoning me, not exactly standing firm in my support. The Inquisition must have an even more formidable reputation here in the land where it began
than up in the north, where we only heard of it as something distant and ominous.

Melchior unexpectedly strode over to stand beside me. "I hope you recognize me from my habit, Father," he said quietly. "I am of the Order of the Three Kings, dedicated to the pursuit of
knowledge of magic for God's pure purpose and to the overcoming of all heretical beliefs and practices. I stand with you on the necessity of rooting up Perfected depravity before the tares
overwhelm God's good seed. But you cannot have forgotten our oaths as priests. You and I can shed no blood—and cause no skin and flesh to shrivel and crack with fire."

The priest of the Inquisition looked back and forth between us, then over at the three heretics, who were sitting up on their own now, looking dazed and incomprehending. His lips pulled back
from his teeth in what might have been a smile. "Your point is good. I was perhaps precipitate in putting these people to the torch myself, because as you rightly remind me, Brother, we priests
ask the secular arm only for mercy, not for death. But there were no representatives of secular power here. Now that the count has arrived," with a nod toward me, "he can return them to the stake
and light the flames himself."

There were a number of things that I could have done— and indeed had done in my years serving the emperor— some distasteful and unpleasant, some bitterly cruel, some that made me wake up
in a drenching sweat in the middle of the night thinking about them. But lighting the faggots at someone's feet, even a heretic's feet, was not among them.

"I'm afraid you misunderstand," I said, loudly enough that those nearby could overhear. The crowd's mood had changed from avid hunger to something of an air of uncertainty, and I thought I
could see the back rows slipping quietly away. My scar throbbed, and I was intensely aware of the medallion lying against my chest. "I do not merely object to your forgetting that it is the secular
power, and the secular power alone, that can put a man to death. I remind you of something you said yourself: I am the new count, and the Church has no agreement with me!"

I had no idea what the agreement had been between old Count Bernhard and the archbishop of Haulbe over the treatment of heretics—doubtless followed by the countess—but they must have
reached some sort of understanding when Bernhard took over the former Perfected stronghold of Peyrefixade. But I could make up legal precedent faster than some wizened little brown priest who
had let raw power carry him beyond his capabilities.

"The reverend archbishop will need to come himself to visit me at my castle," I continued sternly. I had never been to Haulbe, I wasn't even entirely sure in what direction it lay, and I had not the
slightest idea of the archbishop's name. "Tell him I will welcome him at Peyrefixade whenever he desires to come. Until then, I give him—and you—no permission whatsoever to judge heretics in
my county. The Church's jurisdiction touches only members of the clergy, not laymen."

"We have the right to discover and judge the Imperfected!"

"Only at my predecessors good will. He is dead now, and so is his agreement. I seek the end of heresy as heartily as you do. But it must be achieved through the proper legal forms."

"You will not find the archbishop at the gates of your castle," the priest said between his teeth, "but the Inquisition!"

I managed a laugh. "That castle was taken from the heretics by my grandfather's family. This time it won't be a group of ragtag wild-eyed herdsmen from the high valleys trying unsuccessfully
to hold it against my relatives. It will be you and other priests, men who bear no weapons, trying to take it from me!"

"We shall complain to the duke," he said then, switching tactics, but I didn't give him a chance to finish. A switch at this point meant he felt the legal basis for his authority slipping away.

"And I shall complain to Duke Argave as well, that the judicial authority over laymen in my county, which I received from the duke's own hand, is being snatched from me! But come, Father. We
need not be enemies. Our goals are the same. Tell the archbishop I am eager to welcome him at Peyrefixade, so we can decide together how the Perfected are to be discovered and judged— and, if
necessary, executed."

He hesitated, and in that hesitation I knew I had him. It was not until I found myself letting out all my breath at once that I realized how close it had been. Without Melchior's help at a few key
points, it might well have gone otherwise. My capellanus was definitely proving himself useful.

"In the meantime," the inquisitor said, looking at me from under his eyebrows, "what do you expect me to do with these heretics?"

"Set them free."

"Set them free! But they will run away!"

I nodded impassively. "Let them take their heretical spew high up into the mountains, where they cannot infect the God-fearing." Up among the peaks somewhere, I thought, where the duke's son
and heir was in hiding with them. "When the archbishop and I have reached an agreement, it will be simple enough to capture them again if we wish."

Without giving him a chance to contradict this extremely unlikely statement, I whirled on my knights. "You, you, and you! Take these heretics up to the mountains and let them go. The
archbishop and the Inquisition cannot judge laymen in my county until our agreement is renewed, and my own authority does not touch issues of the faith, so no one can legally hold them
prisoner. Now!" I shouted, when for a second, just a second, the knights hesitated. "I shall see you tomorrow, back at Peyrefixade."

I swung back up on my horse and nodded for the rest of the knights to do the same. The crowd by now was melting away, giving us a wide berth. I galloped away from the village with my cloak
flying behind me, feeling no further chat with the local mayor was necessary about the extent of the count's jurisdiction.

Bruno pulled up beside me when, after a mile, I slowed my horse to a fast walk. "Are you really going to make the archbishop climb up to Peyrefixade to see you, Captain?" he asked in
admiration.

I smiled. "Of course not," I said in a low voice, for his ear alone. "The archbishop will send me a very firm letter, and I will send him back a letter all conciliation and apologies for some simple
misunderstanding, and then I will go to Haulbe myself to work out the arrangement by which the Inquisition may function in my county. I'll tell you this, though, Bruno: every heretic will get
a chance to face his accusers and to repent."

"I hear in the castle," he said darkly, "that those so-called Perfected don't ever repent. It's like they want to die."

"Then I will confirm the sentence of death and have them hanged."

"But heretics have to be burned!" he said, shocked, but I turned away as though not hearing.

We were now in sight of a tall church steeple and began passing between plowed fields. The convent of the Holy Family must lie just ahead. I looked around at my men, trying to put the recent
incident from my mind to be able to concentrate on the meeting with my Great-aunt Richildis.

The seneschal, I noticed, looked drained and deathly pale, as though scarcely able to stay on his horse. This must have been an exhausting week for him, I thought, the constant travel when he was
already weak, on top of the stress of trying always to be scrupulously fair while constantly feeling my eye on him. It was a good thing this was the end of the tour of my property—and a good
thing it was all recorded on the parchment in Brother Melchior's saddlebags.

The latter rode stiffly, without seeming to see any of the rest of us. His willingness to help the heretics away from the stake seemed curious in a man dedicated to the True Faith, now that I
thought about it, and he had been quick enough to come to the Perfected's defense when I had earlier asked about their child sacrifices. I shook my shoulders. Almost being assassinated had made
me overly suspicious. It was highly improbable, I told myself, that Melchior was spying on me for the heretics as well as for the duke and for his Order.

But I nudged my horse next to his just before we reached the gates of the convent complex. He turned toward me with a start, as though having forgotten me. "You must have seen heretics before,"

I said conversationally, "even tucked safely away with your books and prayers at the House of the Three Kings. Tell me: have you ever personally known anyone who turned heretic?"

He turned his face away, and for a minute I thought he wasn't going to answer. Then he spoke so quietly I could just hear him over the sound of hooves on the flagstone paving of the nuns' outer
courtyard. "My grandfather. He clung to their false faith to the end and was burned at the stake."