How Firm a Foundation (22 page)

“Welcome, Father Paityr. Welcome!”

The solemn, senior, and oh-so-superior servants who’d cluttered up the Archbishop’s Palace under its previous owners had become a thing of the past. The palace was vast enough
to require a fairly substantial staff, but Archbishop Maikel preferred a less supercilious environment. Alys Vraidahn had been his housekeeper for over thirty years, and he’d taken her with him to his new residence, where she’d proceeded to overhaul the staff from top to bottom in remarkably short order. A brisk, no-nonsense sort of person, Mistress Vraidahn, but as warmhearted as she was shrewd,
and she’d adopted Paityr Wylsynn as yet another of the archbishop’s unofficial sons and daughters. Now she swept him a curtsy, then laughed as he leaned forward and planted a kiss on her cheek.

“Now then!” she scolded, smacking him on the shoulder. “Don’t you be giving an old woman the kind of notions she shouldn’t be having over a young, unattached fellow such as yourself!”

“Ah, if only I could!”
he sighed. He shook his head mournfully. “I’m not very good at darning my own socks,” he confided.

“And are you saying that idle layabout Master Ahlwail can’t do that just fine?” she challenged skeptically.

“Well, yes, I suppose he can. Poorly,” Paityr said, shamelessly maligning his valet’s sewing skills as he hung his head and looked as pitiable as possible. “But he’s not a very good cook,
you know,” he added, actually getting his lower lip to quiver.

“Comes of being a foreigner,” she told him, eyes twinkling. “Not but what you don’t look like he’s managed to keep a little meat on your bones.” Paityr sniffed, looking as much like his starving seminarian days as he could manage, and she shook her head. “Oh, all right. All right! You come around to my kitchen before you leave. I’ll
have a little something for you to take back to your pantry.”

“Bless you, Mistress Ahlys,” Paityr said fervently, and she laughed again. Then she turned her head and spotted one of the footmen.

“Hi, Zhaksyn! Run and tell Father Bryahn Father Paityr’s here to see His Eminence!”

Anything less like the protocol in a typical archbishop’s residence would have been all but impossible to imagine,
Paityr thought. Of course, so would the footman in question. The lad couldn’t be much older than sixteen or seventeen years old, his fuzzy beard (which needed shaving) just into the wispy silk stage, and his head came up like a startled prong buck’s as the housekeeper called his name.

“Yes, Mistress Vraidahn!” he blurted and disappeared at a half run.

Not, Paityr noticed, without darting an
even more startled look at him. And not just because of his Schuelerite cassock, he felt sure.

Paityr had always been more than a little amused by the typical mainlanders’ perspective on the provincialism of the “out islands” as they dismissively labeled Charis, Chisholm, and Corisande. Tarot (which was the
least
cosmopolitan of the lot, in Paityr’s opinion) got a pass from mainland prejudices
because it was so close to the mainland. Still, the Tarot Channel was over three hundred miles wide, and more than one mainland wit had been heard to observe that good cooking and culture had both drowned trying to make the swim.

And what made that so amusing to him was that Charisians were actually far more cosmopolitan than the vast majority of Safeholdians … including just about every mainlander
Paityr had ever met. The ubiquitous Charisian merchant marine guaranteed that there were very few sights Charisians hadn’t seen, and not just their sailors, either. Every nationality and physical type in the entire world—including the Harchongese, despite the Harchong Empire’s insularity—passed through Tellesberg eventually. Despite which, Paityr Wylsynn still got more than his share of double
takes from those he met.

His fair skin had grown tanned enough over the years of his service here in Old Charis to almost pass for a native Charisian, but his gray eyes and bright red hair—touched to even more fiery brilliance by all that sunlight—marked his northern birth forever. There’d been times he’d resented that, and there were other times it had simply made him feel very far from home,
homesick for the Temple Lands and the place of his birth. These days he didn’t feel homesick at all, however, which had more than a little to do with the reason for this visit.

“Paityr!” Father Bryahn Ushyr, Archbishop Maikel’s personal secretary, walked briskly into the entry hall holding out his hand. The two of them were much of an age, and Paityr smiled as he clasped forearms with his friend.

“Thank you for fitting me into his schedule on such short notice, Bryahn.”

“You’re welcome, not that it was all that much of a feat.” Ushyr shrugged. “You’re higher on his list than a lot of people, and not just because you’re his Intendant. It brightened his day when I told him you wanted to see him.”

“Sure it did.” Paityr rolled his eyes, and Ushyr chuckled. But the secretary also shook his
head.

“I’m serious, Paityr. His eyes lit up when I told him you’d asked for an appointment.”

Paityr waved one hand in a brushing away gesture, but he couldn’t pretend Ushyr’s words didn’t touch him with a glow of pleasure. In a lot of ways, whether Archbishop Maikel realized it or not, Paityr had come to regard him even more as a second father since his own father’s death.

Which is
also
part
of the reason for this visit
, he reflected.

“Well, come on,” Ushyr invited, and beckoned for Paityr to accompany him to the archbishop’s office.

*   *   *

“Paityr, it’s good to see you.”

Maikel Staynair rose behind his desk, smiling broadly, and extended his hand. Paityr bent to kiss the archbishop’s ring of office, then straightened, tucking both his own hands into the sleeves of his cassock.

“Thank you, Your Eminence. I appreciate your agreeing to see me on so little notice.”

“Nonsense!” Staynair waved like a man swatting away an insect. “First, you’re my Intendant, which means I’m always
supposed
to have time to see you.” He grinned and pointed at the armchair facing his desk. “And, second, you’re a lively young fellow who usually has something worth listening to, unlike all too
many of the people who parade through this office on a regular basis.”

“I do try not to bore you, Your Eminence,” Paityr admitted, sitting in the indicated chair with a smile.

“I know, and I really shouldn’t complain about the others.” Staynair sat back down behind his desk and shrugged. “Most of them can’t help it, and at least some of them have a legitimate reason for being here. Fortunately,
I’ve become increasingly adroit at steering the ones who don’t off for Bryahn to deal with, poor fellow.”

The archbishop tipped back in his swivel chair, interlacing his fingers across his chest, and cocked his head to one side.

“And how are your mother and the rest of your family?” he asked in a considerably more serious tone.

“Well, Your Eminence. Or as well as anyone could be under the circumstances.”
Paityr twitched his shoulders. “We’re all grateful to God and to Madam Ahnzhelyk and
Seijin
Merlin’s friend for getting so many out of Clyntahn’s grasp, but that only makes us more aware of what’s happened in the Temple Lands. And I suppose it’s a bit difficult for them—for all of us—not to feel guilty over having managed to get here when so many others didn’t.”

“That’s a very human reaction.”
Staynair nodded. “And it’s also a very irrational one. I’m sure you realize that.”

“Oh, I do. For that matter, Lysbet and the others do, too. But, as you say, it’s a very human reaction, Your Eminence. It’s going to be a while before they manage to get past that, I’m afraid.”

“Understandable. But please tell Madam Wylsynn my office and I are at her disposal if she should have need of us.”

“Thank you, Your Eminence.” Paityr smiled again, gratefully. The offer wasn’t the automatic formula it might have been coming from another archbishop, and he knew it.

“You’re welcome, of course,” Staynair said. “On the other hand, I don’t imagine that’s the reason you wanted to see me today?”

“No,” Paityr admitted, gray eyes darkening. “No, it wasn’t, Your Eminence. I’ve come to see you on a
spiritual matter.”

“A spiritual matter concerning what? Or should I say concerning
whom
?” Staynair’s dark eyes were shrewd, and Paityr sat back in his chair.

“Concerning
me,
Your Eminence.” He drew a deep breath. “I’m afraid my soul isn’t as tranquil as it ought to be.”

“You’re scarcely unique in that, my son,” Staynair pointed out somberly, swinging his chair from side to side in a slow, gentle
arc. “All of God’s children—or all of them whose minds work, at any rate—are grappling with questions and concerns more than sufficient to destroy their tranquility.”

“I realize that, Your Eminence, but this is something that hasn’t happened to me before. I’m experiencing doubt. Not just questions, not just uncertainty over the direction in which I ought to be going, but genuine
doubt
.”

“Doubt
over what?” Staynair asked, eyes narrowing. “Your actions? Your beliefs? The doctrine of the Church of Charis?”

“I’m afraid it’s more fundamental than that, Your Eminence,” Paityr admitted. “Of course I have the occasional evening when I lie awake wondering if it was my own hubris, my own pride in my ability to know better than Mother Church, that led me to obey Archbishop Erayk’s instructions
to remain here in Charis and work with you and His Majesty. I’m neither so stupid nor so self-righteous as to be immune to that sort of doubt, and I hope I never will be. And I can honestly say I’ve experienced very little doubt over whether or not the Church of Charis has a better understanding of the mind of God than that butcher Clyntahn and his friends. Forgive me for saying this, but you could
scarcely have
less
understanding!” He shook his head. “No, what I’m beginning to doubt is whether or not I have a true vocation after all.”

Staynair’s chair was suddenly still and silence hovered in the office. Then the archbishop tilted his head to one side and pursed his lips.

“I imagine no priest is ever fully immunized against that question,” he said slowly. “However clearly we may have
been called by God, we remain mortals with all the weaknesses of any mortal. But I have to tell you, Father, that of all the priests I’ve known, I can think of none whose vocation seemed clearer to
me
than your own. I realize another’s opinion is scarcely armor against one’s own doubts, and the truth of a priest’s vocation is ultimately between him and God, not him and anyone else. Despite that,
I must tell you I can think of no one into whose hands I would be more willing to entrust God’s work.”

Paityr’s eyes widened. He deeply admired and respected Maikel Staynair and he’d known Staynair was fond of him. That he’d become one of the archbishop’s protégés. Yet Staynair’s words—and especially the serious, measured tone in which they’d been spoken—had taken him by surprise.

“I’m honored,
Your Eminence,” he replied after a moment. “That means a great deal to me, especially coming from you. Yet the fact of my doubt remains. I’m no longer certain of my vocation, and can a true priest—one who had a true vocation to begin with—ever lose it?”

“What does the Office of Inquisition teach?” Staynair asked in reply.

“That a priest is a priest forever,” Paityr responded. “That a true vocation
can never be lost, else it was never a
true
vocation to begin with. But if that’s true, Your Eminence, did I ever have that true vocation to begin with?”

“That
is
what the Inquisition teaches, but as you may have noticed,” Staynair said a bit dryly, “I’ve found myself in disagreement with the Office of Inquisition on several minor doctrinal matters lately.”

Despite Paityr’s own concern and genuine
distress, the archbishop’s tone drew an unwilling chuckle out of him, and Staynair smiled. Then his expression turned serious once more.

“All humor notwithstanding, my son, I believe the Inquisition has been in error in many ways. You know where most of my points of disagreement with the Grand Inquisitor lie, and you know it’s my belief that we serve a loving God who desires what’s best for His
children and also desires that those children come to Him in joyous love, not fear. I can’t believe it’s His will for us to be miserable, or to be crushed underfoot, or to be driven into His arms by the lash.

“You and I have differed on occasion on the extent to which the freedom of will and freedom of choice I believe are so critical to a healthy relationship with God may threaten to confuse
and disorder our right understanding of God’s will for us and for all of His world. Despite that, I’ve never doubted for a moment that you’ve looked upon the task of disciplining the children of Mother Church with the love and compassion a true parent brings to that duty. I’ve never seen a malicious act, or a capricious decision. Indeed, I’ve seen you deal patiently and calmly with idiots who would
have driven one of the Archangels themselves into a frothing madness. And I’ve seen the unflinching fashion in which you’ve stood fast for the things in which you believe without ever descending into the sort of mental and spiritual arrogance which know that anyone who disagrees with them must be completely and unequivocably wrong. That’s the priest I see when I consider whether or not you have
a true vocation, Father Paityr, and I ask you to remember that it’s the
Writ
which says a priest is a priest forever and the
Inquisition
which has
interpreted
that as meaning that a priest who loses his vocation was therefore never in fact a true priest at all. Search the
Writ
as you will, my son, but you will never find those words, that statement, anywhere in it.”

He paused, letting silence
lie over the two of them once more, yet Paityr knew the archbishop wasn’t done yet. So he sat, waiting, and after a moment Staynair continued.

“I’m a Bédardist. My order knows more about the ways in which the human mind and the human spirit can hurt themselves than most of us wish we’d ever had to learn. There’s no question that we can convince ourselves of literally anything we wish to believe,
and there’s also no question that we can be far more ruthless—far more cruel—in punishing ourselves than any other reasonable person would ever be. We can—and we
will
, my son, trust me in this—find innumerable ways in which to doubt and question and indict ourselves for things only we know about, supposed crimes only
we
realize were ever committed. There are times when that truly is a form of
justice, but far more often it’s a case of punishing the innocent. Or, at the very least, of punishing our own real or imagined misdeeds far more severely than we would ever punish anyone else for the same offense.