How Firm a Foundation (73 page)

“You know they’re never going to admit Kholman and his family were
driven
into seeking asylum because of Clyntahn’s vindictiveness,” Sharleyan said. “And it won’t matter what Kholman and Jahras have to say, either.”

“Not as far as the
Group of Four
’s propaganda is concerned, no,” Cayleb agreed.
“On the other hand, that’s not the only propaganda circulating in Haven.”

“No, Your Majesty,” Nahrmahn agreed cheerfully. “And I’ll bet Clyntahn’s frothing at the mouth trying to figure out where those ‘heretical printing presses’ are! To be honest, one of the things I most regret about Merlin’s inability to put SNARCs inside the Temple is the fact that I can’t actually watch his blood pressure
rise when Rayno makes his reports on that front.”

All three of them laughed, but he had a point, Cayleb thought. The Inquisition was searching with grim determination for the printers distributing the propaganda broadsheets which somehow mysteriously kept circulating throughout the various mainland realms. Unfortunately for the Inquisition, while there truly were a handful of mainland Reformists
running very small presses, the stealthed remotes which actually distributed the overwhelming majority of the offending broadsheets were just a
bit
hard to spot. Every day, the Inquisition ripped those broadsheets down from one wall or another in virtually every mainland city; every night Owl’s remotes put them back up on different walls in completely different neighborhoods.

And no one ever
saw a thing.

The one place they were careful about
not
distributing propaganda like that was the Republic of Siddarmark. Siddarmark had by far the largest community of Charisian expatriates, and the situation there was becoming increasingly tense. No one in Charis wanted to add any additional sparks to such a potentially incendiary mixture. Which, unfortunately, didn’t prevent a growing number
of people
inside
Siddarmark from distributing their own propaganda. Worse, the Reformist movement was steadily gathering strength in the Siddarmarkian church, and no one this side of God had any idea where
that
was going to lead!

“I’m sure those mysterious, shameless propagandists and vile enemies of Mother Church will capitalize on these defections,” Cayleb continued with a pious expression.
“And I suspect that’s going to have a greater effect than Clyntahn or the Inquisition want to think about. But I’m more interested in what it’s going to do from
our
perspective.” His expression turned much more serious. “I know it sounds mushy-headed and softhearted, but I’ve always wanted Charis to be a genuine refuge, a place that welcomes people fleeing from intolerance or oppression or persecution.
That’s got to be the real basis for everything we’re trying to build—the foundation for human freedom and human dignity—and to stand against something like the Church and someone like Clyntahn, that foundation has to be
firm
. It has to have roots sunk into bedrock, deep enough to weather
any
storm.

“And for that to really work, Charisians have to see
themselves
that way. Our people have to define
themselves as
welcoming
refugees from persecution if we don’t want those refugees to become—what was that word Merlin used?
Ghettoized
. That was it. Unless we want those refugees to settle in isolated, undigested chunks instead of being integrated into the society and the church around them, we need to embrace them. And we need that foundation set
now,
before we have to start dealing with telling
the entire world the truth about Langhorne and the other ‘Archangels.’ People like Madame Dynnys, or Father Paityr’s family, are a visible proof to everyone, including our own people, that that’s the way it works, the way we really think, at least here in Charis, by God! And for that matter, you and Gorjah are proof we’re even willing to welcome old
enemies
and actually integrate them into our
own society and government if they’re willing to stand up beside us against people like the Group of Four, Nahrmahn. Now we’ve got a chance to do the same thing with Jahras and Kholman, and I damned well want to see it handled the right way!”

Sharleyan nodded, leaning closer to rest her head on his shoulder while they watched Alahnah scurrying around the terrace on hands and knees.

“We’re working
on it, love,” she told him. “We’re working on it.”

.II.

Gray Wyvern Avenue, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis

It was a handsome freight wagon, if he did say so himself, Ainsail Dahnvahr thought. He’d spent a lot of effort on it, and the fact that he was a skilled carpenter and wagon-maker had played a prominent part in the planning for his part of Operation Rakurai. He was sure others among the Grand Inquisitor’s Rakurai had skills of
their own which had been factored into Archbishop Wyllym’s planning and orders, although no one had ever told him that. He understood why that was, of course. What he didn’t know couldn’t be tortured out of him if he had the misfortune to be captured alive by the heretics.

To be fair—which he didn’t really want to do—he had to admit he’d seen no overt evidence the heretics hadn’t meant it when
they promised not to torture their enemies, but what happened in the open wasn’t always the same as what happened in secret, and the heretics’ success in picking off every effort to build some kind of effective organization against them certainly suggested they were forcing people to talk
somehow
. But however they were managing it, it wouldn’t do them any good if he didn’t have the information
they wanted in the first place.

And it wasn’t going to matter a great deal longer one way or the other, he reminded himself.

“It’d be a lot simpler if we could just go ahead and unload the wagon, Master Gahztahn,” the wheelwright said, surveying the broken wheel and cracked axle. “Get the weight off of it, and we could jack it up a lot easier.”

“I know it would,” the man who called himself
Hiraim Gahztahn agreed with a nod. “And if you see some place to park another wagon this size while we shift the load to it, I’m all for it!”

He waved his hands with an exasperated expression, and the wheelwright grimaced in acknowledgment. Gray Wyvern Avenue was one of the busiest streets in Tellesberg, a city famous for the density of its traffic. “Gahztahn” had been doing well to get his eight-wheeled
articulated wagon dragged to the side of the street after the right front wheel broke. To accomplish even that much, he’d had to crowd up onto the sidewalk, and the foot traffic’s need to flow around it wasn’t doing a thing to ease the congestion. Now the hill dragon between the shafts stood patiently, head down while it rummaged through the feed bag hung from its head, ignoring the even
more constricted traffic oozing past the obstruction. The City Guard had already made it clear they wanted this particular wagon fixed—quickly!—and out of the way before the traffic jam got any worse.

“Well,” the Charisian said now, turning with his hands on his hips to watch as his apprentice managed to squeeze their work wagon in behind “Gahztahn’s” stalled vehicle, “I reckon we’ll just have
to do the best we can.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure how well it’s going to work if that axle’s as bad as it looks, but I
think
we’ve got a spare wheel we can change out at least long enough to tow you out of the middle of all this damned traffic.”

“Good!” Ainsail said, nodding enthusiastically, and rolled his eyes. “If I have one more irritated Guardsman wander by to ask me ‘How much longer
do you think you’ll be?’ I think I’ll just go ahead and cut my throat right here.”

“Seems a mite drastic to me,” the wheelwright told him with a grin. “Still and all, you’re close enough to the Cathedral you could probably get in line with the Archangels pretty quick.”

He laughed, and Ainsail made himself laugh back, although there wasn’t anything funny about the blasphemous reference as far
as
he
was concerned. And he noticed the heretic didn’t sign himself with the scepter when he mentioned the Archangels, either. Well, it was hardly a surprise.

He stepped back and watched the wheelwright and his assistant get to work. They were good, he admitted, as Charisian workmen tended to be, but they were in for a surprise. Well, two surprises, if he was going to be accurate, although they
probably wouldn’t have time to appreciate the second one. But that spare wheel of theirs wasn’t going to fit. Ainsail had taken some pains to make
sure
no standard Charisian wheel hub was going to fit that axle, just as he’d very carefully arranged for the wheel to break precisely where—and when—it had. Fortunately no one had noticed the sharp rap with the hand sledge which had been required to
knock out the wedge he’d fitted to keep the wheel rim properly tensioned against the steel tire until he reached exactly the right spot. Hopefully, the wheelwright wasn’t going to notice that the “break” was suspiciously straight edged and clean, either. Ainsail was a little worried about that, but only a little.

God wouldn’t have let him come this far only to fail at this point.

*   *   *

“You worry too much, Rayjhis,” Bishop Hainryk Waignair said teasingly. “If it weren’t the Gulf of Jahras, it would just be something else. Admit it! You’re a
fussbudget!
”

The white-haired, clean-shaven Bishop of Tellesberg leaned forward to tap an index finger on Earl Gray Harbor’s chest, brown eyes gleaming with amused challenge. He and Gray Harbor had known one another almost as long as Gray
Harbor had known Maikel Staynair, and Waignair, as the second-ranking prelate of the Church of Charis, often sat in for the archbishop on meetings of the Imperial Council when Staynair—as today—was otherwise occupied with the responsibilities of his own ecclesiastic office.

“I am
not
a ‘fussbudget,’” Gray Harbor said with immense dignity as the carriage moved steadily along the street. “I’m simply
a conscientious, thoughtful, insightful—don’t forget insightful!
—
servant of the Crown. It’s my
job
to worry about things, just like it’s
your
job to reassure me that God is on our side.”

“
‘
Insightful!’
” Waignair snorted. “Is
that
what you call it?”

“When I don’t feel an even stronger term is appropriate, yes,” Gray Harbor said judiciously, and the bishop laughed.

“I guess there might be a little
something to that,” he said, holding up the thumb and forefinger of his right hand perhaps a quarter of an inch apart. “A
little
something!” His eyes glinted at his old friend. “Still, with Domynyk in command and
Seijin
Merlin’s visions assuring us everything went well, can’t you find
something
better to worry about than the Gulf of Jahras?”

Gray Harbor considered for a moment, then shrugged.

“Of course I can. In fact, I think probably one reason I’m worrying about the Gulf is that we do know it worked out well.” Waignair looked perplexed, and Gray Harbor chuckled. “What I mean is that ‘worrying’ about something I know worked pretty much the way we had in mind distracts me from worrying about the
other
somethings out there that we
don’t
know are going to work out the way we have in
mind. If you take my meaning.”

“You know, the frightening thing is that I
do
understand you,” Waignair said. “Probably says something unhealthy about my own mind.”

Gray Harbor chuckled again, louder, and the bishop shook his head at him. The truth was, of course, that both of them knew about the good news Gray Harbor was going to be able to announce in the next five-day or so. Waignair, as a
member of the inner circle, had actually watched the battle through Owl’s remotes for several hours. He’d spent most of that time praying for the thousands of men who were being killed or maimed in that cauldron of smoke and fire and exploding ships, and he knew exactly what price Domynyk Staynair’s fleet had paid to purchase that victory. Gray Harbor hadn’t been able to watch personally, but the
first councilor was an experienced naval officer, with firsthand experience of what that sort of carnage was like. And he’d long since grown accustomed to taking Merlin’s “visions” as demonstrated fact. He’d been planning how best to use the destruction of the Desnairian Navy ever since the battle had been fought, and he was looking forward to putting those plans into motion as soon as the news officially
reached Tellesberg.

“The problem’s not with your
mind
, Hainryk,” Gray Harbor told him now. “The
problem’s
with—”

*   *   *

Ainsail stood on the narrow, constricted space of open sidewalk beside his wagon, between it and the building he’d managed to park alongside, and watched the traffic flow past while the wheelwright and his apprentice swore with feeling and inventiveness. They’d just discovered
the non-standard dimensions of the wagon axle, and as soon as the two of them got done expressing their feelings, Ainsail was sure they’d get around to working out ways to deal with the problem.

Or they would have if they’d had time, he thought as he finally spotted the vehicle he’d been waiting for. It was a good thing he
had
made sure the repairs were going to be more time-consuming than the
wheelwright had originally thought, since the carriage making its way slowly along the crowded street was substantially behind its regular schedule. And, as it drew closer, Ainsail felt his mouth tighten in disappointment. It was unaccompanied by the guardsmen in the orange-and-white livery of the archbishop who normally escorted it.

Why today?
he demanded silently.
Today, of all days! Would
it have been too much to ask for the bastard to keep to his own—?

He cut that thought off quickly. The fact that God and Langhorne had seen fit to bring him this far, grant him the degree of success he’d achieved, was more than any man had a right to demand. He had no business complaining or berating God just because he hadn’t been given still more!