His thoughts had floated back through those other days, other visits to this place, as Clyntahn read off the list of offenses for which he was to die. Like Ailysa, if he'd only known, he had no need to actually listen to them. He knew what they were, and as the Inquisition had demanded, he had duly confessed to all of them. There'd been no point refusing to. Eventually, he knew, they would have brought him to confession. That was something at which the Inquisition was well skilled, and even if he'd somehow managed not to confess, it wouldn't have changed his fate.
Still, there could be one mercy yet. He remembered the upper-priest's cold promise, the message from Clyntahn himself which the Grand Inquisitor was unwilling to deliver in person. Confession, and the proper public admission of his guilt, would buy him a strangling garrote and a quick death before the full catalog of punishments the Archangel Schueler had decreed were visited upon his no longer living body.
Dynnys had understood Clyntahn's minion perfectly.
Public contrition, the admission of guilt and entreaty for forgiveness were an important part of the Inquisition's punishment of sin. God's mercy was infinite. Even on the lip of Hell itself, a soul touched by true remorse true contrition, might yet find forgiveness and sanctuary in Him. And so tradition decreed that anyone condemned before the Inquisition was entitled to make public repentance and to recant his sins before execution of his sentence.
It was a tradition which was sometimes ignored. Dynnys had always known that, even before his own fall from grace. To his shame, he'd never been so much as tempted to speak out against that practice. It hadn't been his business, and the Inquisition was jealous of its responsibilities and prerogatives. If it chose to silence some criminal lest he use his final moments to spew forth protests of innocence, accusations of torture, fresh declarations of heresy or fresh blasphemies, then surely that was the Inquisition's business.
But it was also a tradition the Inquisition had learned to use well for its own advantage. A prisoner who acknowledged his guilt, besought forgiveness, proclaimed his penitence, and thanked Mother Church—and the Order of Schueler—for saving his immortal soul, even if it had to come at the expense of his mortal body, proved the justice of the Inquisition. It was the demonstration that no one had acted in haste, that true justice and the holy purpose of God had been duly and properly served.
And so, Dynnys had given the Inquisitor his word. Had promised to say what was "proper."
To give Clyntahn what he'd known the Group of Four wanted from him, obedient to their final script.
* * * *
"Yes, Your Grace." Ailysa's stomach clinched more tightly still as Dynnys faced Clyntahn on the platform. "Of your kind permission and Mother Church's grace, I would take this final opportunity to express my contrition and acknowledge my guilt before God and man, seeking God's forgiveness."
"If that is your true desire, then speak, and may God hear your words and measure the truth in your heart," Clyntahn replied.
"Thank you, Your Grace."
Dynnys' voice wasn't as deep, or as powerful, as Clyntahn's, yet it carried well against the breeze. He moved closer to the lip of the platform, leaning on his cane, gazing out across the crowd which had stilled its own shouts into silence as it awaited his public admission of guilt. The grim implements of torture loomed behind him, pregnant with their promise of cleansing agony, but he seemed unaware of them now.
Ailysa looked up at him, wishing she dared to come closer, yet already half-sick with what she knew was about to happen.
And then, he began to speak.
* * * *
"Your Grace, you have asked if I have anything to say before I die for my crimes, and I do. I freely admit my most grievous failure in my duties as an archbishop of Mother Church. It was my solemn charge to be both shepherd and father to the flock Mother Church had entrusted to me in God's name. It was my responsibility, and my privilege, to safeguard their souls. To teach them aright, to keep them in the way of God and the teachings of Langhorne. To discipline, as a father must, when discipline is necessary, knowing that only in that way can those committed to his charge be brought to proper understanding in God's unending love in the fullness of time.
"Those were my responsibilities to Mother Church and to the souls of the Archbishopric of Charis, and I have most grievously failed to meet them."
Dynnys never looked away from the crowd in the plaza. Never so much as glanced at Clyntahn, lest it be obvious he was seeking the Grand Inquisitor's approval of all he said. Yet even without turning his head, he could see Clyntahn from the corner of his eye, and the satisfaction hiding behind the vicar's solemn expression was obvious. He knew what was coming next, for he had Dynnys' promise.
Too bad, Your Grace, the condemned ex-archbishop thought with a sort of grim, cold, terrified exaltation. Some things are more important than what you want. . . and why should any condemned and apostate heretic keep a promise to a lying bastard like you?
"A true shepherd dies for his flock. As the Archangel Langhorne himself said, 'There is no greater love in any man than his willingness to die for others,' and as Charis' archbishop, I ought to have been willing to listen to Langhorne's words. I was not. I feared the personal consequences of my failures as a child of God and an archbishop of Mother Church. And so, when Vicar Zahmsyn came to me, expressing the concerns, the suspicions and fears, which the reports of others had aroused in Charis' case, I did not tell him that each and every one of those reports was a lie."
* * * *
Ailysa's head jerked up in astonishment. Surely, she hadn't heard him correctly! He couldn't possibly have said—
Then her eyes darted to Clyntahn, saw the Grand Inquisitor's sudden dark-faced fury, and knew she hadn't misunderstood a thing.
* * * *
"Instead of telling him the allegations of heresy, apostasy, and violations of the Proscriptions of Jwo-jeng were lies, false reports spread by Charis' enemies and carried throughout the Temple by corrupt priests of Mother Church in return for gold from those same enemies, I promised to investigate. To make 'examples' of those falsely accused of sin. And I fully intended to keep those promises."
Dynnys forced himself to continue to speak calmly and distinctly. Sheer stunned disbelief seemed to have paralyzed Clyntahn and his Inquisitors, at least briefly, and Dynnys looked out into the equally stunned silence of the Plaza of Martyrs and made his voice ring out clearly.
"For myself, I amply deserve the penalty I am to suffer this day. Had I discharged my duties to my archbishopric, thousands might not have already died, and more thousands might not be about to die. But whatever I may deserve, Your Grace, whatever punishment I may merit, the souls you and the Council of Vicars entrusted to my care are, as you know full well, innocent of the crimes you have charged against them. Their only crime, their only sin, has been to defend themselves and the families they love against rape, murder, and destruction at the orders of the corrupt and greedy—"
One of the Inquisitors reacted at last, spinning around to Dynnys and driving a gloved fist into the ex-archbishop's face. The steel studs reinforcing the glove's fingers pulped Dynnys' lips, and the blow's savage force broke his jaw in at least three places. He went to his knees, more than half-stunned, and Clyntahn pointed down at him in a rigid gesture of anathema.
"Blasphemer! How dare you raise your voice against the will and plan of God Himself?! Servant of Shan-wei, you prove yourself, your guilt, and the damnation awaiting you with every word you speak! We cast you out, we commit you to the outer darkness, to the corner of Hell reserved for your dark mistress! We expunge your name from the children of God, and strike you forever from the company of redeemed souls!"
He stood back, and the upper-priests seized the semi-conscious, bleeding man who had once been the Archbishop of Charis and yanked him to his feet. They ripped the burlap robe from his body, stripping him naked before the stunned, mesmerized crowd, and then they dragged him towards the waiting instrum
ents of torture.
* * * *
The sewing woman known as Ailysa pressed both hands to her trembling mouth as she watched the executioners chaining their victim's unresisting body to the rack. She was weeping so hard she could scarcely see, but the sobs were silent, too deep, too terrible, to be shared.
She heard the first deep, hoarse grunt of agony, knew it was only a matter of time before grunts became screams, and even now, she could scarcely believe what he'd done, what he'd said.
Despite all she'd said to Ahnzhelyk, she had never wanted anything more than she wanted to flee this place of gathering horror. Of horror made still worse by the final gesture of Erayk Dynnys' life.
But she couldn't. She wouldn't. She would stay to the very end, and, as she had told Ahnzhelyk, she would know what to tell her sons. His sons. Sons, she thought, who need never feel shame for the name they bore. Not now—not ever. Never again after this.
For the first time in too many years, the sewing woman known as Ailysa felt a deep, fierce pride in the man she had married, and whose agonizing death she stood to witness for her sons and for history.
.IX.
Grand Council Chamber,
Queen Sharleyan's Palace,
City of Cherayth,
Kingdom of Chisholm
There was a certain undeniable tension as Queen Sharleyan and Baron Green Mountain walked into the council chamber.
There were several reasons for that. First, every member of the Queen's Council knew the First Councilor of Charis had been an honored guest in the palace for over two and a half five-days, despite the minor technicality of the state of war which still existed between the two kingdoms. Second, although all manner of rumors had been flying through Cherayth ever since Gray Harbor's arrival, their monarch had not seen fit to share with anyone— except, possibly, Green Mountain—precisely what she and the Charisian first councilor had been discussing. Third, Bishop Executor Wu-shai Tiang's imperious demand in the name of the Knights of the Temple Lands that Gray Harbor be taken into custody and handed over to him had been courteously but firmly rebuffed. And, fourth . . . fourth, their slender, dark-haired queen had chosen to wear not her simple presence coronet, but the Chisholmian Crown of State.
Sharleyan was fully aware of that tension. She'd anticipated it, and, in some ways, she'd deliberately provoked it. Politics, she'd discovered many years ago under Green Mountain's careful tutelage, was at least half a question of proper stage management. And the higher the stakes, the more critical that management became.
Especially with Uncle Byrtrym sitting out there, she thought unhappily as she crossed regally to the elaborately carved chair at the head of the huge, oval table. She let her eyes stray to Byrtrym Waistyn, the Duke of Halbrook Hollow, the commander of the Royal Army . . . and her mother's only brother.
She settled into her chair and turned her head to give the middle-aged man in the green cassock and brown cockaded priest's cap of an upper-priest a sharp glance.
Carlsyn Raiyz had been Sharleyan's confessor since only a very few months after she'd taken the throne. She hadn't exactly chosen him for herself, given her youthfulness, but he'd always met the responsibilities of his position admirably. And although he had to be aware of his youthful ruler's misgivings about the Church's current leadership, he'd never made an issue of them. She hoped he wasn't going to now, but she wasn't as confident of that as she would have preferred to be. On the other hand, his expression was remarkably serene for a spiritual counselor whose charge hadn't even mentioned to him what brought the first councilor of a kingdom which had rebelled against that leadership to speak with her so earnestly. Or discussed her reasons for telling a bishop executor of holy Mother Church why he couldn't have that first councilor as a prisoner. "Father?" she said quietly.
Raiyz gazed at her for perhaps two heartbeats, then smiled very slightly, rose, and looked around the table at the faces of Sharleyan's councilors.
"Let us pray," he said, and inclined his own head. "O God, Who sent Your Archangels to teach men the truth of Your will, we beseech You to lend Your grace to our beloved Queen, and to the men gathered in this place at this time to hear her will, to bear witness to it, and to advise her. In these troubled times, You and the Archangels remain the final refuge, the final help, of all men and women of goodwill, and no other help is required. Bless our Queen's deliberations, grant her wisdom to choose aright in the grievous decisions which lie before her, and give her the peace of knowing Your love and guidance. In Langhorne's name, amen."
Well, that was certainly hopeful, Sharleyan thought as she joined the members of her council in signing themselves with Langhorne's scepter. On the other hand, he didn't exactly come out doing handsprings of delight, either, did he?
She waited while Raiyz sat back down, then swept the faces of the men seated around the table with eyes which warned them she was in no mood to tolerate intransigence this day. She felt the tension click up another few degrees as that message went home. She was not only the youngest person in that council chamber, but also the only female person present, and she found herself suppressing a huntress' smile as she contemplated that fact and their reaction to her unyielding gaze. Some of her "advisers," she knew, had never really fully resigned themselves to having a queen, rather than a king.
Unfortunately, she thought at them with an undeniable edge of satisfaction, Father and Mother had me, instead, didn't they? And between us, Mahrak and I—and Uncle Byrtrym—made it stand up. It's been a bumpy ride, hasn't it, My Lords? Of course, you're about to find out just how truly "bumpy" things can get.
"My Lords," she said after a moment, into the taut silence, her voice clear and strong, "we have summoned you here today to inform you of certain matters which we have been contemplating for some days past now. As always, we will welcome your wisdom and your advice concerning the decision to which we have come."
If the chamber had been tense before she spoke, that was nothing compared to the jolt which ran through her listeners as she used the royal we. They heard that particular usage from her very rarely, at least when they sat in council with her. Coupled with her decision to wear the Crown of State, and the phrasing of her final sentence, it told every one of them that Sharleyan had, indeed, already come to her decision about whatever it was she intended to "discuss" with them.
It wouldn't be the first time it had happened. Sharleyan Tayt had all of her dead father's incisiveness and possibly even more strength of will. When she'd found herself on the back of the slash lizard following his death, she'd recognized that she simply could not afford to allow her councilors to regard her as a child, even though that had been precisely what she was when the crown landed on her head. There had been relatively few reigning queens in the history of Safehold. Indeed, Sharleyan was only the second in the entire history of Chisholm, and Queen Ysbell had been deposed after barely four years on the throne. That had not been an encouraging precedent after King Sailys' death, and more than one of his councilors had been prepared to "manage" his daughter for him. Some of them, Sharleyan knew, had cherished the hope she might follow in Ysbell's footsteps. Even of those who hadn't been willing to go quite that far, some had entertained notions of seeing her properly married off to someone—like themselves, perhaps, or one of their sons—who could provide the necessary masculine guidance she would undoubtedly need.
Well, My Lords, she thought with a certain grim amusement, watching them as they tried with varying degrees of success to hide their consternation at what she'd just said, I had all the "masculine guidance" I needed from Mahrak, didn't I?
It had been Green Mountain who'd warned the grieving child who'd just lost a father and inherited a crown that she must choose between merely reigning and ruling. Even then, and despite her own crushing sense of loss, she'd been old enough to understand what the first councilor was telling her, and she'd had absolutely no intention of permitting Chisholm's governance to fall into the hands of any of
the various great lords already licking their chops as they prepared to grapple for control of the kingdom. And the only way to prevent that potentially disastrous factional strife had been to make it abundantly clear that there was already a "faction" firmly—even ruthlessly—in control.
Her.
Some of them had found that lesson harder to learn than others, and the most uneducable had been eased off the Queen's Council. One of them, the Duke of Three Hills, had proved sufficiently persistent in his refusal to accept that "a mere girl" had the ability to rule in her own right that she'd been forced to remove him from the Council with a minimum of gentleness and a maximum of firmness. When he'd attempted to reverse her decision by extra-legal methods, her army and navy had argued the point with him. In the end, his had been only the third death warrant Sharleyan had personally signed, and his power base had disintegrated with his death.
Signing that warrant had been the hardest thing she'd ever done—then— but she'd done it. And, in a perverse sort of way, she knew she would always be grateful to Three Hills. He'd shown the one person to whom it really mattered—Sharleyan herself—that she had the steel in her spine to do what needed to be done. And what had happened to him had been sufficient to inspire the remaining holdouts to . . . reevaluate their positions in the recognition that Queen Sharleyan was not Queen Ysbell.
Still, she wasn't surprised by the evident dismay she saw from some of them today. Obviously, the men behind those particular faces suspected that they weren't going to care for the decision she'd reached today.
And they're right, she thought. In fact, they're far righter than they could even guess at this point.
"As all of you are aware," she continued after several moments, "King Cayleb of Charis has sent us his own first councilor as his personal emissary. I am aware that some members of this Council felt it would be . . . imprudent, shall we say, to receive Earl Gray Harbor. Or, for that matter, any representative of Charis. I'm also aware of the reasons they had for feeling that way. But, My Lords, even the soundest of ships and even the most skilled of captains cannot survive a storm simply by ignoring it. I'm sure we would all prefer calm to storm, but we live in the times in which we live, and we can but pray for God's guidance to make the best choices we may in the face of the challenges the world sends us.