cooking, charming feminine companionship, and all the arduous tasks of counting coins and managing your alliances within the vicarate. Pity you didn’t stop to think about what the Archangels themselves told you were any priest’s true obligations and duties. If you had, Father Zytan might’ve had the money and the resources he needed to actually do something about those responsibilities.
“I’m overjoyed we lost so few… this winter, Father,” he said, not looking away from the window. “I only regret that we lost so many the winter before, and the winter before that.”
Kwill looked at the vicar’s back, silhouetted against the bright window, and wondered if Duchairn realized how much pain rested like an anchor in the depths of his own voice. The vicar was a Chihirite, like the majority of Mother Church’s administrators, without the trained insight into feelings and emotional processes that Kwill’s own order taught. Perhaps he truly didn’t understand his own feelings… or how clearly his tone communicated them, at any rate.
Or how dangerous they could be to him under the present circumstances.
“Your Grace,” the upper-priest said, “I’ve spent considerably better than half my life feeling exactly that same regret every spring.” Duchairn turned his head to look at him, and Kwill smiled sadly. “I suppose we should grow inured to it when it happens again and again, but every body we find buried in the snow, every child who becomes an orphan, every soul we can’t somehow cram into the Hospice or one of the other shelters when the temperature drops and the wind comes screaming in off the lake-every single one of those deaths takes its own tiny piece of my soul with it. I’ve never learned to accept it, but I’ve had to learn to deal with it. To admit to myself that I truly did do everything I could to minimize those deaths… and to absolve myself of the guilt for them. It isn’t easy to do that. No matter how much I’ve done, I’m always convinced I could-that I should -have done still more. I can know here”-he touched his temple gently-“that I truly did all I could, but it’s hard to accept that here.”
He touched his chest, and his sad smile grew gentler.
“I’ve had more practice trying to do that than you have, Your Grace. Partly because I’m the next best thing to thirty-five years older than you are. And I realize most people here in Zion and even in my own order seem to think I’ve been doing what I do since the Creation itself. The truth is, though, I was past forty before it even occurred to me that this should be my life’s work. That it was what God had in mind for me to do.” He shook his head. “Don’t think for a moment all the years I wasted before I heard His voice don’t come back to haunt me every winter, reminding me of all those earlier winters when I did nothing at all. I realize there are those who think of me as some sort of saintly paragon-those that don’t think I’m an ornery old crackpot, at any rate!-but I was a much duller student than those people think. We hear Him when we hear Him, and it’s up to Him to judge us. It’s not up to others, and our own judgment is sometimes the least reliable of all, especially where our own actions are concerned.”
“You’re probably right, Father,” Duchairn said after a long, silent moment, “yet if we don’t judge ourselves, if we don’t hold ourselves accountable, we turn our backs not just on our responsibilities but on ourselves. I’ve discovered guilt makes a bitter seasoning, but without it it’s too easy to lose ourselves.”
“Of course it is, Your Grace,” Kwill said simply. “But if God says He’s willing to forgive us when we recognize our faults and genuinely seek to amend our lives, then shouldn’t we be willing to do the same thing?”
“You truly are a Bedardist, aren’t you, Father?” Duchairn shook his head wryly. “And I’ll try to bear your advice in mind. But the Writ says we’re supposed to make recompense, to the best of our ability, to those we realize we’ve wronged. I’m afraid it’s going to take me a while to accomplish that.”
Kwill crossed the office to stand beside him at the window, but the priest didn’t look out across the lake. Instead, he stood for several seconds regarding the vicar intently, gazing into his eyes. Then he reached out and laid a hand thinned by a lifetime’s labors on Duchairn’s chest.
“I think this is in a better state and far, far deeper than even you realize, Your Grace,” he said softly. “But be careful. Even the greatest of hearts can accomplish nothing in this world after it ceases to beat.”
Duchairn laid his hand across the priest’s for a moment and inclined his head in what might have been agreement or simple acknowledgment. Then he inhaled deeply and stepped back.
“As always, Father Zytan, it’s been both a joy and a privilege,” he said more briskly. “And I’m pleased with your report, especially since I’ve managed to free up the funding to acquire or build additional shelters for the coming winter. Depending on where we place them, it would probably be cheaper to purchase and refurbish existing structures, and if we’re going to be forced to build, it would be a good idea to get started as quickly as possible. So please give some thought to where the housing will be most urgently required. I’d like to have your recommendations for three or four new sites within the next couple of five-days.”
“Of course, Your Grace. And thank you.” Kwill smiled broadly. “We can always use additional roofs when the snow flies.”
“I’ll do my best, Father. Just as I’ll do my best to bear your advice in mind.” Duchairn extended his hand, and Kwill bent to brush his ring of office with his lips, then straightened. “Until next time, Father.”
“May the Holy Bedard bless and keep you, Your Grace,” Kwill murmured in response.
Duchairn nodded and left the office. His escort of Temple Guardsmen was waiting for him, of course. They didn’t like letting him out of their sight even for his meetings with Father Zytan, and despite their discipline, it showed in their expressions.
Of course, there’s more than one reason for that unhappiness at having me off doing Langhorne knows what, Duchairn thought with bitter amusement.
“Where to now, Your Grace?” the officer in command of his personal security detachment inquired politely.
“Back to the Temple, Major Phandys,” Duchairn said to the man Zhaspahr Clyntahn and Allayn Maigwair had personally selected as his keeper. Their eyes met, and the vicar smiled thinly. “Back to the Temple,” he repeated.
“Major Phandys is here, Your Eminence.”
“Thank you, Father. Send him in.”
“Of course, Your Eminence.”
The secretary bowed and withdrew. A moment later, Major Khanstahnzo Phandys entered Wyllym Rayno’s office. He crossed to the archbishop and bent over his extended hand to kiss his ring.
“You sent for me, Your Eminence?” the major said as he straightened.
Technically, as a Temple Guardsman, he ought to have saluted instead of kissing Rayno’s ring. Since the botched arrest of the Wylsynn brothers, however, Major Phandys had become considerably more than a simple Guardsman. It was scarcely his fault that arrest had gone so radically wrong, and the Inquisition had always had a keen eye for talent that could be co-opted without officially becoming part of the Order of Schueler.
“Yes, I did, Major.” Rayno sat back down behind his desk, tipped his chair back, and surveyed Phandys thoughtfully. “I’ve read your latest report. As always, it was complete, concise, and to the point. I could wish more of the reports which crossed my desk were like it.”
“Thank you, Your Eminence,” Phandys murmured when the archbishop paused, obviously expecting some response. “I strive to offer Mother Church-and the Inquisition-my best effort.”
“Indeed you do, Major.” Rayno smiled with unusual warmth. “In fact, I’ve been considering whether or not I might be able to find an even more effective use for a man of your talents and piety.”
“I’m always prepared to serve wherever Mother Church can best make use of me, Your Eminence,” Phandys replied. “Have you someone in mind for my current responsibilities?”
“No, not really.” Rayno’s smile faded. “No, I’m afraid I don’t, Major. That’s one reason I called you in. Can you think of anyone else in the Guard suitable for the position?”
Phandys frowned for several seconds, hands clasped respectfully behind him while he considered.
“Off the top of my head, no, I’m afraid, Your Eminence.” He shook his head regretfully. “I can think of several whose loyalty and devotion would make them suitable, but none who have the rank to serve as Vicar Rhobair’s senior Guardsman. Of those who do have the rank, I’m afraid I’d have… reservations about recommending most of them. There might be one or two of sufficient rank and seniority, but none who could be assigned to him without a series of transfers to make them the logical choices. I can give you their names, if you like, Your Eminence, although I’d strongly recommend you interview them personally before you consider them for my current
