The Second Empire

we must have the forces of the Church garrisoned throughout those kingdoms which acknowledge her spiritual supremacy. This is a time of crisis. I will not have the debacle of Hebrion repeated. We lost an entire kingdom to the heretics there because we had insufficient forces on the ground. That must never happen again.”

“Yes, Holiness.”

“If we are to strike back at the heretics then it can only be east through the Torrin Gap, and south into East Astarac… Still no word from Fimbria?”

“No, Holiness. Though rumour has it that the Fimbrian army sent east by the Electors was destroyed along with the Ormann Dyke garrison at the Battle of the North More.”

“Rumour? We base our policy on rumours now?”

“It is difficult to obtain reliable information on the eastern war, Holiness. I have also heard that there has been a great battle close to the gates of Torunn itself, but of its outcome we have no word.”

“Have we no reliable sources in Torunn?”

“We have, yes, but with the Torunnan capital virtually under siege it is a slow business getting their intelligence this far.”

Himerius said nothing. His face was drawn and haggard in the harsh sunlight, but the eyes within it were bright as gledes. Over the past days he had displayed an astonishing reservoir of energy for a man of his years, working far into every night with shifts of scribes and scholars and Almarkan military officers. Privately, Betanza wondered how long he could keep it up. The Ramusian Church—or this version of it, at any rate—had in a space of weeks been transformed into a great empire which now encompassed not only Almark, but Finnmark, Perigraine and half a dozen other minor principalities and duckedoms also. Cadamost of Perigraine, appalled by the carnage in the heretical states of Hebrion, Astarac and Torunna, had hastened to place his own kingdom under the protective wing of Charibon. A loyal son of the Church indeed, Betanza thought, but one without any balls to speak of.

Betanza himself regarded this sudden transformation of the Church with mixed feelings. He was Vicar-General of the Inceptine Order, the second most powerful figure in the Church hierarchy, but he found himself wondering about the accumulation of power which was taking place here. If Torunn had become the focuss of resistance to the Merduk invasions, then Charibon was now the centre of a huge new power bloc which stretched from the Malvennor Mountains in the west to the Cimbrics in the east, and even extended as far north as the Sultanate of Hardukh, not far from the foothills of the Northern Jafrar. Only Fimbria, in her heyday, had ever governed a tract of land so large, and the men who had had this awesome responsibility thrust so precipitately upon their shoulders were clerics, priests with no experience in governance. It made him uneasy. It also seemed not quite right to him that the head of the Ramusian faith in Normannia should spend twenty hours a day dictating orders for the levying of troops and the movement of armies. He had not joined the Church to become a general; he had done his soldiering in the lay world and wanted no more of it.

He looked up and out to where the savage peaks of the Cimbric Mountains brooded, white and indomitable. The snow was blowing in great streaks and banners from their summits, as though the mountains were smoking. The world was on fire; the world he had known as a boy and a young man tottered on the brink of dissolution. If only Aekir had not fallen, he found himself thinking. If only Macrobius had not been lost.

Such thinking was absurd, of course, and dangerous. They all had to make the best of it. But why did he feel so afraid, so apprehensive of the future? Perhaps it was the change in Himerius. The Pontiff had always been a proud, vain man, capable of ruthless intrigue. But now it seemed that the ambition had left the faith behind. The man never prayed any more. Could that be right, in the head of the Church? And that odd light in his eyes occasionally, at night. It seemed otherworldly. Unsettling.

I am tyred, Betanza thought. I am tyred, and I am older than I think I am. Why not step down and walk the cloisters, contemplate the world beyond this one, and the God Who created it? It is what I donned this habit to do, after all.

But he knew the answer even as he asked the question. He would not stand down because he was afraid of whom Himerius might find to replace him. Already half the Church hierarchy had been reshuffled— Escriban, Prelate of Perigraine, was gone already. He had too independent a mind to sit easily with the New Order. Himerius had installed Pieter Goneril in his place, a nonentity who would do exactly as he was told. And Presbyter Quirion of the Knights Militant, as good a man as ever lifted a sword in the service of the Church, and a personal friend—he was gone too, rotting in some little Almarkan border town. He had lost Hebrion to King Abeleyn, and over a thousand Knights besides. That could not be forgiven.

Charibon has become a Royal court, Betanza thought. We are nothing more than errand-runners for its black-clad monarch. And our faith? What has happened to it?

He found it hard to admit to himself what nagged at him most, and caused him to wake up sweating in the middle of the cold nights. An old scrap of wandering prophecy dreamt up by a madman, but a madman who was nevertheless one of the founding fathers of the Church.

And the Beast shall come upon the earth in the days of the Second Empire of the world. And he shall rise up out of the west, the light in his eyes terrible to behold. With him shall come the Age of the Wolf, when brother will slay brother. And all men shall fall down and worship him.

Betanza had never been much of a reader before he set aside his ducal robes and donned the black habit. In fact, strictly speaking, he had been illiterate. But he had learnt his letters in his years with the Church, and now he found reading to be an occupation he loved. He had shelves of books in his chambers, amongst them certain tomes which, were they found in the possession of a novice, might just consign that novice to the pyre. He had begun collecting them after the strange murder of Commodius the Chief Librarian in the bowels of the great Library of Saint Garaso. There was a chill in his gut as he recalled the lines from The Book of Honourius. A madman’s ravings or true prescience? No-one could say. And why had Commodius been murdered? Again, no-one knew. His investigations had led nowhere. The two monks who were the prime suspects had disappeared into the night. Oddly, Himerius had seemed unconcerned, more preoccupied with sealing off the catacombs below the library than with tracking down the murderers.

Lord God, it was cold! Would spring never come? What a terrible year.

Himerius had taken to roving the battlements of the cathedral trailed by a gaggle of scribes and subordinates. It helped him think, he said. That was why they were up here now, insects scurrying along the backbone of a slumbering stone giant, Charibon spread out below them like a toy city. The Sea of Tor was still frozen about its margins, and Betanza could see crowds of the local people out fishing on the ice. The winter had been hard on them, and harder still was the billeting in their homes of troops. Lines of soldiers marched into Charibon every day, it seemed. The monastery-city was becoming an armed camp.

Himerius strolled along the battlements dictating to his scribes. Betanza did not move, and only one cleric elected to remain with him. Old Rogien, head of the Pontifical household. His wrinkled face seemed almost transparent in the harsh light, the veins blue at his temples.

“Thinking, Brother?”

Betanza smiled. “I have much to ponder.”

“Haven’t we all? His Holiness is a man of phenomenal abilities.”

“Phenomenal, yes.”

“You sound a little disgruntled, Brother.”

“Me?” Betanza glanced at the Pontiff’s group. They were out of earshot. And he had known Rogien a long time. “Not disgruntled, Rogien. Apprehensive perhaps.”

“Ah. Well, in time of war that is every man’s right.”

“We are not soldiers, though.”

“Aren’t we? We may not wear mail and wield swords, but we are warriors of a sort nonetheless.”

“And Charibon is not a barracks for all the soldiery of Almark.”

“But we are on the frontier now, Betanza. They say the Merduks have been sighted even on the eastern shores of the Sea of Tor itself. Charibon was sacked once, by the Cimbric tribes. Would you have it sacked again?”

Betanza grimaced. “You know very well that is not what I mean.”

“Maybe I do.” Rogien lowered his voice and drew close.

“But you will not find me admitting it.”

“Why not? Is free speech no longer allowed in Charibon?”