“Then they are defeated. The dyke is safe.”
“For now, yes. They will be back in the spring, when the snows melt. But we will be ready for them. We will hurl them back beyond the Ostian river and cleanse Aekir once more.”
The High Pontiff bent his ravaged head, his white hair flickering in the chill breeze. “Thanks to God and the Blessed Saint.”
“And you, Your Holiness, have done your duty here and done it well,” Martellus said. “It is time you left to take up your proper place.”
“My proper place?” Macrobius said. “Perhaps. I am no longer sure. Has there been no word from Charibon?”
“No,” Martellus lied. “King Lofantyr will be returning from Vol Ephrir very soon; it is best you are in Torunn to meet him. There will be much for you and he to discuss. Corfe will go with you. He is a colonel now; he has done well. He is the only Torunnan to have survived Aekir and he will be able to answer the King’s questions.”
“Are you so sure the Merduks will not attack again, General?”
“I am. They have abandoned their artillery emplacements and will have to fight to rehouse their batteries again. No—my scouts tell me that they are completing a great new road between here and Aekir for the passage of supplies. And they have small parties sniffing the upper and lower stretches of the Searil, searching for a way to outflank the Dyke. They will not find it. The Fimbrians did well to build their fortress here. The campaign is finished for this year. You will spend a more comfortable winter in Torunn than you would here, Holiness, and you will be of more service to us there.”
“Meaning?” Macrobius asked.
“Meaning I want you and Corfe to work on King Lofantyr. The dyke must be reinforced ere the snow melts. The Merduks have been having command difficulties—one of the reasons we are still here. But come spring they will be at our throats again under a new general. So it is rumoured.”
Macrobius started. “Is Shahr Baraz dead then?”
“Dead or replaced—it makes little difference. But the Ostian is reputed to be thick with supply barges, many of them carrying firearms. The tactics will be different when they come again, and we have lost the eastern barbican. We hang on here by a thread, despite the fools who are celebrating in the refugee camps—another subject that Corfe will bring up when he meets the King.”
Macrobius smiled wryly, looked blindly at Corfe.
“You have come far, my friend, since we shared burnt turnip on the Western Road. You have become a man who consorts with kings and Pontiffs, and your star has not finished rising yet; I can feel it.”
“You will have thirty of Ranafast’s troopers to escort you,” Martellus said, a little put out. “It is all we can spare, but it should be enough. The road south is still open, but you should leave as soon as you can.”
“I travel in state no longer, General,” Macrobius said. “All I own I wear on my back. I can go whenever you wish.”
“It is time the world saw Macrobius again, and heard of the things that have been done here. We have done well, but it is only the first battle of a long war.”
T HE year was turning. Even in Vol Ephrir the balminess was vanishing from the air and the flaming trees were growing barer by the day. The Conclave of Kings ground on interminably as the land settled into an early winter, a bitter winter that was already rendering the mountains impassable. This dark season would be long and hard, harder still for those lands which were under the shadow of invasion and war.
The High Pontiff in Charibon, Himerius II, issued a Pontifical bull denouncing the old blind man rumoured to be Macrobius and housed in Ormann Dyke as an impostor and a heretic. His sponsor, the Torunnan general Pieter Martellus, who had successfully defended the dyke against the army of Shahr Baraz, was indicted on charges of heresy in his absence, and couriers were sent to Torunna to demand his removal and punishment.
A second bull authorized clerical authorities in the Five Ramusian Kingdoms of the West, as well as the duchies and principalities, to seize and detain any person or persons who were users of black magic, who were natives of a state not within the Ramusian fold or who publicly objected to the seizure of any of the above. These persons’ property was to be considered confiscate and divided between the Church and the secular authorities of the region, and they were to be detained pending a Religious Trial.
At roughly the same time two thousand Knights Militant reached Abrusio in the Kingdom of Hebrion and were met by representatives of the Inceptine Order. The city of Abrusio was put under Theocratic Law and governed by a body of Inceptines and nobles answerable only to the High Pontiff and to the Hebrian king—who unfortunately was far away in Vol Ephrir. The first day of the new rule was marked by the burning of seven hundred and thirty people, thus emptying the catacombs for the influx of fresh heretics and foreigners the Knights were rounding up throughout the city and the kingdom beyond.
But the crisis that would do most to affect the shape of the world in the times to come occurred in Vol Ephrir, where the assembled kings met to discuss the bulls of Himerius and the dilemmas facing the west.
“T O all appearances, we have two Pontiffs,” Cadamost said simply. “That is a situation which cannot be allowed to continue. If it does, then anarchy will ensue.”
“Anarchy is already alive and well throughout the Five Kingdoms, thanks to Himerius,” Abeleyn snarled. He had been apprised of the situation in Hebrion by Golophin’s gyrfalcon, and now he burned to be away, to take back his kingdom and halt the atrocities.
“You verge on the edge of heresy, cousin,” Skarpathin of Finnmark said, smiling unpleasantly.
“I teeter on the abyss of common sense, whilst you fools dance arguments on the heads of pins. Can’t you see what is happening? Himerius realizes he is the impostor—the wrongly elected High Pontiff—so he strikes first, stamping his authority across the continent in fire and blood—”
“And rightly so,” said Haukir of Almark resoundingly. “It is time the Church governed with a strong hand. Macrobius, who is undoubtedly dead, was an old woman who let things slide. Himerius is the kind of man we need on the Pontifical throne: a man unafraid to act. A strong hand on the tiller.”
“Spare me the eulogy, cousin,” Abeleyn sneered. “Everyone knows that the Inceptines have had Almark in the pocket of their habits for years.”
Haukir went white. “Even kings have limits,” he said in an unusually subdued voice. “Even kings can transgress. Your words will condemn you, boy. Already the Church governs your capital. If you do not take care it will end up governing your kingdom and you will die an excommunicate.”
“I will die my own man then, and not a puppet of power-hungry Ravens!” Abeleyn cried.
The chamber went silent, the heads of state appalled at this exchange. The Fimbrians, however, looked only distantly interested, as if this were nothing to do with them.
“I will not obey the bulls of Himerius,” Abeleyn said in a calmer voice. “I do not recognize him as Pontiff, but call him impostor and usurper. The true Pontiff is Macrobius. I repudiate the authority of Charibon, based as it is on a falsehood, and I will not see my kingdom torn apart by avaricious murderers who happen to be in the guise of clerics!”
Cadamost started to speak, but Abeleyn quelled him with a look. He was on his feet now, and every eye in the room was turned to him. In the silence it was possible to hear the birds singing in the tallest of the trees that surrounded the palace towers.
“I hereby withdraw Hebrion from the company of Ramusian Kingdoms which recognize the Prelate Himerius as High Pontiff. His inhumane edicts I will ignore, his servants I will banish from my borders. I stand here and say to you: who else is with me in this thing? Who else recognizes Macrobius as the true head of the Church?”
There was a pause, and then Mark of Astarac stood up slowly, heavily. His reluctance was obvious, but he faced the other rulers squarely.
“Astarac is allied to Hebrion in this thing; Abeleyn is betrothed to my sister. I will stand by him. I also repudiate Himerius the usurper.”
A buzz of talk swept the room. It was silenced by the scraping of another chair on the beautifully ornate floor.
Lofantyr of Torunna was on his feet.
“Torunna has stood alone against the threat from the east. No succour have we had from any western state, and as Pontiff, Himerius has denied us the aid which is our right. I believe my general, Martellus the Lion of Ormann Dyke. Macrobius is alive and is Pontiff. I will stand with Hebrion and Astarac in this thing.”
