.VII.

HMS Destiny, 56, Chisholm Sea

“Do you have time to discuss something with me, Your Eminence?”

Maikel Staynair looked up from his conversation with Father Bryahn Ushyr. Irys Daykyn stood in his cabin door, hazel eyes shadowed. There was no sign of Earl Coris or of any of her armsmen, which was unusual. At least one of them was always unobtrusively in her vicinity, although the archbishop suspected that she wasn’t fully aware of that minor fact. She knew they kept an attentive eye on her younger brother, yet she seemed not to have noticed they kept an equally close watch over her … except, for some odd reason, when Lieutenant Aplyn-Ahrmahk assumed that duty for them.

His lips twitched at the thought, but the incipient humor fled as the shadows in those eyes registered. He hadn’t spent fifty years in God’s service without learning to recognize a troubled soul when he saw one.

“Of course, my dear.” He looked at Ushyr. “We’ll finish that correspondence later, Bryahn. God knows we’ll have plenty of time before we reach Cherayth!”

He rolled his eyes past the young under-priest at Irys, inviting her to share his amusement, but she only smiled briefly and obediently.

“Certainly, Your Eminence,” Ushyr murmured, gathering up his notes. “Your Highness.” He bowed to Irys and withdrew quietly.

“A very good secretary, young Bryahn.” Staynair waved for Irys to take the bench seat under the quarter gallery window which was one of the prized features of his own small cabin. “Actually, he’s a very good young man. I really ought to send him off to a parish somewhere for a few years, let him get the pastoral experience for the bishop’s ring I see in his future. Unfortunately, I’m too selfish to let go of him now that I have him so nicely broken in. God forbid I should have to start all over training a replacement!”

Irys smiled again, a bit more naturally, as she settled on the indicated seat. The windows were open, admitting a steady flow of crisp, clean air, and she turned her head slightly, taking the breeze on her cheek and gazing out at the water’s bright sun sparkle. She sat that way for several seconds, and Staynair turned his chair to face her, then folded his hands in the sleeves of his cassock and simply waited.

Finally, she turned back to him.

“I seem to be taking longer than I expected to come to the point, Your Eminence.”

Her tone was apologetic, and Staynair shook his head.

“Conversations are like seeds, Your Highness. They flower in their own good time.”

“Is that a perspective of your faith, Your Eminence? Or of your … ah, maturity?”

“You mean of my ancient decrepitude?” he asked affably, and smiled as he was rewarded by a slight twinkle in those somber eyes. “I’m sure that to someone of your modest, not to say tender, years it seems the world takes forever to get anywhere. Since I’m somewhat better than three times your age—we won’t talk about how much better, thank you very much—I probably have acquired a bit more patience. And”—his voice softened—“I’ve also discovered that quite often things that seem extraordinarily weighty turn out to be much less so when they’re shared with another.”

“I hope so,” she said, looking back out the window and speaking so quietly the words were hard to hear. “Aside from Phylyp, I haven’t had anyone to share my ‘weighty things’ with in … forever.”

“Forgive me, my dear,” he said gently, “but would you prefer to discuss this with Father Bahn?”

“No.”

The word came out softly, but she shook her head almost violently, then turned back to face him.

“No,” she repeated much more firmly. “I don’t want to put him in the position of having to deal with what I need to discuss with you, Your Eminence.”

“That sounds faintly ominous,” he observed, watching her face closely, and she laughed with very little humor.

“Only if you’re particularly concerned about your immortal soul, Your Eminence.”

“Ah.” He tipped back in his chair. “I must tell you, Your Highness, that I’ve seen very little sign that your immortal soul might be in any particular danger.”

“Really? When I’m the daughter of Hektor of Corisande?”

“You’re the daughter of a father who, whatever his other faults, loved you very much,” Staynair replied in a tranquil tone. “And I believe, all things considered, that you’re also quite an extraordinary young lady in your own right. If nothing else, I’ve seen you with your brother.”

She looked at him through a few heartbeats of silence, then dipped her head in acknowledgment of his final sentence.

“I rather doubt your parentage or your brother is what brings you here this afternoon, however,” he continued.

“No.” She looked at him again, her fingers folding together with atypical tightness. “No, you’re right. I’ve … I’ve experienced what I suppose I’d have to call a crisis of faith, Your Eminence. I need your advice.”

“Your Highness—Irys.” He let his chair come forward and leaned towards her. “Remember who I am, the office I hold.”

“Are you a priest, Your Eminence?”

Those hazel eyes challenged him, and in that moment, they seemed older than his own. He looked back at her for a long, wordless moment, then inhaled deeply.

“Before I am anything else in this world,” he told her softly.

“Then speak to me as a priest, Your Eminence. Not an archbishop, not a politician, not a statesman. As a priest … and as the man who’s extended his protection to me and to my brother. I know where my own heart leads me, but I don’t know if I have the right to follow it. I haven’t discussed it even with Phylyp—not yet. I need to deal with this first. To understand—truly understand—what it is I’m being drawn to. And I need a true man of God to explain to me what really lies under the surface of all this killing and blood and hatred. Help me understand it, Your Eminence, because until I do, how can I truly choose?”

“Oh, Irys.” He shook his head, eyes gentle. “That sounds so simple, yet the truth is, none of us truly understands until we complete our journey. We do our best, we listen for that small voice of God deep within us, and we do our best to hear it—to hear Him—and to obey. But there are so many other voices, so many other charges on who and what we are, that it’s hard—sometimes terribly hard. Especially for someone like you, trapped by who you were born to be. I understand how you must yearn for an explanation, a map which won’t fail you, yet all I can offer you is faith and prayer. I can explain my own feelings, my own understanding, limited though any mortal mind must be where the grandeur of God is concerned. I can share my own explorations, and the discoveries I’ve made with you. But in the end, neither I nor anyone else can make that journey for you. I can and will love and cherish you as a daughter of God … but I can’t tell you what to think or decide, my dear. That final step must be yours and yours alone, and I cannot—will not—tell you what it must be.”

Her eyes widened, and he shook his head again.

“That’s the fallacy into which Mother Church has fallen. It’s not just the Group of Four, Irys. They could never have done the damage they’ve done if Mother Church hadn’t allowed them to, and she allowed them to because she insists so adamantly on telling God’s children what to think—ordering them to think it and punishing them if they dare so much as question a single point of doctrine, however sincere their faith—rather than allowing them to listen to God themselves. The Writ gives her that authority, at least as she reads it, yet it’s a terrible power, as well. One which has come to threaten not simply the mortal lives of God’s children. but their souls. as well. That truth is evident even to many who love her most—men like Samyl and Hauwerd Wylsynn—and she murders them for their love, because she will not relent or relinquish that power, that control, even if it leads us to a Zhaspahr Clyntahn or something still worse.”

Irys’ tanned face had gone pale, and he laid one hand very gently on her knee.

“Don’t mistake me, my daughter. What I’m saying to you is the true, fundamental difference between the Church of the Temple and the Church of Charis. It’s been the truth from the very beginning, and those who’ve listened to us know it, even if for many that process of understanding is still just beginning. We are a hierarchical church, and we instruct those committed to our care, but what we teach them is to remember they have a deep, personal relationship with God. That it’s His voice they must listen for, find in their own hearts. And if we succeed, if we survive this whirlwind of fire and blood, we won’t overthrow simply the Group of Four. We will also overthrow the coercive power of the Inquisition, and that will change the lives of every living human being in ways those men sitting in Zion could never conceive, understand … or accept.”

One of her hands had risen to her throat, and he smiled gently, compassionately … sadly.

“That’s what you must understand,” he told her with implacable gentleness, “and I must explain it to you clearly, as unambiguously as I possibly can, despite the pain I fear that explanation may bring you, because it’s an explanation you must grasp. One you must understand before you make any choice, any decision, because of who and what you are, because of who and what your brother is. There is nothing on the face of this world I would more treasure than your decision to commit yourself to the cause to which I’ve committed myself, but I won’t—I can’t, Irys—counsel you without being as completely honest as I can. There are things I can’t explain to you, that no one can explain to you, right now. That’s true for everyone on Safehold. But before you commit your heart and your soul—that strong, valiant heart and soul—you must understand that in this much, at least, Zhaspahr Clyntahn has spoken the truth. He doesn’t understand why, and he doesn’t understand how, and there is nothing but foulness in that man’s soul, yet in the midst of all the hatred and poison he spews out, there is this one slender fragment of truth. If the Church of Charis lives, we will change the Church of God Awaiting more profoundly than she has changed since the Creation itself. If you cannot give yourself—your strength, your courage, your hope, your passion, all you are or ever hope to be—to that goal, then as a priest of God, I cannot advise you to embrace the Church of Charis, for it will lead you only to heartbreak and sorrow.”

Silence fell, enfolding them, perfected and made somehow absolute by the faint sound of voices from the deck above, of water rushing about wooden planking and the breeze blowing through the open window to play with the end of Irys’ braid. She stared at him, looking into his eyes as if she could somehow see the truth in their depths. And then she drew a deep breath.

“And if I can give myself to that goal, Your Eminence?” she said very softly.

“Then you may still find heartbreak and sorrow,” he told her unflinchingly, “but it won’t be because you have acquiesced in evil in God’s name, and it will never be the heartbreak of fear and uncertainty. We may yet fail, Irys. I don’t believe God would have allowed us to come this far, achieve this much, if that was what we were destined to do, but I could be wrong. And if we do fail, Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s vengeance on all we love or care for will be terrible beyond belief. Yet at least we will have this—that we chose knowingly. That we decided what we stood for and that as Cayleb himself said, we could do no other.”

He looked back into her eyes, his gaze gentle and caring and as unyielding as steel.

“So I suppose the question, Irys, is what you believe God wants you to stand for.”

*   *   *

“Have you seen Irys, Mairah?”

“Irys?” Mairah Breygart looked up from the book she’d been reading to her seven-year-old stepdaughter as the Empress of Charis stepped into her cabin. “I thought she was with you.”

“No.” Sharleyan shook her head. “I thought she was still here, thinking.”

“She left over an hour ago,” Mairah said. Fhrancys tugged on her sleeve, pouting at the interruption, and Mairah wrapped her arms around the child and kissed the top of her head, but she never looked away from the empress. “It was closer to two hours, really. I thought she was going to talk to you about whatever it was she had on her mind.”

“I haven’t seen her.” Sharleyan looked perplexed. “And it’s not as if this were an especially big ship, but no one seems to’ve seen her, and I’m beginning to get a little—”

“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” a voice said behind her. “Were you looking for me?”

Sharleyan turned quickly, her face showing her relief as she saw Irys standing in the cabin door behind her.

“Yes, I’m afraid I was. I didn’t realize someone besides Merlin could just … disappear aboard a ship in the middle of the ocean!”

She smiled, and Irys smiled back, but there was something odd about the younger woman’s expression.

“I didn’t mean to cause you any alarm, Your Majesty. I just found myself in need of a conversation with His Eminence. And after that, I had a few things I needed to discuss with Phylyp—I mean, Earl Coris. I … didn’t want to be disturbed while I was talking to either of them, and I’m afraid I asked Tobys to be creatively vague about my whereabouts.”

“I see.” Sharleyan’s smile had faded into a thoughtful expression, and she cocked her head. “Or, more honestly, I don’t see … yet.”

“I’m not trying to be mysterious, Your Majesty. It’s just that my life’s been even more complicated than I’d realized myself. I needed … I needed a little clarity.”

“And have you found it?” Sharleyan asked carefully.

“Clarity?” Irys’ tone was wry. “Yes, I believe I’ve found that. Courage, though … that came a bit harder. I think it did come in the end, though. That’s what I had to discuss with Phylyp.” She snorted gently. “I suppose I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was to realize he’d already figured out what I was thinking.”

“Which was…?”

“Which was that I’ve been contaminated by the pernicious, heretical, blasphemous apostasy of the Church of Charis,” Irys said softly. “And if that costs me my soul in the end, then at least I’ll be in better company than Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s at the Judgment.”