.III.

Lake City, Tarikah Province, and Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark

Drums rattled, fifes and bugles sang, and the thunder of thousands of massed voices rose in hymn as the long column of marching infantry, interspersed with blocks of cavalry, moved out along the Traymos High Road. The sky was a deep, perfect cerulean, burnished with a thin, high scatter of cloud, and the sun poured down warmth, as if seeking to make amends for the winter past. There was still the tiniest edge of chill in the air sweeping across the city from the twin lakes from which it took its name, for spring and summer came late in these high northern latitudes, and the seasonal trees were only beginning to clothe themselves in green. High-flying wyverns and birds swept down the wind or hovered motionless, like God’s own thoughts, high above, and the crash of boots, the clatter of hooves, the rattle and bang of wheels, the whistles of dragons, stretched a thick line of energy, color, and vitality across the land.

Arthyn Zagyrsk, Archbishop of Tarikah, stood at his window, watching the Army of God’s departure and tried to feel glad, or at least confident, as became one of Mother Church’s archbishops.

It was hard.

He’d stood here for two hours, and the endless snake of men, weapons, guns, and wagons didn’t seem to have become any smaller. He supposed that made sense—a hundred and forty-six thousand men, with all their draft horses and dragons, would take a while to pass through any city. Not all of them were headed down the Traymos High Road, but enough of them were. It was Bishop Militant Bahrnabai’s main column, and the men in it were overwhelmingly confident of their ability to deal with anything they might meet.

Zagyrsk was, too, if not for exactly the same reasons they were.

He heaved a deep sigh and turned from the window. Father Avry Pygain, his senior aide and secretary, stood waiting just inside the office door, hands folded in the sleeves of his cassock and expression patient. Pygain had been with Zagyrsk for almost five years, since shortly after this madness with Charis had begun, and they’d come to know one another well. The upper-priest was a Chihirite, of the Order of the Quill, and as bright and efficient as one might have expected from that background. His social skills were, unfortunately, rather less well developed, and all too often he had what Zagyrsk’s mother had always called a “deaf ear” all too often when it came to dealing with other human beings instead of reports and tabulations. Still, he couldn’t help being a likable sort, in his occasionally cross-grained fashion, and he provided the clerical skills Zagyrsk knew were not his own strong suit. Unlike the majority of serving archbishops, he was a Pasqualate, and he still wasn’t quite certain how he’d ended up in an archbishop’s palace instead of teaching in one of the healers’ colleges.

And there are times—altogether too many of them, lately—when I pray to Pasquale to send me back to a quiet, peaceful college somewhere far, far away from here, he thought dismally.

“Well, they’re on their way,” he said, and Pygain nodded as if the silence-breaking sentence hid some deep significance, hovering just beyond his mental grasp. Zagyrsk’s lips twitched, and he felt a sudden powerful surge of affection for his aide.

“It’s all right, Avry,” he said, reaching out and patting the younger man on the shoulder. “I suppose we’ll get used to the quiet eventually.”

“Yes, Your Eminence.” Pygain nodded again, then cleared his throat. “I’m afraid Father Ignaz has asked for a little of your time this afternoon, Your Eminence.”

Zagyrsk managed not to sigh. It wasn’t that he disliked Father Ignaz Aimaiyr, his intendant. In fact, he liked him quite a lot and knew he was luckier than many to have him. It was just that—

“Very well,” he said, turning and walking back to the window to gaze out it once more. “Ask Father Ignaz to join me here.”

“Of course, Your Eminence.” Pygain bowed, and Zagyrsk heard the office door closed behind him.

The archbishop’s gray-blue eyes rested sadly on the marching column. He knew the Writ as well as any, and it offered only one prescription for the disease devouring Safehold. But he was a healer, that was all he’d ever really wanted to be, and the thought of where that army was headed, what it was going to do when it got there, filled his heart with grief.

Even the most hardened, heretical heart in the entire world belongs to someone who was once a child of God. To see it come to this, to know it can only get worse before it becomes better—surely that grief is enough to break the soul of even an archangel.

A throat cleared itself behind him, and he turned to see Aimaiyr. The intendant bent to kiss Zagyrsk’s extended ring, then straightened.

“Thank you for seeing me, Your Eminence. I know you have a lot on your mind.”

Actually, the intendant thought, studying his archbishop, the weight rested far more heavily on Zagyrsk’s heart and soul than on his mind. The archbishop felt too deeply, Aimaiyr often thought. It showed in the eyes behind the lenses of the wire-frame glasses, in the thinning silver hair and the lined face with its somehow appealing beak of a nose.

“I imagine we all do, my son,” Zagyrsk responded, and waved for Aimaiyr to seat himself in the chair to the right of the archbishop’s desk. Zagyrsk waited until he’d sat, then settled into his own chair, tipped it back, and folded his hands across his midsection.

“Father Avry said you needed to speak to me, but I neglected to ask him what your subject might be, Father.”

“I have a few … concerns,” Aimaiyr replied. “Obviously our situation here in Lake City and in Tarikah generally has been … stressed by the presence of so many soldiers. Now that the army’s begun its march, I expect much of that stress to ease, although the need to supply so many men and animals in the field is bound to have a significant impact, especially here in the city. But I think we’d all do well to attempt to return to something as close to normal as we can in these disturbed and disturbing days.” He shook his head, his eyes—a deeper, darker blue than Zagyrsk’s—worried. “I realize we can’t possibly return to ‘normal’ until the heresy and schism have been dealt with, Your Eminence. Still, the closer we can come, the more a sense of the familiar—of the right and proper—will help all God’s children marshal their inner strength in this time of need.”

Zagyrsk nodded slowly, although he deeply doubted it would be possible for anyone to pretend things were remotely near “normal” for a long time to come. Nonetheless, he understood what Aimaiyr was saying, and he realized again how fortunate he was in his intendant. The fair-haired Schuelerite was an intense, passionate priest, a quarter-century younger than Zagyrsk’s own seventy years. He was also compassionate—more so, to be honest, then Zagyrsk would have expected out of any Schuelerite.

And despite his position as Tarikah’s intendant, he clearly had reservations of his own about the Grand Inquisitor’s policies. In fact, despite how careful he was about what he said, and even more careful about anything he committed to writing, he’d made Zagyrsk nervous more than once, for Zhaspahr Clyntahn had been a dangerous, dangerous man even before the Jihad. The archbishop was far from certain how a priest of Aimaiyr’s independence of thought had risen so high in Clyntahn’s Inquisition, and he knew the intendant was deeply concerned by the severity of that Inquisition’s current policies, the frequency with which it had imposed the full Punishment of Schueler.

Yet for all his compassion, Father Ignaz burned with an ardent fire against the heresy. He saw only too clearly how the “Church of Charis’” insistence upon independence of thought—the primacy of the individual’s direct, personal relationship with God, even when his understanding of it clashed with Mother Church’s definition of it—must undermine the unity and centrality of Mother Church. That doctrine must splinter once that core direction was broken, allowing error to contaminate the teachings the archangels themselves had entrusted to her care. And in the welter of new devices, techniques, and infernal mechanisms produced by the Empire of Charis, he saw Shan-wei’s talon reaching into the world of men once more. Indeed, much as the Grand Inquisitor’s willingness to use the iron rod of discipline distressed him, he was even more distressed by Clyntahn’s willingness to grant dispensations for the soldiers of God to adopt so many of those innovations.

“I agree that the closer we can come to normalcy, the better, Father,” the archbishop said. “Unfortunately, I question how close we can come at this time.” He shook his head sadly. “While the army was quartered in and around the city, it was possible to forget how empty that city is. Now, even with all the extra stevedores and canal boats, that emptiness is going to become apparent to all.”

Aimaiyr bent his head in acknowledgment of the archbishop’s point. The population of the province and archbishopric of Tarikah had been catastrophically reduced over the previous winter—possibly by as much as two-thirds, or even more. With fewer than a million inhabitants even before the Sword of Schueler, it had never been remotely as densely populated as, say, Old Province, and the privation and starvation of the winter had cost its people dear. Many had fled as refugees, despite the bitter winter weather, making their way into the Border States and even into the Temple Lands beyond; others had simply died, either in their own homes or struggling to reach some hopefully safe haven. Desolate farmland stretched for miles around Tarikah’s towns and villages, with no hand to till the soil or plant the seed. No one had been able to take any sort of a census yet, although Father Avry had that on his to-do list, but Aimaiyr knew as well as Zagyrsk that the numbers were going to be heartbreaking when they were finally available.

“I’m sure you’re right about that, Your Eminence,” he said. “In fact, one of the things I’ve been wondering about—the reason I asked to speak to you this morning—is whether or not it might be better to bring as many as possible of our surviving people together here in Lake City or in some of the other larger towns. I realize I may be stepping beyond my own sphere of authority to make such a suggestion, but it struck me that perhaps Mother Church should … encourage that movement. Under the circumstances, with so many homes and farms and businesses simply abandoned, surely Mother Church would be justified in extending her hand over them, seeing to it that they’re protected for their rightful owners, in hopes those owners will someday return, but also put to good use in our present emergency. It would bring together the hands we need to plow, plant, and reap, and surely there are many craftsmen still among us. Yet as dispersed and scattered as our people have become, how can a craftsman find his customers? Or how can someone who needs the craftsman’s work find him?”

Zagyrsk’s eyes narrowed. After a moment, he took off his spectacles and closed his eyes completely, pinching the bridge of his prominent nose as he considered what the intendant had just said very carefully.

“You’re right that it steps considerably beyond your normal sphere, Father,” the archbishop said finally, not yet opening his eyes. “But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. I hate the thought of abandoning villages and farms, some of which have been in their owners’ families for hundreds of years. But our people have been devastated by this past winter. If nothing else, the sight of other faces and the sound of other voices would have to gladden their hearts.”

He lowered his hand, replaced his spectacles, and looked at Aimaiyr intently.

“May I ask how this idea came to you?”

“It’s the Inquisition’s duty to safeguard the minds and souls of God’s children, Your Eminence.” Aimaiyr touched his pectoral scepter. “But our schools and village priests have been as decimated as anyone else, as I’m sure you realize even better than I, and without those teachers, without those priests, Mother Church can’t protect her children against the poisons sweeping in from the outer world. I must confess that my first thought was the conservation and preservation of souls, Your Eminence. It was only after that that it occurred to me it might also preserve lives and help fight off the sense of grief and hopelessness too many of our people must feel at a time like this.”

Zagyrsk nodded again, thoughtfully, his mind still running through the implications of the intendant’s suggestion. It wouldn’t be as simple as Aimaiyr might think. Quite a lot of the stubborn villagers and farmers of Tarikah would resist abandoning all they owned, no matter how firmly Mother Church promised to record their ownership and guarantee their eventual return. And then there was the question of how moving that many people would affect the military movements and chains of supply needed to support the Army of God’s campaign. It was already late to be getting crops into the ground, too. That was going to be a factor as well. They were going to need all the food they could harvest, and that meant they’d have to find out where the land had been planted and move people to those locations, first. But still.…

“I think this idea may have a great deal of promise, Father Ignaz,” he said. “I’m going to have to consider the implications, and if we do it, we’ll have to move quickly on it, before we lose the planting season entirely. But I do think it’s definitely worth considering. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

“You’re most welcome, Your Eminence.” Aimaiyr smiled. “If it proves practical and useful, I’ll be delighted. And”—his tone softened—“if it eases your heart in any way, I’ll be even more delighted.”

Zagyrsk’s eyes widened, and he felt a spurt of wonder at the intendant’s admission. But most of all, he felt touched.

“It may be that it will do both, Father,” he said with a smile. “It may do both.”

*   *   *

Merlin Athrawes stood at his chamber window, gazing down at the busy street outside the Charisian embassy. That street bustled with activity, and a sense of energy and purpose hung over the Republic’s capital, a far cry from the grim, gray fear and despair—even apathy—which had gripped it over the winter. Food continued to flow in from the Charisian Empire, but something close enough to normalcy had returned for that food to be distributed through the vendors and the greengrocers who normally served Siddar City. Free distribution to those who couldn’t afford to buy continued, but the majority of it was actually being purchased now, which had at least eased the hemorrhaging from Baron Ironhill’s accounts, although the war’s ever escalating costs meant the reduction in strain was purely relative. Trade with eastern Siddarmark was beginning to pick up again, as well, although it remained enormously below what it had been with the loss of all the goods which had previously flowed through the Republic to the Border States and the Temple Lands themselves. Even if all of that trade hadn’t been lost, the Republic had been so hammered over the past few months that its internal demand—or, rather, the wherewithal to purchase the goods to satisfy that demand—remained far, far lower than it had been. Still, there was an undeniable air of optimism and hope in the capital’s air.

He wondered if there would have been if any of those bustling people had been able to see what he’d just seen through Owl’s SNARCs.

The reason Zhaspahr Clyntahn had concentrated his Sword of Schueler’s activities so heavily in northwestern Siddarmark was obvious from the most cursory glance at a map of East Haven’s canals. The primary connections between East Haven and West Haven passed through the Border States’ Earldom of Usher, Sardahn, Duchy of Ernhart, and Barony of Charlz into Tarikah. From Tarikah’s Lake City, the route extended south into Westmarch via the Hildermoss and Sair rivers and the Sair-Selkyr Canal, and east, all the way to Siddar City, via the Hildermoss and the Guarnak-Sylmahn Canal. Safehold’s climate meant rivers that far north froze every winter, but when they weren’t frozen, the canals, rivers, and the network of high roads which accompanied them were the arteries that knitted the two Havens together. They were the route along which all those illicit Charisian goods had flowed in defiance of Clyntahn’s will to buyers in the Border States … and the Temple Lands.

That would have been enough to draw the Grand Inquisitor’s ire and attention to it, but for all his megalomania, Clyntahn was smart. Anger and his thirst for vengeance upon anyone who thwarted him in any way might betray him into colossal blunders, but even when he blundered, there was usually a dangerous core of rationality within the blunder. And in fairness to the Grand Inquisitor, little though Merlin liked being fair to him even in the privacy of his own thoughts, quite a few of his errors had stemmed from fundamental changes of which he’d been unaware when he made them. He could hardly be blamed, for example, for failing to realize reconnaissance satellites were spying on the movements of his armies and fleets, and his failure to make allowance for things he didn’t know about didn’t prevent him from planning intelligently where things he did know about were concerned. Nor did what he didn’t know about SNARCs prevent him from making allowance for the merely mortal spies he assumed were responsible for his enemies’ uncanny anticipation of those armies’ and fleets’ movements.

His emphasis on seizing Tarikah, Westmarch, New Northland, and Mountaincross was a case in point; it had snatched control of the roads and canals leading from the Temple Lands into the heart of the Republic of Siddarmark into his hands. True, some of those canals had been significantly damaged by agents of the Sword of Schueler bent on following their instructions to prevent the shipment of food east, although not even Clyntahn had dreamed of fully setting aside the Book of Langhorne’s injunction to maintain them. The sabotage he’d ordered had been intended to disable them only temporarily, but some of his agents—more enthusiastic than skilled—had exceeded his intentions in several instances. That had inflicted even more suffering on the people of Siddarmark and—far more significantly, as far as Clyntahn was concerned—delayed his own troop movements. The New Northland Canal, for example, still hadn’t been fully returned to service, although the labor gangs the Church had sent to see to its repairs were close to completing their task.

But the canals that were operable—like the eighteen hundred miles of the Holy Langhorne Canal—provided a logistics pipeline all the way from the Temple Lands to Lake City. And that was why Allayn Maigwair had been able to move close to half a million men of the Army of God into Tarikah and Westmarch despite those provinces’ devastated state. With the local Temple Loyalists already in arms against the Republic, the Church had over six hundred thousand armed and organized men on Siddarmarkian soil, which didn’t even count the Dohlaran forces already operating in the South March and the Desnairian forces moving steadily across Silkiah. If those were added to the tally, Maigwair—and Zhaspahr Clyntahn—had over a million men poised to crush the life out Greyghor Stohnar’s Republic. But almost worse, they’d repeated their tactics before the Battle of the Gulf of Tarot.

They lied to their own field commanders to be sure they could lie to us when our “spies” found out about their orders, Merlin thought grimly. We thought they were all coming east, because that’s what Maigwair told them they’d be doing. But Kaitswyrth’s going south out of Westmarch, instead.

The rest of the inner circle had responded to the knowledge that Nahrmahn Baytz wasn’t actually dead—or no deader than Nimue Alban, at any rate—with far less incredulity (and far more joy) than Merlin had allowed himself to hope. The outpouring of happiness was ample indication of how much they’d all come to care for the rotund little Emeraldian, yet from a purely pragmatic perspective, the discovery that they not only had their best analyst back, but that he and the now fully self-aware Owl could actually spend the equivalent of five-days or even months considering intelligence data yet get back to them within no more than ten or fifteen minutes, was an even greater godsend. Yet even Nahrmahn and Owl, with all the advantages the SNARCs bestowed, had given them less than a five-day’s warning, specifically because they’d been able to read every word of Bishop Militant Cahnyr Kaitswyrth’s original orders.

But those orders had been changed with breathtaking suddenness, and the canal system—and the Church’s wartime administration of it—meant Kaitswyrth had been able to shift his planned line of march and still make his originally scheduled departure date. Now the entire Army of God was in motion, half of it in a totally unexpected direction … and all of it moving at a terrifying rate of speed.

No, he thought, looking down at the people scurrying along the street below him. No, if they knew what he knew, optimism would be a scarce commodity in Siddar City.