Lord of the Silent Kingdom

7. A Fire in the End of Connec

Tormond IV, being the Great Vacillator, kept Count Raymone Garete, Seuir Brock Rault, Brother Candle, and their companions in Khaurene all winter. And a hard wintef it was, out where the nobility squabbled. Hungry peasants flooded Khaurene. Serfs deserted estates where men were bonded to the soil. Their masters were too busy to hunt them down. They joined the bandits in the hills, became low-grade mercenaries, or drifted into the cities where they lived by their wits. Meaning many became wood to be hewn by the headsman's ax.

Count Raymone chafed. He pleaded. He received letters almost daily begging him to come home. The best he could do in the face of Tormond's intransigence was issue a patent to his cousin Bernardin Amberchelle authorizing him to take all steps necessary to maintain order and defend Antieux.

Brother Candle was appalled. Bernardin Amberchelle was an animal. He was stupid, vicious, and a stranger to conscience. "Your Lordship! You can't… Anyone but Bernardin!"

"Because he's an atheist? Or because he's a murderous lunatic?"

"Yes. That."

"But that makes him perfect."

"What?"

"He'll only kill people he doesn't like."

"Your Lordship, it isn't a joke."

"He'll be savage but he'll do more good than harm. And I'll look grand by comparison when I get back. Even my enemies will be glad to see me."

Brother Candle shook his head at the sheer cruel cynicism of the man.

"Bernardin won't be out of control. He has a certain low craft. And he does listen when I explain clearly. Nobody will take it in the neck who didn't ask for it."

Brother Candle was not mollified.

Brother Candle met Sir Eardale in the silencing room the day before he left Khaurene. The knight from Santerin did nothing to hide this meeting. "It doesn't matter anymore," he explained. "The cause is lost."

"No cause is lost while we don't despair."

"Despair has found a roost, Brother. With all its brothers and sisters."

"Then go home."

"I am home. I want your final thoughts before you leave."

Tormond had been adamant. Brother Candle was to stick to Count Raymone Garete like a rash. A rash of conscience.

"You've heard them, Sir Eardale. The Duke won't listen. There isn't much more that can be done."

The old knight grunted. "And our traitor?"

"Excuse me?" Stalling.

"Sublime's inside man. Who is he?"

The answer placed the Perfect Master squarely in the jaws of a fierce quandary. He had wrestled it for months. Pursuing the example set by the Great Vacillator.

Any action meant making a choice between friends.

Sir Eardale observed, "There are issues larger than the fates of a few men, Brother."

"Intellectually, yes." Emotionally, it remained a choice between men.

"The entire Connec…"

"I know, Sir Eardale. Poisoning the Duke is the moral equivalent to poisoning the End of Connec."

True. Both were almost moribund.

Dunn said, "Bries LeCroes is the villain. He's decided to ride the Brothen pony. He's been promised that he'll be Bishop of Khaurene if he keeps the Duke under control."

Brother Candle agreed. Bishop Clayto would be smashed for his long criticism of Sublime.

But Bries LeCroes was a friend. They had been through the Calziran Crusade together.

"I won't kill him," Dunn said. "Unless he finds it too difficult to relocate his conscience."

"You're going to turn him again?" Further admitting that the accusation was sound.

"I see an opportunity to castrate Rinpoche. And to plant an eye inside the local Society." The Society for Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy had become just "the Society," already. It had had little impact, locally. There were plenty of pro-Viscesment bullies to bust pro-Brothen skulls. "And to sabotage Sublime's Connecten ambitions."

Brother Candle continued to keep his own counsel.

Dunn said, "As you will, Brother. Though you must know what LeCroes's villainy might mean to you Maysaleans."

There was that, too.

"I can't fault your conclusion," he admitted. "But I couldn't work out the practical side. How was he getting the poison to the Duke?"

Dunn started to speak, thought better of it. He had his suspicions but did not want to share them. "God speed you safely to Antieux, Brother." He walked out.

Spring threatened its explosion of green. Count Raymone's party straggled into Antieux under the empty eyes of a dozen severed heads. Cousin Bernardin had done his work well.

Crowds came out, of course. The first folk seen were not as demonstrative as the Count might like. Among them, though, were men of such harsh countenance that they could only be Society hacks.

Brother Candle saw despair everywhere. Hope was not dead here, but ravens cast deep shadows as they circled down on its quivering body. Count Raymone's long absence had given misery time to breed.

Bries LeCroes had a larger, darker stain on his soul than Brother Candle had imagined.

Inside Antieux, near the citadel, the crowds were warmer. They cheered. The dark, cold fish of the Society were scarce. A chant began. It demanded Brothen Episcopal scalps. Youths set fire to straw effigies wearing signs identifying them as Sublime V, Morcant Farfog, Mathe Richenau and Helton Jael.

"Who is Helton Jael?" Brock Rault asked.

Jael was the current senior brother of the Society locally. He had just arrived, to replace Icate Dermot, who had gone missing. Dermot himself had replaced someone else not

long ago.

I don't like this," Brother Candle told Rault. "It means big nouble."

"The fact that there's gonna be big trouble just blindsided you, eh, Brother?" Socia sneered. "Came at you right out of the blue?"

"I try to be optimistic, girl. I don't abandon hope. I keep praying that disaster can be averted. If men of goodwill want it so, it can be so."

"Name two. Not counting you."

Socia had a point, possibly without realizing it.

Everyone was crazy.

Everyone subscribed to an apocalyptic vision.

Was this one of those ages when mankind needed the purification of a holocaust?

Bernardin Amberchelle met his cousin amongst the flaming effigies. He grinned an idiot's grin. He was proud of his achievements. He expected praise.

The Raults left Antieux shortly. They did not expect to be gone long. There was to be a midsummer wedding for Count Raymone and Socia Rault.

Brother Candle left with the Raults but did not accompany them. He spent a few weeks finding the temper of the countryside. He was amazed. Bernardin Amberchelle's savagery had done more good than harm. Though those whose heads decorated Antieux's gates might disagree.

The Society no longer indulged in persecutions inside Antieux's wall. But Bernardin had felt little obligation to the rural folk. Maysaleans, in particular, were being persecuted. And so, as Brother Candle feared, neighbor turned against neighbor. Families who had been friendly for generations became estranged. In St. Jeules ande Neuis, Jhean the carpenter told him, "People are too frightened of those black crows. They're almost supernaturally scary."

Brother Candle got no chance to see that for himself. Whenever he came near crossing paths with the Society the rustic folk hustled him out of the way. Even local Brothen Episcopals had no use for Sublime's crows.

Count Raymone had matured indeed. He examined the situation before acting. He consulted his knights and leading men. Once he was certain where everything stood he sent for the Brothen Episcopal Archbishop of Antieux.

Antieux had been elevated to an archbishopric. One Persico Parthini had assumed the new mantle, replacing Bishop Mathe Richenau. A disease acquired whoring had driven Richenau into drooling madness.

Brother Candle returned in time to witness the first encounter between Count Raymone and the new regional lord of the Church. Parthini, technically, outranked Raymone. However, according to Raymone, he lacked the swords to make that stick.

The Archbishop arrived full of arrogant bluster. Count Raymone ignored him till the bluster faltered in the face of rising uneasiness. Bernardin Amberchelle's relentless, mad, hungry stare wore Parthini down.

Raymone stared through Parthini, hard. "Who is this barking dog? Why is he here, annoying me?"

Though Parthini had been announced, Raymone's chief herald said, "This is Persico Parthini, who styles himself Archbishop of Antieux."

"He's the Usurper's hound?"

"Yes, Your Lordship."

"You. False priest. You violate both canon and civil law by masquerading as a man of the cloth. But you have a guardian angel. A Maysalean Perfect has prevailed upon me to overlook your transgressions. For the moment. So I'll be merciful. You have until sundown, day after tomorrow, to remove yourself from Antieux. Your fellow brigands must accompany you. Those who don't leave the Connec will suffer those penalties faced by all thieves and robbers."

The Archbishop was both livid and speechless. And frightened. There was no doubt Count Raymone meant every word. And had a ferocious presence.

On the up side, Antieux's criminals served their sentences in their home city, helping with reconstruction. They were not sold down to Sheavenalle for service in the galleys. Nor to overseas mines.

Few prisoners survived the mines.

Count Raymone waved a hand. Functionaries surrounded Parthini, hustled him away.

Brother Candle asked, "Wasn't that a little harsh? Not to mention disrespectful?"

"You asked me not to kill him. I gave you what you wanted. Don't go all woman on me and keep asking for more and more."

Brother Candle opened his mouth to argue. He shut it. He had vexed Raymone enough.

The Count smiled slyly as he turned to the next item on his calendar.

Brother Candle understood that smile the moment he left the citadel.

Cousin Bernardin and a dozen henchmen were putting up whipping posts in front of the ruined cathedral. They had two customers ready to serve. Both wore the austere black of the Society. Brother Candle sidled over.

"What did these men do?"

"They took possession of property that didn't belong to them. After the Count ordered them to leave Antieux."

Definitely Society, then. Who would have had no chance to hear about Raymone's order to Archbishop Parthini. To whom they did not report directly, anyway.

Thus Raymone's wicked smile.

It took only a small investment of imagination to fathom Raymone's scheme. While Brother Candle roamed the countryside the Count had been gathering trustworthy men. Now he was ready to assert himself.

The prisoners received a dozen lashes and orders to quit Antieux instantly. Whatever they claimed to own was forfeit.

Raymone's partisans launched a sweep that collected both mundane villains and Society crows. Few got the chance to defend themselves. The more hated crows received hard labor sentences.

The latest chief of the Society mission had more confidence and courage than was good for him. But he was new, too.

Inwood Bente had replaced Helton Jael after the latter's sudden and mysterious disappearance or desertion. He refused to believe these provincials would dare defy the Brothen Church, or that most of them considered that Church a foreign criminal conspiracy. So when his followers began to suffer, he went looking for the Count, all filled with fury and bluster, having failed to understand the lessons of his predecessor's disappearance and the Archbishop's humiliation.

Brother Candle tried to warn him. Bente's associates would not let the Perfect near. They threw stones. They called him, "Damned!" and, "Heretic!" In front of witnesses who exaggerated considerably when Count Raymone took their testimony only minutes later.

Inwood Bente caught the Count at a particularly bad time. He had just received his first letter from Socia Rault. It had not said anything he wanted to hear.

Caron ande Lette had suffered severely during Seuir Brock's extended absence. An immediate turnaround and reunion was out of the question. There was too much work to do. The nuptials might have to be postponed.

Raymone knew who to blame.

Inwood Bente, who might have been an honest man, received thirty lashes for failing to control his underlings. With eight lashes to go he suffered a massive seizure.

"You're going to kill him," Brother Candle protested.

Count Raymone would not listen. "Brother, I want these vultures to shit themselves if Sublime even hints that he'll send them to the Connec. I want them absolutely convinced that even if their God is holding their hands, they're going to die. Badly. If they're lucky. If they're not, they'll suffer more cruelly here than they will in their Hell after Judgment Day."

Brother Candle shook his head sadly.

"You disagree?" Raymone gestured. His men cut Bente down. After the man received his final eight lashes.

"They're just as sure of their righteousness as you are, Your Lordship. Individuals can be intimidated. The movement can't."

"Then they'll be exterminated like any other vermin. We'll throw their carcasses to the hogs."

It was a harsh world. Yet that appalled Brother Candle.

Still, only men like Raymone Garete, with their backbones of iron, created history.

Count Raymone was not concentrating on what was happening in front of him.

"Brother, I would beg a boon." There was a conciliatory edge to the Count's voice.

"Your Lordship?"

"I want you to go to Caron ande Lette."

Duke Tormond wanted Brother Candle's breath kept hot on the back of Count Raymone's neck. To be his conscience. A pointless, hopeless enterprise.

The old pilgrim had sworn no oath to execute the Duke's wish.

"You've got it bad, don't you?"

"I've never met a woman like Socia."

"I fail to see what good I can do by being there. But the Seekers in that part of the Connec need encouragement." He had decided that the Connecten Perfect must combat national despair. If hope could not' be nurtured – kept alive in hidden places if need be – darkness would swamp the world.

"You'll go?"

"I'll go. But not really to press your suit. I can't play the lute or carry a tune, let alone put together a seductive song."

The Count grinned. The sudden light in his face made him look like a different man. "If that was how Socia had to be wooed I'd have no hope. My main musical talent is, I'm loud."

"I noticed."

"As most people have. I just want a voice on the scene, Master. To remind the Raults."

"Of course." Brother Candle suspected the brothers Rault were celebrating their coup still. Finding a prospective husband who did not flee as soon as he met the bride. And one of superior status at that.

"I hope you'll behave while I'm gone."

"I'll be no more disrespectful to my Duke than his other vassals are."

"Scary thought." Brother Candle wanted to caution Raymone against further irritating the Brothen Church but knew his breath would go to waste if he did.

That evening, during his meditations, Brother Candle wondered what great forces were moving him. Why did Providence want him back in that unhappy land on the verges of the Connec?

He was, he feared, being made over into a sort of historical apparition, something like a supernatural eyewitness to the last days of the Connecten idyll.