It was true that the library was deserted. The cavernous place resounded to their voices and the patient dripping of the ancient water-clock in a corner. They turned the triple locks of the massive door behind them—it was always a source of pride to Albrec, a pride that he immediately chastised himself for, that he carried on his person the keys to one of the great libraries of the world—and, tucking their hands in their habits, they journeyed out into the cold clearness of the day.
“What is it about this Hebrian Prelate that has the monastery in such a fuss?” Albrec asked irritably. The broad corridors they traversed were crammed with fast-walking, gabbling monks. Everyone, from novices to friars, seemed to be on the move today, and twice they had to stop and bow to an Inceptine monsignore.
“Don’t you know, Albrec? By the Saints, you spend so much time with your head buried in the spines of books that you let the events of the real world roll over you like water.”
“Books are real, too,” Albrec said obstinately. It was an old argument. “They tell of what happened in the world, its history and its composition. That is real.”
“But this is happening now, Albrec, and we are part of it. Great events are afoot, and we are lucky enough to be alive to see them happen.”
Avila’s eyes were shining, and Albrec looked at him with a curious mixture of affection, exasperation and awe. Avila was a younger son of the Dampiers of Perigraine. He had gone into the Inceptines as a matter of course, and no doubt his rise in the order would be meteoric. He had charisma, energy and was devastatingly attractive. Albrec was never sure how the two of them had become friends. It had something to do with the ideas they pummelled each other with, the arguments that they flung back and forth like balls between them. Half a dozen novices were hopelessly in love with Avila, but Albrec was sure that the young noble was not even aware of them. There was a curious innocence about him which had survived the rough and tumble of his first years here. On the other hand, no one could play the Inceptine game better than he. Albrec could not help but feel that his friend was wasted here. Avila should have been a leader of men, an officer in his country’s army, instead of a cleric tucked away in the hills.
“Tell me, then, what I should know in my ignorance,” Albrec said.
“This Himerius is the champion of the Inceptines at the moment. Hebrion has a young and irreligious king on the throne, one who has scant respect for the Church, I am told, and who regularly consorts with wizards. Abrusio has become a haven for all sorts of heretics, foreigners and sorcerers. Himerius has instigated a purge of the city and is coming here to try to persuade the other Prelates to do likewise.”
Albrec screwed up his pointed nose. “I don’t like it. Everyone is panicked after Aekir. It smells like politics to me.”
“Of course it does! My dear fellow, the Church is leaderless. Macrobius is dead and we no longer have a High Pontiff. This Himerius is establishing his credentials as soon as he can, putting himself forward as the sort of strong leader that the Church needs at a time like this—one not afraid to cross swords with kings. Everyone is already talking of him as Macrobius’ successor.”
“Everyone except his fellow Prelates, I take it.”
“Oh, naturally! There will be deals done, though, with the Vicar-General brokering the whole thing. He is barred of course from the Pontiffship by virtue of his present office, but I do not doubt that he will have another Inceptine at the Church’s head in a short while.”
“Over a century, it has been, since we have had a non-Inceptine High Pontiff,” Albrec said, stroking his brown Antillian habit reflectively. “And of all the Prelates, only Merion of Astarac is not an Inceptine, but an Antillian like myself.”
“The Ravens have always run things their way,” Avila said cheerfully. “It’ll never be any different.”
They walked out of the cloisters and began toiling up the cobbled streets of the town that formed the fringes of the monastery. The buildings here were tall, leaning over the road, and the streets were clean. The entire place had been tidied up for the Synod on the orders of the Vicar-General.
Clerics clogged the streets, climbing higher so as to be the first to catch sight of the man who was favourite for the Pontiffship. Avila helped Albrec along as the little monk puffed and sweated up the hill. Their breath clouded around them in the cold air, and they could see the snow on the higher slopes above them.
“There,” Avila said, satisfied.
They stood on the ridge that curled protectively about the south-west of Charibon. The slope around them was black with people, religious and lay alike. They could stare down and see the entire, beautiful profile of Charibon with its towers and spires kindled by the autumn sunlight, and the inland sea of Tor glittering off to their right.
“I see him,” Avila said.
Albrec squinted. “Where?”
“Not there, you ninny, along the northern road. He’s coming by way of Almark, remember. See the escort of Knights? There must be close on two hundred of them. Himerius will be in the second coach, the one flying the scarlet Hebrian flag. They’re certainly putting on a show for him. I’d say he had the Pontiffship in the palm of his hand already.”
One of their neighbors, a hard-faced priest in the plain robe of a Friar Mendicant, turned at Avila’s words.
“What’s that you say? Himerius as Pontiff?”
“Why yes, Brother. That seems to me to be the way of it.”
“And you have looked deeply into these matters, have you?”
Avila’s face seemed to stiffen. It was with his full aristocratic hauteur that he replied, “I have a mind. I can examine the evidence and form an opinion as well as the next man.”
The Friar Mendicant smiled, then nodded to the approaching cavalcade. “If yon Prelate assumes the High Pontiffship you may no longer be permitted the luxury of an opinion, lad. And many innocent folk will no longer possess the luxury of life. I doubt if that was the way of the Blessed Ramusio when he was on this earth, but it is the way of your brother Inceptines these days, with their Knights Militant, their purges and their pyres. Where in the Book of Deeds does it say you must murder your fellow man if he differs from you? Inceptines! You are God’s gorecrows, flapping round the pyres you have created.”
The grey-clad Friar turned at that and stumped off, elbowing his way roughly through the gathering throng. Avila and Albrec stared after him, speechless.
“He’s mad,” Albrec said at last. “The Friars are always an eccentric lot, but he’s lost his mind entirely.”
Avila stared down the hillside to where the Prelate of Hebrion’s retinue was thundering along the muddy northern road, raising a spray of water as it came.
“Is he? I cannot ever remember a tale of Ramusio destroying someone who did not believe in him. Maybe he is right.”
“He struck down the demon-possessed women of Gebrar,” Albrec pointed out.
“Yes,” Avila said absently, “there is that.” Then he grinned suddenly with his accustomed good humour. “Which is another reason why clerics do not marry. Women have too many demons in them! I believe all clerics have mothers, though.”
“Hush, Avila. Someone will hear.”
“Someone will hear, yes. And what if they do, Albrec? What would happen? What if they chanced upon that cache of books you have saved? Do you ever wonder what would happen if they did? We had a mage on my father’s staff when I was a boy. He used to do tricks with light and water, and no one could heal a broken limb faster than he. He became my tutor. Is that the sort of man the Church wants to destroy? Why?”
“For the sake of the Saint, Avila, will you be quiet? You’ll get us into all manner of trouble.”
“But what manner?” Avila asked. “What manner, Albrec? When does a conversation, an idea, lead to the pyre? What must one do to earn such a death?”
“Oh shut up, Avila. I won’t argue with you, not here and now.” Albrec looked round with increasing nervousness. Some of the nearby clerics were turning to listen to Avila’s voice.
Avila smiled again. “All right, Brother. We’ll chase this hare later. Maybe Brother Mensio can help us out.”
Albrec said nothing. Avila loved to carry a conversation to the edge of things—to the limits of orthodoxy. It was worrying. Albrec sometimes thought that the gap between what Avila believed and what he said was widening and even he, the nobleman’s friend, could not say for sure just how deep was the gulf between what appeared to be and what was in the younger man’s mind.
The Prelate’s cavalcade splashed by, one pale hand waving graciously from the depths of the coach at the assembled crowd. Then it was gone. There was a feeling of anticlimax.
“He could at least have got out and given us his blessing,” a monk next to them grumbled.
Avila slapped the man on the back. “That was his blessing, Brother! Didn’t you see his fingers tracing the Sign of the Saint as he galloped past? A swift blessing, it’s true, but none the worse for that.”
The monk, an Inceptine novice with the white hood of a first-year student, beamed broadly.
“So I’ve been blessed by the future Pontiff of the world. Thanks, Brother. I’d never have noticed. You have good eyes.”
“And a lively imagination,” Albrec muttered while he and Avila made their way back down into Charibon. The bells of the cathedral were tolling the third hour and the flocks of monks were returning to their respective colleges for the morning meal. Albrec’s stomach gave a premonitory twinge at the thought.
“Why do you do such things?” he asked his friend.
“You are strangely snappish this morning, Brother. Why do I do it? Because it pleases me, and it brightened that novice’s day. By tomorrow the tale will be round his college how Himerius endowed them with his personal blessing, much good may it do them.”
“Avila, I do believe you are in danger of becoming a cynic.”
“Maybe. Sometimes I think that every man who wears this black habit must be either a pious fanatic or a cold-blooded schemer.”
“Or a nobleman’s younger son. There are a lot of those, don’t forget.”
Avila grinned at his diminutive friend. “Come, Antillian. Will you dine with the noblemen’s sons this morning? If anyone points a finger at your mud-coloured habit I’ll say you’re a scholar come to use our library. And our refectory is renowned, as you well know.”
“I know. All right. So long as you fend off the antics of the novices. I’m in no mood for a bread fight this morning.”
The two of them picked a path down the cobbled streets into the monastery proper, the tall Inceptine and the plump little Antillian. No one looking at the unlikely pair could have guessed that between them they would one day change the course of the world.
T HE bells of the cathedral tolled the hours of Charibon away. The inhabitants of the monastery-city said their devotions, ate their meals and read their offices in fast mumbles, but in the splendidly appointed quarters of the Vicar-General a more select company sat at their ease and sipped the Candelarian wine that had come with the meal. They had pushed their chairs back from the long table, said their thanks to God for the bounty which had presented itself before them and were now enjoying the fire burning in the huge hearth to one side. Five men, the most powerful religious leaders in the world.