“We're not likely to get hit at South End,” said another. “It's too near Sharptooth, the roads are too steep.”
“Depends how well they're led,” Kessligh cautioned.
“Led?” Alaine said sharply. “This mob aren't led! They're a rabble, they'll come charging down wherever they will, the more direct the better.”
“We've reports of artillery, rams, shield walls, oil fires…” Kessligh shook his head. “It would be naive to assume this was not planned. No doubt the archbishop foresaw contingencies. There are plenty of provincial militia or ex-militia who could have been gathered for such a task, perhaps paid, perhaps persuaded by their priests on instruction from the archbishop…”
“You're talking about the Holy Father!” Alaine growled. “I'd watch my tongue if I were you, highlander.”
“I'm a soldier,” Kessligh replied. “I win battles. I care little for convention, I care little for holy doctrine, and I care least of all for your precious feelings, Alaine. I can help you all to win this battle. The question you have to ask yourselves is ‘How badly do I wish to win it?’”
“So you appoint yourself our commander now, do you?” Alaine snorted. “You who has barely set foot in this city but for the past few moons? Do you think to declare yourself emperor, is that it? Is this all it takes to demonstrate your undying love for Petrodor and its people? One battle, two moon's residence, and some pretty words?”
“You are hysterical,” Kessligh observed, “and you whine like a child.” Sasha had heard that tone all too often. It had the desired effect on Alaine-his eyes widened and his lips pressed thin with fury. “You have too little concern of our enemies, Alaine, and too much for your precious standing. I don't care a pile of horseshit for power in Petrodor. If we fail here, and the Army of Torovan is formed, I shall have no choice but to travel to the Saalshen Bacosh and continue the battle from there, far away from Petrodor. Then I'll be out of your hair entirely.
“I care only about the looming war. I fight to prevent it, and to save this light of freedom the serrin have offered us for future generations. Right now, that means saving the Nasi-Keth stronghold of Dockside Petrodor. Sirs, others may claim to love you more, or to know you better, but none can claim to serve you as well. I am the greatest warrior of the Nasi-Keth, and the greatest warrior in Lenayin, a land of great warriors. This is my uma. You know I do not idly boast.”
His stare swept the surrounding men. They did not reply. But then, they did not need to. Alaine could read the expressions on their faces. He spat in disgust, turned, and pushed his way toward the stairs. One of his two followers present turned to follow, but the other stayed. The man departing looked at his fellow and paused. Then came back, and retook his place in the circle. Alaine strode alone to the stairs, and vanished.
“Sasha, what more?” Kessligh resumed as though Alaine had never spoken at all.
Sasha tried to regather her thoughts. “Very few archers, no more than fifty for the whole South End. I tried to correct a few positions, but a lot of the roofs down there are sloped, they don't make good posts, especially not in the rain. I don't think they're well practised, either.”
“With the numbers that'll come,” said Kessligh, “they'll only have to aim into the middle of a road.”
“Oh…and one of their men had a good idea with fishing nets. He's weighted the ends and has found some women to throw them from high windows onto attackers below. I sent him to talk to a few people from midslope, to show them how it's done…”
“Our women should not be in the fight,” said one of the Docksiders.
Sasha raised her eyebrows. “Oh really.”
The man looked uncomfortable. “They are the mothers of our children,” he said stubbornly. “Our children should not be motherless.”
Sasha caught Kessligh's glance, reading his subtle expression instantly. It was the same argument as in Baerlyn. Some things in life are constant, Kessligh always told her. Now, once again, she saw his wisdom.
“I'm quite sure this mob will slaughter your women and eat your children, given half a chance,” Sasha retorted. “Refusing to fight back will only kill them faster.”
“Now look,” one of Alaine's supporters protested, “Alaine had a good point. These are Verenthanes, and you should watch how you speak of them.”
“They don't care!” Sasha retorted, pointing upslope toward the many trails of smoke. “To them, we're all pagans! I know this type well, believe it or not. In Lenayin, we've an entire north full of them. They say they're the only true Verenthanes and anyone who doesn't believe as they believe is pagan and deserves a horrid fate. Look around you, sirs. The Nasi-Keth amongst you follow the beliefs of un-human pagan demons! The rest of you associate with them! Your own archbishop has declared many times that associating with such evil pagan influences is a sin against the gods…why in the world do you continue to forgive him for that?”
Several men protested loudly, but Kessligh silenced them with a raised hand. Which was astonishing in itself. It was almost as much respect as he received from the commonfolk in Lenayin. So respectful the people become, Sasha thought sourly, when you hold their lives in your hands.
“What my uma means to say,” Kessligh said, with a faint edge to his voice, “ever so tactfully I'm sure, is that in these circumstances, one must separate the man from the faith. The archbishop, my friends, is not a god. He is a man, like us…or most of us…and as such, he is fallible. You may believe it is a sin to question the gods. But it is no sin, surely, to question the man.”
“How are we to know the will of the gods,” came a defiant retort, “if not through the words of their appointed representative?”
“That is what the serrin call ‘the eternal question,’” Kessligh replied with the faintest of smiles. “Life, my friends, is full of these eternal questions. Questions without answers, but ones that must be continually asked nonetheless. Truth is elusive. The archbishop cannot alone possess it, for he is just a man. Perhaps the answer lies in numbers. No one man can know all truths. That is why we have councils, so that many individual truths may work against each other, and find a common truth. Perhaps it is through our collective efforts that the gods shall reveal their truths. After all, we are the gods’ greatest creations. Where else should their truths lie, if not in all of us, together?”
It silenced them for a while. Not that any were entirely convinced, Sasha reckoned. More that they realised it would take a great deal longer than the time available to reason such debates to a conclusion, and there were many more important things afoot.
“Crazy,” Sasha summarised once the men had left, leaving her and Kessligh to observe the preparations on the road below. “We're about to be overrun by a bloodthirsty mob of murderers, and we're arguing faith and philosophy.”
“It's not so crazy,” Kessligh said mildly. “They need to be certain who the enemy is. If they question the need to fight now, morale could suffer.”
“Hard to imagine anyone not seeing a need to fight,” said Sasha, gazing at the smoke plumes on the slope.
“So far, they've only attacked serrin. Some have doubted the mobs will come down this far. They don't believe the reports of crowds chanting for the Shereldin Star.”
Sasha sighed. “Even now, they cling to their Holy Father. They can't bear to see him as an enemy.”
“There will be another archbishop one day. Perhaps he will be more amenable.”
“You're defending them?” Sasha raised an eyebrow at him. “Kessligh the disparager of all that is not rational and proper?”
Kessligh gazed up at the slope, his hands on the wet stone of the wall. “The problem, Sasha, is not what a person believes in. Verenthane, pagan, Lisan Skyworship, the Kazeri desert mystics-it's all the same, all have the potential to be equally good or bad. The problem is not what things are believed, the problem is how people choose to believe them.”
“Aye,” said Sasha, leaning on the wall beside him. Somewhere in the conversation, they'd begun speaking Lenay. It was a reflex of comfort. Of home. From below drifted the hubbub of foreign voices, the clatter of weapons, the banging of barred doors. From the slope, the smell of acrid smoke. “Serrin are so moderate. They never do anything to excess. But even a mountain mystic preaching peace, love and happiness could take it too far, couldn't he?”
Kessligh nodded. “On his own, the mystic is harmless. He holds no power, and so his ideals remain just ideals. But say he converts the king to his beliefs. The king says peace, love and happiness are now his command. What does he do to those who refuse to be happy? Burn them?”
“Val'er aie to'sho maal,” Sasha agreed. In Saalsi, “the attraction of opposites.” Or nearly. “Ideals are figurative. Politics are literal. Ideals expressed through politics become political, and lose their idealism. Or become the very opposite of what was intended.”
“Exactly.” Kessligh nodded, once and firmly. “They are opposites. That's why idealistic leaders are so dangerous. An ideal in a debate is a curiosity. Wielding a sword, it can become a nightmare. The literal and the figurative, the ideal and the practical, they negate each other, sometimes violently. To combine them is to mix serrin oils with fire.”
“But humans are most attracted to idealistic leaders,” Sasha said with a frown.
Kessligh smiled. “Another eternal question,” he said. “We believe in utopias. We think in absolutes. We should stop.”
“So much simpler to just fight the stupid fight,” Sasha muttered.
“Aye, but why fight at all, if you don't know why you're fighting?” Sasha made a face. “You understand more now than you did,” Kessligh said approvingly.
“All this time amongst serrin,” Sasha replied. “Errollyn's helped a lot. He and Rhillian are the only two serrin I've met who can say what they think without tying their tongues in knots.”
“Where is Errollyn?”
“Down at South End, helping their archers prepare.” She stared grimly at nothing. “Gerrold and his supporters have gone to help the talmaad. Errollyn feels guilty he does not do the same. He doesn't admit it, but I can tell.”
“We can't spare the people, Sasha,” Kessligh said sombrely. He stared at the fire of Palopy House, high on the ridgeline above. “It's a long climb up there. We could lose people on the way up and back. Only our best fighters would be useful fighting in the open streets and if we had losses, or became entangled or cut off by the mobs, Dockside would be vulnerable. Rhillian knew that when she embarked on her present course.”
“You…” Sasha blinked at him. “You didn't know this would happen, though?”
“Saalshen has always been vulnerable to human enemies in Petrodor,” said Kessligh. “Steiner or Maerler, or some combination of smaller houses, could always have wiped them out if they tried. Their main protection has never been their swords, Sasha, but their trade. Even now, all the reports are that Steiner and their allies remain firmly locked up behind their gates, despite some in the mobs calling on them to come out and fight the serrin. The Saalshen trade is too valuable. Steiner is now caught between offending Saalshen, and offending the archbishop.
“Rhillian did not count on the mobs, Sasha. Inside Petrodor, most of the populace are more or less controlled by those who owe some gratitude to Saalshen. But on the fringes, in the slums, and in Riverside in particular, the patachis have little sway. The archbishop himself has always been constrained by the divided loyalties of his lower priests, but now that balance too has swung. I never thought it would happen exactly like this. But I have warned Rhillian many times that this control that the patachis exert upon the people is merely a temporary illusion, and that it's only the wealthy, and the Nasi-Keth, who feel they owe Saalshen anything. This is not about faith, Sasha, it's all about power-faith is merely the tool by which power is attained. Like you said, faith may indeed be good, but the nature of power is ever unchanging. It corrupts any goodness faith may have had. Rhillian was always too clever for her own good, she always saw the complications, but missed the simplicities. Amongst humans, power rules all. Only now, perhaps, does she grasp what that means.”