He also, Green Valley thought with a surge of sympathy whose warmth surprised even him just a bit, looked absolutely and totally exhausted. The baron compared the man before him to the imagery Owl had captured of him two years before, and there was at least ten years’ difference between them.
“Baron Green Valley,” the archbishop said.
“Archbishop Arthyn,” the baron replied, and bowed rather more deeply than simple courtesy required. Arthyn Zagyrsk’s eyebrows rose, despite his formidable self-control, and Green Valley straightened. “I’ve been looking forward to this meeting for some time, Your Eminence.”
“Indeed?” Zagyrsk smiled bleakly. “I don’t suppose I should be surprised. Lake City is—was—the last provincial capital in Mother Church’s hands. And I imagine I’m the last of her archbishops in Siddarmark. The end of an epoch, one might say.”
“One might,” Green Valley agreed. “And I won’t pretend I don’t feel a certain … satisfaction in knowing Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s invasion and the butchery it perpetrated on the Republic is about to be brought to a crushing end.” His brown eyes were far bleaker than the archbishop’s smile had been. “There isn’t enough justice in the world to compensate for the suffering, anguish, and death that man has inflicted, Your Eminence.”
“No. No, I don’t suppose there is.” Zagyrsk shook his head, then squared his shoulders. “And I’m sure ‘justice’ figures into your instructions about any of Mother Church’s prelates who fall into your custody, My Lord. I’m prepared to submit to whatever your Emperor and Empress—and the Lord Protector, of course—have decreed. I would beg for mercy, or at least leniency, for those like Father Avry who had no choice but to obey me as their ecclesiastic superior.”
Father Avry’s face tightened as if he wanted to reject Zagyrsk’s words, but Green Valley shook his head before the Chihirite could speak.
“I don’t think you quite understand, Your Eminence. Yes, I feel an enormous satisfaction at having liberated Lake City from Zhaspahr Clyntahn and his butchers. And I do have instructions concerning you. But those instructions are to inform you that Emperor Cayleb, Empress Sharleyan, and Lord Protector Greyghor are fully aware of how long and how hard you, Father Avry, and Father Ignaz fought to mitigate the excesses of the Inquisition. They know you insisted on proper food and medical care for the concentration camp prisoners assigned to forced labor in Tarikah. They know you opposed the Inquisitor General. They know Father Ignaz smuggled over eight hundred children out of Camp St. Tailahr in clear defiance of his direct orders from his own superiors. And they know how hard—and how successfully—you fought to keep the Inquisition away from the citizens of Tarikah Province. You couldn’t prevent what happened elsewhere, Your Eminence, and you couldn’t stop what the Sword of Schueler did to the people of your archbishopric. But you did every single thing you could to protect them—Reformist, as well as Temple Loyalist—from the very beginning. So, yes, I do have instructions concerning you. And those instructions are to leave you here, in your archbishopric, doing what you’ve done so well for so long. Whether or not it will be possible for you to remain permanently, once this jihad ends, is another question, but the Writ says the sheep will know the good shepherd, and so do Their Majesties and the Lord Protector.”
.VI.
The Temple,
City of Zion,
The Temple Lands.
“I suppose you’re still going to insist Walkyr was the best man for his command, Allayn?” Zhaspahr Clyntahn asked unpleasantly.
The heavyset Grand Inquisitor leaned forward, forearms planted on the conference table as he thrust his face belligerently in Allayn Maigwair’s direction. Rhobair Duchairn sat on the opposite side of the table, beside Maigwair, and the pile of reports and memos in front of him was almost as tall as the one in front of the captain general. Zahmsyn Trynair sat at the head of the table, because it was nominally his responsibility to chair their meetings this five-day, but the table in front of him was almost completely bare and it was painfully obvious he would have preferred to be just about anywhere else.
He wasn’t about to attempt to exert any actual control over Clyntahn, at any rate. He simply sat there, and Maigwair gave him a disgusted look before he turned his attention to Clyntahn.
“Given the fact that Gustyv’s managed to hold his army together despite getting the shit hammered out of it by two entire heretic armies, yes, I’m going to do exactly that,” he said, meeting the other vicar’s belligerent gaze levelly. “He’s managing to retreat, Zhaspahr, when a lot of armies would have broken and run, and Rhobair here—” the captain general twitched his head in Duchairn’s direction “—has actually managed to get Ahubrai Zheppsyn’s band—that’s another thirty thousand men and close to two hundred guns—forward to join Klemynt Gahsbahr at Glydahr. That brings the Glydahr garrison back up to almost forty thousand, despite the troops he pulled out in response to Rainbow Waters’ request, and Zheppsyn and Gahsbar are continuing to extend and improve the entrenchments Silken Hills left when he moved south.” Maigwair emphasized the last four words ever so slightly. “And in the meantime, Gustyv is building a solid line between St. Vyrdyn and the headwaters of the Sair.”
“A ‘solid line’ over three hundred miles north of his original positions!” Clyntahn pointed out nastily. “Chihiro preserve us from more military triumphs like that! And then there’s the little matter of what happened at Mercyr, isn’t there?”
“I won’t pretend that doesn’t hurt,” Maigwair conceded. “If we’d had more dragoons forward it might not have happened, but without a bigger mounted force of his own, Brygham couldn’t prevent Eastshare from getting his mounted infantry around behind him. And after that, there was no way he could have gotten the bulk of his troops out, whatever he’d done. As it is, he’s still putting up one hell of a fight and locking down that part of the high road. Would I rather have his band out of the trap and available to Walkyr? Damned right I would. But he and his men have nothing to be ashamed of. For that matter, they’re still accomplishing the objective they were assigned in the first place!”
Clyntahn made a disgusted sound, but he didn’t pursue it, Duchairn noted. That probably had something to do with the fact that Lainyl Brygham was the son of one of his longtime allies on the Council of Vicars. He also happened to be a capable commander who’d shown plenty of bulldog tenacity, however, as he was demonstrating yet again even now, and appointing him to command one of Walkyr’s bands had been one of Maigwair’s more inspired personnel decisions.
The captain general was undoubtedly right about how Brygham had ended up trapped at Mercyr, and the fact that Maigwair had tried so hard for so long to build a mounted force which might match—or at least offset—the Imperial Charisian Army’s mobility probably didn’t make the captain general feel one bit better. But, by the same token, mounted infantry was scarcely at its best amid the dense trees of the Great Tarikah Forest, and Brygham had refused to panic. Instead, he’d settled in with just over forty percent of his original infantry—and all his artillery—to hold his blocking position and deny the high road to the oncoming Siddarmarkian Army of the Sylmahn for as long as humanly possible. The remainder of his infantry had been ordered north to join Ahntohnyo Mahkgyl’s band at Blufftyn, banking on the forest to slow and hamper any pursuit. Unfortunately, only about a thousand of them had made it before Mahkgyl was forced to retreat; the rest had been cut off when Stohnar’s and Eastshare’s spearheads met at Blufftyn.