Preaching had never excited Rhavas. Studying the struggle between the good god and his wicked rival had always interested him much more than trying to put that struggle and what it meant across for layfolk. He'd never given bad sermons. No one as well organized and generally capable as he was could do that. But he'd been competent, not inspired, and he'd always felt the lack.
Now, suddenly, inspiration struck. When he spoke to Skopentzana from the pulpit in favor of Maleinos and against Stylianos, he spoke from the heart, not from the head. He used the same theme with his congregation as he had with Himerios and Ingegerd, but with fresh and vivid details thrown in at every sermon.
He found himself looking out at the sea of faces in Skopentzana's main temple as if they were so many pagan Halogai and he was trying to convert them to the worship of the lord with the great and good mind. (In reality, many priests had tried to convert Halogaland. A lot of them ended up as martyrs to their faith. Most of the Halogai remained stubbornly unconverted—Ingegerd marked an exception, not a rule.)
"Will you deny—can you deny—that the usurper seeks to overthrow the natural order of things?" Rhavas thundered from the pulpit, slamming down his fist. "Can you deny this is nothing but wickedness? Can you deny it leads only to the ice?" He stared out challengingly at the worshipers.
Zautzes was there. So was Himerios. If Ingegerd was, Rhavas couldn't see her; women had a separate gallery, upstairs from the men on the ground floor of the temple, which latticework screened off from prying eyes.
Neither the eparch nor the garrison commander presumed to quarrel with Rhavas or to shout out Stylianos' name. Nor did anyone else. Most of the people who came to Skopentzana's main temple were plump and prosperous and middle-aged; most of them would be just as well pleased to see things go on as they always had.
Skopentzana boasted more than one temple, of course. So did any Videssian city of decent size. Spires topped with gilded sun-balls sprang up from rooftops in every neighborhood. Other priests, men of lower rank in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, presided over them.
Everyone must say the same thing, Rhavas thought. All of them must tell their congregations that Maleinos is the rightful Avtokrator and Stylianos only a rebel and a usurper. This is the truth; it must be made plain.
The prelate's fervor worked its way into the usual prayers and hymns, too. Because of it, the congregation responded with more enthusiasm than they mostly showed. For one of the rare times in his life, Rhavas felt the power of his preaching. There had been times when he took less enjoyment from wine.
After reciting Phos' creed for the last time, he dismissed the worshipers. They filed out of the temple buzzing among themselves. Rhavas couldn't remember the last time he'd heard that kind of excitement among them. He couldn't remember if he ever had.
"Good sermon, very holy sir," said a man with a robe full of ornate—and expensive—embroidery. "You really sounded like you meant it."
"I always mean it," Rhavas said. That anyone could doubt his sincerity wounded him to the heart.
Plainly, the congregant had no idea he'd offended. "Maybe you do," he said, "but it doesn't always have that old oomph, if you know what I mean." The noise he made sounded as if he'd just been kicked in the belly. "You give it that old oomph"—there it was again—"and folks won't forget it."
"Oomph," Rhavas echoed in hollow tones. The man nodded. Rhavas fought the impulse to pound his head against the polished cedar of the pulpit. He knew how long and hard he labored over his sermons. He might not have been an inspiring speaker, but his logic was always clear and straightforward, his theology impeccably orthodox. And none of that had really struck home with his audience? Evidently not. Passion and vigor counted for more with them.
I could have preached for Stylianos instead, he realized. I could have called down anathemas on my cousin's head. If I sounded excited while I was doing it, people would have praised me, the same as they're praising me now.
He wondered why he'd spent so many years poring over Phos' sacred scriptures and the commentaries generation upon generation of theologians had written about them. Was that what made a successful priest? Again, evidently not. He might have done better joining a troupe of actors and mountebanks. That he postured in front of a crowd seemed more important than what he postured about.
Half a dozen more people praised his preaching as they left the temple. Their words left him colder by the moment. Stylianos? I could have called on them to reverence Skotos! And if I did it with passion enough, they might obey. He shivered. Surely the lord with the great and good mind would never let such a travesty of justice come to pass.
Soothsayers in Skopentzana were three for a copper, as they were in any other city in the Empire of Videssos. Like the witches and hedge wizards who sold fertility spells for livestock and love philtres and charms sworn to make an enemy itch in embarrassing places, many of them—maybe even most of them—were frauds. Some, though, some had a certain talent.
In all the years Rhavas had been in Skopentzana, he'd never felt the need to consult a soothsayer. He and the eparch had worked together to catch some of the worst frauds and send them out of town with stripes on their backs. A man couldn't hang around the edges of magic, though, without learning a little something about who was reliable as well as who was not. And so, when the prelate decided to learn what he could of things that lay ahead, he didn't hesitate. He summoned a certain Eladas.
The soothsayer was a man a few years older than Rhavas—closer to fifty than forty. His robe was of good wool, and clean. So many such people were desperately poor, which of itself disqualified them in Rhavas' eyes. If they couldn't see the future well enough to do themselves any good, how could they hope to help anyone else? Eladas passed that test.
He passed another immediately thereafter. The first words out of his mouth after he was ushered into Rhavas' study were, "Very holy sir, prophesying about the imperial succession is a capital crime. I do not break that law, nor would I ever. I tell you this only because there is civil war in the land. I do not ask what you would ask of me." He did not say he did not know.
"I will not make you worry about the headsman's sword. I will not make myself liable to it, either," Rhavas assured him. He'd intended to see whether Eladas would prophesy along those lines, but could hardly blame the man for ruling it out straightaway.
Eladas politely inclined his head. "You are gracious." His face was ordinary enough—except for his eyes. They were large and dark and haunted. Rhavas could well believe they saw things most men would never notice. Eladas sipped the wine a junior priest brought him. After that young man left the room, the soothsayer asked, "What would you know, then?"
Rhavas smiled, not least in pride at his own cleverness. "I hope to learn from you whether I shall become ecumenical patriarch."
"I see," Eladas said. No doubt he did, too. If Maleinos held the throne, his cousin's chances of promotion were excellent. If Stylianos overthrew the present Avtokrator, Rhavas would be lucky to stay where he was. But inquiring about the patriarchal succession wasn't against the law. Eladas sipped from the winecup again. Then he set it down and spoke in brisk, businesslike tones: "Give me your hand."
"Certainly." Rhavas held it out. Eladas took it between his own hands. They were warm and firm and dry: no clammy touch here, as soothsayers were often said to have.
No nonsense here, either. Rhavas also liked that; he was and always had been a man with no use for nonsense. Eladas chanted no mystic and probably senseless charms. He just studied Rhavas' hand as intently as the prelate might study a passage in the scriptures.