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“I don’t mean to be disingenuous, sir. I know your mother was caught up in the matter—”

“Yes, and I had to send the Republican Guards to wrench her out of your grasp, just so we could be together on Christmas.”

“And I apologize for that. I’m happy to say, the Writ against her has been annulled. She’s free to come and go as she likes.”

That took some of the wind from Julian’s sails, though he remained wary. “I think I’ll keep her on the Palace grounds for now, Deacon Hollingshead. I’m not sure she’s entirely safe, elsewhere.”

“That’s up to you, of course.”

“And I thank you for the annulment. But she’s not the only one under arrest as a result of the affair.”

“Ah—well, that raises a different and more troublesome question. Your beloved mother could hardly have been part of any conspiracy, could she?— either ecclesiastical or political. That’s self-evident. As for any other persons, they’ll have to undergo the customary trial if they want to establish their innocence.”

“I’m talking about a woman who is currently my guest on the Palace grounds.”

Here Deacon Hollingshead looked directly at me—the first and last glance he gave me during this entire encounter. I expected to find either open hatred or concealed shame in his face, but his features were entirely relaxed and indifferent. It was the look an alligator might give to a rabbit who stopped to drink from his pool, if the alligator had recently dined and didn’t consider another meal worth taking.

He turned back to Julian, frowning. “Mr. President, don’t misunderstand me,” he said. “Mistakes happen. I know that—I freely admit it. We made a mistake in the case of your mother, and we corrected it as soon as it was brought to our attention. But the Dominion is a rock—immovable—when it comes to matters of principle.”

“I think we both know better than that, Deacon Hollingshead.”

“Excuse me, no. If you and I were ordinary men with a worldly disagreement, some compromise might be worked out. But this is an ecclesiastical matter above all else. The threat of the Unaffiliated Churches isn’t trivial or ephemeral. We take it very seriously, and I’m speaking here for the entire Dominion Council.”

“In other words you can find a way to excuse a high Eupatridian, but not a common person.”

Hollingshead was silent for a moment.

“I hope you don’t doubt my loyalty,” he said at last, in a flat and uninflected voice. “My loyalty to the Nation is tempered only by my faith. Eventually the whole world will come under the government of the Dominion of Jesus Christ, and after a thousand years of Christian rule the Savior Himself will return to make His Kingdom on Earth. [This is the core doctrine of the Dominion, to which every participating Church must commit itself.]

I believe that revealed truth as wholeheartedly as a man believes in his own existence. I hope you believe it, too. I know you’ve made statements in the past that could be interpreted as skeptical, even blasphemous—”

“I doubt that you know any such thing,” said Julian.

“Well, sir, I have sworn affidavits from a Dominion Officer, a Major Lampret, who was attached to your unit during the Saguenay Campaign, and he testifies to that charge.”

“It’s a charge , is it? But I don’t think you ought to take Major Lampret so seriously. He did a lamentable job of discharging his duties in battle.”

“Perhaps he did; or perhaps he was defamed by jealous officers. What I’m telling you, sir, is that your faith has been impugned in some circles, and it might be a good idea to publicly demonstrate your confidence and trust in the Dominion.”

“And if I do that, if I make some fawning statement to the press, will Mrs. Calyxa Hazzard be redeemed from her Ecclesiastical Writ?”

“That remains to be seen. I believe the chances are good.”

“But the Writ remains in effect until I make such a gesture?”

Deacon Hollingshead was wise enough not to affirm a positive threat. “Mrs. Hazzard can remain on the Palace grounds, as far as we’re concerned, until her child is brought to term and a trial can be arranged.”

“You insist on a trial!”

“The evidence against her is substantial—it warrants an airing.”

“A trial , and then what? Do you really propose to imprison her?”

“According to the records we’ve obtained,” Hollingshead said, “it wouldn’t be the woman’s first time in prison.”

* * *

The rest of the session was a blank to me—all I could think about was Calyxa, and it took a profound exercise of personal will to restrain myself from leaping at the Deacon and taking his throat in my hands. Hollingshead was a large man, and I might not have succeeded in choking him to death; but it would have been very satisfying to make the attempt, and I gave it much thought.

Julian cut the meeting short and asked a Republican Guard to escort Deacon Hollingshead and his man off the grounds. Then he told me to take a deep breath, or else I might explode like a diving Tipman.

“He means to keep the Writ on Calyxa!” I said.

“So he says. But she’s safe for now, Adam, and we have enough time to work up a strategy.”

“Strategy—that sounds too flimsy! It’s as if he’s holding her hostage!”

“That’s exactly what he’s doing. He means her to be a hostage, and even if I capitulate I expect she’ll remain a hostage, as a check on my behavior.”

“What good is strategy , if that’s the case?”

“Clearly,” said Julian, tugging his yellow beard, which made the scar on his cheek dance to the motion, “what we need to do is to take a hostage of our own.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that, and he wouldn’t explain. He asked me to keep the details of the meeting secret (especially from Calyxa) until he had worked out certain notions about how to proceed. He said he was determined that the Writ would not stand, and he assured me Calyxa would be safe.

I tried very hard to believe him.

* * *

On January 1st, 2175, a detachment of Republican Guards surrounded the ancient building on Fifth Avenue that served as the Dominion’s warehouse of forbidden secular books and documents. They forcibly evicted the Dominion curator and his staff and took possession of the building. In an official decree published in that day’s Spark and other city newspapers, Julian announced that “security concerns” had made it necessary to “federalize” the Dominion Archives. “The Dominion’s effort to protect the public from the errors of the Secular Ancients by barring the doors of this great Library, while laudable, has become unproductive in the modern era, when knowledge itself is a weapon of war,” he wrote. “And so I have ordered the Army to secure that institution, and in time to make it accessible to both military and civilian scholars, in order to ensure the continued success and prosperity of these United States.”

We had our counter-hostage, in other words; only it was a building, not a person.

Hollingshead sent Julian a fiery protest on Dominion letterhead, which arrived by courier the following day. Julian read it, smiling. Then he crumpled it and tossed it over his shoulder.

3

The months between Christmas and Easter, though I spent them mainly on the grounds of the Executive Palace and under unnerving circumstances, were nevertheless happy ones in many ways.

Mainly this was because I could be close to Calyxa. She remained under the Ecclesiastical Writ, and could not leave the enclosure, but her pregnancy would have kept her largely confined in any case; and we had Julian’s assurances that he would shelter her from the Deacon’s henchmen, and that she would receive the best medical attention doctors of the Eupatridian class could provide.