By Heresies Distressed (69 page)

If all was going according to plan, the attack on the convent would be beginning shortly, and he closed his eyes in a brief, silent, heartfelt prayer for the men out there in the gathering darkness who had accepted God's stern demands. The irony of the fact that such a brief time before he would have been horrified at the very thought of praying for success in a mission like this one wasn't lost upon him.

“My Lord, we have a . . . visitor.”

Halcom opened his eyes and looked up quickly as the tension in Ahlvyn Shumay's voice registered. His aide stood in the farmhouse kitchen door, and his expression was anxious.

“What sort of visitor, Ahlvyn?” he made himself ask calmly.

“Me, My Lord Bishop,” another voice replied, and Halcom's eyebrows shot up as the Duke of Halbrook Hollow pushed past Shumay.

“Your Grace,” the bishop said after several taut, silent seconds, “this is not wise.”

“With all due respect, My Lord, I'm not all that concerned with ‘wise' when we're talking about my niece's life,” Halbrook Hollow replied flatly.

“And how do you intend to explain your presence here, Your Grace?”

“I won't have to. Everyone knows Sharleyan and I don't see eye-to-eye politically any longer. No one's going to be surprised that I preferred not to sit around in Tellesberg when she was away. After all, it's not as if I have a lot of friends there, is it? Officially, I'm visiting Master Kairee, and the two of us are staying at his hunting lodge. I'll be back there and waiting by the time official word can reach me.”

“My Lord, you've run too many risks.” Halcom's voice was even flatter than Halbrook Hollow's had been. “How many people know you're here?”

“Only a handful,” the duke replied impatiently. “Kairee, my personal armsmen, and the crew of the schooner that brought me.”

“Excuse me, My Lord,” Shumay put in, momentarily drawing both of the older men's eyes to him, “but His Grace used
Sunrise
.”

Halcom's eyes narrowed for a moment. Then he tossed his head in an odd cross between a shrug and a nod as he realized Halbrook Hollow hadn't been—quite—as rash as he'd originally believed.

Traivyr Kairee's unhappiness over the sudden infusion of questionable innovations which had flooded Charis, his matching unhappiness and disgust with Cayleb's and Maikel Stayinair's decision to openly defy the Temple and the Grand Vicar's authority, and his wealth and political prominence had all combined to make him one of Halcom's first, cautious contacts when the bishop arrived in Tellesberg. He'd responded quickly and firmly, with a fierce promise of support, and he'd also accepted Halcom's direction and moderated his open, public anger and disgust. Neither of them had been foolish enough to think he could suddenly pretend he actually
supported
all of the blasphemous changes taking place around him, but he'd made it abundantly and firmly clear that he had no intention of trying to fight them. As he'd said publically on more than one occasion, the Kingdom was committed now, whether wisely or not, and to pretend otherwise would have been treasonous.

Of course, what he
hadn't
said aloud was that he was perfectly prepared to
be
treasonous, and he'd also followed through on his initial promises of support. The portions of his wealth he and Halcom had carefully diverted through “charitable donations” to the churches and monastic communities which shared his religious views, like Saint Hamlyn's in Rivermouth, had become a critically important element in the bishop's ability to successfully create, supply, and arm his Temple Loyalist organization.

Halcom hadn't been entirely happy about the fact that Kairee and Halbrook Hollow had become open friends, but he'd realized that the relationship had its advantages, as well as its drawbacks. And given the fact that the duke's unhappiness with his niece's marriage and policies was well known, it had probably been inevitable that someone as wealthy and politically prominent as Kairee, who was known to share his unhappiness, should become one of his relatively few friendly associates in Charis. Neither man was prepared to openly condemn their monarchs' policies, but there had to be a perfectly understandable “comfort zone” in their shared views. Besides, Halbrook Hollow had invested heavily in Kairee's various enterprises, and the two of them shared many of the same interests in horses and hunting, and Kairee had made his hunting lodge available to introduce his new friend to the game animals of Charis. In the end, Halcom had decided that Kairee was right; it would have looked even more suspicious if the two men
hadn't
become friends. And since everyone knew they were both avid hunters, the duke's decision to visit Kairee's lodge once again, especially while the empress was out of town anyway, was actually perfectly reasonable. Or would have been if the timing had been a bit different, at any rate.

The fact that Halbrook Hollow had used the schooner
Sunrise
for his transport from Kairee's hunting lodge in the neighboring Earldom of Styvyn to Trekair Bay was another of the very few positive elements in the duke's incredibly stupid decision to travel outside Tellesberg at this particular moment.
Sunrise
was one of Kairee's vessels, and she'd been used to make several Temple Loyalist deliveries in and around Howell Bay. Her crew had already demonstrated both its loyalty and its ability to keep its collective mouth shut.

None of which changed the fact that Halbrook Hollow had been
supposed
to be staying in Tellesberg Palace where he'd have a cast-iron alibi when news of the attack on Saint Agtha's arrived. And, of course, there was the minor fact that
Sunrise
had now sailed into Trekair Bay right by a galleon of the Imperial Charisian Navy. Which, given what was about to happen at Saint Agtha's, meant she was bound to come under intense scrutiny eventually, and that raised all sorts of unpleasant possibilities of its own.

“Your Grace,” the bishop said after a moment, “I understand why you might feel anxious, but in my opinion, this was still an ill-advised decision on your part. Too many things have the potential to go wrong.”

“Which is precisely why I'm here.” The duke's mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. “I know how high feelings are running among our people. I want to be here to be sure they behave themselves with . . . proper restraint. Sharleyan never needs to know I was here, but
I
need to know that she's all right.”

“I see.”

Halcom nodded slowly, then seated himself once again at the kitchen table, facing the door. He waved one hand at the second chair, across the table from his own, and Halbrook Hollow sat down. Then the bishop glanced over his visitor's shoulder at Shumay.

“Ahlvyn, in light of His Grace's concerns, could you ask Mytrahn to step in here? Go ahead and tell him the Duke is here and—” He paused and looked at Halbrook Hollow. “I assume you brought at least one or two of your own armsmen, Your Grace?”

“Two of them.” Halbrook Hollow nodded. “Don't worry. Both of them have been with me for at least twenty years.”

“Good.” Halcom turned back to Shumay. “Tell Mytrahn to see to any of His Grace's armsmen's needs, as well.”

“Of course, My Lord,” Shumay murmured, his face expressionless, and stepped out of the kitchen.

“Your Grace,” Halcom continued as the young priest withdrew, “as I say, I understand the basis for your anxiety. And I suppose I can't fault you for your desire to ensure your niece's safety. Still, it would have been better if you'd been able to trust
me
to see to that while you remained in Tellesberg. All of our plans and strategy were built upon your being there, in the Palace, when news of this arrived.”

“I realize that,” Halbrook Hollow said just a bit shortly. “The original plan was
mine
, after all. But Traivyr is prepared to cover for me, and the fact that I'm already ‘right next door' in Styvyn will get me to the scene much more rapidly. The fact that I'm already here before Gray Harbor or anyone else from Tellesberg can arrive will give me the opportunity to establish contact with Sharleyan's abductors before they do, too. It'll be much harder for them to try to ease me aside if I'm already conducting negotiations before they ever get here.”

Halcom nodded slowly, although he recognized the sound of someone rationalizing a decision he'd actually made for quite different reasons. As rationalizations went, though, the bishop was forced to admit, it wasn't bad. Halbrook Hollow's plan for Sharleyan's abduction by Charisian elements hostile to the merger of Charis and Chisholm had been designed to deal Chisholm's faith in Charis a mortal blow. If the Charisians couldn't even bother themselves to adequately protect Chisholm's queen from their own lunatic fringe, the backlash in Chisholm would almost certainly be severe. Not only that, it would be most severe among Chisholm's commoners, the ones most likely to resist any machinations among the kingdom's aristocracy.

Halbrook Hollow's freely expressed reservations about the wisdom of her marriage, on the other hand, would be amply vindicated, and as the senior Chisholmian noble in Charis, not to mention his status as Sharleyan's uncle and the man who still officially commanded the Royal Army, he would inevitably be deeply involved in any negotiations with her captors. Even if someone like Gray Harbor might be tempted to exclude him, they would realize that the political consequences in Chisholm would be disastrous.

The demands of those captors would be extreme, but not impossibly so for someone determined to get his beloved niece back alive. The duke would agree in Sharleyan's name to withdraw Chisholmian support for the schism between the Temple and the Church of Charis, but only if she was returned to him alive. If his Charisian fellow negotiators objected, he would point out that Sharleyan could always countermand his own agreement later, but that for her to do that, they first had to get her back.

Once the critical point had been conceded, the “abductors” would agree to return Sharleyan to Halbrook Hollow's custody . . . but not in Charis. She would be delivered in
Chisholm
, which would naturally require Halbrook Hollow to return to Cherayth in person. And Halbrook Hollow would arrive sufficiently in advance of her return to engineer the downfall of Baron Green Mountain and Queen Mother Alahnah's regency, which would inevitably have been weakened by the proof of just how unwise the alliance with Charis had actually been in the first place. He'd have to be careful about exactly how he managed that, but given command of the army, it shouldn't prove impossibly difficult. Especially not when he accepted his old friend Green Mountain's resignation as first councilor with obvious sorrow and regret and solely because it was part of the abductors' demands.

Halbrook Hollow had no doubt that with Green Mountain out of the way, the more conservative—and ambitious—of Sharleyan's nobles would be prepared to reach a quiet, unspoken understanding with him, despite any past animosity. By the time Sharleyan herself arrived in Chisholm, he and his newfound allies would be firmly in control, at which point Sharleyan would find herself comfortably but securely—and very discreetly—under house arrest while Halbrook Hollow put “her” new policies into effect.

Unfortunately, as Halcom had pointed out to Shumay, the plan would never work—not in the long run. Which was why he had contrived his own, quite different strategy. And irritated as the bishop had been by Halbrook Hollow's unexpected arrival, more mature consideration showed him the hand of God behind the duke's foolish decision. After all, his response to what they actually intended had always been problematical, at best, whereas now . . .

“I see your reasoning, Your Grace,” Halcom said in a slightly regretful tone as Mytrahn Daivys, one of the Temple Loyalists' group leaders, stepped through the kitchen door behind the seated Halbrook Hollow. “And, under the circumstances, it may not be an entirely bad thing you decided to come.”

“I'm glad you can see it my way,” Halbrook Hollow said. “Now, it's important, as I say, that Sharleyan never realize I was here. So—”

His voice died in a hideous gurgle as Daivys seized his hair, yanked his head back, and slashed his throat.

Halcom pushed back from the table with a grimace of distaste as the flood of blood splashed across it. Some of the spray pattern pattered across his own tunic, and his grimace deepened. He dabbed at it instinctively, but his gaze never left Halbrook Hollow's face as the duke's eyes flared wide in horrified surprise, and then lost all expression forever.

“I'm sorry, Your Grace,” Halcom said softly, reaching across the table to close the dead man's eyes. “But it truly is best this way, I think.”

He drew a deep breath, suppressing an urge to gag as the coppery stink of blood and the stench of voided bowels filled the kitchen, and looked at Daivys.

“I'm sorry we had to do that, Mytrahn. He may have been a foolish man, and we all know he had personal political ambitions, as well. But he was also a son of Mother Church.”

Daivys nodded, wiping his dagger clean on the duke's tunic, then cocked an eyebrow.

“What should we do with the body, My Lord?” he asked pragmatically.

“We're going to have to give that some thought,” Halcom admitted. “I'm inclined to the theory that it might be best for him to simply disappear—perhaps another victim of the Charisian assassins. That will depend on how effectively Master Kairee has managed to cover himself and exactly what the Duke told people in Tellesberg he intended to do. For now, put him with his armsmen.”

The marksman who'd killed Wyllys Gairaht stayed very still.

The opportunity to pick off the commander of Sharleyan's bodyguards had been an unanticipated gift from God, and he'd taken it without any order to do so. The captain would have had to die in the end, anyway, of course—there could be no survivors of this night's work—but the possibility that he might have cried out, or that one of his own men might have seen him fall, had been very real. On the other hand, the range had been less than forty yards, and the marksman hadn't missed a shot at that range since he was a boy. The odds had favored a silent kill, in his judgment, and the elimination of the bodyguards' central authority had struck him as well worth the risk.