BY HERESIES DISTRESSED – snippet 10:
.IV.
Priory of Saint Hamlyn,
City of Sarayn,
Earldom of Rivermouth,
Kingdom of Charis
“Excuse me, My L — sir,” the rather plainly dressed young man said.
The almost equally plainly dressed older man looked up with a chiding expression, but he permitted the self correction to pass unremarked.
This time.
“Yes, Ahlvyn?” he said instead.
“There’s a messenger from Tellesberg,” Ahlvyn Shumay told him.
“Really?” The older man, who tried very hard to remind himself that he was no longer Bishop Mylz Halcom — officially, at least — sat back in his chair and quirked an eyebrow.
“Yes, Sir. From . . . our friend in Tellesberg.”
Halcom’s raised eyebrow smoothed magically. As a matter of fact, he’d discovered quite a few “friends” in Tellesberg — more, really, than he’d hoped for, after his hasty departure from his own see in Hanth Town. At this particular moment, however, there was only one of them for whose messages Shumay would have interrupted him. And if his aide sometimes had trouble breaking the habit of addressing Halcom as a bishop, he’d demonstrated a much greater ability to remember never to mention names unless he absolutely had to.
“I see.” Halcom gazed thoughtfully at Shumay for a handful of seconds, then shrugged very slightly. “Is there anything I need to do about it immediately, Ahlvyn?”
“As a matter of fact, no, sir,” Shumay replied. “I just thought you’d like to know that he seems to have experienced no undue difficulty in making the arrangements you asked him to see to.”
“Thank you, Ahlvyn. That’s very good news.”
“Of course, sir,” Shumay murmured, and withdrew.
Halcom gazed after him for a moment, then turned back to the brown-bearded man in the white lamp-badged brown habit of an upper-priest in the Order of Bédard. That robe was girdled by the white rope belt which marked him as the head of a monastic community, a fact which had a great deal to do with Halcom’s presence in this remarkably spartan office.
“Please excuse the interruption, Father Ahzwald,” he said. “I’m afraid I may have overly impressed Ahlvyn with the need to deliver messages promptly.”
“Please, My Lord.” Father Ahzwald shook his head. “Don’t concern yourself. Father Ahlvyn has been with you in the dragon’s mouth. If he thinks you need to know something, then I’m quite content to leave that decision in his hands.”
“Thank you,” Halcom said, managing not to frown as the other man used his ecclesiastic title.
Actually, he supposed, it didn’t really matter that much in this case. Father Ahzwald Banahr was the head of the Priory of Saint Hamlyn, and the priory was located in the city of Sarayn, well over two hundred and fifty miles from Tellesberg. It was unlikely that Baron Wave Thunder, King — no, Emperor — Cayleb’s spymaster, had infiltrated any of his agents into a relatively small priory that far from the capital. And particularly not into a priory of the same order which “Archbishop Maikel Staynair” called his own.
Still, good security was a matter of developing the proper habits, and as Banahr had just pointed out, Halcom had survived more than a few five-days in the dragon’s mouth in Tellesberg, itself. And, once his business here in the Earldom of Rivermouth was completed, that was precisely where he’d be returning.
“Well,” he said, “to return to our earlier discussion, Father. I fully realize how eager you are to strike a blow in the name of God and His Church, but I’m very much afraid that, as I said, your value to His cause is much greater where you already are.”
“My Lord, with all due respect, neither I nor the brothers I’ve called to your attention are afraid of anything apostate heretics might do to us. And the fact that we’re members of the same order from which the author of this abomination sprang gives us a special responsibility to do something about it. I really think –”
“Father,” Halcom interrupted, his tone as patient as he could make it, “we have the swordarms we need. We have a plentiful supply, actually, of good and godly men prepared to do God’s will in opposing what you’ve so rightly described as an ‘abomination.’ What we need more than anything else, is a support network. A community of the faithful — of those the schismatics have so disdainfully labeled ‘Temple Loyalists’ — prepared to gather supplies, stockpile weapons, offer shelter, serve as message conduits, pass funds as necessary. To be totally, brutally blunt, we need that sort of network much more than we need additional fighters.”
Father Ahzwald couldn’t hide the disappointment in his expression, assuming he’d actually tried to hide it.
Well, that’s just too bad, Halcom thought, because everything I just told him is the absolute, literal truth. Although I do hope we can instill at least a rudimentary sense of security into Father Ahzwald! I’m confident Wave Thunder isn’t wasting time looking in his direction yet, but that can always change, especially once we start staging our operations through the monastic community.
“I understand what you’re saying, My Lord,” Banahr said after a moment. “And I suppose, if I’m honest, that I can’t really argue with your logic. Still, I can’t help feeling that a ‘fellow Bédardist’ might well be able to get close enough to Staynair to settle the business.”
“It wasn’t a case of failing to get close enough, Father,” Halcom responded, and his voice was much grimmer than it had been a few moments before. “Believe me, our brothers got close enough to do the job easily enough. Or, they would have been close enough, if not for ‘Seijin Merlin.'”
The bishop showed his teeth in an expression no one could ever possibly have confused with a smile.
“We owe the good seijin quite a debt,” he continued, recalling the reports of Emperor Cayleb’s personal armsman standing balanced on the rail of the royal box in Tellesberg Cathedral, smoking pistols in hand, as he shot down the three volunteers who’d actually gotten close enough to physically lay hands on the apostate ‘archbishop.’ “Without him, Staynair would be dead this very moment. The time will come when we settle with him, too, Father.”
“We’ve heard rumors about him, even here,” Banahr said, his expression troubled. “Some of the things he’s supposed to have done sound . . . preposterous. Impossible.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that for a moment,” Halcom replied. “He’s extraordinarily handy with a sword — and, obviously, with these ‘pistols’ Cayleb and his cronies have invented — and he has an incredibly irritating knack for being in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.”
“Is it possible he has . . . assistance in managing that, My Lord?” Banahr asked in a very careful tone.
“Is he receiving demonic assistance, do you mean, Father?” Halcom asked in reply, and chuckled. “I suppose anything is possible, but I’m inclined to think the superstitious give him rather too much credit. Most of the ‘impossible’ things he’s supposed to have done are much more probably the products of overactive imaginations than of reality! Strangling krakens with his bare hands? Single-handedly slaughtering two hundred, or three hundred — or was it five hundred? — Corisandian sailors and Marines aboard Royal Charis?” The bishop shook his head. “Athrawes is definitely a seijin, Father, and it would appear that the ridiculous legends about the martial capabilities of seijins in general have a solid core of truth, after all. But sooner or later, he’s going to arrive too late, or someone is going to manage to get a sword — or an arbalest bolt, or an arrow, or a bullet — through his guard, and that’s going to be the end of Seijin Merlin.”
“I’m sure you’re right, My Lord, but still . . . .”
there it is the next murder attempt that is going to put merlin in hot water with sharleyan.
I have been looking forward to catching up with the good bishop
Hmm… nice to be getting first hand impressions of Merlin from people NOT in the know.
So are Mylz here and his people just going to have a couple scenes and then vanish for the rest of the book again?
Boy, are they in for a shock if they try to assassinate anyone under Merlin’s watch. Though, I suppose they could do it if they were prepared to throw enough bodies in his way. But from the sounds of it, they don’t plan on doing anything like that.
Merlin is not in Tellesberg, the good bishop could be there is a few days, Merlin is off on his sailing adventure to ring gifts for hector.
How well will the guards protect Staynair and Sharleyan without Merlin being right there….
This whole snipit thing is agonizing, and the really hard part is that I know the story will be left hanging after BSRA and we have a year plus to wait for the next bits…..
They are in for more of a shock if they try to assassinate Merlin himself.
about time the other side starting getting itself together. so far the enemy hasnt been depicted as very bright or as very devout, and besides brute force and numbers havent done anything that paused a real threat to merlin. the book would be much more intresting if the other side was really as strong as all the charchters keep repeatedly claiming it is…
Sounds like they are planning for a major attack. Multiple targets. Although if they’re going after Staynair again, they’d better go for a head shot with what Merlin did to his clothes. Hope Merlin did the same thing with Sharlyan’s.
A “should have worked” shot at Merlin with Sharlyn as a witness? Merlin has taken chances eith the security requirements before, and that issue was specificaly discussed when Caleb, Merlin and Staynair set up the idea. Sharlyn’s response would be interesting.
I’m really looking forward to their next failure. I like this guy (as a character of course, not in reality) and I’m really looking forward to seeing his reaction to the idea that Merlin is already ahead of him (again). It should be, um, “interesting”… and no doubt a bit loud. :)
RH
I wonder if his security precautions are enough to get past OWL’s filters?
They’re going to be hitting up Loyalist merchants and royalty for money, which to me indicates that they want easier access to soft targets like ships, warehouses, and Seperatist social events. At this point, they need soft targets with minimal casualties in order to emphasize their successes and downplay the corruption in the Church. With Merlin overseas, the best way for Merlin to stop them (and he doesn’t know who they are yet) is to constantly have probes ready with the self-destruct burn that he could have used to kill Hektor and to replace the clothing of his wards. With any luck, Wave Thunder will have key personal guarded and key buildings as well (i.e. Patent Office) but like the IRS said, they (the terrorists) only have to be lucky once.
I really hope that Merlin will thrwart a few of their plans personally when he gets back. By causing them to focus on him, he can divert their resources and energy to the ineffectual cause of his inhumation, compounding their failures and discouraging further membership. Plus, they’ll draw out the “backseat” loyalists that fund them. The real danger really isn’t in the immediate terrorism (especially with Merlin around), but in the formation of internal coalitions that will cause further terrorism to arise in the future as the conflict comes to a true boiling point.
If Charis can institute some form of widespread public media, then every Charisian having both arguments constantly on the table (for Schism and Loyalty) will have a polarizing effect on some but ultimately leave most accepting the status quo. People say they want truth, justice, and for all to be right in the world, but what they really want, when you get to the core of it, is for tomorrow to be very much like today if not slightly better.
Ah… wrong terrorists… meant the IRA.
I rather liked the slip E. Though I confess I don’t remember the IRS attempt to assassinate Thatcher ;-)
But they do conspire to assassinate my wallet!
RH
GRR it really stinks when you have a post almost written then accidentally refresh the page rather than submit…
I wanted to ask for some speculation about how things work out if they don’t succeed (as I figure we all assume they won’t)… but I also was wondering, what if we’re wrong? What if they do succeed despite Merlin’s special robes? Maybe they go for the throat or something and they manage to crush his windpipe even if they fail to actually peirce his skin? Or something. What happens then? I could very easily see an outright massacre start inside of an hour. Suspected Temple Loyalists might be absolutely ripped to shreds (or worse) by the furious mobs. I rather hope this doesn’t happen, of course, but if it does, how does Sharleyan react? I doubt she’d exactly WANT to protect the Loyalists, but she’d still have to try… what would she do?
RH
I’m still betting on an attack that leaves either Staynair or Sharleyn (likely Sharleyn) seriously wounded enough that Merlin has to make a miraculous entry and whisk them off to the bat cave for treatment. DW dangled the ‘fully functional medical facility that Nimue couldn’t use’ pretty obviously for it not to come in handy.
Remember the earlier snippet where Sharleyan was practicing her shooting with her guard? Well I figure it’s a precursor with this snippet for an assasination attempt on her.
After all, remember, these guys don’t know much about low intensity conflict. They think and look for the big knockout blow first. Sure hitting soft targets and targets of opportunity is the smart play, but they won’t think that way. They want to end it quick with a telling blow against their enemies as soon as possible. Playing propaganda games and long term insurgent isn’t in their DNA. At least not for long. They’ll try to kill Sharleyan, especially if she’s pregnant, as soon as they can in order to forestall the royal line from continuing.
I’m not sure if they would outright try to kill Sharleyan, at least not at first. They might try a kidnapping attempt first; remember, Safehold is male-dominated, so they probably would have qualms about simply executing her, whereas they wouldn’t have any qualms about trying to use her as leverage against Cayleb.
I’m not saying that they’d never try to kill her, just that they wouldn’t try to do so first as they might for Staynair or Cayleb.
most likely as 17 said the medical facility has to come in play sometime, and merlin’s life has to become more complicated. as the series continually increases the complications in merlin’s life when he has to make choices that could make his goals more difficult, after all merlin’s goal is to disprove the church, and more importantly langhorne, he can’t do that if he is seen doing things only an “archangel” could possibly do, no matter how few learn that.
Whether as an assassination attempt or hostage situation I can see that being how Sharleyan finds out about Merlin’s abilities and necessitates the ‘little talk’ that the brotherhood are currently avoiding. Having him turn up at the right moment for a last minute save, as he did for the First Councilor in book one, would require some explaining as he is supposed to be with Cayleb and the fleet attacking Corisande. Not sure that Mylz and his happy crew are ready for an attempt on Sharleyan, but it will undoubtably get to that point eventually… and her newfound shooting skill will get to be used… and another job lot of assassins will be cleared out by Merlin.
I could see the following happening.
Merlin shows up to save Sharleyan.
Sharleyan asks ‘What are you doing here? You’re to keep Cayleb safe and how you get here’.
Merlin says ‘Aw well it’s like this … talk to Archbishop Maikel’ and then gets out of there. [Wink]
Drak, I can see that very well. IMO, Weber has a weakness for being much too arch in revelation scenes like this (where the reader knows a secret that the characters don’t), and that scenario would totally fit into that pattern.
I’m all for Sharleyan saving herself, a wagon of schoolkids, and someone’s baby cat-lizard single-handedly using expert marksmanship and beating enemies to death with their own arms, or legs, if the situation allows.