"Your Majesty," Pine Hollow's voice was commendably steady, under the circumstances, "I feel confident you must at least suspect the reason for this rather dramatic, unannounced visit."

"Given the fact that you arrived in an official vessel, I don't imagine you're here to transfer your personal allegiance from Prince Nahrmahn to Charis," Cayleb said dryly.

"No, I'm not, Your Majesty." Pine Hollow met Cayleb's eyes very levelly, and the youthful monarch felt a stir of respect as he saw the steadiness in those eyes. They were, in their own way, a rebuke of his own levity.

"No, I don't believe you are," Cayleb acknowledged in a rather more serious tone. "In fact, given the present military balance between this Kingdom and your master's princedom-and its allies, of course-I can really think of only one thing which might have brought you here. And that, My Lord, is to discuss what sort of terms Prince Nahrmahn thinks he might be able to obtain."

"In a general sense, that's certainly accurate, Your Majesty." Pine Hollow inclined his head in a brief bow of acknowledgment.

"In that case, I might point out that he doesn't have a great deal with which to bargain," Cayleb said. "I truly mean no disrespect-the ships of your navy fought with courage and determination at Darcos Sound-but Emerald is defenseless before us. We've taken your offshore fortifications where and as we chose. Your major ports are under strict blockade, and as I believe we've demonstrated, we're capable of landing raiding parties to burn out any of the smaller ports where Commodore Zhaztro might be attempting to fit out his privateers. And we can land an army anytime we choose, at any place we choose."

Pine Hollow's eyes had flickered with surprise as Cayleb mentioned Zhaztro by name. Obviously the depth of Cayleb's knowledge about events inside Emerald had come as a less than pleasant revelation to him.

Oh, if you only knew, My Lord, Cayleb thought sardonically.

"All of that may be true, Your Majesty," the Emeraldian earl said after a moment. Then he shook his head. "No," he said, "let's be honest. It is true. Yet it's also true that however inevitable your victory over my Prince may be in the end, obtaining it may prove expensive. Not simply in terms of lost life and treasure, but also in terms of lost time. Despite your current advantages, which my Prince has instructed me to tell you he fully recognizes, you have a great many enemies, and no friends. No open friends, at least. Prince Nahrmahn has no doubt you've been continuing and even accelerating your military buildup. At the same time, however, he's well aware-as you must be-that your various enemies are engaged in exactly the same process. If you find yourself forced to spend valuable time conquering Emerald by force of arms, you may find the time you've lost doing so has allowed your more inherently formidable foes time to prepare for the next, inevitable stage in your conflict."

"Allowing, for the moment, the aptness of your analysis, My Lord," Cayleb said with an unpleasant smile, "the consequences will still be . . . less pleasant for the House of Baytz than for Charis."

"A point, I assure you, of which my Prince is well aware, Your Majesty."

"I rather thought he might be." Cayleb leaned back, crossing his legs, and cocked his head as he contemplated Pine Hollow.

"On the other hand, I must admit I'm intrigued," he said. "Whatever else Prince Nahrmahn may be, I don't believe he's deaf, blind, or stupid. Nor do I believe there's much possibility that he's unaware of who was behind his marching orders, whatever the 'Knights of the Temple Lands' might choose to pretend. Consequently, I must assume he's as well aware as we are here in Charis of who our true enemy is. Which leads me to wonder just why he might be willing to bring the wrath of the Grand Inquisitor and the Group of Four down upon his own head by daring to so much as send us an official envoy."

He eyed Pine Hollow speculatively, and the Emeraldian shrugged. "Your Majesty, I might say that when a man has to choose between dealing with the kraken in his bathtub and the doomwhale out beyond the harbor breakwater, he tends to focus on the kraken, first. That, in point of fact, is a thought which has borne upon my Prince's thinking at this particular time. But it isn't the only consideration which brought him to send me to you. I carry with me correspondence directly from him, setting out for your consideration his own analysis of the situation. I believe you'd find it interesting reading."

"I'm sure I would." Cayleb smiled thinly. "May I also assume that this correspondence of his touches upon the terms he might hope to obtain?"

"It does, Your Majesty." Pine Hollow bowed again, then straightened. "Moreover, it will inform you that I've been appointed his official plenipotentiary. Within the limits established by my binding instructions from him, I am authorized to negotiate with you in his name, and to accept any agreement which we might reach within those limitations."

" 'Agreement which we might reach,' " Cayleb repeated softly. Then he straightened in his throne, bringing his hands down as he planted his forearms firmly on its armrests and leaned forward.

"Understand me in this much, My Lord Pine Hollow," he said quietly. "I realize your Prince was constrained against his own desires to participate in the recent attack upon my Kingdom. But I also realize that his reasons for deeming that attack . . . unwise had nothing at all to do with any deep-seated love for the Kingdom of Charis. I don't believe-and never have believed-that he would have taken any joy or pleasure in the wholesale massacres, destruction, and arson the Group of Four proposed to visit upon my people, but neither do I believe he would have been dismayed by the destruction and partitioning of this Kingdom. In short, My Lord, whatever the reasons for his enmity, Prince Nahrmahn has amply declared himself the foe of Charis in times past. Now that he finds his foot firmly in the snare, he may also find himself wishing for some sort of . . . accommodation with my Kingdom and my House. Well, I won't say at the outset that any such accommodation is impossible. But I will say this. Any accommodation we may reach will be reached upon my terms, not his. And you may rest assured that any terms I will be willing to contemplate will preclude his ever again posing a threat to my people, to my Kingdom, and to my family. Do you understand that?"

"Of course I do, Your Majesty," Pine Hollow replied, his voice equally quiet. "Were I sitting in that throne while you stood here, in front of me, my position would be exactly the same as yours. My Prince understands that as well as I do, I assure you."

"In that case, there may be some point to your mission, after all, My Lord," Cayleb said, sitting back once more. "At any rate, I'm prepared to listen to whatever Prince Nahrmahn may have to say. If I find his proposals less than fully acceptable, there will always be time to return to the decision of the field of battle. And, to be quite honest, your point-and his-about the value of time in Charis' current situation has a certain validity."

Pine Hollow inclined his head without speaking, and Cayleb smiled.

"But that consideration lies in the future, My Lord. I have other pressing matters I must deal with today, and I intend to read your Prince's correspondence very carefully, digest it thoroughly, before you and I speak about its contents. In the meantime, I've had a comfortable suite prepared for you in Queen Marytha's Tower. I trust you'll find it adequate to your needs, and you are, of course, welcome to install any of your own servants you may deem necessary to see to your requirements."

"I thank you, Your Majesty."

"Despite all that's already happened, My Lord, there's no reason we can't be civilized about these things." Cayleb's smile turned a bit warmer and more genuine. "And whatever else may be true, you came here trusting in the hospitality and protection of my House. Under the circumstances, it behooves me to demonstrate that trust wasn't misplaced, doesn't it?"

"Since you've chosen to speak so frankly, Your Majesty," Pine Hollow replied with what might have been a shadow of an answering smile, "I'll admit that that thought-and that hope-have passed through my mind more than once since my galleon entered Charisian waters."

"Well, rest assured that you'll receive all of the courtesy due to any envoy, despite any . . . unusual aspects of the reason for your journey here to Tellesberg."

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

"In this much, at least, you're quite welcome," Cayleb said, then waved One hand at the man standing to the right of his throne in the black and gold of the Charisian Royal Guard. "Captain Athrawes will escort you to your chamber, My Lord, and see to it that the tower's guard force is informed of your status and prepared to meet any of your reasonable needs."

.VII.

The Temple,

City of Zion,

The Temple Lands

Very well, Allayn," Zahmsyn Trynair's voice showed rather more irritation than he normally permitted it to as Rhobair Duchairn seated himself at the council table, "we're all here now. Now can you tell us what this is all about?"

Allayn Maigwair might not have been Trynair's intellectual equal, but he had no difficulty recognizing the asperity in the Chancellor's tone, and his lips tightened briefly. Then he turned his head to look directly at Trynair.

"I've just received additional dispatches about the situation in the Gulf of Dohlar, Zahmsyn." He permitted a trace of deliberate patience to color his own tone. "I thought you might be interested in what the Duke of Fern has to say about them. I assure you, they made . . . interesting reading. But, of course, if you're too pressed for time . . ."

One would have had to look carefully to notice the slightly heightened color in Trynair's cheeks, Duchairn noted. Even that, however, was a revelation of far more anger than he would ever have permitted himself to feel for such a childish provocation under normal circumstances. Then again, these circumstances were anything but normal, weren't they?

"Of course we have time to listen to any information that seems pertinent and important, Allayn," the Church's Treasurer heard his own voice saying. Both of the other vicars looked at him, and he smiled ever so faintly. "I'm sure you wouldn't have requested a meeting of all four of us unless you thought the dispatches you've received are both of those things," he continued. "On the other hand, all of us have sufficiently pressing commitments on our time to make us all a bit more . . . irritable than God would probably prefer."

Maigwair gazed at him for another second or two, then nodded, and Trynair's momentary anger seemed to fade.

"Thank you, Rhobair," the Chancellor said. "As always, you make a very valid point. Allayn," Trynair moved his gaze back to Maigwair, "if I sounded overly brisk, I apologize. Rhobair is right. We do all have far too many things which require our immediate attention, but that doesn't excuse any lack of courtesy on my part."

"Don't worry about it." Maigwair half chuckled wryly. "To be honest, I've bitten off a few heads of my own in the last couple of months. It's hard to be patient when so many things are going wrong at once."

"Then it's our job as God's stewards to make sure they go the right way again," Zhaspahr Clyntahn said. As usual, the Grand Inquisitor didn't seem particularly concerned with pouring any oil on troubled waters. "Which, I assume, your request for a meeting has something to do with?"

"You might say that." Maigwair sat back in his comfortable chair. "Or, you might say it has to do with identifying something else that's gone wrong."

"Then tell us about it," Duchairn said before Clyntahn could open his mouth again.

"I've had copies prepared for all of you, of course," Maigwair said, indicating the sheafs of notes lying on his companions' blotters. "These arrived by messenger wyvern, not via the semaphore, so there's considerably more detail. And it's the details that concern me the most. Especially in conjunction with what we're hearing from other sources.

"Basically, the situation is even worse than we'd originally thought. The Charisians are operating 'privateers' on both coasts of Howard now, as well as the east coast of Haven as far north as the Passage of Storms. There must be hundreds of them, and it seems as if every one of them has the new-design artillery. So even though they may technically be calling themselves privateers, what they really are is cruisers of the Charisian Navy. And, not to put too fine a point on it, they're wreaking havoc."

Duchairn frowned slightly. He'd found immense comfort in his renewed personal faith over the past months, which had given him a certain serenity in the face of all the calamities God seemed to be permitting to afflict His Church. Some of the other vicars-those who weren't clamoring for (or the far more numerous vicars who wished they had the courage to clamor for) the Group of Four's dismantlement-appeared to be withdrawing into a sort of insulated cocoon, where they could pretend their world wasn't in a state of violent upheaval. Duchairn's renewed reading of the Writ, however, had actually restored him to a far stronger awareness of his responsibility to meet those violent upheavals head-on. And of the entire Group of Four, he, as the Church's chief financial officer, was undoubtedly the best aware of the implications of the massive onslaught Charis had launched upon the commercial traffic of its enemies.

Ultimately, he supposed, it could be argued that Charis was playing a dangerous game by setting the example of such energetic privateering. After all, the Charisian economy was completely dependent upon its own shipping. Not only was that a major potential weakness, but the sheer value of the Charisian carrying trade promised huge profits for anyone who managed to raid it successfully, as well, and it was unlikely that the kingdom's enemies would remain blind to those minor facts forever. On the other hand, very few of the mainland realms had anything like the supply of trained seamen Charis did, which meant simply crewing enough privateers would be difficult, especially with the competition of the Church's new naval buildup drawing on that same limited pool of sailors.

Besides, he thought a bit grimly, I suspect there's a very good reason Cayleb has been so enthusiastically encouraging the construction of so many of those damned, long-range privateer schooners and even "letting" them buy the new cannons. Once the supply of victims runs out, all of those hulls will be available for his Navy to snap up as anti-privateer cruisers, won't they? Their owners will be eager to dispose of them for a song once they've "hunted out" everyone else's merchant traffic. They may be fast, but there's no way a typical privateer is going to have the cargo capacity for a suitable bulk carrier whatever they do, so the owners will be under a lot of pressure to dispose of them. I bet they'll settle for a tenth piece on the mark of their original prices, and the Navy's the most logical customer. Which means Cayleb didn't even have to pay the cost of their artillery out of pocket, much less their entire hulls, to provide himself with dozens-maybe even hundreds-of light naval cruisers. Talk about making war pay for itself!

The thought twitched his lips in a hint of a sour smile of bitter admiration. From Clyntahn's irate snort, however, it was evident that he remained unimpressed by the importance-or relevance-of Maigwair's report.

"Pouncing on a few merchant ships may be irritating, but it's scarcely likely to pose any sort of true danger," he said dismissively, as if determined to illustrate that very point. "And whatever your reports may seem to indicate, not even heretics could put their accursed new weapons on 'hundreds' of privateers this quickly. No doubt people are panicking and exaggerating wildly." Maigwair started to open his mouth, but Duchairn raised one hand in a courteous gesture and turned towards the Grand Inquisitor.

"First, Zhaspahr," he said, "no one is saying all of the privateers have the new guns. Most Charisian merchant galleons have always carried at least a few guns, if only to discourage pirates, and it doesn't take a lot of firepower to force a merchant ship to heave-to and surrender. So the 'old style' artillery is probably all the vast majority of them need, and it's not as if old-style guns are particularly hard for them to come by these days. God knows there're plenty of them lying around in Charis after Darcos Sound!"

Clyntahn glowered at him, but Duchairn met his gaze calmly until, finally, the Grand Inquisitor gave a grumpy, irritated nod.

"Secondly," he continued then, "if it were only 'a few merchant ships, you might be right about how important the losses are. But it isn't 'a few,' and Allayn is perfectly correct to be concerned over the potential consequences.

Clyntahn's face tightened, but Duchairn had emerged as the Group of Four's internal peacemaker, and the beefy Inquisitor made himself nod a second time, however little he wanted to.

"You were saying, Allayn?" Duchairn invited.

"I was saying that according to Fern's report, the Dohlaran merchant fleet has taken extremely heavy losses. Apparently, these damned 'privateers' are operating virtually at will, despite the fact that they're thousands of miles from any Charisian port. They seem to be everywhere in the Gulf, including Hankey Sound and apparently Shwei Bay, as well. Losses are so heavy insurance rates have gone sky-high. And even with insurance, many owners are refusing to allow their vessels to put to sea at all. From what the Duke has to say, the Kingdom's maritime commerce has effectively come to a halt."

"So?" Clyntahn's voice was at least moderately courteous this time, Duchairn noted, and the Inquisitor shrugged heavy shoulders. "With all due respect, Allayn, and fully admitting that the impact for Dohlar may be significant, I fail to see what's so immediately threatening about the situation. We always knew that once these damnable heretics started raiding, the consequences were going to be severe for everyone else's merchant fleets."

"The point, Zhaspahr," Duchairn said, "is that the damage is being far worse than we'd originally anticipated. Despite what I just said, Allayn is quite right that many of these 'privateers' appear to be purpose-built vessels, armed with the best Charisian artillery. Artillery, I remind you, we still haven't managed to duplicate for our own vessels. I'm Mother Church's Treasurer General. I know how expensive our rearming program is being, which means I also have at least a feel for the sort of investment the Charisians must be making to produce the quantities of artillery their own fleet requires. Yet despite his navy's own obvious requirement for more and more guns, Cayleb is permitting privateers access to them. That indicates just how high a priority he and his advisers must place on those privateers' operations. And, again, speaking as Mother Church's Treasurer General, I may have a better grasp of some of the . . . indirect consequences than you do."

"So enlighten us," Clyntahn invited in a half growl.

"Allayn is probably in a better position than I am to address the consequences for our building programs," Duchairn said, "but I already know Charisian attacks have been more than a minor irritation where they're concerned. Many of the items required for the construction of our new galleys are normally transported by sea, Zhaspahr. Spars, masts, timbers, artillery, anchors-anything that's heavy, or massive, or simply big and can't be supplied in the immediate vicinity of the shipyards themselves has to be freighted in, and attempting to haul loads like that overland, even when an overland route is available, is a nightmare. If they can't be shipped by sea, costs are going to rise sky-high, and construction times are going to become far longer.

"But there's another, more direct consequence. If the Charisians succeed in effectively destroying the merchant fleets of their enemies-and producing a situation in which the surviving merchantmen cower in port rather than daring to put to sea will have the same effect capturing or sinking all of them would produce-the economies of those realms are going to take severe damage. Even our coffers are ultimately limited in terms of the subsidies and loans we can make to offset that sort of damage. And as their economies suffer, the tithes due to the treasury will also decline, with ultimately serious consequences to our own fiscal position.

"At the same time, the carnage the Charisians are wreaking isn't something realms who aren't actively at war with them are likely to fail to notice We've all had our concerns about the ultimate reliability of Siddarmark. Well if they see the Charisians' enemies suffering this sort of devastation, it's going to make them even less inclined to add themselves to the list of those enemies . . . and to the privateers' target list. Besides, I rather doubt that someone like Greyghor Stohnar is going to be exactly heartbroken over watching the commerce of rival rulers being hammered. After all, as their merchant fleets decline, his can expand to fill some of the void."

Even Clyntahn was listening attentively now, and Zahmsyn Trynair sat back in his own chair. There were times when he found the apparent rebirth of Duchairn's personal piety more than a little wearing. The Treasurer's newfound willingness to "trust in God" and to punctuate discussions of policy and planning with quotations from the Writ and The Commentaries might produce serenity for him, but it didn't do a great deal for all of the red-hot coals Trynair was required to juggle every day. On the other hand, his ability to convince even the increasingly belligerent Grand Inquisitor to stop and actually listen was impressive. So impressive that Trynair himself had actually considered spending some time with the Writ.

"But even the impact on the thinking of his potential enemies is secondary to what Cayleb is really after," Duchairn continued now. "He's systematically eliminating the carrying capacity of other realms. Effectively, he's doing exactly what we accused his father of--deliberately setting out to secure complete control of the entire world's merchant shipping. And the reason he's doing that, Zhaspahr, is that if all the other merchant carriers are eliminated, the only ones left will fly the Charisian flag. Which means the mainland realms' need for shipping to transport the cargoes essential to their own economies will drive them into using Charisian bottoms. And, in effect, that means they'll be subsidizing Cayleb's military expenses. He'll be driving the kingdoms of Haven and Howard into literally paying for his war against Mother Church."

"Then stop them from doing that," Clyntahn growled. "That's far easier to say than to do," Duchairn countered. "The trading houses need that shipping just to survive, and I don't see anything we could do to prevent the consequences to our own cash flow. It's what I've been trying to explain all along. The entire edifice is far more fragile than it might appear from the outside, and the imperatives of economic survival are going to be as apparent to kings and princes as they are to individual bankers. Those imperatives are going to drive even godly men into the Charisians' arms if that's the only way for them to survive."

"And that's not the only worry," Maigwair put in. He'd clearly been willing to allow Duchairn to carry the major burden of the explanation, but now he leaned forward, his own expression a combination of anxiety and anger. "It's not just a matter of harming their enemies and bolstering their own economy. There's also the corrupting effect."

"Corrupting effect?" Clyntahn sat abruptly straighter in his chair as Maigwair captured his full attention at last. "What sort of 'corrupting effect'?" he demanded.

"There's an enormous amount of money being made by these 'privateers,' " Maigwair said. "Whatever else they may be, they're still Charisians when it comes to finding ways to squeeze marks out of any situation. And they've been spreading some of those marks around. I have confirmed reports that they're managing to dispose of their prizes in mainland ports. That means they don't have to put prize crews aboard them and sail them all the way back to Charis. They only need to crew them long enough to reach one of the ports which are open to them, at which point their prize crews can immediately return to them. And that means they can take a lot more ships before shortage of manpower forces them to go home and recruit new crews. Even worse, in some ways, it also means they're building cozy relationships with the authorities in those ports. They couldn't be selling captured ships there, or disposing of cargoes from their prizes, without the knowledge and consent of those authorities."

Clyntahn's jowls darkened, and anger glowed behind his eyes.

"Allayn's right," Duchairn said. "These privateers are clearly part of a coordinated Charisian strategy. Cayleb's total out-of-pocket expense is the artillery he's allowing them to purchase, and even that's only costing his navy time, since I'm quite certain the foundries casting those guns are showing a tidy profit in the process without any actual subsidies from the Crown. And once they run out of other people's shipping to attack, all of them will be available to be taken into naval service as light convoy escorts and cruisers. It's not only hurting his enemies and helping his own economy, but also freeing his navy to concentrate on Emerald and Corisande while forcing our allies to focus all of their limited remaining naval power on efforts to protect the commerce they have left. And simultaneously, as Allayn's just pointed out, giving officials of places like Harchong strong personal inducements to actively collaborate with him and pointing out to those rulers who aren't already on his list of active enemies that he can do the same thing to them, if he has to."

"Then obviously we need a counter-strategy, don't we?" Trynair said.

"I'd say that was a reasonable observation, yes," Duchairn agreed just a bit ironically.

"That's easy," Clyntahn growled. The other three looked at him, and he snorted.

"You've just been pointing out how destroying our allies' merchant fleets is going to hurt them, Rhobair. It's not my area of expertise, but it is yours and I'm fully prepared to accept your analysis. But if shipping is important to them, it's critical to the heretics in Charis. All their damned fleets and all their damned privateers have to be paid for somehow, and the leeches pay for them with the money they suck out of the mainland economies. Cut that income off, and you eliminate their ability to finance their opposition to God's will."

"That's true enough," Duchairn acknowledged, watching Clyntahn through narrowed eyes.

"Well, we don't need any 'privateer' fleet to do that," the Grand Inquisitor said harshly. "All we have to do is order all mainland ports closed to Charisian shipping. We don't have to sink or burn their ships to make them useless to Cayleb and his fellow apostates."

Trynair frowned, his expression thoughtful. Maigwair appeared torn between agreement with Clyntahn and skepticism about his sweeping suggestion's apparent simplicity. Duchairn, on the other hand, shook his head.

"It's not going to be that easy, Zhaspahr," he said almost gently. "There are too many people and too many livelihoods wrapped up in it. Even the best of men, faced with the need to provide for their own families, are going to find themselves sorely tempted to continue to deal covertly with Charis if it's a choice between that and financial ruin. And make no mistake about it, for a great many of the people involved in any successful exclusion of Charisian shipping from our ports, the consequence will be ruin."

"If it is, it is." There was no flexibility at all in Clyntahn's voice or expression. "This is a struggle for the primacy of God Himself on His own world, Rhobair. Given that, the financial tribulations of a pack of merchants and shopkeepers is an insignificant price to pay if it weakens the hand of Shan-wei's foul get."

"It may be," Duchairn responded. "But whether it is or not isn't really the point, Zhaspahr. The point is whether or not we can convince or compel those 'merchants and shopkeepers' of yours to do it in the first place. And, to be completely honest, even if we should succeed in that, the consequences for our own requirements if we intend to take the war to Charis could well be significant."

"When grass is growing in the streets of Tellesberg because they have no one to buy their goods or charter their ships, we won't need to pay for any 'requirements' to topple Cayleb and his eternally damned advisers," Clyntahn shot back. "What will be an inconvenience for us-even a serious one, perhaps-will be fatal for Charis. How long do you think Cayleb will last once those money-worshipping Charisians of his realize their entire kingdom is going bankrupt, and them with it?" He grunted a hungry laugh. "And once they turn on one another like the rabble they are, how much military power will it take to sweep up the pieces?"

"He has a point there, Rhobair," Trynair said quietly, and Duchairn was forced to nod.

"Yes, he does. Assuming we could enforce such a policy."

"All we have to do is give the order," Clyntahn said coldly.

"Not this time, Zhaspahr," Duchairn disagreed, facing the Grand Inquisitor's ire from the serenity of his own newly refound faith. "The Knights of the Temple Lands don't have the authority to simply issue orders like that and see them obeyed without question. Not when the temptation--the necessity, even-to disobey them is going to be so powerful."

"Shan-wei with the 'Knights of the Temple Lands!' " Clyntahn snarled. "It's time we stopped dancing around in the shadows, anyway."

Duchairn's expression stiffened. The Grand Inquisitor's anger had continued fermenting into fury, and the totally unexpected defiance Dynnys had shown, even in the face of his agonizing death, had goaded Clyntahn's always irascible temper into a white-hot blaze. Worse than that, in some ways, Dynnys' final statement, interrupted though it had been, had called the Group of Four's motivations into question. No one-no one outside the Council of Vicars, at least-was prepared to say so openly, but the fact that Charis' own archbishop had been prepared to indict not Charis, but the Church, from the very lip of unspeakable torment and death, had struck a totally unexpected blow against the Group of Four's authority. Indeed, much as Duchairn hated to admit it, it had struck a blow against the authority of Mother Church, herself.

And it's also undermined Zahmsyn's strategy for differentiating between the Church and the Knights of the Temple Lands, he thought. Dynnys didn't charge the Knights with attacking Charis; he charged us, the four of us and even Mother Church herself. And if anyone believed him when he proclaimed Charis' innocence before we attacked her, it's also undermined the argument that this is all the result of some longstanding, heretical Charisian plot which has simply strayed into the open at last.

"I have the authority to order it on the basis of the Inquisition's overriding authority to combat heresy and apostasy anywhere it emerges," Clyntahn continued.

And since when has any Grand Inquisitor ever had that authority? Duchairn wondered. Within the Church, yes. And the power to summon the secular lords to support Mother Church against heresy in their own lands. But to arbitrarily order them to close their ports to another nation? To dictate the terms on which their subjects are allowed to make the livings needed to feed their own children? No Inquisitor has ever claimed that sort of power! On the other hand, when has any other Grand Inquisitor confronted the threat confronting us?