Of Limited Loyalty: The Second Book of the Crown Colonies Page 9

  Kamiskwa, who was in the lead, called for them to stop on a promontory overlooking a small teardrop-shaped lake. Owen studied it, looking for any signs of dwarf mastodons living amid the underbrush and evergreens. Ahead, to the southwest, clouds still shrouded the highest peaks.

  The Altashee crouched and pressed his left palm to the ground. “This is an evil place.”

  Rathfield frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Can’t you feel it?”

  Rathfield folded his arms across his chest, but Owen went to a knee and touched the ground. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling. He wasn’t sure he’d ever paid attention to what the ground felt like, but there did seem to be something odd. His fingers tingled the way they did when thawing out after a long winter walk. “It is different, Colonel.”

  “Are you having me on?”

  Nathaniel tipped his floppy-brimmed hat back. “I don’t reckon they are. Been stories told of these mountains. Shedashee have ’em. There’s things what lurk where folks might not want them lurking.”

  “So, because of some faery stories told to frighten children, we’re going to stop?”

  “This ain’t the onliest way through here, Colonel.” Nathaniel pointed off south. “Backtrack a day, cross the Snake, head on in that way.”

  “We already lost a day in Plentiful, Woods. I see no reason we shouldn’t just continue on through.”

  Count von Metternin shrugged off his pack. “In the four years I’ve been here, Colonel, I have learned that time sacrificed in the name of safety is seldom wasted—unless there is some urgency to your mission of which I am not privy.”

  “With all due respect, my lord, there are aspects of this journey which are known only to those who gave me the assignment.”

  Then it began, a rumble which shook them much as thunder close by would—made all the more remarkable because only the barest wisp of clouds existed from horizon to horizon. The vibrations pounded through Owen’s chest and, as they continued, he realized they had nothing to do with thunder. The vibrations were coming up through the ground, causing the earth to shift and trees to sway as if caught in a gale.

  His guts knotted and he got down on all fours. A ripple ran through the lake below, starting at the broad end and racing northeast toward the narrows. As the rising wave approached the promontory it picked up speed. Water withdrew from the near shore, curling into a fluid wall. The wave crested, splashing up over the narrow beach and into the wood. The water just kept going, picking up deadfall logs and bashing them against other trees. Taller trees, with their roots already shaken, succumbed to the flood and fell. A second and third wave hit the shore, neither going as far as the first, but when the water calmed itself again, what had once been beach lay beneath twenty feet of water, and what had been a teardrop now better resembled an egg.

  Kamiskwa rose and offered a hand to help Rathfield up off the ground. “As I said, it is an evil place.” He pointed toward the tallest peaks, two of which, Owen was willing to swear, stood further apart than they had. “The evil is concentrated up there. A wise man would run.”

  Rathfield dusted himself off. “I have my orders.”

  Nathaniel shook his head. “Follow ’em and you’ll likely have more scars, too.”

  The Norillian lifted his chin. “Are you brave enough a man to follow me, Woods?”

  “Iffen you ever do see the far side of those mountains, it ain’t because I been following.” The scout shrugged. “I reckon I can stand a couple more scars. So long as I live to tell the tale, I ain’t got call to complain.”

  Chapter Eleven

  23 April 1767

  Government House, Temperance

  Temperance Bay, Mystria

  Prince Vlad hated finishing the day off with a lie. “Very pleased to have you here, Bishop Bumble. I hope the late hour has not inconvenienced you.” So that was two lies.

  The stocky little man limped his way into the Prince’s private office. He shifted a heavy walking-stick from right to left and offered his hand. “So kind of you to see me, Highness. And on such short notice. I’d not expected to see you so quickly.”

  “I hardly wished to waste your time, Excellency.” Vlad shook the man’s clammy hand. “Your gout is acting up?”

  The man patted his bulbous stomach. “I fear I like rich food too much. It is a curse, but I endure.”

  The Prince waved him toward a sitting nook near the fireplace where two chairs flanked a tiny table. A small fire had been laid to take an edge off the evening’s chill, and to heat water in a pot. A silver tea service on a tray, with fine ceramic cups from the far east and a small dish of biscuits beside it, sat on the table. He waited for Bumble to sit, and took secret pleasure in his servant, Chandler, having given the cleric a chair that wobbled beneath the man’s weight. It was a petty victory, but likely the only one he’d see in their meeting.

  “You will take tea, of course.”

  “You are so very kind.”

  Prince Vlad poured each of them a cup, then sat. He did so gingerly, his hindquarter still being a bit sensitive. Mugwump, while doing better when it came to flight training, still landed hard. “Your note said you had urgent business. As this is the only opening in my schedule…”

  “Yes, I shan’t keep you over long, Highness.” Bumble smiled, excess flesh piling up around the edges of his mouth. “I wanted to ask after the disposition of the Rathfield Expedition.”

  Vlad raised his cup and sipped, burning his tongue, and using that sensation to cover his surprise. “Beg pardon?”

  The white-haired man blew on his tea before sipping. “I only know the barest of details, Highness. I’d had a note from the Archbishop that arrived with Colonel Rathfield. Before he departed he attended services here at St. Martin’s and sought some spiritual counseling.”

  “Indeed.”

  Bumble returned his cup and saucer to the table. “I would not be breaking a confidence to note that he had reservations about how his mission should be acquitted. You see, on one hand, the Crown gave him free rein to do what was necessary to bring the people of Postsylvania to justice. He felt, however, that if they had moved away because of religious motivation, temporal remedies might not be appropriate.”

  The Prince nodded. It seemed both a logical conclusion and one in keeping with Rathfield’s character. “What did you advise, if I may ask?”

  Bumble took a biscuit and nibbled. “These are very good.”

  “Chandler’s wife bakes them. Her brother and sister-in-law own the bakery on Friendship, just south of Prudence.”

  “Prosperity Baker and his wife, Lisbet.” The bishop nodded. “I shall visit and even recommend them.”

  “Very kind.” The prince snapped a biscuit in half. “You were saying?”

  “Oh, my, yes, was I? Quite. I suggested that a devout man—and he is quite devout you know—might be able to serve both spiritual and temporal realms by returning the leader of Postsylvania to Temperance for a trial. It would let the people see that we are quite fair, and would point out the logical consequences of defiance against heavenly ordained authority.”

  “An interesting idea, but the charges laid against the Postsylvanians would be treason. They’d have to be sent to Launston to be tried.” Vlad shrugged. “Your plan had merit.”

  “It yet does.” Bumble brushed crumbs from his shirt. “You see, I knew about the treason charges. I was thinking of heresy, and a court ecclesiastical. The end result would, of course, be the same.”

  Vlad’s eyes narrowed. “But we have a question of jurisdiction, don’t we? Postsylvania is well beyond the borders of Temperance Bay.”

  “I’ve already taken the liberty, Highness, of securing the agreement of my counterparts in Richlan and Bounty. My aide, Mr. Beecher, is bound for Rivertown in Fairlee even now. I really anticipate no difficulty in getting the other bishops to agree to holding the trial here. In fact, I would expect two of them to join me on the Tribunal.”

  “And i
f the Postsylvanians are found guilty?”

  “They will burn at the stake, of course.” He sipped more tea. “All of their property would be forfeit to the state.”

  The Prince sat back in his chair, his mind racing. For Bumble to already have an agreement from Bishop Hereford in Kingstown, he must have sent his agent off before the expedition departed. He likely sent a number of men south on a ship. One landed in Kingstown, Beecher would land in Fairlee, and so on. Given that Bumble had a reputation as a powerful orator and leading theologian, getting support out of the other bishops would not be difficult. Nor is his action inappropriate from their point of view.

  What surprised and concerned Vlad was Bumble’s mentioning the forfeiture aspect of the heresy laws. The Postsylvanians had violated the law by moving outside colonies sanctioned under official charters. The Crown had granted no charters west of the mountains because the land beyond it lay in the Tharyngian sphere of influence. If property the Postsylvanians claimed as their own ended up being forfeit to the Crown, it could be given out to a variety of supporters, effectively extending Mystria’s border into the area claimed by the Tharyngians. That would either result in another war immediately, or lay the groundwork for something even worse, later. Moreover, he got the sense that Bumble pointed this out as a way that the Prince might enrich himself—in effect offering him a bribe for his compliance with the Church’s plan.

  Something else niggled at the back of the Prince’s mind. “You mentioned the Postsylvanians having a leader. Their petition mentioned no single person as the leader of the True Oriental Church of the Lord. What do you know of the congregation?”

  “I would never spread gossip, Highness.”

  “Indulge me. The welfare of the expedition is my responsibility. If you knew something that hinted at danger, and I was not able to act to prevent it, the consequences could be dire.”

  Bumble glanced down at his fat fingers as he rubbed crumbs from them. “I doubt you will recall him, but twenty years ago I had a young prelate join St. Martins. Mystrian, he had been sent to seminary in Norisle. I paid for him to go. I had high hopes. Ephraim Fox was his name. He returned full of God’s fire, or so it seemed, and then, at times, would sink into so deep a melancholy that he could barely rouse himself. I did all I could to counsel him. My wife and I prayed with and for him, but something had gotten into him. He began to see things in the Good Book. He found patterns, you see, codes. He claimed that there was another Revelation due the Church, and he had been chosen to deliver it.”

  Prince Vlad shook his head. “I don’t recall any of that.”

  “I tried to save him, but it was of no use. The demons in him were too strong. He fled Temperance. I would hear nothing for years, then would occasionally get thick missives delivered. It was all nonsense. He’d press a leaf into a page and draw diagrams and show how they were related to Scripture. It proved nothing, but he said it proved everything.”

  So, what did Fox think he’d discovered, and why are you so anxious that it should remain hidden? Vlad could not help but think of the possible conspiracy concerning magick and the Church. “You received more than one of these documents? Do you still have them?”

  “Yes, and no, I had them consigned to the flames. They were the devil’s work.”

  Vlad stood and began pacing. “You don’t understand what you’ve done, do you? With just one of those leaves and my library, I could pinpoint where he’d been when he wrote you. I’ve had Nathaniel and Kamiskwa and Owen collecting hundreds of samples. The Shedashee regularly bring me things that I could have used to place him. Postsylvania could be anywhere, and his messages could have told me exactly where.”

  Bumble’s face closed. “I understand that you take great pride in what you learn through these Tharyngian methods of study, Highness, but I warn you that you put your immortal soul in peril by continuing them.”

  “And I fail to see how compiling a catalog of God’s creation does anything to diminish the glory of the Creator.” Vlad sighed. “You’re certain you have nothing?”

  “The last thing came months ago, before December.”

  “About the time the petition would have gone to Launston. No chance it was saved?”

  “I gave it to my wife to destroy.”

  “Ask her, please if, by accident…”

  “This is my wife, Highness. She obeys me in everything. It’s gone, I assure you.”

  “Yes, of course. Still, it could be very important.” Vlad gave him an open glance. “I would be in your debt.”

  “I shall make inquiries.” He held a hand up. “And if anything else comes, I shall turn it over to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Before the Prince could return to his chair, the teacups began to rattle in their saucers. The small mound of biscuits collapsed. They rolled off the table’s edge, eluding Bishop Bumble’s clumsy attempts at catching them. The silver teapot danced across the tray, the lid bouncing up and down. Then Bumble’s chair cracked, spilling the cleric to the ground.

  Vlad ignored him and his plight. He stared at the tea in his cup, memorizing how high waves rose. He began counting to himself, slowly, measuring the time. His heart pounded as the floor shifted and the building creaked. Little dust falls shot down from rafters, spreading through the air like ink disappearing into a glass of clear water.

  After twenty seconds the ground stopped moving. Vlad waited, still counting, just to be certain.

  Bumble, florid-faced and fumbling to return the biscuits to the plate, stared up at him from the floor. “There, you see, God does not approve of your Tharyngian studies.”

  “Quiet, man.” The Prince crossed to his desk and noted the time. He wrote down the duration, then found a ruler and returned to his teacup. He measured the difference between the settled level and the high point. At his desk again, he wrote the numbers down, estimated the volume of liquid that had been moving, then sat.

  “Would you say it was more a shaking motion or a rolling one?”

  “Shaking.”

  “We agree.” Vlad left his chair and sprinted across the chamber to the eastern door. He threw it open and ran into the corridor, all the way to the windows looking toward the bay. Ships rocked at anchor, but not extraordinarily so, and the people in the street carried on normally. A few folks were picking up dropped packages, and a grocer restacked potatoes in a box, but otherwise it would appear that no serious damage had been done.

  The Prince had started back toward his office by the time Bumble caught up to him. “Highness, do not mock me or God.”

  “I assure you, Bishop Bumble, I would never mock God. Or his servant.” Vlad led him back into the office. “That was an earth tremor—not unknown in these parts, but rare according to the Shedashee. They usually presage disaster, at least in their folktales. Dark times come after them.”

  Bumble snorted. “Yes, you have crumbs on the floor, and could have lost some very nice porcelain.”

  Prince Vlad turned and jabbed the cleric in the chest with a finger. “You, sir, are unaware of what all this means. For us to have felt a tremor here, one which, if my reading of the du Malphias scale for earthquakes is correct, would measure 3.2; there must have been a tremendous event somewhere else. And you may damn my Tharyngian methods, but natural philosophers from around the world—some of them clerics like yourself—have noticed a correlation between earth tremors and tidal waves. If, by the top of the hour, we see water recede from the shore here, we could be looking at a wall of water that would wash away the entire city, including your cathedral. If it occurred to the west, we could experience a surge coming down the rivers that could be far worse than spring flooding. This is to say nothing of what has happened in communities closer to the site of the earthquake. The devastation there could be utter and complete.”

  Vlad pointed at the tray and tea pot. “If you look at the scratches, the tea pot moved from the southwest to northeast. This might suggest that the earthquake took place out in the directi
on of Postsylvania.”

  “It would be God’s judgment upon them.”

  “I care less about His judgment of them than the welfare of the expedition.”

  “A very good point, Highness.” Bumble straightened his frock coat. “I shall return to the cathedral and pray for them.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  The small man’s dark eyes blinked with surprise. “I do not believe, Highness, that you wish to tell me when I can and cannot do God’s work.”

  “And I thought you understood God’s intention for you in all this.” Vlad pointed toward the bay. “You’ll ring the bells and when people respond, you will send some of them to watch the bay to see if it recedes. If it does, you will ring the bells again and urge people to get to high ground—Virtue Street or Blessedness. You’ll also ask them to watch for signs of fire.

  “If the water does not recede, you will offer a service for those who might be affected and will begin to collect things like clothes and anything else people can spare. God help us if the Benjamin River overflows. We will have things ready to send to Kingstown or Fairlee, since refugees will follow the rivers.”

  “That would defy God’s judgment.”

  “But did not Our Lord demand forgiveness and charity? ‘Respect the demands of the Father, but temper your response with the demands of the Son.’ Don’t I recall you having said that in your sermon The Lantern Held High?”

  “You would be taking that out of context, Highness. Even the devil can quote the Good Book for his own purposes.”

  Prince Vlad forced his face to blank, and let a hurt tone enter into his voice. “How can you ever believe, Bishop Bumble, that I would be doing the devil’s work? I was merely suggesting that you organize among your flock as I shall organize the Mystrian Militia. As your people are able to organize supplies, we can take able-bodied young men and deploy them to survey the damage and rebuild. While God may have visited his judgment on a people, could not the devil have used the consequences of that just punishment to hurt others in an attempt to drive them from God’s bosom? If the devil can use the Good Book, surely he could use divine acts for that same purpose. This was what I meant, Bishop, and if I was so abrupt that my intentions unclear, please forgive me.”