Chapter 12 #4
Ah, I thought. Well, they’d saved me a job. “So who tried to kill Svangerd and me on the road?”
“The provisionals,” he said. “But it was a rather half-hearted attempt, also arranged by Egil, in accordance with a direct order he’d been given by his superiors but had no faith in.
We gather that he was pinning his hopes on using you to kill or neutralise our walker, so he deliberately chose inept assassins, who you easily defeated.
” He shrugged. “And then, of course, you arrived in Mavais and acquired the true gospels, as we knew you would. That was another point in your favour, according to Egil. He knew you to be a bibliophile, and you’d told him about finding some bargain or other in that particular shop.
It was, therefore, inevitable that you’d go there again, and he knew you could be relied on to recognise that particular box, since you were familiar with the one in the late archduke’s collection. ”
Good old Egil. “Go on,” I said.
“The walker killed the princess shortly after your arrival in Choris. It was at this point that we became aware of the relationship between you and the walker, a point Egil had neglected to mention to us, for reasons which I’m sure are now obvious.
Our representative in Choris immediately saw the danger.
You would feel it incumbent upon you, as a son of the Mesoge, to try to stop the walker.
This would lead to your death. But we needed you—”
“Why? I’d already brought the box to Choris.”
He gave me a look of profound loathing. “You don’t need to know what we need you for. Suffice it to say, the reason has nothing to do with these events. Our representative, realising that you were in imminent danger of being killed—”
“Hang on,” I said. “What do you need me for?”
He scowled at me. “Something else.”
“What?”
“Realising,” he went on, “that you were in imminent danger, he took it upon himself to warn you, making it possible for you to survive your encounter with the walker and, indeed, dispose of him. I should point out that in doing so, our representative greatly exceeded his authority; his excuse, had he lived to make it, would presumably have been that he had to act quickly and had no opportunity to consult with his superiors or take instructions. Bear in mind that we hadn’t yet had a chance to adjust our plans to take account of the fact that you were the walker’s son. ”
“Fuck you,” I said.
He took no notice. “Our representative immediately took steps to secure the text of the gospels, which you had hidden in the rafters of a hayloft. He found them and made sure they fell into the hands of those best equipped to disseminate them. Shortly afterwards, of course, he was killed.”
“I meant to ask you about that,” I said.
He gave me a look. “None of our doing, it goes without saying. The provisionals had enlisted a walker of their own, your brother Kotkel. I imagine their original intention was to try and use him to stop or impede our walker – relying on the family relationship, I imagine, in which case it speaks volumes about the diligence of their research – but the loss of your father made that unnecessary. Therefore the provisionals found themselves in the position of having a monopoly of that particular brand of force, together with the added benefit of being able to blame the monster’s actions on us.
” He sighed. “My superiors believe that that was part of your friend Egil’s treachery, but I don’t think so myself.
I think it was an unhappy accident, to which the provisionals adapted with great shrewdness.
A case of fortune favouring the bold, if you like.
In any event,” he went on, “they were too late to prevent the dissemination of the gospels. That had already taken place.”
He paused, to gather his strength and to give me a singularly filthy look.
“There’s a tendency to refer to the work we do as the long game,” he said.
“It’s an expression I dislike intensely.
It is not a game. We serve a vital function in the operation of the Divine plan.
We are, quite literally, doing His work on earth.
” He stopped, briefly overcome by emotion.
“I suppose that’s why our two rival wings strive so intensely against each other,” he went on.
“If our work wasn’t so important, so holy, these differences of approach wouldn’t matter.
We’d find a way to compromise, for the sake of unity and good fellowship.
But we can’t help thinking they’re wrong, and it matters.
If we follow the path endorsed by the provisionals, we’ll fail.
And that, quite simply, is unacceptable. ”
“And they think the same way about your scheme.”
He nodded. “There has to be an opposition,” he said. “Light presupposes darkness. Joy is posited on sorrow. Good is meaningless without Evil. It’s all there, in Saloninus’ fifth law.”
“Fifth law?”
“To every action,” he said, “there is an equal and opposite reaction.” He looked at me, and the denier dropped.
“From the Mechanics,” he said. “His greatest work, a summary of everything he ever achieved. Lost now. There used to be a copy in the library of the Great King of the Sashan, but it was burned in a religious purge thirty years ago. I was probably the last person to read it, now I come to think of it. In any event, the principle is fundamental. There has to be an opposition. We carry out that function. Without us, there could be no light, no heaven, no salvation, no Kingdom of God. They’d all be meaningless. ”
“Cheer up,” I said. “Obviously you’re on the right lines. You’ve got an opposition within your Opposition. According to you, that’s a good thing.”
He refused to dignify that with a reaction.
“With the text of the true gospels circulating freely among the delegates,” he went on, “the provisionals turned their attention to your companion, Sister Svangerd. They recalled the relationship between her and Mother Krimhild, one of the most respected and revered figures in Holy Mother Church. Their sources inside our organisation had informed them of our intention to poison Krimhild, to prevent her from stopping the schism—”
“But she had a—”
He gave me a pitying smile. “Yes,” he said.
“Brought on by six drops of tincture of white hellebore root. It was one of the few manoeuvres in this whole sorry debacle that proceeded according to plan. Svangerd, the provisionals realised, would be Krimhild’s choice to deliver the speech she herself couldn’t give.
Naturally they were aware that we were aware of that—”
“Naturally.”
“Please don’t interrupt. When we made the decision to debilitate Krimhild, needless to say we took steps to ensure that she would have no one to do her work for her.
Accordingly, we arranged for one of Svangerd’s former clients to be present at the council.
When Svangerd rose to deliver Krimhild’s speech, this man would get up and denounce her.
The speech would not be delivered, or if it was, nobody would listen. ”
“So Kotkel killed him.”
He nodded. “At that point, your brother was still under the control of the provisionals.”
“At that point?”
That gave him some degree of grim satisfaction.
“Therein lies the difference between the provisionals and the orthodox, if I may say so. We take time to lay our plans. We research; we find out all relevant and necessary information. Until we’ve done that, we forbear to act, even if it means passing up on an opportunity.
We are naturally cautious. We act responsibly.
” He shook his head. “The same, I’m sorry to say, can’t be said of the provisionals.
When they found out that we were intending to deploy walkers, they decided to deploy them too.
But they hadn’t done the research. They thought, or assumed, that they knew what they were doing, but sadly that was not the case.
From the very beginning their control over Kotkel was shaky at best. Your brother had acquired a taste for killing.
Also, I think, something had made him angry. ”
“That,” I said, “would be me.”
He looked at me. Enough said. “At this juncture,” he went on, “you encountered the provisional agent in Choris. He claimed to be the official representative of the Loyal Opposition – not a lie, from his perspective.”
“Curly hair and a double chin.”
He nodded. “Brother Aviragus. A notable scholar and a fine administrator. Under other circumstances, I would have been proud to call him my friend. He came up with the idea of using you to prevent the schism. He was aware of your criminal tendencies—”
“Steady on.”
“Forging documents,” he said. “Stealing books, falsifying evidence. I have to say, his idea was quite brilliant. He would compel you to assert that you had forged the gospels. When your claim was refuted, it would naturally raise a strong presumption that the gospels were genuine. Once the authenticity of the gospels was generally accepted, the doctrinal debate over their contents would quickly cool down into harmless scholarly discussion, and outright schism would be avoided.”
“I guessed that was what he was up to.”
“Indeed? Well, you failed to let that insight influence your actions. In any event, your hands were tied. You were forced to agree to do as he asked, for fear of harm coming to the woman you love.” He didn’t make that sound like a good thing.
“You tried to circumvent the threat by confronting your brother, but the encounter was inconclusive. In fact, though you weren’t to know it, there was no threat.
By this point, Aviragus had no control at all over your brother.
When Kotkel threatened to kill Svangerd because it would make you cry, he was being entirely honest. That would have been his sole motivation, had he taken that step. ”
The thought made me shiver. Me and my big mouth.