David Weber - How firm a foundation

She stood, a slender dark-haired flame in white, slashed by that violet stole, rubies and sapphires glittering like pools of crimson and blue fire in her crown of state, gazing down at the white-faced, stricken man she had just condemned to death.

And then she turned, Merlin Athrawes a silent presence at her back, and walked out of that throne room’s ringing silence without another word. . VIII.

Monastery of Saint Zherneau, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis

It was raining-gently, for a Tellesberg afternoon-as Father Paityr Wylsynn knelt in the kitchen garden of the Monastery of Saint Zherneau. He felt his plain, borrowed habit growing progressively heavier with moisture as the blowing mist washed over him, but he didn’t care. In fact, he treasured it. It wasn’t a cold, drenching rain, after all. More like a caress, possibly even a kiss from God’s world, he thought with a touch of whimsy as his muddy hands extracted weeds from neat rows of staked tomato vines and the warm, earthy, growing smell of wet leaves and rich, moist soil rose about him like the Archangel Sondheim’s incense.

It had been too long since he’d done simple work, he thought. He’d been so wrapped up in his duties and his responsibilities-his probably arrogant belief that so many critical things depended upon him- that he’d forgotten even the greatest and holiest man imaginable (which he most decidedly was not) was only one more worker in a far greater Worker’s garden. If Saint Zherneau’s had done no more than remind him of that simple fact, he would still have owed Archbishop Maikel and Father Zhon enormous thanks.

But that wasn’t all Saint Zherneau’s had done.

He moved forward a few feet to reach a fresh batch of weeds and raised his face to the tiny, delicate fingertips of the rain. He had two more rows of tomatoes to do, and then the squash. That was going to be more of a penance, since if there was one vegetable he detested, it was squash.

I suppose it’s proof of the Archangels’ workmanship that they created people to be different enough that there’s somebody to like every edible plant, he thought. I’m not too sure why they wasted the effort on squash, but I’m sure it was part of God’s plan. I’m not so sure a taste for brussels sprouts was, though, come to think of it.

He smiled and raised a clod of wet earth in his fingers. He looked down at it and squeezed gently, compressing it into a smooth oval, and for the first time in far too long he felt another, far greater hand shaping his own life.

“Well, what do you think?” Father Zhon Byrkyt asked.

He sat gazing out the window at the red-haired, youthful priest pulling weeds in the monastery’s garden. The young man seemed oblivious to the gently falling rain, although Byrkyt doubted that was the case. In fact, from how slowly and carefully Father Paityr was working, Byrkyt suspected he was actually enjoying it.

“You know my opinion,” Father Ahbel Zhastrow said. “I was inclined in his favor before he ever arrived, and I’ve seen nothing to change that opinion.”

Father Ahbel was the Abbot of Saint Zherneau’s, a title Byrkyt had held until fairly recently. Age was paring away Byrkyt’s strength, however. In fact, he was fading visibly, although he seemed less aware of the process-or less concerned by it, at any rate-than anyone else. He’d been forced to give up his duties as abbot because of failing health, but he retained the office of librarian, which was arguably of even greater importance and responsibility, given the… peculiarities of the Order of Saint Zherneau.

“I’ve come to think highly of him myself,” Brother Bahrtalam Fauyair said. The almoner, in charge of feeding the poor in Saint Zherneau’s neighborhood, was brown-haired and brown-eyed, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, with a battered, pugilist’s face which hinted only too accurately of his youthful life as a waterfront loanshark’s enforcer before he heard God’s call. Now that face wore an anxious expression, and he shook his head slowly.

“I’ve come to think very highly of him,” he continued, “but I can’t quite forget he’s an inquisitor. Everything I’ve ever heard of him, far less what we’ve seen while he’s been here, shouts that he’s nothing at all like Clyntahn or Rayno. But he’s still an inquisitor-raised and trained as a Schuelerite-and we’ve never admitted a Schuelerite to the inner circle. There was a reason for that, and I just can’t convince myself we should set that rule aside if we don’t absolutely have to.”

“Bahrtalam has a point,” Brother Symyn Shaumahn said. As the monastery’s hosteler, charged with serving the needs of the homeless and seeing to the well-being and comfort of Saint Zherneau’s guests, he and Fauyair worked closely together every day. They didn’t look very much alike, though. Shaumahn was gray-haired, slender, and at least fifteen or twenty years older than Fauyair, with a thin face and a scholarly look.

“He has a point,” he repeated. “Oh, there was never a hard and fast rule about Schuelerites, but there was certainly agreement!” He made a wry face, and Byrkyt chuckled. “All the same, Bahrtalam,” Shaumahn turned from the window to face Fauyair fully, “we’ve discarded a lot of other rules, including rules which were hard and fast, over the last couple of years. We haven’t set any of them aside without good reason, yet set them aside we have. I’ll agree that the mere thought of letting an inquisitor anywhere near the journal is enough to set my teeth on edge, but I’m inclined to support Zhon and Ahbel on this one.”

“You are?” Fauyair looked surprised, and Shaumahn shrugged.

“Not without someone showing me a very good reason to, I assure you! But I think Maikel’s almost certainly right about this young man. For that matter, I’ll remind all of us that Maikel’s judgment of someone’s character is usually frighteningly acute. Everything I’ve seen of Father Paityr only confirms what Maikel’s told us in his case, at any rate, and Maikel and the others are absolutely correct about the huge advantages inherent in bringing this particular inquisitor over to the truth.”

“But those very advantages would become equally huge disasters if it turns out Maikel isn’t right in his case after all,” Sister Ahmai Bailahnd pointed out.

If Sister Ahmai-more properly Mother Abbess Ahmai-was perturbed by the fact that she was the only woman present, it wasn’t apparent. For that matter, she’d been a frequent visitor at Saint Zherneau’s over the years. The Abbey of Saint Evehlain was Saint Zherneau’s sister abbey, although it had been founded almost two hundred years after Saint Zherneau’s. Sister Ahmai was a petite, slender woman with delicate hands, an oval face, brown hair, and a strong nose. She limped from a left leg which had been badly broken when she’d been younger, and damp weather (like today’s) made it worse. Her brown eyes were shadowed with more than the aching discomfort of her leg as she looked out the window with the others, however.

“Trust me, Ahmai, we’re all painfully aware of that,” Brother Tairaince Bairzhair, Saint Zherneau’s treasurer, said wryly. His brown hair was sprinkled with white, and he rubbed the scar on his forehead with one finger, brown eyes intent as he too watched the oblivious young priest working in the garden. “The fact that, unlike so many other intendants, he’s never been capricious, that he’s always been fair and compassionate, would be enough to give him a commanding stature all by itself.” Bairzhair snorted. “After all, we’re all so unaccustomed to that sort of behavior out of any Schuelerite, and especially out of an intendant!

“But then there’s the fact that Schuelerite or no- inquisitor or no-I’ve never heard anyone accuse him of speaking a harsh word, and all of Old Charis has seen the faith that carried him through the silence about his family after his father’s death. Then add in the fact that the Wylsynn family’s always had a reputation for piety, and the fact that he’s now the son and nephew of two vicars who were martyred by that bastard Clyntahn, and you get a package that could do us all incredible damage if we tell him the truth and he doesn’t believe it.”