Michael Stackpole - Of Limited Loyalty

“I am the Colonial Governor-General. This prisoner is being kept in a facility by my command. Those chains are government property. I will determine how they are used.”

“Bishop Bumble said…”

“If Bishop Bumble wishes this man to remain restrained, he can waddle his way down here and tell me that himself.” Vlad knew he’d overplayed his hand at that moment, but he was prepared to pay the price for it. Both men looked shocked. “Go, the both of you, and report to him exactly what I said. The prisoner shall remain in my custody until then.”

The two guards exchanged glances.

Vlad thrust a finger toward where the Cathedral stood. “Go. You do not want me summoning troops to enforce my wishes.”

The two men bowed and withdrew.

Vlad waved Caleb forward. “Remove the mask.”

Caleb unbuckled it and slid it off, revealing Fire’s badly bruised face. The knot on one side of his jaw suggested it had been broken. The area around his mouth appeared somewhat clean, as if someone had wiped away blood from his swollen and clearly broken nose.

The Prince approached. “Can you open your mouth?”

Fire nodded and, wincing, complied.

Fewer teeth than I remember. Vlad shook his head and stepped back. “Steward Fire, I am very sorry you have been mightily abused. Bishop Bumble will be made to answer for his treatment of you.”

Fire glanced down and shook his head. His teeth remained clenched. “No, Highness.”

“I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation, Steward. Later today Bishop Bumble and his confederates will pass judgment upon you. You will be found guilty. They will sentence you to be burned at the stake. They need to have me agree to this. I am given little choice in the matter because, as Mr. Frost tells me, you have resisted every effort at mustering a defense. If you had any mitigating circumstances, anything I could use to put pressure on Bumble, I could ask him to commute your sentence to life. You’d be sent to Fairlee, to the prison at Iron Mountain.”

“I thank you and Mr. Frost, Highness.” Fire’s words came slowly, and his breath shallow, as if breathing pained him. “God has showed me what I must do.”

“Caleb, for your own good, you might wish to retire to my office. What gets discussed from this point forward might leave you open to charges of heresy yourself.”

Caleb laughed. “What makes you think, since I decided to defend Steward Fire, that I’m not already facing that charge?”

“Fair point.” Vlad clasped his hands behind his back. “Steward, I need you to understand that I understand. I’ve read your work. I have studied the King Robert version of the Good Book, and I have seen what you have seen. I have, furthermore, used what you saw and have determined that you are right. I know, therefore, why Bishop Bumble wishes you to be silenced. And I know why Mystria cannot afford to have that happen.”

Fire stared at him, then staggered a step forward and fell to his knees. He tried to raise his hands to cover his face, but the chains prohibited him. Tears ran down the man’s cheeks. “You understand? You know?”

Vlad nodded.

“Then I’m not mad?”

“No.”

Fire hunched forward, sobbing.

The Prince dropped to a knee before him, resting his hands on the man’s shoulders. “I can imagine you thought you were. You saw things no one else did. When you spoke to your peers, they couldn’t or wouldn’t see. When you spoke to your superiors, they were surprised, then told you that you were seeing things. Men like Bumble did things to unsettle you, to undercut your confidence, to make you question yourself and your sanity. But you knew you were right, and knew that to deny what you had seen was to work against God. So you headed west with a select band of followers, to do God’s bidding.”

The crying man nodded.

“What you failed to see is why I know you’re an honest man. You failed to see that Bumble and the Church had to silence you. You were so pleased to be helping others, and you wrote to Bumble to show him a way to join you-not viciously to lord over him the error of his ways, but in fellowship so that he, too, could be saved. But that same motivation convinced Bumble that you could not be bought off or trusted to remain silent. This is why it was important to find you and bring you back for a trial, so that others would be frightened into silence.”

Fire looked up, sniffing. “The Good Lord did not resist His prosecutors.”

Vlad stood and, with Caleb, helped Fire to a chair by the wall. “I won’t argue theology with you, Steward, save to suggest that whatever Bishop Bumble is doing, it’s not found in Scripture.”

“I know what God has asked me to do. He wants me to share His gifts.” Fire smiled weakly. “You have told me that I have succeeded.”

“Not nearly enough. You cannot let Bumble destroy you.”

“But you have already said he has not.”

Vlad sighed and took a step back. Beaten and exhausted, likely starved and crushed by the destruction of his settlements, Fire couldn’t muster enough rational thought to resist Bumble, much less aid Caleb in defending himself. And it would make no difference if he did. Even if Fire were able to present himself in a favorable light, the tribunal would still convict.

“Caleb, do you have a sense as to public sentiment in this matter?”

“Half again as many shun me as offer praise, and most of the latter are veterans who remember Bumble poorly. I don’t get the sense that anyone believes they could be prosecuted next, so they believe what Bumble is doing will protect us.”

Prince Vlad chewed his lower lip for a moment. “I’m not going to be given any choice but to sign off on the death warrant. I can buy time, but little more than that.” He thought for a moment, then frowned. “Steward Fire, do you know of any enemies Bishop Bumble might have?”

The prisoner shook his head. “He has always seemed to me to be a well-loved man.”

Another question had begun to form itself in Vlad’s head, but the slamming open of the doors to his chamber prevented its completion. Bumble burst in, flanked by the two guards, and hurried his way along toward where the Prince stood. Bumble’s face had taken on the purple of raging apoplexy.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“I wished to speak to Steward Fire.”

Bumble’s eyes became slits. “That is not what I refer to, Highness. How dare you have beaten the prisoner!”

Fire slumped in the chair and Caleb gasped. Vlad stared. “I beg your pardon?”

The fat cleric pointed a finger straight at the Prince. “My men are witnesses to the fact that the prisoner was not injured when they brought him here.”

“You go too far, your Grace.”

“Based on our previous discussion, Highness, I would have thought you know that your accusation is a lie.” Bumble snapped his fingers. “Get the prisoner back to the armory.”

The guards came forward and took custody of Fire. One grabbed the leash while the other buckled the steel muzzle back in place. The one holding the chain yanked it, and Fire staggered toward the door.

The Bishop’s eyes never left Vlad’s as he pointed at Caleb. “And you, Frost, be gone. And beware what you print in your Gazette. Heresy takes all forms, and will be stamped out in these Colonies. I can and will ruin you and your paper.”

Caleb laughed. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Would you, now?” Bumble’s voice dropped into an icy register. “Were I to preach against it, were I to fund Mr. Wattling to reestablish his paper, and then contribute to it, I think you would find your readership greatly reduced. And if my people were to comb through your archives, I am certain there are things there which could be considered seditious, treasonous, or heretical. You are very free in your thinking, Frost, and contributors like Samuel Haste do not help you. So do not test me or tempt me.”