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‘You can go in one of the wagons.’ Each guard troop had a wagon for equipment.
‘Well that’ll jolt the baby out of me quick enough!’ She sounded cross but seemed to find the idea to her liking. ‘So I’m to sit all alone in a rickety wagon and be hauled halfway across empire?’
‘You’ll have Marten for company. He’s in no state to ride,’ I said.
‘Marten? So anyone can come along now?’
‘Advisor!’ I raised my hands again. ‘Makin, tell Keppen and Grumlow they can go back to the Haunt.’ I didn’t think missing Congression would bother Keppen in the least, and Grumlow had a woman somewhere in Hodd Town that he’d probably rather spend time with.
‘So that’s settled.’ I dusted my hands together and cast an eye over the room’s lurid blues. ‘Let’s go and make Bishop Gomst a happy man.’
We left Holland’s mansion in a troop. Gorgoth carried the coffer and it pleased me to see that even his arms strained with the weight of all that gold. Lord Holland, his wife, and retainers flocked about us from the front steps to the gates of their compound. Makin made all the replies and niceties, the dregs of my dreaming still soured the day. At the gates Marten pointed out one of the guard wagons to Miana, an uncomfortably functional vehicle. She made an immediate turn, Sir Riccard jumping to avoid the swing of her belly.
‘Lord Holland!’ She stopped the man in mid-flow. ‘I wish to purchase your personal carriage.’
I left Miana to secure the deal, guarded by Marten, Riccard and eight of the ten men who accompanied her from the Haunt. Rike, Grumlow, Keppen, and Kent fell in with us as I led the way to the part-built cathedral of Hodd Town. Gomst had mentioned plans to name it the Sacred Heart after a cathedral of legend that once stood in Crath City. For my part I felt St George’s to be a fine name.
I settled the brothers within the walls of the great hall, dwarfed by the immense pillars that had stood ready to carry the roof for a decade and more. Lesser clerics, choirboys, and the more devoted and well-wrapped of Hodd Town’s citizens, watched them with undisguised curiosity. Gorgoth put down his burden, set a bare foot to the lid, and stared back causing several choirboys to make a run for it.
A duty-priest led me to the grand vestibule where Gomst kept his office, due mainly to the fact the chamber had a completed roof. He rose from behind his desk to greet me. From the look of him he slept no better than I did. Gomst never wore his years well and now they hung from him like invisible chains.
‘They tell me you do good work here, Father Gomst.’
He bowed his head and said nothing. In the six years since we found each other again on the lichway before the ghosts came, the grey had risen from his beard and chased the black from his hair.
‘I’ve brought you enough gold to have the cathedral completed. I want as many men as can fit around the walls to be working here at every hour of every day.’
Gomst lifted his head frowning and made to speak.
‘On Sundays they can rest,’ I said.
‘You think faith and churches will save us from the Dead King?’ Gomst asked.
‘Don’t you, Bishop?’ I thought it would be nice if one of us did.
He drew in a deep breath and set his eyes on me, bright and dark. ‘It’s easier to have faith when you are one of the flock. The closer I get to the top of this long ladder we call the church of Roma … the closer to the Holy See where God speaks … the less I hear him, the further away I feel.’
‘It’s good that you have some doubt in you, Gomsty. Men who are certain of everything – well perhaps they’re not men at all.’
Gomst stepped closer, from shadow into lamplight, and it seemed that I saw him for the first time, set against the memory of another bishop, one more certain of his path and his entitlements. I wondered how long Murillo’s shadow had hidden Gomst from my sight. He was at worst guilty of loyalty to bad kings, of a mind narrowed by a life at court, and of pomposity. Not the most capital of crimes, and old crimes at that.
‘You remember the ghosts on the lichway, Father Gomst?’
He nodded.
‘You told me to run, to leave you there alone. And when they came, you prayed. Faith was your shield. We faced them together, you and I, with all my brothers fled.’
Gomst offered a grim smile. ‘I was in a cage if you recall, or I would have run with them.’
‘We’ll never know, will we?’ I gave him the brilliance of my own smile, creasing the stiff burn-scars on my cheek. ‘And all men are cowards. I may not have run that day but I’ve always been a coward, never braver than my imagination.’
From my belt I pulled out the order he would sign to acknowledge the church’s acceptance of my chest of gold. Gomst looked at it.
‘I would have run, but for that cage.’ He shivered.
I clapped a hand to his shoulder. ‘And here I am building you a new cage, Father Gomst, for just forty thousand ducets.’
We sat then, Father Gomst and I, and drank small beer, for the water in Hodd Town is barely safe for washing.
‘So here I am, Gomsty, with a box full of shiny metal making a cathedral happen. Making the Pope herself trail out of Roma to my doorstep.’
The bishop inclined his head then wiped a touch of foam from his moustache. ‘Times change, Jorg. Men change.’
‘And how did I get my box of gold? By setting my will behind a sharp edge and applying an unhealthy amount of determination.’ I sipped from my flagon. ‘When you move the big pieces on the board, the world seems more like a game than ever. That illusion, that those at the top know what they’re doing – the feeling some folk hold, that the world is safe and solid and well-ordered – well, that illusion wears thin when it’s us who stand at the top doing the ordering. I don’t doubt that for every step you take toward Roma God sounds three steps further away.’
Gomst’s hands trembled on his cup, his big and ugly knuckles paling. ‘You should watch over those dear to you more closely, Jorg. King Jorg. Triple your guards.’
‘Yes?’ His meaning escaped me. Sweat glistened on his brow.
‘I – I hear rumours, among the bishops, from visiting monks, wandering priests …’
‘Tell me.’
‘The Pope knows. Not from me. Your confession remains between us. But she knows. They say she will send someone.’ He set his cup down, rattling it on the desk. ‘Guard those you love.’
I wondered at Gomst, surprised by him after all these years. He’d known me longer than any man I still kept counsel with. After my father burned my dog he called Gomst to instruct me. Perhaps he thought some religion would temper the lesson. Or maybe that hammer, the one I nearly killed him with when he set the fire, had made him think I needed an education in divine right. He may have reasoned that if I thought God stood behind him I would be slower to raise my hand against him the next time. Whatever the reason, he dropped my spiritual welfare into Father Gomst’s lap in my seventh year. Or at least he ordered a priest to the Tall Castle for that purpose. It may have been Mother who chose the particular cleric to fill the role.
Strange to say, but Gomst had watched me grow for longer than did my mother, longer than Makin, or the Nuban, or Coddin. He had seen more of my years pass than any of them, Father included.
