The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2)(8)
The visions and prophecies of Rachela were a lie, which functioned exactly as intended. Which meant that visions and prophecy remained a doctrinal cornerstone of the Interdependent Church—from a prophet, mind you. There had been one, who had become the first emperox. There was nothing in church doctrine barring another emperox from claiming the power of vision or prophecy. Indeed, church doctrine deeply suggested that, as the head of the Interdependent Church, the visionary power of prophecy was the birthright of the successor emperoxs, all eighty-seven of whom to date could trace their lineage back to the Prophet-Emperox Rachela herself—who aside from being the mother of the Interdependency, was also the mother of seven children, including triplets.
Every emperox was doctrinally capable of having visions and making prophecies. It’s just that, excepting Rachela herself, none of them ever did.
None, that is, until now.
*
In the anteroom of the Chamber of the Executive Committee, the room given over at the imperial palace to the group of the same name, and of which she was the chair, Archbishop Gunda Korbijn abruptly paused, surprising her assistant, and bowed her head.
“Your Eminence?” her assistant, a young priest named Ubes Ici, said.
Korbijn held up her hand to quell the question, and stood there for a moment, collecting her thoughts.
“This used to be easier,” she said, under her breath.
Then she smiled ruefully. She had intended to offer up a small prayer, one for patience and calm and serenity in the face of what was likely to be a long day, and month, and possibly rest of her career. But what came out was something else entirely.
Well, and that was about par for the course these days, wasn’t it.
“Did you say something, Your Eminence?” Ici asked.
“Only to myself, Ubes,” Korbijn said.
The young priest nodded to this, and then pointed to the door of the chamber. “The other members of the executive committee are already here. Minus the emperox, of course. She’ll be arriving at the agreed time.”
“Thank you,” Korbijn said, looking at the door.
“Everything all right?” Ici asked, following his boss’s gaze. Ici was deferential but he wasn’t stupid, Korbijn knew. He was well aware of recent events. He couldn’t have missed them. No one could have. They had rocked the church.
“I’m fine,” Korbijn assured him. She moved toward the door and Ici moved with her, but Korbijn held up her hand again. “No one in this meeting but committee members,” she said, and then caught the unasked question on Ici’s face. “This meeting is likely to have a frank exchange of views, and it’s best those are kept in the chamber.”
“A frank exchange of views,” Ici repeated skeptically.
“Yes,” Korbijn said. “That’s the euphemism I’m going with at the moment.”
Ici frowned, then bowed and stepped aside.
Korbijn looked up, offered a prayer, for real this time, and then pushed through the doors into the chamber.
The chamber was large and excessively ornate in a way that only a room in an imperial palace could be, filled with the cruft of centuries of artistic gifts, patronage, and acquisitions by emperoxs with more money than taste. Along the far wall of the chamber a mural flowed, representing some of the great historical figures that had been part of the executive committee over the centuries. It was painted by the artist Lambert, who had painted the background in the style of the Italian Renaissance and the figures themselves in early Interdependency realism. From her earliest days on the committee, Korbijn had found the mural both an appalling mishmash, and its heroic representation of figures an almost hilarious overrepresentation of the importance of the executive committee, and what it did on a day-to-day basis.
No one’s going to put this committee in a mural, Korbijn thought, approaching the long table that featured ten ornate chairs. Eight of those chairs were already filled with the two other representatives of the church, three members of parliament, and three members representing the guilds and the nobility who controlled them. One of the remaining chairs, at one end of the table, was for her, as head of the committee. The other was for the emperox, currently Grayland II, the source of Korbijn’s current headache.
As she was reminded the very second she sat down in her seat.
“What the fuck is this about the emperox having visions?” said Teran Assan, scion of the House of Assan, and the newest member of the committee. He was a hasty (probably too-hasty, in Korbijn’s estimation) replacement for Nadashe Nohamapetan, who was currently in imperial custody for murder, treason and the attempted assassination of the emperox.
Korbijn missed her relatively polite presence. Nadashe may have been a traitor, but she had decent manners. Assan’s current outburst was, alas, standard operating procedure for him. He was one of those people who believed social graces were for the weak.
Korbijn looked around the table to see the other reactions to this outburst, which ranged from disgust to weary recognition that Assan’s behavior probably was setting new, low benchmarks for bad behavior.
“And a good morning to you, too, Lord Teran,” Korbijn said. “How good of you to start our meeting off with a round of pleasantries.”
“You want pleasantries while our emperox announces that she’s having religious delusions about the end of the Interdependency and the destruction of the guild system,” Assan said. “May I suggest, Your Eminence, that your sense of priorities is out of whack.”