14.3
Jewel had flown as a scout for the army of Viznove in Bathory’s war. She thought she knew what ‘verification’ was. As a flier, a scout it was calling for another with comparable or sharper eyes to look upon what you doubted your own vision for.
It was not long on the march of her very first war before the other fliers learned she was excellent as a source of ‘verification’. Her eyes were sharper and could see details further than any Gryphon rider.
In that regard Jewel supposed what Leo embarked on could be said to be similar to that.
It began with missives sent with her seal and a miracle invoked by his own working. First of all to Bitta of Thuringia in the Temple of Nerthus, but also Midglen, Clearwater, Stonemoot and of course, the recently released from her brother’s lordship the Temple of the Silver Lady south of Rochford.
She’d had to take a moment to collect herself when they came to that letter, confused and hurt by apparent insult and insubordination, but a search of her missives and mostly unread proclamations from her vassals had confirmed it, with the death of her father, the strange temple so rich in honey had slipped from vassalhood to the barony of Rochford and her brother in particular, and had ‘returned’ to her own holdings, as Countess of Viznove..
The letters had then continued to those temples north, beyond her borders, in Arva and Zekhedge, names she did not know but Leo seemed at least familiar with. She’d never fully realized before how the temples coordinated with one another.
Like a realm within the realm, an order of peerage not unlike the brotherhood of Gryphon riders. Distinct and distant from the affairs of Counts, Countesses and baronies.
Distinct from armies too.
“Leo. Why do the temples of the realm not send diviners to battle in war?”
Her Priest did not jolt, but his body went still in a way that she had learned was almost exactly the same.
“Because it is not done, Countess.”
She glared down at him before turning back to her work, the flood of messages she had been failing to oversee, the tallies she had failed to properly make. The reprehensible state that she had been letting her duties fall into, no wonder Paul had listened to Leo in calling for her father and Muriel's souls to be invoked.
She flinched at the memory, but her guilt could wait, what Leo had possibly uncovered was more important than her own feelings and worries, if her loved ones were not safely kept by the gods then their souls might be in dire conditions indeed!
But there was nothing for her to do on that front but trust the actions of her priest! So her duties had to suffice.
“Magarska brought diviners to war.”
She did not have to look up with the figures of harvests reported around her dominion to know that he scowled at that, she could hear his hair sway as he shook his head hard.
“And what happened to the High Kingdom of Magarska Countess? The same as befell Old Cantor.”
Leo’s voice was harsh, Jewel bristled but sought out calm. She had come to find that when he was not in a crisis or a ritual her priest was not a man that should be left to speak unsupervised. He was far too prone to not recognizing the insults he gave.
“Old Cantor fell to a beast tide that lay waste to all its vaults, despoiled the lands of all its people and shattered its cities, surely this is a jest to compare the armies of Viznove and Cantor Reborn to such a monstrosity?”
Her Court priest did in fact shudder from her words then, but he mustered the courage Father always told her of despite the fear he stank of. Turning from his most recent letter to look up at her, she spared him a glance over her own parchment.
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“The Pantheon’s records are very clear, yes there was a great beast tide from the north which swept over the empire and broke it asunder, but the rot and decay of Old Cantor had made it brittle long before, the god emperors and the calling of the heavens in war and governance spelled the empire’s doom, Jewel, the temples are very clear on that.”
She stared at him.
“What does calling the gods in war have to do with a beast tide? Or in governance? The books warn of the fate of the God Emperors, of their immortal suffering, but how was that rot? Beyond the madness of men made divine, what does the heavens have to do with Cantor’s fall?”
Leo took a heavy breath.
“The gods can give a woman child without the touch of a man, they can sow fields and grow crops, they can bring rain, they can heal illness and injury—and if one only knows how to ask correctly, they can send lightning down from the sky to strike your enemies dead. Given all they can do, why should man toil in the field at all? Why should we risk our lives upon the battlefield if we can call on gods to strike down our enemies? Why have war at all if vows can unite all men?”
Jewel looked down upon her Priest, at the mortal man who was supposed to be her council in the heavens, considering his words before speakin the question he obviously wanted her to ask.
“Why not?”
He laughed then took a heavy breath.
“Because it has been tried, and it works.”
She tilted her head, her brows raising up in confusion so high she could feel her skin shifting against the roots of her horns, ears splaying back. Where had her composure gone? She used to be better than this at giving away her feelings!
Leo continued.
“It works, for years, or lifetimes of men, for centuries sometimes; or in the case of the old empire of Cantor, millenia! We do not have records which clearly give more than hints before that time. Mostly in the form of the gods with rituals that remain known to the Pantheon that predate it.”
Leo looked up to Jewel.
“The apprentices at the temple who have proved themselves capable of calling upon the heavens safely are told what I am about to tell you.”
He stared earnestly up to her with an intensity to his eyes, tension in his neck and brow until she nodded her acknowledgement.
“Every kingdom, every empire, every time man has called on the gods to rule for them, to labor for them, to act in their stead in all things, ruin has fallen upon them. The Pantheon survived the fall of Cantor with this lesson, that the heavens cannot be invited into matters of war or the governance of man, and must not be called to do our labors for us. In Cantor Reborn the temples are heeded, but not all kings listen to the Pantheon’s wisdom, Magarska was doomed to fall for their hubris. Just like the empire of Old Cantor.”
Jewel considered the man before her, the sudden fire to his spirit, the way that she could see the hint of miracles cutting the air around him even now.
Then she looked down at the very letter he was writing.
At one of the dozens of missives he insisted on sending, when her Father, when Muriel and so many countless other dead might be lost, abandoned by the gods they thought would protect them!
“Did the ones who taught you that also say that the gods shelter the souls of the dead?”
She did not enjoy seeing the look of horror, and then sudden stillness fall over Leo’s face, but at the same time the words he spoke while turning back to writing his densely packed missive had an equal determination as she saw shining in that night with the vampyre raid.
“That is why we must verify what we witnessed.”
Jewel considered his face, listened to his heart and the subtle ebb and flow of the world in him, then nodded. For now, at least, Leo still spoke the truth.