‘Is Annias attending the meetings?’

‘Most of the time, yes. He likes to keep a running count of the votes. He’s spending his spare time making offers to the neutral Patriarchs. Those nine men are very shrewd. They never come right out and openly accept his offers. They answer with their votes. Would you like to watch us play, little mother?’ Dolmant said it with a faint irony.

‘Thank you all the same, Dolmant,’ she declined, ‘but there are a goodly number of Elenes who are firmly convinced that if a Styric ever enters the Basilica, the dome will fall in on itself. I don’t enjoy being spat on all that much, so I think I’ll stay here, if I may.’

‘When have the meetings usually been commencing?’ Sparhawk asked the Patriarch.

‘It varies,’ Dolmant replied. ‘Makova holds the chair – that was a simple majority vote. He’s been playing with his authority. He calls the meetings on a whim, and the messengers delivering those calls somehow always seem to lose their way when they come looking for those of us who are opposed to Annias. I think Makova started out by trying to slip through a substantive vote while the rest of us were still in bed.’

‘What if he calls a vote in the middle of the night, Dolmant?’ Sephrenia asked.

‘He can’t,’ Dolmant explained. ‘Sometime in antiquity, some Patriarch with nothing better to do codified the rules dealing with meetings of the Hierocracy. History tells us that he was a tiresome old windbag with an obsession about meaningless detail. He was the one responsible for the absurd rule about the one hundred votes – or 60 per cent – on substantive matters. He also – probably out of pure whim – set down the rule that the Hierocracy could only deliberate during the hours of daylight. Many of his rules are stupid frivolities, but he talked for six straight weeks, and finally his brothers voted to accept his rules just to shut him up.’ Dolmant touched his cheek reflectively. ‘When this is all over, I may just nominate the silly ass for sainthood. Those petty, ridiculous rules of his may be all that’s keeping Annias off the throne now. At any rate, we’ve made a practice of all being in place at dawn, just to be safe. It’s a rather petty form of retaliation, actually. Makova’s not customarily an early riser, but he’s been greeting the sun with the rest of us for the past several weeks. If he’s not there, we can vote in a new chairman and proceed without him. All sorts of inconvenient votes could take place.’

‘Couldn’t he just have those votes repealed?’ she asked.

Dolmant actually smirked. ‘A vote to repeal is a matter of substance, Sephrenia, and he doesn’t have the votes.’

There was a respectful knock on the door, and Dolmant answered it. A servant spoke with him for a moment.

‘That cook just died,’ Dolmant said to Sparhawk and Sephrenia, sounding a bit shocked. ‘Wait here a moment. The physician wants to talk with me.’

‘Strange,’ Sparhawk murmured.

‘People do die of natural causes, Sparhawk,’ Sephrenia told him.

‘Not in my profession – at least not very often.’

‘Maybe he was old.’

Dolmant returned, his face very pale. ‘He was poisoned!’ he exclaimed.

‘What?’ Sparhawk demanded.

‘That cook of mine was poisoned, and the physician says that the poison was in the porridge the man was preparing for breakfast. That porridge could have killed everyone in the house.’

‘Perhaps you’d like to reconsider your position on the notion of arresting Annias, Your Grace,’ Sparhawk said grimly.

‘Surely you don’t believe –’ Dolmant broke off, his eyes suddenly very wide.

‘He’s already had a hand in the poisoning of Aldreas and Ehlana, Your Grace,’ Sparhawk said. ‘I doubt that he’d choke very much over a few Patriarchs and a score or so Church Knights.’

‘The man’s a monster!’ Then Dolmant started to swear, using oaths more common to a barracks than a theological seminary.

‘You’d better tell Emban to circulate word of this to the Patriarchs loyal to us, Dolmant,’ Sephrenia advised. ‘It appears that Annias may have come up with a cheaper way to win an election.’

‘I’d better start rousing the others,’ Sparhawk said, rising to his feet. ‘I want to tell them about this, and it takes a while to get into full armour.’

It was still dark when they set out for the Basilica accompanied by fifteen armoured knights from each of the four orders. Sixty Church Knights, it had been decided, was a force with which few would care to interfere.

The sky to the east was beginning to show that first pale stain of daylight when they reached the great domed church which was at the very centre of the Holy City – its thought and spirit as well as its geography. The entrance into the city of the column of Pandions, Cyrinics, Genidians and Alciones the previous night had not gone unnoticed, and the torchlit bronze portal leading into the vast court before the Basilica was guarded by a hundred and fifty red-tunicked church soldiers under the command of that same captain who, at Makova’s orders, had attempted to prevent the departure of Sparhawk and his companions from the Pandion chapterhouse on their journey to Borrata. ‘Halt!’ he commanded in an imperious, even insulting tone.

‘Would you attempt to deny entrance to Patriarchs of the Church, Captain?’ Preceptor Abriel asked in a level tone, ‘knowing that you thereby imperil your soul?’

‘His neck too,’ Ulath muttered to Tynian.

‘Patriarch Dolmant and Patriarch Emban may freely enter, My Lord,’ the captain said. ‘No true son of the Church could refuse them entry.’

‘But what of these other Patriarchs, Captain?’ Dolmant asked him.

‘I see no other Patriarchs, Your Grace.’ The captain’s tone hovered on insult.

‘You’re not looking, Captain,’ Emban told him. ‘By Church Law, the Preceptors of the militant orders are also Patriarchs. Stand aside and let us pass.’

‘I have heard of no such Church Law.’

‘Are you calling me a liar, Captain?’ Emban’s normally good-humoured face had gone iron-hard.

‘Why – certainly not, Your Grace. May I consult with my superiors on this matter?’

‘You may not. Stand aside.’

The captain started to sweat. ‘I thank Your Grace for correcting my error,’ he floundered. ‘I was not aware that the Preceptors also enjoyed ecclesiastical rank. All Patriarchs may freely enter. The rest, I’m afraid, must wait outside.’