"Above Prince Midalis?" Duke Bretherford interrupted.
Kalas stared at him hard. "You should take care your words, my friend.
Aydrian is king of Honce-the-Bear, and he holds the power of Ursal behind him. I pray that Prince Midalis comes to understand and accept this."
"And Prince Torrence, as well?" Bretherford asked, and it was obvious that the man wasn't really buying deeply into any of this.
Aydrian caught Kalas' slight wince at the mention of Torrence Pemblebury, but he was certain that Duke Bretherford did not notice.
"We will see," Kalas replied. "Aydrian is king. He has the Allhearts and the garrison of Ursal behind him, as well as the army that followed him and understood the truth of his ascension before he even rose to the position. He will secure the kingdom, through negotiation or through war, and he will reshape the Abellican Church - "
"That hope is what binds you to him, I'd guess," Bretherford interrupted.
He turned out over the taffrail and spat into the water. "Are you hoping for a war to bring about a change in the Church to fit the visions of the crazy Marcalo De'Unnero?" he asked incredulously. "Or is it just the thought of a war within the Abellican Church that has you thrilled? Is that it, my old friend? Maybe King Aydrian will weaken the monks and push their Church to the fringes of the kingdom. Is that what you're wanting?"
Kalas leaned on the rail and did not bother to respond.
Aydrian was smiling when he returned to his waiting body.
The one-armed Father Abbot of the Abellican Church sat perfectly straight in his chair. His gray hair, as always, was neatly trimmed and perfectly styled; not a strand seemed out of place on him - physically. But none around Fio Bou-raiy, not the visiting Abbot Glendenhook of St. Gwendolyn, not Ma-chuso or any of the other masters at St.-Mere-Abelle, and not Viscenti, who had brought the news from St. Precious, had ever seen the man so obviously shaken.
They were in the newly remodeled audience hall of the great abbey, on the eastern edge of the complex, overlooking the All Saints Bay. This large room, a hundred feet square, had been three separate halls, one on top of the other. But Father Abbot Bou-raiy, with visions of expanding the Church during the time when one of its sovereign sisters had sat the secular throne as queen, had desired something grander for the abbey, a place where he could entertain noblemen and perhaps even King Danube himself. So the ceilings and floors had been removed, leaving one huge hall that soared to nearly sixty feet, with a balcony running the length of the wall opposite Bou-raiy's grand throne, and all the way down the left-hand wall as well. The floor, a black-and-white patchwork of large marble tiles, was actually below ground level and was accessed by a single anteroom, the great double doors opening from the west, to the left of Bou-raiy's throne, and directly across from the most imposing design in the entire place: a huge and circular stained-glass window, set in the eastern wall above the wide staircase that ascended the thirty feet to the balcony. Filled with glass of rose and purple, blue and amber, the design on the window depicted the mummified arm of Avelyn Desbris, rising from the flattened top of ruined Mount Aida. A one-armed priest - obviously Bou-raiy - his brown robe tied off at one shoulder, knelt before the sacred place, bending low to kiss the bloody hand.
When he had first entered the room, Viscenti's eyes had widened indeed at the spectacle of the great window. A mixture of awe and revulsion had crept through him, for it was well-known throughout the Order that Bou- raiy had argued vehemently with the then-Father Abbot Agronguerre against traveling to Mount Aida and partaking of the Covenant of Avelyn.
Viscenti shrugged away his negativity, reminding himself that he had no time for such inconsequential worries at present. It was good, he realized, that Father Abbot Bou-raiy had now so obviously embraced the deeds of the hopefully soon-to-be Saint Avelyn. The Abellican Church would need such a boost, given the news from Ursal! Father Abbot Bou-raiy had listened, without the slightest interruption, to the words of Master Viscenti, the tidings of the great upheaval of secular Honce-the-Bear, but also of the impending upheaval, perhaps even greater, that was sure to befall the Abellican Church.