The interminable funeral droned on and on, punctuated by prayers and hymns. At specified points, the congregation stood; at others, they knelt; and at still others they sat back down again. It was all very solemn, and not very much of it made any real sense.
The Primate Annias sat as near as he dared to the velvet rope separating the Patriarchs from the spectators on the north side of the vast nave, and he was surrounded by flunkies and sycophants. Since Sparhawk could not get close to him, the big Pandion settled instead for sitting in the south gallery directly opposite, where, surrounded by his friends, he could look directly into the grey-faced Churchman’s eyes. The gathering of the Patriarchs opposed to Annias inside the walls of the Pandion chapterhouse had proceeded according to plan, and the apprehension and imprisonment of six Patriarchs loyal to the Primate – or at least to his money – had also gone off without a hitch. Annias, his frustration clearly showing on his face, busied himself by scribbling notes to the Patriarch of Coombe, which were delivered by various members of a squad of youthful pages. For each note Annias dispatched to Makova, Sparhawk dispatched one to Dolmant. Sparhawk had a certain advantage in this. Annias actually had to write the notes. Sparhawk simply sent folded scraps of blank paper. It was a ploy to which Dolmant had rather surprisingly agreed.
Kalten slipped into a seat on the other side of Tynian, scribbled a note of his own and passed it down to Sparhawk. ‘Good luk,’ the note read. ‘Fyve moor of are missing patriarks showd up at the bak gait of the chapterhowse a half our ago. They herd we were protekting our frends, and they maid a run for it. Forchunate, wot?’ Sparhawk winced slightly. Kalten’s grasp on the spelling of the Elene language was probably even looser than Vanion had feared. He showed the note to Talen. ‘How does this affect things?’ he whispered.
Talen squinted. ‘The number voting only changes by one,’ he whispered back. ‘We locked away six of Annias’s votes and got back five more of ours. We’ve got fifty-two now, he’s got fifty-nine, and there are still the nine neutrals. That’s a total of one hundred and twenty votes. It still takes seventy-two to win, but not even the nine votes would help him now. They’d only give him sixty-eight, which makes him four votes short.’
‘Give me the note,’ Sparhawk said. He scribbled the numbers under Kalten’s message and then added the two sentences, ‘I’d suggest that we suspend all negotiations with the neutrals at this point. We don’t need them now.’ He handed the note to Talen. ‘Take this to Dolmant,’ he instructed, ‘and it’s perfectly all right to grin just a bit while you’re on your way down to him.’
‘A vicious grin, Sparhawk? A smirk, maybe?’
‘Do your best.’ Sparhawk took another piece of paper, wrote the information on it and passed it among his armoured friends.
The Primate Annias was suddenly confronted by a group of Church Knights beaming at him from across the nave of the Basilica. His face darkened, and he began to gnaw nervously on one fingernail.
At long last the funeral ceremony wound to its conclusion. The throng in the nave rose to its feet to file along behind the body of Cluvonus to its resting place in the crypt beneath the floor of the Basilica. Sparhawk took Talen and dropped back to have a word with Kalten. ‘Where did you learn how to spell?’ he asked.
‘Spelling is the sort of thing with which no gentleman ought to concern himself, Sparhawk,’ Kalten replied loftily. He looked around carefully to be sure he wouldn’t be heard. ‘Where is Wargun?’ he whispered.
‘I haven’t any idea,’ Sparhawk whispered back. ‘Maybe they had to sober him up. Wargun’s sense of direction isn’t too good when he’s been drinking.’
‘We’d better come up with an alternative plan, Sparhawk. The Hierocracy’s going back into session just as soon as Cluvonus gets laid away.’
‘We’ve got enough votes to hold Annias off.’
‘It’s only going to take about two ballots to prove that to him, my friend. He’ll start getting rash at that point, and we’re badly outnumbered here.’ Kalten looked at the heavy wooden beams lining the stairway down into the crypt. ‘Maybe I should set fire to the Basilica,’ he said.
‘Are you out of your mind?’
‘It would delay things, Sparhawk, and we need a delay very badly just about now.’
‘I don’t think we have to go that far. Let’s keep those five Patriarchs under wraps for now. Talen, without those five votes, where do we stand?’
‘One hundred and fifteen voting, Sparhawk. That means sixty-nine to win.’
‘That makes him one vote short again – even if he can buy the neutrals. He’ll probably hold off on any kind of confrontation if he thinks he’s that close. Kalten, take Perraine and go back to the chapterhouse and get those five Patriarchs. Put them in bits and pieces of armour to disguise them and then form up fifty or so knights to bring them here. Take them into an antechamber. We’ll let Dolmant decide when he needs them.’
‘Right.’ Kalten grinned wickedly. ‘We’ve beaten Annias, though, haven’t we, Sparhawk?’
‘It looks that way, but let’s not start celebrating until there’s someone else sitting on that throne. Now get moving.’
There were speeches when the still crimson-robed Hierocracy resumed its deliberations. The speeches were for the most part eulogies delivered by Patriarchs too unimportant to have participated in the formal services in the nave. The Patriarch Ortzel of Kadach, brother of the Baron Alstrom in Lamorkand, was particularly tedious. The session broke up early and resumed again the following morning. The Patriarchs who were opposed to Annias had gathered the previous evening and had selected Ortzel to be their standard-bearer. Sparhawk still had grave reservations about Ortzel, but he kept them to himself.
Dolmant held the five Patriarchs who had so recently returned to his ranks in reserve. Disguised in mismatched armour, they sat with a platoon of Church Knights in a squadroom not far from the audience chamber.
After the Hierocracy had come to order, Patriarch Makova rose to his feet and placed the name of Primate Annias in nomination for the Archprelacy. His nominating speech went on for almost an hour, but the applause greeting it was not particularly fulsome. Then Dolmant rose and nominated Ortzel. Dolmant’s speech was more to the point, but it was followed by more enthusiastic applause.