The Consul's Bargain
Johan was not surprised. If anything, he would have been more surprised to find a noble near these parts who was on good terms with the Emperor.
"There are plenty of men with grudges against Kardirian, and an assault on his territory would take a great deal of support besides. Why would the Curia ever refuse to lend its help?"
Though he had already guessed the reason, Johan played ignorant and asked. The consul seemed all the more pleased with that attitude.
It was simply human nature: a partner in secret dealings becoming a liability the moment he proved clever enough to out-calculate you.
"Ha. The Curia wants the Imperial faction driven out of the south — it has no interest in a new enemy cropping up in its place."
The consul said with a touch of sarcasm.
In truth, had the consul been in the Curia's position, he would have felt the same. Sweeping away one enemy could so easily give rise to another.
Relations between the Curia and the city-states were decent enough for now, but there was no telling whether that would hold even after the threat of the Empire vanished.
Still, the Republic was desperate to get a foothold in the south. It had been laboring patiently to seize the strategic points of the Catalia Peninsula, the Ulcana Peninsula, and the islands of the Edene Sea. For stable trade, it was all but a necessity.
"If what you say is true, will the Curia grant its permission?"
"Of course. Your authority won't be so weak as all that."
True, the Curia was providing support, and Johan had received his title in the Pope's name — but it was Johan who would march south at the head of soldiers and do the fighting. However much the Curia might try to keep him on a leash, there were limits. It was no accident that they had chosen their man so carefully.
"Besides, our side has its own connections within the Curia. Even now we keep shaping opinion in your favor. And above all, it's hardly an unreasonable request. We're not asking for territory. A few harbors would satisfy us — and for that much, I'd say a word from you is quite enough."
Rights over the harbors of a fief were an extremely useful thing to hold — all the more so for a republic whose lifeblood was trade.
And in truth, he could give them away by the handful. They weren't even Johan's lands yet. If he took the southern territories of the peninsula, two or three harbors would be a perfectly reasonable price to pay.
Most of all...
Couldn't I just change my mind whenever I pleased?
Granted, he would need to manufacture a suitable pretext, but that was easily done. Paint the Republic's men as conspirators, as traitors to the crown, and the harbors could be confiscated right back.
The consul was laboring under the delusion of Johan's spotless reputation, but on matters like this, Johan did not hesitate in the slightest.
"With our help, wouldn't things go far more smoothly for you? The Curia will support you too, of course, but there's no such thing as too much help."
"You speak true. If I could borrow the Republic's fleet, the work would become several times easier."
At Johan's words, the consul wore a satisfied expression. Then he opened his mouth to drive in the wedge.
"I hear you are the lord of Dorak and Palmon. Fine villages, but the location, well — the location means development comes slowly, no? If you accept our terms, we'll send our engineers down to build you a naval port. Think on it. Once you hold the south, ships will be able to sail all along the Edene Sea, all the way up north."
Oh, damn.
Johan clicked his tongue. Not because the offer was bad — because it was too good. The consul had misjudged him, yes, but at bottom the man had real confidence in himself.
Confidence that even if he built naval ports in those two villages first, Johan could never betray them. Confidence that they could strangle his access to the sea and cut him off if he did. Confidence that their fleet roaming the Edene Sea was more than a match for anything he could muster.
Well... nothing to be done. It's not as though I have to betray them.
Johan abandoned thoughts of treachery and resolved, for the moment, to cooperate. Even plain cooperation was not a bad deal.
"I would be grateful if you did so, though I worry I may not be able to uphold my end. The Curia may not listen to me, after all."
"Hahahaha..."
The consul laughed. Then he said:
"No. They will listen to you. Thoroughly. When it comes to making use of you, that much is a very cheap price to pay."
Just as Suettlerg had said, and just as the consul had said, the inspector arrived in the city with his escort in tow.
The Bishop received them from his bed with a performance of a lifetime. The inspector was astonished at the emptied manor and the sight of citizens singing the Bishop's praises.
Does a man change when death draws near?
The inspector was no fool. Rumors of the Bishop had reached the Curia in exactly this shape, so there was no way he could be unaware of them. But whatever the rumors said, the fact remained that the Bishop had genuinely accomplished something this time.
-Bishop Biagione performed a miracle? That man?
-Shh. Such insolence.
-No, are we not obliged to speak sense?
The upper ranks of the Curia were divided into two great factions.
The first were those called the Aristocratic faction — sons of respectable houses who, however lacking in faith, had risen smoothly on the strength of their families' powerful backing.
Bishop Biagione was the very model of the type.
The other faction consisted of priests who had been raised in the order's monasteries and temples from childhood, living devout and frugal lives, men armored in a faith so fierce it bordered on fanaticism.
Remarkably, most of them had actually performed miracles.
Truth be told, this was only natural. Without something to that degree, it was impossible for a priest risen from the bottom with no backing whatsoever to climb to high office.
Within the Curia they were called the Miracle faction, and they pressed all manner of forceful arguments.
Under ordinary circumstances, the Aristocratic faction, riding on the backs of their great houses, should have dominated far and away — yet within the Curia, the Miracle faction had always held the upper hand.
The reason lay in long tradition and custom, in reputation, and in the hearts of the people.
A bishop who had performed a miracle and a bishop who had not simply did not carry equal weight when they spoke. More than that, the Pope had traditionally been chosen from among bishops who had shown miracles.
That was how astonishing and powerful a priest's miracle was supposed to be.
And now Bishop Biagione had supposedly performed one. It was almost impossible to believe.
-A rigorous investigation might uncover the truth.
-Investigating a bishop of our own order is itself a disgrace to the Curia. We must uphold virtue.
-Quite right. We must respect the bishop. Besides, whether the bishop's miracle is genuine hardly matters now. Ought we not to focus on what His Holiness has asked of us?
-No, that is a step too far — the miracle's genuineness doesn't matter? Those words go too far.
-Consider it, brothers. Even if that Biagione did perform a miracle, do you imagine he would strip himself of his own wealth to feed the hungry, as we have done?
Every man seated there agreed. Frankly, if Biagione had done such a thing, it truly would be a marvel.
-If Bishop Biagione claims to have shown a miracle and wins the love of the city's people, then leave him be. It is the city's affair, the city's quarrel. That the Curia should be dragged into it at all is distasteful.
-Understood. We shall follow your counsel.
"Are you quite well?"
"My body has little strength left, but my faith remains as clear as ever."
"Is it difficult to move?"
"Mm. My limbs still..."
"His Holiness wishes to hear the full account... then, if it please you, might we escort Sir Johan alone to the Papal Court?"
At those words the Bishop shot bolt upright in shock, and the blanket that had shrouded him went flying. Johan spoke up from the side.
"My goodness. Another miracle."
The Bishop declared that he would die on the road to the Papal Court if he had to — but go he would. The inspector nodded with the look of a man who had expected as much.
Joining the soldiers who had been waiting outside, the party finished its preparations and set off at once.
"Is it truly necessary to make such a fuss?"
"Of course it is, brother. Do you know what an honor it is to stand before His Holiness the Pope himself?"
"You have never met him, then? You, my lord Bishop?"
Johan found it strange. A man risen to the rank of bishop would ordinarily have gone to the Papal Court and stood face to face with the Pope.
Yet the Bishop spoke as though he had never laid eyes on him.
"I have never met him in person."
"...?"
"You don't know, then. A priest who rises to bishop is a man of such tremendous faith that most of them have performed a miracle — surely you know that much."
"And what did you perform, my lord Bishop?"
"...It's hardly as though one must, but anyway. His Holiness stands out even among those who have."
A miracle that ended a drought that had dragged on for months. A miracle that restored a poisoned river to its former purity. A miracle that healed the blind and the lame.
The bishops of the Miracle faction all carried illustrious reputations. To be chosen Pope from among such men, an ordinary miracle would not suffice.
"That man died — and rose again."
"...?"
"It is true. I've heard the account myself."
Suettlerg added from the side.
Most people understood it as a man who had died coming back to life, but the reality was somewhat different.
To put it precisely: the Pope had died, and his body did not move.
And yet neither did it rot or decay. It simply remained as it had been in life.
Instead, a quill pen had come alive beside the Pope and begun to write — in the Pope's own hand, exactly as he had written in life. At the wonder of it, all the world had cried out in awe.
As the full explanation sunk in, Johan's expression warped strangely. When they'd said the Pope had shown the miracle of resurrection, he had assumed it meant something like, 'he collapsed and got back up, didn't he?'
Johan poked Caernartha in the ribs.
"What is it?"
"Isn't that thing an evil spirit?"
"I thought I was the only one who thought that... I'm a little glad, actually."
Caernartha brightened.
Dismiss one of the Curia's miracles as the work of a demon, and you risked being branded a demon yourself and burned at the stake. Even that Suettlerg kept a reverent air whenever the subject of such miracles arose, did he not?
But Caernartha was different. She was forever skeptical of miracles. As far as she was concerned, they were nothing but unstable, accidental magic.
"...Hold on a moment... I've been wondering this for a while now — are you actually a devout man of faith? Genuinely?"
Caernartha finally spat out the question she had been nursing all this time. To be fair, Johan's conduct had been that of an exemplary knight of faith. Nothing proved a knight's devotion quite like hunting monsters.
Johan dodged the question.
"So have you ever been to the Papal Court yourself?"
"I wasn't there the time Kardirian marched his army against it, was I?"
Caernartha raised the delicate history without a flicker of hesitation. The Emperor had fought the Curia time and again, and when those quarrels grew bitter, he had not balked at sending armies against them.
"The Papal Court sits within the holy Mt. Sirandel, and by all accounts Kardirian suffered dearly for it. When he's deep in his cups, he'll tell the story over and over."
"That's the usual way of old men."
Suettlerg excused him. Johan snorted. Aclada spoke with something like regret.
"I had hoped to see the capital of the Ancient Empire with my own eyes. A shame, this."
"Weren't you the one with no interest in cities?"
To the centaurs, a city was nothing more than a promising target for plunder. So Aclada's words came as a mild surprise.
"The capital of the Ancient Empire is a different matter entirely. I want to know just how great it truly is."
"Don't set your hopes too high. It's not so very different from Bayen. The cities handed down from the days of the Ancient Empire are each of them grand and beautiful in their own way."
On the plain before Mt. Sirandel lay the city known as the capital of the Ancient Empire — Uranonium.
It bore nicknames like city of cities, the city of all cities — but Suettlerg shook his head.
"Some of the cities that escaped destruction might honestly be better to see. Uranonium is one of the most thoroughly ruined of them all."
"Don't keep saying such things. Euclia is looking forward to it too, you know."
"Is she? My apologies, then."
Johan looked at the two of them and said:
"We're not marching on the mountain itself, so there will be plenty of chances to show you around later. Don't worry about it."
"We place our trust in you, Sir."
Aclada said with a broad grin.
"So how did the city go, then?"
"Well..."
Johan had not yet told them of the secret bargain struck inside. In truth, even the consul might have misjudged matters.
Nothing could be certain until he heard it from the Curia directly.
"You caught a demon, they say! At least tell us that story!"
"We want to hear it too!"
Those who had not been there to experience it themselves were beside themselves with curiosity. They envied the mercenaries lucky enough to have taken part.
The inspector pricked up his ears and listened in. The truth, after all, always emerged not from the lips of the man himself, but from those around him.
He had heard nothing about the Bishop but outlandish tales, and so he hoped, just this once, for something that rang true.