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his views, they wouldn't have to change their own.
Sozomenos held up a hand. "Do not decide too soon. Consider that you may be
mistaken. Consider that we all may be mistaken. Consider well, my friends, my
colleagues. Decide on the basis of the faith of our holy scriptures, not on
account of your own prejudices."
Rhavas heard that with astonished respect. He knew Sozomenos disagreed with
him disagreed with him down to the very core. Yet the ecumenical patriarch
could not have presented the case more evenhandedly. He urged, he invited, the
assembled ecclesiastics to settle it on its merits, not on their
preconceptions. Rhavas wondered whether he could have, would have, done the
same had some other prelate come before him with a doctrine of which he so
strongly disapproved. He had his doubts.
Would it matter, though? That plump, powerful prelate rumbled, "This is all a
waste of time, most holy sir."
"Time spent studying the faith is never wasted, very holy sir," Sozomenos
replied. "We shall examine the truth, we shall define it, and we shall refine
it. May the lord with the great and good mind . . . and, ah, any other
interested deity . . . aid us in our deliberations. So may it be." He lifted
his hands to the heavens once more.
"So may it be," intoned most of the ecclesiastics in the High Temple. Several
of them, however, spat in rejection of Skotos instead.
A couple of men who stood by the outer wall did not, to Rhavas' eyes, seem to
be ecclesiastics at all. It was not so much that they dressed in nondescript
mufti. It was the way they watched the proceedings.
They were more interested in the ecclesiastics as people than as priests or as
theologians.
Who are they? What are they doing here?
Rhavas wondered.
Are they keeping an eye on things for
Maleinos?
But the Avtokrator would surely have priests here to keep him up to date on
what was going on and to help keep things from going wrong.
One of the strangers happened to meet Rhavas' gaze. Swords might have clashed,
there in the quiet under the dome. Power rang off power.
Whatever else he is, he's a mage
, Rhavas realized.
The man leaned toward his comrade and whispered something to him. The other
layman stared at
Rhavas. He was also a sorcerer. Rhavas did not think of himself as any such
thing. How his power might seem to a pair of wizards . . . He would find out.
He did not fear them. He had cursed mages before, cursed them and watched them
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die. If he had to, he could and would do it again.
"Dig up the heretics' bones!" a monk shouted.
In an instant, the cry filled the High Temple. It echoed from the dome, as the
creed had before. Phos himself might have condemned heresy.
Sozomenos raised a gnarled hand. Silence fell. In due course, even the echoes
faded. "Whoever shall not agree with what this synod decides, whoever shall
fail to accept it, will be a heretic indeed," the ecumenical patriarch said.
"But until someone says that he will not accept it, we are all brethren
together.
This being so, I expect we shall all act toward one another as toward
brethren. Do I make myself plain?"
No one told him he did not. The sway he held over Videssos' unruly
ecclesiastics made Rhavas marvel once more.
Could I ever lead them so?
He hoped the answer was yes, but was too remorselessly honest with himself to
find that likely.
"Question, most holy sir, if I may?" Even the plump prelate from the westlands
was polite with
Sozomenos.
"Go ahead, Arkadios," the patriarch replied. "Questions are always welcome.
They help clarify the faith."
"It seems to me, most holy sir, that the question before us here does not
clarify the faith, but rather undermines it. If we do not take the good god's
ascendance on faith, what have we got left?"
"Well said!" The words came from half a dozen men scattered all over the High
Temple.
"I shall not try to answer that. Instead, I shall yield the floor to the
prelate who caused this synod to be convened," Sozomenos replied. He gestured
toward Rhavas. "Here is the very holy Rhavas of
Skopentzana. I trust he will be able to give you what you require. Very holy
sir?"
"Thank you, most holy sir." Rhavas got to his feet. He bowed to Arkadios.
"Very holy sir, my view is simple. A faith that goes unexamined, unquestioned,
is in fact no faith at all. Only examination yields truth.
We have gone a very long time without a proper examination of what we believe.
The times we live in argue that this examination is long overdue."
Arkadios snorted. "You want to bow down to the dark god" he spat between his
feet "and you are looking for a synod to tell you it's all right."
"No. That is not true." Rhavas shook his head. "I have never wanted anything
less in my life. But I have the nerve to follow the truth wherever it leads
me. Can you say the same?"
"I know what the truth is. I don't need any fancy examination to tell me,"
Arkadios declared. "And I
don't need somebody who hides corruption behind a lot of fancy phrases."
Rhavas bowed again. "Thank you, very holy sir. Your objectivity does you
credit."
"Do you mock me?" Arkadios demanded angrily. "Do you dare mock me? You have
your nerve, all right, you heretic dog!"
"That will be enough of that." Sozomenos did not raise his voice, but had no
trouble making himself not only heard but heeded. "Arkadios, you were the one
who first resorted to personal attack. You cannot or at least you should
not be surprised if you find it coming back at you. And if you resort to it
again, you will find you are not too prominent to be expelled from this [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]