“Women?”
“None.”
“We should have had them executed, not locked them away.”
“Several of them would have welcomed martyrdom, sir. The decision to incarcerate them was taken with that in mind.”
“So now they’ll return to their flocks and preach revolution all over again. This we must stop. How many of them were active in Yzordderrex?”
“Nine. Including Father Athanasius.”
“Athanasius? Who was he?”
“The Dearther who claimed he was the Christos. He had a congregation near the harbor.”
“Then that’s where he’ll return, presumably.”
“It seems likely.”
“All of them’ll go back to their flocks, sooner or later.
We must be ready for them. No arrests. No trials. Just have them quietly dispatched.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t want Quaisoir informed of this.”
“I think she already knows, sir.”
“Then she must be prevented from anything showy.”
“I understand.”
“Let’s do this discreetly.”
“There is something else, sir.”
“What’s that?”
“There were two other individuals on the island before the rebellion—”
“What about them?”
“It’s difficult to know exactly what to make of the report. One of them appears to have been a mystif. The description of the other may be of interest.”
He passed the report to the Autarch, who scanned it quickly at first, then more intently.
“How reliable is this?” he asked Rosengarten.
“At this juncture I don’t know. The descriptions were corroborated, but I haven’t interrogated the men personally.”
“Do so.”
“Yes, sir.”
He handed the report back to Rosengarten. “How many people have seen this?”
“I had all other copies destroyed as soon as I read it. I believe only the interrogating officers, their commander, and myself have been party to this information.”
“I want every one of the survivors from the garrison silenced. Court-martial them all and throw away the key. The officers and the commander must be instructed that they will be held accountable for any leakage of this information, from any source. Such leakage to be punishable by death.” “Yes, sir.”
“As for the mystif and the stranger, we must assume they’re making way to the Second Dominion. First Beatrix, now the Cradle. Their destination must be Yzordderrex. How many days since this uprising?”
“Eleven, sir.”
“Then they’ll be in Yzordderrex in a matter of days, even if they’re traveling on foot. Track them. I’d like to know as much about them as I can.”
He looked out the window at the wastes of the Kwem.
“They probably took the Lenten Way. Probably passed within a few miles of here.” There was a subtle agitation in his voice. “That’s twice now our paths have come close to crossing. And now the witnesses, describing him so well. What does it mean, Rosengarten? What does it mean?”
When the commander had no answers, as now, he kept his silence: an admirable trait.
“I don’t know either,” the Autarch said. “Perhaps I should go out and take the air. I feel old today.”
The hole from which the Pivot had been uprooted was still visible, though the driving winds of the region had almost healed the scar. Standing on the lips of the hole was a fine place to meditate on absence, the Autarch had discovered. He tried to do so now, his face swathed in silk to keep the stinging gust from his mouth and nostrils, his long fur coat closely buttoned, and his gloved hands driven into his pockets. But the calm he’d always derived from such meditations escaped him now. Absence was a fine discipline for the spirit when the world’s bounty was a step away, and boundless. Not so now. Now it reminded him of an emptiness that he both feared and feared to be filled, like the haunted place at the shoulder of a twin who’d lost its other in the womb. However high he built his fortress walls, however tightly he sealed his soul, there was one who would always have access, and that thought brought palpitations. This other knew him as well as he knew himself: his frailties, his desires, his highest ambition. Their business together—most of it bloody—had remained unrevealed and unrevenged for two centuries, but he had never persuaded himself that it would remain so forever. It would be finished at last, and soon.