“What is it?” said the valve-hand, face glowing with pride. He had been a slave most of his life. Now the One King was speaking to him as if he were a great warrior.
“It is a fire-sign, for the men who trade in fire, in flares, in the marks of war.”
The men took the pendants in silence, removed their own, put the new ones round their necks.
“What god is the patron of us fire-warriors?” asked the bellows-hand.
“It is Loki the fire-god, once chained, now free.”
Skaldfinn, coming back over the side, froze with horror as he heard the words, saw the fire-sign displayed openly for the first time. He looked back at Farman just behind him for support, saw the visionary pause, and then nod slowly in acquiescence. Steffi and his gang, all English and all former Christians with the scantiest knowledge of the holy myths of the Way, heard the name without alarm.
“Loki,” Steffi muttered, fixing the name in his mind. “Loki the fire-god. Good to have a god of our own. We will be his faithful servants.”
Chapter Thirty
The Emperor gaped at the small book put into his hands.
He could read himself, if slowly, but this time he had no need to. The substance of the booklet had already been explained to him in careful detail by his trusty comrade.
“Where in Hell did it come from?” he asked finally. The Emperor never knowingly blasphemed, took the name of the Lord in vain, or used religious words in other than their literal meaning. This time too, Erkenbert realized, he meant that the book in front of him was literally diabolic. That was good. Answering the question was not so good. Erkenbert had realized some time ago that the sniveling heretic who had betrayed the Grail and earned death for it had not told the truth when he said that there were only two copies: he should have kept him alive. No need to confess that mistake now.
“A Brother found it in a priest’s house. Oh yes,” he held up a warning hand, “the priest has already been dealt with. But I have heard these things are everywhere, produced with diabolic speed. And they are being believed too. Men say that the very graduale which you carry with you and proclaim to be the true ladder on which Our Lord was carried to the Sepulchre, they say that its appearance after so many centuries is proof that what these doctrines say are true. The Lance is death, men say, the Grail is life. It proves that Jesus came back to life in reality, never left this world rather than came back to it. So there is no resurrection, no after-life, no succession of Saint Peter, no Church or need for a Church. Some of those who say that are priests themselves.”
The Emperor’s face was purpling rapidly, but he was no fool. He realized all this was being said to him for a purpose, not merely to enrage him. Or maybe enraging him was the purpose.
“Well,” he said with sudden mildness, “we can stop people saying these things out loud, I suppose. But we want to stop them even thinking about them. I am sure you have an idea how that might be done. Let me hear it.”
Erkenbert nodded. They were old allies now, working partners. It was still a relief to him to work for a clear-sighted ruler.
“Two ideas,” he said. “One is easy. We need a body of reliable men with no duty other than that of seeking out heresy. They will have to be given powers greater than present law allows. Powers of rope and rack, stake and pit. I suggest we call them the Inquisitio Imperialis, the Imperial Inquisition.”
“Agreed,” said Bruno immediately. “What’s the hard idea?”
“Do you know when Church and Empire first came together? For the Empire of the Romans was at first a pagan one, you know, which persecuted Christians.”
Bruno nodded. He remembered the stories of Saint Paul, and how he went to Rome for trial before an Emperor who must have been hostile. It had not struck him that somewhere down the line the Empire must have changed religions, but now that Erkenbert mentioned it, he saw it must be so.