By Heresies Distressed Read Online Free PDF Page A

minions would do precisely what they in fact did. And those who murder Charisian subjects will answer to Charisian justice . . . whoever they may be.”
    Lakyr swallowed hard, feeling the sweat suddenly beading his hairline.
    I never even dreamed of this
, he thought.
It never even crossed my mind! Those men are
priests—
consecrated priests, servants of Mother Church! They can’t just
—
    But the Charisians not only could, they were actually doing it. And despite his horror at the impiety of what was happening, a part of Sir Vyk Lakyr discovered that he couldn’t blame them for it.
    He saw Father Styvyn Graivyr, Bishop Ernyst Jynkyns’ intendant, the Office of Inquisition’s senior priest in Ferayd, among the prisoners. Graivyr looked stunned, white-faced . . . horrified. His hands were bound behind him, as were those of the other five inquisitors with him, and his shoulders twisted as his wrists fought against their bonds. He seemed almost unaware of his struggle against the cords as his eyes clung to the waiting noose, and he moved like a man trapped in the bowels of a nightmare.
    He
never dreamed it might come to this, either
, Lakyr realized, and yet another emotion flickered through him. He was still too stunned himself to think clearly, but if he hadn’t been, he might have been shocked to realize that at least part of what he was feeling was . . . satisfaction.
    Graivyr wasn’t the only inquisitor who seemed unable to believe, even now, that this could possibly be happening to them. One of them resisted far more frantically than Graivyr, flinging himself against the iron grip of the stone-faced Marines dragging him towards the waiting rope, babbling protests. And as Lakyr stared at the unbelievable events unfolding before him, he heard the rumble of other drums coming from other ships.
    He wrenched his eyes away from
Destroyer
’s deck, and his face tightened as he saw more ropes hanging from other ships’ yardarms. He didn’t try to count them. His shocked mind probably wouldn’t have been up to the task, anyway.
    â€œWe interviewed all of the survivors before my Emperor gave us our orders, Sir Vyk,” Rock Point said, his harsh voice yanking Lakyr’s attention back to him. “Before we ever sailed for Ferayd, we knew whose voices were shouting ‘Holy Langhorne and no quarter!’ when your men came aboard our people’s ships. But we didn’t rely solely on that testimony when we tried the guilty. It never even crossed Graivyr’s mind that anyone else, anyone outside the Office of Inquisition itself, would ever read his secret files. Unfortunately for him, he was wrong. These men were convicted not on the basis of any Charisian’s testimony, but on the basis of their own written statements and reports. Statements and reports in which they proudly reported,
bragged
about, the zeal with which they went about exhorting your troops to ‘Kill the heretics!’ ”
    The Charisian’s eyes were colder than northern ice, and Lakyr could physically feel the rage within him . . . and the iron will which kept that rage leashed and controlled.
    â€œCopies of those statements and reports will be provided to King Zhames—and to the Council of Vicars in Zion,” Rock Point continued coldly. “The originals will be returning to Tellesberg with me, so that we can be certain they won’t mysteriously disappear, but King Zhames will receive Graivyr’s own file copies. What
he
does with them, whether to publish them abroad, destroy them, or hand them back over to Clyntahn, is his business, his decision. But whatever he may do,
we
will do nothing in darkness, unseen by the eyes of men. We will, most assuredly, publish the evidence, and unlike the men and women—and children—they had murdered, Sir Vyk, every one of
these
men was offered the benefit of clergy after he was sentenced. And unlike the children who were