Cardinal Sin V: A Small Radiance
The Twenty-Ninth Day of the Second Moon, 873 AD.
Aegan Road, Aegan Hills, Western Dathan.
He allowed the discipline to fall on his bare back as he walked along the road. His other hand still clutched at his cane, now a little tighter as the stinging sensation upon his back grew with each swing of his arm.
"I am sinful."
Crack!
"There is a daemon in my heart."
Crack!
"I indulged in the sin of wroth."
Crack!
"I allowed myself to overindulge in wine five nights ago."
Atonement flooded through him with every swing of the whip. Crack!
"I indulged in pleasures of the flesh with a willing servant."
He was purifying himself, little by little. Crack!
Despite the pain that last one still made him smile. The same woman who'd apparently been watching him train had been very enthusiastic to- no. This entire trail of thought was sinful.
Crack!
He gritted his teeth at that blow, exhaling with a shuddering breath. She initiated it! The voice cried out. Why would we deny her something so pleasurable?
Sin flogged his back again with an even greater force, hoping to get the voice to shut up and leave him alone.
Crack!
He was glad that he always had the discipline on him. It made his slip-ups so much easier to correct when he didn't need to go out and find a sufficient number of reeds or thin branches. Far, far easier to carry his own than to worry about all of that.
Crack!
He stopped. What was that drumming in the distance. Were those... horses? Soon the noise of a carriage and hoofbeats joined with the faint whinnying on the road, giving him pause and making him stop his penance, if for no other reason than so he could turn around and better see who it was that was gaining on him. He'd punished himself enough for now, so there seemed to be little harm in taking a moment to rest. He laid his roughspun cloak and hood down by the side of the road alongside his haversack, knelt upon the ground, and began to pray.
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It didn't take more than ten minutes for the party behind him to reach where he knelt. A pair of horsemen brought up the front, both with spears by their side and boiled leather jerkins for protection.
"Identify yourself, stranger!"
Sin nodded at the one who had spoke, slowly rising to stand. His back was still bloody from the whipping he had given himself earlier, but he supposed that he couldn't have looked too bad at the moment.
"I would have you tell me of your master first, my good man. You are not the first armed men on this road to happen upon me and wish me ill."
The two men looked at each other, suspicious and confused.
"We found a knight bloodied and beaten not an hour back from here. Was that your doing?"
Sin nodded, smiling as he held his hands out in open gestured compliance.
"Indeed it was, my good men. He sought to take my life as I travelled. I corrected him of the notion that he was capable of such a feat."
As he continued talking a figure stepped out of the carriage, demure and olive-skinned. Sin smiled as the man turned to look at him, eyes widening and voice filled with surprise.
"Sin?"
He bowed his head.
"Cardinal Spyridon. A pleasure to at last meet with you again."
The two guards looked at each other once again, connecting the dots. The first man who spoke dismounted, kneeling before him.
"I can only apologise for my hostility moments prior, Father. I assure you that had I known you were a Cardinal of the church I would not have acted so rashly."
Sin smiled and gently laid a bloodied, sweaty hand upon the man's head.
"It is of no bother to me, my good men. You were only doing your job, after all. My fellow Cardinal, will you not send your men away and speak with me in confidence?"
Spyridon was still stood there with his mouth half open before he shook himself back into his senses, waving away the two guards.
"Of course. A moment, please."
The kneeling man stood and remounted his horse, and led his fellow soldier away. Spyridon watched them leave to the back of the column before turning back to Sin, eying him with a mixture of caution and sympathy.
"Cardinal Sin. It has been quite some time."
"Aye," Sin smiled, "and I've been quite busy."
He quickly realised how what he'd said might be misinterpreted, and so he hurriedly continued talking.
"Not with the sort of thing you think, either! You'll be pleased to hear what I've been up to Spy, I just know it!"
The man nodded, seeming more than a little unconvinced, before gesturing to the still bloodied discipline on the floor beside Sin's belongings.
"Does the voice torment you still?"
Sin closed his eyes and sighed, nodding slowly. When he reopened them after a long moment Spyridon had taken a few steps closer, and his eyes had taken on that same empathetic nature that they had back before the two of them had hit manhood.
"I understand. But you claim to have something you wish to speak to me of?"
Sin nodded hurriedly, slipping on his undershirt and roughspun cloak.
"I do. I really mean it when I say you'll like it, Spy. It's nearly gotten me killed before now, but it's all worth it. It will be, anyways."
Spyridon nodded back at him, sighing in resignation. Sin would have his audience, it seemed.
"You always were up to something, no matter when and where you were. Come then, please, make yourself comfortable in my carriage. We'll be the only two people riding within, for I prefer to keep to my own company at the moment. You might just be a welcome break from that, however."
Sin practically beamed back at his friend as he gathered up his various belongings, stowing away the discipline and picking up his cane.
"Now that sounds like a lovely plan. I was rather enjoying my walk until I was set upon, but I think that travel by carriage for the rest of the journey sounds rather like a nice change of pace. Please Cardinal, after you."
Spyridon smiled back at him, a pleasant and genuine thing, before stepping back towards his carriage where another guard held open the door.
"Thank you, little sheep."
With that Sin followed his friend inside, and the door was shut behind them.
"So, you've certainly travelled light."
Sin shrugged.
"I've brought myself along. Adikos never told us to bring anything else."
Spyridon jokingly rolled his eyes, and so Sin quite deliberately looked around the carriage and out of the windows to the entourage outside.
"How many are with you? Two dozen?"
Spyridon nodded.
"Somewhere around that many. Twelve odd guards, half a dozen servants if we include the two drivers, and a few assorted clergymen and women."
"Seems rather too many to me. I fucking hate clergymen."
Spyridon gave him an incredulous look, which Sin quickly returned.
"What, you think I'm excluding myself from that list? You're okay though, but that's it. The ones back in Athio actually believe all the rumours about me, so they don't tend to speak up much any more."
"Rumours?"
Sin waved his hands around as if he were describing some great revelation.
"You know, 'Cardinal Sin! Father of Darkness! Monster of the Sleeping City!', all that shit."
"So you're saying it's not true?"
Sin clicked his fingers, bolting back upright.
"Of course, that's what I was forgetting! Seems a bit soon to trust you with this, but you seem as good as you used to to me. Can you keep a secret, Cardinal?"
His friend nodded at him, leaning across the carriage a little.
"Of course! Why, what is it that's caused you to become even more reclusive than you already were? It must have been a rather big secret to warrant the measures you've taken these last two years."
Sin positively beamed back at his friend.
"Oh my old friend, you don't understand! Never in my life have I committed myself to acting in a role quite like the one I play now! I've memorised all my lines, I know the mannerisms I need to use, and all the quirks of the man I pretend to be have been perfected to become almost second nature. Spy, this is the single greatest play I have performed in my life, but I need a second actor to take the stage alongside me now. I need your help with this."
Spyridon looked at him with both confusion and interest.
"My help with what? You're speaking in riddles again, Sin."
"I'm speaking in riddles because I'm dramatic, fight me. That and I'm taking a big leap of faith by trusting you with this, Spy. By whatever oath you would have me swear, all of what I am about to say is true."
Spyridon looked at him, eyes narrowing slightly as he tried to get a read on the conversation.
"And what would that be?"
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Sin took a deep breath. This was the moment of truth.
"I haven't persecuted anyone for their faith. There's not been a single purge in Athio whilst I've held the reigns. They've all been moved outside of my lands."
Spyridon's eyes widened a little, and Sin dropped his voice to a hushed whisper.
"Yes, I know the rumours you've heard about me. I know what people think has happened in Athio, because I need people to believe the rumours to keep my people safe. You didn't think I'd become unrecognisable these last two or three years, no?"
Spyridon's own voice was now a whisper as well, equal parts fearful and conspiratorial.
"How did you- where are they?"
Sin shook his head.
"As much as I would like to tell you, and as funny as it would be to see the look on your face when you realise what has happened, it's for the best if you don't know. I half expected you to know already, but if you don't then I'm not going to tell you?"
"Why? This doesn't exactly scream 'baseline trust', does it?"
Sin nodded, conceding the point to his old friend.
"I know, and it is really fucking annoying. Trust me, I really do want to tell you, but for your safety and theirs it's best if you don't know. Not yet. Not until this farce in Aegos is over and done with. How many have died under your watch?"
The man's answer was almost immediate.
"As few as possible. I haven't been able to move them someplace else like you claim you have, but I've tried to keep myself blind to the non-conformists for as long as possible. If I don't see them, they aren't there, and if they aren't there then they aren't in danger. Funny how that works."
Sin huffed out a laugh. It seemed that, despite the man in charge having raised them both as teenagers, the two of them had nonetheless come to reject his authority in favour of doing the right thing. Well, as right as they could given their circumstances. Sin understood that Spyridon was no actor like he was, and hadn't the skills to throw off scrutiny. If he had to burn one to save a dozen, then that was what he would do.
He might be tricking you, the voice whispered. Better to end this now, and work out the rest on the road.
Sin went still for a moment, and Spyridon must have noticed something for his smile showed sympathy once more.
"The voice again?"
Sin nodded coldly, but said nothing.
"I don't know what it's said to you, but you have nothing to fear from me. I want the purges just as little as you do. Besides, you and I both know that if push came to shove and I got in your way... well, I wouldn't last long."
Sin gave his old friend a weak smirk. It was almost as though they'd never been apart.
"You still haven't learned any self defence skills?"
The man shook his head, happiness at their rekindled friendship evident in his voice.
"Nah, that was always more of your thing. I might not have been there to see exactly what happened to Ser Ezekiel, but I do know that you've certainly not lost your edge. Either that or he's nothing like his image makes him out to be."
Sin kicked his feet up and lounged in the carriage.
"A little of column a, a little of column b. It probably would have been best to kill him and be done with it, all things considered, but I didn't dare let myself give in to the voice any further. The man was only doing what he'd been told to do, after all. Ser Ezekiel may appear to be the model paladin, but in all the years I've known him I do not think he has ever once acted of his own accord."
"I think," Spyridon replied, his tone becoming a little darker, "that his inability to act alone is exactly why he makes for a model paladin. A subordinate who relies on you to dictate his every move is a subordinate who will never stab you in the back."
Sin nodded again, conceding the point. Spyridon always had been quite pacifistic, even when it came to military matters. How he'd survived this long as a Cardinal in what was possibly the most militant church in the known world would have been a mystery, if Sin hadn't been in the same class when they were hand-picked by Adikos.
"That seems to be the truth of it, aye. He might be a problem if we make it back to Aegos. I might have goaded him with some very unsavoury words when we fought, in the hopes of making him slip up. It worked, but I doubt he'll have forgotten what I said anytime soon."
Spyridon's head fell into his hands.
"Saints, you really are just as I remember you. Have you heard the news from Aegos recently?"
Sin frowned, confused. News? He couldn't recall hearing any news from the capital that wasn't related to the upcoming council in months.
"Your silence tells me enough. Apparently Trios has been in some hot water recently after meddling with one of the monastic orders up in the hills. He's tried to force them to give up their autonomy and become a part of his own Order of Saint Brassica. The old guard are standing by him still, but it's clear that they aren't pleased with him for impeding their old autonomies."
"Which monastery was it that he tried to strongarm?"
Spyridon shrugged.
"I don't know. The whole ordeal has sprung from a very minor incident that seems to have snowballed. More and more abbots and abbesses come forwards with each day that passes by, and each of them have their own grievances to air about Cardinal Trios. He seems to have brought the monastic communities together, if not in the way he'd hoped."
Sin barked out a laugh.
"Saints, that bloody fool. He never ceases to amuse me. If he were just a little more intelligent then the old guard would abandon him, since the only reason they stand behind him is because he lacks the skills to outmanoeuvre them. He's acted as their puppet for quite some time now, but if he really has been going around threatening monasteries in his spare time... yes, I can see that being very useful indeed as we go forwards."
Spyridon nodded tentatively, still seemingly a little unsure of Sin's plans, unsure or... or maybe that was fear?
"Look, Spy. I know this is a lot to take in. Hell, even if you believe me without question I know for a fact that the implications of what I've trusted you with will still be ringing in your head for days, weeks, months to come, but you and I both know that this little fantasy of Adikos' can't last forever. It shouldn't last forever. I need your help to get as many people to safety as possible, and to take down this whole fucking regime from the inside. It will take years of careful manoeuvring and work, countless hours of thankless labour, but by the end of it the Aegan Hills will be free once more!"
Spyridon smiled softly. Sin looked at the man, and realised that he somehow had him hooked already.
"It will be difficult, Sin. We won't be able to communicate much."
"Oh, but we will be able to! We'll discuss a few things in the capital and pretend that we're just coordinating our resources if ever Adikos or Admeta inquires as to our correspondence, not that I can see either of them giving a fuck. Besides, it won't seem so bad when we have each other to rely on!"
"So, the end goal is to return a sense of normalcy to Aegos. Why not go to the Imperator to the north-east? Avitus Thrax would surely welcome any aid in taking the rest of the old Aegan Republic for himself."
Sin felt his lip curl up in distaste.
"Two reasons: one, I was the one who stood beside Adikos on the field of battle and commanded the army that saw Imperator Thrax repelled. I sincerely doubt he has become so forgiving as to accept me into the fold with my head still attached to my shoulders."
Spyridon raised an eyebrow, reclining on the plush cushions that lined the inside of the carriage.
"And the second reason?"
Sin felt his brow furrow into a scowl as his voice dropped in volume.
"I'll be dead and buried before I trust another fucking despot. No, we'll bring the democratic way back to Aegos. That's what we're going to do."
"Okay."
Sin looked back up at his friend, more than a tad confused.
"Okay? That's it? No reservations, no protests, no trying to talk me out of this? Just 'okay'?"
Spyridon smiled and nodded.
"Yep. If there's anything I've learned over the years of knowing you, it's that you're usually right in the end. You're still overly dramatic and haven't a scrap of common sense at times, but right nonetheless. Tell me what I need to do."
Sin let out a sigh of relief. Spyridon really was still his friend, he was going to help, and there was a chance at victory here.
"Right now? Nothing. Quite deliberately nothing. We don't talk of this unless we know we're alone, obviously, and if possible we don't mention it at all until we leave Aegos and are on the road back. Now more immediately pressing is the fact that. as we've already seen, our elderly friend Trios has tried to have me killed once, and I doubt Ezekiel's failure on the road will be the only such attempt on my life, so I need you to listen carefully here, okay?"
Spyridon nodded intently, showing Sin that he had his full focus.
"If I should die in Aegos, hell, if I should die at all before this plan bears fruit, ride straight to Athio. Your rank should get you into the city and the keep. When you're inside, ask for Hawk. He'd been my batman ever since the heyday of the civil war, and has remained by my side ever since. He knows everything and is fucking good at his job. Trust in him, and understand that for all intents and purposes he's your equal if I'm gone."
Spyridon remained silent for a little while before speaking.
"I wish you wouldn't speak of your own death so casually, old friend, but I understand. If anything happens to you I'll seek out this 'Hawk' in Athio, and he'll know what to do moving forwards."
Sin nodded, reclining further and lounging on the cushions of the carriage as they hit a small bump in the road.
"I forgot how much I hate travelling in these things."
"Sorry friend," Spyridon laughed, "but you're stuck in here with me for the rest of the trip. I suppose you could get in one of the carriages with the bishops if you'd prefer?"
Sin gave an exaggerated shudder, delighting in the laugh that it earned from the other man. This was nice. Maybe this stretch of the journey wouldn't be so bad after all? Saints, it had been a long day. He'd earned some respite at least. Aegos was still three odd days away, given how bumpy the road was and how much larger Spyridon's retinue was than Sin was used to. It didn't help that they were all moving at a snail's pace, but to be honest Sin wasn't that fussed. An excuse to hang out with an old friend and put off arriving in the capital for a few more days? That sounded good to him.
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Three days came and went, and now at last they were within the holiest, and the largest, city in all of Dathan. Angels, he'd almost forgotten how much he'd once loved this city. Resplendent walls of stone with marble columns and buttresses, the spires of the dozen churches and the three cathedrals, the ancient Senate building now being used as a palace by Archcardinal himself. He'd once loved it here, but no matter how much nostalgia this place held for him, it couldn't live up to his memories. Nor could it match the dark majesty of Athio, for that matter; his beloved 'Sleeping City' was held far closer to his heart than the rotten edifice Aegos had become these last few years.
The carriage rolled to a stop outside the Senate building, and Sin squeezed his eyes shut as he mentally prepared himself to step into the vipers nest. A hand laid upon his own, and Spyridon gave him as much wordless encouragement has he could. As the man went to open the carriage, Sin reached out with his hand to stop him.
"Spy, listen to me for just a few more seconds and then we exit. When we're out there, you need to look uncomfortable around me, scared, even. I've only been able to do what I do for so long because of the reputation that surrounds me, and I can't risk it falling apart because an old friend seems pleased to see me again. I need you to look uncomfortable. Do you think you can do that?"
Spyridon nervously chuckled.
"With all due respect, we're to meet with Adikos for the first time in two years, and the last time I saw Admeta there wasn't exactly a happy parting between us. Let's just say I don't think I'll need to 'act' uncomfortable whilst we're here."
Sin nodded back at him.
"Good. Remember it, and act as formal as you can around me. I'll also be acting like people expect me to. You just happened to bump into me on the road and offered me a ride, that's the only reason I'm here."
Okay, to be fair to myself, that's hardly even a lie.
"Understood, old friend. Good luck."
With that the two of them schooled themselves, Spyridon's movements becoming rigid and wooden as he opened the door to the carriage and stepped outside, holding the door to allow Sin to follow. Sin had to admit that he was impressed by how good Spyridon's acting was. Maybe he wasn't the only one polishing his acting skills off after all?
"Cardinal Spyridon of Chytos, and Cardinal Sin of Athio."
Sin surveyed the courtyard, cocksure grin in place as he nonchalantly stepped down from the carriage and met the eyes of a rather worried Cardinal Trios.
"It is an honour and a pleasure to be back in this great city," Spyridon began, arms stretched out wide as though he meant to embrace the city as a whole, "I am confident that the growing pains our young nation has suffered through will soon be soothed by our collective counsel and cooperation. I am grateful to be a part of this gathering."
Sin just about stopped himself from rolling his eyes at his friend's display, instead languidly turning to look about once more.
"The capital. I do hope the inquisition has been thorough in it's job in my absence. If not, I can always step in to... assist those who may be lacking in conviction. I'd prefer if I didn't have to; I have a great deal to discuss with my fellow Cardinals whilst I am in this city." He turned to look at Trios once more, flashing him a feral grin and tapping his cane twice on the cobbles. "A great many things indeed."
There was the sound of footsteps entering the courtyard, and a familiar figure caught his eye. The one man he'd been hoping not to bump into yet was already here, less than a minute after Sin had been able to get out of the carriage. The tone of his voice held a level of piety, of fervour, that even Sin himself could never match. This man's piety was turned towards a rather different end than saving the helpless, however. Adikos did not help the lost.
He burned them.
"I could not think of a more appropriate set of words to use on your return to this city, my child. Come, I would talk with you alone, Cardinal Sin. There is much we must discuss."
Sin cursed internally. He'd been hoping to at least have a little time to reorient himself, to come up with a game plan for the inevitable meeting with Adikos, but it seemed there was to be no preparation time. Ah well; he had a freshly flagellated back, a bloodied discipline, and an explanation for each sin that would only serve to highlight his piety. He hoped.
He could do little else but hope at the moment.