“Thank you,” I responded sotto voce as we were escorted to the air car, a sleek luxury model which Hadrian had purchased or leased for work here. It lofted us up over the streets, curving between massive towers and chantries that dripped with gargoyles and rang with the sound of bells. This was briefly a problem as one of the bells, apparently seldom rung, sounded close by and discouraged a flock of black bird like lizards which would have pounded the air care to pieces if Clara’s quick reflexes hadn’t thrown us into a stomach churning dive to avoid them. 


We landed in a discrete parking structure beside a massive boulevard bedecked in hundreds of thousands of silk buntings, each hand painted to detail some incident in the life of some saint or another. Viewing platforms had been erected along its length, some simple things of wood and rope covered with canvas, others, like ours, permanent structures. We exited the car,, climbing a series of ornamental stairs before being led to a sectioned balcony in which the great and good could view the procession.  Body guards, of which there were many, lounged on a slightly lower tier, looking like a pack of leopards separated from their cubs. Gilded security, employed by the Church, guarded the stairs to the upper balcony. I could make out silver inlaid circuits which spoke of reaction enhancers and the subtle bulges of grafted stim glands beneath the skin. Each guard carried what appeared to be some kind of halberd, though I noticed they also had high caliber handguns in subtle holsters inside their quilted livery jackets. Clara and Elektra joined the waiting muscle, allowing us to proceed alone.


“Was it a contentious election?” I asked Leibowitz as he guided us to surprisingly comfortable seats of carved rose wood. The confessor made a clucking sound that I could not interpret. 


“The Will of the Emperor is made manifest by the wisdom of His prelates Madam,” he declared grandly. I wondered at the timing of it, but the vagaries of Warp travel and the fact that old men did, occasionally, die, made it impossible to correlate. I made a note to pass the information to The Blind Idiots. The uncharitably named Idiots had been my idea. Four senior members of Urien’s crew were given basic information about the case and invited to speculate. The trick of it was that we had not explained the Logicae Mortis to them, and so they were still subject to its effect. This meant that any theory they came up with would necessarily be false and could be safely ruled out when passed back to us. Lazarus derided such a tactic as anti-data but it seemed to me worth the minimal effort. When I suggested that the same technique could be used to unravel the mysteries of the Machine God he turned a color that I didn’t think his augments should have allowed and then stalked off muttering about Heretechs and witches. It would make a stubborn monodominant like Hadrian proud.


Refreshments proved to be a bit of an understatement. We were presented with fried kash nuts, small bitter chocolates, slivers of grox cooked in amasec, candied loins, fish and vegetables wrapped in transparent starches, all washed down with excellent wines. I had to force myself to eat slowly and daintily. A lifetime of leeching off aristocrats teaches you to eat when you can, but I needed to maintain my pose. To that end, Hadrian and I maintained a somewhat desultory conversation about Church politics on Gudrun. To amuse myself I invented a vague rumor about an amorous relationship between the Primate of Gudrun and a member of one of the local houses. Yes, that rumor. Look, how was I know it was going to make it’s way back to Gudrun and end up touching off that blood feud?!


To my vague surprise, Leibowitz proved to be quite good company for a priest. He had an ecclesiastical bent of course, that was to be expected, but he was witty and well educated, capable, with a little encouragement on holding forth on recent Imperial history and politics in the subsector. I wondered why such an erudite man had not risen further in the Ministorum, but no Imperial organization is truly a meritocracy, with the possible and terrifying exception of the Holy Ordos themselves. 


“Cardinal Umberto Ratsini is a very learned man, famous for his commentary on the Life of St Hudweck the Eyeless,” Leibowitz enthused as the parade proper began. A column of ‘scribes’ began marching down the boulevard, preceded by a weaponized version of the March of the Primarchs, so loud that it drove the pilgrims from the path of the procession with the efficiency of a fire hose. Young boys in the red and white livery of the local house of healing ran before them with brooms, sweeping litter out of the path and dragging the occasional drunk or corpse off to the side. Scribes was kind of a generous term. A cynical observer might note that the staves of office they carried were remarkably similar to shock halberds, or that the high narrow helmets they wore were alot like armor. I suspected that beneath their scarlet robes other items of scribe uniform might be rather multi-purpose as well. There could be no doubt that they were scribes though, otherwise they would be violating the ban on the Ecchlesiarcy keeping men under arms.


“We are not surprised to see such a luminary rise to glory,” Hadrian lied. I’ve no doubt that scholars occasionally rise in the ranks of the Church, but it seemed unusual in this case. With drill that would have made a Mordian sergeant blush, the scribes began echeloning off, forming a cordon on either side of the boulevard. As each ten man section fell into place they snapped their staves horizontal in unison, creating a physical barrier, ferrule to ferrule. 


“Were the other candidates equally formidable?” I asked casually, taking a sip of wine. Leibowitz nodded.

“Primate Hingaberg and Primate Von Mandelbrot? Yes both formidable, though more in,” Leibowitz coughed to insert a pause for effect, “temporal power shall we say? The triumph of Ratsini over such potent men is widely seen as the hand of the Emperor at work.” I wondered if Leibowitz really believed that. More likely Hingaber and Mandelbrot were entrenched power players who had found themselves at loggerheads with no path forward.


“Is the new cardinal an aged man?” I prodded. Leibowitz nodded in confirmation.

“Nearly two hundred in fact, this will be the crown in a long career or service to Him on Earth,” the confessor enthused.  An old man without too many years left in him. A compromise candidate tacitly endorsed to delay the showdown between the two power players. The street below was now lined for more than two kilometers with a double line of scribes with staves extended. Two files of white robed women advanced inside the cordon as the March of the Primarchs concluded. They were hooded but obviously young, perhaps members of some holy order. The street was suddenly silent as the echos of brassy marshal music died away and then the women, at some unseen signal, began to sing, their voices soaring in complicated harmony into a Te Deum Imperialis of staggering beauty. From the processional arch at the end of a boulevard the Triumph of Cardinal Ratsini began.


“The Seven Hundred Penitents,” Leibowitz explained unhelpfully, but his meaning soon became clear. A mass of men, naked to the waist marched forward into the swelling beauty of the choral music. Each carried a votive taper in his left hand and a barbed flail in his right. At regular intervals they scourged themselves with sharp strikes of the flails. This was no ceremonial show of devotion, spatters of blood flecked the stones as the marched, tearing their backs open to sanctify the progress.


“Impressive,” Hadrian admitted as the men advanced. Behind them came ranks of clergy, each caring a book of scripture held aloft and open. Impressive but unhelpful. Was Ratsini’s fortuitous elevation part of the Heretics plan? Was he involved? Or was it merely happenstance that had frustrated one of the other Primates. Could it have been done without the knowledge of at least one faction of the Church?


A parade of reliquaries was passing by. I had no doubt each bejeweled box held some item of deep significance to the gathered pilgrims who thronged the viewing platforms.  Handfuls of rose petals, presumably imported from off world were being scattered from the heights surrounding the boulevard, floating down to be churned to redish mush under foot. The air began to ring with the tolling of countless bells as a vast altar was drawn into the boulevard by two rhino armored transports. It was an enormous thing, bedecked with gold aquila and waving standards. Clouds of incense lifted to the skies as dozens of priests tossed handfuls of the stuff into brass braziers that stood like bollards along its side. In the center of it, on a high backed golden chair bedecked with red silk sat an old man in a Cardinal’s miter so large I thought it might do him a neck injury. It was difficult to tell much about him from this distance, but the sheer ostentation of the altar throne made him seem small and fragile in comparison.


“You will have to pardon the noise,” Leibowitz shouted, “Every cathedral tower on the planet is ringing to celebrate this blessed day.” A slight smile touched my lips.

“It is enough to wake the dead,” I agreed with a quirk of my lips.