The Birdcatchers’ rise to power had been insidious. Amid the turmoil of thirty years of civil war and rocky Parliament rule, nobody had really noticed how many of the powerful men had been taught in Birdcatcher schools, or how many had been converted by the clever Birdcatcher books. At last, when the Realm was thrashing around like a feverish invalid, the Birdcatchers had stepped forward like doctors to lay a cool hand on its brow and calm it. Mosca had seen old men weep when they remembered the day the Birdcatcher priests took power. Ah, they whispered, how joyful we were! We knew they would bring us peace, they would unite the people and the Beloved in happiness, they would put a bit in the mouth of the Realm and rein it tame . . .

Then the Birdcatchers began killing the Beloved.

First the new rulers had declared Goodman Criesinthedark a demon. Everybody had been very shocked to learn this, but Criesinthedark had very few worshippers, so there had been little outcry when they were whipped in the marketplace and the Goodman’s shrines burned. Ah, sighed the old men, how relieved we were that we had found out about Criesinthedark in time!

But the next month the shrines of Goodlady Jobble were in flames, and her worshippers were being branded above the eyebrow. A month after that, Goodman Haleweather was also declared a demon. His church icons vanished, never to be seen again . . . and so did his worshippers. That is the last of it, everybody had told one another. The Birdcatchers have saved us from these demons, but that is the last of it . . .

But the nightmare continued, and day after day the people were told that another of the Beloved was really a demon in disguise as they watched their neighbors being led away in chains. It took most of them years to face the fact that the Birdcatchers meant to stamp out belief in the Beloved altogether. The worst of it, said the old men, was the feeling that the gods themselves were helpless and frightened. The Birdcatchers had spies everywhere, and people grew afraid to pray, to speak, to think . . .

. . . and then, after ten years of terror, something changed in the hearts of the chided population. The fearful murmurs of protest became a buzz like summer-maddened bees, and then a hurricane roar of outrage. Heedless of menaces and musket fire, the people of the Realm had risen up and driven the Birdcatchers into hiding, into the sea, into the prisons and execution yards.

After the fall of the Birdcatchers, the Stationers had made it clear how much of the madness had been spread by the Birdcatchers’ books, their terrible, poisonous books. These books had been burned, and the Heart had been ripped out of every church in the country, leaving an empty hole.