In all that time since the War of the Eye, Sandra Arminger had played the part of a loyal daughter of the Faith with smooth skill and used the Church in the PPA lands as an instrument of her rule whenever she could. The arrangement wasn’t completely one-sided; it had kept up and consolidated in less violent form the momentum of conversion that had started with Norman Arminger’s motto of kiss the cross or kiss the sword. The dangers were still all too apparent.

They were both morally certain that she had had Leo assassinated, as well, during her housecleaning after Norman Arminger’s death. The timing of his mysterious collapse had simply been too convenient. That knowledge went silently between them in a glance, and Ignatius murmured: “When a man causes you a problem—”

“—remember, no man, no problem,” Dmwoski finished for him.

“Fortunately, our new High Queen will be quite a different type of ruler. And she is now very close indeed to her delayed majority. Early next year, in fact. That will make her Lady Protector of the Association as well as High Queen of Montival.”

“Yes,” Dmwoski said. “And she really is a loyal daughter of Holy Mother Church.”

“Which does not mean she will necessarily defer to a cleric’s political opinions, of course,” Ignatius said. “I know her, and believe me, that is the case.”

“Nor should she. However, she will not necessarily defer to her mother’s opinions, either, close as they are. Yet the Association’s apparatus is one designed by and loyal to her mother; even when Norman Arminger was Lord Protector she managed the detail work. It is a tool shaped and fitted to her hand. You do quite right to build anew, my son, even in these desperate circumstances. Institutional inertia is a very powerful force—which, as Catholic clerics and heirs to two thousand years of it, is something we should know down in our bones.”

Ignatius nodded. “I am improvising, and pulling in whatever personnel I can from wherever I can get them, but there is method in my madness. It keeps things fluid. And every power in our new Montival is of course fully occupied with mobilization for the campaign to come, down to the littlest autonomous village. If it were not for the fact that all the other powers were jealous of the Association—”

“And each other,” Dmwoski added.

“—and each other, and hence anxious to have their people involved, I could never have pried loose a single clerk.”

“And I am whatever you can get as well, my son?”

Ignatius flushed slightly, despite the detached amusement in the Abbot-Bishop’s voice.

“I am attending to political tasks His Majesty understandably cannot do in his own person yet recognizes are utterly essential. He must have the support of the realm, and what is that if not a political matter? And for that, I need your help.”

Dmwoski nodded slowly. “Which speaks well of him,” the older cleric said. “I knew he was a very able field commander, but a King requires far more than that. More than a charismatic presence, as well. He must be able to govern, or he is a disaster in the making. Especially in a new kingdom without a cushion of institutions and traditions.”