Heaven's Gate by Toby Bennett Read Free Book Online Page A

pass under the General’s fixed expression and cannot help feeling guilty at cutting so close to the bone. It saddens him because, when he had first known Angus, the boy would never have been capable of such duplicity and now they must both fence around the truth.
     
    “The Lillian’s gone,” Angus blurts, his natural passions briefly overwhelming his self-imposed reserve.   “She slipped away some time in the night. I knew she was as dubious about our marriage as I but I did not think she would defy her father. I must decide how to proceed quickly, before the whole alliance is wrecked.”
    “So you decided to come to me because you are not ready to tell the barons or any of your advisers, who might let them know of the situation before you are ready.”
    “Yes.” The General admits. “You are my counselor as much as any of them.”
    More so, once, the old priest thinks bitterly.
    “It is good to know I rank amongst such august company.”
    “Please, Rugan, without Carter’s daughter you know that I will not be taken seriously. All we worked for is at risk, this is not the time for jealousy.”
    “All you worked for? We worked for an end to the evils that have so long divided and preyed on our fellow men.” Rugan reminds him, gently.
    “And how may that work continue if I am seen as nothing but a warlord, holding title without dispensation? The Crusades are six years gone now and what peace we brought is already being taken for granted. Some even claim that there was no enemy in the first place and that we used the pretext of a holy war to take power and wealth.”
    “There will always be those who say such things, they would not have bothered you six years ago.”
    “Implying that they are more true now?” The boy is sharp and not to be toyed with, Rugan reminds himself.
     
    “As you say you have no choice but to seek an alliance with the barons, I understand the reasons, I just do not want you to lose sight of our true goal. Power is not something a good man holds for its own sake.”
    “I know. Rugan, you have not been as close to me these last two years or you would know, know how they have tried to whittle at me and how strong I have had to be to deny them victory. Do you think I have any interest in being shackled to this spoiled whore? Her father’s name and support are vital if I am to be seen as something more that the military overlord of Island City , or would you rather see Tenichi raised in my place? I know you have no love for him.”
    Oh very clever, the priest mentally congratulates his protégé; bring up the Lord Pardoner. There was no arguing that Angus needed added legitimacy in order to counter the growing power of the Chief Pardoner and his peace time Inquisitors; Tenichi had a name and a barony of his own, along with his high standing as head of the Campaign of Moral Purification that had followed Leedon’s Crusade. Angus had judged right in mentioning him, because Rugan would see the General married off to Satan’s second daughter, rather than see him supplanted by a man he publicly disliked and privately suspected of being under the influence of the Strigoi.
     
    “If I have not been as close, it is none of my doing and I counseled that you take Baron Whistler’s daughter for a wife, as I recall. She has a far more pious nature, you would have been well matched and there is little to choose between Carter and Whistler in power and influence, whatever the former and men like Tenichi may have told you.”
    “No it must be Baron Carter’s daughter. Carter is my closest neighbour and he has promised me that he can gain the approval of the rest for my rulership of Island City and our control over the old Thatcher Barony.”
     
    What else? Rugan thinks to himself, how does she fit into their plans? “When do you think she left the palace?” The priest confines himself to asking.
    “Some time last night. I don’t know how she found a ferryman so late, unless she had somehow