“Uh, sister, “ Martin asked, his voice slightly strained, “who is this?”

  “Who?” Sister Honora said, walking over to see which statue or plaque Martin was looking at. “Ah, that’s Bishop Warren.” Sister Honora maintained her smile, but the tone of her voice was noticeably less positive than it had been when introducing the other church fathers.

  “I’m not sure I’m familiar with Bishop Warren. Was he part of the construction of the cathedral?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, but he would have been a contemporary of the original architect. During the final years of the cathedral’s construction, he was still just a priest. However he made a name for himself as a scholar. His treatise on gravity and his rigorous experiments have led some to call him the father of modern science. He also wrote frequently on matters of faith and was a steadfast opponent of heresy.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, sister. You seem to have a somewhat less favorable impression of the Bishop.”

  “Hmm.” Sister Honora took a look around, hesitant to say anything negative about a church father. “Why do you say that?”

  “The tone of your voice, and that you didn’t look around before speaking about any of the other figures today.”

  Sister Honora let out a bitter laugh. “I should be more careful. It’s just… my mother was a traditional healer, you see. If it wasn’t science, man’s attempt to understand the rules of the True God’s creation, or holy magic, the direct blessing of the True God superseding the normal rules as we understand them by science, then according to Bishop Warren, it could safely be considered heresy.”

  Martin instantly understood the sister’s feelings. Traditional healing mostly used folk remedies, the ancestor of modern medicine, but healers often practiced a form of magic connected to the earth, rather than the True Creator. Since the coming of the Cosmics, the Church couldn't argue that the True Creator was the only source of power, so the argument evolved that the True Creator was the only source of power suitable for mankind’s use. Touching the power of the Cosmic led to the danger of corruption and the damnation of the soul. While traditional healers claimed no connection to Cosmic deities and instead stressed a deep connection to the planet from which the True Creator had made them, they had at times over the years been persecuted as zealously as followers of the cosmics.

  “I can see how that would be uncomfortable for you.” Martin said tactfully, “Do you know if Bishop Warren was as enthusiastic in practice as he was in his writing?”

  “Yes, he was. He was a leader in a series of purges at the time. They say he captured dozens of heretics who had fallen to cosmic corruption. His performance in their capture and the subsequent trials was one of the reasons he was eventually tapped to be Bishop of Alderbridge, the second one to be seated in this very Cathedral.”

  Martin turned to look at the statue. “Our church truly is filled with heroes of all sorts.”

  Will had about had his fill of acting the hero-worshiping boy, so they thanked Sister Honora profusely for her time and made their way out of the cathedral. Martin kept his thoughts to himself on the walk, and Will, other than remarking it was about time for lunch, held off from exploding into questions until they found their way to a nearby restaurant. They sat down in a quieter corner of the restaurant, and Martin quickly ordered a couple of bowls of the daily stew and a few hunks of bread.

  “Well, what a waste of time that was,” Will finally let out after the staff had taken their order.

  “You think so?” Martin asked, amused.

  “That whole trip out there to gawk at some statues and painted glass just to find out the guy is deliberately anonymous. You’ll know me by my ink, my ass.”

  “Will, do you really think he chose to be anonymous? That whole cathedral was filled to the rafters with monuments to anyone who had done anything even mildly noteworthy. Would the man in the letter really be that different?”

  Will sat up straighter. The server returned with two bowls of soup. It was a thin chowder with just a few pieces of clams and potatoes, but the bread was fresh and soaked up the chowder well.

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  “So if he did want to be recognized but wasn’t…” Will said, taking a bite of chowder as he thought. “Then he did something that got him into trouble?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.” Martin took out the letter. “Look, the letter was addressed to his friend Robert and directly mentioned the church purges. Do you remember the last statue we looked at today?”

  “Yeah, a Bishop of Alderbridge,” Will said, pausing to remember Sister Honora’s words, “the second Bishop to sit in the new Cathedral, Robert Warren.” Will’s eyes went wide as he made the connection.

  “Exactly. What if that’s the Robert the architect was writing to? Sister Honora said they would have been contemporaries and both men of science.”

  “But the sister also said Robert was about as anti-heretic as they come. Why would he be exchanging letters with someone about serving masters other than the True God?”

  “Remember, he would have been just a priest at that time. He rose to prominence in part because he was a big star in those purges. What if he was able to make those contributions because he was a heretic to begin with? He could have sold the others out either for his own gain or to save himself.”

  “There’s no way the church would let something like that go, would they? No matter how many heretics he turned in, they wouldn’t reward a heretic with a Bishopric.”

  “I think you have a more positive view of the church than I do, but you’re missing one more piece.”

  “What’s that?”

  “One of the heretics Robert would name wasn’t just a typical clergyman; he was the architect of the almost completed Alderbridge Cathedral, one of the grandest buildings ever constructed and a symbol of the power and majesty of the church the world over. If the man responsible for its design was suddenly revealed to serve cosmic masters rather than the True God, what would the result have been?”

  “Riots in the streets. Even the non-religious would be up in arms.”

  “So what if they covered it up?”

  “The architect didn’t ask to be anonymous. He was made anonymous!”

  “It’s just a theory, but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me.” The two ate in silence for a moment, weighing the implications of what they had uncovered.

  “That’s still an enormous cover-up.” Will eventually said, “Lots of people must have known the architect's name while he was alive. It’s hard to cover up someone being burned at the stake.”

  Burning at the stake was the accepted practice for dealing with heretics back in the day. It was still sometimes practiced today, but Church Inquisitors had evolved with the times and had numerous methods to torture and kill heretics. Martin had only heard rumors of some of them, and he tried not to think about which one might be employed on him should he be captured one day.

  “You’re right, but remember, we’re hundreds of years later now. Records are easily modified or removed. Burning at the stake is used for the pain it inflicts on its victim, but more so for the message it sends. If the church didn’t want to send a message this time, they would have gone for something more discreet. Simply making an excuse like he’d fallen sick from overwork or stress and whisking him away to some dungeon for the rest of his days would be more than sufficient. On top of that…”

  Martin hesitated, suddenly wondering how much he should share with Will. He had little doubt of his bravery or intelligence, but Martin was starting to learn Jacques’ lesson that some knowledge does not come without a price.

  “On top of what?” Will asked, his gaze intent and eyes shining.

  “Have you heard of unnaming?” Martin finally asked.

  “Yeah, of course. But that’s just a story they tell kids, right? Say your prayers and don’t tell lies or you’ll end up like the betrayer.”

  Martin simply took his bread and dabbed up the last of his soup.

  “You don’t really think the church can do it, do you? And they did it to the Church architect?”

  “I’ve… seen a lot in my time. I do believe the church has the power of unnaming. If they used it on the architect, I can’t say.”

  "Blimey, Martin." Will sat back, eyes wide.

  “Will, if the architect really was unnamed, then this is more than just someplace lost to history. It was deliberately made lost. We could be walking into a trap, or the wrong question into the wrong ear could cause us to be branded as heretics ourselves, and you know how that ends.”

  “Martin, I know.” Will looked him dead in the eye, unafraid. “I know this could all just be for a rotted-out bunch of parchment at this point, but this is all I’ve ever wanted, and if there’s a chance that I could find something that could bring a better life to my boys, then maybe it’s worth a little damnation.”

  Martin let out a half smile. There was a part of himself he saw in Will’s eyes, q part he wondered if Elisia would have possessed had she lived. That was the part he could never say no to. If Will was set, then Martin couldn’t deny his own curiosity.

  “Then we’re committed,” Martin finally said, holding out his arm.

  “We’re committed,” Will said, grasping his hand. The two shook and began making their plans. Will would go back to his source at the booksellers and look around for any maps of the sewer system. He claimed to know a few people who had contacts with the flushermen who patrolled the sewers and might have some of their own maps to share, or at least some likely information. Martin would return to the library and begin researching Bishop Warren, looking for where in the city he grew up and where his first parish was, hoping to find enough information to give them a starting reference point for entering the sewers.