“Is that right– You want a history lesson?” He hadn’t thought his bride-to-be would take that direction after hearing of their uncertain future. Still, there was little that Tiberius enjoyed more than dispelling ignorance with a dose of knowledge. While he did not consider himself a particularly devout man, he’d been raised alongside the Imperial Chantry. In his family and many others, it represented an alternate route to power – or a double dip for some of the largest and most influential Houses.
The carriage creaked forward and was soon back up to speed, demon horses trotting prettily. Or, at least they were pretty from a distance.
“Very well. I can hardly deny you that. It’s simple: from the Imperial point of view, we didn’t break from your chantry at all. We’ve had our own – since before grand Orlais was nothing more than howling Ciriane tribesmen. I’m sure you were taught about Archon Hessarian and the Sword of Mercy?” A cynic would say the ancient Archon’s conversion had been merely a political move, a way to pacify the lower castes and wipe out the troublesome priesthood of the Old Gods.
Tiberius didn’t necessarily agree. A shrewd stratagem turned religion would not endure over a thousand years without making its own kind of meaning. Or maybe Hessarian really had heard something as he watched a woman die in flames.
“‘Magic must serve man, and never to rule over him,’ It comes down to that, of course. We let mages serve, to become clerics and vote in our senate— rather than locking them all up and murdering them whenever we feel like it.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhaling loudly. Putting his anger and revulsion out of mind. If Lyric had been a Circle mage in the south, that one line of scripture had likely defined a great deal of her life. He glanced back up at her, possessed of an acerbic sort of distance once more.
“When Joyous II got wind in late Towers, she declared our whole clergy heretics. Four Exalted Marches couldn’t cure us of our wicked ways, however. Now the Imperial Chantry does such wild things as allowing men to serve in all roles and letting priests marry. Shocking, I know.
“As to why it’s different for us, I …” Perhaps there was some inherent arrogance or wrongness in them after all. That his people would never hand over power freely, not for faith or on threat of war. They were bred for it, going back countless generations to the days they’d been tribal cultists themselves. “I don’t know. Why didn’t you fight harder, run further?”Twenty rites of annulment on the books, even as recent as ten years ago. Tevinter would have taken them in, anyone that could get there. It wouldn’t have been an easy life for first generation asylum seekers – but anything at all was better than death at the hands of addled Templar keepers.
“But of course, things are changing in your world, aren’t they?” A mage Divine, however brief, had been quite unthinkable until many other unthinkable things occurred. “Bet those holy women of old would be pulling all their hair out.”
The carriage creaked forward and was soon back up to speed, demon horses trotting prettily. Or, at least they were pretty from a distance.
“Very well. I can hardly deny you that. It’s simple: from the Imperial point of view, we didn’t break from your chantry at all. We’ve had our own – since before grand Orlais was nothing more than howling Ciriane tribesmen. I’m sure you were taught about Archon Hessarian and the Sword of Mercy?” A cynic would say the ancient Archon’s conversion had been merely a political move, a way to pacify the lower castes and wipe out the troublesome priesthood of the Old Gods.
Tiberius didn’t necessarily agree. A shrewd stratagem turned religion would not endure over a thousand years without making its own kind of meaning. Or maybe Hessarian really had heard something as he watched a woman die in flames.
“‘Magic must serve man, and never to rule over him,’ It comes down to that, of course. We let mages serve, to become clerics and vote in our senate— rather than locking them all up and murdering them whenever we feel like it.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhaling loudly. Putting his anger and revulsion out of mind. If Lyric had been a Circle mage in the south, that one line of scripture had likely defined a great deal of her life. He glanced back up at her, possessed of an acerbic sort of distance once more.
“When Joyous II got wind in late Towers, she declared our whole clergy heretics. Four Exalted Marches couldn’t cure us of our wicked ways, however. Now the Imperial Chantry does such wild things as allowing men to serve in all roles and letting priests marry. Shocking, I know.
“As to why it’s different for us, I …” Perhaps there was some inherent arrogance or wrongness in them after all. That his people would never hand over power freely, not for faith or on threat of war. They were bred for it, going back countless generations to the days they’d been tribal cultists themselves. “I don’t know. Why didn’t you fight harder, run further?”Twenty rites of annulment on the books, even as recent as ten years ago. Tevinter would have taken them in, anyone that could get there. It wouldn’t have been an easy life for first generation asylum seekers – but anything at all was better than death at the hands of addled Templar keepers.
“But of course, things are changing in your world, aren’t they?” A mage Divine, however brief, had been quite unthinkable until many other unthinkable things occurred. “Bet those holy women of old would be pulling all their hair out.”
04-19-2024, 06:06 PM
