He made good progress down the deserted coastline, anchoring by night in coves or on beaches. On the fifth day he spied another abandoned town, several miles up an estuary. But he continued skirting the coast and two days later reached the mouth of the bay that marked the city. He circled back a few miles and moored his vessel in a cove. He wanted to approach the city from the hills and observe it through his glasses before announcing himself.
Again he took with him only his weapons and glasses and staff, and a little satchel with some food and commissions in it, as if he had come by land on some business. From a distance he could see that this regional capital was brimming with activity. He moved closer and closer, trying to make out what everyone was doing. He hid his rifles and glasses and decided he would just walk right up to the nearest street. With such hordes of people milling about, he thought, it would be easy to spy.
From the very edge of town to the center, the streets were full of people of all ages, many of them carrying parcels that looked like their belongings. Some seemed to be heading towards the harbor, while others were coming from it, equally burdened. He could see no pattern. As he was not particularly noticed, he decided to tour the whole city, especially the waterfront and find out for himself what was up. As he went he looked for the faces of townspeople he might recognize, but they all looked too much alike for him to tell.
The harbor was in a flurry of activity. A large tanker was at dock, being loaded with sacks by an endless line of porters. There were stacks of crates along the quay and people everywhere either giving or getting instructions, as wagons and even small flocks of sheep complicated the jam. Jonathan walked over to one middle-aged man who was standing still and watching over a small herd of sheep.
"What's going on here?" Jonathan asked.
"Everybody's been told where to report," the man answered back curtly, not even glancing at Jonathan as he stood beside him.
"Well I haven't been told!" Jonathan roared back, frightening the poor fellow and humbling him. "I've just arrived here from a long journey," he went on in a quieter tone, "and I need to know where these goods are being transported, and why."
"Please excuse me, your honor," he replied, "they're...I didn't see your staff...it's a general order...to White Syd...everybody's got to go."
"And what if they don't want to go?" Jonathan asked him sternly.
"There's been some complaining," he answered, still very frightened. "It's not easy to leave one's home, I know, but...well, they're purified."
"How many?" Jonathan yelled again.
"Well, hum, about...hundreds, I suppose," the man stammered.
The thought of such high-handed killings by the Church enraged Jonathan. For years now there had not been that kind of slaughter, but he could have guessed that the Church would resume its old, tyrannical habits as soon as they proved useful again. He hurried off towards the temple to see for himself just what sort of massacre was going on.
"No wonder these people seem so chipper," he thought as he rushed along, "they've all got fires kindled under them and the shrieks of their kinsfolk and friends in their ears."
Sure enough, as he entered the main plaza he could see along one length of it large stacks of white timber and a crew of lickers with wheelbarrows shovelling up piles of grey ash near the wood. He walked over to examine these heaps and the black circles on the cobblestones that marked the scene of the burnings. He noticed that the lickers had no paint about their necks with which to purify the darkened ground and thought that this was the reason they appeared so disgruntled at their task, not because they happened to be sweeping up the remains of people.
Now Jonathan turned and stormed across the square, and through the large arch with its two towers capped in shining silver. Along the top of this arched gate stood five blind sentries, at attention and holding silver spears before them. The sight and the idea of these pointless servants sickened him all the more. He was building himself up into a rage such as he hadn’t felt in a long time. He entered the courtyard and yelled, "who's in charge here?"
Several priests quickly accosted him, eyeing him suspiciously. One of them spoke up, "What’s your business here, sir?"
"I need to see the Bishop on an extremely important matter”, Jonathan replied.
This produced the desired result and the same priest immediately led him through doors and corridors and finally to a large conference room filled with some twenty priests and a host of secretaries with stacks of tablets before them. At the head of the long table a surprisingly young and clean-shaven man wearing a bishop's headgear looked up from the documents he had in hand. He curtly welcomed Jonathan and pointed with the tip of the stylus that had been at his lip to a vacant seat a few places from where he sat.
The old Bishop that Jonathan had met the last time he was here was nowhere in sight. In fact, Jonathan looked around the table and noticed a complete absence of older priests of any rank and angrily wondered what had happened to them. The new Bishop now took the time to look up from his tablet, and straight at Jonathan, expecting him to speak. There was a dead silence in the room.
"Upon whose order have the towns to the north been evacuated?" Jonathan asked, in as polite a tone as he could manage.
"Well I see," said the Bishop after a pause, "that you are a little out of the stream of current events, old man."
A few half stifled titters could be heard down the length of the table. With an automatic movement Jonathan raised his staff, but then caught himself and lowered it again, and glared at the young man for a moment.
"That's no fault of mine," he spoke loudly, "and from what I can see, I'm glad I missed it. Where's the old Bishop?"
"Come to his reward along with his peers," replied the young man, his own eyes beginning to glow with anger.
"And who are we killing these days and for what reason?" shouted Jonathan, not to be outdone in virulence. Then he added, "out of your precious paint, are you?"
The young Bishop jumped up from his seat at this point, utterly amazed at the insult. Jonathan also stood up, and as he did so the young man yelled out, "arrest him!"
But there were no guards or officers for that business in the room and many of the priests around the table were actually cowering from the violence of these outbursts. In a moment several larger fellows got up at the far end and began moving towards Jonathan. This gave him time to raise his solid staff and swing the heavy, metal knob with its silver beak down upon the skull of the Bishop, with one loud crack.
