The crypts were directly below the church, and the stairs leading down to them were hidden by a screen at the back of the chancel. Having seen the size of the congregation, he couldn’t help feeling apprehensive hearing the creaking of the floorboards above them.

“Is something wrong?” Cardinal Eudes asked him as he lit the torches on the wall.

“Not at all.” He wondered if the apprehension was evident on his face.

“Are you sure? Your face has been pale since the Rite.”

“Strange, I feel fine. Do you need help lighting the torches?”

“No, I can do that much,” Cardinal Eudes said, and within a few minutes, there was enough light to fill the large chamber.

Stone and lead coffins lined the room, and the names and details of each person were inscribed onto them. Only the wealthy could afford such coffins, but since most deceased nobles were kept in the Louka Cathedral, these crypts mainly contained the bodies of previous bishops and cardinals. There were some peasants though, most likely devout men working in profitable trades.

Curiously enough, he spotted the name of a paladin. The inscription on his slab was simple: Sir Gabin, 27th Paladin.

“I thought all paladins were buried in the Basilica of Gaul,” he said.

“They are. But Sir Gabin requested that he be buried here. The pope couldn’t allow that, so this coffin is empty. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but the 27th was born in the capital. His birth name was Seong-Hyeon, and he was an orphan.”

“Seong-Hyeon…?” he said successfully after several attempts.

“He was born here, but his mother was a Takrin refugee. Worked as a prostitute. Of course, Calorin can’t have a paladin of such dubious birth. ‘Gabin’ was much easier to pronounce for the common folk. Are you familiar with the song they wrote about him? It’s a bit past your time.”

“Yes, I know of it. He was traveling up north with some friends and family, and they were attacked. Massacred. He managed to make it out alive and swore to kill the twenty-seven people responsible for the attack.”

“The details are often changed by overimaginative troubadours,” the cardinal said with a frown. “The whole bit about the 27 knives must’ve come from his rank as the 27th Paladin. In reality, he tracked down and killed no more than five people – the nobles who plotted the attack. They were a small extremist group who couldn’t stand having a foreigner as a paladin. Of course, that’s not mentioned in the song.”

“You speak as if you knew him.”

“Only knew of him – I’m not that old. The previous cardinal of the House of Sybille, Cardinal David, knew him well, and he helped preserve Seong-Hyeon’s legacy after he passed. That’s his coffin over there.” He pointed at a simple stone coffin next to Sir Gabin’s, and his voice became low.

“After Seong-Hyeon got his revenge, he was a hollow man. His wife, his children, and his closest friends were gone. His mother had passed away shortly after he was ordained. The only person who knew him not as a vengeful paladin but as another human was Cardinal David who had helped raise him.”

“A tragic man,” he said when the cardinal fell silent.

“Yes. You met Tatiana earlier – the little squirt playing hearth keeper. She’s an orphan as well. Seong-Hyeon put all his wealth back into the city that had raised him, and without him, she wouldn’t have a home. Unfortunately, he passed away before the orphanage was built.”

“He died in battle, didn’t he?”

The cardinal stared at him. “Do you believe that?”

“It doesn’t match with your description of him, no,” he said after a moment of contemplation. “He already got his revenge. Though it could be possible that the palace sent him an order and that’s when he died.”

“Overdrinking,” Cardinal Eudes said, shaking his head. “Certainly not how a hero is expected to go. I’m sure Cardinal David played a hand in perpetuating that story of him falling in battle. And as erroneous as the song might be, I also suspect that the cardinal was the one who asked for it to be written. He’s always been a man of good intentions.”

It was still difficult to read the cardinal’s face, and the poor lighting didn’t help. Eudes was forlorn, that was obvious enough, but there was something else as well. Above them, he could hear the shuffling of feet and the bishop droning on about the Lord’s love.

“Seong-Hyeon didn’t know, did he?” Roel said, staring at the paladin’s coffin. “About what would happen to his body after he died. He must’ve thought that he would be buried here in these crypts.”

The cardinal let out a deep sigh. “They would never allow such a thing. A Divine Paladin’s body is a holy relic of sorts. They ignored his last wishes. Some bishops from the Louka Cathedral took his body to the Basilica.

“Cardinal David was never a man that worried about his status, so he spoke up against them and even took it to the pope. He was overruled at every turn. It’s not an entirely heartless decision; it’s just that traditions can’t be bent. They ruled that Seong-Hyeon was in the wrong in the first place for returning to the place he was born. A paladin forfeits his right to the past.”

Roel didn’t say anything, but he thought of Magerra and of the oath that he had taken. When he had arrived with the troops, it had taken every fiber of his willpower to not run back to his family.

The cardinal cleared his throat. “Speaking of the past, I brought you here to apologize to you. It’s fortunate that I was able to see you before you left.”

“What do you mean, Your Eminence?” he asked.

“In the four years or so since I claimed you, I must’ve been rather cold and distant. In fact, this might be the longest conversation we’ve had. I’m afraid I can’t be like Duke Armand who showers his champion with riches. Nor can I offer you the same support from the church and the clergy that Cardinal Télesphore can. If I have turned you against me, that was my own fault. I was biding my time, trying not to draw too much attention to myself.”

The cardinal’s words contained a sincerity that Roel hadn’t expected. He chose his words carefully before responding. “It’s nothing to apologize for. You’ve given me the freedom to do as I wish.”

“And now it’s the opposite.”

“How so?”

“Come now, you’re a sharp man. You are the first paladin to lead an army; it’s a position that will draw ire and envy from all directions. You can be honest. I’ve placed a terrible burden on you, a burden that will only grow heavier.”

“Just one more burden in the load,” he said with levity, and then he grew serious. “However, Duke Alan might’ve been right when he said the task should’ve been entrusted to a paladin with a higher rank.”

“Nonsense. There’s no need to get hung up on ranks. Though I’m sure you’ve figured that out as well.”

“What are you referring to?”

Cardinal Eudes looked him straight in the eyes. “How many paladins do you think there are, Sir Roel?”

Normally, he would’ve expressed ignorance or given a vague answer, but the cardinal didn’t look like he would accept such a thing. “The lowest rank I’ve heard of is 116th.”

“So, you think there are one hundred and sixteen paladins?”

“Perhaps,” he said cautiously.

“You don’t believe that.”

“I…no, I don’t,” he admitted.

“And why not?”

“Well,” he said, drawing out the word, “I follow any and every story I hear about paladins, and I’ve never heard of a paladin with the same numerical rank as another one. Yet if we’re ranked by strength, what happens when a new paladin is ordained?

“Take for example Lady Cleo, the 24th Divine Paladin. Why did my own rank not change to the 59th when she was given hers? For twelve years, I’ve been the 58th, and I’ve never heard of a paladin whose rank has gone up or down. So, I can conclude that either the previous 24th Divine Paladin was an unknown figure and Lady Cleo inherited his rank or…”

“Or?”

“There are a predetermined number of paladins.”

The cardinal’s face stayed expressionless. “And what would that mean about the ranking system?”

“I’m not sure. But how can a system be both dynamic and static?”

He had always thought the numerical ranks were a bit strange, but up until now, he only had suspicions. And even if his suspicions were more than that, he couldn’t quite understand the implications. Or rather the implications were too strange.

“It’s nothing as complicated as what you’re thinking,” Cardinal Eudes said. “It’s very simple: the way paladins are ranked is part of an antiquated system. When King Gaul first established paladins as the kingdom’s heroes, there were only twelve of them. But to inspire fear in his enemies, he inflated the numbers, naming his strongest paladin the 1st and the weakest one the 120th. And through the years, this system remained in use by the Basilica to categorize paladins by strength.

“To use your previous example, Lady Cleo is undoubtedly stronger than you, but she is not necessarily stronger than paladins that are closer to her in rank. It just happened that the 24th rank was unused.”

“How inefficient…” he said, frowning. “So, there are much fewer than one hundred and twenty paladins.”

“Only a select few in the Basilica know the exact number. But yes, that is correct.”

“What happens when we have more than one hundred and twenty paladins then?”

“That’s for the pope to decide. Though I doubt Pope Hadrien has given it any thought,” he said with a hint of disapproval in his voice. “Of course, you must not tell anyone about it. I’m revealing all of this to you for two reasons. While your rank as 58th still means you aren’t as strong as others, this information could be useful in your dealings with other paladins.”

“And the second reason?”

Cardinal Eudes stared fixedly at him. “I’ll admit it: you were supposed to die at the Battle of Wetshard, Sir Roel. In King Maxime’s council, there were a hundred others I needed to compete with if I wanted the king’s attention. So, when Ganelon turned traitor and we had no strong paladins to send, I did what none of those others would do and I proposed that we sacrifice you and whoever else was around to buy time. And it worked. Although King Maxime passed away shortly after that battle, King Mathieu took notice of me and invited me to his council.”

Roel found that he couldn’t feel angry at the cardinal’s confession. Bitterness, maybe, but not anger. It was one thing to have suspicions, but to hear them confirmed so simply was a different matter. If anything, it was anticlimactic. And besides, what could he do about it now? He was no Sir Gabin. He also had no doubts that if Cardinal Eudes hadn’t suggested the idea, someone else eventually would’ve.

“But when I heard the news that you’d survived, won, and planned the whole thing, I realized my mistake,” Cardinal Eudes said.

“You thought I was worth more alive than dead.” He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but the cardinal’s candor brought out his own.

“I won’t deny it. I found the hero I’d been looking for – someone who could overcome the arbitrary system of ranks with the strength of his sword and his mind. Sensible heroes are harder to find than you think.”

Cardinal Eudes walked over to Sir Gabin’s coffin and placed his hand on the lid. “The kingdom of Calorin is slowly dying, Sir Roel. It relies on tradition and archaic structures. It’s not just the paladin ranking system. It used to be that a lord would give his vassals land, and in return, the vassal would swear fealty to the lord. However, today, with enough money, one can buy land and be one’s own lord. It’s been said that the merchants are becoming rich enough to own towns. Can you believe that?”

Roel thought of Olivier and his vast wealth. “I can.”

“Then you can understand my fears. Perhaps nothing will change in the next few years, but what about the next few decades? The greatest threat is not the heretics. It is that the nature of the kingdom is an ever-flowing current, and we are not moving along with it. We are a water mill in a state of disrepair.”

“I empathize with your worries, Your Eminence,” he said slowly, “but I still don’t understand what you want me to do about it.”

“Has anyone told you that you underestimate your own value, Sir Roel?” Without waiting for his answer, the cardinal lifted the lid off the paladin’s coffin. Inside was a dark green cloth vaguely in the shape of a body.

“A ceremonial corpse since he couldn’t be buried in it,” Cardinal Eudes explained. “Seong-Hyeon was another victim of tradition.” He reached into the part of the cloth where the head should’ve been and retrieved what looked like three dried seeds.

“What are those?” he asked.

“Hearth Seeds. I’ve been hiding them for a long time. It is true that you are the 58th and that your power might not compare to others. But if you take one of these, the results will be extraordinary. It is recorded that when the 30th Paladin took one, he erupted into a golden maelstrom of fire, burning everything in his wake.”

He stared at the three seeds not with excitement or gratefulness but with apprehension. He had never heard of such things. They were small and dark, no bigger than pebbles. “What are the ramifications?”

The cardinal chuckled. “Cautious, aren’t you?”

“I’m not as naïve as to believe that power can be granted so freely.”

“It will provide you with great power, but you won’t be able to sustain it for long. And for the next three days, you will be unable to call upon your blessing. As far as I know, those are the only side-effects.”

He still did not take them from the cardinal’s outstretched hand.

“I have many goals, Sir Roel,” he continued. “Worldly ambitions that I should’ve renounced when I became a cardinal or a bishop. And to accomplish them, I will do whatever I must to ensure your victory. You might not need these seeds but take them just in case.”

Reluctantly, Roel accepted them. Despite having been in a coffin for what must have been years, they were warm in his palm.

“I’ll be forthcoming with you: I still do not trust you, Cardinal Eudes,” he said.

“I didn’t expect you would.”

“From what you’ve said today, I assume that you want me to break tradition by being the first paladin to lead an army to victory. But you haven’t convinced me that you see me as anything more than a pawn. You said there were two reasons for why you revealed the secret behind the ranking system. Is the second reason that you wanted to gain my trust? As you yourself noted, this is the first time we’ve talked like this, and I suspect that’s because I’ve become useful for you again.”

Cardinal Eudes said nothing, calm and collected as always.

“Besides, concepts like the ‘good of the kingdom’ have always seemed too abstract and hollow to me.” He placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Unlike you, I have no lofty goals. The only thing I want at this point is to wake up in the morning and not feel like someone in the world is waiting for me to save them. I can’t be a traditional hero, selfless and gallant.”

“That’s why you are exactly the hero I’m looking for,” the cardinal said, and it was impossible to tell what his smile meant.