Manon's Ascension

The Humble and Honorable

It was day three of the slow, steady process of dismantling the old priest power structures and while no one seemed happy about it, the citizens had settled into an uneasy sense of acceptance. An acceptance that was growing as things like this, showcasing just how corrupt the church had become, occurred more and more.

The priest that attempted to kill her had been executed. It wasn't a public killing. Such things hadn't happened in generations. However, everyone still knew about it. The general response was that most felt uncomfortable about killing a priest, but no one could say that he hadn't brought it upon himself by trying to kill the queen. Even if none of them liked her, they could agree it was a crime just begging for death.

They had gone through the ruins of the Sacellum that first day, trying to find anything amongst the rubble that might be useful, valuable, or otherwise important. The Sacellum had been a place where Holy Texts were stored, histories were kept, and records were preserved. It wasn't all, or even mostly, corrupt.

The reaction to that had been like that of a carrion bird picking at a loved one's eyes. They wanted to shoo her and their soldiers away for daring to desecrate a place that, in some respects, was the graveyard of those who hadn't escaped the crumbling building or been freed in time after it had been brought down.

But it had to be done. They didn't want to lose the Texts, the histories, or the records. There was a lot of valuable stuff that had been buried deep and no one had been able to get it because moving the rubble had been low on the list of priorities since so many were without homes. No one had touched it since search and rescue efforts had been suspended.

The second day, they had started working with the remaining priests. They were surprisingly calm about so many of their number being taken away and detained. The corruption was hardly a secret to those that were actually good men. They had been unable to do anything from the inside, so having the king and queen do it for them was a relief.

Jacques and Manon didn't even have to encourage them to begin preaching to the people. Encouraging them to be calm. To be helpful and good. To trust in their king and queen because they had brought peace back to Gascony and, just as they ended the war, they were going to restore order and goodness to Isaie. It was something that they were eager to do because, from their perspective, it was exactly what was happening.

Having the remaining priests on their side did a lot. The people still stared at her when she went to the churches on the third day, but they didn't shout obscenities or glare with outright hatred. Compared to before, it was downright pleasant.

Tomorrow, they were going to start putting new people in power. Based on the list that Gosse gave them and their own observations. Once they had the new power structure in place, with the wealth redistributed, and the corrupt priests detained under their command until further notice, they would be able to leave Isaie and return to Ambraude.

Of course, it might take a few days more until things were stable enough for them to leave, but that was the current plan.

She left the fifth church and moved onto the sixth. Her last one for the day that was, thankfully, not filled with purloined wealth. Jacques was going to be handling the rest. Walking into the buildings and searching them went relatively quickly. It was supervising the removal of everything that took time. She wanted to make sure that nothing was stolen or misappropriated again. She stayed with the riches, making sure they were well protected, as they took it back to the mansion.

It was being stored in the vault underground that she imagined once held the noble's wealth. Before he had been imprisoned and his belongings reclaimed by the crown.

Once everything was logged, stored, and secured, she returned upstairs to begin going through the few records that they did have. None of the priests had been kind enough to keep a ledger. But there were letters from those who donated some of the items thanking the priest's for their good work, some explicitly stating that they were donating for the poor or the widows or to help repair the Sacellum or Isaie itself after the invasion.