“The Gray Ones” in the novel are the shock troops of a man who appears to be an interim ruler, someone dispatched by stronger—and darker—forces to clear the land. The Gray Ones wage war on what they see as dangerous liberal ideas and on enlightenment as such. The Gray Ones, and their gray cardinal of a leader, appear inept, and come off as saboteurs rather than statesmen, yet they turn out to have infinite staying power.22
