The Warlock Heretical

by Christopher Stasheff

  "He is elf-shot." Magnus turned to Fess.

  "Epileptic?" Father Boquilva stared. "I wonder thy parent doth not put him out of his misery!"

  "He is a true friend, and a valiant fighter," Geoffrey said angrily. "His seizures are a small matter, weighed against all his good service."

  Magnus felt under the pommel of Fess's saddle and pushed the enlarged vertebra that was a disguised circuit breaker.

  "Yet how didst thou come to knowledge of the word?" Gregory asked.

  A transparent shield seemed to slide down behind Father Boquilva's eyes. " 'Tis no matter. Is thy mount wounded?"

  "Nay; he doth come to himself now." Magnus was watching carefully as Fess slowly lifted his head. Where… what…

  Magnus stroked the velvet nose. "Thou hast had a seizure, old friend. 'Tis naught; thou wilt presently be well again." He looked up at the monk, and felt a thrill of alarm. "Why dost thou stare so?"

  Father Boquilva was gazing at Fess intently. "I had thought… no matter." He turned a stern gaze on the boy. "Thou, too, wert valiant—but foolish. These bandits would not have slain us, for we are adept at defense."

  "Too much so," Geoffrey said, frowning. "What manner of monks art thou, to own such skill with a quarterstaff?"

  "Geoffrey!" Magnus snapped, then turned to the monk. "I cry thy pardon, Father. He is but young, and doth forget his manners betimes."

  "I have no need for thou to apologize for me," Geoffrey grated.

  "Nay; thou must needs speak thine own regrets, an thou hast them." Father Boquilva studied the sturdy lad. "As thou shouldst; 'tis not meet for thee to speak so to thine elders—yet I feel some trouble of the soul within thee, wherefore I shall explain. Ere I came to the sense of my vocation, young sir, I was a lad much like thee, and was as fond of martial sport as I think thou art. I did delight at quarterstaff play, aye, and at archery and wrestling too, and forbore them only when I sought out the cloister." He nodded toward the other monks, who were busy administering restoratives. "The same is true of most of my fellows—yet when we did come away from the monastery to dwell by ourselves, we did bethink us of bandits who might seek to prey on such easy game as ourselves. Therefore did we take up practice again, and did teach these skills to such of our fellows as had them not."

  "Fairly said, and I thank thee," Magnus said. "Yet wherefore hast thou come out from the monastery?"

  "Ah. That is a matter of some dispute with our Abbot's policies," Father Boquilva explained, "a dispute so strong that we have felt the need to go off by ourselves."

  "And is this, too, why thou dost practice thy skills at arms?" Gregory's eyes were huge. "Dost thou fear thine Abbot may try to bring thee back into his fold by force?"

  Father Boquilva turned to him, startled. Slowly, he said, "Thou hast excellent insight, youngling. Aye, there is some thought of that in our hearts."

  Gregory's face crumpled; tears welled in his eyes. "It cannot be! 'Tis vile for men of God to think of battle!"

  "I cannot but concur with thee," Father Boquilva said softly, "and do heartily wish 'twere not so. Yet come, I will seek to explain it to thee the whiles I escort thee home."

  Cordelia stiffened. "Oh, nay, good father! Thou hast no need to accompany us!"

  "Yet I have," the monk said quietly, "for I wish to speak of thy kind assistance to thy father—most personally."

  Chapter Two

  Rod slipped a pair of hose, folded into a flat bundle, into his saddlebag next to the package of biscuit. He heard the door open, and looked up to see Gwen framed in the doorway with a basket on her hip. "Hi, dear. Wondered where you were."

  "Plucking berries, ere the birds do have them all." She came in, leaving the door open, and set the basket on the table, eyeing the saddlebags. "Thou'rt away, then?"

  Rod nodded and started folding his spare shirt. "Tuan and Catharine have kindly appointed me emissary to the Abbot. I should be back in three days. Can you manage without me?"

  "Oh, thou wilt never learn!" She caught the shirt from him, shook it out, and folded it into a neat, flat bundle. "Aye, I shall manage without thee—dost thou think me helpless by myself?"

  Rod grinned. "Never, dear. But for all I knew, you might have had something planned for the family."

  "Naught, as it doth chance." She tucked the shirt in beside the dried meat. "Yet an I did, is thine errand of so great an import that it could not wait?"

  " 'Fraid so. M'Lord Abbot has declared the Church of Gramarye to be separate from the Church of Rome."

  Gwen froze, staring. She swallowed, then said, "Wherefore?"

  "He says a man on another world can't possibly understand our problems here, or the theological reasons for solving those problems the way we do—he's talking about the Pope, of course."

  "Yet the Pope is Christ's deputy!" Gwen protested. "He doth hold the power granted to Peter—that what he doth bind or loose shall be bound or loosed in Heaven!"

  "But, says milord Abbot, Gramarye is not Earth." Rod held up a finger. "Therefore, the power of Peter doesn't apply here."

  "Oh, he doth seize upon excuses! Wherefore doth he truly wish to divorce us from Rome?"

  "Well, he's the head of the Gramarye Church, since all our priests are members of his order." Rod frowned. "And I assume he felt really diminished when Father Al handed him that letter from the Pope that gave him orders—so he figures that the only way to keep his power is to separate from Rome. After ail, that makes him top spiritual banana again. But why do you care so much, dear?"

  Gwen turned away, tucking the saddlebag's flap in.

  "Dear?" Rod prodded.

  "It doth fill me with foreboding, my lord." Her voice was low. "What doth threaten the unity of the Church, doth threaten the wholeness of my family."

  Rod stared, shocked. And, now that he thought about it, hurt. He opened his mouth to tell her that, but someone knocked at the door.

  He looked up. Perfect, right on cue! The "someone" wore a brown robe with a little yellow screwdriver in the breast pocket, and a bowl-cut hairdo with a tonsure.

  And had Rod's four junior Gallowglasses in front of him…

  "Children!" Gwen exclaimed. "What mischief hast thou wreaked now!… Good morn, Father."

  "Good morn," the priest replied. "I would not say 'tis mischief they've been wreaking, milady—i' troth, they did seek to aid us."

  "Sought to, maybe." Rod fixed Magnus with a gimlet glare, noticing how the boy's chin squared, and how Gregory was trying to shrink into Cordelia's skirts while she glared back at Rod in defiance. Geoffrey was fairly strutting into the room, head high and chin out—but Geoffrey would, of course.

  "Obviously, they think they've done something we wouldn't allow. Confess, children!"

  "Is not that mine office?" The priest held out a hand. "I am Father Boquilva."

  "Rod Gallowglass, and my lady, Gwendylon." Rod stepped up to take the priest's hand, and noticed that the man hadn't stepped across the threshold. "Be welcome in my house, Father."

  The priest smiled and stepped in, looking up and all about as he recited, "Let there be peace in this house, and to all who dwell herein."

  Rod noticed Gwen relax, so he smiled. "Thanks for pulling my kids out of whatever jam they were in, Father."

  "'Kids'? Oh, thou dost mean thy children. Nay, they as much aided me as I them…"

  "They would not have struck in their own defense had I not!" Geoffrey burst out. "Nay, not though they carried staves and bucklers!"

  Rod stared at him. "You jumped into the middle of a grownups' fight?" He pivoted to Magnus. "Why did you let him?"

  Magnus spread his hands in exasperation. "Who could e'er stop him, Papa?"

  "There's some truth in that," Rod allowed. "Who tried to beat up on you, Father?"

  Father Boquilva shrugged. "Naught but a band of robbers who thought that men o' the cloth would be easy meat. They did not think that we would have so little."

  Gregory nodded. "Naught but the chalice, Papa, yet those nasty
bandits stole even that!"

  Rod frowned at the monk. "So they were disappointed, and they were going to take it out on you with a beating?"

  Reluctantly, the priest nodded. "Yet what are a few bruises when measured against eternity? I doubt me not they'd have caused us pain, but little damage."

  "They would not even have fought to ward off blows!" Geoffrey said.

  "But that was up to them." Rod turned to scowl at his son. "You leave grown-ups to grown-ups."

  "Even though we see good folk plundered!?"

  "You might have been justified in staying in hiding and using 'magic,'" Rod admitted, "but not in jumping into the fight physically!"

  Geoffrey's jaw set.

  "There is just too great a danger thou wilt be hurted, my jo," Gwen told him.

  "We will not be hurted!"

  "That'll make a great epitaph, some day," Rod sighed, "but I'd rather not see it while I'm alive. Let's say I'm the one who's chicken, son, and I'm scared to have you mix in a grown-ups' fight."

  "Oh, Papa!"

  "Silly or not, it's the rule!" Rod took a step toward the boy, then realized his hands were hooking into claws. He jammed them together behind his back and looked around at his brood. "And what's the punishment for breaking that rule?"

  Geoffrey glared back, but awareness of doom shadowed his face.

  Behind him Magnus stirred with a sigh. "Aye, Papa, we know. Come, my sibs—let us to it."

  Gregory turned to follow him, and so did Cordelia, but with a troubled glance backwards at Geoffrey.

  Rod fixed his glare on his second son, his anger warring with admiration for the boy's courage. Of course, he didn't let it show, and Geoffrey just stared back, his chin like a rock.

  Gwen stepped up beside Rod, gazing intently at Geoffrey. "Thou dost know thou didst break our rule, my son."

  "But it would have been wrong to let them be beaten!"

  "Aye, yet we would not have thee be right but wounded, or worse. Therefore art thou not to partake of adult quarrels—and to make thee mindful of that, thou wilt do thy punishment."

  Geoffrey glared at her, but why should he be able to stand against the compulsion of her gaze when his father never had? He growled, but he turned away to follow Magnus.

  As the door closed behind him, Gwen went limp. "Praise Heaven! I feared he might defy thee to rage!"

  "Not this time, thanks to you." Rod let himself begin to relax. "Thanks for backing me, dear."

  " 'Twas a rule we had both agreed on, my lord—and one well made, to my mind. I come near to believing he doth think 'tis better to lose his life than a fight!"

  "And better to lose either than to lose face. Oh, yes." Rod sighed, and turned back to the priest.

  "Thou hast a worthy son," Boquilva noted.

  "Yeah, we do, don't we?" Rod grinned. "Well, Father! Can we offer you a glass of wine?"

  Someone squalled behind the closed door, and the grownups paused in their chat. Muffled by oak came the cry, "Mind thy mop handle, 'Delia!"

  "Only one in a room at a time," Rod called. "That's part of the punishment!"

  There was silence behind the door, then footsteps receding and the splash of a mop in a bucket.

  "I have heard of many children's punishments," the monk said, "yet this was never one."

  Rod nodded. "They can do a lot more than most folks give them credit for. Father—but ordinarily they only have to clean their own rooms."

  "We were abducted a year agone," Gwen added, "and 'twas two weeks ere we could win home. Then did we learn what they'd done in our absence."

  "By the end of the week the house shone." Rod's smile was brittle. "And they have to do it without using magic, too."

  "Aye, there's the rub," Gwen agreed.

  "Not that I,really mind their defeating evil wizards, Father," Rod explained. "It's just that I nearly had a heart attack when I found out how much danger they'd put themselves into."

  Father Boquilva chuckled and regarded his wineglass. "Well, we did surmise that they were magic-workers." He looked up at Gwen. "How dost thou contain them, milady?"

  "I have a few spells of mine own." Gwen dimpled prettily. " 'Tis more a wonder that thou, and thy brothers, did survive their interference."

  "Well, as to that, they may truly have aided us," the priest said. "We would certainly have sustained a harsh beating, and we might have died had we not fought. There was some look to these bandits that minds me they would not have been content with small cruelties—yet ere we'd have admitted such knowledge, belike we'd have been too incapacitated to defend ourselves."

  Gwen shuddered. "Beshrew me! But it horrifies me to think that some truly enjoy slaying others!"

  Rod nodded, face dark. "But what were you doing out in the middle of that meadow anyway, Father? Why didn't you just stay home, behind the walls of your monastery?"

  "Ah." Father Boquilva's face turned grim. "As to that—we had come to some disagreement with our Lord Abbot."

  "Disagreement?" Gwen stared. "Yet didst thou not swear obedience to him when thou wast ordained?"

  "Aye, and sin that we could no longer give such obedience with sound consciences, we thought it best to go apart by ourselves."

  "Hold it! Whoa!" Rod held up a flat, open hand. "What orders could your Abbot be giving that were so bad some of his own monks couldn't obey them?" Then he paused, remembering his new assignment and its cause. "It wouldn't have anything to do with his wanting to declare the Church of Gramarye separate from the Church of Rome, would it?"

  Father Boquilva met his eyes with a long, steady gaze. "Thou has most excellent minstrels, to bring such news so quickly."

  Rod waved the remark away. "I have inside sources."

  "Aye." A shadow crossed Boquilva's face. "Thou art the High Warlock, art thou not?"

  Rod gave Gwen a quick glance of exasperation. "I keep telling the kids not to brag. But yes, Father, I am—and I spoke with His Majesty this morning, about exactly this matter."

  Boquilva nodded, not taking his gaze from Rod's. "Then events have proceeded more quickly than I had thought."

  "Oh. It was still only talk when you left?"

  Boquilva nodded. "Yet that was a week agone—small enough time, when our Lord Abbot hath brooded six years over the matter."

  "Six years? Let's see… of course, that was when the Abbot squared off against Tuan, and only backed down because Father Al handed him a letter from the Pope telling him to do whatever Father Al said." Rod clasped his head as a brief dizzy spell swept him. "My lord! Has it been that long already?"

  "Nay, my lord." Gwen covered his hand with hers. " 'Tis simply that our children have grown so quickly."

  "Thanks for the reassurance, dear." Rod let his other hand rest on hers and looked up at Father Boquilva. "And it still bothers the Abbot?"

  Father Boquilva nodded again. "He hath some strain of worldly vanity, I fear, and was greatly ashamed to be so set down, there before all of two armies. Yet 'tis only these last three months that he hath begun to speak of separation."

  "Rather persuasively, too, I suspect." Rod frowned. "I heard the man preach once. He's almost as powerful an orator as King Tuan."

  Boquilva nodded. "Thou dost not undervalue him. In truth, some of the reasons he doth advance do hold merit, great merit—that what authority the Pope may once have had over the Church here on this Isle of Gramarye, he hath defaulted, through having so long ignored us. In truth, for all we heard from Rome, one might have thought that His Holiness knew not of our existence."

  "Well, be fair, though—Gramarye never sent any messages to Rome, either."

  "How could we? For that is milord Abbot's next point—that the Pope is so far distant from Gramarye that he cannot possibly know what doth occur here. Even doth he hear report, he can have no sense of the tensions of power, as milord Abbot hath. Then beyond this, there is such a maze of matters theological, of hairsplitting over the authority of Peter and his passing on of that power—and of the tightness of t
he Church of Rome today—that we cannot know what it doth or doth not hold to be a sin."

  "Sounds a little weak."

  Father Boquilva agreed. "It doth in truth. For look you, milord Abbot's whole upbringing hath instilled in him the belief that the Pope is the heir of Peter, the rightful head of the Church, and that he doth hold from God Himself the power to declare what is right and wrong. Yet an upbringing alone were not enough, there is all of milord's schooling for the priesthood, and his priestly vows themselves, to tell him to obey the Holy See."

  Rod said, "But it's hard to accept religious authority greater than his own when, all his life, he has thought that if he could rise to Abbot, he'd be the supreme spiritual power in Gramarye, second only to the King."

  "Aye, yet that 'second' doth gall him."

  "Oh, yes! That's what the whole fight was about six years ago—whether the King should take orders from the Abbot, or the other way around. Yes, the thought of power must be tempting."

  "Aye, and some of us were agreed that, despite what he knew to be right in his heart of hearts, milord Abbot, did but devise excuses to justify a break with Rome and a regaining of his full power."

  "Where I come from, we call that kind of excuse a rationalization—and once a man has found enough of them, he's capable of doing anything. Yes, I can see why you'd be wary."

  "Wary indeed—and unsure whether our vows of obedience to our Lord Abbot might not be superseded by obedience to our Holy Father the Pope. Thus we sought to place ourselves apart from the dilemma by coming away from the Monastery of St. Vidicon and journeying here to Runnymede, to begin our own chapter house."

  "Wisely done," Gwen agreed. "Yet doth this not, in itself, violate thy vow of obedience?"

  "It would, had we been commanded to stay—yet we were not."

  "Of course not." Rod smiled, amused. "In fact, the Abbot didn't even know you were leaving, did he?"

  Father Boquilva had the grace to look abashed. "I own he did not—and nay, further, that we did not seek his permission, as any monk is obliged to by the rule of our order. Yet we were resolved to go, whether it broke our vow to our Lord Abbot or not, for we feared greater peril of sin than that."