The Warlock Heretical

by Christopher Stasheff

  Rod felt a stab of apprehension, and nearly yanked the boy off his bench and bolted; but Father Boquilva said, "Nay. Thou wilt go out anon and again; our monks have ever journeyed to visit with their folk from time to time, commonly twice in a year—save, of course, those who have been brought to us as orphans. And, now and again, our services are needed."

  Rod missed Gregory's next question and the answer, because inspiration struck with a blinding flash. So the monks were allowed to go home and visit from time to time, were they? Then the monastery wasn't completely cut off from the rest of the world! There was a channel of communication available!

  He came out of the daze as Father Boquilva was saying, "Well, more questions will come, be sure. When they do, thou art welcome among us—yet I prithee, bring always thy father." He turned to smile at Rod. "I believe he hath need of it!"

  "Oh, yes! You never know what you can get from a visit to a monastery!" Rod rose, reaching out to shake Father Boquilva's hand. "It's been great talking to you, Father! I tell you, you're sending me back out into the world with renewed energy and vigor!"

  "Why, thus would I hope the cloister may ever do, for the faithful," Father Boquilva returned, "yet I own I have never seen it work so quickly. Art certain thou hast no need for a longer retreat?"

  "No, I'd say I'm in the mood for a challenge. It's time to press forward—I might even say, charge!" He took Gregory by the hand and turned away to the door. "Come on, son, we've got to hurry and get your big brother moving."

  "But he hath no call!"

  "He's about to get one, and he darned well better answer!"

  Chapter Nine

  "Oh, Milord Abbot!" The Baroness hurried over as the Abbot stepped into the room, lowering his cowl to reveal hair plastered against his head. "I had not meant for thee to come on so foul a night!"

  The Abbot looked up in surprise, displeased. "Thy message, milady, spoke of urgent need."

  "And so it is, so it is! Yet tomorrow would have been soon enough. Oh, poor man! Come, come stand by the fire! Mayrose, pour brandy wine! Adam, move a chair to the hearth!"

  "Nay, I am not so wetted as that." The Abbot pulled off his monk's robe, revealing another beneath it. "When I saw the rain, I took a larger robe for a cover." But the inner robe was damp, too, and as the clergyman stepped in front of the flames, he steamed. Still, the look in his eye as Lady Mayrose handed him a goblet said he did not regret the trip. Indeed, there was a haunted hunger there.

  The Baroness saw, but had tact enough not to mention it directly. She gestured for Old Adam to bring her chair nearer the fire. "I marvel that thou canst yet spare time for us, milord, when thou art so much taken up with matters of great moment."

  The Abbot frowned, his troubles coming to mind again. "In truth, milady, thy house and thine affairs seem almost a refuge to me now."

  "Why, come to sanctuary, then," Lady Mayrose said with a silvery laugh, and turned away in a swirl of skirts to stand by her mother. "Still, 'tis a somewhat troubled sanctuary, as who should know better than its confessor?"

  "But thy troubles are so… wholesome, I might almost say." The Abbot smiled. "Nay, thy disagreements seem ever to be borne with love toward one another. Would I and the King might so quarrel!"

  "In truth, the Lord did bid thee love thine enemy," Lady Mayrose murmured.

  The Abbot nodded. "So indeed He did, Lady Mayrose, yet our enemy will not therefore cease being our enemy." His brow creased. "In truth, Their Majesties are so arrogant that they can scarcely abide the least challenge to their power."

  "And art thou so great an affront, then?"

  The Abbot sighed, looking up to Heaven. "Alas! How may I be otherwise? For I must oppose this steady extension of their powers, that doth encroach even on the domain of the Church… Oh! Rome is so blind] Not to realize that a worldly prince must needs hamper the Church's work if he doth usurp her offices! So blind, not to see what moves here—and so uncaring!"

  The ladies were silent, surprised at his vehemence.

  He realized, and smiled apologetically. "Pardon, ladies. My spirit grows agitated as I realize the hurt to the poor folk, in both soul and body, that must come from the Crown daring to take upon itself the alms-giving of the Church and the ordering of our clergy."

  "Ah! How can a king or queen understand what is needful in that?" Lady Mayrose said, scandalized. "Nay, certes the Church must remain supreme in such venues!"

  The Abbot looked up at her in appreciation. "I thank thee, Lady Mayrose, yet I doubt that even one so ardent as thou wouldst condone the step that I may needs take on this road."

  "What step is that?" The Baroness was suddenly apprehensive.

  "That of declaring myself to be Archbishop." The Abbot looked away, his mouth twisting as he said it.

  The Baroness gasped, but Lady Mayrose's eyes glowed. She nodded, faster and faster. "Certes… aye, certes! Nay, what else couldst thou do, my lord? If the Church of Gramarye hath separated from Rome, it must needs have a head—and that head must be titled Archbishop! Yet ought it not ever have had bishops and archbishops?"

  "It should have, Lady Mayrose, it should have." The Abbot turned to her with a slow, approving nod. "

  "Pis only for cause that all priests in Gramarye are of the Order, and owe obedience to the Abbot of the only monastery, that we have not."

  Lady Mayrose's eyes widened. "Are there other orders of monks, then?"

  "Aye, and priests who are not monks." The abbot smiled at her astonishment. "There are many holy houses named in our books—the Order of Saint Francis, for one, and the Order of Saint Dominic, for another. There is also the Society of Jesus, from which came our founder, Saint Vidicon. Yet 'twas a monk of Saint Vidicon's alone brought the Faith to Gramarye. so that the only priests here are those of our Order."

  The Baroness's hand trembled at her throat. "Yet will not Their Majesties see thy taking the title of Archbishop as an attack upon their authority?"

  "I doubt it not," the Abbot said, frowning, "and 'tis that which doth give me pause in so declaring myself. Yet, milady, would I thereby claim aught that the Abbot hath not always had, in this Isle of Gramarye?"

  "Thou wouldst not, and thou wouldst thus do as an archbishop must!" Lady Mayrose insisted. "Who can trust the judgment of kings or queens? For they must, by their natures, be worldly, and therefore liable to corruption!"

  "'Tis even so, Lady Mayrose, even so." The Abbot nodded, pleased. "There must be a check on the powers of them who govern, or tyranny will follow."

  "And who can check a king, save an archbishop?" Lady Mayrose shook her head, fire in her eyes. "Nay, milord! An archbishop thou must needs be, and naught less than archbishop! For just and right behavior is natural to men of the Spirit—but greed and violence are natural to men of the World!"

  "Why, even so had I thought!" the Abbot declared, with a warm smile for her. "Only in men of God may the people trust, for justice!"

  "Folly is the prerogative of the Crown," Lady Mayrose answered, "but wisdom is the prerogative of the Mitre!"

  "I could not have spoken it better," the Abbot breathed, gazing into her eyes.

  She met his gaze a moment, then blushed and bowed her head.

  The silence became awkward.

  The Abbot turned away, with a noise of impatience. "What a rude guest am I, to so dwell on mine own affairs! I had forgot, milady, the cause for which thou hadst summoned me."

  "Oh… 'tis only some disagreement 'twixt this willful child and myself." The Baroness looked up over her shoulder at her granddaughter. "Our quarrel seems petty indeed, weighed against thy matters of great moment."

  "I assure thee, milady, that naught which doth trouble thee and thy granddaughter can ever be of small moment to me," the Abbot said with fervor. "What quarrel is this, that can so disturb the loving harmony between thee?"

  "What is it ever!" the Baroness sighed. "I have brought to her mind once again, Lord Abbot, her duty to her house and country, yet she doth once more defy me
!"

  "Lady!" The Abbot turned to Lady Mayrose in mild reproach. "Surely thou dost not deny thou shouldst wed!"

  "Nay, not truly, milord." The maiden met his eyes with a deep, disconcerting directness. " 'Tis only a matter of person."

  "I did no such thing!"

  Squire Rowley frowned across the table at the village pain. Laughn was as scruffy as usual—his tunic probably hadn't been washed for a month, let alone changed; the warden had obviously dragged him in before his weekly shave; and there was something about the lice that kept peeking out from his mange, as though they were finding the aroma inside a little hard to take themselves. Rowley was just glad it had been a clear day, so he could have his men bring his table outdoors to hold court—but he hadn't thought to make sure he was upwind of Laughn. He tried to breathe lightly, and said, "The keeper found thee coming away from the deer, which had still thine arrow in it."

  " 'Twas an arrant knave stole that arrow from me!"

  "An arrant knave shot the deer, surely." Rowley gasped at a sudden gust and held his breath till it had passed. His knight, Sir Torgel, had a very enlightened attitude toward poaching— he only forbade hunting to people who had enough to eat. But Laughn still lived with his parents, though he was in his twenties, and was well-enough fed, though he was more often seen in the woods than in the fields—and that deer could have fed the whole village for several days. No, Sir Torgel would not take the large view toward this deer slaying. "And how didst thou come to be near the deer?"

  "Why, I sought deadwood to gather for the fire! How was I to know a dead deer lay nearby?"

  "How, indeed?" the squire sighed. "Yet thou hadst no billets about thee, nor even a bag with which to carry kindling."

  "Only for that I had not found any yet!"

  "Though 'twas high noon? Our woods are not so well kept as that'." Rowley frowned and glanced at the horizon; the sun had almost set, and gloom was gathering. The trial had lasted far too long. "Nay, I must needs hold thee guilty of poaching."

  "Thou canst not!" Sweat started on Laughn's brow; he knew the sentence could be death. "I did not shoot!"

  "Yet all signs say thou didst." Rowley's face hardened. "Unless thou hast a witness to say he saw thee without thy bow as he saw the deer fall, I must needs hold thee—"

  "Yet there was!" Laughn shrilled. "Such an one did see me so!"

  Rowley paused, scowling. "Who did?"

  "Stane did!"

  Rowley sat, eyes widening at Laughn's audacity. Stane had been found dead by a keeper about the same time that another had discovered the slain deer and had caught Laughn. The young man had been a short distance from both, lying near a rock that fitted the dent in his head. To all appearances he had tripped and fallen. Rowley had sent a guardsman back for the body; he had found it stiffened. "Thou knowest Stane lieth dead."

  "Naetheless, he did see me even as he let fly the arrow! 'Twas Stane slew the deer, not I! I did not wish to speak ill of the dead, but thou dost leave me no choice!"

  "Ill indeed." Rowley's eyes narrowed. "Thou art, then, the last to see Stane alive. Methinks thou mayest know more of his death than thou speakest!"

  "I do not!" Laughn fairly screamed, straining against the guards' grasp, raising his bound hands. "I call him to witness!

  Stane, come! For if thou didst, thou wouldst bear witness that I am innocent!"

  This blasphemy was too much even for Rowley. "Thou dost lie, vile murderer! I would Stane could stand here, for—"

  He broke off at the look of absolute terror that came into Laughn's eyes, and turned to follow his gaze.

  There, dimly seen in the gloaming, but there quite clearly, was a wisp of smoke in the form of a man, a young man in smock and leggins with a raw bloody dent in his forehead.

  "Stane," Rowley whispered.

  He doth lie, said Stane's voice inside their minds. He slew the deer; I did see it. And for that, he slew me. Then he half buried the rock, so that it would seem my own clumsiness had slain me.

  Laughn screamed, then screamed again and again, thrashing against the hold of the white-faced soldiers while Stane's ghost faded, as though the sound of Laughn's howling were shredding the shade and dispersing it. Then Laughn's voice cut off short, eyes bulging as he stared at the place where Stane's shade had been, before he slumped, unconscious.

  The tinker wore a three-day beard and an assemblage of clothes that seemed to be made up of equal parts of tatter and grime. The boy beside him was a little better off; his face was unwashed instead of unshaven. Both of them were hung about with pots and pans that jangled and clattered as they walked. Of course, the alert eye could have seen that under the rags they were both well-fed and well-muscled, and the tinker, at least, seemed to be unwholesomely happy about the whole thing. He ambled into the village with his thumbs hooked around pot handles, whistling.

  The boy, on the other hand, looked rather glum about it all. He glowered up at his father. "Do you have to be so happy about the whole thing, Papa?"

  "What good would it do being sour?"

  "If anybody you knew saw you, they might think you were glad to get away from Mother."

  "Never! Well, no, I have to amend that—I'd rather not have her around when I lose my temper." Rod grinned. "But I always do enjoy getting away from Their Majesties and the court for a little while. There's this tremendous sense of… freedom."

  "Freedom." Magnus jangled his pots and glowered at the grime in his homespun tunic. "This is freedom?"

  "Son, I've been meaning to tell you—freedom and luxury are not the same thing. In fact, they don't even go together, most of the time." Rod stepped into the center of the village common and shrugged off his load. It fell with a jangle and a clatter, and he called out,

  "Pots, mistress, pans! Bring them out to my hands! Are they cracked, bent, or bruised? Are they not fit for use? Then bring them out here, Where we'll hammer and sear And weld them for you To make them like new!"

  Magnus winced. "You've done better, Papa."

  "Well, what do you expect for improvisation? Besides, who made you a critic?"

  "You did," Magnus said instantly. "At least that's what you said the last time I didn't want to do my homework."

  "I know—every educated man should be a critic," Rod replied, sighing, "and if you're not willing to learn, you have no right to criticize. An unkind cut, my boy, an unkind cut."

  "I thought we were talking about education, not steak."

  "Are you still beefing? Try to simmer down—here comes a customer."

  "Ho, tinker! I've waited long for thee!" The housewife was broad and plump, with a pleasant round face and a small cauldron that had a long jagged crack. She swung it up into Rod's hands. "For months I have cooked in a crockery pot!"

  "Eh, I should have come sooner." Rod's voice moved into a country dialect. "'Twill cost thee a penny, missus."

  The woman's face clouded. "I've no coin to spare, tinker." She reached for the cauldron.

  "That being so, we're a-hungered," Rod said quickly. "Can ye spare us a bowl of stew with a taste of meat?"

  The woman beamed. "I've a bit of dried beef on the shelf yet." She frowned down at the odd noise the boy made, then shrugged and turned back to his father. "Still, I cannot stew it without a pot."

  "Why, then, a mun mend it quickly." Rod sat down tailor fashion, pulled out a knife and a stick, and began shaving tinder. "Fetch a few sticks, lad, like a good 'un."

  "Pretend, anyway—right?" Magnus muttered, before he turned away to hunt for kindling.

  A few other wives came up as Rod laid the fire. One had a pot with a bad dent, but the others had only interest. "What news, tinker?"

  Rod always had wanted to be a journalist. "Naught that's so new as all that. The Abbot hath declared the Church of Gramarye to be separate from the Church of Rome."

  A housewife frowned. "How can he do that?"

  "He doth ope his mouth and speak." Rod shaved a curl of wood.

  "Can we not hear Mass, then?"r />
  "Rumor saith that the Abbot himself doth so, every day."

  The first housewife knit her brow. "Then what matters it?"

  Rod shrugged. "Little enough, I would say." Privately, he was appalled that the peasants took the news so blandly. "Yet what know I of the Church? 'Tis a priest must say." He looked up as Magnus came up with an armload of broken branches. "Ah, that's good enough, lad."

  Magnus sat down with his bundle of sticks, trying not to look at the erstwhile customer who was running toward the only building with a wooden roof. It also had a small steeple.

  "Now, when I can find one who hath a brother or son in the monastery," Rod said easily, "I can find the truth or falsehood of this rumor." He struck a spark into the tinder and blew it into a glowing coal, carefully leaving enough silence for a villager to volunteer a comment. When no one did, he sighed inwardly and said, "Other than that, there's small enough news. Twas a storm in the north, off the Romanov coast, and a fisherman swore he saw a mermaid singing in the midst of the lightning."

  The housewives gasped and exclaimed to one another, and Rod started feeding kindling into the glowing coal. Flames licked up.

  "What had the fisherman been drinking, Papa?" Magnus asked, and the women turned toward him, startled.

  Rod swung a backhanded slap at Magnus's head, but Magnus ducked it lazily. "Go along with 'ee, now! Hast no respect for thine elders?"

  "Not so harsh," a housewife protested. "I've known mine husband to see odd sights when he's been a-drinking."

  The other women chortled, and Rod wondered if the woman's husband would thank her for the broadcast. "Mayhap, goodwife, yet bear in mind this: the fairy folk have a fondness for tosspots."

  "Then why do they not take them away?" a woman snorted, and the others hooted their agreement.

  Rod waved a hand over the little blaze and nodded, satisfied. " 'Twill do." He laid a strip of welding wire along the crack and held it over the blaze.

  "I do the real work, right?" Magnus murmured to him.