The Warlock Heretical

by Christopher Stasheff

  "Nay! Surely Father McGee is a saintly man!"

  "Yeah, but even a good man can be tempted, as our late Archbishop just finished proving. Not that I'm really worried about McGee, though—he's one of the good ones. But he'll have a successor, one of these decades—and I'm not eager for that."

  Gwen frowned. "He cannot do so very much without revealing his monks' knowledge of wondrous machines."

  "That helps, yes—but they have a sufficient capacity for mayhem by themselves."

  The door to the bedroom opened, and a small ghost drifted out in a white nightshirt, heading for the water bucket. It sipped from the dipper and turned to go back.

  Rod reached out and caught it by the middle as it tried to get past. The child howled happily, struggling with more effect than conviction, as he plumped it onto his lap with a grin. "Thought you were supposed to be asleep."

  "I did thirst, Papa," Gregory explained.

  "Only for water? Fine."

  The boy sobered. "There's naught wrong in thirsting for grace, Papa."

  "True." Rod tried to ignore that chill down his back. "But tiptoeing about in the night won't bring it."

  Gregory actually grinned. "Nay, but knowledge will. The Father-General did have the right of it, Papa—I am called to learning, but not to holy orders."

  The chill went away, and Rod fought his body's impulse to collapse. "I said he was a good one. But what are you going to do for company?"

  "Even as he said—I shall found a community of scholars." Rod stared at the boy, implications reeling through his mind. Then he grinned slowly. "Why, so you will, won't you? The University of Gramarye, no doubt." He swung the boy to the floor, aimed him toward his room, and propelled him toward it with a spank. "All right, enough conversation. Back to bed, now, and sleep quietly, please—that's enough dreams for one night."

  Gregory gave a theatrical squall and scurried away.

  As the door slammed behind him, Gwen turned back to Rod, smiling with amusement. "Well, he is safe from all thou didst fear. Yet would it be so horrible to have him a priest, my lord?"

  "Yes! Not that there's anything wrong with the clergy, dear—it's just that Gregory has too free a mind to be happy among them."

  Gwen stared at him in total surprise. Then she nodded. "He hath, hath he not? Wherefore did I not see it?"

  "Because it never occurred to you that the Church might restrict a person's thinking. Never occurred to anyone else on this planet, either."

  She gave him her "convince me" look. "Wherefore would it not?"

  "Because none of you ever knew there was any other way to think. You were raised to believe there was only one Truth, and the Church had it."

  "Why, that is so…" Gwen said slowly.

  "But there may be aspects to that Truth that the Church doesn't know yet."

  "Surely the good fathers will embrace such knowledge, when it is discovered!"

  "Sure—just as they embraced the new idea of a second chapterhouse." Rod shook his head. "Sorry, dear. I can't believe that religions like new ideas."

  "Yet the Runnymede Chapter will endure, now that it hath begun—as will new notions."

  "Yes, but only in spite of attempts to wipe them out—and I'd rather Gregory weren't caught between those particular millstones."

  "True," Gwen agreed reluctantly. "Yet surely this land will tolerate difference and newness more easily, my lord, now that some few great lords' estates have been quartered, and new lords elevated."

  "Yes." Rod glowered at the fire, nettled. "You would remind me of our new responsibilities, wouldn't you?"

  " 'Tis naught but thy due," Gwen insisted. "Whoe'er did hear of a lord without an estate?"

  "But I don't want responsibility for a whole bunch of serfs!"

  "Wherefore not, when thou hast already the care of all Gramarye? And, too, our new lands have a castle upon them."

  "Yeah—a gloomy stone pile that nobody's lived in for a hundred years! No, this cottage is quite enough for me, thank you."

  "I have endeavored to make it so." Gwen leaned her cheek on his head and linked her arms loosely around his neck. "Still, 'twill be a pleasant retreat in the summer."

  "Retreat…" Rod lifted his head. "It would be a little harder for Tuan and Catharine to get to us there, wouldn't it?"

  "It would indeed," she said, amused. "Mightest thou not find rest in such a place, my lord?"

  "I might, at that." Rod smiled, leaning his head back to gaze up at her. "That's why I need you, dear—to look on the bright side for me."

  She bowed her head to gaze down at him, then smiled slowly. "And dost thou need me for naught else, my lord?"

  "Well, there were a couple of other things." Rod reached up, sliding his hand under her hair to cup her neck, drawing her head down. "Think the kids are asleep yet?"

  Her eyes lost focus for a moment; then she smiled down at him again, murmuring, "Very soundly," and lowered her mouth for a long, and very healing, kiss.

  The End