by Kage Baker
"Yes, I'm upset about the mission, and so should you be!" Joseph rounded on me. "It's in jeopardy thanks to Little Sir Walt, and after months of cleaning out his lousy arteries, this is the thanks I get? Now I have to completely renegotiate the contract with the new owner, which is going to cost the Company money, which is going to reflect badly on me, although you still get to collect your Furbish's lousewort or whatever so what do you care? I guess it's just too much to hope that you might be providing your poor facilitator and group leader with sympathy, understanding, and commiseration. Hell, not you! You're in shock because the monkeys are throwing coconuts at each other! We told you mortals did stuff like this, didn't we? What did you learn at school, anyway? How can you have come out of the dungeons of the Inquisition and still be surprised by anything they do?"
"You were surprised by Sir Walter," remarked Nef.
"Jesus H. Christ, was I ever." Joseph collapsed on a settle. "The nerve. The consummate nerve of the guy. We had a deal! So now he's going to sell the property and go into politics at Court, is he? Well, he'll be sorry he crossed me. I wouldn't accept that marriage proposal if I were you, baby."
"Oh, I don't know." Nef laid down her magazine and looked at him. "I don't particularly want to go to Court. Maybe I can talk him out of it. Maybe I can make him buy a cattle ranch."
"They don't have ranches in England," I said. She shrugged.
"Well, you'd have to watch him around the clock," said Joseph bitterly. "The guy has no loyalty to anything. Can you beat it? After he gave me his knightly word of honor, too. How could he do this to me? I mean, his garden was his whole life!"
"My God, can't you see why?" I cried. "You pumped hormones and who knows what else into him, you gave him his youth back, and now it's not just his old clothes that don't fit, it's his old life! That's why he wants a change. Blame yourself!"
"Hey! I only met his price for what we wanted." Joseph glared at me. "And his price was youth, which shows he was restless already."
"I thought the Indian maize was his price."
"That was the official price." Joseph examined his fingernails.
"What?"
"Bureaucratic levels of reality," said Nef. "Don't worry about it."
I looked from one to the other.
"Are we… are we really good for humankind?" I wondered for the first time.
"Sure we are, honey."
"But everything that little man valued in life we turned to dust for him. Before we came, he didn't mind about getting old. Did we really have any right to step in and change him?"
"Wait, wait, wait. Hold it right there. We didn't just step in and change him without his permission. The dissatisfaction with life was already there in his tiny mind. We only give people what they want, and usually what's good for them. I did what any doctor would do."
"If a sixteenth-century doctor had the technology," put in Nef.
"But you can't make a values call on whether or not I should have let him stay a sick old man," continued Joseph. "Even if the guy could see it objectively the way we can, do you think for a second he wouldn't have made the same choice? There isn't a mortal born that won't try to cheat Father Time."
"But he made the wrong choice."
"Did he? Are you going to make his choices for him? That's a violation of his natural rights, kiddo. Don't forget that mortals have free will. They traded their Paradise for it, and they can jump into manure up to their necks if they choose to. We don't care. We're not here to make them happy, we're not here to make them prosperous, we're not here to help them on the road to self-realization. We're here to do business for the Company.
"Sir Walters and Nicholases are out there everywhere. But your Ilex tormentosum is so rare, it's only growing in one place in the whole world. If it wasn't for the work you've been doing, it would become extinct, when we know it has properties that can save a billion mortal lives. Isn't that, morally, worth the happiness of one old man?"
"But…" Unpleasant light had begun to dawn on me. "Because of what we did for Sir Walter, he's sold the garden to Master Darrell. What if Master Darrell decides to cut down the ilex and replace it with something he thinks is more exotic, after we've gone? Then the ilex will be extinct, except for what the Company has. But Sir Walter would never have sold the garden if we hadn't come and messed with him. What are we doing to cause and effect, here? Does the Company really know what it's doing?"
"Of course it does," said Joseph instantly. "And if you worry about this, you'll drive yourself nuts. Really."
"Just take it on faith, I always say," Nef told me. "I mean, everything works out in the end anyway, doesn't it? We know the ilex becomes extinct, because there isn't any in the future except what the Company has. So you must have saved it. So why ask questions?"
"Believe me, Mendoza, there are better minds than yours grappling with this."
"All the time, honey. Do yourself a favor, don't get metaphysical."
"Really."
So I backed away from the void, which was a very deep and very dark void indeed, doubtless chock-full of unhappiness for anyone unwisely peering into it for too long. And what is worse, for an immortal being, than unhappiness?
Joseph got to his feet. "Once again, poor little Joseph finds himself having to hand out sage advice and counsel to younger operatives when he'd rather be crying into his pillow. Does anyone care? Fat chance. I'm going to have myself a glass of sherry and access all the information I have on A) freemasons and B) hair restoration, and then I'm going to review the microsurgery I was planning to do on the little shit tonight. I hope, I just fervently hope and pray, that I can keep an open and forgiving mind. It sure would be terrible if I connected some of his nasty organic pipes wrong. Or, better yet, planted some exotic disease cultures in timed-release capsules in his gluteal muscle sheath. Boy, now there's an idea…" He went into his room and slammed the door.
"He's so dramatic." Nef picked up her magazine again.
"Are you really planning to marry Sir Walter?" I wanted to know.
"Oh, gee, no," she said. "He's kind of cute—now—but I don't think the Company would okay it."
"You'd have to ask the Company first?"
"Of course, Mendoza. So they could see if his proposal was advantageous to them, so they could analyze whether my tour of duty would be compatible with a life with him, so they could evaluate granting him higher security clearance. Frankly, though, after what he just did, I don't think there's a chance in Hell he'd be approved. Doctor Zeus doesn't like double-dealers."
"You don't mean Joseph is really going to poison him!" I was aghast.
"No, no, of course not. That almost never happens." She became fascinated by her magazine. "Hey, can you beat this? The whole Bogart canon is coming out as a set on Ring compatible! We're getting it for thirteen point seven. Isn't that fabulous?"
"Real neat," I said wearily.
But I was young then and had yet to appreciate the wisdom of Bogart, particularly as regards the problems of three little people not amounting to a hill of beans in this or any other crazy world.
CHAPTER TWENTY
« ^ »
Nothing was the same anymore.
Sir Walter called his entire household together and gave them the news about the sale first. That their religion had just been changed was nothing to them compared with the shock of losing their jobs; they had never been a particularly devout household anyway. There was a private chapel at Iden Hall, dusty and disused, but it had furnished Sir Walter and his people with an excuse for not going to church every Sabbath.
No longer. Almost at once the order went out: Mass was to be celebrated in every church in every village in England, with one hundred percent attendance expected. In each parish a ledger was to be kept with the names of the persons who did not attend, and that ledger was to be turned over to the agents of the bishops, agents sent to each church to ensure the conformity of its flock. Whoever did not attend Mass would be flogged or given other suitable
chastisement and returned to the care of the village priest. Those persons found to be resolute heretics would be burned, after a trial proved guilt.
Simple? Straightforward? See how easy it is to restore the true faith to a country? You just have to be firm. There weren't even any Jews to hunt for.
Well, it certainly would have worked in Spain. Doubtless in many parts of France too. But this was England, practically the home of civil disobedience. It has always seemed bizarre to me that the race that invented the tea cozy should also so resolutely refuse ever ever to be slaves.
So the English refused, at first, though of course they surrendered in the end. In one village a man realized that he could settle an old score with a neighbor by reporting him to the bishops' men for heretical opinions. Somewhere else, a man terrified of being betrayed sought to save himself by confessing, and in doing so implicated most of his family and friends.
The old story, at least to a Spaniard. All the same, it took the English a little longer than most to light their fires.
It was decided that the household would be kept together for some months, while all the legal details of the transaction were arranged. During that time everyone was to go to Mass on Sundays, on pain of being discharged immediately.
Nicholas flatly refused. There was a terrible scene in Sir Walter's private chamber, and I don't know what they said, because I turned up the volume on the radio to drown them out; but they emerged with the agreement that Nicholas would remain at Iden Hall for as long as it took to prepare the inventory and financial records for the sale.
"I am not to speak with more folk than is needful, nor am I to arrange anymore with the butcher or greengrocer. Master Ffrawney shall see to that. Neither shall I conduct the penny-paying guests on the Walks Historical, Botanical, or Zoological." Nicholas paused and squinted at the sky. "Not that I expect any penny-paying guests for months, if this weather hold."
We were walking in the garden. It was raw and ugly as only January in England can be; but it smelled better outdoors than in the house.
He had changed, my Nicholas; he had grown pale. The early-morning bloodlessness was with him all the time now.
"What shall we do?" I sighed.
"Why, what you shall do I know not. Truth to tell, I know not mine own course neither." He wrapped his hands in his frayed sleeves for warmth. "I must trust in God."
"You could do that in Frankfurt," I suggested. He fixed me with a cold look, askance down his high cheekbones, that made my heart beat fast. For days I had been trying to talk him into fleeing to safety.
"Setting aside the risk I should run of arrest," he said, "there remains the question of expense."
"That could be arranged," I hinted. His look of scorn deepened.
This is the time to rehearse the wise and careful speeches about parting, those slick ways to begin the end. This is when you need to tell yourself, and then tell him, how natural it is to grow in different directions, and that it doesn't mean failure, it doesn't mean love is any less. All that beautifully phrased bullshit, over nerves screaming for release. But God help you if no such speech comes into your head, and you cling to the sullen rock of his shoulder in the night ocean.
"Your father must be dismayed by the sale of the house." Nicholas looked away again.
"He is." I did not take my eyes from his face. "And the new laws make him afeared. We shall not stay in this place much longer."
"Shall you not? Where shall you go?"
"If we went to Frankfurt, would you come?"
"Your father has no need of a secretary, I think." We walked on in that winter pattern of hedges and lanes without another word.
And now the news. And it's grim, we regret to say: today England's first official victim of the Counter-Reformation was burnt at Smithfield. John Rogers, Canon of Saint Paul's, long-time Reformation agitator and translator of the Matthew Bible, died in the presence of his wife and children in a ceremony lasting twenty-five minutes. Your news team had an operative on the scene and, Diotima, can you tell us about it?
Well, Reg, you know I've been in the field a long time, and I've been there for most of the big events of the Tudor regime, but let me say right now this hits a new low. This is on a par with the day the old Countess of Salisbury was executed—
You were there that day, weren't you?
Yes, Reg, and frankly I thought that was pretty bad, I mean, the old woman was running around on the scaffold trying to escape and they had to physically drag her to the block—
And it's, uh, interesting that the countess was Cardinal Pole's mother. Wouldn't you say that incident is the motivation for many of his policies now? Could you say he's settling scores with the Reformation in a deeply personal way?
Undoubtedly, Reg. Anyway, I was there today, and let me tell you operatives listening in: these people are animals. There is not a doubt in my mind. Sick animals.
And now we had to go to Mass again, after happy months of neglect. Once again miserable journeys through Sunday rain, to file into a dear quaint village church of local stone and arctic atmosphere. Lots of bare whitewashed walls, and a priest very nervous and imperfect in his Latin. Nonetheless, it was standing room only, and the wretched faithful, packed in like sardines, were only too glad to be seen there. On prominent display by the pulpit was a great big book, and you can bet it had nothing to do with Common Prayer. Nearby sat an alert gentleman in nondescript clothes, who conferred often with the priest. After these conferences, the priest mixed up his tenses and endings even more, and the gentleman made many notes in a smaller book he kept in his doublet.
For once, I was not bored at Mass. The mortal population for miles around was crammed into that quaint little church, and you could have floated an armada on the high waves of emotion there. Our arrival occasioned a particularly heady gust, of course, as the Evil Spaniards, particularly when Sir Walter accompanied us with every single member of his household but one.
"Why, Sir Walter, you are well met," said one of our Christmas visitors as we sidled in.
"Aye, forsooth, friends, I hope I am as pious and conformable a man as any in England," answered Sir Walter, loud and firm.
"I do not see your tall fellow," remarked someone else.
"No, alack." Sir Walter looked straight ahead and made a passable sign of the Cross. "The poor man is grievous sick."
"Alack, indeed. And is he expected to live?"
"Sir, I scarcely know."
Everyone turned and looked knowingly at everyone else; then everyone turned cold gazes back to the Spanish visitors, as though it were our fault.
The unfortunate Canon Rogers was followed to the stake by Bishop John Hooper. There was a live broadcast from Gloucester, and I had to run out of the room before it was over. His executioners botched the job: they used wet wood, and green wood, and at the last the poor old bastard left off his prayers and screamed for more fire, because only his legs were burning.
As the days went by, a butcher was burned alive, then a barber, then a weaver, and more common folk followed them to the fire. The prisons began to fill with the condemned from all ranks, all classes. It was true that some died political deaths, old scores from the previous reign settled at last. But most people were dying for things like being seen reading their Bibles, or even for only listening to the Bible being read.
The Spanish were bewildered. In Spain the Holy Inquisition was a gloomy duty, propelled along by the riches it brought the Holy Office from the confiscated property of the condemned. That was easy to understand: who wasn't motivated by profit? But how to explain the brutal zest with which these country constables dragged penniless apprentices to martyrdom? What to make of reverend old bishops fighting like Punch and Judy, squalling curses at each other from their respective sides of the flames? It was all so personal.
Even our prince decided that he'd had enough of this crazy country, and gave the order that all his remaining countrymen were to get themselves home to Spain.
No es
cape for us synthetic Spaniards, though. Too much to do. There was another thaw and more rain; all manner of splash and trickle ran everywhere, and blind green shoots found their way up to the sun. My work began again. I was mostly alone in the garden now, Nicholas being kept indoors. Sometimes the old gardener appeared, tramping about with sacking and a shovel, but he would neither speak nor look at me. That suited me fine. My loathing for mortals was growing like the garden.
I took blossom and cutting of an apple men would not taste again for centuries, until it was—will be—rediscovered in Humboldt Province. I took wildflowers, tiny ephemera of the hedgerows: soon men would know them only through images in tapestries, their names would be forgotten, and there would come a day when even hedgerows themselves would be plowed under by an England that no longer remembered what it was. But when the industries have come and gone, the little flowers will seed and bloom again. Men will not even notice they've returned; but the land will know. This is the purpose of my life.
Men burned; flowers were rescued.
It was all drawing to a close. Nicholas spent his days with the documents for the sale, long hours drawing up inventories of goods. All the furnishings were to be sold; all the plate was to be sold. The cabinets of curiosities and the tapestries were to be sold. All the careful gathering of a lifetime was to go for ready cash. If Sir Walter had been dead, it would have been very sad, but since he was selling his own dreams, nobody felt anything. Nicholas woke me muttering in his sleep: "Item, one salver of Italian plate. Item, one pair of bronze candlesticks, representing satyrs…"
One day, when he was at work, someone went into his room and took all his books away. I saw white smoke billowing from the kitchen chimney, smelled burning paper, never guessing that his translations of Saint Paul were cooking dinner. He never guessed either, until we opened his door that evening.
What a surprise. What petty devastation: flakes of wax, chips and flattened beads of candle wax, scattered all over the bare table. Moth wings. Great square vacancies in the dust of the tabletop, and a broken candle lying on the floor, wrenched from its drippy socket between two volumes. But no volumes. All that crazy-tumbled pyramid of thought and argument was gone.
