“In truth, John, that is the main reason I am here. We need your help.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Several years ago, the new Pope, Julius IV, initiated secret talks with the Patriarch in Constantinople. I have been party to those talks, as the Tsar’s representative and mediator. The Pope and the Patriarch reached agreement last year, and since then the Archbishop of Canterbury and the German Emperor, representing the Lutherans, have also been brought in. Later this year, at the beginning of Advent, they will announce the reunion of Christendom. The bans and anathemas of 1054 will be lifted, and while each church will keep its own rites, each will recognize the clergy and sacraments of the others as valid.”
“Wow! I’d say you just won the award as negotiator of the millennium.”
“I am an unworthy and lazy monk.”
“How are you handling the problem of the Apostolic Succession and the Lutherans?”
“There will be a ceremony of a mutual laying on of hands by all the parties to the agreement. That will be extended to any other Protestant denominations that join. With God’s help, they will come.”
“I’d say this is the best news for Christendom since the First Crusade took Jerusalem. But you said you needed my help. This event far overshadows me and anything I’ve done. I don’t see where I come in, beyond rejoicing.”
“John, at the time the announcement of reunion is made, the Pope, the Patriarch, Canterbury, and the Emperor will also preach a new Crusade. The goal will not merely be Jerusalem, which, as you know, has been closed to Christians since the destruction of Israel by the Arabs. It will include Jerusalem, but the larger objective will be the reconquest of the whole Mediterranean world. Turkey, the Levant, Egypt, and North Africa. As long as the Islamics hold most of the Mediterranean shoreline, Europe will never be safe. Of course, by putting the Islamics on the strategic defensive, it will also relieve the pressure on Russia.”
“The military challenge is, of course, immense. The Crusade will require military leaders who really understand war. To that end, the leaders of the churches have agreed to found a new monastic order, an order of fighting monks. It will be called the Order of St. Louis, for the devout King of France who devoted himself to an earlier Crusade.”
“If I remember right, on his deathbed he called for the reunion of the Eastern and Western churches,” I said.
“Yes. That is why his name was chosen. John, what I came here for is to ask you if you will become a monk and a Knight of the Order of St. Louis.”
So that’s why Father Dimitri asked me if I had married, I thought. Perhaps it was the reason I never had. The Lord moves us in mysterious ways.
I’m sixty-seven years old, and he wants me to start over again. My body aches in places I never knew it had. I can’t remember anybody’s name for five minutes. I’m set in my ways and want nothing more than to go back to Hartland and Maria and farm.
“Of course I’ll do it.” It was the only possible reply. Father Dimitri had just told me the best news heard in Christendom in a thousand years and asked me to be part of it. My pains and fears were chaff in the wind. Dying in bed is a poor ambition for a Marine. “Where do I go and when do I start?”
“I don't know that. When the Pope and the Patriarch announce the founding of the order, Tsar Alexander will abdicate the Russian throne in favor of his brother and become the order’s Grand Master. He will know what he wants from you.”
“He’s a great soldier, and I’ll be honored to work under him.”
“John, the Tsar and I know something you don’t and probably shouldn’t. You are yourself the greatest soldier of our time. You will work with him, not under him.”
“Whatever he wants is okay with me. Just so long he understands I’ll also be an unworthy and lazy monk.”
On January 20th, 2056, I retired from the Victorian General Staff. On January 21st, I was knighted in Augusta, Maine, by the Papal Legate and the Russian Ambassador and admitted as a Commander of the Order of St. Louis and a neophyte monk in the one, holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Crusade was being preached from every pulpit in Russia, Europe, and North America, and for the first time in centuries, all Christendom was stirring.
At the end of the ceremony, the ambassador handed me a letter from the former Tsar Alexander, now my superior. It was my orders.
Dear Brother John,
We have not yet met, but I feel I know you well, from your exploits and from Father Dimitri's many words about you, words of deep admiration. What the Order of St. Louis needs most are more men like you. So that is my order to you: prepare such men. Teach them what you know. Teach them how to think, about war and in war. Teach them how to make decisions quickly, welcome responsibility joyfully, and above all, to act.
I will send you the raw material, young men of promise from every land in Christendom. Go to your farm and there build a school for them, and teach them. Make them into the commanders and leaders we need to fight for God. Make them you.
Brother Alexander
So that’s what I did.
Postscript
Just after noon on May 6, 2072, Maria found Brother John face down in the soft bottom land of the Old Place behind his plow. He ended his days where and as he hoped he would, which is as good a definition of victory as any. He was buried just up the hill from where he fell, with a simple graveside service, read from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. At his request, there were no military honors. Besides his name and dates, there is one word on his tombstone: “Farmer.”
The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod. Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing–the marvelous peace of God.
NON-FICTION
On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009 by William S. Lind
Four Generations of Modern War by William S. Lind
Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth by John C. Wright
Astronomy and Astrophysics by Dr. Sarah Salviander
FANTASY
Awake in the Night by John C. Wright
Awake in the Night Land by John C. Wright
One Bright Star to Guide Them by John C. Wright
A Magic Broken by Vox Day
A Throne of Bones by Vox Day
The Wardog's Coin by Vox Day
The Last Witchking by Vox Day
Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy by Vox Day
The Altar of Hate by Vox Day
The War in Heaven by Theodore Beale
The World in Shadow by Theodore Beale
The Wrath of Angels by Theodore Beale
SCIENCE FICTION
Big Boys Don't Cry by Tom Kratman
The Stars Came Back by Rolf Nelson
City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis by John C. Wright
On a Starry Night by Tedd Roberts
QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day
QUANTUM MORTIS A Mind Programmed by Vox Day
CASTALIA CLASSICS
The Programmed Man by Jean and Jeff Sutton
Apollo at Go by Jeff Sutton
First on the Moon by Jeff Sutton
AUDIOBOOKS
A Magic Broken, narrated by Nick Afka Thomas
Four Generations of Modern War, narrated by William S. Lind
TRANSLATIONS
Särjetty taika
Uma Magia Perdida
Mantra yang Rusak
La Moneta dal Mercenario
I Ragazzoni non Piangono
QUANTUM MORTIS Тежина Смрти
QUANTUM MORTIS Der programmierte Verstand
QUANTUM MORTIS Un Hombre Disperso
QUANTUM MORTIS La Gravidad Mata
QUANTUM MORTIS Um Homem Desintegrado
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravidade Mortal
Grosse Jungs weinen nicht
ovel of 4th Generation War
Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War Page 51
