The Warlock Heretical (13 page)

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. " Tis 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

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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
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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

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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 thatl" 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
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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

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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,
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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.
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"Can we not hear Mass, then?"

"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?"

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