The Warlock Heretical (14 page)

"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. "May hap, 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.

"So why do you think I brought you along?" Questions don't qualify as fibs. "But it's your choice. I can make a

try at it on my own."

"Oh, I don't mind," Magnus said quickly. Rod gave the boy points; he didn't want to hurt Papa's feelings by

letting him botch the job. And Magnus had practiced a lot more, Rod had to admit. Magnus stared at the crack, and the wire melted and flowed, though the fire wasn't really hot enough to do it.

Rod knew that, under the cover of golden metal, the iron of the pot was softening all along the crack line and

beginning to flow together as Magnus excited the molecules. The kid really had great control—the intense heat

spread only about half an inch from the crack on either side. Rod had checked that, the last time Magnus had

mended a pan for his mother.

They were so absorbed in their work that Rod was able to pretend not to notice the parish priest come striding up

behind the young wife who had run to tell him the news.

The pot glowed red along the seam, then yellow, but the villagers couldn't see that under the flow of the welding

wire.

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Then Magnus relaxed. Rod took his cue and lifted the pot away from the flames, setting it aside to cool.

"Let it

stand an hour, goodwife. Then try it, and I'll warrant you'll find it as good as new." He was quite sure of that.

"Quickly done, and quite well," said the priest. "Thou art the most skillful tinker that ever I've seen."

"Why, thank'ee." Rod looked up, then widened his eyes and added, "Father," as though just realizing he was

speaking to a priest.

The friar smiled. "I am Father Bellora, good tinker. Be at peace." Rod tried to look nervous. "Hast thou a pot to mend?"

"Not a pot, but a heart." Anxiety creased the friar's face. "Is't true, this news that ye bring?"

"What—that the Church of Gramarye be parted from the Church of Rome?" Rod shrugged. " 'Tis the news,

Father. Canst not say if 'tis true?"

"I have not heard speak of it." The friar shoved his hands into the sleeves of his robe, his face taut, his eyes

haunted. "Nay, then, can it be sooth?"

"If 'tis, Father," a woman asked with foreboding, "canst thou still say mass?"

"Or," Rod quipped, trying to lighten the atmosphere, "must we needs stop dying till thou canst once more say the

funeral?"

The friar's lips quirked with amusement. "Nay, surely not. Tis years since I was ordained; my hands are yet

consecrated to the Eucharist and the work of God. I may minister the Sacraments, unless the Pope doth place

Gramarye under the Inderdict."

The little crowd was silent, aghast at the thought of Rome abandoning them to the Devil. Rod made a feeble try at his original purpose. "Canst not send word to the monastery to ask if 'tis true?" The priest shook his head. "Only were I to discover some holy friar who doth thither wend."
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"Yet there must needs be some soul in this village who hath a son or sib at the abbey, who may come bearing

word."

Father Bellora frowned down at him, then shook his head. "Nay. None here have folk in holy orders, save

myself, and I do not hearken from this village."

"Hast no friends from thy days of schooling?"

The priest's smile soured. "Aye, friends did I gain whilst I did study holy writ; yet they, too, are among the

parishes, even as I am."

"Why, how is this?" Rod said, scowling, even though he knew well. "Are not all friars taught together?"

"Nay," the priest said. "We are not all numbered among the elect."

"Not?" Rod pretended to be startled. "Yet I thought that once tha wert of the monastery, tha wert all as one."

"Nay, neither in heart nor in schooling. Some are drawn

away into the cloister, and some remain in the novice's dormitory and scriptorium." A separate scriptorium for the novices? As monasteries went, this was definitely something new. "And those who

rest without, do go without?"

Father Bellora nodded. "Out to the world from which we came, to contend with the temptations and burdens that

divert a man from Heaven."

"Yet 'tis a holy calling withal." Magnus sounded shocked. "How would the ... we poor folks find our way to

Heaven without such as thee?"

Father Bellora's face softened. "Truly said, lad, and I thank thee. Fie upon me that I may let old bitterness rise to

veil the worth of my life from me! For I must own, my superiors were right; I have found this life rich in a
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feeling of others' need. Never, since my first week here, have I asked why I was made."

"Yet thou didst not choose it?" Rod frowned; he had had visions of a parchment application form. "Didst thou

wish the cloister, Father?"

"Aye, as do all young men who go there. Well, mayhap not all," the priest corrected, "but surely the greater

number of us. Yet 'tis not for a postulant to decide his own course; there are older heads than his, and wiser, who

can read his calling more clearly than he himself."

"Yet tha dost feel thaself set aside, as lesser clay," Rod interpreted. Father Bellora's shoulders shook with a single ironic laugh. "Aye, 'tis quite foolish when thou dost say it aloud,

is't not? For surely the parish priests serve God as fully as they who are cloistered, mayhap more, and surely we

are no lesser stuff." "Mayhap better," Magnus suggested. "For must ye not be stronger, to withstand the temptations of the world and bear up under its burdens?"

Father Bellora nodded, an approving glint in his eye. "Aye, so we were told, though I put it down as an attempt to

persuade us to remain in the order, and to console us for being among those rejected. Yet I have come to see the

truth of it."

"Yet who bid thee be a parish priest?" Rod asked. "How could they tell?" Father Bellora spread his hands. "I

know not. Mayhap when

I am aged, I will. Tis they of the cloister who decide—and the seniors among them, at that."

"Yet how can they know this of thee?"

"A wise old monk sat down and spoke with me a while. Then on the next day, after Mass, the master of novices

took me aside to tell me my fate."

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"Only that?" Magnus stared. "Only some minutes' talk?"

"Perchance the half of an hour. Yet 'tis even as thou dost say—on that they decided my fate. That and the report

of the Master of Postulants," the priest said thoughtfully. "He had watched me for two days, at that."

"Two days, and half an hour's talk, to decide a life's work?"

"Be not so dismayed." Father Bellora turned to Magnus with a smile. "The wise old monk was right, after all."

"Yet still dost thou wish to be of the cloister!"

"That is my besetting sin," the priest sighed, "overweening pride. I pray daily that it may be lifted from me."

"Canst thou not be what thou dost wish?"

"Nay." Father Bellora gave Magnus his full attention now. "For look you, lad, 'tis not only hard work and determination that will win thee the work thou dost wish—'tis also a matter of talent. In cloister, I doubt not, I

would have been too restless, though I find it hard to credit—and, belike, I'd be beset by a feeling of lack of

purpose. Nay, he who judged me, judged well." The last sentence sounded definitely forced. Rod was impressed by the man's merciless self-evaluation. "Yet have they never erred, these monks, in their

judgment as to who should go, and who should stay?"

The priest shook his head. "Never, so far as I know."

"Father! Father!" A young man in a farmer's smock came running up. "Praise Heaven I've found thee!" The priest turned, attention completely on the runner. "Good day, Lirak. What troubles thee?"

" Tis old Sebastian, Father! He hath fallen in the field, and's breath doth rattle in's throat! Oh, come, I beg thee!"

Father Bellora glanced at Rod and Magnus. "Thy pardon, yet here's one who doth stand in need of me." He

pressed his breast pocket, next to the tiny yellow handle of the emblem of his order. "Aye, the sacred oil's there.

Nay, show me the way, Lirak." And he hurried away after the boy.
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Rod watched them go. "Well, they didn't make any mistake about that one, anyway."

"Aye, one." Magnus scowled. "Yet they must have erred now and again, Papa!" Rod glanced around; all the housewives seemed to have gone home, probably to discuss the scandalous news

about the Church by themselves. "Yes, that definitely sounds a bit odd, son, not to mention inhuman. They

couldn't possibly have a perfect track record on something like that. There're just too many variables."

"Mayhap the postulants each have some sort of sign impressed on their foreheads, that we mere mortal folk

cannot see," Magnus said.

Rod looked more closely at his boy, surprised at the sarcasm. He was definitely beginning to grow up.

"Well,

they know what to look for, at any rate." He frowned at a notion. "Or, more likely, they never know about their

mistakes." Magnus looked puzzled.

"Look," Rod explained, "if a parish priest starts sinning, they can just say he has weakened." Magnus's eyes widened. "Aye, and if a monk doth make a clamor in the cloister, they may say 'tis only that he

doth lack discipline!"

"On your home territory there, are you? But you do have the gist of it there, yes. Makes sense, doesn't it?" "Too

much so!"

"Well, they're only human," Rod sighed. "They've got to do the best they can under the circumstances."

"Nay, they need not! They could let each postulant choose his own way, and try it!"

"Yes, they could," Rod agreed. "Probably yield just as high a success rate, in the long run." "Bless thee, tinkers!"

Rod looked up, startled. It was the housewife whose pot they had mended, coming up with a big, steaming bowl

in her hands and a loaf tucked under her arm.

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Rod grinned, and reached up to accept the bowl. "Bless thee, goodwife." He stuck his nose over the bowl and

inhaled deeply. "Ah! God send thee more broken pots, whene'er I chance this way again!"

"And take this also." The woman pressed a fat sausage into his hand. "And godspeed!" Magnus lifted the spoon and sipped as she turned away.

"Why, 'tis good! Mayhap we should think of this trade more often, Papa."

"Pays well enough, you mean?" Rod smiled. "Well, not bad, for fixing one pot—a big bowl of stew, a loaf of

whole wheat, and a salami. Not only dinner, but journey rations for tomorrow."

"Had they more pots," Magnus pointed out, "we could also trade in foodstuffs."

"Didn't realize you had an aptitude for business. ..."

"Naetheless," Magnus said, through a mouthful of stew, "we've not found the one thing we came for."

"Yes." Rod frowned. "Nobody in town has a relative in the monastery. Well, there's always the next village, son."

Magnus groaned.

Father Bellora stepped out the door to dump the dirty wash water, calling, "Wee Folk, take care!" His teachers at

the monastery would have been scandalized to hear him, and would have rebuked him for the sin of superstition,

but they didn't have to deal with the realities of life. An elf with dampened dignity could become extremely

inconvenient.

Having called the warning, the good country parson tossed the contents of the basin. They splashed into the

weeds—the greenest patch anywhere near the rectory—and Father Bellora turned back toward his kitchen. But

out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of an approaching figure and turned to look. His eyes widened, and he

yelped. "Brother Matthew!"

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The other friar waved, grinning, and broke into a run.

Father Bellora clapped him on the shoulder with a crow of delight. "Thou old curmudgeon, what dost thou here?

Oh, right glad I am to see thee!"

"And I thee, Father Bellora." Matthew was a year older, but they had studied together at the monastery.

"Nay, come in, come in!" Father Bellora cried, and led his old schoolmate into the kitchen. Half an hour and a large meat pie later, Brother Matthew sat back with a sigh and a toothpick. Father Bellora

grinned, leaning back and patting his belly. "Now, good Brother! What matter is't doth bring thee to my parish?"

"News which our good Abbot doth enjoin thee to proclaim to all thy congregation." Brother Matthew's face

darkened.

"He hath declared the Church of Gramarye to be separate from the Church of Rome." Father Bellora's face fell. "Rumor had spoke of this, yet I had hoped 'twas not true."