“He is reluctant to admit his own virtues,” the friar told Mama. “Remember, Senor Mantrell, that there comes a point at which too much humility ceases to be a virtue and becomes false humility, a form of bragging.”
“Do you say that the good in this universe are truly of Good, and the evil truly of Evil?”
” ‘By their works you shall know them,’ ” Friar Ignatius quoted. “I could give you many examples, but look at the worst… the first man who brought down holy Reme: Tatali the Nomad, leading a vast barbarian army whose soldiers had been enslaved by evil magic. They exploded out of Central Asia on horseback, galloping around the Caucasus Mountains, looting, raping, and pillaging as they went, leaving heaps of corpses behind them, making torture and raping a sort of sport to be enjoyed as much by watching as by partaking, delighting in the agony of those they conquered and dedicating the pain of all their victims to their evil god, whose description is strangely like Satan’s.”
Papa shuddered, but remembered the Huns of his own world and protested, “They were deluded. They followed a leader who persuaded them that victory was everything, and that their gods loved brutality.”
“Exactly!” Friar Ignatius cried. “You have seen the core of it! Satan seduces a few humans to his worship by lying and pretending to be their defender, then helps them to seduce and compel hundreds of thousands to follow them… but he could not do so if there were no desire for evil in human hearts.”
” ‘You can’t cheat an honest man,’ ” Papa quoted with a wry smile.
Friar Ignatius’ eyes gleamed. “That has the sound of a saying invented by one who made a living by cheating.”
“It does indeed,” Mama said, with indignation. “One might as well say that a man cannot seduce a woman by lying that he loves her, if she does not want to be loved.”
Friar Ignatius frowned. “Isn’t that true, Dame Mantrell?”
“As far as it goes,” Mama said, “but the man lies that he loves the woman and wants to marry her, and the woman wants to believe that she has found true love. Is this dishonest?”
“In him, yes,” Papa said, affronted.
“But in her, no,” Mama said. “Surely there is no sin in desiring love!”
“Surely not,” Friar Ignatius agreed. “But if she held to her principles and refused to make love till they had married, she would not have been seduced by the man’s lies.”
“There is truth in that. Believing in goodness and God can give a woman belief in herself.”
“I do not doubt it,” the friar said.
“So you say that goodness, and holding fast to the principles goodness teaches, can be a source of strength even in our own world.”
“That is so, Dame Mantrell… but in this world of Merovence, it is the only source of magic that nurtures and builds. All others will, sooner or later, destroy and kill.”
Mama’s fierceness faded, and she reached out to touch Papa’s hand. “Then it is doubly my good fortune that the first man I believed, spoke truly.”
It is that charisma of which I told the good friar that drew me to Ramon… though truly, it was his handsomeness that first attracted my notice. I was reluctant to credit that he was so wonderful to behold, because all the other girls told me that the beauty of his face , nearly made them swoon. But when I saw him, I believed them… and it was not just his face, for even though he wore his shirts loose, you could see the breadth of his shoulders and the play of his muscles beneath the cloth. I was even more reluctant, though, to admit to the attraction, and it was not until I heard him reciting the poetry of Calderon that I could no longer deny my infatuation. Indeed, I had to confess to myself that I had fallen in love with him.
This was in a coffeehouse, for this was the early sixties, and we both played at being beatniks… at least, think we were playing. When it came my turn to recite, I read the poetry of Lope de Vega and saw the fire ignite in Ramon; I think he tried to devour me with his eyes then and there. I refused to go out with him at first, for I was afraid to be alone with him, which is to say that I was afraid of my own desires… but I need not have worried, for his machismo was balanced by his gallantry and, I think, by the Catholic upbringing he tried so hard to deny. He never tried to do more than kiss me, though he did that so constantly and so well that both of us nearly fainted with the desires it kindled in us. We waited years until we had money enough to wed. He finished his doctorate while I began mine, and it was a blessing that we were in separate cities, though it is amazing that our letters did not ignite fires in the mailboxes into which we dropped them. But it was worth the wait… it was a most memorable honeymoon.
Now the young folk come back early from their wedding trips; they tell us they were bored. I pity them deeply.
I went back to my graduate classes in cultural anthropology as soon as Mateo began high school. I finished my coursework as he entered college, and passed my preliminary examinations in the spring of his freshman year. Then I took a teaching post in the nearest junior college and began the research for my dissertation on the mythic roots of Spanish literature. The research is finished now, but the writing is only begun. I was not awarded tenure… there are not so many students pounding on the doors of the colleges as there were when Ramon and I began our studies… so I was out of work and seeking another position when we lost our house.
Since Papa taught literature and I taught Spanish, we really could not complain too loudly when our son wanted to major in comparative literature. We are only disappointed that he did not become a teacher.
We were looking forward to his gaining a Ph.D. of his own, and teaching college. But I console myself with the thought that he is, at least, engaged in research, although magic is more my field than his, at least in terms of academic study. We are delighted that he has married a nice girl, even if she is an Anglo. Well, I know, of course, that Merovence should be more French than English, but she seems more like a Briton than anything else. Friar Ignatius has told me that there is no English Channel in this universe, and never was… that Hardishane, their great emperor who is equivalent to our Charlemagne, conquered England too, and made them very much a part of his empire. The two cultures have clearly melded, and at least the English and French do not hate one another here.
I have always been a devout Catholic, so I have been delighted to make the acquaintance of Friar Ignatius. Perhaps he is right, perhaps it was the morality of a strong religion that kept me from letting young men exploit me… but I would rather think that it was simply believing that I would know true love when I felt it, and would not be deceived by my own sexuality, and the lies of handsome and charming young men. Not that my Ramon is not handsome and charming… he is both. However, he was the only one who asked nothing but a kiss of me, and the only one with whom I fell in love because of poetry… but then, Ramon too took his religion rather seriously.
Still, the friar is right in many things, and I will not deny that a young woman must have some firm beliefs to which she can cling, to give her the strength to say no. As to his discourse about powers stemming from good and from evil, he speaks of something that every mother knows, once they begin to fear for these bold little ones who are given to them to protect. The difficulty is to tell the good people from the evil ones. The good may sometimes appear rather forbidding at first, for they pay little attention to appearances, and the evil are very skilled at disguise.
I told this to the friar, and he explained it.
Friar Ignatius nodded. “That is true, Dame Mantrell. In this world of enchantment, though, you can look into a man’s heart with your magic.” He went to the window and pointed down into the courtyard. “That guard who stands at the left side of the door to this very castle, for example… craft me a spell that will let you see him as he truly is.”