The Alteration

       'If that other signatory is your Master Anvil's chaplain in succession to you, how is he an impostor?'

       'He can't be the established confessor of the Anvil family—the word in the paper is "habitual". Can duties discharged only for a matter of days be called habitual? It must be that the provision was designed to prevent just such a contingency.'

       'It might be, and it might or might not be so arguable.' Flackerty looked down at his notebook. 'Why has Anvil not sent you away before this?'

       'That I've considered. He dislikes the course of replacing me by a man who'll follow his wishes. That would make me his enemy, and to have an enemy in the Church, of however little mark, would trouble him. He'd prefer me to change my mind and sign, and he hopes and believes that at last I will.'

       'But you won't.'

       'No.'

       The Augustinian was watching his former fellow-seminarist closely. 'Why not?'

       'I have my reasons.'

       'Oh, merda. What reasons? If I'm to move at all I must hear them. And don't say your conscience or anything that touches the child, who for all I see will do no less well without his stones than with them.'

       'It's the Abbot. Crossing him tickles me. Him and that bum-kissing choirmaster of his.'

       'No doubt you are tickled, but the spite in your nature isn't strong enough to beat the sloth. I know of only one force that is. I deduce that Dame Anvil is both good to look at and strong-willed.'

       Lyall grinned without replying.

       'And given to whims and conceits, or she'd simply be glad at the chance for her son, no? Come on and tell me the whole tale, Matthew: we've plenty of years in common.'

       'The lady's past experience of men has been small and disappointing.'

       'I catch.'

       'But as things now are she's set on not having the boy denied that part of his future.'

       'You must indeed have pleased her.'

       'It's more than that, Collam. She loves me.'

       'Well, so she should.'

       'No: I mean something more serious. She talks of her soul being transformed,' said Lyall in a neutral tone.

       'I hope you rebuke the blasphemy as often. as you hear it. And the dire use of words. What scrawler does she read?'

       'She means what she says.'

       'Tanto peggio. And what of it?'

       'It's this love that the boy must not miss, not the carnal pleasure alone.'

       'She must give you a pot of the latter if you're used to letting her sing such airs.'

       'Well, you know what women are like.'

       'I hear tell,' said Flackerty, polishing against his cassock the fine emerald on his left ring finger. 'Again, what of it? How does her transformed soul bear upon you?'

       'You asked me my reasons for resisting this design. That's the chief one.'

       'Is your soul transformed too, or only your brains?'

       'Collam, I tell you just this, that because of her love I must do all I can to help her.'

       'Must? How must? You fancy you must.'

       'I can't see any difference. Now say what I can do.'

       'You can do nothing, my dear. You can go to the Office and lodge a suit, which is to do nothing. Even if you reach the man you need, you'll be either too soon or too late.'

       'Then I beg you to act for me. No doubt in your post here you have connections with folk in the Office.'

       'Some. Of no great rank or mark.'

       'Great enough to cause the Abbot's first paper to be called void?'

       'Perhaps. The Abbot on his side is of a certain rank and mark and has his own connections. And lately they down there aren't best pleased with us up here. There was a sharp knock over a vacant canonry when the Lord Intendant's choice was barred by His Eminence. There are always such things.'

       'I believe you. But will you do what you can?'

       First smoothing his hair with both hands, Flackerty got up and crossed to the window, where he sniffed at several moss roses before strolling towards the far end of the room. As he talked, he continued to move at intervals, his kangaroo-leather sandals making no sound on the thick rugs, so that Lyall could not have predicted just where the next words were to come from except by constantly turning round in his chair. The friar knew well enough that this behaviour might be called theatrical, but he thought none the less of it for that, and had found it of excellent service at interviews in compensating for his physical smallness. Even on occasions like this, it was well worth while to put the other party at a disadvantage from time to time. He spoke now without hurry or much emphasis.

       'Go back no more than four hundred years or so. Over all the time since, Christendom has been a tyranny of a rare sort. By way of the soul it rules the minds of most and the acts of all. As effect, no wars throughout Europe but the one, a war with long breaks of peace, a war against a power that can never be crushed and can be held in only by standing in arms from year to year: the best possible form to draw off any will to rebel or quarrel. And, in the last fifty years, Christendom has finally drubbed a power much more awful than the Turk could ever be, one that now lives on as it can in New England among boors and savages: science. God be praised.'

       'Amen,' said Lyall automatically.

       'Amen to amen. It was a close thing. A little longer, and science would have abolished God and brought our world to ruin.'

       'You don't mean abolish, you mean take attention from, leave on one side.'

       'I mean abolish, I mean deny, I mean disprove. Come, Matthew.'

       'I must rebuke your blasphemy, Collam, and call upon you to abnegate it at once.'

       'Again must. You may say what you please.'

       'You never showed much reverence, and I suppose your work here has—'

       'Let me show you some now. I feel nothing but wonder and gratitude when I look on so many centuries of patience, hope, content, trust, constancy, restraint and certitude, so much art, letters, music, learning, all founded upon one great lie. Ah!—no words, Matthew. At first a lie nobody had the smallest need for, since become the sole necessity. Its lasting makes me wish I had someone to thank. More reverence for you. But to go back whence you switched me. With the victory over science, the tyranny begins to afford to seem a little soft. Seem, not be. Don't mistake, my dear. Today there's talk in Convocation and even in the Church that thirty years ago would have earned the scaffold. The commonest felons are no more than gaoled. A man can be known to take to his bed whom he pleases and still escape if he's wary and in good regard. But the tyranny stays. I'm obliged, because tyranny alone can let men be safe and serene. None the less, to set against it is the act of a noodle. If you do so, it'll stretch out as far as the moon or the planets to snap you.'

       As he ended, Flackerty settled back behind his desk. Lyall, who had managed to sit still throughout, looked at him hard.

       'You overstate.'

       'I don't, Matthew, I don't. All you know is the Church, and that not far. Be assured there's more than rebukes to be faced. I ask you most gravely to sign that paper as soon as you can.'

       'Or you mean you're afraid to act in my behalf.'

       'No. I've held my post for nine years, and before the third of them was over I'd learned how to act at a distance in such a way that I could never be named. It's you that should be afraid.'