“Or perhaps she is choosing the man, and not his ways,” Abbot Arri offered to soften that blow.
“Are they not one and the same?” Dusibol pressed.
“Sister?” Father Abbot Braumin prompted.
“It is hard to know what I believe,” Mary Ann admitted. “I believed in my Church and my brethren, and yet they came against me, to kill me. This man, who I am told I must despise, saved my life, and almost at the price of his own.” She reached into her belt pouch and produced a soul stone. “I called upon God, my God, our God, and he granted me the powers of the Ring Stone, and through it, I returned the act and saved Elliot’s life. Does that matter not at all?”
“He is a Samhaist,” Ohwan said with open disgust. “Need I list to you the atrocities of that foul religion?”
“Need I recount for you the image of the skin curling from the bones of goodly and godly Master Jojonah?” Father Abbot Braumin countered.
The hateful look Abbot Ohwan flashed him at that served as a warning of things to come, Braumin knew.
“What would you have, Abbot Arri?” Braumin asked.
“I would take Sister Mary Ann back to St. Gwendolyn with me, if she will,” he answered. “Her reputation is without blemish.”
“Until this,” Abbot Ohwan said with a sneer.
“I will not denounce Elliot,” Mary Ann insisted. “Nor will I pretend that my love for him is no more.”
“But you wish to remain an Abellican?” Braumin asked.
Mary Ann hesitated and looked to Arri. “Yes,” she then answered.
“Are you sure?”
“I am sure of nothing anymore, Father Abbot,” she answered honestly. “I thought my life settled and complete, but Marcalo De’Unnero and his followers showed me differently.”
Braumin nodded, and bade her to go into the anteroom that they might discuss their decision, and when it came to that moment of truth, Father Abbot Braumin was greatly surprised and greatly relieved to discover that he would not have to exercise his greater rank to break the tie, for Abbot Dusibol voted Sister Mary Ann innocent along with Arri and Braumin, and Abbot Ohwan, frustrated as he was, had no recourse and so agreed to accept the decision.
“All that we ask of you,” Braumin explained to Mary Ann later on, “is that if ever you learn something of the Samhaists that is important to our Church, to your Church, that you not be silent.”
“You would have me be your spy?”
“I would have you be honest,” Braumin replied immediately. “To us and to your love. Should you come to see the Samhaist way as suited to your heart, then you must renounce your position in the Abellican Church. Until you have done so, you must never forget your responsibilities to St. Gwendolyn-by-the-Sea and to the other abbeys and chapels. If the Samhaists plan to return in large numbers and vie with us for the hearts of Honce, then we will know of it, Sister Mary Ann.”
She started to argue, but Braumin cut her short in no uncertain terms.
“When we go back out among the others, there will be calls for you to be executed, sister,” he said harshly, and Mary Ann stiffened her jaw and did not blink. “Do you understand what Abbot Arri and I, and even Abbot Dusibol, have offered to you? In any normal time, you would be found guilty of heresy and burned alive. Or even if mercy were to be shown, you would have you head shaven and would be stripped of your robes, outcast from the Order of St. Abelle forever. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, Father Abbot,” she said quietly, and humbly.
“But these are not normal times,” Braumin went on. “Abbot Arri trusts you, and needs you, as do I. You accept our offer to remain in the Church, so you cannot dismiss the responsibilities that comes with the white robe you wear.”
“Yes Father Abbot,” she said.
“Good then, it is settled. Be true to your heart, sister, in all matters.”
When they went back out among the others, and Sister Mary Ann took her place beside Arri and Mars, Braumin’s prediction came true, and indeed calls of “Burn her!” erupted in the hall, and so began another great argument, like all the others before it.
Except this time, Father Abbot Braumin would not hear it. He slammed down the gavel repeatedly, demanding quiet, and when finally it came, he spoke with the voice of Avelyn, and Jojonah, and Jilseponie, and Mullahy, and Francis even, he spoke with the voice of all who had stood up against the abomination that had festered in his beloved Abellican Church.
“We are Avelyn!” he shouted. “We are not Markwart! We are Jojonah — Saint Jojonah, I say, and so I will I prove! We are Jilseponie, who battle the demon dactyl beside Avelyn, and who should now be sitting as Mother Abbess of our Order — would any have dared vote against her?”
The Father Abbot paused there again, but not a sound was to be heard in the hall.
Pointedly, staring at the contingent from St. Honce, he finished, “We are not Marcalo De’Unnero.”
And so the debate of Sister Mary Ann ended, but had Father Abbot Braumin glanced her way with his final proclamation, he might have noticed the scowl that crossed the face of Master Mars, standing right beside her.
“I’ve rarely seen a man pout for so long without reprieve,” Diamanda teased Thaddius as they gathered about the fire on their third night out of St.-Mere-Abelle. The weather was cold and miserable, with cold rain, sleet, and even snow taking turns falling on the adventuring foursome.
Still, the other three knew well that Diamanda wasn’t talking about the dreary weather. The three sisters, so thrilled at being able to fully realize their dreams in joining the Abellican Church, so excited about the possibilities Pagonel had shown to them and their remarkable progress in just a few weeks of intense training, could not be muted by clouds and cold rain. Their steps could not be slowed by the mud.
And they had embraced Brother Thaddius fully, their every discussion in the days before their departure pertaining to how they could properly incorporate him into their defensive formation for maximum effect, or of how they had to protect him, so proficient with the Ring Stones, at all costs. When they had left St.-Mere-Abelle, Father Abbot Braumin had told them all that Thaddius was considered the leader of the band, and not one of the sisters had protested publicly or privately.
But Thaddius wouldn’t engage them, wouldn’t answer their talk with anything more than a noncommittal grunt, and wouldn’t even look any of them in the eye. His every expression exuded disgust.
And he was disgusted, and thoroughly, and not only by the inclusion of so many sisters, which before had been a matter of tokenism and nothing substantial, but by the inclusion of unworthy individuals, like Elysant, who could not use the Ring Stones, or even Diamanda, who could barely bring forth their powers. Thaddius had left friends who could not enter the Church with him those few years ago, and most of them, in his mind, were far more worthy than these three.
He had complained about that very thing to Father Abbot Braumin on the day of their departure, and Braumin had promised that he would go back and call upon many of the brothers who had not come to St.-Mere-Abelle beside Thaddius.
Thaddius didn’t believe him, but even if he had, those friends he had left behind did not deserve this honor of ordainment in any case!
But this, these three and the others Braumin had pushed into St.-Mere-Abelle…this was an abomination!
And Mars, Master Mars! Thaddius had gone to great lengths to chase the man out of the Church, and now he was back and as a Master? The man couldn’t light an oil-soaked rag with a ruby on a sunny day!
“Have you ever before seen a man whose entire life had been proven a lie?” Thaddius shot back at the tall and powerful Disciple of St. Bruce.
“Are you a follower of De’Unnero, then?” a smiling Elysant teased, and it was just a lighthearted remark, they all knew, for smiling Elysant seemed incapable of harboring a malicious thought.
The look Brother Thaddius threw back at her, however, was full of just such a sentiment.