"Then he's lonely?"
"Lonely?" For some reason, the word surprised me and brought me up short, so that I had to repeat it and think about it carefully before responding to him. "Lonely... I suppose he is. But then, who isn't?" I laughed aloud. "Picus, we live in a lonely world. Some of us go to great lengths to avoid it, but we can't, because inside his head — inside his soul, if you like — every man is alone. Haven't you ever noticed that? That's why we say 'every single man,' I suppose."
Picus frowned. "Aye, you're right! It's true. I've never really thought about it before, but you're right. Even in battle, every man's alone."
I cocked my head, emphasizing my agreement with that sentiment. "Particularly in battle, son. Ask me about that. I'm the expert on it. In the middle of the wildest fighting, I'm so alone it's as though I were outside myself, looking down at what's going on. And when it's all over and the danger's gone, my world comes back together very slowly. But not until I've been sick. I have to vomit up that loneliness, that insularity, every single time."
Now Picus kneed his big horse closer to me and glanced at me, so that I saw his face, wrinkled with concern. "Are you truly a Christian, Uncle Varrus?"
I blinked at him, caught off-balance by the unexpected question and its modifier. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"A great deal, Uncle." He smiled at me. "I could start preaching at you that a man is never alone if he has God in his heart. But that's not what I meant. I meant are you really a Christian?"
I shrugged, feeling slightly embarrassed by the sudden intimacy of the subject. "I suppose I am." My response was almost sullen, almost an inchoate mumble. "Isn't everybody? I was baptized before I had much time to think about it. I grew up a Christian. I swore my legionary's oath on the Christian cross. Why do you ask me that?"
He was insistent, his tone almost hectoring. "Do you believe in God? That He exists?"
"Of course I do ... at least, I think I do." Now I was perplexed. "What are you driving at? Don't you believe in God?"
He screwed up his face into a portrait of doubt that might have been comic, but I found myself again admiring the hugeness of him and the picture he made in his magnificent uniform, and saw nothing strange in such a big and obviously competent man agonizing over the existence of God.
"Sometimes I think I do," he said. "Sometimes it's easy. And then there are times when I think I don't. If God were what the priests would have us believe, then this world would have to be a better place to live in. But I have seen things, and have done things as a soldier that God should not allow. Not if He's as good and just and merciful as they say He is."
I sucked on my teeth. "That's what the priests say, Picus. But they say more than their prayers at times, and I've never yet met one of them, even our holy Bishop Alaric, who can prove that he has spoken directly and personally, face to face with God. Mind you," I hurried on, conscious of a sudden feeling of disloyalty to my old friend, "Alaric would never dream of claiming to have any avenue of privileged communication with the Creator. It is too bad that there are few other priests like him." I shifted the grip of my legs and turned further on my horse's back to look more closely at Picus. "How old are you now, Picus? Thirty-six?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, in Christ's name, holy or not, you have better things to be worrying about than that. God is an old man's worry, not a soldier's."
Picus laughed aloud, and then went on to talk fondly of old Alaric, and I found myself realizing that Alaric was, in the truest sense of the word, quite venerable nowadays. And that, naturally, started me thinking about my own years, something I seldom did. But Picus was talking again.
"He really is holy, isn't he?"
"Who? Alaric?" I cleared my throat and thought about that for several heartbeats before answering. "Yes, Picus, I believe he is. He is probably the most saintly, down-to-earth, true Christian I have ever met. I think our good friend Alaric is genuinely a man of God, a godly man, unlike so many of his fellow priests who assume that rank. Alaric is the only priest I know who lives his beliefs according to the teachings of the Christ."
"Is that your belief?" He was looking at me strangely. "About priests, I mean?"
"Did I state a belief about priests?"
"No" — he was grinning now " — but your praise of them was faint."
Both our horses had stopped moving, and now I kicked mine forward again. "Picus," I said, "I have no time for priests. Never have had." His mount followed mine automatically and we rode knee to knee as I went on. "I've discussed this many times with Alaric, and it is his opinions that have influenced my thoughts, although he would probably die of mortification if he ever thought I could have construed his words the way I have." I spat, for my mouth was suddenly filled with bitterness.
"Priests are men, Picus," I said. "And the majority of men are feeble things, beneath all their bombast. Since the days of the Christ, men have taken His teachings and warped them to their own ways. The Church has usurped the power of God. Its officers — for what is a bishop but an officer of the Church? — have corrupted the teachings of the gentle Saviour and used them to procure power for themselves on earth. Whenever I hear a priest other than Alaric speak, all he does is rant of sin and damnation. There is no joy in priests. And there is no joy in their teachings. They preach subservience and penitence, and it grows worse each time I hear one of them. Haven't you noticed it? Surely you must have?"
Picus merely shrugged his shoulders, unwilling, it seemed, to interrupt me, and so I continued. "It has become fashionable among churchmen to decry women nowadays, and to do it openly. All women! Women like your Aunt Luceiia! That was not always so, Picus. Not when I was a boy. It may have been the fashion in Rome, even then, I don't know about that, but it was not so here in Britain. And Alaric tells me that it is growing worse. Have you heard of the monastics?" He nodded, still wordless, and I pressed him on the point. "So? What have you heard?"
But Picus was not to be drawn out. He shook his head in a negative and asked me, "What do you think of them, Uncle?"
"Damnation, Picus, I don't know what to think! It reeks of unwholesomeness. From what I know of it, there are whole colonies of men locking themselves away from life in places they call monasteries, denying themselves the slightest pleasure in life, praying all day and all night long, castigating themselves, whipping themselves with flails to purge their minds of any carnal thoughts. They believe women are an abomination. Well, to me, that's abomination! I've talked to Alaric about this many times. He's unwilling to come right out and condemn the movement, for he believes every man must find his own route to the life hereafter, and he would like to think that there are mysterious and divine forces at work in all things, but he doesn't like what's happening. He tells me it all began in Egypt, about a hundred years ago, and that the core of the monastic way is a belief in St. Paul's dictum that if a man cannot abjure his sexual nature, it is better for him to marry than to burn with lust."
"And what is your response to that?"
"My response is only my own and I'm no scholar."
"But?"
"Yes, but! It seems to my unlettered military simplicity that the blessed Paul much preferred men to women."
"Sexually, you mean?"
"Can you name me another way?"
"So are you suggesting that monastics are homosexual?"
I laughed, angry though I was. "Of course not, Picus! I'm saying I think they all seem perverted in what appears to be a hatred of women! There is no evidence of misogyny in Jesus' life or teaching, is there? The contrary is true, in fact. But priests today are dealing more and more in hate rather than love. They deal in fear. They deal in damnation and punishment and guilt and sin. There is no talk of love, compassion or forgiveness in their doctrine. They have become bureaucrats, with the pinched and narrow minds and souls of bureaucrats. They are modelling their Church in Rome, and their entire hierarchy, on the Imperial Roman Civil Service, in the Christ's name! They live in palaces and expect their flock to furnish them with everything they require! Let's talk no more of priests, I may be sick!"