"Yet we have; rumor doth travel faster than any mortal feet." The beldame's lip quivered, but she sat up straighter, lifting her chin. "I ken not why thou hast decreed our Church to be separate from that of fabled Rome, milord, yet I am sure thou hast good reason."
"I bless thee for thy faith in me! And be assured, the reasons flock." But the Abbot's gaze strayed to Lady Mayrose. "Rome is far distant from us, both in time and space. Tis five hundred years they've paid so little heed of us, thou wouldst conjecture they had forgot us quite. How can they know how we fare, or 'gainst which forces we contend?"
"Yet surely," the Baroness murmured, "good is good, and evil, evil, no matter where they be."
"Yet Satan may don many guises, and how can Rome know which he doth wear here?" Lady Mayrose clasped her grandmother's hand, but her eyes glowed at the Abbot. "Continue, ghostly Father; we most ardently attend."
Chapter Seven
It wasn't much of a troupe, as royal expeditions go—just six children, two nannies, eight servants, and a dozen soldiers. Well, yes, a trifle cumbersome, but even princes need to go out and play now and then, and they do need playmates; and brothers will do when there's absolutely no one else available, though they're not really adequate. So the four Gallowglasses were over to play with Prince Alain and his little brother Diarmid. Their mothers had, with some trepidation, allowed them to go as far as the outer bailey—but Catharine didn't like to take chances.
Gregory and Diarmid looked up from their game of chess as Alain skidded to a halt and dropped down beside them (one of the nannies bit her lip at the thought of grass stains). Geoffrey, Magnus, and Cordelia crashed in right behind him, panting and red-cheeked, their eyes aglow with fun.
" 'Ware!" Gregory threw up a hand, palm out, shielding the chessboard—and not just symbolically; the upright palm showed him where to spread his forcefield.
"Oh, be easy!" Geoffrey wheezed. "Could I not land wide of thy game, I would be a poor marksman indeed."
"True, thou canst ever strike wide of thy mark," Alain agreed. " 'Tis hitting it that doth cause thee grief."
Geoff swung a fist at him. Alain ducked under it with a laugh.
"Enough! Thou dost but confirm what he saith!" Magnus caught Geoff's fist in his own. "Yet I thought 'twas of missiles thou didst speak."
"Aye, and thereof must thou needs ask the priest." Alain grinned.
"Book or branch, I shall throw it!" Geoffrey retorted. "At thy head, brother! I scarce could miss, 'tis grown so great!"
"I had never thought thou wouldst acknowledge me as head," Magnus purred. "Yet 'ware of thy throwing; for if thou dost miss, I shall have to send thee to thy sister for lessons." Magnus looked up at Cordelia with a twinkle in his eye. "How sayest thou, 'Delia? Wilt thou not—" He broke off as he saw her glazed eyes and abstracted look. "What dost thou hear?"
"A shred of thought," she answered distantly.
Gregory and Geoffrey looked up, alarmed; then their eyes lost focus as they concentrated on the unseen world of thoughts that swirled about them.
There it was—so faint and vagrant that it might have been only the breathing of the earth, or the glimmer of a notion.
"Gone," Cordelia breathed.
Geoff squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head, then looked up, frowning. " 'Tis a thought-hearer who doth not wish his presence known."
"Aye," Magnus agreed. "He doth listen as a sentry doth watch."
"Yet for what?" Gregory whispered.
"We cannot know." Magnus stood up.
"Nor are we likely to guess." Gregory stood up with him.
"We cannot leave it be!" Geoff cried, leaping to his feet.
"Nor shall we." Magnus turned to the two princes, bowing. "Pardon, Highnesses, we must depart."
"Thou shalt bear this news to thy parents?" Alain seemed to gather an air of authority about him.
"Even as thou dost say."
"Mama is closest," Cordelia noted.
Rod had just hit his critical level for pomposity. The deadly self-seriousness of the Abbot, and the sombemess of Tuan's reaction, overloaded his capacity for sympathy and flipped him into a healthy state of detached amusement. He realized he'd hit threshold when he found himself thinking that Catharine was the only one involved who wasn't overreacting.
Which included himself, of course. With a sardonic chuckle he slipped through the branches of the last trees on the slope and stepped up to the bald top of the low mountain. "You don't really need to be clear of the underbrush, you know, Fess."
"True, Rod," his horse replied, "but I diagnosed your condition as being critical, and believed you should step aside from human company for a minute."
"Damn straight I'm critical! There isn't a one of them that's being even halfway reasonable about all this! Even Catharine gets angry every time she thinks of being crossed."
"Tuan is maintaining his composure," Fess contradicted. "Though I do detect a tendency toward melancholy which is wholly unlike him."
Rod shrugged. "What do you expect? Anybody can burn out—and if Tuan isn't in a high-stress job, I don't know who is."
"He has never before shown signs of weakening."
"Yeah, but he wasn't finding the basic assumptions of his spiritual worldview being questioned. I'd say our good King is approaching the first genuine spiritual crisis of his life—and he might come out the better for it."
"He could also do grave damage while he's in its throes. We must watch him closely, Rod."
"A good point." Rod pursed his lips. "I'll tip Brom to have Puck keep an eye on him."
"How will that aid?… Oh."
"Right." Rod nodded. "The hobgoblin has a certain healthy skepticism about all religions; he thinks they're humorous. If he can't help Tuan keep his perspective, nobody can."
"I would say Catharine is more in need of such distancing, Rod."
"Why, because she doesn't think she can second-guess the Abbot any more?" Rod shrugged. "Common sense reaction, I'd say."
"Odd, for her."
"She's growing up—there's something about having kids that does that to a girl. Of course, she doesn't know why His Grace changed his mind on the verge of that battle years ago; all she knows is that the monk who was with me ran over and talked to him."
"True—and, of course, she had no way of knowing that Father Al was from Terra."
"With a letter from the Pope enjoining all clergy to do what he said. No, she didn't know that, and I'm not about to tell her. It would shake her self-confidence too badly."
"Not to mention the doubts it would create about your sanity." Fess emitted the burst of static that passed for a robotic sigh. "Nonetheless, the Abbot had absolutely no difficulty accepting Father Al's letter as genuine."
"And accordingly obeyed the Pope's emissary, and made peace quickly. But apparently he found it very humiliating, and has been just aching for an excuse to ignore Rome and get back to trying to take over Gramarye."
"It would seem so. Therefore, our problem is discerning who gave him that excuse."
"An excellent question. Not that's he's dim-witted or anything, but his intelligence doesn't really take a theological bent. No, some futurian agent fed him his rationalization— whereupon, with great delight, he rejected Rome. But the Cathodeans here don't have hyper-radio, so he couldn't let Rome know about it."
"An oversight which you, no doubt, will generously rectify for him," Fess murmured.
"I always did like to help the clergy in little ways. Got the whole story encoded, Fess?"
"Ready to transmit, Rod. Do you wish to add a personal message?"
"Yeah. Tell Father Al that I said the Pope had better find some way to kick the wolf out of his fold before it leads his sheep to the slaughter."