"Father! Father!" A young man in a farmer's smock came running up. "Praise Heaven I've found thee!"
The priest turned, attention completely on the runner. "Good day, Lirak. What troubles thee?"
" 'Tis old Sebastian, Father! He hath fallen in the field, and's breath doth rattle in's throat! Oh, come, I beg thee!"
Father Bellora glanced at Rod and Magnus. "Thy pardon, yet here's one who doth stand in need of me." He pressed his breast pocket, next to the tiny yellow handle of the emblem of his order. "Aye, the sacred oil's there. Nay, show me the way, Lirak." And he hurried away after the boy.
Rod watched them go. "Well, they didn't make any mistake about that one, anyway."
"Aye, one." Magnus scowled. "Yet they must have erred now and again, Papa!"
Rod glanced around; all the housewives seemed to have gone home, probably to discuss the scandalous news about the Church by themselves. "Yes, that definitely sounds a bit odd, son, not to mention inhuman. They couldn't possibly have a perfect track record on something like that. There're just too many variables."
"Mayhap the postulants each have some sort of sign impressed on their foreheads, that we mere mortal folk cannot see," Magnus said.
Rod looked more closely at his boy, surprised at the sarcasm. He was definitely beginning to grow up. "Well, they know what to look for, at any rate." He frowned at a notion. "Or, more likely, they never know about their mistakes."
Magnus looked puzzled.
"Look," Rod explained, "if a parish priest starts sinning, they can just say he has weakened."
Magnus's eyes widened. "Aye, and if a monk doth make a clamor in the cloister, they may say 'tis only that he doth lack discipline!"
"On your home territory there, are you? But you do have the gist of it there, yes. Makes sense, doesn't it?"
"Too much so!"
"Well, they're only human," Rod sighed. "They've got to do the best they can under the circumstances."
"Nay, they need not! They could let each postulant choose his own way, and try it!"
"Yes, they could," Rod agreed. "Probably yield just as high a success rate, in the long run."
"Bless thee, tinkers!"
Rod looked up, startled. It was the housewife whose pot they had mended, coming up with a big, steaming bowl in her hands and a loaf tucked under her arm.
Rod grinned, and reached up to accept the bowl. "Bless thee, goodwife." He stuck his nose over the bowl and inhaled deeply. "Ah! God send thee more broken pots, whene'er I chance this way again!"
"And take this also." The woman pressed a fat sausage into his hand. "And godspeed!"
Magnus lifted the spoon and sipped as she turned away.
"Why, 'tis good! Mayhap we should think of this trade more often, Papa."
"Pays well enough, you mean?" Rod smiled. "Well, not bad, for fixing one pot—a big bowl of stew, a loaf of whole wheat, and a salami. Not only dinner, but journey rations for tomorrow."
"Had they more pots," Magnus pointed out, "we could also trade in foodstuffs."
"Didn't realize you had an aptitude for business…"
"Naetheless," Magnus said, through a mouthful of stew, "we've not found the one thing we came for."
"Yes." Rod frowned. "Nobody in town has a relative in the monastery. Well, there's always the next village, son."
Magnus groaned.
Father Bellora stepped out the door to dump the dirty wash water, calling, "Wee Folk, take care!" His teachers at the monastery would have been scandalized to hear him, and would have rebuked him for the sin of superstition, but they didn't have to deal with the realities of life. An elf with dampened dignity could become extremely inconvenient.
Having called the warning, the good country parson tossed the contents of the basin. They splashed into the weeds—the greenest patch anywhere near the rectory—and Father Bellora turned back toward his kitchen. But out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of an approaching figure and turned to look. His eyes widened, and he yelped. "Brother Matthew!"
The other friar waved, grinning, and broke into a run.
Father Bellora clapped him on the shoulder with a crow of delight. "Thou old curmudgeon, what dost thou here? Oh, right glad I am to see thee!"
"And I thee, Father Bellora." Matthew was a year older, but they had studied together at the monastery.
"Nay, come in, come in!" Father Bellora cried, and led his old schoolmate into the kitchen.
Half an hour and a large meat pie later, Brother Matthew sat back with a sigh and a toothpick. Father Bellora grinned, leaning back and patting his belly. "Now, good Brother! What matter is't doth bring thee to my parish?"
"News which our good Abbot doth enjoin thee to proclaim to all thy congregation." Brother Matthew's face darkened.
"He hath declared the Church of Gramarye to be separate from the Church of Rome."
Father Bellora's face fell. "Rumor had spoke of this, yet I had hoped 'twas not true."
"So soon?" Brother Matthew looked up, startled. "Doth word run faster than writing?"
"Ever, Brother. 'Twas a tinker came by, yester e'en. He mended a pot, slept the night, and went on. Belike another parish doth leam of it, even now."
"Aye, Brother," Matthew said, sympathizing. "It doth make for turmoil in our souls, doth it not?" He withdrew a roll of parchment from his sleeve. "Here is the text of it, which thou art to copy and read at Mass for a week, and carry this scroll to Father Gabe, in Flamourn parish o'er the hill, even as I have brought it to thee."
Father Bellora accepted the scroll with all the delight of a man ordered to cuddle a tarantula. "Tell me the gist."
"Why, 'tis that the Church of Rome hath erred…"
Father Bellora went stiff as a Puritan in a ballroom, eyes wide in horror. "How can he dare speak so!"
"He is the Abbot," Matthew answered with a shrug. " Tis hard, is't not? When we had thought the Pope infallible in matters of doctrine. Yet our good Lord Abbot doth say that he whom we have called the Holy Father knoweth not how matters fare here, nor their complexities; and furthermore, that he is too much bound by the licentious easiness of his forebears, and by the corruption of his clerks and scribes in the Curia."
"Yet how can he chastise the Holy See?" Father Bellora whispered.
"Because, saith the Lord Abbot, the Pope is, when all is said and done, only the Bishop of Rome, and is not truly greater than any other bishop. To make all of us mindful of that, and to make clear his standing as head of our Church, the Lord Abbot hath declared himself henceforth Archbishop of Gramarye."
Father Bellora only sat, transfixed in shock.
"And," Brother Matthew went on, "the Archbishop of Gramarye may surely chastise the Bishop of Rome. He doth decry the Pope's errors, saying that he doth err most especially in not demanding that all princes recognize the Church's greater wisdom in all matters of morality."
"But such matters encompass all of government!" Father Bellora protested. "What matter can a prince rule on that is not moral or immoral?"
"That is his point—and therein, saith our good Lord Abbot, lieth the cause of all the miseries of our worldly state."
"Yet the words of Christ! 'Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's!'"
Brother Matthew nodded. "Yet, saith our Lord Abbot, even Caesar must render unto God that which is God's—and in so doing, he must recognize the guidance of the Church."
Father Bellora paled. "Doth he mean to say…" but he couldn't finish the thought, his voice fading.
Brother Matthew nodded, aching with empathy. " Tis even so, Father. Our good Lord Abbot doth thus conclude: that the Church must needs be superior to the King, for that it is closer to God, and must therefore know what He doth wish far more accurately than any King could. And the King must recognize the authority of the Archbishop."
"How can the King not march against him?" Father Bellora whispered.