And had Rod's four junior Gallowglasses in front of him…
"Children!" Gwen exclaimed. "What mischief hast thou wreaked now!… Good morn, Father."
"Good morn," the priest replied. "I would not say 'tis mischief they've been wreaking, milady—i' troth, they did seek to aid us."
"Sought to, maybe." Rod fixed Magnus with a gimlet glare, noticing how the boy's chin squared, and how Gregory was trying to shrink into Cordelia's skirts while she glared back at Rod in defiance. Geoffrey was fairly strutting into the room, head high and chin out—but Geoffrey would, of course.
"Obviously, they think they've done something we wouldn't allow. Confess, children!"
"Is not that mine office?" The priest held out a hand. "I am Father Boquilva."
"Rod Gallowglass, and my lady, Gwendylon." Rod stepped up to take the priest's hand, and noticed that the man hadn't stepped across the threshold. "Be welcome in my house, Father."
The priest smiled and stepped in, looking up and all about as he recited, "Let there be peace in this house, and to all who dwell herein."
Rod noticed Gwen relax, so he smiled. "Thanks for pulling my kids out of whatever jam they were in, Father."
"'Kids'? Oh, thou dost mean thy children. Nay, they as much aided me as I them…"
"They would not have struck in their own defense had I not!" Geoffrey burst out. "Nay, not though they carried staves and bucklers!"
Rod stared at him. "You jumped into the middle of a grownups' fight?" He pivoted to Magnus. "Why did you let him?"
Magnus spread his hands in exasperation. "Who could e'er stop him, Papa?"
"There's some truth in that," Rod allowed. "Who tried to beat up on you, Father?"
Father Boquilva shrugged. "Naught but a band of robbers who thought that men o' the cloth would be easy meat. They did not think that we would have so little."
Gregory nodded. "Naught but the chalice, Papa, yet those nasty bandits stole even that!"
Rod frowned at the monk. "So they were disappointed, and they were going to take it out on you with a beating?"
Reluctantly, the priest nodded. "Yet what are a few bruises when measured against eternity? I doubt me not they'd have caused us pain, but little damage."
"They would not even have fought to ward off blows!" Geoffrey said.
"But that was up to them." Rod turned to scowl at his son. "You leave grown-ups to grown-ups."
"Even though we see good folk plundered!?"
"You might have been justified in staying in hiding and using 'magic,'" Rod admitted, "but not in jumping into the fight physically!"
Geoffrey's jaw set.
"There is just too great a danger thou wilt be hurted, my jo," Gwen told him.
"We will not be hurted!"
"That'll make a great epitaph, some day," Rod sighed, "but I'd rather not see it while I'm alive. Let's say I'm the one who's chicken, son, and I'm scared to have you mix in a grown-ups' fight."
"Oh, Papa!"
"Silly or not, it's the rule!" Rod took a step toward the boy, then realized his hands were hooking into claws. He jammed them together behind his back and looked around at his brood. "And what's the punishment for breaking that rule?"
Geoffrey glared back, but awareness of doom shadowed his face.
Behind him Magnus stirred with a sigh. "Aye, Papa, we know. Come, my sibs—let us to it."
Gregory turned to follow him, and so did Cordelia, but with a troubled glance backwards at Geoffrey.
Rod fixed his glare on his second son, his anger warring with admiration for the boy's courage. Of course, he didn't let it show, and Geoffrey just stared back, his chin like a rock.
Gwen stepped up beside Rod, gazing intently at Geoffrey. "Thou dost know thou didst break our rule, my son."
"But it would have been wrong to let them be beaten!"
"Aye, yet we would not have thee be right but wounded, or worse. Therefore art thou not to partake of adult quarrels—and to make thee mindful of that, thou wilt do thy punishment."
Geoffrey glared at her, but why should he be able to stand against the compulsion of her gaze when his father never had? He growled, but he turned away to follow Magnus.
As the door closed behind him, Gwen went limp. "Praise Heaven! I feared he might defy thee to rage!"
"Not this time, thanks to you." Rod let himself begin to relax. "Thanks for backing me, dear."
" 'Twas a rule we had both agreed on, my lord—and one well made, to my mind. I come near to believing he doth think 'tis better to lose his life than a fight!"
"And better to lose either than to lose face. Oh, yes." Rod sighed, and turned back to the priest.
"Thou hast a worthy son," Boquilva noted.
"Yeah, we do, don't we?" Rod grinned. "Well, Father! Can we offer you a glass of wine?"
Someone squalled behind the closed door, and the grownups paused in their chat. Muffled by oak came the cry, "Mind thy mop handle, 'Delia!"
"Only one in a room at a time," Rod called. "That's part of the punishment!"
There was silence behind the door, then footsteps receding and the splash of a mop in a bucket.
"I have heard of many children's punishments," the monk said, "yet this was never one."
Rod nodded. "They can do a lot more than most folks give them credit for. Father—but ordinarily they only have to clean their own rooms."
"We were abducted a year agone," Gwen added, "and 'twas two weeks ere we could win home. Then did we learn what they'd done in our absence."
"By the end of the week the house shone." Rod's smile was brittle. "And they have to do it without using magic, too."
"Aye, there's the rub," Gwen agreed.
"Not that I,really mind their defeating evil wizards, Father," Rod explained. "It's just that I nearly had a heart attack when I found out how much danger they'd put themselves into."
Father Boquilva chuckled and regarded his wineglass. "Well, we did surmise that they were magic-workers." He looked up at Gwen. "How dost thou contain them, milady?"
"I have a few spells of mine own." Gwen dimpled prettily. " 'Tis more a wonder that thou, and thy brothers, did survive their interference."
"Well, as to that, they may truly have aided us," the priest said. "We would certainly have sustained a harsh beating, and we might have died had we not fought. There was some look to these bandits that minds me they would not have been content with small cruelties—yet ere we'd have admitted such knowledge, belike we'd have been too incapacitated to defend ourselves."
Gwen shuddered. "Beshrew me! But it horrifies me to think that some truly enjoy slaying others!"
Rod nodded, face dark. "But what were you doing out in the middle of that meadow anyway, Father? Why didn't you just stay home, behind the walls of your monastery?"
"Ah." Father Boquilva's face turned grim. "As to that—we had come to some disagreement with our Lord Abbot."
"Disagreement?" Gwen stared. "Yet didst thou not swear obedience to him when thou wast ordained?"
"Aye, and sin that we could no longer give such obedience with sound consciences, we thought it best to go apart by ourselves."
"Hold it! Whoa!" Rod held up a flat, open hand. "What orders could your Abbot be giving that were so bad some of his own monks couldn't obey them?" Then he paused, remembering his new assignment and its cause. "It wouldn't have anything to do with his wanting to declare the Church of Gramarye separate from the Church of Rome, would it?"
Father Boquilva met his eyes with a long, steady gaze. "Thou has most excellent minstrels, to bring such news so quickly."
Rod waved the remark away. "I have inside sources."
"Aye." A shadow crossed Boquilva's face. "Thou art the High Warlock, art thou not?"