" 'Tis but simple fare." Brother Otho smiled, pleased. " 'Tis naught but bread, cheese, and eggs. If thou wilt visit with us next year, I doubt not we will even have meat for thee."
Father Thorn lifted an eyebrow. "So long? Come, Brother! An thou wilt return with us now, thou shalt have pork to roast, and even good beef!"
"So then," said Father Boquilva, "thou dost wish us back only for Brother Otho's fine touch with herbs?"
"The hour for jesting is past, Father Matthew." Father Thorn sat forward, frowning. "Thou hast sworn obedience to thine Abbot; now doth he bid thee come back to his house." He pulled a scroll from his robe and laid it on the table before Father Boquilva. When the monk did not move to take it up, Father Thorn urged, "Open it, if thou dost doubt me!"
"I doubt thee not at all, Father," Boquilva answered quietly. "Yet we hold another obligation that doth supersede even our duty to Milord Abbot."
"Naught could. What obligation dost thou speak of?"
"Our duty to the Pope."
"The Pope hath no right of command in Gramarye," another monk said instantly, "nor did ever."
"So?" Father Boquilva turned, smiling. "How dost thou come to know that, Brother Melanso?"
"Why, our Father Abbot told us so!"
Father Boquilva resisted the temptation to jibe, and said only, "We believe him mistaken."
"He cannot be; he is the Abbot," Father Thorn said instantly.
" 'Cannot?'" Father Boquilva turned back with a raised eyebrow. "Is he infallible, then?"
Father Thom reddened. "Assuredly he is far wiser than thou!"
"How so? He was not appointed by God for his knowledge, Father—he was chosen in conclave by all the brothers, and that for his gift of bringing all to work together, not for his judgment in theology."
"An thou hast chosen him for the one, thou hast chosen him for the other!"
But Father Boquilva shook his head. "I chose him for Abbot, Father, not King."
Father Thom sat back, his face losing all expression. "Ah, then, we come to the nubbin of it. Our good Lord Abbot doth not seek kingship, Father Boquilva; he doth but seek to assure Their Majesties' moral conduct."
"Quid est, he doth intend that when he shall say a given action is wrong, they shall not do it," Father Boquilva interpreted.
"Is that not right?"
"There is a case for it," Boquilva admitted, "yet it is like to turn to ah intention that, when he shall tell them they must do another thing, they shall do it."
"And where is the wrong in that?" Father Thom challenged.
"In that our Lord Abbot will thus be tempted to rule," Father Boquilva answered. "His province is that of the spirit, not of the world."
"Yet the world should behave in accord with the spirit!"
"Aye, but by choice, not by coercion. When Tightness rules by force, it doth cease to be right."
"Dost thou say our Abbot is wrong?" growled a short, muscular monk.
"I say he seeks a near occasion of sin," Father Boquilva returned, unperturbed.
"Traitor!" The short monk leaped up, yanking a bludgeon from inside his cloak. The table crashed over as monks surged to their feet and scrambled for their quarterstaves.
"Nay, Brother Andrew!" Father Thom held up a hand to stay the blow, and the melee settled down to two armed lines, the visitors glaring at their foes, the hosts warily watching their former allies. Father Thom choked down his anger enough to say to Father Boquilva, "I know thee well enough to respect thy belief; thou dost think thyself right, even though thou art wrong. Yet be mindful, Father, that thy special abilities, and those of thy fellows, are so strong as they are because of the care and fostering thou hast all received at the hands of our order."
Father Boquilva stood very still, and was silent so long that it was gray-haired Father Arnold who answered. "We own ourselves obliged for instruction—nay, mayhap even for life; for any one of us might have been burned at the stake by a mob in panic, had we not had the protection of the monastery's walls."
"Then come home to it! Thou hast not the right to parade thy talents in the wide world, when so much of thy strength is the Order's!"
"We have not left the Order," Father Boquilva said slowly, "nor do we wish to. We have only begun a new chapter house."
"There must be only one chapter in Gramarye, Father! Thou dost know the need for secrecy!"
"And I doubt it not. Yet be not afeared—we will not practice our powers save within the walls of this house, where none can see but ourselves."
"And if some peasant doth peer through a chink in the wall? And he doth tell all his neighbors? What then will become of all clergy in this land!"
"We know how to daub our walls well," Father Boquilva returned, "and how to maintain each his Shield, and to watch for peasants' minds straying near. Thou canst not truly believe we would be so careless, Father."
"What can I believe of thee, who hast left our precincts?" Father Thorn cried, exasperated. "Dost thou not see that our house, like the Body of Christ, is weakened by the loss of any one member?"
"Ah, then." Father Boquilva spoke softly. "'Tis not the rightness of our leaving that doth trouble thee, nor the chance of the worldly folk discovering our natures—but the weakening of the Abbot's house."
Father Thorn was silent, but his face darkened with anger.
"Where's the morality in that?" Father Arnold murmured.
"We have bandied words enough." Father Thorn drew a truncheon out of his habit. "The right of the matter is for the
Lord Abbot to decide, not thou, whose knowledge is no greater than mine. Thou wilt do as thou art commanded."
"We will not turn away from our Holy Father the Pope," Father Boquilva answered.
"Then have at thee!" Father Thorn shouted as he slashed at Father Boquilva.
Boquilva's staff leaped to block the truncheon, but Brother Andrew swung his cudgel crashing down on Father Boquilva's head. The taller priest fell back, dazed in spite of his steel cap, but Father Arnold stepped up to catch him with his left arm while he blocked Brother Andrew's next blow with the staff in his right hand. Father Thorn slammed another blow at him, but Brother Otho caught it on his staff, then whirled to block a swing from Brother Willem, and Father Thorn swung again. But Father Boquilva shook his head and brought his staff up to block, slowly and with a wobble, but effectively. Brother Fennel caught Brother Andrew's cudgel on the upswing from behind, and the short monk whirled with a roar, to slam a crushing blow at Fennel—but the taller monk blocked and countered.
Throughout the single, large room, monks swung murderous blows at one another. Hardwood rang off steel helmets, and a few monks fell to the ground, their unconscious bodies tripping their fellows.
The door crashed open, and a gentleman in doublet and hose strode in. A dozen armed men dashed through behind him, spreading out in a line along both side walls as a man behind the gentleman blew a piercing blast on a horn, then roared, "Stand, for the King's bailiff!"
The monks froze, staring.
"What mayhem is this!" the bailiff cried. "What perversion of nature, to see men of God about the Devil's work!"
Father Thorn drew himself up, his face flint. "Do not dare to instruct a priest in morality, fellow!"
One of the men-at-arms stepped forward a little, raising a pike, but the bailiff held up a hand to stop him. "Do thou not dare to bear arms, friar. Or dost thou care naught for the scandal thou dost give?"
Father Thorn reddened, but answered. " 'Tis scandalous indeed that men of God must do what worldly authorities have forborne!"
"Why, let us not forbear further, then." The bailiff nodded to his men. "Arrest them, in the King's name!"