“Good morning, Father!” Father Al called cheerily, in spite of his rubber legs.
The old priest looked up, blinking. He was bald, and his long beard was grey. He was slim with a lifetime of fasting, and rock-hard as his mountains. “Why… good morrow, Father,” he returned. “ ‘Tis early, for travellers to come walking.”
“We’ve been on the road all the night; ‘tis a matter of some urgency,” Father Al replied. “I am these goodfolks’ protection from the powers that walk at night; yet even I must sleep sometime. Canst thou spare us hospitality for a few hours?”
“Why… assuredly, for the Cloth,” the old priest said, bemused. “Yet there is only my poor small room, behind the chapel…”
“No matter; we’ll sleep in the nave, if thou dost not object, under the Lord’s protection. We’ll need every ounce we can get.”
“Father,” the old priest said severely, “one ought not to sleep in Church.”
“Tell that to the goodfolk who must listen to my sermons.”
The old priest stared for a moment; then he smiled. “Well said, well said! Avail thyselves of what little thou canst find, then—and pardon my poor hosting. I must bless three fields and see to a woman whose hands pain her.”
“Arthritis?” Rod asked, coming up behind Father Al.
“Nay, only a swelling of the joints, and pain when she moves her fingers. Elf-shot, belike. A drop of holy water, a touch of the crucifix, and a short prayer will set her to rights.”
Rod stared.
Father Al got the thoughtful look again. “Hast thou ever known the treatment to fail, Father?”
“Aye; there do be stronger spells. Then must I ask the Bishop to come—or take my poor souls to him, if they can walk.”
“And the blessing of the fields—are the crops in danger?”
“Oh, nay!” the old priest laughed. “I can see thy mind; but do not trouble thyself, Father; thou hast journeyed long, and hast need of thy rest. Nay, ‘tis only the usual blessing, without which the fields will yield scarcely half their corn.”
“Of course.” Father Al smiled. “Well, it doth no harm to be certain. Thou wilt send for me if thou dost need me, though?”
“Be assured that I will—but be also assured that I’ll have no need. Be welcome in my home, and make thyselves free of what little thou’It find in the larder. Have no fear for me—the Lord will provide.”
“And He probably will,” Father Al noted as they watched the old man leave, with an almost-youthful stride. “After all, magic works, here.”
“Small magics,” Rod agreed, “daily ones. It seems the village priest is the mundane magician, here. How does that fit into your theories, Father?”
“Perfectly. As I mentioned, I posit three sources of Power, and one of them is Divine—though I have a notion that some of his spells work more by ‘secular,’ impersonal magic than by God’s Power. Some trace of magical ability could well be a requirement for admission to the seminary.”
“Probably,” Rod agreed. “But the old man’s abilities notwithstanding, I think it might be in order to keep our hands off his food, if we can.” He turned to his son. “Magnus, Geoff’s about tuckered. How much grub do you think you could scare up by yourself?”
Magnus pulled a hare out from behind his back. “I was hungry, Papa.”
“So was I.” Cordelia held out an apronful of birds’ eggs and berries.
“Nice thing about kids—they never lose track of the important things,” Rod noted, to Father Al. “What do you say I take the skillet, Gwen? You’re looking pretty tired, yourself.”
“Aye, but I wish to eat before noon.” Gwen caught up the hare and brushed past him into the “rectory.”
“Come, Cordelia.”
“Well, I guess we get to decide the fate of the world.” Rod sat down on the step as the door closed behind the ladies. “Magnus, keep your brother busy until breakfast, so he doesn’t fall asleep.”
“Doing what, Papa?”
“Oh, I dunno… go play tag with a wolf, or something. Uh, cancel that,” he added quickly, as he saw Magnus’s eyes light up. “No sense in cruelty to animals. Go cut a couple of willow wands and drill him on fencing—he’s a little slow on the riposte.”
“As thou dost wish, Papa.” Magnus turned away, crestfallen. “Come, Geoffrey.”
“And stay where I can see you!”
Magnus gave a martyr’s sigh. “We will.”
“Would you really have worried more about the wolf than about them?” Father Al asked, sitting beside Rod.
“Not completely,” Rod admitted, “but I’ve seen Magnus drive a wolf to distraction. He disappears just before the wolf gets him, and reappears behind it. Then the wolf turns around to charge him again, and he disappears in the nick of time, bobbing up behind it again. When I caught him, he had it chasing its own tail.”
Father Al shook his head in wonder. “I think I begin to understand why you adjusted to a world of magic so easily.”
“Kids do keep your mind limber,” Rod admitted.
“Limber enough to understand why technology never went beyond the hammer and anvil here?”
“Oh, there’s not much question there. Why do you need to develop fertilizers when the average parish priest can do the same thing with a blessing?”
Father Al nodded. “I’ll have to worm the wording of the prayers out of him, to see whether it’s the prayer that does it, or the charm.”
“So you can know which Power is working?”
Father Al nodded. “Increasing crop yields isn’t exactly what we mean by ‘small miracles happening everywhere.’ ”
“Like medical technology? It sounds as though he can cure arthritis, though he doesn’t know it by that name. Our own doctors can’t do much better. I’d imagine the same kind of thing’s happening in all areas of technology.”
Father Al nodded again. “Smiths producing case-hardened alloys by singing to the metal as they pound it; carriages riding smoothly, cushioned by spells instead of steel leaves, perhaps even spell-propelled; ships communicating with shore by crystal balls… Yes, why bother inventing anything?”
“But,” said Rod, “magicians being rare, the average man couldn’t afford battle-spells; so martial power remained an aristocratic monopoly. Which meant…”
“That the political system remained essentially feudal.” Father Al’s smile grew hard. “Though, with wizards providing kings with efficient communications, and even intelligence abilities, there’s a chance centralized governments may have evolved.”
“But never terribly absolute,” Rod noted. “The barons could get wizards, too. So they’d think of themselves as ‘Christendom’ as much as separate countries.”
“Not much nationalism,” Father Al agreed. “But how would the New World have been colonized?”
Rod shrugged. “No problem; Columbus came over shortly after the Wars of the Roses, and the Vikings set up a colony before him. With wizardry to help them, they shouldn’t’ve had as much trouble with the ‘skralings.’ ”
“The Amerinds, yes. I notice that most of these people are nowhere nearly as pale as Northern Europeans of the period.”
“Probably hybrids. And with their shamans’ magic added in, you’d have quite an assemblage of magic. But that indicates a big emphasis on trade, which means mercantilism. How come there’s no rise of the middle class?”
“There probably was, to a point. But the kings and barons would’ve entrusted fund-raising to their wizard-advisers, who, being probably of common birth, could participate in trade for them. No, I’d guess the ‘merchant princes’ were princes. And trade not being their means to rise, they wouldn’t push its development as hard.”
Rod spread his hands. “But—fifteen hundred years! Could a society really last that long, without changing?”
“Well, there was ancient Egypt—and the Chinese Empire. Dynasties changed, and styles; technology even improved a little, from time to time—but the society remained the same. And, come to think of it, India, before the Mongols… You know, Europe may have been the exception, not the rule, with its changing society.”