"Yes," I said. "You see, I fell in love with one of the queen's sacrifices and managed to keep her from despairing at the last second and being a virtuous maiden, her ghost was headed straight for Heaven. Suettay couldn't stand to let a victim get away, so she kept the body alive. I'm trying to get Angelique's body back, but it's in Suettay's castle, so ..."
"The only way is to overthrow the queen." Friar Ignatius nodded with grim understanding. "Well, I cannot say the goal is unworthy, Wizard Saul, though your reasons are somewhat less than noble."
"I always thought love was very noble - if it was real." I shrugged.
"Besides, I'm not from your world, so I don't have any vested interest in your politics. This is entirely personal." Friar Ignatius stared at me. "Surely any man has interest in the war between good and evil!"
"They're pretty abstract," I returned, "and for a long time, I wasn't even sure there was any such thing as real, genuine evil - I thought it was just the label I used for people who were opposed to me. Over the years, though, I've seen people, those I had nothing to do with, do some really horrible things to other people, sometimes just because they enjoyed it; so I'm willing to say there is such a thing as evil. Even so, it's not my problem, don't you see - it's none of my business."
But for the first time in my life, the words sounded hollow. There was a racheting groan, and Frisson pulled himself up off the bottom of the boat onto a seat, staring past me at the thin green line that was Thyme's island.
I took a chance. "Feeling a little better now?" He just sat there staring for a minute or so, then finally, reluctantly, nodded. "Aye. And I think I must thank you, friend Saul, for aiding me. I was ensnared."
"But you're still not sure you wanted to be freed," I said softly. He shook his head, then let his chin sink onto his breast. "Ay me! I could wish I were to die there, so long as she were to bestow her favors upon me! I could wish to have put her in a flask and taken her with me, that I might let her out whenever I wished!"
"You're not the first man to wish something like that," I said softly.
"You would let her out at once," Friar Ignatius said with the certainty of one who has been there, "and never put her back. You would waste away your life in dancing attendance upon her, Master Frisson."
Frisson shuddered, remembering. "How could that be waste!"
"Because you wouldn't accomplish anything," I said. "You wouldn't become anything in your own right - just one of her toys. Put it behind you, Frisson - as I said, you're not the first man to wish it, and you won't be the last." I turned to Friar Ignatius. "I don't want him to forget - and I don't want him distracted, not when we have so much menace facing us. You've studied magic - any ideas?"
" 'Tis not that I've studied magic alone," he said softly, " 'tis that I've studied God, and the Faith, and the soul." He reached out to touch Frisson on the temple. It was a very light touch, scarcely a fingertip, but Frisson went rigid, and the monk chanted something in Latin.
Frisson went limp, but the hangdog look hung lower. Friar Ignatius took his hand away with a sigh. "As I said, I've not the talent."
"But I have?" I asked him. "Let me try."
Frisson stiffened like an I-beam again, then slumped in total relaxation.
We waited, holding our breaths.
Slowly, the poet sat up, eyes wide. " 'Tis done! I am healed!" He looked at me with a tremulous smile. "I cannot thank you enough, friend Saul!" But he still looked sad.
"Anything for a friend," I said. "Besides, I need you functioning, on the side of the angels."
Friar Ignatius looked at me in surprised approval. "I thought you professed to be apart from good and evil, Wizard Saul."
"Not apart from them," I corrected, "just not committed to them. He smiled sadly. "You cannot have the one without the other, Wizard."
"Oh, yes I can," I said softly. "There is neutral ground, and I'm it."
I heard the after-echo of my own words with something resembling shock, but I plowed ahead anyway. "But that doesn't mean I'm apathetic. I do care when I see people suffering, and I'm willing to try to help if there's a way I can. I'm just not a fanatic, that's all."
"You cannot equivocate between God and the Devil, Wizard," he said softly.
I felt a chill on my back, but I shrugged it off. "Not here, maybe. But you can keep the whole thing in perspective and not let your zeal for the letter of the law distract you from the spirit." His eyes widened. "I thought you had no affinity for good, Wizard Saul - yet you cite our Savior's words."
"Know your Bible pretty well, do you? Well, so do I, and not entirely willingly. I had a good religious upbringing - good in my parents' eyes, maybe."
"Then how was it not good?"
"Because it showed me too many fanatics, too many people who are willing to do bad things, such as humiliate a kid publicly and convince him that he's bound for Hell."
"That is a grave error," he said, his eyes huge. I gave him a sour smile. "I wish there were more clergy like you, Friar Ignatius."
He turned away, his face darkening. "Do not, for I am little use with a congregation, Master Wizard. In truth, if I so much as step up to a pulpit, my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth with craven fear, and I cannot utter a word."
I felt a surge of sympathy. "Hey, now - it's all right. We all get stage fright - and if you get too strong a dose of it, why, that's just not your talent. You know your own strengths, don't you?"
"Aye." He turned back to me. "I have a useless gift for pondering Holy Writ, Wizard, and am therefore skilled at explaining how the words of Christ, uttered a thousand years ago and more, may guide our conduct even in this latter age. Nay, mayhap not so useless, for other priests do hark unto me and find my words of aid in speaking to their flocks."
I stared. "You're a theologian."
"I would be loath to claim the honor," he said.
"And might thereby deceive people who have to deal with you," I said. "And you specialize in applying Scripture to daily life?"
"Aye, most especially in the use of the talents God has given others, for I am so lacking in them."
"So that's why you study magic," I said slowly, and a thought throbbed in my brain. "Does that extend to explaining how it works?
"Aye, though in its essence, 'tis simplicity itself."
"Most great insights are," I said softly.
"Though the first step in that simplifying is to merely say what is magic, and what is not."
"Oh,' What is not?"
"Prayer. If we pray for God to intervene in our lives, and if He sees fit to do so, we are like to think it magical, when 'tis more properly a miracle."
I frowned. "I haven't seen many of those."
"Oh,"' He smiled. "Did you not speak of love for a maiden?" I flushed. "That's ordinary, not miraculous! I mean, everybody, well, a lot of people fall in love. It's just hormones and sublimation, not . . ."
His gaze was very steady.
"Okay," I admitted, "so there's something there besides lust and compatible pheromones. It's still not exactly rare."