The Afterlife of St. Vidicon of Cathode
Christopher Stasheff
With thanks to Morris McGee,
honorary Father-General, and to Laurie Patten,
honorary Mother Superior of the Order of Cassettes.
The abbot waited in the convent's audience chamber, fascinated by the beauty drawn from its flat planes and minimal furniture by the glow of waxed golden paneling, the vivid color of the spray of flowers in a ceramic vase of elegant simplicity, and the two pictures adorning the walls, lighted by the windows opposite—an old woman next to a young on the wall facing the bench on which he sat, and on the wall at his left, the cowled face of a man in middle age, his brooding expression softened by the twinkle in his eye. If he was the man the abbot suspected, the artist had caught his character perfectly, leaving an elegant legacy to her successors. The whole room spoke of the care and devotion of the women of the Order, and of their dedication to their vocation.
The door opened to admit a woman of his own age, no longer slender, but with a kind though firm look to her eyes. The abbot rose in deference.
"Sit, please, my lord," the nun said with a slight frown. "Surely the abbot of the Order of St. Vidicon should not stand to a mere nun."
"Any gentleman should stand when a lady enters a room." But the abbot sat as she bade. "Certainly the abbot should show respect for the Mother Superior of the Order of Cassettes."
"I am only Sister Paterna Testa, a simple nun like all my sisters," the woman said primly. "As you know, my lord, we are not officially sanctioned nor formally an Order, so our leaders have never claimed such a title."
"If it comes to titles, I am not a lord," the abbot said with a smile of amusement. "I am a peasant, the son of peasants."
"Then you do not use the title when you speak with dukes and earls?" Sister Paterna Testa was skeptical.
"I will admit to that much of worldly vanity," the abbot said without the slightest sign of contrition. "I cannot risk their contempt when I berate them for their treatment of their peasants, after all."
"I have heard that you do just that," Sister Paterna Testa said, "when most of your predecessors rarely emerged from their monastery, and then only by royal summons."
"Or in outrage at the actions of the monarch." The abbot nodded. "It has seemed to me that if I remonstrate with the lords, or even Their Majesties, while their sins are still minor, I may be able to prevent the growth of conditions great enough that I am forced to speak in indignation."
"And so it has occurred, from what rumor tells me." Sister Paterna Testa nodded. "So are you come to remonstrate with me, and demand that my Order be brought within your jurisdiction?"
"Heaven forfend!" The abbot raised his palms as though to ward off a horror. "But it does seem to me that the only two Orders in the land should be in communication, and that your Order should be officially recognized as being in every way the equal of mine."
"That is quite generous," Sister Paterna Testa said slowly, "but we have managed well for centuries without such recognition—indeed, without your knowledge. How did you learn of us?"
"Word of your aiding the High Warlock and the High Witch might have been kept to yourselves," the abbot said with a smile, "but not news of the battle you fought to aid him. Minstrels have spread the tale throughout the length and the breadth of the land, so it finally reached even my ears."
"Minstrels! I like not the sound of that." Sister Paterna Testa turned away, frowning. "The Queen shall no doubt summon us now to be sure we count ourselves her vassals."
"She is more likely to summon you to heal those sunk in melancholy or beset by delusions," the abbot said, "but no matter her motive, it would strengthen your position to be officially constituted, and recognized by the Pope."
"I had heard that His Holiness had finally found Gramarye." Sister Paterna Testa turned her frown back to the abbot.
"He has, but felt it sufficient to leave us to the ministrations of the Father-General of our Order," the abbot said.
"Then we stand on quicksand," Sister Paterna Testa said, "for we have no abbess or mother-general."
"Quite so," said the abbot, "since there is no Order of Cassettes anywhere but in this convent, whereas the Order of St. Vidicon has chapter houses on every Terran-colonized planet."
"We have as firm a claim to his founding as have you!"
"I do not doubt it," said the abbot, "and you thereby have as good a claim to exist as in independent Order, subject only to the Holy Father."
Sister Paterna Testa knit her brows, searching his eyes for duplicity and finding none. Slowly, then, she said, "How could we prove such a claim, though? The Vatican will scarcely accept our unsupported word."
"This picture will support your claim by itself." The abbot nodded at the painting of the monk. "If it matches photographs in the archives of our Order, few can gainsay you. It is painted from life, is it not?"
"From memory, at least." Sister Paterna Testa turned to the portrait. "It was drawn by the young woman who became our second leader, some years after the visitation of the monk who saved her, and our founder. He would not say his name, though."
"Yet he told you tales of St. Vidicon that we know not," the abbot said, "or so the minstrels have even sung—that you have knowledge of the Saint that we have not."
"So that is why you have come!" Sister Paterna Testa turned back to him, amused. "You mean to trade your support for our knowledge, is that it?"
"Our support will be freely given if you will have it." It was the abbot's turn to be prim.
"And you expect our knowledge to be freely given also?" Sister Paterna Testa asked with a trace of irony. "Well, it shall be so, for we believe that knowledge should be free to all who wish to learn it."
"I have seen your school for the peasant children, and it is elegant proof of that claim," the abbot said. "If you wish to share, I shall not refuse."
"Be skeptical," Sister Paterna Testa warned him. "This may be only tales of imagination, that some gifted nun made up to while away a winter's evening for her sisters—and if it is, I am sure it has gained episodes from other tellers as the winters have rolled."
"Or it could indeed be words left to you by that monk." The abbot nodded at the portrait. "I promise I shall not be credulous, sister, for who could know the events that befell the Saint after his death?"
"Only one inspired by St. Vidicon himself," Sister Paterna Testa sighed, "or one who delighted in imagining what befell the Foe of Perversity in the afterlife. You remember how St. Vidicon died?"
"Who does not?" the abbot asked. "Though it is hard for any of us to believe that a world so full of people as Old Earth could be so blinded by prejudice and ignorance as to seek to obliterate the Roman Catholic Church."
"Impossible though it seems, our traditions speak of it."
The abbot nodded. "We have histories of Terra that testify to it, ones brought by our ancestors when they came to this world—and not Church histories only, but also those by lay scholars, non-Catholics, agnostics, and even an atheist."
"Do you really?" Sister Paterna Testa looked up with interest. "Do they also tell that only a speech by our Holy Father the Pope was able to save the Church?
"They do indeed, for apparently he was an extremely charismatic speaker."
"But how could the whole world hear him?'
"You must promise me not to speak of this to any outside our Orders," the abbot admonished, "and swear your nuns to silence, too, for we do not wish the people of Gramarye to be contaminated by too much knowledge of advanced technology."