Thinking about children—and the middies were, compared to her own century and a half, little more than children—started Marguerite to thinking of other children, younger ones, on a different planet. She'd been able to push it from her mind, for the most part, for decades. But ever since she'd seen the sacrifice at the Ara Pacis, everything she'd tried to suppress had come flooding back.
And I helped raise money for explosives to blow innocent people up, she mentally sighed. How many incarnations is that going to—rightly and justifiably—cost me?
Time to make an appointment with the chaplain, I think.
* * *
It has sometimes been said that, after Saint Patrick came to Ireland, the Catholics moved right in and took over from the druids with hardly a ripple, adopting many of the mannerisms and customs of the druids, the better to spread their own faith. It surprised no one then, that when Christianity was suppressed by United Earth, the druids in many places came back and took over from the priests, again with nary a ripple, and in turn adopting and adapting many Catholic customs. One of these was confession.
* * *
"Bless me, Druid, for I have sinned," said Wallenstein, sitting opposite the chaplain, approximately lotus-style, on the floor of her quarters.
"Speak to me of this," the Druid answered. The chaplain sat at the opposite corner from Marguerite. "Hold nothing back, for the Elder God or Gods, however many or few there be, will know if you do."
Marguerite took a deep breath before answering, "I am a murderess, or—if I remember my Fleet Law class correctly—at least an accessory before the fact to murder, many times over. Back on Terra Nova, while the war on the Islamics was raging, I arranged for many pseudo-kidnappings, the ransoms of which went to buy arms and explosives for the killing of innocents."
The druid nodded, his artificially grayed beard rustling on the robes over his chest as he did. "The Elder God or Gods knew this. What else?"
"I am almost as guilty of attempted megacide, though at least there I was foiled."
"And?" the Druid asked.
She shook her head. "That's all I think, all that was past my duty in any event. Oh . . ."
"Yes?"
"I betrayed the former High Admiral, Martin Robinson, to his enemies, partially in revenge and partially so that I could take over his position.
"And that's really all. Except . . ."
"Go on."
"I arranged victims from among the lowers for the former Marchioness of Amnesty to torture in her sexual games." Marguerite gulped as her eyes grew wide. "Oh, gods, I'm going to be reincarnated as a toad, aren't I?"
Marguerite thought she saw a thin smile on the druid's face, but the beard concealed so much of that she couldn't be sure.
"Quite possibly," he answered. "And that might be a best case." The druid's face grew dark as he added, sotto voce, "Though for all that, I can hardly say you've done anything worse than have my orthodox brethren, of late."
"What was that, Chaplain?"
"Nothing," the druid said. "Just thinking aloud."
Wallenstein suspected she knew what her chaplain had muttered.
"You have a serious problem, Marguerite," the druid said.
"I know that, Druid. Why do you suppose I asked to confess?"
The smile shone through the beard now, without doubt or question. "Oh, maybe because it's been decades," the druid observed.
"No, that's not it," Wallenstein insisted. "Then again, I'm not sure what it is."
That's a lie, a little voice whispered in Marguerite's head. It's that after being used for well over a century you finally realized that you were being used, and to no good end for anyone except those who used you. And you know it, just as you know that you were complicit in your own degradation, and for unworthy goals.
But I have no need to tell him that.
Don't you? the little voice insisted.
No. Not for what I plan.
Suit yourself. You will anyway.
Yes, and isn't that a nice change?
"Well," said the druid, "it doesn't really matter. Ours is a religion somewhat short on mandatory ritual. As least, we of the Reformed Druidic faith are short on mandatory ritual."
The Druid smiled again, asking, "Have you never thought about our religion, Marguerite? I mean really thought about it? How is it that a faith that was essentially extirpated by the seventh century found a rebirth in the seventeenth? And what of what was lost in those thousand years? What of what was lost between when Vespasian overran the Isle of Wight and when Suetonius Paulus destroyed our center at Anglesey?"
"It's never really been my job to think about it," Marguerite answered. "My mother was a priestess and so she raised me in it."
"The answer is simple, in any event," the druid said. "It doesn't matter in the slightest," he shrugged. "It doesn't matter because our faith really isn't about gods anymore, if it ever was. Rather, it speaks to human needs. The God or gods—oh, yes, I believe he or she or they exist—can fend for themselves and hardly need us.
"Instead, we are a philosophy, a philosophy concerned with people living well, and reasonably virtuously. The religious aspects are tacked on tatters and scavenged rags, not even good whole cloth. And none of that matters because we are not about God or gods, but about people.
"It is our reason that leads us to the religious convictions we have. It is our reason that leads us to reject the notion of Heaven and Hell and substitute for them reincarnation, something theologically almost indistinct from the old Catholic notion of Purgatory, just as our reason and our understanding of people has caused us to adopt the old Catholic sacrament of Confession, along with much of the pomp and ceremony.
"You asked to confess because you have a cancer in your soul and need a way to excise it. I would answer you that by confessing you have in goodly part already excised it. I would say to you too that, just as one can never cross the same river twice, so you, too, have changed and are hardly the same person who did the things that are eating at your soul. Finally, I would say to you that to be whole and pure again, you must do some great good for your people, or indeed all people."
Razona Market, Brcko, Bosnia Province, Old Earth
'Some great good,' mused Wallenstein. How hard it is to do a 'great good.' Even so, I can still do some little ones.
The newly ennobled High Admiral, escorted by a half dozen Marines, moved through the market on foot. She stopped here and there to inspect the merchandise, sometimes pulling a chin down to check teeth. The hawkers came up to her at each stop she made. Some had the girls and boys bow. Others tapped the goods with short whips to make them turn to display their wares.
One girl in particular caught Marguerite's attention. She was a lovely little brown creature, perhaps fourteen years of age or a bit more.
"Where are you from child?" the High Admiral asked.
"TransIsthmia, your highness," the girl answered.
"How did you end up here?" Wallenstein asked.
The vendor supplied the answer. "She's a rebel brat, sold by Count Castro-Nyere. If she isn't sold quick, a buyer from the Orthodox Druids has expressed an interest."
Marguerite nodded. "And your name?" she asked.
"Whatever you want to call me," the child said, casting a fearful look at her owner and vendor.
"I want to call you what those whom you grew up with called you."
"Esmeralda, then, your highness."
Wallenstein nodded began to turn away.