It was a contest on two levels, spoken and silent. Catharine and Tuan heard only a debate about the Church, but Brom O'Berin, listening to the tug of thoughts beneath the words, felt a battle for information.
"Thou wilt not deny thou art a priest?" Her mind was wide open and alert for any associations that the term might raise.
"Wherefore? 'Tis my pride." The friar smiled.
There had been nothing—not only the humdrum, daily images that filled a human mind, but nothing. A void, a vacuum. Gwen frowned and tried again. "I am Gwendylon, Lady Gallowglass. Whom do I address?"
"I am Father Peron, my child."
So he was going to give her the pastor's patronization, eh? Well, Gwen knew how to ignore it. "I confess to puzzlement, Father," she repeated. "How canst thou term Their Majesties 'heretics,' when they but hold to the beliefs they have held all their lives?"
"There is flow and change in all things, child—and as conditions in the world change, so must the Church. This is why Christ gave to Peter the power to bind or loose in Heaven what he bound or loosed on earth—so that the Church could change as it needed."
His eyes seemed to burn into hers, and a massive surge of fervor hit her. Gwen almost gasped at the strength and suddenness of the wave. She rallied and countered. "Yet it is the heir of Peter from whom thou hast separated."
The priest reddened, and anger flowed with his zeal. "The Pope cannot know how matters stand on Gramarye. The changes he doth declare for other worlds must not be binding here."
His anger was daunting, making Gwen feel indeed like a child in front of a stem teacher. Inwardly she quailed, but refused to let it show, and narrowed the focus of her mind on only one area of his—fear of the Afterlife. "How dost thou know the Pope to be wrong, Father?"
"Why, for that milord the Archbishop hath said so." If he had any reservations or any anxieties, there was no inkling of them; where thoughts should be, there was nothing.
Gwen frowned; certainly his fervor could not completely counter all his upbringing and his fearful religiosity. "Canst thou not judge such a matter for thyself?"
"I am sworn to obey my lord the Archbishop. His wisdom in these matters must needs be greater than mine."
"Nay, thou wert sworn to obey the Abbot, not the Archbishop."
A touch of exasperation showed in the man's face, but not in his mind. "Though he be Archbishop, he is Abbot still, and what he doth pronounce right for Gramarye must needs be right indeed."
"Even if he doth oppose himself to the Pope?"
"Even so."
"Then is it not he who is an heretic?"
Father Peron flushed, and his anger hit like a padded sledgehammer. "Nay, 'tis the King who is an heretic, if he doth not adhere to the one true Church."
Deadlock. Gwen paused and changed the subject. "The Queen doth rule as surely as the King. Wherefore dost thou speak only of His Majesty?"
"God is our Father, child, and doth rule all. Rulers therefore must be male. A woman's rule is abomination."
Catharine half rose, turning crimson and emitting very strange gargling noise; but Tuan's hand tightened on hers, and she had promised Gwen to hold her tongue, so she did. But Father Peron permitted himself a small smile.
Gwen bit down on her own anger and managed to keep her puzzled frown. "Dost not revere sainted Mary, mother of our Lord?"
"Aye, as the Ruler's mother—and I eagerly await the reign of Alain."
Tuan was reddening now, too, but he held his peace. He could tell when someone was trying to get to him.
"Yet by thy lights," Gwen pointed out, "Alain will be also an heretic."
"I trust God shall send him wisdom, when he doth come of age," Father Peron said piously. "If he doth not, he shall find himself opposed to all his barons—nay, to all his people."
"Thou art confident of the future," Gwen murmured.
"Victory is the Lord's, child—victory is ever the Lord's." Father Peron's gaze seemed to pierce through to her soul, and the flames of his fervor seemed to burn all about her mind. "Right will triumph—and the Church of Gramarye is right."
"There was no more that I could gain from him," Gwen said, when Father Peron had followed his jailers to a cell that probably reminded him of home. "He hath the most excellent shield that ever I have known—save in my husband, when he doth wish it." She shuddered at the thought, and changed the subject. "Yet he is most truly a priest."
"A warlock in a monk's robe?" Tuan shook his head, pacing. "Is this not blasphemy?"
"Aye, for the clergy have ever inveighed 'gainst the witches," Catharine agreed.
" 'Tis only the parish priests who have spoken thus," Brom reminded her. "What the monks say amongst themselves within the cloister, we have no knowledge."
"Why should there not be one among them who hath our powers?" Gwen said with a shrug. "We have found witchfolk in every county and every class; wherefor ought there not be one within the monastery?"
"A point," Tuan admitted, "yet still an odd one. Is he, mayhap, the one who hath called up other witches to side with the Archbishop?"
Gwen shook her head. "I cannot tell; I could read nothing of his thoughts—yet his feelings did reach out toward me." She frowned. "In truth, so strongly did his zeal press all about me, that I found myself beginning some feeling of the rightness of his cause."
Tuan nodded. "Such a feeling enwrapped me in the town, when I did hearken to his speech."
"Nay!" Catharine cried. "Assuredly, Lady Gallowglass, thou dost not believe—"
"Nay, I do not. Yet this is his power—the ability to put his feeling of rightness or wrongness within another's mind."
"Mayhap every good orator hath some touch of that talent," Tuan suggested. "Assuredly 'twas not his words alone did touch me."
"Nay, 'twas not. It was the power of his mind that worked upon thee."
"And his words, then, served no purpose but to hold the folk about him, the whiles he worked his spell?" Tuan said. "Well, that I can credit."
"Is not this the power that the rebel sorcerer Alfar did have?" Catharine demanded.
"Aye, Majesty, yet 'tis not nearly so strong in Father Peron. The sorcerer could so enfold another's mind that he lulled his victim into a waking sleep, then could thrust within not only his feelings, yet also his thoughts. Thus could he compel anyone to do as he wished. 'Tis a state mine husband doth term hypnosis."
"And thine husband hath a word for this priest's power, I doubt not."
Gwen nodded. "He doth term the priest a projective."
"Projective! Hypnosis!" Catharine threw up her hands. "A deal of nonsense! What need for names?"
"They aid in thinking, Majesty," Gwen explained. "When thou dost see how two words resemble one another, thou canst see what may cause the things they stand for. In this instance, seest thou, the preacher is a 'projective empath,' whereas…" Her voice trailed off, and her eyes lit. > Catharine noticed, and asked, "What ails thee?"
" 'Tis even as I've told thee—the use of the words!" Gwen clapped her hands. "The preacher is projective, yet mine husband doth also use the term to signify a witch who doth craft things of witch moss!" She referred to a substance found only on Gramarye, a telepathically-sensitive fungus that assumed the shape of whatever a nearby projective telepath was thinking of. Gwen spun to Brom O'Berin. "Lord Privy Councilor! Can thy spies seek out the trail of this two-headed dog that did afright the peasant Piers?"
Brom frowned. "Assuredly, they can. Yet wherefore…" Then he followed her train of reasoning, and began to smile. "Be sure, I've spies who can ferret out its lair."
"They must need be valiant men, who would seek to trail so fell a spirit," Catharine said, doubt plain in her voice.
"Valiant they are," Brom said grimly, "or will be."
Hoban leaned back to stretch the ache out of his spine, and mopped his brow, glancing up at the sun. The work was familiar—he had been hoeing most of his life—but he had never before done it in a long saffron robe, nor thought about it as an aid to prayer. Still, there were worse things, and both Father Rigori and Anho had warned him the life would be hard. He bent over again, and chopped at a weed; he had never thought of this dull, repetitive work as a discipline to school the body, freeing the mind for prayer and contemplation. Always before, he had let his mind roam over the pleasures that awaited him at the end of the day—food, and talk with friends, and sleep, and on the sabbath, dalliance with wenches.