Kelly shivered. "Why, then, we've fulfilled our commission! Let us… hist!"
Puck looked up, startled, then heard the sound Kelly was pointing after—the tread of human feet through forest mulch.
A few minutes later a pot-bellied peasant stepped into the moonlight, leaning against the load of a heavy basket. He stumped to the door, set down his burden, and sighed, rubbing his bald spot—a perfect circle, in the midst of what would otherwise have been an excellent head of hair. He wore an ordinary smock and leggings, and was in middle age. He glanced about and sighed. "Ah, the loneliness is hard to bear!" Then he shrugged, lifting the latch and pushing the door open. He frowned as he stepped in, muttering, "Be still, my heart! 'Tis for God, the Church, and the Order!" He sighed as he hoisted his basket and went into the hut. A minute later a lamp flame glowed inside, and the door swung shut. Two seconds later Puck and Kelly were back at the wall, peering through chinks in the wattle.
The peasant muttered to himself as he stirred the coals on the hearth, laid on kindling, and blew it into flame, then set on some sticks. Behind him the stuff in his basket began to quiver, then to churn about. He turned back to it, frowning, then nodded his head, apparently satisfied with its motion. He dumped it out before the hearth and sat down on a three-legged stool, staring at it. The stuff was gray and formless, with a faint sheen, like puffball toadstools that couldn't keep their shape. As the elves watched, wide-eyed, the mass began to spread, then to stretch upward. Gradually it grew into the form of a sapling, its color darkening to brown, pieces of it stabbing outward into four branches. Each branch tip blossomed into stiffened twigs. The peasant nodded, satisfied, and held up a hand. Slowly the sapling bent one of its branches down, wrapped a set of twigs about his wrist. The peasant smiled, and the sapling let go of his hand, straightening. The man murmured, "To the door, now." The sapling began to quiver; then one root humped up, pushed forward, and flattened again. Another root took a step, then the third, then the first again, and slowly the sapling moved toward the door. The peasant nodded, scowling, and muttered, "Find a peasant, clutch at him, then chase him—but do not catch him."
The sapling's branches shook as though it, too, were nodding; then it bent to go through the doorway, and shuffled off across the clearing and into the wood.
Kelly and Puck watched it go, eyes wide.
Inside the hut the peasant sighed and sat back wearily.
Chapter Fourteen
As Rod moved through the darkened forest, he began to feel the presence of other people around him. Soon he could hear them whispering to one another, with the occasional nervous giggle, as though they were a bunch of schoolchildren sneaking off to do something forbidden. Then, through a gap in the leaves, he saw orange light with silhouettes of his fellow travelers before it. The light expanded, and Rod came out into a clearing.
A monk stood on a stump at its far side, flanked by branches stuck into the ground, with their tops flaring torches— makeshift candelabra. The sight of the man's tonsure and robe was enough to raise Rod's hackles. Are you up there, Cordelia? To play safe, he was thinking in the family mode Gwen had invented, and he heard Cordelia's answer in the same compressed fashion: Aye, Papa. 'Tis like looking down on a church from the choir loft.
I don't think that's accidental, 'Delia. Now, remember—we just listen; we don't do anything.
I shall be mindful of it, Papa, she thought, with some asperity.
The unvoiced thought was: Will you? It was nice of her not to think it, though. Rod had to admit she had a point; he was the one with the temper.
"Dearly beloved!" the monk cried, holding up both hands.
The crowd quieted.
"I bring thee news from our Most Reverend Archbishop," the monk called, and the crowd muttered with enthusiasm. The hairs on the back of Rod's neck prickled; they were in Tudor's demesne, and Tudor was a Papist. These peasants, apparently, were the ones who were partial to the Church of Gramarye—or at least curious about it. No wonder the keeper had passed the word in secret.
"The Archbishop doth delight in thy steadfast adherence to him," the monk continued, perhaps overstating the case. "The godly lords gather to him at the monastery, and prospects prosper for the Reign of Right!"
The crowd cheered, though not exactly with great vigor. The friar ignored the fact. "He doth send thee now word of his latest search for truth. Thou knowest all that priests may not wed; thus hath Rome ruled down the ages."
A mutter began with some foreboding in it. Rod didn't blame the peasants; he didn't think he was going to like what was coming.
"This ruling was made for base causes," the preacher lectured. "For the first thousand years of the Church, there was no bar to priests wedding and rearing up families. Yet those sons who, like their fathers, took the cassock, did frequently serve in the same parish that their fathers had. Thus did one parish pass from father to son for many generations, till the authority of that parish, and the income from it, was the priestly family's, not Rome's. The Pope could not abide such a challenge to his rule, nor the thought of all the shillings that did not come to him; therefore he did forbid priests to marry."
The crowd burst into incredulous jabbering.
Is't true, Papa? Rod could feel the disturbance in Cordelia's thoughts. Partly, 'Delia, he answered. There were other reasons, too, more spiritual ones. Bet this preacher doesn't mention them, though.
Nay, he would not, would he? Her doubts quieted, and Rod felt his daughter's natural strength of will returning. He smiled, and listened as the preacher began calling again. "Our good Archbishop doth think this reasoning specious, and unworthy of a Pope entrusted to concern himself only with men's souls. Therefore hath he declared that priests need no longer hold themselves apart from family life…"
The crowd's noise swamped him before he could finish the sentence, and here and there, people turned away into the forest.
"He doth declare!" the priest cried, waving his hands. "He doth declare!"
The people finally quieted enough to hear him.
"He doth declare, our noble Archbishop, that priests may marry!"
Then it was all over. The people argued furiously among themselves, and many of them turned and went away, walking as quickly as they could into the dark forest. But some stayed and crowded around the priest, asking questions at a furious rate. He did the best he could to answer each separate objection.
Can there be good in this. Papa? Rod could hear the trepidation in Cordelia's thought.
What could he say? It's debatable, 'Delia—there's a lot to say on both sides. Me, I feel more comfortable with a priest who doesn't have to worry about being home on time for dinner.
I, too…
The people began to leave, and the knot around the priest loosened as they stepped aside to argue among themselves. The friar stepped down from the stump, his exhaustion showing.
" 'Twas nobly said, Father." A village girl stepped up a little too close to the priest, hands behind her back, skirts swaying, smiling up at the priest, then blushing and lowering her eyes. "Assuredly, if the priests are the best of us, they should rear up sons, should they not?"
The priest took an involuntary step back, blanching, and the girl took another step forward with a dazzling smile.
Why, the shameless hussy! Cordelia thought, scandalized. She doth woo him!