"He is reading aloud, Rod. Presumably it is a communication of great importance."
"I'm leery of communications from the Church, these days." Rod twisted the stone in his ring and pointed it at the priest. The stone was a well-disguised microphone, extremely directional, and the elaborate setting hid an amplifier circuit and miniature transmitter, feeding the signal into the earphone implanted behind Rod's ear. "Boost your amplification, Fess— I want you to hear this, too."
"'… a traitor to Holy Mother the Church,'" the priest was reading, " 'and an infidel and unbeliever. He doth practice his Art in contravention of God's will and the direction of the Church of Gramarye. Therefore do we pronounce the heretics Rod Gallowglass, who doth style himself Lord High Warlock, and his wife Gwendylon, to be no longer in communication with the Church of Gramarye, and as excommunicate, banned from all services and Sacraments, and no longer within our protection against the entrapment of the Devil. Yours in Christ, John Widdecombe, Archbishop of Gramarye.'"
The priest rolled up the parchment with trembling hands, and the peasants burst into furious babbling.
All Rod could say was, "I'm going to have to tell Gwen, aren't I?"
"You must, Rod. Personally. And, I hope, before anyone else can bring her that news."
"Yes." Rod gazed out at the crowd, frowning. "I hate letting her down at a moment like this, but I don't think I should stop to pick up that sausage."
"I am damned! I am bound to eternal hellfire!"
"No you're not, darling." Rod knelt beside Gwen, pleading. "It's just a bunch of words."
"Words of an Archbishop! No! Do not touch me! Tis thou hast brought me to this, thou and thy pride, that would not allow thee to bow to the man of God! No!"
"But I haven't changed what I believe!"
"Yet thou art excommunicated! And I with thee!" She spun about, her face in her hands.' "Excommunicated! Nevermore to have the Sacraments! Nevermore to receive God's grace! Oh, thou hast woefully wronged me now and again, Rod Gallow-glass, yet never so badly as thisl"
"But it wasn't me who did it, it was—"
" 'Twas done to theel And I am under its ban for being thy wife! Though aye, I must own I have done grievous wrong to the Church also, in giving aid and support to Their Majesties 'gainst the Archbishop! Oh, what a vile sinner am I!"
"You're a heroinel" Rod exploded. "Time and again you've been the only wall between the poor, good people and the greedy, selfish men who wanted to grind them into the dirt!"
"I cannot be good if the priests so execrate me!"
"But you didn't go up against the Church—you just followed where I led!"
"Aye, and shamed am I to have done so! 'Tis my soul, mine, and 'twas for me to decide whether to take God's part or thine! How could I have been so blind as not to see thou didst stray into Satan's net!"
"It's the Archbishop who's going to the Devil!" Rod howled. "You know that! You've watched him move, step by step, away from the Pope and toward the sins he himself preaches against!"
Gwen stood transfixed, pale as a shroud, wordless, staring at him.
He didn't know whether she was going to break or rally, but he had to try something. "You are as good as any human being can be! You are patient, gentle, giving, and loving! You have never faltered for an instant in your faith in God's goodness or my redeemability! Never in any way, as long as I've known you, have you done anything the Church preaches against!"
"I have taken arms," Gwen whispered. "I have fought in wrath, I have slain men!"
"But only in defense of the people they were trying to kill! Only when you were caught between Commandments! Oh, sure, you've lost your temper now and then—but only a saint could have kept it, with our four little imps! And the saints wouldn't have dared come anywhere near them!"
Gwen stared at him in a silence that stretched on for so long Rod was afraid she would break, but he didn't dare speak another word. He'd said all that he could; anything more might push her away from him forever.
Then her shoulders began to shake.
Tears? he thought, in a panic. Or laughter?
Her mouth curved, and she began to giggle.
Rod almost caved in.
The giggle swelled into laughter and she collapsed into a chair, sprawling helplessly as her howls of glee shook the house. Rod found himself laughing, too, and couldn't help wondering why his cheeks were wet. He staggered over and collapsed next to her, kneeling as he fell, arms outstretched, and she fell into them, rocking back and forth with him in a gale of mirth.
Finally they quieted, and Gwen wiped her eyes as she gasped, "Aye, 'tis foolish, is't not? When I have seen this very priest stray into sin, and do yet hearken to his words?"
"He excommunicated himself," Rod pointed out, "when he separated from Rome. He's the one who opened up the heresy business."
" 'Tis true." Gwen nodded. "Rome would call him an heretic, would it not?"
"The Pope and every soul in the College of Cardinals," Rod assured her. "So what are you, if you're heretical to a heretic?"
"One of the faithful, to be sure." The amusement was fading into something grim. "We are still of the Roman Church, my lord, are we not?"
"Sure," Rod said quickly. "We haven't repudiated it."
"And this was a most wily snare of Satan's, that did both tempt and afright me into deserting the True Church." Gwen's tone hardened. "Had it not been for thee, my lord, I would have fallen into his net."
"Oh, no, I wouldn't say I deserve credit—"
"Thou never dost," she cut him off. "Thou hast humility, among thine other virtues; how could I have thought thee a sinner?"
"Uh…"
"Be still," she commanded. "I will number thy virtues, sin that thou wilt not. Yet, my lord…" She turned to him, frowning, puzzled. "How may we say which is right, when two churches each say it is sole and true? And how can we know which is right—the one that doth say we are damned, or the one that doth say we are not?"
"It's really up to God, isn't it?" Rod said gently.
"Aye, certes, yet how are we to know?"
"Same way the churchmen do—try to listen to Him. And just in case you don't hear anything, check your conscience. At the bottom of your heart, do you honestly think you've done anything really sinful?"
Gwen was still, and Rod held his breath.
"In my youth, mayhap," she said finally, "though I think our children have given me ample opportunity to atone."
Rod heaved a sigh of .relief. "So it's the Archbishop and his henchmen who're the sinners, not us."
"Aye, 'tis he doth sin, and most grievously, in bringing this confusion of the soul upon us, by separating from Rome." Then her eyes widened. "Did I truly say that?"
"Don't worry about it," Rod soothed.
"I will not," she said, with decision. "And now, my lord, by our Archbishop's accounting, I am truly an heretic."
"Only on Gramarye, dear," Rod assured her, "and only in five counties."
"I couldn't believe she'd taken such a medieval attitude." Rod shook his head, flabbergasted.
"Wherefore not, Rod? She is, after all, a medieval woman."
"Yeah." Rod frowned. "I keep forgetting that, just because she's so intelligent and responsible, and has managed to learn everything I've learned, and does just as much on the national level as I do, and—"
Fess emitted a rumbling noise, the robot's equivalent of clearing his throat.