"He is seven."
"Rather young," McGee said, frowning, "and, though the call may come at any age, those who—"
"Gwen." There was panic under Rod's tone, and she was at the doorway to the boys' room almost before he finished the word. She gasped, then ran in.
Gregory lay stiffly, his whole body trembling with silent sobs.
"Nay, my jo, nay!" Gwen gathered him up in her arms. "Oh, my poor babe! Whatever 'twas, lad, 'twill not hurt thee; lo, 'tis gone!"
Rod stroked the boy's back and bit his tongue, also his panic. Gwen was better able to maintain her composure in this kind of situation; the best he could do was give moral support.
He could see the boy go limp as she stroked his head, crooning, and the sobs suddenly became huge and racking. Geoffrey lifted his head from the next bed, awake and wondering, and Gwen picked up her youngest and took him out of the room, to spare him embarrassment, and his brother wakefulness. Rod stayed just long enough to assure Geoffrey, "He's all right, son. Back to sleep now, hm?" Geoffrey collapsed back into his bedclothes, and Rod stepped out the door, hoping he wasn't a liar.
Gwen sat in the mellow light of the tallow lamps, in the big chair McGee had just vacated, rocking Gregory and crooning till the sobs passed. The Father-General gazed down at her, then looked a question at Rod, who hesitated a moment, then shook his head, motioning for McGee to stay in the room.
The sobs eased, almost ceased, and Gwen murmured, "Now, lad. What frighted thee?" And when the boy only wept, she pressed, "Was it a foul dream?" Gregory nodded, and she urged, "Tell it me."
"I… was old, Mama," Gregory mumbled, and Rod breathed a sigh of relief. "Old, and… alone."
"Alone?" Gwen sighed. "Well, some old folk are. What had made thee so?"
"I… had gone to become a monk, and… as I aged, I forsook even their company, for an hermitage in the wood."
Anger blazed. Rod snapped, "Who's been telling this boy about—"
Gwen glared a dagger at him, and he bit off the rest of the sentence. She was right; the boy needed sympathy now. Any anger, he would construe as being aimed at him.
"There are holy hermits," Gwen admitted. "Yet they are not truly alone, lad, for their lives are filled with the company of God."
Foul! Rod wanted to scream. They go crazy with loneliness! But he held his peace, and managed to keep the thoughts unvocalized; Gregory would certainly have picked them up if he had. Rod wondered if he should leave, get as far away as he could; certainly his own emotions must be agitating the boy even more. But Gwen caught the thought, looked up, and shook her head as she said, "They go apart for study of holy books and contemplation of the Word of God, my son."
"Aye, so I dreamt," the boy sniffled, "and so I had. But… oh, Mama! Thou wert not there, nor was Papa! Nor Magnus, nor Geoff, nor Cordelia, nor even Diarmid! And life seemed so…" he groped for the word.
"Empty?"
"Aye, empty. Without purpose. Oh, Mama! How could such a life be holy, without any folk to be good for?"
What could Rod say? That Gregory wasn't the first one to ask that question, nor would be the last? At least for him it was only a dream—so far.
But the boy had calmed enough to catch the thought. He looked up at his father, eyes wide. "Is that truly what my life must be?" There was terror just under the words, and Rod hastened to assure him, "No. It doesn't have to. You have the choice, son."
"Yet I do wish to study!" Gregory protested. "Not just Holy Writ, though—the plants, and the animals, and the stars… Oh, Papa! There is so much to learn!"
Well, there spoke the born scholar. "But you can have other people around, and still find time to study, son."
"I cannot possibly, Papa! So much study as I wish, must needs leave small time for converse!" His eyes widened in horror. "Yet without folk to study for, what is the purpose of knowledge?"
"To bring one closer to God," McGee murmured.
Gregory whirled to stare at him, almost shocked.
Before he could protest, Rod stepped into the breach. "Son, we have a guest tonight. He is the Reverend Morris McGee, Father-General of the Cathodeans."
Gregory stared. "The Abbot?"
"No, the Abbot's abbot." McGee smiled. "I am leader of all the chapters of the Order of St. Vidicon, lad."
Gregory forgot his nightmare in awe. "All the monks, on all the planets that circle all the stars?"
"Only the fifty that have Terran humans on them." McGee glanced at Rod. "I thought your people were innocent of the rest of the Terran Sphere, Lord Warlock."
"Well, of course, my own children are going to have to suffer through a modern education, Father. But don't worry, they all know better than to let anyone else know."
" 'Twould fash them unduly," Gregory explained, his eyes still wide. "Nay, thou knowest all about the life of a monk, then, dost thou not?"
"All," McGee confirmed, poker-faced. "And I assure you, lad, that you don't have to be a monk in order to try to learn all you can about everything."
"Yet thou dost think such learning would lead one toward God."
"If one really studies everything, and pursues it far enough, yes—or so I believe." McGee turned his gaze toward Rod. "Perceptive little chap, isn't he?"
"Only three leaps ahead of me, most of the time." Rod turned to Gregory. "You heard it from the Order's mouth, son."
"Yet surely one must go off alone to study so much!"
"Hermitage is not necessary," Father McGee said firmly, "though you might want to think seriously before you married. If you wish to have a family, they must be more important to you than your studies."
"So that if study is to be more important to me, I should not wed?"
"So I believe." McGee nodded. "That is why many scholars become monks—so that they may still have human companionship, but be able to devote their lives primarily to study. Still, that is only true of a few Orders; ours is one of them. Many others are primarily concerned with praying."
Gregory nodded slowly. "Thus could a man have solitude to concentrate all his thoughts on study, yet still have times when he is in company."
It was positively weird, hearing statements like that coming out of the mouth of a seven-year-old, and Rod always had to fight to remember that, emotionally, he was still a very small boy. But it didn't seem to faze Father McGee. He simply nodded, very seriously, and came over to the boy. "All true, lad—if the man's studies are directed toward learning as much as he can about God, through His creations. Yet if you wish to study the universe by itself, without the need to find a connection between God and every slightest phenomenon, you might wish to be a scholar, but not a monk."
Rod breathed a sigh of relief; he had just heard an intellectual Emancipation Proclamation.
But Gregory frowned. "I do not understand."
"Why, it's simply this." McGee pulled up a straight chair and sat down. "A vocation to study does not, by itself, mean that you have a vocation to the priesthood."
Rod could see the little boy relax, a little outside, hugely inside. "I may be a scholar, yet not a monk?"
McGee nodded. "That is the way of it. The two can be quite separate, you see."
"Yet where can I find companionship, if I do not become a monk?"
"Why, wherever you may. Hindu holy men sometimes built their hermitages near villages, so that they could be there if they were needed. Ancient Taoists were supposed to build their villages near a hermit's mountain, so that they could follow his example." McGee smiled. "You might even consider gathering other scholars about you, founding the first university on Gramarye."
He gazed at the boy, smiling, and after a few minutes Gregory began to smile, too.
And from that moment, in his parents' eyes, Father McGee could do no wrong.