'I did a bad thing once,' he said quietly, flatly. 'I did one bad thing, Isis; one stupid thing… I was a different man then; a different man. I've spent the rest of the time trying to… trying to make up for it… and I have. I think I have.'
He went on like this for a while. I patted his back and made encouraging noises now and again. I still worried in a distant kind of way that he might suffer some attack or seizure, but mostly I was simply surprised at how unaffected I felt by all this, and how cynical my attitude seemed to have become. I did not comment on his claim that everything he had done since his crime had been to atone for it. Instead, I let him talk on while I turned over in my mind again my choice between the destructive truth and the protective lie.
I felt like Samson in the temple, able to tear it down. I thought of the children in the classroom with Sister Angela, and wondered what right I had to bring the stones of our Faith tumbling down on those innocent little heads. Well, I supposed, no more than I had the right to decide for them they should be brought up within a Faith founded on a great lie.
Perhaps I should just behave as everybody else seemed to behave, here as elsewhere, and settle the matter according to my own selfish interests… except I could not even decide in which direction that would take me either; part of me still wanted to take my revenge on the Faith by shaking it to its very foundations, to exercise the power - the real power - I knew I now possessed just by having discovered what I had, and bring as much as possible of it crashing down about those who had wronged me, leaving me to look on from outside, from above, at the resulting chaos, ready to pick up the resulting pieces and rearrange them however I saw fit.
Another part of me shrank from such apocalyptic dreams and just wanted everything to go back - as much as was possible - to the way it had been before all this had started, though with a feeling of personal security based this time on knowledge and hidden authority, not ignorance and blithe naivety.
Another part of me just wanted to walk away from all of it.
But which to choose?
Eventually, my Grandfather sat upright. 'So,' he said, gazing at the mansion house, not me. 'What is it you want, Isis?'
I sat there on the cool stone, feeling calm and clear and detached; cold and still, as though my heart was made of stone.
'Guess,' I said, speaking from that coldness in my soul.
He glanced at me with hurt eyes, and for a moment I felt both cruel and petty.
'I'm not leaving,' he said quickly, looking down at the gravel path at our feet. 'It wouldn't be fair to everybody else: They rely on me. On my strength. On my word. We can't abandon them.' He glanced back, to see how I was taking all this.
I didn't react.
He looked up at the sky now. 'I can share. You and I; we can share the responsibility. I've had to live with this,' he told me. 'All these years; had to live with it. Now it's your turn to share that burden. If you can.'
'I think I could cope,' I told him.
He glanced at me again. 'Well, then; that's settled. We don't tell them.' He coughed. 'For their own good.'
'Of course.'
'And Allan?' he asked, still not looking at me. The breeze brought the noise of bird-song across the lawn, flower beds and gravel paths to us, then took it away again.
'I think it was he who put the vial of zhlonjiz in my bag,' I told him. 'Though he may have got somebody else to carry out the actual physical act. It was certainly he who forged the letter from Cousin Morag.'
He glanced at me. 'Forged?'
'She hasn't written for two months. It's true she wasn't going to come to the Festival, but the rest was all a fabrication.'
I explained about the holiday Morag and her manager had arranged, which had only been postponed at the last minute. I told him about Allan lying about me to Morag, so that she would avoid both me and the Community.
'He has a portable phone, does he?' Grandfather asked when I got to that part. He shook his head. 'I knew he crept down there most nights,' he said, sighing and wiping his nose with his handkerchief. 'I thought it was a woman, or maybe drugs or something…' He sat forward, hunching over, elbows on his knees. He wound the handkerchief round and round in his hands.
'I hear since I've been away he's been… helping you with the revisions to the Orthography,' I said.
He looked round at me, but then could not hold my gaze, and had to look away again.
'Tell me, what changes has he inspired, Grandfather?'
Grandfather seemed physically to grope for words, his hands waving in the air. 'He…' he began. 'We…'
'Let me guess,' I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. 'You have heard God tell you that primogeniture is back, that Allan and not I should inherit the control of the Order when you die.' I gave him time to answer, but he did not choose to do so. 'Is that right?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said quietly. 'Something like that.'
'And Leapyearians… what of us? Where do we figure in this new regime?'
'To be respected,' he said, still not looking back at me. I heard him swallow. 'But…'
'But without power.'
He didn't speak, but I saw him nod.
I sat there, looking at his back for a while. He was looking down at the handkerchief, still winding it round and round in his hands.
'I think that all has to be changed back, don't you?' I said softly.
'So that's your price, is it?' he asked bitterly.
'If you want to put it like that, yes,' I said. 'Restoration, Grandfather. My restoration. That's what I want.'
He looked back, angry again. 'I can't just…' he began, his voice raised. But again he could not maintain his gaze, and looked away from me, his words dying on his lips.
'I think, Grandfather,' I said, slowly and softly, 'if you listen hard enough for the Voice of God you may well hear it tell you something which could have the desired effect. Don't you?'
He sat for a while, then looked round, his eyes moist. 'I am not a charlatan,' he said, and indeed sounded genuinely hurt. 'I know what I felt, what I heard… back then, back at the start. It's just since then…'
I nodded slowly for a few moments, wondering what to say about Zhobelia's visions. Eventually I said, 'I didn't accuse you of being a charlatan.'
He looked away again, went back to winding the handkerchief round his fingers for a moment, then stopped, made an angry noise and stuffed the hanky back in a pocket. 'What do you want of Allan?'
I told him what I wanted.
He nodded. 'Well,' he said, and sounded relieved. 'We'll have to put that to him, won't we?'
'I think we ought to,' I agreed.
'Your brother has… ideas, you know,' he said, sounding regretful.
'What, like asking our followers for money?'
'Not just that. He has a vision for the Order, for the Faith. According to him, we have to move ahead into the next century. We have the opportunity to build upon what we have here, to evangelise and expand and learn from other cults; send out more aggressive missions, build up bases overseas, almost like franchises, in Europe, America, the Third World. We could go into the specialist food market and capitalise… on…'
His voice trailed off as I slowly shook my head.
'No,' I said, 'I don't think so, Grandfather.'
He opened his mouth as though he was going to argue, then his head dropped. His shoulders rose and fell as he sighed. 'Well,' he said. And that was all. He shook his head.
'Have those… the begging letters gone out yet?' I asked, not trying to keep the contempt out of my voice.
He glanced at me. 'Not yet,' he said, sounding tired. 'We were going to wait and see who turned up for the Festival. Approach them personally, if possible.'
'Good. I don't think we should do any approaching of that nature, or send the letters. Do you?'