“What a fine mood Priscilla’s in” Zerchi observed pleasantly. “Is she going to have pups?”

“Beg shriv’ness, yet honors,” said Mrs. Grales, “but’s not the pup’s motherful condition as makes her so, devil fret her! but ‘tis ‘at man of mine. He’s witched the piteous pup, he has — for love of witchin — and it makes her ‘feared of all. I beg yet honors’ shriv’ness for her naughties.”

“It’s all right. Well, good night, Mrs. Grales.”

But escape proved not that easy. She caught at the abbot’s sleeve and smiled her toothlessly irresistible smile.

“A minute, Father, only a minute for ‘n old tumater woman, if ye have it to spare.”

“Why, of course! I’d be glad—”

Joshua gave the abbot a sidelong grin and went over to negotiate with the dog concerning right of way. Priscilla eyed him with plain contempt.

“Here, Father, here,” Mrs. Grales was saying. “Take a little something for yer box. Here—” Coins rattled while Zerchi protested. “No, here, take of it, take of it,” she insisted. “Oh, I know as how ye always say, by fret! but I be not so poor’s ye might think on me. And ye do good work. If ye don’t take of it, that no-good man of mine’ll have it from me, and do him the Devil’s work. Here — I sold my tumaters, and I got my price, near, and I bought my feed for the week and even a play-pretty for Rachel. I want ye to have of it. Here.”

“It’s very kind…”

“Grryumpf!” came an authoritative bark from the gateway. “Grryumpf! Rowf! rowf! RrrrrrrOWWFF!” — followed by a rapid sequence of yaps, yeeps, and Priscilla’s howling in full retreat.

Joshua came wandering back with his hands in his sleeves.

“Are you wounded, man?”

“Grryumpf!” said the monk.

“What on earth did you do to her?”

“Grryumpf!” Brother Joshua repeated. “Rowf! Rowf! RrrrrrOWWFF!” — then explained: “Priscilla believes in werewolves. The yelping was hers. We can get past the gate now.”

The dog had vanished; but again Mrs. Grales caught at the abbot’s sleeve. “Only a minute more of yer, Father, and I’ll keep ye no longer. It’s little Rachel I wanted to see yer about. There’s the baptism and the christenin’ to be thought of, and I wished to ask yer if ye’d do the honor of—”

“Mrs. Grales,” he put in gently, “go see your own parish priest. He should handle these matters, not I. I have no parish — only the abbey. Talk to Father Selo at Saint Michael’s. Our church doesn’t even have a font. Women aren’t permitted, except in the tribune—”

“The sister’s chapel has a font, and women can—”

“It’s for Father Selo, not for me. It has to be recorded in your own parish. Only as an emergency could I—”

“Ay, ay, that I know, but I saw Father Selo. I brought Rachel to his church and the fool of a man would not touch her.”

“He refused to baptize Rachel?”

“That he did, the fool of a man.”

“It’s a priest you’re talking of, Mrs. Grales, and no fool, for I know him well. He must have his reasons for refusing. If you don’t agree with his reasons, then see someone else-but not a monastic priest. Talk to the pastor at Saint Maisie’s perhaps.”

“Ay, and that too have I done…” She launched into what promised to be a prolonged account of her skirmishings on behalf of the unbaptized Rachel. The monks listened patiently at first, but while Joshua was watching her, he seized the abbot’s arm above the elbow; his lingers gradually dug into Zerchi’s arm until the abbot winched in pain and tore the fingers away with his free hand.

“What are you doing?” he whispered, but then noticed the monk’s expression. Joshua’s eyes were fixed on the old woman as if she were a cockatrice. Zerchi followed his gaze, but saw nothing stranger than usual; her extra head was half concealed by a sort of veil, but Brother Joshua had certainly seen that often enough.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Grales,” Zerchi interrupted as soon as she fell short of breath. “I really must go now. I’ll tell you what: I’ll call Father Selo for you, but that’s all I can do. We’ll see you again, I’m sure.”

“Thank yer kindly, and beg yer shriv’ness for keeping yer.”

“Good night, Mrs. Grales.”

They entered the gate and walked toward the refectory. Joshua thumped the heel of his hand against his temple several times as if to jar something back into place.

“Why were you staring at her like that?” the abbot demanded. “I thought it rude”

“Didn’t you notice?”

“Notice what?”

“Then you didn’t notice. Well… let it pass. But who is Rachel? Why won’t they baptize the child? Is she the woman’s daughter?”

The abbot smiled without humor. “That’s what Mrs. Grales contends. But there’s some question as to whether Rachel is her daughter, her sister — or merely an excrescence growing out of her shoulder.”

“Rachel! — her other head?”

“Don’t shout so. She’ll hear you yet.”

“And she wants it baptized?”

“Rather urgently, wouldn’t you say? It seems to be an obsession.”

Joshua waved his arms. “How do they settle such things?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I’m grateful to Heaven that it’s not up to me to figure it out. If it werea simple case of siamese twins, it would be easy. But it isn’t. The old-timers say Rachel wasn’t there when Mrs. Grales was born.”

“A farmers’ fable!”

“Perhaps. But some are willing to tell it under oath. How many souls has an old lady with an extra head — a head that ‘just grew’? Things like that cause ulcers in high places, my son. Now, what was it you noticed? Why were you staring at her and trying to pinch my arm off like that?”

The monk was slow to answer. “It smiled at me,” he said at last.

“What smiled?”

“Her extra, uh — Rachel. She smiled. I thought she was going to wake up.”

The abbot stopped him in the refectory’s entranceway and peered at him curiously.

“She smiled,” the monk repeated very earnestly.

“You imagined it.”

“Yes, m’Lord.”

“Then look like you imagined it.”

Brother Joshua tried. “I can’t,” he admitted.

The abbot dropped the old woman’s coins in the poor box. “Let’s go on inside,” he said.

The new refectory was functional, chromium befixtured, acoustically tailored, and germicidally illuminated. Gone were the smoke-blackened stones, the tallow lamps, the wooden bowls and cellar-ripened cheeses. Except for the cruciform seating arrangement and a rank of images along one wall, the place resembled an industrial lunchroom. Its atmosphere had changed, as had the atmosphere of the entire abbey. After ages of striving to preserve remnants of culture from a civilization long dead, the monks had watched the rise of a new and mightier civilization. The old tasks had been completed; new ones were found. The past was venerated and exhibited in glass cases, but it was no longer the present. The Order conformed to the times, to an age of uranium and steel and flaring rocketry, amid the growl of heavy industry and the high thin whine of star drive converters. The Order conformed — at least in superficial ways.

“Accedite ad eum,” the Reader intoned.

The robed legions stood restlessly at their places during the reading. No food had yet appeared. The tables were bare of dishes. Supper had been deferred. The organism, the community whose cells were men, whose life had flowed through seventy generations, seemed tense tonight, seemed to sense a note amiss tonight, seemed aware, through the connaturality of its membership, of what had been told to only a few. The organism lived as a body, worshiped and worked as a body, and at times seemed dimly conscious as a mind that infused its members and whispered to itself and to Another in the lingua prima, baby tongue of the species. Perhaps the tension was increased as much by faint snort-growl of practice rocketry from the distant anti-missile missile range as by the unexpected postponement of the meal. The abbot rapped for silence, then gestured his prior, Father Lehy toward the lectern. The prior looked pained for a moment before speaking.