'Thanks,' I said, accepting my refilled glass.

'Cheers.'

'Mud in your eye.'

'You have been with Yolanda, haven't you?'

'She does rather rub off on you,' I admitted as we resumed our seats.  I took up the threads of my story.  I had almost finished when there was a ringing sound; the spring-hung bell up in one corniced corner of the room went on jangling as Jess straightened her plain grey shift and went to the bedroom door.  I undid the laces on my boots.

She stuck her head round, I heard Grandfather's voice, then Jess turned and nodded to me.  I drained my glass and ascended into the bedroom.

The door closed behind me.

Grandfather sat at one end of the room, against a huge pile of cushions.  Candles burned on the shelf that ran all around the dark space, filling it with their soft yellow light and the heady fumes of their scent.  Joss-sticks were fanned out in a small brass holder on the shelf near Salvador.  My Grandfather was plump, pale, voluminously robed and his face was surrounded with fluffily dry white curly hair.  He looked like a cross between Buddha and Santa Claus.  He sat looking at me.

I made the Sign and bowed slowly to him; the bed moved gently underneath my sock-clad feet, like a gentle oceanic swell.  Salvador nodded briefly when I straightened.  He pointed to a place close in front of him to his left.

By his right hand would have been better, but probably too much to hope for.  I sat where he had indicated, cross-legged.  Grandfather's room-size bed was the one place one was allowed to sit without a Sitting Board; the softness was oddly unsettling when one's buttocks were habituated to the hardness of wood.

He reached under one of the giant cushions at his back and produced a bottle and two chunky cut glasses.  He handed one glass to me, set the other on the shelf near him and poured us both some whisky.  More drink, I thought.  Ah well.

He raised his glass to me, though his expression remained serious.  We drank.  The whisky was smooth and I didn't cough.

He gave a great long sigh and sat back amongst the pillows.  He looked at his glass and then, slowly, to me.

'So, Isis: do you want to tell me why?' he asked; his deep, luxuriant voice sounded thick, half choked.

'Grandfather,' I said, 'I did not take the vial.  It was in my kit-bag.  I didn't know it was there until I found it when I was at Gertie Fossil's.'

He looked into my eyes for a long time.  I returned his gaze.  He shook his head and looked across the room.

'So you had no hand in this at all; no idea it had been put there?'

'None.'

'Well then, who do you want to accuse, Isis?

'I don't want to accuse anybody.  I've thought about who could have done this, and it could have been anybody.  I have no idea who.'

'I've been told that you claim there was a… note,' he said, pronouncing the last word with the effect of somebody picking something distasteful up by the corner between thumb and forefinger.

'It said, "In case you need it", or something similar; I can't remember the exact words.  It was signed with an "S".'

'But this has disappeared, of course.'

'Yes.'

'Weren't you even slightly suspicious?' he asked, a sour look on his face. 'Didn't it seem odd to you that I might have given you our most precious substance, our last link with Luskentyre, to take into the midst of the Unsaved?'

I looked down at my glass. 'I took it as a compliment,' I said.  My face felt warm. 'I was surprised and I was flattered, but it never crossed my mind to be suspicious; I thought that you were giving me your blessing and trying to ensure the success of my mission by giving me something which would both succour me and be of practical value.'

'And was it?  Of practical value, I mean.'

'No.'

'You took some.'

'I did.  It… I was not able to make use of it.  I don't know why.  I hoped to hear more clearly the Voice of God, but…'

'So you then tried one of the Unsaved's illegal drugs.'

'I did.'

'Which didn't work either.'

'It did not.'

He shook his head and drank the rest of the whisky in his glass.  He looked at my glass as he reached for the bottle.  I finished my drink too.  He refilled both glasses.  I cleared my throat, eyes watering.

'And am I to understand, Isis, that our Sister Morag's fame does not come from… holy music, or even music in any form, after all, but from performing the sexual act to be recorded on film and sold to whosoever of the Benighted might wish to purchase such a thing?'

'It would seem so.'

'You're sure?'

'Quite positive.  There was one close-up of her face in quite bright sunshine; she was sucking-'

'Yes.  Well, we'll believe you, on this, for now, Isis, but I dare say we shall have to confirm this for ourselves, unpleasant though the task might be.'

'That may be possible without having to harbour a television set amongst us; one of Brother Zeb's colleagues called Boz was sure that he had seen a pornographic magazine which featured Morag.'

Grandfather was shaking his head sadly.

'I think it's worth mentioning,' I said, 'that while I was unable to discover any evidence that Morag still plays music in public, it is still not impossible that she does so, though-'

'Oh, enough,' he said angrily.

'Well, it could still be-'

'What difference would it make, anyway?' he said loudly.  He gulped at his whisky.

I sipped mine. 'It could still be seen as holy work in a sense, Grandfather,' I said. 'Certainly it is done for profit and involves the means of the dissemination of lies and Clutter, but still the act itself is a holy one, and-'

'Oh,' he said, sneering at me over his glass. 'And what would you know about that, Isis?'

I felt my face colour again, but I did not let my gaze fall from his. 'What I know is what you have told me; what you have told us all, in your teachings!' I said.

He looked away. 'Teachings change,' he said, his voice rumbling like thunder from those dense clouds of hair.

I stared at him.  He was looking into his glass.

I swallowed. 'They surely cannot change to the extent that we join the Benighted in their fear of love!' I cried.

'No,' he told me. 'That's not what I meant.' He sighed, then nodded at my glass. 'Drink up; we'll find the truth of this yet.'

I drank, gulping the whisky down and almost gagging.  Was this some strange new ceremony?  Did we now believe that one could find the truth at the bottom of a bottle?  What was going on?  What was he talking about?  He refilled our glasses again.  He set the bottle down with a thump on the shelf between two heavy, flickering candles.

'Isis,' he said, and his voice was suddenly small and almost plaintive.  His eyes glittered. 'Isis; is any of this true?'

'All of it, Grandfather!' I said, leaning forward.  He reached out and took my free hand, holding it.

He shook his head in an angry, frustrated way, gulped some whisky down and said, 'I don't know, Isis; I don't know.' There were tears in his eyes. 'I'm told one thing, I'm told another thing; I don't know who to believe, who's telling the truth.' He drank some more. 'I know I'm old; I'm not young any more, but I'm not confused; I'm made confused, you see?  I hear people say things and I wonder if they can be true, and I listen to the Voice of God and I wonder sometimes if what They say can be right, though I know it must, so I wonder is it something in me?  But I know it can't be; after all these years… I just know, you see.  Do you see, child?'

'I think so, Grandfather.'

He squeezed my hand, which he still held, on the covers.

'Good girl.  Good girl.' He drained his glass, shook his head and gave a watery smile. 'You and me, Isis; we're the ones, aren't we?  You are my grandchild, but you are the Elect, special like me; aren't you?'