“To the left, I think,” said Jane. Mercifully, she was using her own voice now. “The monastery is at the western edge of the hill, overlooking the Zenador's Station.”
He passed alongside the faculdade, where students from the age of twelve studied the higher sciences. And there, low to the ground, the monastery lay waiting. He smiled at the contrast between the cathedral and the monastery. The Filhos were almost offensive in their rejection of magnificence. No wonder the hierarchy resented them wherever they went. Even the monastery garden made a rebellious statement– everything that wasn't a vegetable garden was abandoned to weeds and unmown grass.
The abbot was called Dom Crist o, of course; it would have been Dona Crist o had the abbot been a woman. In this place, because there was only one escola baixa and one faculdade, there was only one principal; with elegant simplicity, the husband headed the monastery and his wife the schools, enmeshing all the affairs of the order in a single marriage. Ender had told San Angelo right at the beginning that it was the height of pretension, not humility at all, for the leaders of the monasteries and schools to be called «Sir Christian» or «Lady Christian,» arrogating to themselves a title that should belong to every follower of Christ impartially. San Angelo had only smiled– because, of course, that was precisely what he had in mind. Arrogant in his humility, that's what he was, and that was one of the reasons that I loved him.
Dom Crist o came out into the courtyard to greet him instead of waiting for him in his escritorio– part of the discipline of the order was to inconvenience yourself deliberately in favor of those you serve. «Speaker Andrew!» he cried. «Dom Ceifeiro!» Ender called in return. Ceifeiro– reaper– was the order's own title for the office of abbot; school principals were called Aradores, plowmen, and teaching monks were Semeadores, sowers.
The Ceifeiro smiled at the Speaker's rejection of his common title, Dom Crist o. He knew how manipulative it was to require other people to call the Filhos by their titles and made-up names. As San Angelo said, «When they call you by your title, they admit you are a Christian; when they call you by your name, a sermon comes from their own lips.» He took Ender by the shoulders, smiled, and said, «Yes, I'm the Ceifeiro. And what are you to us– our infestation of weeds?»
“I try to be a blight wherever I go.”
“Beware, then, or the Lord of the Harvest will burn you with the tares.”
“I know– damnation is only a breath away, and there's no hope of getting me to repent.”
“The priests do repentance. Our job is teaching the mind. It was good of you to come.”
“It was good of you to invite me here. I had been reduced to the crudest sort of bludgeoning in order to get anyone to converse with me at all.”
The Ceifeiro understood, of course, that the Speaker knew the invitation had come only because of his inquisitorial threat. But Brother Amai preferred to keep the discussion cheerful. “Come, now, is it true you knew San Angelo? Are you the very one who Spoke his death?”
Ender gestured toward the tall weeds peering over the top of the courtyard wall. “He would have approved of the disarray of your garden. He loved provoking Cardinal Aquila, and no doubt your Bishop Peregrino also curls his nose in disgust at your shoddy groundskeeping.”
Dom Crist o winked. «You know too many of our secrets. If we help you find answers to your questions, will you go away?»
“There's hope. The longest I've stayed anywhere since I began serving as a Speaker was the year and a half I lived in Reykjavik, on Trondheim.”
“I wish you'd promise us a similar brevity here. I ask, not for myself, but for the peace of mind of those who wear much heavier robes than mine.”
Ender gave the only sincere answer that might help set the Bishop's mind at ease. “I promise that if I ever find a place to settle down, I'll shed my title of Speaker and become a productive citizen.”
“In a place like this, that would include conversion to Catholicism.”
“San Angelo made me promise years ago that if I ever got religion, it would be his.”
“Somehow that does not sound like a sincere protestation of faith.”
“That's because I haven't any.”
The Ceifeiro laughed as if he knew better, and insisted on showing Ender around the monastery and the schools before getting to Ender's questions. Ender didn't mind– he wanted to see how far San Angelo's ideas had come in the centuries since his death. The schools seemed pleasant enough, and the quality of education was high; but it was dark before the Ceifeiro led him back to the monastery and into the small cell that he and his wife, the Aradora, shared.
Dona Crist was already there, creating a series of grammatical exercises on the terminal between the beds. They waited until she found a stopping place before addressing her.
The Ceifeiro introduced him as Speaker Andrew. «But he seems to find it hard to call me Dom Crist o.»
"So does the Bishop," said his wife. "My true name is Detestai o Pecado e Fazei o Direito." Hate Sin and Do the Right, Ender translated. "My husband's name lends itself to a lovely shortening– Amai, love ye. But mine? Can you imagine shouting to a friend, Oi! Detestai! " They all laughed. "Love and Loathing, that's who we are, husband and wife. What will you call me, if the name Christian is too good for me?"
Ender looked at her face, beginning to wrinkle enough that someone more critical than he might call her old. Still, there was laughter in her smile and a vigor in her eyes that made her seem much younger, even younger than Ender. “I would call you Beleza, but your husband would accuse me of flirting with you.”
«No, he would call me Beladona– from beauty to poison in one nasty little joke. Wouldn't you, Dom Crist o?»
“It's my job to keep you humble.”
“Just as it's my job to keep you chaste,” she answered.
At that, Ender couldn't help looking from one bed to the other.
“Ah, another one who's curious about our celibate marriage,” said the Ceifeiro.
“No,” said Ender. “But I remember San Angelo urging husband and wife to share a single bed.”
“The only way we could do that,” said the Aradora, “is if one of us slept at night and the other in the day.”
“The rules must be adapted to the strength of the Filhos da Mente,” the Ceifeiro explained. “No doubt there are some that can share a bed and remain celibate, but my wife is still too beautiful, and the lusts of my flesh too insistent.”
“That was what San Angelo intended. He said that the marriage bed should be the constant test of your love of knowledge. He hoped that every man and woman in the order would, after a time, choose to reproduce themselves in the flesh as well as in the mind.”
“But the moment we do that,” said the Ceifeiro, “then we must leave the Filhos.”
“It's the thing our dear San Angelo did not understand, because there was never a true monastery of the order during his life,” said the Aradora. “The monastery becomes our family, and to leave it would be as painful as divorce. Once the roots go down, the plant can't come up again without great pain and tearing. So we sleep in separate beds, and we have just enough strength to remain in our beloved order.”
She spoke with such contentment that quite against his will, Ender's eyes welled with tears. She saw it, blushed, looked away. “Don't weep for us, Speaker Andrew. We have far more joy than suffering.”
“You misunderstand,” said Ender. “My tears weren't for pity, but for beauty.”
“No,” said the Ceifeiro, “even the celibate priests think that our chastity in marriage is, at best, eccentric.”
“But I don't,” said Ender. For a moment he wanted to tell them of his long companionship with Valentine, as close and loving as a wife, and yet chaste as a sister. But the thought of her took words away from him. He sat on the Ceifeiro's bed and put his face in his hands.