“At all odds, if thou hast come to guide our High Warlock, I fear thou hast wasted time and effort,” Father Cotterson said firmly. “I assure thee, Father, we are equal to that task.” They came to a halt at the monastery gates. Father Cotterson pounded on them with a fist, shouting, “Ho, porter!”

“I am sure that thou art,” Father Al murmured as the huge leaves swung open. “Yet the prime task given me, Father, is to seek out the truth regarding our prophecy. If nought else, my mission is well-spent simply in the learning so much of a flock we had thought lost—and better spent in finding that they are not lost at all, but exceedingly well cared for.”

Father Cotterson fairly beamed at the compliment. “We do what we can, Father—though we are sorely tried by too little gold, and too few vocations.”

“I assure thee, Father, ‘tis the case on every world where humanity doth bide.” Father Al looked about him as they came into a wide, walled yard. “A fair House you hold, Father, and exceedingly well-kept.”

“Why, I thank thee, Father Uwell. Wilt thou taste our wines?”

“Aye, with a right good will. I would fane see summat of this goodly land of thine, Father, and thy folk. Canst thou provide me with means of transport, and one to guide me?”

The thaw reversed itself, and Father Cotterson frosted up again. “Why… aye, certes, Father. Thou shalt have thy pick of the mules, and a Brother for guide. But I must needs enjoin thee not to leave this our House, till the Lord Abbot hath returned, and held thee in converse.”

“Indeed, ‘tis only courtesy, Father,” Father Al said easily.

“Yet most needful,” Father Cotterson said, in a tone of apology that had iron beneath it. “Our good Lord Abbot must impress upon thee, Father, how strictly thou must guard thy tongue outside these walls. For these people have lived for centuries in a changeless Middle Ages, look you, and any hint of modern ways will seem to them to be sorcery, and might shake their faith. And, too, ‘twould cause avalanches of change in this land, and bring ruin and misery to many.”

“I assure thee, Father, I come to verify what is here, not to change it,” Father Al said softly.

But something in the way Father Cotterson had said it assured Father Al that, if he waited for the Abbot, he might spend the rest of his life waiting. After all, he had taken an oath of obedience, and the Abbot might see himself as Father Al’s lawful superior, entitled to give binding orders—and might resent it if Father Al chose to honor the Pope’s orders over those of an Abbot. His resentment might be rather forcibly expressed—and, though Father Al valued times of quiet contemplation in his cell, he preferred that the cell be above ground, and that the door not be locked from the outside.

 

“…per omnia saecula saeculorum,” Father Cotterson intoned.

“Amen,” responded fifty monks, finishing the grace.

Father Cotterson sat, in his place at the center of the head table, and the other monks followed suit. Father Al was seated at Father Cotterson’s right hand, in the guest’s place of honor.

“Who are servitors tonight?” Father Cotterson asked.

“Father Alphonse in the kitchen, Father.” One of the monks rose and stripped off his robe, revealing a monk’s-cloth coverall beneath. “And myself, at the table.”

“I thank thee, Brother Bertram,” Father Cotterson answered, as the monk floated up over the refectory table and hung there, hovering face-down above the board. Father Alphonse bustled out of the kitchen with a loaded tray and passed it to Brother Bertram, who drifted down to the monk farthest from the head table and held the platter down for the monk to serve himself.

Father Cotterson turned to Father Al. “Is this custom still maintained in all chapters of the Order, Father—that each monk becomes servitor in his turn, even the Abbot?”

“Well… yes.” Father Al stared at Brother Bertram, his eyes fairly bulging. “But, ah—not quite in this manner.”

“How so?” Father Cotterson frowned up at Brother Bertram. “Oh—thou dost speak of his levitation. Well, many of our brethren do not have the trick of it; they, of necessity, walk the length of the tables. Still, ‘tis more efficient in this fashion, for those that can do it.”

“I doubt it not.” Father Al felt a thrill course through him; his heart began to sing. “Are there those amongst thee who can move the dishes whilst they remain seated?”

“Telekinesis?” Father Cotterson frowned. “Nay; the gene for it is sex-linked, and only females have the ability. Though Brother Mordecai hath pursued some researches into the matter. How doth thy experiments progress, Brother?”

A lean monk swallowed and shook his head. “Not overly well, Father.” The salt-cellar at the center of the table trembled, rose a few inches, then fell with a clatter. Brother Mordecai shrugged. “I can do no better; yet I hope for improvement, with practice.”

Father Al stared at the salt-cellar. “But—thou didst just say the trait was sex-linked!”

“Aye; yet my sister is telekinetic, and we are both telepaths; so I have begun to attempt to draw on her powers, with the results thou dost see.” Brother Mordecai speared a slab of meat as Brother Bertram drifted past him. “She, too, doth make the attempt, and doth draw on mine ability. To date, she hath managed to levitate three centimeters, when she doth lie supine.”

Father Cotterson nodded, with pursed lips. “I had not known she had made so much progress.”

“But…but…” Father Al managed to get his tongue working again. “Is there no danger that she will learn of the technology thou dost so wish to keep hidden?”

“Nay.” Brother Mordecai smiled. “She is of our sister Order.”

“The Anodeans?”

Father Cotterson nodded, smiling. “It doth warm my heart, Father, to learn that our Orders are maintained still, on other worlds.”

“Yet ‘tis indeed a problem of security,” another monk volunteered. “Our old disciplines seem to wear thin, Father Cotterson, in the closing of our minds to the espers without our Order.”

Father Cotterson stiffened. “Hath one of the King’s ‘witch-folk’ learned of technology from our minds, Father Ignatius?”

“I think not,” the monk answered. “Yet, the whiles I did meditate on mine electrolyte vies an hour agone, I did sense an echo, an harmonic to my thoughts. I did, of course, listen, and sensed the mind of a babe in resonance with mine. So ‘tis not an immediate threat; yet the child will, assuredly, grow.”

“Might not his parents have been listening to his thoughts!”

“Nay; I sensed no further resonance. And yet I think it matters little; the babe’s mind held an image of his mother, and ‘twas the High Warlock’s wife.”

Father Cotterson relaxed. “Aye, ‘tis small danger there; Lady Gallowglass cannot have escaped learning something of technology, and must assuredly comprehend the need of silence on the issue.”

“I take it, then, thou hast found ways of shielding thy minds from other telepaths?” Father Al burst in.

“Indeed.” Father Cotterson nodded. “ ‘Tis linked with the meditation of prayer, Father, in which the mind is closed to the outside world, but opened toward God. Yet it doth seem we’ll have to seek new ways to strengthen such closure. Brother Milaine, thou’It attend to it?”

A portly monk nodded. “Assuredly, Father.”

“Research is, of course, common amongst we who are cloistered within this monastery,” Father Cotterson explained.

Father Al nodded. “ ‘Twould not be a House of St. Vidicon, otherwise. Yet I assume such activity is forbidden to thy parish priests.”

“Nay; ‘tis more simply done.” Father Cotterson started cutting his ounce of meat. “Monks trained for the parishes are taught only their letters and numbers, and theology; only those who take monastic vows are trained in science and technology.”

“A practical system,” Father Al admitted, “though I mislike secrecy of knowledge.”