The Balance Ch. 13-18

His eyes sought hers. "I would be careful, Angela, if I were you. I would be very careful. Before this contest is over, he will come to you. And there will be questions about our time together. And sooner or later, there will be a threat made. About how ill things could go for you if it seems you are favoring our cause..."

Angela laughed in disdain, "You flatter yourself overmuch, Abiron. Just because you have told a pleasant story and are not unpleasant to look at, you think you have me under your spell. And now you think to protect me from a member of my own faith! While Ulf is not the companion I would have chosen for this journey, I have nothing to fear from him."

She stood, "I must thank you for a diverting time, Abiron, but I think that is enough for one day. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow." her voice was light, but there was a hint of something else in her eyes.

Abiron rose as well and bowed slightly. "I look forward to it as well, Sister." He watched as she walked quickly away and back to her lodgings.

Chapter 15

"Well, how did it go?" Ariana asked, as Abiron entered their suite.

"Not badly. I told the Origin Myth, and did it rather well, I think. She was interested, at least, though she dismissed it as a fairy tale. I managed to get in a dig at Ulf, in the form of a warning about her safety. With any luck, that will help to divide them. Ulf is not the sort to keep his mouth shut about us, and when he opens it, it will reinforce what I have said."

"And if he does keep his mouth shut?"

"Then we haven't lost a thing. We're playing long odds, Mother. We will have to take risks."

"Don't I know it. I kissed our gentle Brother Paul today."

"What?"

"Don't look so shocked. You know that he is half-besotted with me already. And I did it as a farewell gesture. Right now he is so confused that he won't say a word about it, and will spend all night hoping that it happens again tomorrow."

Ariana smiled slightly, "I told the Origin Myth as well. He dealt with it somewhat better than Angela did, I think. He looked at it as an intellectual exercise. However, when I pointed out that even his holy books did not discount the possibility of other gods, he was surprised. That is going to put a dint in his armor."

####

In the halls of the palace, Paul walked in a daze. She had kissed him! Of course, he said to himself, it was not as if she had torn his clothes off and ravaged him then and there, but still!

Have done, he thought, pausing at an intersection of two corridors. It was a simple gesture farewell. Any mother saying good-bye to her son would do the same. And it probably means as much, he thought bitterly.

If he knew then the relationship between Ariana and her son, he would have been both immeasurably cheered and incredibly terrified by this thought.

A scrape behind him drew his attention back to his immediate surroundings. One of the two guardsmen who had been assigned to him for the duration of the contest smiled apologetically.

"Sorry. Not used to being on my feet this long."

Alan smiled, recognizing the accent of his own homeland. He looked at the guard, a man of middle years and height, with graying brown hair and a little too much weight around his middle.

"What in the world is a Scot doing in this place?"

"The same thing you are. Trying to convert the heathen to the everlasting glory of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ."

"Really?" Alan's eyes shone.

"No. Not really," the guards eyes gleamed in amusement. Beside him, the other guard snickered, then drew himself up to something approaching a military stance.

"You will have to forgive the Corporal here, Brother. He has a regrettable lack of discipline, even for a Scot."

Alan smiled, "No offense taken. I know that my faith is not popular here. May I at least have your names?"

"I am called John," said the first guard.

"And I am Kristopher," said the second, who Alan now noticed, was wearing a sergeant's plume. He was taller and thinner than John, but had the same brown hair and blue eyes as the other.

"At the risk of seeming repetitive, can you tell me what a guard from Scotland is doing in this country?"

"Thrown out," said John. And he was not smiling now.

"Your own damn fault," said the sergeant.

"Keep pushing my buttons, sarge. Maybe I'll tell a certain lady on Carpenter's Street that you are not as available as you would like her to think," he sighed and turned back to Alan.

"He's telling the truth, in his own aggravating way," he said, "I'm a free thinker. I liked to sleep late in the morning and not spend Sundays and feast days and holy days and saint's days on my knees in a cold damn drafty church, giving thanks that I hadn't died in a plague, or being told how I was going to burn for eternity if I didn't give my lord and the church my labor three days out of every seven. So I quit."

"Quit? Quit what?"

"I quit going to church. And I quit working my lords' land. And then my lord and the church saw fit to throw me out of my shire. Which was fine with me, since I had no family and no desire to stay."

"And you call yourself a free thinker?"

"Yes."

"And what is that, exactly?"

"Here we go," groaned the sergeant, leaning against the wall. He turned up his eyes as one who has heard it all before, and has no desire to hear it again.

"A free thinker," said John, "Is someone who is not trapped by ancient superstition. He believes only in evidence supported by what he can observe with his waking mind. He is not tied to the past, but works toward a brighter future..."

"...and is terribly smug about it," interrupted Kristopher, "Your pardon, Brother," he said, with a significant look at John, "he did not mean to impugn your religion. John is, when all is said and done, an atheist. He does not believe in anything he can't see for himself. And because of his expulsion from his own land, he has some unpleasant things to say about Christianity."

"Wait a minute," said John, "I have always said that I admire the Judeo-Christian ethic as a working foundation..."

"And then you always find a way to insult Christians. Will you just shut up? We are trying to be polite to our guests, not antagonize them. The fact that you find most religion offensive is not helping here."

Uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was taking, Alan turned his attention to the sergeant, "And you my lord, do you hail from outside this land as well?"

The sergeant laughed, "No lord, me. But my family is somewhat higher born than my sacreligious friend, here," he smiled at John, and Alan could see there was true friendship there, despite the sniping between them."And yes, I am not a native of this place. My homeland is to the north and east of here."

"And how did you come here?" asked Alan, hoping that the tale would be somewhat more cheerful than John's story of rebellion and exile.

Sergeant Kristopher's face clouded. John looked grim and turned away.

"I was young. And made a marriage that I thought would be pleasing. Both my parents and hers were in favor of the match. But I found that while my wife was pleasant with others around, she became less so when it was only the two of us alone. And in the bedchamber..." he reddened and became silent.

"She turned him away from the act of love," John said. His voice was soft and sympathetic, and Paul could now see plainly the deep friendship he bore the other.

"I tried to get a divorce. An annulment. Neither of the two of us were happy, and what point a marriage if both are miserable? Or even one? But the priest," and here his voice was full of choked fury, "and his bishop both demanded far more money for the annulment than I was able to pay. I had two choices. Live a life with a woman who could not stand my touch, or sell my land to get an annulment. I took the third. I left my wife, let her keep the land, and left the country entirely. She will be well. She has a couple of cousins who can help her work the farm. She may even be happier without me. I know I am happier without her. I eventually made my way here, enlisted as a private, and have worked my way to sergeant.

"But I can't get married again. Not legally. John was right a few minutes ago. I can't promise a woman anything longer than a nights' pleasure. Thanks to the greed of a priest and the teachings of my church."

"You've done well, here, though, Kris. You're the best man I know."

"Oh, shut up, will you? Before you know it we'll be getting drunk again and singing those terrible Scots border ballads you love so much. You could be captain, you know, if you weren't so damn happy being a corporal."

"I know," John said agreeably, "but then I couldn't be in your squad, and who else would put up with me? Besides," he said, "I am terminally unambitious and don't get along well with others. And have you forgotten that you had to take me off the morning watch because I would never get up on time for muster? I'd be a rotten captain."

Paul looked at this interplay in amazement. An atheist and a man running away from a failed marriage, both in positions of responsibility, one of them a sergeant in the palace guard? Little though he knew of the setup of castles in his own country, he could not imagine such a thing taking place.

"But tell us of yourself, young Brother," said Kristopher, "Before this reprobate got your attention, you were standing there in the hallway like you had been pole-axed. I am sure the High Priestess did not treat you badly, did she?"

"No indeed," said Paul with a uncomfortable smile, "She was courtesy itself. But you have to admit that she is somewhat of an imposing lady."

"That she is. I have heard rumors that the king himself asked for her hand, when they were both younger. She has a sharp wit and a kind heart, if all I hear is true. And she is very comely, is she not?" and here the sergeant reddened slightly.

"And you call me out for teasing the poor lad!" said John. "Your pardon, Brother. But it is said here that the priests and priestesses of the Deity take on some of the aspects of the Divine. And truth be told, I have never seen an ugly priestess during all my time here."

"She kissed me," Paul blurted. Then he wished he could sink into the ground, never to be heard from again. He waited for the raillery he was sure would come, or the smirks as the soldiers made mock of him.

"As I said, a touch of the divine," said John. "I shouldn't give any credence to it, not being given to believing in that sort of thing, but I have seen it myself. Look at you. Shiny faced and eager to convert the heathen, and sad and lonely and longing for home. And herself a priestess in the service of a deity that gives comfort in all its forms? Of course she kissed you. And if you had bad news from home, if a good friend or family member had died, she would listen while you told her and she would hold you while you wept.

"Enough of this standing around. We are off duty now that your time with our lady is over. What say you come with us for a bite and a sup? We know a good place that serves a good meal."

Paul considered the offer. He knew he probably shouldn't. Lambert would disapprove, Ulf would foam at the mouth, And Angela? What would Angela think? For the first time, the opinion of his third companion rose in his mind. I should speak with her, thought. I should see how her time went with the other, this Abiron.

He smiled at his two new friends.

"Let's go. I'm starving."

Chapter 16

Paul was beginning to wonder if he had made a serious mistake.

John and Kris were good companions, but a small voice which had started in the back of his mind had begun making itself heard in the front. Speaking with the common folk was all very well and good, this voice claimed, but only so far as it pertained to actually converting them to his faith. A chance meeting in a hallway, followed by a trip to the barracks while his new friends changed into off-duty attire, and then a hike into town and a shared table in a tap-room might be taking the affair a little too far.

Paul frowned and told the voice to shut up. The room was loud, though not uncomfortably so. He was sitting beside Kristopher in a booth, while John somehow managed to take up a whole side on his own, shoulders wedged into one corner and his legs splayed along the bench. "Damned winter," he groused. "Thank god we are out of the armor, or we would have frostbite on places we can't even reach."

"You don't believe in god," Kristopher pointed out, having just returned from the bar.

"Piss off," John said happily. "You don't point out the untenable points in my own philosophy, and I won't mock you for being a sheep-humping barbarian. Where's the food?"

"On the way," he looked at Paul. "Hope you don't mind that I ordered for you. This place has a limited menu, but what they have is good. It doesn't look like you were prepared to pay for a meal anyway. Don't worry," he said, catching Paul's look of alarm, "I'll cover for you. Or he will, provided he has saved enough out of his pay this month."

John's rejoinder was lost in the arrival of plates and trays from the bar. Paul looked hungrily at what was put on the table. His monastery had not overfed its tenants, and although his inclusion in this embassy should have resulted in a nominal improvement in his diet, the servants detailed to provide him with his daily meals had not seemed over-enthusiastic about their tasks. Correspondingly, this looked to be his best meal in several months. There was bread, butter, cheese, fried fish, and a heaping plate of mushrooms and onions.

John came out of his half-snooze in the corner, and immediately set to work. In a trice he had hacked off two slices of bread, anointed them in a sauce strange to Paul, and placed a portion of fish between them. Taking a huge bite he sighed, and then washed it down with gulp of ale from the mug set before him.

"Now I can die a happy man."

"Not yet," Kristopher replied, "We have duty tomorrow. Have to make sure this boy here doesn't get into any mischief," he said with a glance at Paul.

Paul, who was working on a piece of fish of his own, along with a goodly helping of mushrooms, was startled. "What do you mean? How would I get into mischief?"

"Don't worry yourself, boy," said John. "What Kris here is saying is that we seem to have been assigned to your meetings with the High Priestess, for the time being. We're to make sure that no one disturbs the two of you, or attempts to influence you while you are on your own."

Paul relaxed, then tensed, looking at the doorway. "By all the saints, how did he find me here?"

The sergeant followed his glance and cursed softly. "John, are you still sober?"

"Sober enough. Why?"

"Because we are about to have company, and I want you to make sure I don't run this bastard through."

"What with?" John asked calmly, "Your sword is in the barracks, and you'll pardon me for saying so, but I don't think your other sword is long or sharp enough to do what you have in mind.

"Also," he said, as Brother Ulf stalked up to the table, "You'll probably catch something unpleasant."

Ulf stood, glaring down at the three of them. They looked back up. Kristopher in active dislike, John in amusement, Paul in apprehension.

"Paul, you will come with me," Ulf said. "Now."

Paul hesitated. "See, this is exactly what I was talking about when we were having our argument last week," John said to Kristopher. "Put sixpence of black wool on a man and mumble some Latin over him and he thinks he owns you, body and soul. Put a quarter-pound of gold around his finger and he thinks he owns a town. Give him a little more gold and a stupid hat and he thinks he owns a country. Give me an honest pirate any time. At least he doesn't tell you that god made him do it while he is fucking you."

Paul gasped, Kristopher smiled bitterly, and Ulf turned white.

"How dare you mock the Lord?" he thundered.

"Piss off. No one was mocking your god. We were mocking you. Do try to remember the difference," Kris said. "Paul, do you want to go anywhere with this ass-napkin?"

Paul stuttered, "Well, I hadn't finished eating yet..."

"Right," Kris said. He looked at Ulf. "Listen. I don't like you. My friend here despises you and everything you stand for. Most of the people in this room would happily tie a rock to your ankles, row you into the harbor, and see if you could breathe water. I know you think you were terribly clever by following us down here so you could squeal to Lambert about how we were threatening Brother Paul with death and mayhem unless he recanted his faith. But by now you know that nothing of the sort is taking place. My advice? Leave. We'll make sure Brother Paul gets back to his rooms. And no one," he said significantly, "is going to threaten him while we are around. Got it?"

Ulf paused, then nodded. His face twisted in a smile that, for once, seemed more respectful than feral. "I will remember," he said, "Paul, I will see you in the morning." He turned and stalked out of the tavern.

"What an amazingly dull fellow," John remarked. "Who wants another beer?"

Chapter 17

"...but surely you'll admit, Abiron, that for one god to take on the aspects of a dozen different...avatars...strains credulity. Why have a dozen to worship when one will do?"

"And has not your god appeared in different ways to different men? Let us not forget Moses and the burning bush, or the various times your god appeared as a voice from the clouds or the wind. Even your holy trinity has many of the same characteristics. And may I be forgiven for saying it, Angela, but your god seems to me to be one wholly unworthy of worship in the first place. How can you honor a deity who is so lacking in moral fiber?"

"Moral fiber? The commandments which he has given to us are..."

"Nothing more than an attempt to shackle a willingly oppressed people," Abiron's face was grim. Angela was surprised. In her first few meetings with the priest, she had been sure that he was nothing more than an amusing plaything which the High Priestess had chosen for his good looks and his prowess in the bedchamber. His amiable attitude during their first debate had done nothing to disabuse her of this notion. However, she was finding this morning, the second day of the contest, that his pleasant face masked a mind which was at least the match of her own.

And now she was finding out just how repugnant he found her faith.

"Let's take a look at these commandments, can we? The first four are nothing more than keeping those in power in power. Primarily, the priesthood. They state," Abiron said, ticking the points off on his fingers, "First: 'I'm God. Do what I say'. Second: 'No other Gods allowed, or you are in BIG trouble.' Third: 'I get one day a week, so you can worship me.' And fourth: 'By the way, if you feel like getting uppity, listen to your father and mother, because they are on my side'." Angela fought off a distressing urge to smile.

"That's the first four. The rest are a little more tolerable. But not much. No murder. No adultery. No stealing. No false witness. And to emphasize the ban against stealing, we get two commandments about not coveting other people's belongings."

"Well, what in the world is wrong with a ban on murder? Or theft?" said Angela.

"Nothing is wrong with a ban on those. But Angela, haven't you thought about how your god wraps the few decent pieces of philosophy he has with so much pain and suffering? Look at the 10^th commandment. Men are banned from coveting their neighbor's wife. But nothing is said about women coveting a neighbor's husband. Why? Because the god, or men, who wrote that commandment could not conceive of a world where their wives would not be satisfied with them. Women were to be tame, placid creatures, while it was the men who had to be restrained from the sinful effects of a woman's nefarious wiles, sent to tempt them."