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He lay back and gathered his blanket roll about him. Rudi shook his head again, then sighed and did likewise. There was much to do; tomorrow they?d get to work.
Though getting people to do what?s needful is part of a Chief?s work, he thought. And bashing their heads not the best way of doing so, when another?s to be had. High King, though…
He shuddered again; bad enough to be Chief, even among a folk who mostly governed themselves. To handle a dozen lands, each as likely as not to quarrel with the others, would be a nightmare all his life long.
But… there?s a good deal that needs doing, and perhaps a High King could do it. More happily: And such a man would have to marry Matti, now wouldn?t he? For only as her handfasted man would the Associates accept him.
His thoughts quieted, and he drifted down into the soft darkness. But the Sword glowed against that velvet, turning as if it fell through stars and shadows, falling out of memory and time towards the hand he stretched up to grasp it.
As if he remembered wielding it on a stricken field.
TheSwordoftheLady
CHAPTER FIVE
?A vision of the Blessed Virgin??
Father Ignatius, priest and knight-brother of the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict, bowed his tonsured head to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Des Moines as the older man looked up from his written report, and put his hands inside the wide sleeves of his coarse monastic robe. The cleric had read it twice before the comment. ?I was honored beyond my worth, Your Eminence,? he said, with humility in his voice.
Suddenly his serious young face was lit up from within by a joy that he could feel filling him as candlelight did a glass globe. No detail of the meeting in the cold December mountains above Chenrezi Monastery had left him in the long months since, and neither had the happiness that plucked at his soul like a harpist?s fingers at a string. ?What can I do but strive all my life to be worthy of it?? he said, and only stern control kept the tears from his eyes.
The Prince of the Church leaned back in his chair, his crimson-sashed cassock rustling; his short-cropped beard and the little left of his hair were white, and his face lined and seamed beneath the red skullcap. The office was plain, as befitted a man of austerity, but it was large and paneled in smooth dark woods; this was the headquarters of the Church in the whole of the upper Mississippi Valley. The view gave on gardens, and not far away the lime-fueled searchlights of the perimeter wall around the old State Capitol where the Heasleroads now ruled. ?I must either pity your madness, or struggle against the sin of envy,? the Cardinal said.
Ignatius felt a flash of resentment at the skepticism he saw in the probing gaze; who was this hesitant old man to doubt him? There was no time for delay!
The Princess I am commanded to guard and serve by the Queen of Angels is in need of his help, and he dares to question me?
Ignatius had learned discipline in hard schools; as a smallholder?s son, and as novice, brother and ordinand at Mt. Angel. Not least he had learned the discipline of the self. He bowed his head a little further; when he raised his face again it was calm, whatever turmoil clenched his soul within. He catalogued the objects within sight, as an aid to self-control. A prie-dieu stood in one corner, and a fine crucifix on the wall behind the desk between two tall open windows, and a photograph-post-Change-of the late Pope on the mahogany surface.
Ignatius met those eyes for an instant, the haunted indomitable gaze of a survivor who had seen a world die and flinched from nothing as he worked to build anew from the rubble. Then he raised his own eyes for a long moment to the Man upon the Cross, and felt a flush of shame.
Forgive me, Lord, and help me put down pride. Always we crucify You, over and over again. Help me find the courage to follow where You lead, to take up my cross and make of all suffering an offering to You.
The older man sighed and touched strong stubby fingers to his brow. Then he looked at the documents Ignatius had presented with their seals and ribbons; he flicked one of them aside slightly, with a rustle of stiff official paper. ?You bring glowing recommendations from the head of your Order, and favorable ones from Cardinal-Archbishop Maxwell in Portland; the more favorable for being slightly grudging. As it happens I knew the Cardinal-Archbishop before the Change; we were young men together in Rome for a time. And of course Badia has kept me informed of the founding and growth of your Order. Nor is the vision without precedent even in recent times; there is St. Maximillian Kolbe…?
Ignatius nodded gravely; he?d studied that when he was a novice. The Virgin had appeared to Kolbe when he was a boy in Poland about a hundred years ago now, offering him a choice between the red crown of martyrdom and the white of purity. He?d chosen both… and been sent to Auschwitz for sheltering Jews in his monastery during the great war of the previous century. And died there when he volunteered his own life in place of a younger man with a family.
The tale was daunting, but strengthening as well. Kolbe had died of thirst and starvation and then poison in that mortal-made antechamber of Hell. And died blessing the men who killed him so slowly and so cruelly, begging them to seek God?s forgiveness for their souls before it was too late. That was what the Faith could make of a man, or a man make of the Faith.
Can I reach such heights? he asked himself. Then he looked up once more to the Man of Sorrows. Dare I do less? Be ye perfect, He commanded.
The Cardinal went on:?And I do not think you are mad, my son. But I am not altogether sure that you are to be envied. You have received a stupendous honor; but from such men much is demanded.? ?Thank you for your trust in me, Father,? Ignatius said; his gaze flicked back to the great carved Rood.
The elderly man suddenly smiled.?Yes, yes, there is always that. How dare we decline a burden, when we are called to imitate Him? But are you aware of the honor done you? She herself called upon you to be her champion?? ?You shall be my knight, Karl Bergfried,? Ignatius said quietly, wonder in his tone.?And…?
The worn wise Jewish face, a smile as tender as motherhood itself, and the glimpse of a soul that blazed with a fire of majesty and power like the jeweled radiance at the heart of suns. His hand went to his forehead, remembering the touch of that finger, and the world dissolving in joy. ?… it is impossible to describe, Father; though I had the tongues of men and of angels.?
The Cardinal crossed himself.?This report must be dispatched to the Curia and the Holy Father in Badia by the next courier boat down the Mississippi,? he mused.?Both the vision, and the knowledge you have won of the Cutter cult, will be of the greatest value to Holy Mother Church.?
Ignatius nodded grimly and signed himself in turn; the skin over his spine and groin crawled at the memory of what he?d seen. Of Kuttner pulling himself up Rudi Mackenzie?s sword, laughing between teeth bright with arterial blood and reaching for the living man?s throat with dead hands. ?That is not simply heresy and lust for power,? he said. ?Diabolism is at work. The power of the Enemy is made manifest through Corwin.? ?Those who would sell their souls usually find a buyer, to their eternal regret,? the Cardinal said; his fingers traced the cross again.?Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. And we must certainly give you every aid in the Church?s gift here.?
He sighed.?My only fear is that that may not be as much as you need. We have little secular influence in Iowa, and while God has favored this state in many ways, it is…?