The Spell-Bound Scholar

Chapter 11

Then the current ceased, he took his hand away, and, looking within herself, Clothilde found that all bitterness and hatred were gone. She remembered the slights and injuries the villagers had given her, but they seemed remote now, almost as things that had happened to another person, and brought no renewal of hurt with them.

The monk asked her, "Do you wish these rules?"

"Aye," she whispered, "with all mine heart." And she bent her knees, seeking to kneel to him—but he upheld her, protesting, "I am only a man, sister in Christ; you must not kneel to me. I am only a man who tries to be good and to do good but does not always succeed."

"You have done a world of good to me and mine," Clothilde whispered.

"Then do for others as I have done for you. That is the first of the rules of Order for healing: that you will use this knowledge only to aid folk, save in defense of yourself or those in your care—and you will find that, even then, you can betimes turn attack by giving aid."

"I shall," Clothilde breathed.

"This is well enough, but I shall require more of you— that you will use this knowledge to aid any who are ill who may come your way, and will never turn away from a person who is sick."

Now Clothilde frowned, and 'twas she who sought as she gazed into his eyes, wondering at his reasons for asking that promise of her. At last, "I shall live by those rules," Clothilde promised, "and shall do all I may to raise an Order in living by it."

"Stout heart!" The monk smiled at last, a full and brilliant smile, then of a sudden frowned and looked aside. "I feel another's pain—great pain, and I must go to heal it as quickly as I may. I shall come again if I can, to give your Order a name. Godspeed to your work!''

"Where do you go?"

"Wheresoever I am needed. Farewell!"

The door closed behind him, and Clothilde pushed herself up from her pallet, tottered to the portal, and wrenched it open—but he was nowhere to be seen, nor was there sign of him in the falling snow.

" 'Twas a miracle," one of the nuns whispered.

"It may have been." But Mother Superior's tones were cautious. "Still, he may have been only a monk like any other. We have learned that the friars at the monastery are ever searching for new knowledge of the uses of these strange powers with which some folk are born ..."

Gwen thought of telling them that very few outside the planet of Gramarye were born with psi powers, but decided against it.

"... and he may have been one such monk, abroad on a mission for the Abbot. Surely we have found that there is naught miraculous in the cure he worked, for we have learned the manner of it ourselves; and the pot that never emptied may simply have been a large one, and the portions small."

"Yet there was the scar," one of the older ones noted.

"Aye—the mark of burning from wrist to wrist, up his arms and across his chest." Mother Superior nodded. "He may have been cruelly hurted when young, and known from his own pain the need for forgiveness of which he spoke."

"Or . . . ?" Gwen knew Mother Superior was only trying to provide a rational explanation for something her nuns saw as miraculous—and Mother didn't answer her question. She sat back and waited, and an older nun reminded Gwen, "The saintly Father Vidicon was burned in such a manner by lightning, which wrought his death."

Gwen lifted her head in surprise. Father Vidicon had taken hold of two high-voltage wires, knowing the electricity would kill him. In this culture, they would think of that as lightning.

She was about to point out that the burn would have been interior with no scars except those on his hands, but decided against it. People need their illusions. "You do, then, believe your convent was begun by a visitation of the sainted Father Vidicon himself?"

" 'Tis possible," Mother Superior allowed, "though there is no good reason to believe it, save our own desire."

Most of the nuns bowed their heads, and the few who didn't fought down smiles, but their eyes were lively.

Privately, Gwen agreed with what Mother Superior had said, though obviously did not want to believe—that the monk had been only a man, though obviously a highly skilled esper. "Do you know this monk's semblance? Is there any image of him?"

"Aye, for Meryl witnessed this conversation, nodding in and out of sleep, and was skilled with the brush." The Mother Superior rose. "An you will come to our chapel, I shall show you his portrait."

To Gwen, it seemed an odd place for a picture of the founder, but she dutifully rose with the rest of the nuns. Mother Superior bowed her head and said a short prayer before she dismissed her charges and took Gwen out through the cloister to the chapel.

"Another bite! Another! Aye, there's a man! Chew that beef! Gulp it down! Well done! Only two more bites, now! Masticate! Macerate! Chew, engorge! Finish it all!"

"Geoffrey," said Cordelia, "I think he might prove able to eat the whole steak even without such enthusiastic encouragement."

"Aye, but it is so much fun to watch him force it." Geoffrey grinned as Gregory closed his eyes and compelled himself to swallow the last bite. "Well done, my lad! How do you feel?"

"Absolutely bloated," Gregory said in a thick voice.

"Well, we cannot have that. Here, I have fetched a pillow. Lie down, my lad, and let Cordelia's mind work on your muscle cells."

Gregory lay down with a sigh of resignation. "What shall you do, sister?"

"Yes, what shall I do?" Cordelia asked, puzzled.

"Speed up his digestion, sister, and direct the protein to flow into his muscle fibers—first, his left biceps."

Cordelia frowned, concentrating. The clearing grew silent as she accelerated natural processes. Gregory studied the actions of her mind and his cells so that he might accomplish this on his own—somehow he was sure it would be a lifelong undertaking.

Then Cordelia told him, "Flex your arm."

Frowning, Gregory did, and Geoffrey deliberately pulled against the motion with his mind as Cordelia packed new muscle cells into Gregory's biceps. He cried out in surprise at the pain.

"Do you wish me to do it or not?" she challenged.

"Do ... I shall rise above it. .. ." Gregory panted.

"Then flex your leg."

Gregory did, and clenched his teeth against the agony.

Cordelia read it in his face and bit her lip, but forced herself to go on. "Your other leg . . . your left arm . .. Now sit up."

White-faced and gritting his teeth with determination, Gregory complied. His heart grew faint at the pain he sustained, but he glanced at the sleeping face of the woman he had come to know as Moraga and forced himself to sit up, straining against the load his brother dragged on him.

The chapel was very small, as churches went—at the most, it might have held a hundred people. Gwen looked around. "How have you Mass?"

"The pastor of the nearest village comes each Sunday." Mother smiled. "None has ever felt the need to say aught about us to their brethren of the monastery."

Gwen could understand how loyalty to the people nearby could prove more pressing than fidelity to an abbot far off in the south, the more so as there was a certain resentment between the parish clergy and the cloistered monks akin to the old rivalry between engineers and physicists. There was also probable recognition of the importance of the work the sisters were doing—and considerable pressure from the peasants of the countryside, perhaps even from the lords. No, quite probably from the lords.

Gwen looked around at the church, reflecting that it needed to hold no more than its hundred, for there were only a few dozen nuns. There was a large crucifix above the altar and a statue of the Blessed Virgin at one side, with one of Joseph against the other. The style of sculpture seemed quite distinct from those Gwen had seen in other churches. "Whence came these statues, Sister Testa?"

"All works you see within were made by our nuns themselves, milady." She led Gwen to the north wall. "Yon is the monk who did appear to Clothilde."

Gwen looked, and the picture slapped her in the face—at least it felt as though it had, for she recognized the visage. It was Father Marco Ricci, the Terran priest who had founded the Gramarye chapter of the Order of St. Vidicon—and one of the very few of the original colonists who had been able to keep his memories of an advanced civilization, perhaps the only one. She felt her heart twist within her and was giddy for a moment, for she had known Father Marco herself, when she and her husband had been kidnapped into the past many years before. It was a strange and disturbing sensation to look at an icon of the man she had known and confront the fact that he had been dead for four centuries and more. But when had he discovered he was an esper? And how had he come by that horrible scar?

Of course, she had never seen him unclothed; he might have had it even when she had known him—but she found room to doubt it.

"You seem disturbed." The Mother Superior's interest kindled. "Have you seen this face before?"

Gwen realized that she was in an excellent position to destroy all the Order's illusions but firmly rejected the opportunity; confronting them with reality was not her task. Instead, she "answered" a question with another. "When did Clothilde and Meryl live, Sister Paterna?"

"Four hundred fifty-six years ago, milady. Our convent has kept exacting records."

Four hundred fifty-six years! That would have made Father Marco a very old man— but it was just barely possible. Gwen determined that she would have to go to the monastery and search their records, to find out if Father Marco had gone abroad much in his later years.

Still, the picture was not that of an old man, but of one in his middle years. . . .

"What you think, milady?" Mother Superior asked, her voice low.

"You may have had just such a visitation as you think." Gwen carefully did not say by whom. She turned away. "May we turn to the matter of healing, Sister?"

The nun frowned slightly but respected her wishes and turned aside, leaving Gwen to ruminate over the idea that the convent had just as strong a right to exist as did the monastery, if the monk had indeed been Father Marco. "Did he come again, as he had promised?"

"He did not promise—yet he did come again, years later, when a score of devoted women had come to share the hermitage of Clothilde and Meryl, and the babe Moira had grown to womanhood. Clothilde began to try her newfound knowledge on injured animals and discovered, to her delight, that she had the power the monk had shown her. She taught it to Meryl, who seemed also to have the healer's talent, and the two of them began to jest that she was in truth the witch the village folk had thought her to be. A passing woodcutter must have heard them, for one day a farmer came to their clearing with a listless hen who had lost most of her feathers. Clothilde felt her old resentment return but thrust it aside; she had promised the monk to aid any who needed healing, and though this was not a person, she knew the spirit of her promise should encourage her to examine the hen. But Meryl of the soft heart anticipated her; she cried, "Oh! The poor, wretched thing!" and hurried to lay her hand upon it. Then she mused a while and the hen became once more healthy. The farmer stammered his thanks and fumbled forth a coin, but Meryl returned it sternly. "We do not heal for pay," quoth she, thereby creating another Rule of our Order. The farmer thanked them and went away—but the next day, his daughter came with a healthy cockerel, a gift from her father, and stayed to ask the manner of their healing. Clothilde taught her the basis of it and found the girl had the talent. She came again the next week, leading a farmer with an ailing pig. 'Twas Clothilde who healed it this time and again refused payment, saying only, "Belike we shall be in need of your aid someday, neighbor." He looked startled and stammered that she should have any help he could give. He was as good as his word, for when the haying was done, he and a score of villagers came with saws and hammers and builded them a stouter cabin that would turn away any wolf. The women thanked them, though they had been healing a constant stream of animals, perfecting their skills and learning more; and the workmen were still there when the peasant folk brought a woman who was like to die of fever, carrying her on a pallet. Clothilde came hurrying to meet them, scolding them for having moved one so ill when they could have come to fetch herself or Meryl (and the peasant folk looked amazed to hear it). Then Clothilde laid a hand on the woman, realized the depth of her illness, and told the folk they had done right, for the woman might not have endured the extra time it took to fetch her. Clothilde did her best, and the fever lightened but did not cease, so she called Meryl to come and aid.

Together they made great inroads on the fever, yet it persisted. Then the farmer's daughter, who had come so frequently to learn from her, knelt down to aid, but Clothilde took her aside and explained that if she were to show her own power of healing, the folk of the village would like as not cast her out as a witch. The lass considered, and while she did, felt the call of God powerfully within her and said there was little to keep her in the village. So together they cured the woman, who walked home well two days later, but the farmer was now wary of his daughter and made no argument when she told him she wished to remain with the healers. Yet he came weekly with provisions for them, and to build and mend for them, and she learned from another patient that he boasted of her in the village and was honored for being her father.

"So more ill folk had begun to come?"

"More and more, till there was scarcely a day that one was not at their doorstep."

"And if the villagers honored the father whose daughter had joined the healers, would not others have sought to join them, too?"

"Aye, though few wished to stay when they came to see they would have to give up home and hearth. Yet there came also women who had conceived out of wedlock, to be 'healed' of their babes. Clothilde rebuked them sharply, telling them she sought to save lives, not to end them—and one challenged her then to keep the babe for her. Clothilde promised she would, and the lass dwelt with them till her babe was born, then left it with Clothilde and went back to her village, claiming that she had not the vocation to abandon motherhood and wifehood for devotion to healing; yet she came often in after years to visit and bring food, and watch how her babe grew."

"And others did as she had, I doubt not. The babes also grew up to become women of the Order?''

"Some aye, some not. Meryl's babe, though, chose to stay, and proved to be the most powerful healer of them all. Moira she was named, and Clothilde appointed her to succeed to the rule of the Order upon her own death."

"Then the monk did not come again whiles Clothilde did live?"

Mother Superior shook her head. "He had not promised, but only said he would try. When Moira was aged, though, a monk did come to their gate—for they had a wall by then, you see, and all the buildings we have now, save the cloister. This monk asked a night's lodging and was kept in the guest house, where Moira visited him with two of her women— they did not yet think of themselves as nuns. The monk proclaimed their convent a wonder and asked to see the hospital. They were glad enough to show him and let him watch as they healed a feverish lad, one who had turned were, and needed many healings. ..."

"Were! You can heal one of being a werewolf?"

"The kind who are wolf-men, aye," Mother Superior told her, "not the kind that change their whole forms. But we can heal the ones who have only begun to behave like wolves, for they are not truly were, only victims of a disease that ends in fear of water and the urge to fall upon anything that moves."

The monk watched such a cure, and marvelled. The next morn, he said Mass for them all and, upon his departure, gave Moira a box that was long and flat, neither metal nor wood, and fitted within another box.

"Touch your fingers here and here," he told her, "and you shall hear a voice telling you marvels of healing."

She stared, not knowing what to say, but he gave it to her with a smile. " 'Tis called a 'cassette,' said he. "It should be the emblem of your Order, for henceforth you shall be the Order of Cassettes."

Moira essayed a smile that faltered ere she found her voice. "I thank you, Father. ..." Yet she could not bring herself to say 'twas none of his affair what name they took—which was well, for she yet struggled to comprehend the meaning of his visit. As she grappled with the paradox of his seeming arrogance coupled with his humble manner, he strode away into the wood. Then she sighed, shook her head, and went to the church, that blessed influence might reassure her as she tried the virtues of his gift. And lo! The magic box told her what may go awry inside the brain of one who becomes mad, and showed her ways to cure such maladies, and Moire knew then that "cassette" must be the shortened form of the old words casse tete, which do mean "broken head."

Gwen knew otherwise, but forbore to say so. "It was, then, a monk of the monastery who had heard of them, and brought them that which they needed to better fulfill their mission."

"Mayhap." The Mother Superior smiled. "But when Moira looked up at her mother's picture of the monk who had saved her life so long before, she felt a shock, for surely this was most strangely like to their guest of the night."

Gwen paced onward, thinking that one over. Yes, definitely when she was through here and Finister healed of the twistings done to her mind, she would have to go to the monastery and ask for historian's privilege.

For now, she only looked up at the Mother Superior and asked, "May I hear that cassette?"

"Gladly, yet I think that first we should go on to the hospital. There is a case that I believe you would wish to see, and treatment cannot be put off."

"Nor should it! But what is this case, that I might find it to be of interest, Moth . . . Sister Testa?"

"A werewolf," Mother Superior said, "much as I told you of before."

"Well enough—you may rest," Geoffrey said with regal condescension.

Gregory sagged against the nearest tree trunk, panting and red-faced. His chest, arms, and legs seemed sickly pale by contrast, for he had taken off his robe to exercise, both of which he rarely did. Gasping for air, he asked, "Wherefore must I perform so silly a ritual when we are increasing my body by telekinesis?"

"Because it is not enough to build up bigger muscles— you must also exercise them, for they will change your balance, the proportion of effort for each action, and the speed and timing of your movements," Geoffrey explained. "Many adolescents are quite clumsy when they suddenly shoot up like young willows, because the greater length of limb and the strength that goes with it change such patterns. They can adjust their coordination over months, but you have not that luxury. You must learn the adjustment quickly, and not all at once either. That is one reason why you must exercise after each increment of gain in your muscles."

"One?" Gregory gulped down air. "Why else?"

"Because you must tone the muscles as they grow, not all at once. Then, too, you must develop endurance, which comes only with practice, not with the gain of muscle only, for you must adjust your breathing and learn to pace your flow of energy."

"I am not a warrior," Gregory protested. "Wherefore should I need endurance to love a lady?"

Geoffrey only gave him a long look, weighing his words, then decided to let them sink. 'Trust me—with this wench, you shall need all the endurance you can muster. To the calisthenics, then! The Salute to the Sun, now! Right sole against left knee! Balance on one foot! Arms up straight! Now bend slowly from the waist."

Off to their right, Moraga stirred restlessly, muttering; her eyelids fluttered. Cordelia looked up in alarm and probed her mind, finding her dangerously close to the surface of consciousness. With a gentle, lulling thought, she slowed pulse and rate of breathing and turned off synapses. Moraga sank back into sleep and began to dream again.

Cordelia read just enough of those dreams to shudder before she turned her attention away.