Jack Whyte - The Eagles' Brood

I shrugged my shoulders. "No, nothing that will not wait until tomorrow."

"Good. Let's get out of here and go for a ride. I want to shout and rave and vent my bile, and there's no profit to be gained by doing it where I can be overheard. Do you mind?"

"Not at all, lead on."

While we walked to the stables in silence and saddled our horses, I thought about all my father had said and about the conflict that had so suddenly consumed him. I knew it was important then, but I had no idea that the past hour and the hour to come were to affect me so strongly that they would influence the evolution of an entire country in the course of coming years.

On leaving the fort we took the new road to the villa, but left it at the bottom of the hill and struck south towards the forest's edge. We rode in silence, each of us with his own thoughts, until the silence of the forest cloaked us and all sounds from Camulod were long lost behind us. We rode through a series of dense thickets, which had kept us both busy trying to stay in the saddle, and emerged from the last of them to find ourselves in a beautiful, gladed area with wide expanses of open grassland, from which sprang magnificent beech trees. The thought occurred to me that this must be a holy place to the Druids, and that brought the question of excommunication back into my mind. Most of my Druid friends were not Christian, so they had no worries about salvation or eternal life. Some of them, however, had become converted to Christianity in recent years and yet lived a life that was little altered from their traditional ways. This new direction from Rome, I felt, could be ominous to these people, whose conversion had come directly from the compatibility of the humanity of Pelagius's beliefs and the mellow benignity of the Druidic ways. Some of these men might have been in the fort the previous night, and I wondered if they had been affected by what my father had described as a riot. Finally, when I had gone over everything my father had said for about the tenth time, I could stand his silence no longer.

"Father?" He turned to me. "What happened last night? You said there was almost a riot. What caused it? Who was involved?"

"Priests caused it, Christian priests fighting with Christian priests. I wasn't there. I ate in my quarters with Titus and Flavius. We were disturbed at our meal by a messenger sent to us by your friend Ludo. The common dining hall was crowded, as it always is at that time of night, and an argument broke out when a group of priests who had just * arrived that afternoon refused to be seated at the same table as two of your Druid friends. Popilius, the senior centurion, was in the hall. He offered to reseat them at another table at which some other priests were already seated. They refused to sit with these people, either, and one of them started shouting about damnation and anathema. Popilius tried to shut him up, but one word led to another and these two groups of priests actually came to blows! Can you imagine?

"Well, by the time poor Popilius had gathered his wits enough to call up the guard, the whole place had degenerated into an armed camp. Can't blame Popilius. He simply did not anticipate violence from churchmen, especially among themselves. It got out of hand too quickly for him. But that Ludo's a bright one. As soon as he saw which way the wind was blowing, he sent word to me. By the time I got there, the guard had all of them under restraint."

"So what did you do?"

"Confined the lot of them under guard for the night."

"In the cells?" I was aghast at the thought, but my father dismissed my concern brusquely.

"Where should I have put them? In my own quarters?"

"Good God! I can't imagine priests coming to blows with each other."

"I couldn't either, until I saw it. But I told you I spent three hours with those people today. I have no trouble imagining it now. It was the first such occurrence, to the best of my knowledge, but I fear it will not be the last. Not by any measure."

My father reined in his horse, so that I had to do the same to mine, and when he spoke next, his voice was low and vibrant with urgency. "Caius, hear this. This new band of priests, seven of them in number, provoked the entire disgraceful debacle deliberately. Today they turned the rough edges of their tongues and their intolerance on me. On me! They came into my fort—and it is mine, for all intents and purposes — demanded my hospitality, abused it flagrantly and arrogantly, and treated me like a criminal for having dared to lock them up, and like an excommunicate heathen for daring to differ with their opinions and beliefs. They told me that I should clean out Camulod; get rid of all the women in the fort; and close the doors of Camulod to all priests who will not swear to the apostasy of Pelagius and his teachings. And that I should accept the error of my ways with humility and beg their pardon for my sins!" His voice was shaking now with outrage. "And!" he went on, "And once I had applied for and received their forgiveness, and had been reaccorded the right to salvation, I should begin a series of... inquiries into the beliefs of each of our colonists, doing all in my power to ensure that they conform to the new doctrines! All in my power, you understand, includes expelling people from the Colony."

I was hearing far more than I had bargained for.

"What was your reaction to all of this?"

"My reaction? I had to sit on my reaction. I cannot remember ever having felt so powerless in my life. I could have taken them and flogged the flesh from their bones, Cay, but it would not have made one jot of difference to their attitude. I had no power to change them. These men are convinced that they are right, and that the rest of the world is wrong. There is no giving in them, no compromise, no gentleness, no humanity. They are zealots. Fanatics. They are a new breed of priests altogether, and they frighten me, not for myself but for the world they seek to rule and change and conquer. And they call themselves Christian." He sighed, noisily, a mixture of anger and indignation.

"Four hundred years have wrought a lot of changes in the Word of the Christ. Do you remember the story of Jesus on the mountainside, when he preached the blessedness of the humble, the peacemakers, the seekers after justice? Well, that story and its sentiments sit strangely with the way these men of God behave today. The Son of the Carpenter is being lost sight of, Caius. His words are being reinterpreted and "improved upon." Jesus, the Christus, talked of love and of peace. Now there are factions warring within his Church, condemning each other with sheer hatred and intolerance. Love is out of favour."

"So you said nothing to them when they railed at you?"

He threw me a look that spoke loudly, and I saw Picus the Legate as well as Picus my father in his eyes. "No, I didn't mean that. But I said nothing rash, nothing in anger. I told them that I would consider their words, think about them, and give them an answer soon. And in the meantime, I sent them back to the cells under guard, with strict instructions that they not be allowed to speak to anyone until I have reached my decision."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Have you reached a decision?"

"Yes, I have reached a decision." He kicked his heels into his mount's flanks and we began to move forward again. "But only within the past few moments, in talking it over with you." His voice died away, and I saw no profit in commenting upon the worth of my contribution to the discussion to date. We rode side by side in silence for a spell and then he started talking again.

"One of them told me about a new lifestyle being followed in the Church today. It is called monasticism. It involves a complete withdrawal from public life. Its adherents live in monasteries —enclosed communities of men only, who dedicate themselves entirely to penitence. These people mortify their own flesh, Cay. They abase themselves constantly before their God, who is a contradiction in terms: a Christian God as stern and unyielding as they are. Worldly pleasure of any kind is anathema to them. Women are instruments of die Devil himself, used by Satan to ensnare all men and draw them from the path of salvation. What do you think of that?"