Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

"Hold on, Picus," I said, holding up my hand to stem the flow of his words and his enthusiasm. "Too much good fodder will founder a bullock! You had better let me think about that for a minute, lad." We were approaching his tent. "Can you pour your old uncle a drink?"

We dismounted and moved into the coolness of the tent, and he sent his steward to fetch a jug of wine. When we were seated comfortably he went back at it again, right where he'd finished off.

"Do you see what I mean, Uncle, why I am so concerned with this question? The whole thing goes far beyond the premise of Original Sin and baptism. It digs far deeper. It comes down all the way to personal responsibility. Carried to its logical conclusion, the concept of divine grace destroys the basis of law. Who could punish a criminal, believing that the man only fell from righteousness because God did not provide him with the grace to resist temptation? That's reducing it to the absurd, but that is exactly what it all boils down to. If we accept the wholesome aspects of divine grace, we can paint a beautiful, piteous picture of poor mankind and his all-merciful and bountiful Deity. But if we are to accept that premise at all, we must accept all of it. And that means accepting the fact that law — human law — is folly and predestined to fail, because ultimately, in the absence of grace, the fault for crime can be laid right at God's door."

I shook my head again, sucking nervously on my teeth, knowing that this entire discussion was beyond my scope. "Whoa," I pleaded, "you're getting pretty involved in your thinking there, lad. You're far beyond my grasp."

"No, I'm not, Uncle."

That earned him a snap. "For God's sake stop calling me Uncle. You make me feel like a toothless old man."

"I'm sorry." He did not sound in the least penitent. "But it's not beyond your grasp at all. Pelagius believes, as the Scriptures tell us, that God made man in His own image. If man has the attributes of God, he says, then man must have free will. The majority of men know that society demands certain rules for the governance of property, sanity, decency and dignity. Those rules constitute the law. Pelagius maintains that a man — any man — born with the divine spark is free to choose between good and evil as defined by both Church and society. If he chooses to go against the law, be it divine or human, that choice is his own, and he has to be prepared to accept the responsibility for his choice in the eyes of God and in the eyes of his fellow men."

He stopped talking, and a silence grew between us, broken only by the sound of a man singing nearby. I mulled over all that he had said. He had said a lot. But it made a lot of sense.

"You say this man's a lawyer?" He nodded. "Do you believe him? Or do you believe Augustine and the Church?"

He gnawed at his lower lip. "I believe Pelagius."

I sucked a grape seed caught between my teeth. "It takes a lot of nerve to go against the Church. I'd never heard of this fellow Pelagius before this morning, but he makes sense to me, too. How far has this argument between them gone?"

"A long way. It's the talk of Rome."

"Sounds like it might become the talk of all the world. And you say this bishop is powerful?"

"Extremely. He has powerful friends, great influence. Some say he should be Pope."

"Sounds like your friend Pelagius is spitting into the wind. Will they reach an agreement? Some kind of compromise?"

"How can they? They're like day and night."

"Aye, and darkness is falling quickly, it would seem. Does Pelagius have any support within the Church? Or is everyone convinced he is possessed by evil spirits?"

"He has support. In plenty. Many of the most powerful espouse his cause."

"How many? In terms of odds, I mean. Is there an even match?"

"Perhaps. There could be. If we were dealing only in numbers."

"What d'you mean?"

"Uncle — I'm sorry — Publius, is that better?"

"Much better."

"So be it. The question here is one of basic policy. An army mutineer may have some right on his side in terms of the conditions that drove him to mutiny. But he has to die for his mutiny, no matter how laudable his cause might have been, no matter how understandable and sympathetic his motives. Mutiny cannot be condoned, no matter what the justification. To condone one instance of mutiny would be to invite, and to incite, the eventual and inevitable destruction of all the armies. So it is with Pelagius. He has to lose, or overthrow five hundred years of a Church established by the Christ Himself, with all its rules and methods. Pelagius knows this, Publius; he is not a stupid man. He is not challenging the Christ's Church but men's corruption of it, yet he knows he is too late to alter what others, stronger men than he, have been building for centuries, with a view to making it eternal. You see, Pelagius's doctrine, if you want to call it that, destroys the need for a Church just as surely as Augustine's doctrine destroys the need for the law. Pelagius is saying that every man carries the whole Church within his heart, and that he can commune directly with God by simply meditating! Augustine is saying that man is absolutely nothing without the Christian Church, which has as its symbol the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Church already speaks for God. Pelagius speaks for man. Therefore, Pelagius must be defeated in this struggle."

"And when he is defeated? What will you do then?"

Picus shrugged his enormous shoulders. "I will live my life by the rules he has evolved. I believe he is right, no matter what the evidence against him may be. I will stand before God as I have lived, and if I have been wrong, then at least I will have been wrong honestly, with good will. I will have lived my life according to the rules that I was taught in youth. I'm no great sinner."

I smiled, sensing with great relief that this conversation was drawing to a close. "That I believe." I stood up and clapped him on the shoulder. "Now, enough of this talk of God and man. Let's take a walk together and enjoy this day that God has sent for us to enjoy, whatever way he wants us to believe."

"Done!" He smiled at me, and I saw the boy I once knew in his flashing, bronze-faced grin.

I pointed at the sword hanging by his side. "That looks familiar."

He drew the blade from its bronzed sheath. "It should," he said. "It's never left my side since the day you gave it to me. I found a metalsmith in Iberia who seemed to know what he was about and had him make a gold sheath for me, for full-uniform parade occasions. But gold sheath or bronze, the sword stays with me at all times."

He swung towards the doorway of the tent, but I stopped him, my hand on his arm. "A moment, Picus. You are obviously deeply concerned over this Pelagius thing. But tell me, why did you talk to me about it? I would have thought you'd get more intellectual response from your father."

He grimaced. "It's not the sort of thing I want to argue with my father over yet. I'm afraid I was using you as a sounding board. I'm sorry if I bored you."

"Bored me?" I laughed aloud. "Picus, I've seldom been so far from bored. I may have been out of my depth, but I wasn't bored for one second. Come on, let's get on our way. There is much that I haven't seen here, and I want to see it all before I leave for home."

He looked at me with a smile.

"Home? You mean the atmosphere of power here in Londinium does not enthrall you? You must run home to your provinces?"

"Aye," I said, "to your Aunt Luceiia, and I care not who knows it or would laugh at me for it."

"Uncle," Picus said, still smiling, "you will hear neither laughter nor criticism from me."

BOOK THREE- Genesis