The warlock unlocked (7 page)

“Why… in that…” Rod could almost hear the Abbot’s mind shifting gears; he’d been all set for a hot debate about appointment of clergy. “Why, in that, quite plainly and simply, there is too little of it! That is the substance of it!”

“Ah.” Rod nodded, with a commiserating glance at Tuan. “So we come down to money, so quickly.”

They hadn’t, but Tuan picked up a cue well. “Aye, so soon as that. We are giving all that the Crown can spare, Lord Abbot—and a bit more besides; we do not keep great state here, the Queen and I.”

“I know thou dost not.” The Abbot looked troubled. “And there is the cause of it. We do not feel we should eat off gold plate, if our people go hungry. Yet they dogo in hunger, for there’s simply not enough coin flowing to the Crown, for us to be able to channel back more than we do.”

“Thou couldst levy greater taxes,” the Abbot offered, half-heartedly. Tuan shook his head. “Firstly, an’ we did, the barons upon whom we levy it would simply wrench it out of their villeins, who are the same poor we speak of here; and secondly, because, if the barons did not, the villeins would rise in rebellion. No, Milord Abbot—the taxes are already as high as we may push them.”

“For example,” said Catharine sweetly, “thou thyself, Lord Abbot, would be first to protest if we levied a tax on all the vast lands of the Church!”

“And little would you gain thereby,” the Abbot declared stiffly. “The Order’s holdings are scarcely a fortieth part of thy whole kingdom!”

“Datum correct,” Fess immediately hummed behind Rod’s ear. And if Fess said it, it hadto be right—statistics were his hobby.

But it struck Rod as anomalous, that a medieval administrator could be so accurate, without being able to consult the State’s records.

“Many of thy barons hold more!” the Abbot went on. “And of our income from those lands, the bulk is already given out to the poor—so thou wouldst gain quite little by taxing us! Excepting, mayhap,” he amended, “that thou mightest, thereby, take even morefrom the poor!”

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“You see?” Rod threw up his hands. “The well’s dry; you’ve said it yourself.”

The Abbot looked up, startled, then realized that he had.

“And if both Church and State are already giving all they can,” Rod pursued, “what more can we do?”

“Put the administration of what funds there are under one single exchequer,” the Abbot said promptly; and Rod’s stomach sank as he realized he’d lost the initiative. “Two whole trains of people are currently employed in the disbursing of these funds, and the upshot is, a village I know has two poorhouses, one a hospice of our Order, one paid by the Crown—and there are scarcely twenty souls who need either!

Such doubling is costly. Moreover, if only one staff worked at this task, the others’ pay could go to the poor—and since the Brothers of St. Vidicon do this work for only meager bed and board, assuredly ours would be the less expensive staff to maintain!”

Rod sat, dumfounded. Of course, it was possiblethat the Lord Abbot had hit on this idea by himself—but Rod doubted it.

“Subject refers to duplication of effort,” Fess murmured behind his ear, “a concept in systems analysis. Such concepts are far too sophisticated for a medieval society. Off-planet influence must be suspected.”

Or time-traveller influence. Who was sticking a finger in the Gramarye pie thistime, Rod wondered—the future Anarchists, or the Totalitarians?

Probably the Anarchists; they tended to work on highly-placed officials. Though there wasa proletarian issue here…

He’d paused too long. Catharine was saying, caustically, “Aye, leave an hundred or so loyal servants without employment, and their wives and families without bread! Thou wilt thus assure thyself of good custom at thine almshouses, Lord Abbot!”

The Lord Abbot’s face reddened; it was time for Rod to get back in. “Surely neither system is perfect, Lord Abbot. But, with two operating, what the one misses, the other catches.” Had he heard of redundancy? “For example, does the Church still divide its charity-money equally, between all the parishes?”

“Aye.” The Abbot nodded, frowning. “That which the parish itself doth not raise.”

“But parishes inRunnymede have a much greater proportion of desperately needy than the rural parishes,” Rod explained.

The Abbot blinked, and stared, wide-eyed.

“I don’t think the parish priests have even had time to notice it, they’re so overworked.” Rod was a great one for saving the other guy’s face. “But the King’s almshouses are there, giving these poor parishioners at least enough for bare subsistence. That’s the advantage to having two systems—and the disadvantage to only having one. Who then would catch what the officers missed?”

He’d gone on long enough for the Abbot to recover. “There’s some truth in that,” he admitted. “But surely, if there are to be two systems, at least each one should be self-governing. Would it not work at its best that way?”

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Rod glanced at the Queen and King. Catharine was considering it—and didn’t seem disposed to commit herself.

“Aye,” Tuan said slowly, “I confess there’s reason to that.”

“But mine cannot be so!” The Abbot slapped the tabletop and sat back with an air of triumph, obviously pleased with himself for having gotten them back to the topic they hadn’t wanted to discuss—and with such a good case for it, too.

“No—it really can’t, I suppose.” As far as Rod was concerned, the timing was just right.

“Nay. While the Crown appoints priests to parishes, I cannot set the man I deem best for the task, to the doing of that task. Does this not lessen the excellence of this double-chain thou speakest of?”

“At least our appointments are better than those of the barons, whose choices obtained ere I was crowned,” Catharine retorted; but her tone lacked vehemence.

“For which, I must thank Your Majesties.” The Abbot inclined his head. “Yet is it not now time to take a further step on the upward road?”

“Mayhap,” Tuan said judiciously, “though it’s surely not to the Crown’s advantage to lessen any further its hold over the roots of government…”

“But is it to the interests of thy people?” the Abbot murmured. Tuan fairly winced. “There, good Milord, thou touchest the quick. Yet thou wilt understand, I trust, that the Queen and I must discuss these matters you have so kindly brought to our attention, at some length.”

“That,” Catharine warned, “will be a fulsome talk, and hot.”

Tuan grinned. “Why, then, here I stand.” Suiting the action to the word, he stood. “Wilt thou, then, hold us excused, Lord Abbot? For indeed, we should begin this while we’re fresh to it.”

“But of course, Your Majesties.” The Abbot scrambled to his feet, and even inclined his head a little.

“Thou wilt, then, summon me, when thou dost feel further need of, ah, converse, on this matter?”

“Be assured, we shall,” Tuan said grandly, “and so, good e’en.”

“God be with thee,” the Abbot muttered, sketching a quick cross in the air. Then the doors boomed wide as the two monarchs turned away, arm in arm, and paced out, in a hurry—but more, Rod suspected, to get to a chess game with a small boy, than to discuss affairs of state. Still, he couldn’t let the Abbot suspect that—and he had a curiosity bump to scratch. “Now, Milord—about your founder…”

“Eh?” The Abbot looked up, startled. “Oh, aye! I did say, when there would be time.”

“All the time in the world,” Rod assured him. “The wife doesn’t expect me home till late.”

Air rang with a small thunderclap, and Toby stood there, pale and wide-eyed. “Lord Warlock, go quickly! Gwendylon hath sent for thee—thy son Geoffrey hath gone into air!”

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Rod fought down a surge of panic. “Uh—he does that all the time, Toby—especially after you’ve just been there. Just lost, right?”

“Would she send for thee if he were?”

“No, hang it, she wouldn’t!” Rod swung back to the Abbot. “You must excuse me, Milord—but this’s got to be a genuine emergency! My wife’s a woman of verysound judgement!”

“Why, certes, be on thy way, and do not stay to ask leave of a garrulous old man! And the blessings of God go with thee, Lord Warlock!”

“Thank you, Milord!” Rod whirled away, out the door, with Toby beside him. “Try not to pop in like that, when there’s a priest around, Toby,” he advised. “It makes them nervous.”

Someone’s out to get me,” Father Al muttered, as he flew through an underground tube in a pneumatic car, along with a dozen of his fellow passengers from Terra. They had just filed out of the liner from Luna and up to the datawall. Father Al had found his entry, and seen that the ship to Beta Cassiopeia was leaving at 17:23 GST, from Gate 11 of the North Forty terminal. Then he’d looked up at the digital clock and seen, to his horror, that it was 17:11, and he was in the South 220 terminal. That meant he was 180

degrees away from his next ship in both horizontal and vertical planes—which meant that he was exactly on the opposite side of the two-and-a-half-mile-wide planetoid that was Proxima Station!

So down, and into the tube. The only saving grace was that he didn’t have to pass through Customs, as long as he stayed within the Station. That, and the speed of the pneumatic car—it could cross the two-and-a-half kilometers in three minutes. It could’ve done the trip in less than a minute, if the computer didn’t limit it to 1.5 G acceleration and deceleration at the beginning and end of the trip. Under the circumstances, Father Al would’ve settled for the quicker time, and taken his chances on ending his existence as a thin paste on the front of the car. It had taken him five minutes to find the tube, and a four-minute wait before the car came.

Deceleration pushed him toward the front of the car, then eased off and disappeared. The doors hissed open, and he was on his feet, turning and twisting between other passengers, threading his way toward the platform. “Excuse me… Excuse me… I beg your pardon, madame…Oh, dear! I’m sorry about your foot, sir…”

Then he was through, and standing, hands clasped on his suitcase handle, glaring at the lift’s readout. The minutes crawled agonizingly by while a discreet, impersonal voice from the ceiling informed him that Chairlady Spaceways’ Flight 110 to Beta Casseiopeia was about to depart from Gate 11; last call for Chairlady Spaceways’ Flight 110…

The lift doors hissed open. Father Al held himself back by a straining effort of will as the passengers filed out; then he bolted in. That was a mistake; five people crowded in behind him. The doors hissed shut, and he began elbowing his way back to them. “Excuse me…I’m sorry, but this really is imperative… I’m
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sorry, sir, but my liner’s leaving, and the next one’s apt to be quite a while coming…”

Then the doors hissed open, and he charged out, with one eye watching to avoid a collision, and the other watching for signs. There it was—Gates 10 through 15, and an arrow pointing to the left! He swerved like a comet reeling around the Sun, leaving a trail of bruised feet, jogged elbows, and shattered tempers behind him.